Week 3

This has been by far the hardest week on me.  We decided that we would move out to the camper.  Which by the way is a huge blessing that we have this camper to live in right now.  It is beyond nice and does the job perfectly. 

Side note:  I have decided that I think I could now go on cruise after living in it for a week with two running jumping kids.  This has to feel like a cruise ship!  The rocking.  The bouncing.  A kid just rolls over in bed and the whole thing wiggles.  My pool side chair and bikini is missing in this “cruise ship” though.  And lets not forget the never ending drinks… oh the umbrella drinks!  I could go for an umbrella drink tonight!  Bring two – one for me and one for that hard working husband of mine!

So we are in week 3 on the remodel and week 2 of solid rain!  I’m not sure if it has been solid rain for 2 weeks… but to me it feels like it hasn’t stopped raining for 2 weeks.  So we can’t even escape to a park or a walk!

My kids have watched so many movies I think I have fried their brains.  Here they are watching their favorite movie, Barnyard, and eating M&Ms.

One day I just had enough and 15 minutes before bedtime I loaded the kids up in the Jeep in the rain and went to get coffee because I planned on working after the kids went to bed.  Well coffee turned into this delicious caramel ice cream shake and 2 cones for the kids.

I never went to work.  I searched the internet for the perfect light fixtures for the new kitchen and got a sugar high before bed.  Good idea, huh?!

Our electrician was suppose to put in a full day of work mid-week and he never showed up and later called to say that he wouldn’t make it at all – so Jesse put on his electrical hat and did some work installing can lights… in the middle of a lightening storm!!

I tell you what – by the time this project is done Jesse will be graduating with his electricians license!  He has put in so many late nights working with this electrician!  I don’t know how Jesse is functioning – he is at work at 6am and working until 10pm almost every night.

The hardest part of all this (for me) is getting my kids to bed at night.  Before all this Max was still in a crib, but now that we are in the camper he can not be in a crib.  We have bunks in the camper, and the bottom bunk is like a full size bed – so they both sleep down there on the floor together.  Which works great, once they fall asleep.  Getting them to settle down and actually go to sleep is a whole new story and so very exhausting.  I use to pride myself in the “bedtime routine” with these kids… I suck at it now!  Totally suck at it!  There I said it.  : )

Tonight they are goofing around in their room and I’m on my last nerve with this bedtime stuff and I’m trying so hard to not loose my cool with them.  Crack!  Max slams his head on the wall and instant welt.  So I go in there and Mallory asks me a few questions about what does God tell me to do when my kids don’t listen and then…

Mallory: Momma, when you were a little bitty baby with your Momma you didn’t listen either, did you?

Me:  Oh yes.  I was a very good listener.

Mallory:  Looks at me with this confused/shocked look on her face.  Stunned speechless.

Me:  Exit the room totally smirking and thinking I need to tell my Mom that if Mallory asks if I was a good listener she must say yes!

See what Mallory doesn’t understand is she has Frey Personality in her and I have zero of that!!  Frey Personality is nothing like me!  Frey Personality is so… um… so not me!  Frey Personality likes to push the limits.  Frey Personality likes to be the last one to speak.  Frey Personality likes to argue.  Frey Personality has no fear.  Frey Personality… okay you get the point I’ll stop.   : )

Long story short – bed time is tough!  bed time is exhausting!  bed time stinks!  I dread it!  I know it will go back to normal and get better once we get back into the house.  I just need to keep pushing on and we’ll get there, but I also want to remember all these emotions and not have you readers think it is all sunshine and roses.  I want it to be real.

On a fun happy note… the cabinets and a few pieces of the countertop showed up today!!

All the cabinets seemed to be facing the wrong way except that front white one and it is upside down.  : )  They are beautiful in real life.  Right now they are sitting in our house garage because we are not ready for them yet and the carpenter didn’t want to delay delivery.  I’m a little nervous about them sitting here for a week (or longer) before they get installed – but I keep telling myself they will be fine. 

Camp Tick-Quito

It was decided that Memorial weekend was going to be the first big camping adventure with the campers.  For both us and Jesse’s brother & his wife.  Then we found out both Jesse and his brother needed to work on our house that weekend.  I told Jesse that we really needed to still go and have some family time.  This remodel was eating up a lot of our time and we just needed to get away and have some fun.  He agreed.  And we got Jerry & Steph on board too!  Jesse and Jerry put a late night of work in on Friday night and then worked Saturday until about 4pm and we loaded up and headed out.

We were going out to Jesse’s parent’s land/gravel pit. 

We arrived with about an hour or two of daylight left.  Went to go get the campers snuggled into their spot – now we have never been camping out here before – so this was all new to all of us.  Jesse went first and got his camper situated and then it was Jerry’s turn.  We wanted our camper doors to be facing each other so Jerry was turning his around and bam!  Found a sticky situation! 

Stuck!  Stuck tight! 

Jesse (of course in all good brotherly love) requested to get this caught on film.

I took video as well and it has Jerry telling me “You can go ahead and put that camera away now.” and then there are moments of Jesse make face contact at the camera snickering and laughing and totally enjoying this moment of Jerry stuck! 

He was good and stuck for a long while.

Finally broke free!

Then he tells me… go ahead and take a picture of me now smiling because I got it out!

Um, and guess who was quick to come over and check out all the mess!

Maxwell!  What do you think you are doing?!

Then he found a sand pile to climb on.

King of the hill.  According to Mallory though it is Princess of the hill.

I had a hard time this weekend because every time I looked at Mallory she looked so grown up!  I’m just really struggling with her turning 4 real soon and going to school real soon.  I just want to bottle her up right now and keep her little for a bit longer.

Here is our rig all nestled into its camping spot.

We had to make a fire ring out of rocks – which started out to be a lot of fun for the kids.  However when Mallory would go look for rocks and find a big one she would throw it back because there were ants under it.  So I would have to bang all the ants off before she would carry it.  The kids and I just didn’t work fast enough – so the guys took over.  ; ) 

Monkey see – Monkey do.  Max sees Mallory standing on the rock – he attempts to stand on a rock.

Auntie Stephie snuggles!  These kids love their Auntie Steph and Uncle Jerry so very much!  Whenever we spend a few days with them the kids have a hard time with them leaving.  Jerry tells me that Max is a spitting image of Jesse when he was a little boy.  He says when he plays with Max it takes him back to his childhood playing with Jesse.

Helping the guys gather sticks for the fire.

I wandered away to take a picture of the sunset.

As I was walking back I saw a perfect picture.  The kids were standing in front of Steph and they just looked so cute so I snapped a picture… and then heard screams and saw what was going on!

Now, there was a request for this picture to not be posted – but um that request will not be granted.  : ) 

So… the guys tossed gasoline on the sticks to help them get it started faster.  Well they were having a hard time getting something to start on fire so they could toss it into the sticks.  They finally got something started on fire and tossed it in.  In the meantime the fumes had moved down hill (where the kids and Steph) were standing and it exploded!  Flames right towards them!  The flames are right outside the picture – I didn’t capture them.  Steph and the kids were standing a very good distance from the fire ring – it was just that it took too long and the fumes started running down hill towards them.

Here is the picture I captured of the moment.

Steph fleeing the scene.  Max in shock.  Mallory smiling. 

I think Mallory is smiling, because she saw me pointing the camera at them.

It took Max a little bit to get over that.  : )  He was pretty scared.  He tells everyone “That fire woosh at me.” 

The next day Jesse’s dad brought out the skid-steer so the guys could mow some trails and do some work and make better camping spots, dirt bike trails, rzr trails, and jeep trails.

Here they are all going on a walk

A pretty tree on our walk.

Mallory’s water boots were just a bit too big and she kept tripping so she was holding my hand.

A different view of our camping spot.

We ended up with another camper out here before the weekend was over and a few visitors.  It was a very good time and I think we will be spending lots more weekends out here.  My kids (especially Max) loved every minute of it.  Max is an outside kid – so this was almost perfect in his book.  If only we would of brought out his fourwheeler – then it would have been perfect.  : )  He worked in the skid-steer for along time with Jesse on Sunday morning.

Steph and I were trying to come up with a camp name for this spot.  We had nothing.  However by the end of the weekend I was so tired of ticks and mosquitos… I named it ‘Camp Tick-Quito’.  The rest of the camping crew doesn’t like my name… Mallory wants to call it “Campsite” Maxwell wants to call it “Camp Poo-Poo” and the guys want to call it “The Gravel Pit” or “Camp G.P.”

One more funny story of the weekend.  Sunday night I was putting my kids to bed.  It was late.  Like 9:30pm late.  I snuck back out to the campfire but I could hear the kids running in the camper back and forth.  I let it go on for a bit because sometimes they just need to have their fun and then they will go to bed.  *giggle*  Finally enough was enough so I walked back to the camper and I can see in the kitchen window… Mallory standing at the counter with the bag of m&ms shoving them into her mouth and then dishing some out to Max who can’t reach the counter.  Those little stinkers!!  I yell back to everyone at the fire, “They are stealing M&Ms in there!” and laugh.  I open the camper door and bam!  Off they run as fast as they can to their room and hit their beds.  Of course I laughed!  Out loud!  So then they laughed and thought it was funny and told me all the “naughty” things they were doing in there.  They did go right to sleep then.

I’ve lost track of my days

I no longer know what day we are in the remodel process- all I know is we started week 3 on Saturday.

Last week was a slow week for visual progress.  The electrician was there almost every day and electrical work doesn’t make the room look different – besides lots and lots of holes – which is why I think it felt like nothing was happening.  Below is a picture capturing all the holes we now have.

Last week had much cooler temps – nights were down to the 30s.  Now, in order for the electrician do his thing – he removes the insulation from the walls – and puts holes in the walls!  We are still sleeping in the house!  We have no heat because that was disconnected!  Nights got real chilly in the house!  We were running a space heater in the hallway to keep our rooms some what warmer. 

Also, we have no lights – except the light in the dining room hasn’t been removed yet.  So walking around at night is very risky.

We had an extremely hard time finding an electrician that wasn’t busy.  Everyone we called was booked out until July.  We finally found one.  However, he likes to work late!  Most nights last week he was here until 10pm!  He also likes Jesse to help him – which Jesse enjoys that. 

We constantly have people in our house – here in the mornings right away and here until we go to bed.  And we are still living in our house while all this remodel is going on. 

I’m not complaining (maybe a very tiny bit) I just want to remember all these details some day so that I will once again appreciate the end result!

This is what the upstairs looked on the start of Week 3.  Piles of insulation.  Garbage cans full of scrap pieces of wood.  Stacks of wood.  Wires everywhere.  Holes in the ceiling.  Piles of dust everywhere.  Disgusting floors that you must always have on shoes.  Nails here and there.  Mess after mess after mess!  Jesse and I are very tidy people (more Jesse then me) and I was finding myself sneaking around with the vacuum cleaner trying to get as much dust off the floors as I could without them laughing at me.

Tonight (Monday night) the electrician is here working late again (about 9:22pm and he is full on working in the house) I decided that I’m done moving everything in the house – out of the house – in the house – out of the house… we are now sleeping out in the camper!  We went camping this past weekend for the first time and the kids were rock star sleepers at night – and I’m tired of having to escape the house in the morning before workers show up – lets just sleep out here where it is neat and tidy and no dust and no workers!  Hopefully it goes well and maybe we will finish the rest of the remodel out here in the camper.

Motorcycle Season

One of the (many) perks of not being a business owner anymore – you can take off and go riding more often now! 

I ran out and took pictures of the three of them before they left.

Jerry  - Jason – Jesse

This was their first over night trip on the bikes.  If I say that they were pretty excited – I am not even kidding a little bit.  ; )  The night before they left I think I heard squeals coming from the shop and at one point when I peeked out there one of them was dressed in their full gear – and they weren’t even leaving until the next morning. 

Okay, I didn’t really hear squeals – but one of them really was in their gear!!  He may or may not have slept in his gear. 

The kids and I were already moved out and spending the majority of our time in the camper (everything but sleeping was happening in the camper) so they were watching the guys leave from the camper window.

The next night they were scheduled to come home and I received notice that they were to be home at about 6pm.  A few hours after 6 only two of them came home!  They found some broken down fellow riders they needed to go back with the truck and bring back to our shop to fix up.

Jesse came to get me and requested pictures of all the motorcycles in his shop!  He was loving this!

Bike is fixed – now you talk about bikes.

That was their trip – from what I saw and captured.  Maybe next time I can send a camera with Jesse and we can get a guy’s eye view of their motorcycle adventures. 

Remodel Day 6 -11

Remodel Day 6:

The tub and flooring was removed from the bathroom.  Discovered why our tub was always warm – there was a heat register under it!

Day 7:

Picture doesn’t do it justice – but I went to see a sample of the paint & glaze we picked out for our cabinets.  Matched it up with the counter top and the island wood stain.  No work was done on the house this day. 

Day 11:

The hallway was framed out.  All the carpet was removed from the stairs and the wood paneling was removed from the entrance.

Later last night the bathroom was gutted the rest of the way.  Whenever they work on that bathroom my allergies go nuts!

Sunday on the Farm

We stopped at Jesse’s parents this past Sunday after church.  Jesse’s Dad is in the process of fattening the cows – so he wanted the kids to come with to feed the cows.

They were standing in the barn door watching and I thought it was so cute.

Mallory constantly has a bouquet of dandelions in her hand.  A yellow nose to go with it because she is constantly smelling them!  She loves to smell flowers!  It should be a fun season with her – little flower child!

Then Dave made me get in the picture.

After feeding the cows it was time for a tractor ride.  Max loves driving the tractor – so Grandpa Dave will get out the tractor just for Max to drive around.  Then he will hook up a wagon so we all can ride around.

Mallory wanted a turn to drive – and yes he really lets her steer.  We were all over the place!  : )

I needed dirt for some big pots I have.  These two hauled the dirt to the wagon.

While these two dug the dirt.

I sat and watched.  I like to think Sundays are my day off.  ; )

Max still wasn’t done driving, but someone was getting sleepy and snuggling.

This was our view on the ride.

ABC Gum

About a month ago I went to go pick out my appliances for the new kitchen.  I went by myself during the week, with the kids.  It needed to be done quick because they would not order my cabinets unless they had the measurements of the appliances.  I decided I could handle this by myself – instead of waiting for Jesse to be able to go with me.

I had each kid bring one toy with them.  Max picked a monster truck and Mallory picked a purse.  We are in the appliance store and we have the store to ourselves.  So off the kids run to explore and drive trucks.  Meanwhile the sales guy and I are talking appliances.

All of sudden Mallory runs up to me saying – “MOM!  Momma!  Mom!  Momma!”  I’m horrible about answering her on the first ‘mom’ so she kept going “MOM!  MOMMA!  MOM!”  Until I finally say “WHAT!?” and she says… “Max tackled me to the ground and stuck his hand in my mouth and took my gum and chewed it.”

REALLY?

Yes!

That’s disgusting!

Can I have another piece of gum since Max took mine?

Sure enough here comes Mr. Maxwell chomping on some gum with that smirk on his face!

We had been trying to teach Max how to chew gum, but he just wasn’t getting it.  He kept swallowing it and he was going threw a streak where he complained about his belly hurting – so I stopped giving him gum, incase it was related to that. 

Apparently he wanted a piece bad enough that he was going to tackle his big sister and take hers! 

Remodel Day 1–Day 5

I finally figured out how to get my daily pictures to my computer.  Here we go… The shots from that last 5 days.

Day 1:

Removing the wall so that Jesse’s brother can install an AC unit.   We can not have central air in this house instead Jesse’s brother Jerry has us set with a very sleek and modern AC unit that should keep the whole house cool.

Day 2:

We had our living room cleaned out for a week already but we needed to clean out the kitchen.  We moved what we could into our camper and the rest went onto shelving in our shop.  Everything eating and drinking related happens here in this space.  We are feeling very blessed that we have this option.  Jesse said when his parents remodeled their house they moved the temporary kitchen to their barn milk house!!  When my parents did it we had a kitchen set up in the garage and did dishes in the bathtub! 

Day 3:

The center beam that runs down the middle of our house can not be removed because it is a supporting beam.  We wanted it gone – we don’t like it.  But we can’t.  So… they made it about half the size!  Now that it is smaller your eye isn’t drawn to it right away.

The ceiling down the hallway (to the bedrooms) was also removed.

Day 4:

The dividing wall was knocked down!  Yahoo!!  I did not like that wall at all!!  All the cabinets were removed as well.  The above picture is looking into what was once the kitchen.

Day 5:

The door in my kitchen was removed.  The window was moved down to the kitchen (it was originally where that patio door is now).  A patio door was installed.

Pictured above is the demolition of our small bathroom upstairs.  Now the most amazing part of this demolition is that they did this at 8pm – 10pm at night!!  My kids are sleeping in the room right behind that wall.  Max’s crib is on that WALL!!  Pounding!  Tile removal!  Tiles crashing against that tub and the tile floor below!  Loud!  Really loud!  My kids slept right thru it!!  Never woke up once!  The kids are so out of routine and haven’t had a nap in 3 days – and they were so exhausted that night that I think they were sleeping before we walked out of their room from tucking them in.  Might have been a blessing in disguise that they didn’t nap that day!  : )