Almost there

Paul worked late into the night last night getting the hardwood floors started so it would be a little easier going today. His friend Randy came and helped. The kids and I stopped by to give some moral support but didn't last long since the kids haven't had a good night's sleep in a week. Paul and Randy get a little loopy late at night, especially Paul who called me at midnight to tell me they were on their way to Sonic for a break. I have always told Paul that I cannot be held responsible for things I say after 11pm at night. Sometimes I can be really cranky.



"Helping" dad. I know, I'm such a good mom letting my son play with the sawzall.



This was Lana's "Please take my picture" pose.



The finished product. Beautiful!



The kids loved running around on this floor.



This was taken after the floor had been wiped down and the kids had their hayday of running around on it. It is now covered in dust.



Pouty face!




I'm not sure what kind of face Lana' s making in this one, but it was a good shot of the tile floors and counters.




My babies. Did I mention that I'm pretty positive that Tanner grew at least 3 inches last night? I swear he fit into his clothes yesterday.




The kitchen counters installed.




Up close of the counters.



Up close of the floor tile.



Up close of the hardwood floors. They are caramelized, stained, hand-scraped, distressed bamboo floors. A little bit of a mouthful, but beautiful. Paul thinks that all the processing used to make these floors completely offsets any environmental advantage bamboo has.

The carpet will be installed Monday and we should have everyone out finishing up their jobs (plumber, trim and paint). Paul is putting great faith in me and assigning me to tile the backsplash in the kitchen and screen in the back porch. Ha! We'll see how it turns out.

Busy Bees

We've been busy little bees this last week. I can't believe how quickly the days flew by. We've been out at the house every night this week (except for me on Friday since we had our Fab Friday activity that night...6 hours of craftiness, loved it!). Of course I forgot pictures, but I promise there will be more soon.

We've got a brother from our ward laying the tile for us. He's doing an amazing job. It looks really sharp. The guys who tiled our last house didn't even bother to sweep before laying the tile, you can still see some nail heads and other various things in the tile grout. They also were the ones who scratched up our hardwood floors. I'm so glad we have someone laying it who cares about their work.

We've got almost all of the light fixtures hung, just a few more to go. The sod was laid Friday so we now have an actual yard instead of a mud pit. Unfortunately there was a down pour later that afternoon and the sod by the road all got pushed over from the running water. Yeah, I still hate the fact there's no curb and gutters out here. The grass seed we spread in the back yard is also growing so that's good news there. I had my doubts since I'm not one for growing things, but you can definitely see the little grass blades poking out of the dirt.

We also got our appliances, except they're not in the kitchen since the tile isn't finished yet. But they're here and that's one less thing to worry about. I also love my new fancy schmancy fridge. I've never had one before, and we got a really great deal on it. We keep finding cool little features every time we open and close it. I feel like a kid in the candy store.

Lana had her primary program today. She did such a great job. We practiced her part every day. "Reverence and keeping the sabbath day holy, helps to strengthen my family." They had a practice on Wednesday and a 2 hour practice on Saturday. I think that really wore her out though because when I picked her up after practice the first thing she said to me was "Mommy, I'm tired and I have to go potty." Poor girl. I think that practice was too much for her. She did great the first half of the program today. She stood up and sang with the songs. Then she got bored waiting for her turn to say her part. When it was finally her turn she did go up to the mic and say her lines but she wanted her teacher (Sister Pack) to go up with her and help her. She was so quiet, but she did say them. We're so proud of her!

We're up for another busy week. Paul's hoping to get the countertops done in the bathrooms and utility room, the hardwood floors laid and the plumber in to get his stuff done. Wish us luck!

The pink glow

Can you see it? That pink glow coming from Lana's room? It's called weakness. And where Lana is concerned, Paul is weak. She's got him tied around her little pinky and she knows it.






In the 45 minutes it took me to run to Lowe's, Lana had Paul convinced that her room was the wrong color (it wasn't pink). I never in a million years thought I would paint any room in my house pink. I like the color pink, don't get me wrong, just not as a room color. But it's not my room. It's Lana's. And if something so small and insignificant as in having a pink room makes her happy, then who am I to tear her happiness into shreds?

I also need to remember that it could've been worse. Her first color pick was Hot Neon Pink.



The rest of the house is Nomadic Desert and Hopsack (a darker brown). Oh and see that puddle of water on the floor? Yeah, the AC leaked. Nice.

This weekend Paul and I have been working hard on getting the outlets and light switches in. Paul actually let me put together some of the outlets. I now know more about the standard power outlet than I ever wanted to know, but it was a nice change of pace to be doing something other than picking up garbage and sweeping out the house.

You probably won't even notice...

So yesterday during Sacrament meeting a letter was read from our Stake Presidency. It encouraged us to participate in a "Media Fast" to help us prepare ourselves for our upcoming Stake Conference the following Sunday. We have been asked to avoid all types of media (ie. the internet, television, radio, newspaper, cell phones...in regard to games, surfing the internet etc.).

My first reaction to this was to giggle uncomfortably. You can't be serious right? Oh, you are serious? Oy.

Tv I can handle. I have a DVR.

Radio, fine. I only listen to it in the car to drown out the kid screams coming from the back seat.

Newspaper, we only get on Sundays. Sometimes we don't get it at all. That's another issue completely.

My cell phone is crap. There's a huge crack in the front screen so I can't see who's calling before I answer. Sometimes it decides to not work at all. I don't even have internet access on the phone so there's no problem there. The games on it aren't even worth my time.

But the internet? I am an internet junkie. The first thing I do every morning while I eat my bowl of Honey Smacks or Cookie Crisp is check my email, my facebook and read the news. Now I'm actually going to have to use my kitchen table and stare at the wall or the dirty dishes in the sink (depending on which chair I sit in) while eating my cereal.

We as a family have agreed to start this so called Media fast tomorrow (Tuesday). Starting it today just seemed like unsolicited torture. It's a holiday. We're on vacation rules. Okay, maybe I'm just weak. 6 days sounds do-able. Well 5, after all Stake Conference is over by noon.

It's only 5 days so no one will probably even notice I'm gone. But I'll be back with lots of pictures of the house (we started painting today!) and more pictures of the kids and our adventures of a week with no Phineas and Ferb, Dora, and Handy Manny. Oh, we'll survive alright. I just may or may not have my sanity intact when all is said and done.

Kitchen Cabinets

Okay, wow. I will admit that I was apprehensive about the kitchen on our house plan. It looked about as big as our apartment kitchen. But now with our cabinets in, I am amazed at the amount of storage they fit in this little kitchen. These are factory built cabinets, they came out yesterday and put them all up in one day. I am not sure I will ever go back to site built cabinets now that I've experienced these beauties.