Saturday, December 26, 2009

Give mama a sledge hammer!

December 26, 2009- Demolition Day 1!
The Demolition begins!!

Carol and Dave left this evening after our wonderful day at Jodi's. They agreed to take Owen with them so that we could get a jumpstart on the renovation. They walked out the door, and we got started!

First things first, we moved out of the blue bathroom and into the green bathroom. We have always used "blue" as our main bathroom since we moved into the house. "Green" was just an extra. I actually used the tub in "green" as storage for my teaching stuff. Matthew moved that stuff out and our shower stuff in. "Green" received a thorough cleaning, and is now in good working order. We discovered that for the most part, "green" is in much better condition than "blue" ever was.


After we got everything moved out, it was time to start demo! We started by knocking the shelves out of the big linen cabinet.
After that, we knocked out part of the wall between the cabinet and the sink. I wanted to just start swinging the sledge hammer at everything. I mean, I've watched my fair share of HGTV, I know how these things work!
Matthew informed me that this is NOT how these things work...
He did however, humor me by letting me knock the first hole in the wall! (sorry the video is sideays)

The very next hit, I broke through the wall. We missed it though because the memory card was full!

The next step was to remove the tile from the wall. Let me tell you, there was A LOT of tile in that bathroom! I started working on the tile while Matthew got things ready for the next step in the garage.

Fast forward a couple of hours, and here you can see the fruits of my labors.

Tile down... CHECK!

Renovation Day 1- DONE!

Blue

December 26, 2009


The Before Pictures- This is actually a lot less blue than it was when we moved in. Back then everything was blue, and I do mean EVERYTHING!! We made minor improvements to it at the time to make it liveable until we could afford to make the big changes that we really wanted.
For the past several months we've purchased things here and there as they went on sale. We found great deals on a lot of the bigger purchases and made compromises to ensure that we stayed on budget.










Isn't it pretty?? :)

Wow, it's dark in here!

Christmas is over. I'm a little sad, but life's not slowing down for even a minute- so I'll get over it soon! We also have lots of great new memories from the holiday season!


Wednesday Evening we celebrated Christmas with our best friends, Sara and Todd. We ate sushi (which was *quite* the experience!) and then went back to their house to celebrate with Christmas cookies, cake wrecks, and of course, presents! This year, in the spirit of simplicity and saving money, we agreed to do "homemade" Christmas. It was really nice! We got the most awesome picture frame that has a mat laser cut into our last name!! It's soo nice! It is going to go right above the doorway to the kitchen where the Christmas sign usually hangs backward for half of the year! For Sara and Todd, Matthew carved their last name into a piece of sandstone. We were really proud of how it turned out!



Christmas Eve, Matthew and I spent most of the day cooking and cleaning in preparation for our families to arrive Christmas morning. That evening, we did our annual tradition of exchanging pajamas. We all put on our new PJs and watched the Polar Express and ate popcorn. Then, we got dressed again and headed out to midnight mass.



The boys had slept in really late and they had lengthy naps, so they were able to hang in there through the mass, they were a bit irritable though. We finally made it to Communion, and we're walking back to our seats- Owen was walking behind me, and Matthew was a few people behind him. All of the sudden the entire back half of the church went black. I looked back, and Owen has turned off ALL FOUR of the light switches!! I ran back and turned them on, and of course everyone was staring at us. Owen was cracking up because he thought that the whole thing was hilarious! I was totally mortified!! Matthew later said that even though he didn't see Owen do it, he KNEW when he saw the lights go out that Owen was involved!


We came home, put the boys to bed, and prepared everything for Santa to come.


Christmas morning, we got up, ate breakfast, opened gifts and then prepared the meal. The highlight of Owen's morning was the John Deere Gator delivered by Santa!







We were blessed to spend Christmas with my parents, my grandpa, Matthew's parents, and Jodi and Brett. It was a really nice day, and I am thankful that we were able to spend time with everyone!


Saturday we celebrated Christmas with all of the Gessners at Jodi's house. We did our family exchange, (I got the most fabulous sweater slipper boots, and two new books from Jodi!!) ate yummy food, played games, and just enjoyed each other! It was another really nice day spent with family!



It's hard to stay sad about Christmas being over when we have so many happy memories to look back on.


Stay tuned for the next big project!!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Almost Here!!

I'm so excited that Christmas is almost here. I absolutely love Christmas. I love what it represents, I love the music, I love the decorations, I love it.

I don't however, love the cynicism that comes with the holidays. I don't love the snide songs talking about what a drag it all is, and I really don't love how incredibly stressed people get about Christmas. We are celebrating the birth of CHRIST here people!! It shouldn't be about how much was spent on a gift, or what you did or did not receive. It's about the miracle of Christ. I marvel when I think about how that first Christmas must have been- the humblest of beginnings. I'm in awe when I think about how frightened the Sheppards must have been when the Angel first appeared to them. I'm humbled when I think of Mary delivering her sweet child in a manger. When I put myself in the mind frame to consider these things- it really alleviates any stress that I might be feeling. It helps me to understand why we're celebrating. During one of my recent RCIA classes, Father Kevin spoke about Christmas and why we even give gifts. He said that we give gifts because we see Christ in the people that we love. I really liked that, and it seemed to really fit with the true spirit of the Holidays.

This is my first year celebrating the entire Advent season. I grew up Protestant, and sure I looked forward to Christmas all month, but it wasn't the same. This year, we're celebrating Advent. It has been such a wonderful thing. Owen and I talk about it every day, and we're helping him to count his blessings this Holiday season by celebrating a different person in our lives each and every day. It's been nice, and I think that he's enjoyed it. We started out calling each person as we celebrated them, but then with the boys getting so sick, we didn't get most of our calls made. We certainly still thought about and celebrated each person on their special day though!

Anyway, Sorry that I am just rambling today. All of these thoughts have just been rolling around in my head, so I thought that I would just write them down here. I hope that everyone has a very safe, joyful, and blessed Christmas this year.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Happy 50th!

Happy 50th Blog post to me, that is. :) I cannot believe that I've already written 50 posts. That's just lovely.

I really don't have anything witty to say today, but I was proud of myself and thought that I should mark the occasion.

Owen is under the weather again. I *think* that he might be fighting croup. He's barking like a seal and spiking fevers now and then. So far, it hasn't gotten him really down, but keep him in your prayers that his condition doesn't worsen before Christmas. (Also that the rest of us stay healthy through the holidays!!!) He had croup REALLY bad last February. It was super scary, so I am praying hard it doesn't come to that again.

Have a wonderful day, my wonderful blog readers. It's been really fun hearing your feedback these past few months. I hope you're all still enjoying the peeks into our little world. :)