I hate sanding...and it has only just begun.

We are getting down to the nitty gritty now. It is about time to start on all the sanding we have to do. All the interior doors, all the kitchen cabinets and the big job...the new wood floors.

I have never sanded anything, so I wanted to give it a try today. Yikes!

First we had to make a run to Lowe's, needed a different sander, and had to return a can of paint that they didn't match right. Xander was on his own fashion trip today LOL.

Next we had a little picnic lunch in the new houses back yard.

Then I got to work. It took me an hour to sand this one part...and it still needs a little more work before it is ready to stain. About half way through I looked up at all we had to do and thought to myself, what ambitious fool thought up this idea...oh yeah, Jason. Though I fully agreed, the kitchen needed it bad, this is going to be a big project, thankfully our house partners will be doing some of it too.

Jason getting some plywood down, granite will be going in soon.

And more sanding. I wonder just how much you have to sand for an espresso gel stain to do its job.

Project start to finish

Walk through.

Day 1 remodel.

Shopping trip.
2 week mark
Painting
Kids get to see house finally
More painting
Adding another project
Fiasco
Sanding start
Bathrooms just about done
Granite installed
1st coat of stain in kitchen
Kitchen cabinet bases done!
Week 7
Hardwood floor sanding round 1
Floor sanding not going so great
Floor finishing started
Floors, floors, floors
8 1/2 weeks in
Trim and doors started
Closets done
Kitchen put back together
Odds and ends
Adding the purple
Kitchen DONE before and afters

Lily found a new friend at the house. A rock, shaped like a turtle, that she named Olive. The kids have a new fave show, The Littlest Pet Shop, and Olive is a character on one of the episodes. We took Olive home and decided to paint her up.

Everyone took turns.

It was a gorgeous day, felt so good to just hang out in the sunshine!

Hahaha goofball.

Jericho did pretty good, though he "messed up" once...Xander said "It's OK Jericho, try again."

We did a base coat of black, top and bottom, the a coat of light green on top of that on the top, and a darker green on the bottom.

As I was painting a couple parts of Olive, Haddie said to me "Where's your smile?" LOL Sorry kid, I was concentrating :)

Lots of waiting and playing while coats of paint dried. Lily brought Olive a snack. She may have a future of summer jobs waiting tables :)

Oops, maybe not. This was just before the whole thing came crashing down and she tried to serve it.

Chalk art...Haddie got very angry at anyone who added to her masterpiece. So of course a pesky little boy must then do it on purpose.

Olive is starting to look like a turtle now.

More drying time was needed so we headed in for dinner and homework. Is it crazy that I now bargain with my kids to eat their dinner or they won't get to do "homework"...so funny! I will probably have to remind them of this one day :)

I also, just for fun, decided to give them the marshmallow test. I told them they could have 1 marshmallow now, or wait until after their homework and then they would get 2. I did have to explain their choices two or three times but the triplets all decided to wait. Jericho was not part of the test, he ate his marshmallow right away, then the little turd grabbed Xander's and ate it too LOL. The trio did all their homework, then enjoyed 2 marshmallow's :)

Xander was kind enough to share some of his homework with Jericho. Jericho colored a bit on Xan's page and then I hear Xander say "Great job Jericho, Xander is so proud of you!" Awww.

The girls do a really great job, there is a bit of a difference between them and Xan right now...I really think waiting one more year for Kindy is going to be the best thing we can do for him.

It is so funny to see the differences in how each child does their work. You have Xander who only follows instructions half the time, and he colors like crazy all over everything. Hayden and Lily follow instructions almost 100%, but while Hayden is very detail oriented, colors darkly and completely, and tries very hard to stay in the lines, Lily gives a faint tiny scribble of the correct colors in the correct areas then moves on. Such smart kids though...I am so proud of them, to think that they were born 9 weeks premature and so tiny, they are amazing!

I put some finishing touches on Olive. The kiddos love her :)

May have some baseball stars on our hands!

No trip to the new house for us today, we needed a recovery day from yesterday LOL.
We have our annual Bunny pics this weekend, so we went out to find the kiddos something to wear. I couldn't believe it when I found this dress, amazingly perfect for our little Lily Bug. The only problem is making her wait until Saturday to wear it LOL.

We have my sisters wedding to go to in May, I saw this cute little jacket that I think will look adorable on Lil Man. I think it is handmade, there were no tags at all, and it just had that handmade look to it.

The buttons are really interesting too.

After lunch the littles headed outside to play. Mother Nature may have felt bad about yesterday and was making it up to me LOL. It was lovely today, the kids played hard for a good 2 1/2 hours!

Haddie tried out her new helmet...can't wait to move, they will get to do so much more bike riding.

Must have a pic with Alvin too, of course :)

They wasted no time getting dirty.

Then we had a little baseball game.

Saw some nice form out there...and some good distance on the ball too LOL.

Lily was helping to call people out or safe...she even tossed out some advice to "slide, slide!" Hahaha! Xander and Jericho spent a lot of time sliding to imaginary bases.

Lily took her turn at bat, she did pretty good and ran like heck to 1st base.

Haddie crushes it!

Lily doing some cheering as her sis "slides" into home...Hayden now knows that sliding on the hardwoods are much easier than out in the yard LOL. Then a cute high five. Bug is such a great cheer leader, she was coming up with all kinds of chants and offering lots of hugs and attempts to lift up the victor...co cute!

What a fiasco.

Yesterday went so well, stopping by the new house and putting in a few hours of work, then feeding the kiddos a PB & J sammie on the drive to school after leaving the remodel site, we decided to do it again today....and we got burned. Shortly after we arrived Jason noticed two of our tires were really low. He had already unloaded the boys, I asked him to take the girls with him...maybe I could still get some painting done if only 2/4 of the little crew were there. For some crazy reason it didn't dawn on me that I sent the more mellow children with my husband, that is until the boys started trashing the place. I mean how can you trash a practically empty house, and so quickly?!?! They found a way. The car was going to take an hour, Les Schwab is just up the road so Jason and the girls walked back to the house. I was able to get the master bath painted...but the boys had made a bit of a mess that Dad helped them clean up while I moved on to the last wall that needed paint in the master bedroom.

Jason got a call from Les Schwab...it seems the two tires were OK to pump back up but somehow both rims were cracked. Of course Les Schwab wouldn't put them back on. Jason, and Xander, walked back to Les Schwab to see what they could work out. We didn't want to buy the kind of wheels Les Schwab had, and the dealership we bought the car from didn't have any in stock. We had to order two wheels from the dealer, thankfully they gave us a loaner wheel and Les Schwab agreed to put it on one side and our spare on the other. Now Jason just had to borrow my brothers car and go pick up the loaner from the dealership...a good 30 min away, each way. Mind you hours had passed during all this...we had only planned to be there for about 3 hours, the kids were now starving for lunch...which we packed, but was in the car. And Jericho needed a diaper, which we didn't bring. So Jason got a ride from Auntie Amber first to the store to buy a pack of diapers, then out to me to drop off Xander and the lunch we packed for everyone, and then to go pick up Scott's car so he could head out to get the loaner wheel.

The kids were crazed, it was 8 hours of hell. I get that being stuck in an empty house with no toys, no TV, no nothing really sucks...then you throw in the rain so you can't go out back and play, sucks even more...but goodness. When Jason, in our car, pulled up I was so happy. I was just done, beat and ready to go home. I did manage to get the master bedroom and bathroom painted, and all the corners and spots missed in the living room and hallways. Jason got the new lights put in the bathrooms...but he was hoping to get a good start on sanding the kitchen cabinets and that didn't even get started. Now, the big question...do we try it again tomorrow???

The master bath paint drying....I love this color, and that it dries more gray and less lavender.

The kids had fun helping to clean up the mess they made. Who doesn't love a shop vac :)

The girls have already started being bossy about their bedroom. We had them coming to us to make Jericho get out of their room. It starts LOL.

Even though it was raining the munchkins still wanted to go outside.

Xander cleaned forever...it was nice, kept him busy for almost an hour LOL.

Jericho, already not following the "No Boys Allowed" rules for his sisters room. I think this battle will rage for a long time.

Yay food...we are saved. A little picnic lunch in our new house. The ONLY time the kids sat still all day.

Right back to fun and games.
My bedroom...just need to work on getting the trim white and it is DONE!

Project start to finish

Walk through.

Day 1 remodel.

Shopping trip.
2 week mark
Painting
Kids get to see house finally
More painting
Adding another project
Fiasco
Sanding start
Bathrooms just about done
Granite installed
1st coat of stain in kitchen
Kitchen cabinet bases done!
Week 7
Hardwood floor sanding round 1
Floor sanding not going so great
Floor finishing started
Floors, floors, floors
8 1/2 weeks in
Trim and doors started
Closets done
Kitchen put back together
Odds and ends
Adding the purple
Kitchen DONE before and afters

What's the harm in adding one more project.

We stopped over at the new house for a couple hours today. I was dying to see how the bathroom paint dried...which was beautiful :) Then I finished up a little more painting, while Jason got some of the counters off in the kitchen. We have maybe another 2 hours of painting to do then the whole house will be DONE.
And since we are freeing up some of our workload, Jason and I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and sand and re-stain the kitchen cabinets. Why not add more to our plate...it is only a little sanding and staining right?! LOL.

The kiddos were little PITA's, running all over the house getting into crap Hahaha.

Almost ready for the granite...that should be going in on Sunday!

We are just about done with all the "easy" stuff like painting walls. The tile is all down, still needs grout though. Trim needs to be painted, doors sanded and painted, then once the floors are sanded and the Swedish finish is on we can put all that crap back LOL. The place is really looking great, can't even believe it is the same house! It has come a long way from our first walk through.






Project start to finish

Walk through.

Day 1 remodel.

Shopping trip.
2 week mark
Painting
Kids get to see house finally
More painting
Adding another project
Fiasco
Sanding start
Bathrooms just about done
Granite installed
1st coat of stain in kitchen
Kitchen cabinet bases done!
Week 7
Hardwood floor sanding round 1
Floor sanding not going so great
Floor finishing started
Floors, floors, floors
8 1/2 weeks in
Trim and doors started
Closets done
Kitchen put back together
Odds and ends
Adding the purple
Kitchen DONE before and afters

Spring, is that you?

It was BeeeUtiful today! After school we stayed at the park for an hour playing. I actually saw some flowers, unfortunately so did the kids LOL.

 Jericho was having so much fun...he was all over the place.

Strong little man...he pointed at the bars and jumped up and down until I placed him up there.

We played a little hide and seek, Jericho needs another lesson in the art of invisibility Hehehe.

The kiddos made some new friends today at the park too.

We had a total lame mom excuse for a dinner tonight, then spent an hour doing "homework."

The trio LOVED it, and they were super good at it. I figured I would get us all used to this whole homeschooling stuff. It was fun for me even. I forgot one of my fave pretend games to play when I was a kid was being a teacher and handing out homework to my little sister and her friend. Felt like old times Hahaha.