Basement Update

The Pool Table is in Position!

And, it wasn't pretty...

October 30, 2009

Kendall had her Fall Party today, with a costume parade and songs, and a gym full of craft and activity tables run by the moms. It was tons of fun. Grandma P's costume (lamb) was a hit. However, the dress drew so many compliments! Kendall and I ran errands all afternoon and everyone we made eye contact with had something to say about Kendalls halloween/Hello Kitty dress. It was just too cute!

Mark took today off to start on the main part of the floor. He wants to move the pool table back into place yet tonight since we're renting the dollies. The first picture was taken at 5pm. The second picture, from about the same perspective, was taken at 8:15pm. He has the rest of the weekend to finish: the playroom, storage/bedroom, and down the hallway. He's doing a great job! I've got the easy job: feeding him and keeping his water cup filled. :)

October 29, 2009

Soo many pictures! We rented dollies from Mason's Billiards and Barstools to move the pool table out of the way. It was kind of scary seeing it hoisted up like that. We should have cleaned up Mark's jack for the photos! :)








Then the kids and I carved our pumpkins tonight. I actually bought a pumpkin carving set with the little knives and scoops. Oh, my goodness! Why didn't I do that years ago! Carving and cleaning out the pumpkins was a breeze! I even did one of the design patterns that came with the set and carved a cool cat on Kendall's pumpkin. We lit the pumpkins up to "test" them out and the kids were thrilled. Halloween can't come soon enough!

October 28, 2009

Mark is anxious....he's supposed to wait 48 hours to let the laminate get acclimated to the environment. Well, I guess he just couldn't wait any longer!

Kendall had picture day at school. Jacob and I surprised Mark with a visit at his work. We then shopped both Gymborees in the area looking for particular things on behalf of Kim for Kennedy(and Kendall and Jacob!) and ran into relatives: Uncle Euie and Aunt Sally and cousin Linda. :) The lady who came out and measured 10 days ago for carpet and countertops finally stopped over this afternoon with her estimates (that's the last we will be seeing of her). A neighbor girl (Izzy) came over to play for a little bit. Fixed a good pork chop dinner. I had a great time at book club tonight.

It was a busy, fun day. We'll see what tomorrow brings...

October 27, 2009

Well, I borrowed Dad's big pick-up truck and went up to Adrian to purchase our laminate flooring! Good thing Dad's truck is 'Heavy Duty'....it was filled up! And, it was very nice of Dad to show up, unannounced, just as Mark was getting home from work to help carry it all down to the basement.

I picked up Jacob from school (but couldn't find him - long story). Then, we had an impromptu photo op. in our leaves. The kids had a blast burying each other and jumping into our little pile, over and over! What fun!

October 26, 2009

Jacob had an eye exam this morning. He failed the vision screening twice at school, so we were notified by the school nurse of a potential issue. Yes. He needs glasses. He is +4.50 in one eye and about perfect in the other eye. That is what is called having a "lazy eye" (refractive amblyopia). He gets this from his mother, who gets this from Grandpa C, as well. We picked out some eyeglasses in the afternoon.

Jacob just thought he was pretty cool to wear special 'shades' while his eyes were dialated! :)

October 25, 2009

Yesterday brought us Jacob's last soccer game - and it was the first that he didn't score at least one goal. Way to go, Jacob. It was such a fun season to watch Jacob improve and get aggressive.

Yesterday afternoon was Uncle Les' memorial in Pittsford, MI. We mingled a bit with family (why don't we get together more often?) over desserts at the church.

On the way home, we stopped at a large flooring outlet in Adrian. We brought a bunch of samples of laminate flooring home to see what matches the best.

Today, Grandma & Grandpa P came over and we just lounged. I've been fighting a cold and have felt yucky, so Mark actually did the "necessity" grocery shopping. What a guy!

The kids had fun helping clean and organize in the basement (photo).

October 23, 2009

Today was uneventful. The weather was dark, dreary, rainy, cold. I cleaned the house and did lots of laundry. Leftovers (the delicious pork roast) for dinner.

Mark laid the laminate pad down the hallway and in the bar/eating area tonight. I did get a call back today from Megan's uncle who installs granite (not laminate!:) ) and worked up an estimate for us. Of course, it's a lot of money. Of course, it would look beautiful. Of course, we will continue pricing other options. Still waiting for Perrysburg Floor to call back with pricing....hmmm...

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

October 22, 2009

Mark started laying the underlayment pad for the laminate floor in the basement today.

The kids and I went over to Grandma & Grandpa P's. While we were there, we made a side trip to the flooring place that they have used recently in all their renovations. I got some prices on carpeting and a general range for the laminate. For some reason, we haven't heard back from the woman who came out on Saturday to measure for carpet, laminate, and countertops from Perrysburg Flooring. She mentioned that she would get back to us with a price by Tuesday. Maybe she's taking her time, working up a REALLY good deal! :)

October 21, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIM! (my wonderful SIL)

Both kiddos had school today, I tried to catch up on some laundry and straighten up the house. The weather was beautiful, so the kids played outside after school - it felt so good. Tonight was bunko, which I forgot about as I put a pork roast in the crockpot this morning. I didn't eat the whole meal, but the roast was sooo tender, it cut and melted in your mouth like butter. I have yet to figure out why some roasts cook up like that and others are like a sole of a shoe...one of life's mysteries! :)

I was off to bunko....Michelle always hosts the October bunko because she goes ALL OUT at Halloween....fully decorated to the hilt. We were to wear a costume and I went as the Swine/H1N1 Flu. Kendall colored my pig ears for me.

October 20, 2009

It was a beautiful day today - perfect for pumpkin picking! I DID find that farmhouse (Co Rd C (aka Archbold-Whitehouse) & 5-1) and bought all our pumpkins for 10 cents/pound. Now, he didn't have huge ones, but they were just fine for us. The largest weighed 22 lbs. The kids had fun picking them out. Oh, and I must retract from my earlier post: the owner has a full set of very nice teeth, just a little scruffy!

Aunt Bev called before we left and invited us over for lunch with her and Uncle Jim in their newly remodeled kitchen. Perfect timing! Kelsie was there, too. The sloppy joes and other goodies were delicious. The kitchen was fabulous. And the kids gobbled up their ice cream sandwiches. Thanks, Aunt Bev!

As we returned home, Grandma & Grandpa P. were just walking up to our front door. Perfect timing, again! Grandma P. brought over Kendall's Halloween costume that she made: a lamb. It is adorable. Kendall had it on tonight and looked very cute. Thanks, Grandma!

I also purchased a used laptop on eBay tonight. Oh, my! Now, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it's a good one....it was $80 less than the average selling price of 42 laptops I have "watched" on eBay over the last 5 days. Hmmm....we'll see how it is when I get it! Again, fingers crossed!

(I also fixed the photos on last week's post of Kendall's field trip...the pictures were erroring.)

October 19, 2009

<---Photo of Jacob's drawing. It looks like the car is running into the guy, but he says, "No, the man owns the car." I helped in Jacob's classroom today. It went well and was very interesting to observe the children, the classroom, the teacher.

It was our turn to "boo" the neighbors tonight. Kendall was sooooo excited and couldn't wait for it to get dark (at 7:30pm, I'm sad to point out). I had to peel Jacob away from Guitar Hero (he was playing with Mark). We all had fun sneaking up to the 2 houses, leaving our treats, ringing the door bell, and RUNNING! Kendall was especially good at this....the kept hushing Jacob so that we would be quiet and not get caught. However, her light-up sneakers were kind of a give-away! :)

October 18, 2009

Right before bed tonight, our doorbell rings. We were "boo'd!" Someone left a bucket of awesome goodies and ran. Now, it is our turn to "boo" a neighbor (or two). We've been boo'd every year, even before Jacob was born, and I have yet to find out who it was. They are very sneaky! Jacob & Kendall are fighting over who we will "boo." We might have to have a coin toss in the morning to decide...then, I have to shop!
The kids are yelling, "Boo!" in the picture. :)

It was a pleasant day for Jacob's soccer game. Mark mowed the grass and stained more woodwork. He thinks he's officially done with the mouldings.

The Boo poem:
BOO
The air is cool, the season is fallsoon Boo's will come to all.
The treat that came with the special noteIs yours to keep, enjoy them both.
The fun comes with friends like you, now copy this and make it two.
Then others here among our friends, will give warm fuzzies that will never end.
We'll all have smiles upon our face,no one will know who BOOed each place.
Just one short day to work your fun,or a big ZAP will strike, SO RUN!
And don't forget a nifty treat,like something cute or something sweet.
Please join the fun, let's really hear it,and spread some Boo's and lot's of spirit.


Directions:1. Enjoy your treat.2. Place the picture of your BOO on your front door.3. Now you have 24 hours to copy this twice, make 2 treats and 2 BOO's and secretly deliver them to 2 neighbors who do not have BOO on their front door.4. Then watch how far this spreads by Halloween.

October 17, 2009

Does it count that I'm posting pictures from LAST Saturday? This was the girl's-get-away, as photographed by Angel. The last pic looks like I am barely standing, but I promise, I wasn't that bad!! :)

The countertop/carpet lady came today to measure and brought samples of materials. All I can see is dollar signs!...though she will give us all the pricing by Tuesday. Yikes. Of course, the countertop we like is better than what's in our kitchen and the carpet quality seemed overkill to me for in the basement. I would love to have that carpet in my family room! We will definitely be doing some tweaking in materials and other estimates.

Mark cut all the baseboard molding today - until he ran out of it. Another run to Menards is on our schedule for tomorrow. Other than that, we had a quiet day at home with no excursions or other 'productivity.' I made tacos for dinner, so the kiddos were happy.

We'll see what tomorrow brings...

October 16, 2009

Can you pick Kendall out of the crowd? The preschool classes had field trips to the post office and the police station today. Kendall said, afterwards, that it was a little boring. Honestly, I think the kids were too young for such a field trip. Kendall actually suggested, "going to see flowers or butterflies" as a better field trip. I agree!

Mark came home from his trip around 2pm. Our appointment with a countertop/carpet lady had to be postponed until tomorrow, so we went to a flooring "outlet," Home Depot, and the Andersons to get some ideas for the basement. It seems we are on the home stretch now.

October 15, 2009

Jacob bought his lunch today, making it two days in a row (remember, he goes to school every other day). OK, maybe his lunch account will be drained sooner than I thought! :)

Mark is gone for work, so we headed over to my parents tonight. They fed us and I helped Dad put one of his cars on eBay. It's a 1953 Jeep Willys military vehicle that the McClure (Ohio) fire department used for brush fires/snow plowing since 1976. The truck has an interesting history and paperwork (if Dad can find it :)) to document it. Within a 1/2 hour he had a few bids.

October 14, 2009

We are on our second batch of Halloween candy! I love this time of year when I can get the Palmer's bulk Halloween chocolates at Meijer. You can choose a variety of gross body parts (my favorite is a big hairy ear) and other Halloween themes. Yum! Tonight after a good dinner, Jacob asked if he could have an eyeball and some lips for dessert. Any other time of year, that question would be pretty far-out!

Kendall and Jacob were not getting along today. Kendall came to find me and her story went something like this, "I want to be the boss. Jacob won't let me be the boss. I have a game and I want to be boss. Jacob doesn't want to play it. He says I'm little and he's a big boy. But I'm a big girl and want to be boss." Oh, boy.

Jacob's kindergarten teacher called tonight and I'm going to help in his room on the Monday's he has school. That should be interesting! I'm looking forward to it.

Mark ate dinner with us and then left for two nights for work. Sooo, I put the kids to bed early, got my p.j.'s on, and opened a bottle of wine. Next, is to read for a while. ahhhh....

When Mark gets home on Friday, we have someone coming in to measure the countertops and flooring for some estimates. Woo Hoo! I have to give Mark credit - he's been working in the basement until about 10 or 11 every night. It is really starting to come together. Just about all the base boards and other misc. molding/woodwork is done. There's one cabinet door (back of the audio cabinet) that he's trying to figure out. I have uploaded recent basement pictures HERE (scroll down to the most recent - doors/woodwork ones).

October 13, 2009

This is how Jacob is supposed to sleep. Last night he slept-walked. He's done it a few times before without much ado. However, last night he proceeded to go to the bathroom in our kitchen garbage can...he lifted the lid like he does the toilet seat! Mark and I were a bit shocked...Mark yelled and woke him up. I guess you're not supposed to do that, but in the 'heat of the moment' it was the only reaction we had! After doing a little research online and posting a question about it on Facebook, it now seems like this is very common in boys. Hopefully, we'll grow out of this soon!

Speaking of growing, Jacob also went to Nathan's house right after school today. That was a first. He's such a homebody that he usually just wants to go home after school(and have Nathan come to our house). I'm glad he finally felt comfortable enough to leave me at the bus stop and go home with Nathan. Also, he bought lunch in the cafeteria for the first time today. Again, his comfort level is building which is a good thing. However, school lunches cost $2.25 - seems expensive to me! At this rate, though, it will take him all year to use up the $20 I put on his lunch account.

October 12, 2009

I'm filled with fond memories of Uncle Les, who passed away this afternoon, and loving prayers for my cousins, mom, and aunts. The events of the day pale in comparison.

October 9, 2009

Rain, rain go away!
We want to see Haley crowned today!

We ended up skipping the rainy football game, but caught up with Haley at Clark & Sandy's house. She was ecstatic to be homecoming queen, following in her sister's footsteps. :)

Kendall is V.I.P. (Very Important Preschooler) next week in class, so she brought home Teddy for the weekend. Teddy will be joining Kendall on all her fun adventures, we are to take pictures, and record what Teddy did in a journal to share in class on Monday. Kendall is thrilled.

I am "off-duty" 'this weekend - I'm going to a neighbor's lake cottage with 6 women. I am VERY much looking forward to it. And, I think Mark is looking forward to having the kids all to himself. He has instructions to take pictures for the bliggity-blog! :)

October 8, 2009

Today was cold, damp, and blah! After Kendall and I ran errands in the morning, I had the perfect pick-me-up for Kendall: a spa treatment! (kind of) She's been asking for a bubble bath, so we ran a huge bath. She frolicked while I cleaned in the bathroom and filed my nails! After the bath, we slathered on lots of good smelling lotion. Then, I painted her finger and toe nails (which she requested a different color for each!). Finally, I blow dried her hair. It was a lot of fun, for both of us!

Oh, the final stop in our morning errands was to get some ice cream for being so good.....so, it was truly a good day! :)

October 7, 2009

It was a math & science day today! While Kendall was in preschool, Jacob and I did a classic experiment: we threaded a straw with a 10 ft. string; tied the string, taut, between two chairs; taped a balloon to the straw; let go of the balloon and watched how fast the straw traveled between the chairs. Jacob is really interested in airplanes, so this "jet" action was right up his alley. Then, we progressed to taping the balloon to his paper airplanes, letting go, and watching them fly around the house.

Then, Mom & Dad C. stopped by tonight. Jacob showed off his math skills with Grandpa. A little algebra was thrown in for fun!

October 6, 2009

Can you tell I'm not running? I'm keeping the blog up-to-date AND baking homemade cookies! (...and cleaning the house, and reading a book, and sewing miscellany projects, and...feeling guilty for not running!)

October 5, 2009

Jacob was home from school, so we went to "Playground World" with playgroup in the morning while Kendall was at preschool.

This after noon, I tackled the laundry room....it is clean and sparkly now. It gets to a point where I leave the laundry room "angry" because it's such a mess. Ugh.

Then, we all went to the library. I didn't take our current supply of library books back - they aren't due for a couple weeks. I just needed to pick up "Finding Faith" by Jodi Picoult for the church book club. However, we left with another armload of books. Luckily, we keep pretty good track of them all.

Mark is installing molding around the doors that he and his dad hung on Saturday. It's looking good!

October 4, 2009

Sundays are pretty slow-paced around here. We did head out to Menards and purchased oak bi-fold/louvered doors for the furnace room in the basement, as well as a faucet for the bar sink, and a bunch of molding.

At home, Mark worked out in the garage staining all of our wood purchases. I finally sewed up blankets for the kids. They've been waiting patiently for me to do that for them since they picked out the fabric a month or so ago!

Then, I helped Mark finish staining the louvered doors, which involved a q-tip to try and get in all the grooves and crevices.

Dinner was homemade chicken noodle soup. Yum!

October 3, 2009

Wow! This weather about has me homebound! Cold. Damp. Windy. Jacob had to be at his soccer game today an hour early for team pictures. Jacob wasn't so bothered by the weather, he was running around scoring one of the two goals from his team! However, I was ready for a hot cup of tea when we got home after two hours on the soccer field.

I enjoyed my tea with Mark's mom. They had come over so Mark's dad could help hang the rest of the doors in the basement. While the men were working we took the kids to JoAnn Fabrics and to Toys R Us. I think I mentioned we resorted to bribery to help Jacob stop his tears at school. It worked and he earned his reward from Grandma: an army aircraft carrier. It was on his Christmas list last year, so he was thrilled.

October 2, 2009

Just found this video of Jacob singing:

October 1, 2009

Well, October is here and it sure did announce itself! Our weather has been unseasonably cold and blustery, down to 35 at night. I love being chilly at night and crawling into cold sheets! However, we did turn on the furnace last night....but kept it cool, just not "make-my-nose-run" cold. Fall is definitely my favorite season.

I did my seasonal decorating around the house. We will add our pumpkins a little later in the month. I'm hoping to find the old, rickety farmhouse (straight from a Halloween story) out in the middle of nowhere (well, between Swanton & Delta) where I found pumpkins for 10 cents/pound two years ago. Wow! The kids and I went traipsing through the country side last year with no luck of finding the place. However, I believe I passed it in May on my way home from Archbold. With any luck, we'll find it again....and the nice, old geezer (with no teeth) running the farm will still be around selling pumpkins!

September 30, 2009

Now, onto Jacob's latest obsession: PAPER AIRPLANES. They are everywhere....on the floor, in the chairs, on the counter, behind the couch, on his dresser, in his closet, and on and on. I had him gather some up (yes, there are more!) and get a picture with them. To fuel the fire, he picked out some "how-to" books on building paper airplanes last week at the library. It is fun to have flying contests with all his different models.

Kendall was with me today as I got pulled over by the Maumee police. I turned left into a local gas station, across a double yellow line. The police officer pulled up behind me with lights flashing at the pump. Luckily, he just gave me a warning. You tell me there are no police/traffic violation quotas on the last day of September!

September 29, 2009

The kids and I cleaned house this morning. Jacob picked up his room and vacuumed it. Kendall cleaned doorknobs. Everyone was busy! Then, in the afternoon, we busted out the paints and got the house all messy again! Jacob painted a huge picture of the lake.

Also, here's video of Kendall dancing today. She has moved on to other music. Note how she has the door to the office closed....I am literally a captive audience!

September 28, 2009

Kendall's obsession: Dancing! She has mastered Beyonce's "Single Ladies" song. She found the music video online and plays it over and over again. She even points to her ring finger with the lyrics! I have no idea where she gets it from.

We went for a walk yesterday, Kendall and I. I asked her what way she wanted to go and she says, "The Beyonce way." Oh, my. Then, she was telling me we were on Beyonce Street. Oh, my.