Welcome 2019

Helping with Harvest

The day after a snowstorm that closed the roads for two days

One of many trips to Lowe's with kids

Shad helping syringe feed the runt puppy from Aunt Rylee's litter.
He died shortly after from a birth defect. 

I finally got my Speed Queen dryer delivered.
But I still don't have my washing machine from the trailer. :(
Yes, I'm part of the Speed Queen cult following. We do 20 loads a week
and I have loved Speed Queen. They are commercial,
solid and made with mostly all metal, no plastic junk. I've had the fancy
curved, front load washers. They fall apart. I talked to the repairmen before we
made the decision. They said they rarely see Speed Queens. 

The hardwood floors...here's what happened. We ordered these floors months ago and when I looked at pictures online, I wasn't that impressed. They were too patchy, but they are tough and that's what we need. They are acacia which is basically like teak wood. It's a shrub from Asia and is harder than oak and water resistant. But, it was patchy. So I ended up, with help of kids, going through every single box and separating them into color categories. All the darkest boards went downstairs, and the lighter ones are going upstairs. There are still plenty of in-between boards so the upstairs won't look like a completely different wood. But below you can see the crazy contrast from light to dark. It looked like a patchwork quilt. It was fun picking all my favorite boards for the first floor.

Isn't that a crazy difference? Is it just me?
One of my sons decided these lighter boards looked cowboy,
 so they are gathering all those into their rooms.

This is the hearth, sideways. I really couldn't find any hearths
I liked the looks of and I didn't want wood underneath.
It's a big stove and it'll be used a lot. So, we got this dark grayish color tile.

That's my four-year-old's apple.
He takes a bite and leaves. :( 

We had company this weekend. My brother, sister in law, and her sister and husband,
all came to help with the house. It was a fun time!
I enjoyed having help sorting and the men calked and painting and laid flooring.
We went on a date and swam with the kids. 

I was really grouchy on this day and it was lucky for our kids,
they got invited to go on a sledding playdate. 

James let them get the snowmobile out and ride around the yard.

James trimmed these windows. I was so proud of him.
They look wonderful. He spent a lot of time making them look perfect and painted them very nicely.
They are even better than I expected.

From my little brother's wedding. (Left to right: Me, brother Garrett, brother Grant) My sister and other brother were unable to make it. So was my husband. :(
It is nice to see them happily married. The've known each other for almost 10 years I think. He inherited three children and he's a great dad.

I've been a little whelmed the past few months and a little grouchy this week...ok since Christmas. I hope no one thinks our life is just happy, fun pictures. I'm real, it's not. We were actually just featured on a pretty big website called Sullengers.com. They asked us to talk about our financial troubles from of the past.

The grouchies end though...the sun comes up and things seem to get a little better. 

Christmas In The North Pole

We don't actually live in the North Pole...but we're close enough. 

House update: All the tile is finished being laid on the main floor. That's a big deal. I almost have a bathroom and a kitchen. We did one room with the wood and it looks nice. I was worried it would be a pinkish or orange wood stain but it's very neutral. 

We stained the beam with English chestnut. It turned out better than I thought. I would have done the floors that color too if I didn't despise dark after our last house.  

We decided to take a needed break and went after a Christmas tree for Grandma's house. It wasn't feeling very Christmasy to me with all of my decorations and village and stockings hiding in the trailer. It helped to go get the tree. 

We took two snowmobiles and these cute kids and drove up the forest on the farm. The kids road in the sleds. It was my first time driving and I had a great time, which is uncharacteristic of me! I'm an indoor girl! We hadn't walked twenty yards into forest before we saw the perfect tree. We thought about looking farther but the kids were already getting tired and cold

.

James sawed it and we hauled it out to the sleds. He put Shad on the back of his snowmobile and I had the rest of the kids in my sled and on the back of my snowmobile. He put the tree in his sled and started to drive. It fell out, so he put it back in and started again. It fell out again. It didn't help that I didn't want to waste the stump and made him bring it too (pine needle tea!) 

Finally, he put Shad in the sled, on his back, and the tree on top of Shad. Then we drove all the way home. The tree in the sled on top of Shad was so funny, bouncing along, and we knew he was under there getting buried in snow and bumping his bum on every little hump. 

Once, on the mountain road, I looked back and Audra and Maggie were screaming and hanging on for dear life. The sled had slipped off to the side and they were right next to the small cliff on the edge of the road. I couldn't figure out how to keep them from sliding off to the right or left, so we stopped and I put every last kid on the back of my snowmobile. It was a loud ride home with four children crying in my ear. But hot chocolate felt good after that!

Tile in the kitchen and dining room (I can only guess what Kyler is doing in the background)

Shad learning to use the saw. 

Shad learning that you have to start the saw before you touch it to the wood. 

Shad helping ping the nail gun. Each kid takes turns helping James, but Shad and Kyler like it the most. 

Finis!

I don't have a place to wrap presents so we took them all to the house and I wrapped them in the pocket room. It was a little magical. (A pocket room is a made up room...it's like a little pocket on the side of the house. It can be used for anything from an office to a guest room, exercise room, whatever you want.)

This was kind of a special Christmas. We got to spend every minute of it at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They are thinking about going on a mission soon and we are glad we had this time with them. 

"YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!" 

No! We Won't Be Home For Christmas! But...

Ugh...yes, we are still working hard to get everything done. No, we won't be moved in for Christmas, and YES I'm very sad about that. YES I'm getting to the end of my rope living in the basement with seven kids and no Christmas tree and my new tree skirt and decorations sitting in a box buried in the storage container.

But, we are making progress! That counts for something.

Here's what's happening...

The sheet rocking and painting is all done! That is until I get a hold of some of Laurel Bern's paint colors. I'm not allowed to touch the walls until everything else is done, but don't worry. I will!

Tiling is taking a lot longer than planned. This is our first time doing this extent of tiling and James is a perfectionist, for which I'm very grateful, but, I am struggling to be patient, since we were supposed to be in before fall and now it's December!

Before I get to the house, this is our little angel. She really is the sweetest. She is so quiet and kind all the time. She had a dance performance this week.

And here are some pictures of the updates. I'm a little behind. The floors in these rooms are actually finished. They are a Calacutta porcelain tile. I almost bought real marble and I'm so glad I had a bad feeling in the shower and decided to research it more. Marble is for temples and grand halls, not for people with children and budgets. Trust me. You don't want to deal with the maintenance, beautiful though they are. So I picked a tile that resembles marble, but is tough and doesn't need any maintenance other than a mop.

I don't know if you can really see the color I chose very well. It's from the Laurel Bern Paint collection. It's called Benjamin Moore Cotton Balls. (Actually the above picture may be pre-paint, primed) Anyway, Cotton Balls! I LOVE it! She said this color does what you want and it's a wonderful, warmish white. I was nervous because I didn't try it out the way I should have first, don't judge, it was a really bad week and we only had a few days to paint. So I just ran with it and it worked great. But I do recommend testing paint first!

 This little guy loves to help with everything. He never seems to get bored of tools. We are installing Durock here. Very important before tiling. We also got a tile leveling kit which helped make sure the tiles are...well level. Good idea too. 

Here is part of the kitchen with the tile leveling kit. It takes 48 hours to dry  before you can take the duck-like things off. If I hadn't been late for a date and my phone almost dead, I would have taken a picture of the finished product. I'm glad I didn't choose my grout before I saw it finished too! I would have gone too dark.

This was an exciting day! We moved the ugly storage container onto the land! All my dishes and precious things are inside. Not that I get to open it up anytime soon. We still have lots of flooring to do, but it was exciting and I snapped this shot while driving behind it. You can't see from the picture, but there's a lot of snow and I got stuck three times and had to have my brother in-law, my father in-law and James pull me out. I'm learning how to drive in this weather. I'm not great at it yet, and very nervous all the time.

Ok here are some fun things...this is the part I really love. I can't wait to decorate and I have been saving and saving and saving to buy some new furniture! Every time I've saved enough for my living room pieces, some other dumb thing happens! I want to rip my hair out! First the well, then the electricians, then the plumbers, then the electricians again! Argh! But I am saving once again and in a few months I'll have enough to buy what I need. PS. The reason they are taking my savings is because we vowed not to drop one extra penny onto the loan so we are cash-flowing as much as possible. I am a huge proponent of using cash whenever possible and Dave Ramsey is one of my heroes. He is always my shoulder angel reminding me that going into debt for furniture or anything else like unto it, is a dumb idea. 

In order to make better decisions (and my budget is not very big!) I copied Laurel Bern and made some fun collages. This helped me A LOT. It also helped James understand the big picture. When he first saw that Chesterfield love seat, he wasn't very impressed. But he likes the collage! This is all from Wayfair, BTW. 

The lamps aren't horrible, they aren't authentic, but I want some chinoiserie and can't afford what my grandma used to buy (She had great taste and a huge budget!) How I wish we'd kept some more of her nice things.

This is option number 1 and everyone's favorite:

Option number 2: I like it a lot, but the family chose the other one

And this is the collage I sent to my cabinet guy...AKA my brother in-law. I hope it turns out ok. 

I have to decide if I want the enclosed shelves on both sides or the open shelves on both sides. I don't know yet. I won't do both like below. Just one or the other. And I may nix on the shelf over the transom window. I stole these cabinets from DeVol Kitchens (Whom I am in love with and found on Laurel's website) Their kitchens are amazing. 

Had to throw this in. This was also posted on Laurel's website. I want this room! I think the paint color and the drapes make it so luxurious. I'm going to try to talk James into it once he recovers from the building process trauma. 

Another collage of the kitchen. It's not exact, and for some reason the cabinets are lighter on the right side, even though they are the same cabinets. This is from floor planner.com. I used this cute little website to help me design the bones of the house. 

So, there are some sneak peaks and updates. I'm guessing February before we feel settled. James may try to get us into the main floor before then, but I'm not crossing my fingers. I'll never cross my fingers again. We were supposed to be in for my birthday! Grrr to sub contractors! I lose sleep over all they've put us through.

I have to say, I liked the sheet rock and mudding crew a lot.  

Ok, more updates to come...for now I have 4 sick kids to take care of :(