Unpredictable Spring

I love this time of year. I love that last week I was wearing capris and my air conditioner was on. I love that today it snowed most of the day. Spring is awesome. A few days ago we had a mega rain storm. Of course it was garbage day so garbage cans were floating down the river, er, I mean street. Adventurous!

Because it's fun to torture Parker, I told him to run outside in the rain. Because Parker will do anything for a laugh, he complied.


In other news...
I made this really yummy "Rustic White Bread" the other day from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Totally dreamy good.


There was just one little problem....when I cut the "X" in the top of the bread before baking it, I cut a bubble and the bread sort of deflated. After it baked, it left a really unpleasant looking area in the middle of the bread:


Guess what my sis-in-law Fern called it?? "Cat Butt Bread"! ha ha ha! I seriously had to cut that part out of the bread and toss it because I couldn't get the image out of my head. Welcome to the bizarre world of Carrie, I hope you like it here.

Oh hey, you know what is super cool? Parker started Spring soccer last week. Oh how I love soccer. Not really for the sport, but for the good company and good laughs! My good friend Jene' decided to coach the team this year. Since she was the coach, she decided to stack the team with fun kids who had even more fun parents. It has worked out great for me because I get to sit on the sidelines and chat.

Love this picture. It looks like Parker has a ponytail or else Emery (blonde girl to the right) has a seriously wicked horizontal ponytail. Parker loves his black jersey. Let's see how much he loves it when the weather warms up. I wanted their team name to be the Black Hawks but they chose Black Birds instead. Whatebs.


The sheetrock/mud/tape project is coming along quite nicely, thanks to my bro-in-law Jeff! He whines about having to come hang out with me, but I know he loves it! Ha Ha!!




I went to the back doctor today for my follow visit since my cortisone shot 2 weeks ago. He said "I hope to never see you again.". I think that means my back is doing great....Yeah, that's what I'm sure he meant. I'm sure he doesn't mean I'm an annoying patient who does nothing but complain....yeah.....

Sheet Rock Time!

First of all, I've been out of commission for a week because my stupid back has flared up. Can I just tell you, I have the most awesome husband, family, and friends ever?? Words cannot express how thankful I am to each and every person who bent over backwards to help me out over this past 8 days. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! I am on the mend now. Still sore and "twingy" but no more spasms. Yay!

Now onto business.

My coolio bro-in-law Jeff has been here for the past 3 days hanging sheet rock. Is "sheet rock" one word or two? Hmmmm, google it and then pretend it's right.

Jeff has been a trooper because the storage area in the mudroom isn't the easiest thing to crawl in and out of. Luckily he had some good helpers who happened to be off track!


He got the arch all covered up.


Mudroom is starting to take shape.


Friday will be a fun day. I think it's the first day of doing mud and tape on the sheet rock. I owe Jeff BIG TIME. I made him bread today, but somehow I think that's not going to cut it. :) Ha Ha!

This view of the mudroom is becoming a faint memory.


Better yet, what about this view?


Speaking of views...
Carson finally understands my point of view regarding cleaning the bathrooms that are occupied by mostly non-female types. I put him to work scrubbing our bathrooms yesterday since my back hates me. As he was on his knees scrubbing the "sunshine" off the toilets, he said "Um, yellow just became my least favorite color." That's right young non-female type... REC-A-NIZE!

Hey, you know what is spectacular? My kids go back on track tomorrow. The next time they go off track will be the end of their school year. You know what that means? Only 7 more weeks of half day kindergarten! Yay for me!! I think I can, I think I can....

We Have Light!

Saturday was a special day. It was the day my cousin, uncle, dad, brother, and hubby installed recessed can lighting in my kitchen and living room!

First things first, Sam had to remove the fans out of the kitchen and the living room on Friday night. Just one casualty. You can't believe how far shattered glass can travel! Down the stairs, into the living room, down the hallway, all over the kitchen....it was ridonculous!


After that mess was cleaned up I thought to myself "Phew, that was hard to clean up but at least it's over. Installing lights can't be that messy can it?"

Oh boy. Understatement of the day.

Do you know how can lights are installed? First you cut out a 6 inch circle in the ceiling. What is above the ceiling? Lots and lots of dark gray fuzzy insulation. So right off the bat it's raining dirty looking snow when that 6 inch circle is removed. THEN....you shove wires up in the circle. One person has his arm in one circle, another person has his arm in another cirlce and they run wires between the two. Lots of wrestling around during this part and lots more dirty snow falls. After the first few holes my cousin says "Hey Carrie, guess how long it took my sister to clean her kitchen after I installed can lights?" I grimaced and asked "how long?" His reply: 7 HOURS! Shattered glass...piece of cake! Recessed lighting clean up...you feel like you ran a marathon. Super tired but so happy when it's all over!

Have you ever watched "dirty jobs" or something similar when a guy has to stick his arm up a cow's rear end? They go all the way to their shoulder blades and all sorts of "dirty" is oozing out? That's exactly what I was reminded of when watching this process yesterday. Everybody had their arms up in the ceiling holes and dirty snow was coming down upon them. It was so funny to watch!




Our ceiling is pretty high right above the stairs. Sam jimmy-rigged this contraption to reach the ceiling. It's hard to tell from this photo, but if he fell off that ladder, nobody would be laughing (well, I can't promise that) because it would HURT!


My mom was a SAINT and took the boys to her house all day. It seriously helped so much!

Things are starting to take shape:


Now that there is real purdy:


A few broken tools, several hours later, lots of trips to the garbage can to empty the shop vac, and countless moments of laughter later, we have beautiful lights in our house! Huge thanks and props go to my cousin Cody, AKA electrician mastermind; his dad, my Uncle Richard; my mom and dad; my brother Curtis was a HUGE help; and Sam, he helped all day and all night with the cleaning! Here's some random shots of the day:




We put directional lighting above the fireplace mantle. It's so nice! I also love the color the lights gives out at night. It's so warm and inviting. I am one happy customer!!



On an unrelated topic:
I made cookies this morning to take to my parents house tonight for dessert. Today is fast Sunday. Sam came home from morning meetings and said "Hey Carson, on a scale between one and ten, how mean is mom for making cookies on Fast Sunday!!??" Carson thought long and hard and said "SEVEN!". I laughed and responded "You are nice, I would have said EIGHT!" Just think how good they will taste tonight! :)

Pardon Our Dust, We Are Under Construction

Here are the latest updates on the house:

My super cool cousin Cody came over on Wednesday and removed some electrical outlets from the old wall and moved my kitchen switch from the old wall and into the hallway. Once that took place, we could tear down the rest of that wall. I'm loving it!

From the front door perspective:


From my kitchen:


Next up...
Cody is coming over on Saturday to install recessed can lighting on my main floor. Sam gets to take down both ceiling fans tonight. Let the fun (and so many messes) begin!

Happy Easter Twenty Ten

Somewhere in my foggy head I heard kids squealing this morning... "I found one!! Let's find the rest!". Then I remembered it was Easter and from the sound of it, the Easter Bunny had left baskets around the house for the boys. I grabbed Cameron out of his crib so he could be in on the fun and we spent the morning hanging out in our jammies playing with the loot.

By the way, do you notice anything strange about Parker? I mean, besides the obvious? :) That kid came upstairs with a tie attached to his pajama shirt. Do you know what is even funnier than the tie? He never said a word. He just went about his business as if nothing was strange. When I finally took the bait and laughed about it, he just smiled and walked away. Let me tell you, that is EXACTLY how Sam is. He does funny things all the time and if you aren't paying attention, you'll totally miss it. He never points his funnies out to anyone, he just let's it slide if nobody comments. So funny!



I'm so happy this weekend is Conference Weekend. It feels like this past month has been so hectic, it feels wonderful to sit down, relax, and listen to the words of the prophet and apostles. So far, it has been just what I have needed!

Happy Easter to all!!

Another Day, More Progress!

An archway was added where the old door used to be. See Sam's legs? That's going to be a storage cabinet...eventually. The door leading out to the garage is just to the right of the archway.


This is how my living room/kitchen looked this morning.


By noon, this is what it looked like:



We will be removing the framing from the old wall but we need some electrical outlets moved before that can happen. Super excited to see how nice it looks when it is completely open!

We also have stairs now leading up to the mudroom from the garage:


Because projects like these overwhelm me, I am trying to only think of the next two steps. So, here are the next two steps:

Electrical: My cousin just happens to be a superior electrician so he will come and put in canned lighting. Ceiling fans will come down and the hideous kitchen light will be gone forever like a bad dream!

Sheetrock: I have a brother-in-law who can out-sheetrock anybody I know. He will sheetrock the mudroom and arch.

So far I'm extremely happy with the way everything is turning out! This sounds weird and Feng Shui, but I already feel so much more comfortable in my own house now that everything is opened up. It's making me like my house again, which is huge because the past year I've started developing a real distaste for my walls. :)

Mudroom!

Here's my mudroom, partially built. The door that leads into the house will be moved to the outside of the mudroom. Just another way to open up my kitchen! It's been 8 years coming, I'm uber excited, to say the least.


This view is from my existing door, which leads to the garage, looking into the mudroom. That cubby hole right there? TONS OF STORAGE! It's gonna be great! The finished product will be 3 cabinet doors with a bench under the cabinets.


The door has now been removed and will be placed in its new home today or tomorrow.


There will be an archway built above the old door tomorrow.

If anybody has some construction or finished carpentry projects that you want to hire out, let me know because our guy has been awesome and I'll give you his name and number!

More to come later...