Christmas Tree 2012

Decorating the tree is a favorite holiday tradition for the kids and me.  Some things are the same every year-Bryce always battles the lights and struggles to be ok with ornaments being hung with care by children who don't notice if they are all bunched too closely and mostly on the lower half of the tree.  I never thought I'd say it, but it is nice to have a fake tree (and much kinder to our allergies) so that at least Bryce doesn't have to fight with trimming up a real tree and trying to get it in a silly tree stand-man those things can make that man cuss! :)  Brandt is old enough to know that a lot of people have real trees and made sure we knew how much he wanted a real tree, too. :(

Hahahaha-need I say more?

Kylie is happy to stop and pose for the camera,

 

while Buddy's a little shy about having his picture taken...

 Brandt bought this wooden train for his dad but couldn't keep it a secret until Christmas.  It worked out because we loved having it under the tree all month.

Voila!  Notice Buddy's Christmas chain from school on the right and the stockings hung "by the chimney/window with care" on the left.  I for one thought the kids did a great job with decorating and I don't mind one bit that it isn't perfect; to me there is nothing more perfect than seeing my children being happy and proud of themselves for accomplishing something. 

House remodel-back room, kitchen, and dining room

As mentioned in the previous "remodel post", there were some changes we made prior to moving in to help it work better for our family as well as make it feel like our own.  Let's start with the back room...

We decided that we wanted to change the color from yellow to tan and that it would work better for us to have a cupboard for pantry items where the fridge had been.

 

 

 

Bryce built this handy little gadget to hang our coats on. The kids lovingly call it "Bruce the Moose." When he has time, he also plans to put a few more hooks under Bruce for things like backpacks to hang on. He will also build a bench to go along the wall and trays underneath it for shoes since we always take them off at the door anyway.

 

 

This is the closet that my grandpa always put his chore clothes in.  It had never been finished off and was a great place for mice to sneak in. So, Bryce and Curtis spent a day closing it in and making it look really nice-and hopefully rodent-proof.

 

My brother had been squashed inside of the closet but I wasn't quite fast enough on the camera to catch it...  So funny, though.

Finished project-complete with hooks for items like hats and keys.

 

 

The dining room table was always in the kitchen and represented many wonderful meals, card games, and memories.  We decided that it would work better for us to move it and bring the fridge around the corner into the kitchen.  We also changed the color from yellow to brown, which was a little bold and scary for me at first, but now I love it.

Buddy was excited when I let him help paint this wall. He tried so hard to do a good job and figured out the pattern of "up and down" really fast.  At this point I still wasn't so sure about the darker color Bryce had picked.

It's hard to see, but my favorite thing about this microwave stand is that inside there is a candy dish from each of my grandmas.

 

Before-yellow and white

 

Mid-painting-chaos :)  Thankfully we had lots of good help with all the painting from family and friends.  I swear, I am never painting again!

 

 

And after- brown walls with white trim and tan cupboards.  Bryce is a genius decorator-I love it!

 

Favorite part of this picture-old rusted shears found in the garage.

 

I love having a pantry right in the kitchen with another one just around the corner plus space for the "extras" down in the dungeon.

 

Before-white walls and couch...

After-tan walls and dining room table.  This is one of my favorite things about the house-there's no TV to be seen from the table so when we sit down for a meal there aren't as many distractions. This table and chairs set was my grandma Bodily's so it holds memories for me as well.  I hope to make many more "dinner table memories" with my own little family.

Fall 2012

For the most part we were completely consumed by the house this fall, but we tried to find a few moments for some fun, too.  The kids had a great time helping me rake leaves.

 

 

And they had an even better time playing in them.

 

 

 

And apparently this is what Bryce and my dad do for fun...

 

House remodel 2012-Kid's room

On August 17, 2012, Bryce and I were able to close on buying my grandparents' house.  What a bittersweet experience for me as I miss them so much but looked forward to making new memories in a house I grew up loving.  Because it hadn't been lived in for a few years and since we needed to make some changes in order for it to fit our family better, we had our work cut out for us.  We were able to get enough of the necessities done to move in a month later.  Thankfully we have amazing family and friends who have helped us a ton and we are now basically settled in (4 months later, but who's counting?)  I wanted to "journal" the process, but got overwhelmed with trying to do it all at once, so I'm going to just try to do snippits here and there as I can.  Let's start with Brandt and Kylie's room...

The front bedroom is part of the original two-room cabin and Bryce discovered there was hard wood floor under the squishy shag carpet.  I had some issues about ripping it up to begin with because it was a connection to the past for me, but in the end I conceded.

Under the beloved carpet was this beautiful, well-preserved cherry wood floor.  And we discovered the reason for the noisy, squishy, carpet...before the carpet was put down, there was a protective layer of plastic that was placed in order to help preserve the floor.  The only problem was that there was oil-based paint splatters around all the edges of the room, so we ended up having to sand and re-stain anyway.

 

Bryce had a little helper cleaning up the floor...

 

Bryce ended up completely ruining the floor by leaving the dark stain on it too long, but then miraculously saved it with a LOT of hard work.  I wish I had some inbetween pictures to show the "black tar" mess that it was before it ended up being this beautiful finished product:

 

Thankfully the room is fairly large because both kids share it for now until we can add on sometime in the future.  So, we did our best to make it a his and hers room.  Kylie has her flowers...

 

and buddy has his blue wall as requested.

 

It's so nice to be able to have closet space for both of them as well as dressers and enough room to put their toy cupboard! 

 

The first night sleeping in our new house and Kylie's first night sleeping in a real bed (she had still been in a play pen by the side of our bed in the other house since there wasn't room for a bed anywhere) and they both LOVED it! I love being able to tell them that this is the room I always slept in when I stayed at grandma and grandpa's. Kylie now sleeps through the night, which she hadn't been doing before.  I'm guessing the days of loving to share a room won't last forever, but for now we sure appreciate it.