The Basement is finished!!

So we finished the basement over the weekend. The carpet was installed on Thursday. It looks awesome. The kids were so excited and ran down to see it and started rolling around on it! Kyle put the doors back on the rooms and Friday night him and Nick put up Hannah's drop ceiling. We bought the boys new bunk beds! They slept in their new rooms on Thursday night. Emily loves going up and down the stairs now that they are carpeted. It feels like a brand new house downstairs now. I can't wait till we can start working on the upstairs. It will be a lot of work but so worth it. I cleaned Hannah's old room and moved all of Emily's toys, etc. in. It looks really cute. She seems to like having her own space. Now I need to clean the boy's old room so we can paint it. We will then move our computer in there and I will have a scrapbooking area set up all the time!! I might actually get more pages in my albums done. I am more behind than I would like. I will post more pictures of the kids rooms when they are finished. Still getting organized.

Update on our Basement project!

Well we are almost done! It has been a long project. The last few weeks have been very busy with lots of painting, doors and trim going up, more painting, lots of taping for painting and more painting!! Thursday our carpet is being installed! Here are some pics of how it looks today before the carpet goes down. We have to take the doors off before they come still. After the carpet is done, then just touch up the walls and trim that might be scratched and we have to put a drop ceiling in Hannah's room since she has lots of plumbing and heat ducts above her room. The pics have some dust spots in them since we just cleaned and swept the floors and the dust was flying. We still need to wipe the walls down in the family room, they got really dusty when Kyle was cutting trim and door casings. We will probably take a little break but then we will be tackling the upstairs. I will post more pics on Thursday when the carpet is done! The plan is to let the kids start moving their stuff down Thursday night. I am very excited to get Hannah back in her own room so Emily can have the girls' room all to her self. It is to small for both and Emily's toys are all out in the living room. I am so ready to have it all in her own room except for a few things of course. Enjoy the pics!


The stairs leading to our kitchen upstairs. Kyle had to fill the backs of the stairs in for the carpet to be installed.


The family room. We went with a dark green color called "Olive Smudge" I love it!


Another view of the family room. In the far back corner there is a little cubby area that we will build shelves and it will house all our board games, etc...


James and Brayden's room. They went with the color called "Hanging vine". They want a Jungle themed room.


Hannah's room color is called "classic lilac". It is beautiful! I can't wait to help her decorate it.

Been awhile since I posted

I just realized that I had not posted in awhile.

My dad went home from Rehab a week ago today! He is so happy to be home and to be home in their house, not the rental house. He is still using a walker, but is growing stronger every day.

Brayden was in a class play last Friday night. He was brother Rabbit in "the sky is falling". He did an awesome job. Here he is in his rabbit costume.


I had the opportunity to spend 12 hours scrapbooking on Saturday! It was an event at my parent's church to raise money for their building fund. They provided snacks, lunch and dinner and had door prizes. I had so much fun, I got a lot of pages in Emily's book done and was able to relax!

I have really been enjoying the warmer weather we have been having. Emily loves being outside. She loves to run around in the yard. The other day I found a caterpillar in the yard and she was so excited to hold it. She did try to put it in her mouth!! Must be it had a bad tasted because she made a funny face and started to spit a little. I have been shooting my bow that Kyle got me for Christmas every couple days. I really like it and am looking forward to hunting with it this October.

We are in the last 2 weeks of wrestling for Brayden! I will miss it a little but am excited to have it slow down. He has had a great season. Regionals are this Saturday at Holt High School. The top 4 from each weight class go on to states. He has a tough group of kids in his weight class so I'm not sure if he will be going to States this year. Will let everyone know if he does.

Looking forward to the weekend with all the kids. I am excited for James and Hannah to see their new bedrooms in the basement. Kyle painted everything last weekend. It is looking so nice down there. I will take some pics soon and post them.

Well I need to go finish dinner before Brayden and Kyle get home from wrestling practice. I will post some really cute pics of Emily later.

A little bit of this and that

So I have a few minutes and thought I would sit down and update everyone.

I just got back from the hospital. My dad is doing better today. They took his tube out of his throat and nose late last night and when I got their he was sitting up in a chair eating a little jello and sipping juice. His stomach is doing better and the doctor believes that the partial bowel blockage is working it self out and he won't need surgery! Praise God! He is a little discouraged today. He has been in the hospital a week and really wants to be home with my mom. The plan now is to make sure his stomach is doing good and then get him transferred to Eaton County Rehabilitation Center for up to 2 weeks. My mom has been spending her days at the hospital. Us kids are helping her get to and from the hospital since she can't drive my dad's truck. It will be a little more challenging once he is moved to Charlotte, but we will manage. Emily always seems to put a smile on my dad's face when we visit him every afternoon. She loves her Papa. I will update as soon as I know more about when he is being moved. Please keep praying for a speedy recovery and for a positive outlook on his part so he can get through therapy.

Emily is now 15 months old. She is growing so fast. She is mastering new words every week. Her newest are sit and blankie. She loves giving kisses and blowing kisses. Kyle is always greeted at the door every day after work with a hug and kiss from his baby girl.


Last weekend we took the kids to pick out paint colors for their new bedrooms. Hannah quickly decided on a pretty purple lilac. The boys have mutually decided they want a green color since they want to decorate their room like a rain forest. Snakes, lizards, monkeys... etc. That is fine with us but they want this really dark forest green and we are trying to explain to them it is to dark especially because they are in the basement and the ceilings are lower. So the other day Kyle and I found a nice green color called "hanging vines" I am hoping they will go for it since it sounds like a color that would be in a rain forest!

Kyle's work is picking back up! Praise God for that. It was a little tight the last month. Construction is such a hard business to be in right now in the state of Michigan. It did make us take a look at where we spend our money and how much we do waste. I am working on getting us on a budget and trying to have more savings for when work is slow.

Brayden did well at his tournament on Sunday. We were at Okemos. He took 2nd! He is wrestling so hard this year. It is so intense sometimes! We are taking this coming weekend off. We all need a break. The following weekend Eaton Rapids is hosting a tournament. So that will be nice and close.

Well I should go for now, Emily is still naping and I need to get some housework done.

Basement

So as some of you know we have been finishing our basement the last few months. We started with an completely unfinished basement with block walls. Kyle built 2 bedrooms and a living room/game room. We also have our furnace room and a storage room that will be unfinished. This project is going to double the size of our house! The nice thing is that Kyle has been able to do all the work himself. He built the framework and did all the electrical work late last summer and of course hung and finished the drywall. This past week he has been putting primer on the walls and this weekend we will probably pick paint colors. I know the kids are excited to pick out their own colors. The boys will still share a room, but it will be much bigger. Hannah will have the smaller bedroom downstairs, but it is also a little bigger than her room now. The living area will become our game room. We can put all our board games on shelves and have a TV with our video games in a central location. Once we are done with the basement we will start tackling the upstairs. We are moving the location of the kitchen and tearing a wall out to make it more open with the living room and dining room. New flooring throughout. It will be like a new house when we are done. Of course we are doing it slowly so we don't incur any debt. We will still have 2 bedrooms upstairs and the boy's old room will become our office/craft room. I can't wait to have a scrap booking area set up all the time. Maybe I will get caught up on my albums. Anyways just wanted to share what we have been doing. I posted a few pictures of what it looks like right now. I will take pictures when we are done too!