The Bathroom

The downstairs bathroom is done! It is beautiful! I'm in disbelief at what Andy was able to accomplish all on his own. Replacing cast iron pipes with pvc, drywall, priming, painting, tiling, and installing the toilet, vanity and mirror! I love our new bathroom! Yesterday he finished up the baseboard and quarter round. He has passed all of the inspections - plumbing, building, and electrical. So proud of you baby!

Now I just need to buy towels in the slate blue color to match the shower curtain. It is so handy having a bathroom in the basement! Although many times the boys or myself have forgotten about it and gone upstairs to use the bathroom! Take a look...

On the left is a bi-fold closet door. I guess we still need to put in shelving. But that isn't necessary quite yet! You can see a little of the light (which has a hidden fan inside of it!) and the pretty shower curtain. It has khaki colored velour stripes running vertically.


This picture shows our new vanity and mirror, lights above the mirror, and new toilet. Check out the tile - you can see just a little bit. The color of the walls is a light khaki.

We have a working fireplace!

Terrible picture of me...but it shows the fireplace and my little karate chopper reading to me for his reading log!! He is becoming such a good reader!!

Yipee! Our fireplace works! We had it inspected and cleaned in November. Last year we didn't get to use the fireplace because we had just moved in and didn't have the extra money to have the fireplace inspected. So we waited a year (Andy patiently, me impatiently!) to have a beautiful fire in our cozy basement. I loved decorating the Christmas tree with a fire crackling and Christmas music playing! My mom said it was so Norman Rockwell! But it was nice. We've enjoyed many fires over the past 6 weeks or so.

P.S. How long will I think of this as the "new house" for all of my blog post tags??!!

P.P.S. See the black coal bucket in the background? This came from Andy's grandmother's house. It has coal in it from when her house was heated with coal. It's a pretty cool antique.

Christmas Break!!

The week leading up to Christmas was wonderful. I got lots of sleep- I am no longer sleep deprived! I know this because I've been able to read without falling asleep in 10-15 minutes! I finished the book I was reading (South of Broad) and started a new book (Hunger Games). I've finished Season 1 of Friends which Andy and I are watching again, seasons 1-10. We started Season 2 yesterday! Love, love, love that show!! The first two seasons are so dated though!

We wrapped gifts, finished Christmas shopping, set up a fish tank (Christmas gift for my grandparents), and made chocolate chip cookies for Santa. We took the boys to see Santa Claus and Tyler wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. He wouldn't sit on his lap or stand in front of him. Maybe next year!

We've also gotten to hang out with family and friends a lot! I hung out with school friends one night while Andy was at a Christmas party. We had my teammates and their families over another night. We all had such a great time! There were 10 adults and 5 kids and we had a nice time talking and hanging out together. My parents came over for dinner one night and we had fun playing the Wii and the card game Spoons.

It's just been such a wonderful break so far. I hope this next week goes slowly!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve we went to church at 5 and then went to a nursing home with a group from our church to sing Christmas carols. Our family did this last year too. There were probably 20 of us from church, mostly families with children went. We walked through the halls singing and greeting the people. The men and women were really happy to see the kids' faces - it was really neat. I loved seeing the smiles that our boys brought! We've kind of made this a family tradition of ours since we have a group to go with. It's nice to give to others and I think it is so important to remind our boys that life ISN'T "all about me" like our culture teaches us all the time. Because it's not! We came home and let the boys open one gift from us. Read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the story of Jesus' birth from the bible. Then Ty did the cutest thing- he walked over to his window and peeked through the blinds asking "santa claus?". It was adorable. He was looking for Santa!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas! We have so much to be thankful for. We spent the day with family, had a nice nap, and opened too many gifts! It was a great day. The boys woke up early - Wilson came in at 3:20 the first time, then again at 5 something, and finally sometime after 6. Him and Luke were up around 6:30 but we somehow sidetracked them until almost 7 so Tyler could sleep a little longer. They raced downstairs to find what Santa had left for them. They both got the Lego they were wanting and Tyler got a Buzz and Woody from Toy Story. Wilson's Lego is the Airport and Luke's Lego is a remote control train. They are now built and the boys have had a lot of fun playing with them. Tyler loves his Buzz and Woody. Wilson also got Creationary and Luke got some Pixo's (a craft thing). Andy and I had so much fun watching them. It was cute to watch them take it all in - they found Santa's cookie crumbs on the plate and his egg nog was all gone. The fireplace doors were cracked open and one of them realized that. Christmas is so much fun!! We went to my grandparents for a late breakfast. Then went to my parents house around 4ish and stayed until bedtime. What a great day! I'll have to get some pictures from Andy's camera!

Snow Day #2 & #3

More like Ice Day...we slept in which was a great start! I got a text at 4am saying school was out via Twitter. This morning we took it easy and watched The Santa Clause movie. The boys really enjoyed the movie and snuggling with mommy and daddy. We went to Chick*fil*a for lunch and let the boys play to get some energy out. Then I spent most of the afternoon making caramel corn in case we had school. Three big batches...and now there is no school tomorrow where we were going to deliver 9 bags among Wilson and Luke's teachers. Hmmm...
Andy went and finished some Christmas shopping for us. Then tonight we went to my mom and dad's house for dinner. It was nice to hang out with them and have a change of scenery for the boys! I kind of wish we had school tomorrow - I can't believe we've had so many snow days and it is only December. Tomorrow makes day #3. Crazy! But we're going to enjoy it! I need to do some cleaning and go work at school for a little while so I am ready for January 3rd. Boy does that sound crazy!

Luke's Pre-K Class

Luke loves school most of the time! He has had one classmate that he says is mean that has caused him to not want to go to school on two occasions. But tonight he is a sad little boy because his Christmas party was supposed to be tomorrow but we have a snow day. He is the royal blue wise men in the picture above. This is a picture of his class. We had teacher gifts ready for tomorrow and a book for the book exchange. Maybe they will have the party in January...

Wilson loves karate!

Wilson has been taking karate for 6 months. He is really enjoying his weekly class. We had to encourage him to sign up for the 3rd session but now he is asking us to sign him up again! This past 8 weeks he has been in his new level class and on Tuesday he earned his yellow belt! The level that he is in doesn't actually test for the belt colors yet. Everyone that took this level got the next color belt. He has to move to the next class up to start testing and earning belts without the white stripe. But he is pumped and doesn't quite understand the difference at this point. He is SO proud of his yellow belt. When he finishes his next 8 week class he will earn his green belt. He is learning a lot and is really good at it! He does kicks, punches, uses nunchucks and a staff. For completing this class Andy bought him a staff to practice with at home. We've promised him nunchucks when he finishes the next class. It's pretty cool to watch how much he has learned in the time he has been doing karate! He is taking Shaolin with Master The.

Snow Day #1

Monday we had our first snow day. I was actually pretty excited! It gave me a chance to catch up on things. I did laundry, wrapped gifts, and spent a lot of time in the kitchen. We ran a couple of errands to get teacher gifts and groceries. Wilson played in the snow for a little while but it was so cold. We have borrowed my mom's Wii so they had fun playing that too. I made cake balls and cake pops. Andy and I had fun decorating the cake pops. If you aren't familiar with cake pops, check out Bakerella's website. I took a small tin to school for our Helping Hands auction we have every year. Then I made pepperoni rolls and broccoli/potato/cheddar soup. We had a great day!

Tyler thinks cake pops are the best thing ever! But he only wants the ones covered in sprinkles...

My Lottie Girl

My sweet Lottie girl doesn't seem to be doing so well lately. About a month ago she threw up several times over the span of 2-3 days. So we stopped feeding her dog food and switched to bread, pasta, etc. for a couple days. She got better. Then for the past week or so she hasn't been eating much. Her bowl would have food in it from breakfast all the way to dinner. If you know my girl, that has never been the case. She has always eaten her bowl of food immediately. She isn't the kind of dog that nibbles on her dog food throughout the day. So it kind of bothered me that she wasn't eating normally but I tried not to worry about it. Yesterday Lottie threw up again in the morning before school. Two different places. So I've cut the dog food again. Gave her some bread, pasta, and a plain baked potato over the last two days. I just don't know what is going on with her. She sure has me concerned. I don't know what I should do. Everything else about her seems normal.