Friday, May 20, 2011

Week 1 Demolition

Monday May 16th was day one! They started at 8:00 in the morning and by 10:00 the carpets were ripped up and the kitchen was completly gutted. In order for us to have an open floor plan we had to have them reconstruct the support up in the attic so the kitchen walls could come down. The next two days involved building temporary walls around the original studs and reconstructing the support up in the attic. Which meant exposing the ceiling and no AC for the rest of the week, but do you know what, the Lord gave us such wonderful weather that opening the windows was all that was needed and being outside was so nice. Day 3 and 4 was quite a mess while they built up walls and tore them down again. We really couldn't go into the interior of the house but our bedroom has been the hangout and sleeping quaters for the whole family. Friday they repaired the ceiling and Monday will texture it. We can really get a good picture of how things will look. I love being able to see to every room in the house! Can't wait for the finished product!


















Preparing for the Remodel

Here are a few snap shots of what we have done to prepare for the remodel. I have tried to make our life as normal as possible and make things easy for us while we work around a mess.


Making some chicken spaghetti to freeze and eat later!
Titus' closet became the storage room for the dishes so I didn't have to pack up everything.
Thankfully we have a sink and refridgerator in the laundry room so I set us up a little kitchen and used the closet as our pantry.


Leigh was a big help! She used a play tea cart to take all the pantry items to the laundry room closet.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

A New Project

To say that it has been a long time is an understatement. Its not that I don't like to blog, its just that I like to read others blogs more. By the end of the day I am too tired to think about writing so I just sit down to read everyone elses! And I am very faithful about that :).

The thing that has brought me back is the desire to document the new project going on in our home right now. We are having our kitchen remodeled and changing all the floors in the house except the bedrooms. We changed out the carpet in the bedrooms when we moved in 4 years ago so those are staying. We are very excited about this project that has been brewing for awhile now. We (I) have talked and thought and talked and thought about this and what it would look like for about 2 years and I can't believe that we are finally here!

First, before anything I have to say how very blessed we are! The Lord has been so gracious to our family and at times Ricky and I find ourselves very overwhelmed with the bounty of God's goodness on our family when we see others hurting or struggling. It is in those times that our hearts together are full to the brim with thankfulness as we just give a soft whisper of "thank you" to God as we hug each other. But they ache at the same time for those we know and don't know whose circumstances are very different. I have been very humbled through this first phase of picking and choosing colors and flooring and countertops. The options I have when others have none. There are many times that we take His blessings for grant it and go about our lives. We pray that we are always mindful of them and that we may always make our children aware of how blessed they are as well. Through this deciding process, the Lord has given me a great desire to give back, to look for ways to teach my children more about God's goodness, and to seek ways to help whether that be in my home or outside my home. We do not need this remodel to help us live better lives but the Lord has given us this opportunity and we pray that through this project He might receive all the glory before, during, and after it is done. That He may use our home for His purposes and that our family and our home might be a blessing to others!

A wonderful man, builder and friend from our church is doing the remodeling and I'll have to say that I am beyond thrilled because the whole process has been great! I mean, to know someone in this kind of business and know they do great work is a good feeling! So much of the time you don't really know what you're getting in to.
The whole point of this remodel is to open up our kitchen to the rest of the house so that I can see what is going on :). I want my home to feel very open and welcoming for my family to gather and our friends to enjoy!
I am very excited and want to remember and share the whole process. It will take about 8 weeks and I want to embrace all 8 weeks of it - the demo and mess and inconvenience, I want to enjoy it and make the most of it and be creative with our time. I also want my response to the mess to be joyful and grateful and not complaining and dreadful so that the end result will be so worth the wait! I'm sure I will fail and grumble but I really want to look back and say "that wasn't so bad" - we'll see right?!

So here is a before picture of our kitchen when we moved in the house:


Here is what we did to spruce it up:


This picture shows the entrance into the dining room (where the panties-only-bike- riding duo is headed- do you like how Titus is cheering them on!?)

(Just so you know, we do not encourage bike riding in the house but this was taken as we were packing up for the remodel knowing the floors would come up :)


This picture taken from the front door. The kitchen is in the middle of the house right behind that wall. You are seeing the living room to the right.



Taken from sitting room, kitchen behind the wall, dining room to the left.
After the remodel the sitting room will become the dining room and the dining room shown will become apart of the kitchen with a big walk in pantry. Yeah!


Taken from living room, kitchen behind wall, sitting room to the left where Avery is speeding by.


My goal is to document the whole process from beginning to end with pictures of the progress and how we are living in the midst of it! My next post will be getting ready and pictures of my little helpers!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Flower Girls

This weekend Leigh and Avery were in a wedding. A sweet girl from Ricky's work wanted them to be her flower girls since she began planning her wedding two years ago. She just loves the girls and we were honored to have them in her wedding! They did not have very far to walk so that was good and they were supposed to drop rose petals along the way. Leigh did well dropping hers but Avery only dropped hers by accident (a few people sitting by the aisle told me she said, "Uh Oh, I dropped 'em". I guess I didn't clarify :)








Sunday, October 17, 2010

Suess on the Loose and Titus turns One!

We had a great Dr. Suess celebration for Titus' 1st birthday and we actually had a visit from the Cat in the Hat himself!






We love you Titus and have enjoyed who you have become so much! Your sisters love you and take care of you in small ways that I cherish like when you are crying Avery says, I'm wight here titus, I'm wight here" even if she is across the room, and Leigh likes to make you laugh by putting on her vampire teeth and when you do she does it over and over! You love your Daddy hands down and I think I love it the most when he comes home and you walk to him with your arms stretched out above your head saying, "Daee, Daee, Daee!" We love you little man!


We had Titus tested for food allergies and found out he is allegic to milk, eggs, and bananas. His celiac test came back normal but I'm still not convinced that he doesn't have a gluten intolerance so we are working on eating glutten free to see if there might be a difference in his sleeping. We'll let you know :)

Monday, August 30, 2010

OUR LITTLE LORENA LEOPARD

Leigh started kindergaten! She is loving every minute of it! Last week she got the reward for the "Best Rester" (they have a short rest time)! And this week she got to take home Franklin the turtle stuffed animal, the movie, and the book for the night! You should have seen her face when she got in the car and told me what was in the yellow school bus bag! This girl was made for kindergarten!