Lent and Strep

Booker and some other kids at school must have been talking about Lent because he came home with the bold statement that he is giving up his Kindle for Lent.  If you understood his addiction to this certain electronic device, you would be as shocked as I was.  I went on and on about how that was a great choice because you should give up something that is really hard to give up.  Something that you don't even want to say outloud.  Something that makes you want to cry just thinking about it.  The Kindle was the perfect thing!  All is good.  Until.... he asked me what I was going to give up.  I wish I hadn't given him that long speech.  Pop.  There.  I said it.  And it hurts.  I've had at least one pop a day since I can remember... and that dates back to when I was about Booker and Bodey's age.  I guess you could say I have a slight problem.  But I had to give up something that was hard for me, and that was it.  Bodey was forced to give up his Kindle as well.  He has a problem, too.  On Thursday, one day into his intervention, I went to wake him up.  He was already awake, but still in bed.  When I came in he said, "I just want to stay in bed for 39 more days!"  Poor guy.  It's going to be a long 40 days.  For all of us.  But, I also explained the importance of giving something up, or sacrificing.  It helps us turn our focus back to God.  I wanted them to know and remember that, so whenever they think it's hard, they can pray.  Not sure if it's working, but the seed was planted.

Last night Booker suddenly had a sore throat.  We've been there done that with this kid.  I knew immediately that it was strep.  Again.  For the 4th time in 5 months.  We went to the dr. this morning and discussed some options we have.  One is trying to completely kill the bacteria that he may be harboring with a long, strong dose of antibiotics.  The other option is having his tonsils taken out.  I'm not opposed to either.  I'm really tired of the poor guy being sick and missing school.  So is he.  Dusty is all for getting the tonsils out and just being done with it.  I guess time shall tell.

And, like I always say... I will get to posting updates on the house.  I'm so far behind on it, I'm overwhelmed.  But, the most important thing is that we are now at least living in our house, which is one of the best feelings ever.  Gets our lives somewhat back to normal.  If there is such thing.

Redneck Vocab

Bodey starts the majority of his sentences with whelp (well) or sope (so).

I just wanted to document that so in case he ever changes, we will remember.  :)

We have been having a lot of quality family time lately.  We got about 9" or so of snow on Tuesday, so the boys didn't have school.  It has been windy and cold with windchills below zero, so they have been out of school Wednesday and today, too.  They are out tomorrow for teacher in service.  However, since it is so cold, they've been locked up inside, with nothing to do but fight with each other.  Fun times!

A Plethera of Information

Two little comments from today:

Booker (who hasn't won a wrestling match all season) to Bodey (who has been placing and got his first gold today):  "Doesn't it feel good to get a gold, Bode?"

And out of nowhere Bodey came up to me and said, "Mom, you and your friends are skinny."  Love him.

Booker's wrestling season isn't going so well.  He is a young 8U, which apparently he heard me say, and is now mentally defeated going into every match.  He just doesn't think he can beat an 8yo.  We repeatedly tell him we don't know how old they are, only how much they weigh.  They weigh the same as he does (except for today when they combined the 61 pounders with the 67 pounders), and it doesn't matter how old they are, but how hard they try.  He's just not even trying, which is frustrating when you know his potential.  Today in his first match he just gave up and got pinned.  Didn't even try to roll over to his stomach.  I was NOT happy, had a long talk with him and took his electronics away from him while he waited for his next match in the stands.  His next match he went out there with passion and tried SO hard, but ended up losing by points.  And this kid was 8yo and weighed 6 more pounds than Booker.  We were totally pumped and so proud.  Then he lost his next two matches by not really trying again.  He's a work in progress, but I'm really trying to work on his self esteem.  He's really been a negative, glass half empty kind of guy lately.  :(

Bodey is an old 6U, and this is his 3rd year, which is kinda rare for 6U.  Physically, Bodey is a beast.  Mentally, Bodey is 6.  So, you never really know what you're gonna get.  But, this season he has been getting closer and closer to that gold, and really growing mentally.  He actually understands and has more emotion, and had his eye set on gold.  Today, he wrestled a tough kid who he has never beat, but been beaten by twice - and Bodey pinned him!  Then, he pinned his 2nd kid.  Now it was up to him to beat his teammate and friend for 1st place.  These two had to wrestle each other last weekend, too, and Bodey barely beat him by 1 point.  This weekend the other kid wanted revenge.  I don't mean to be Debbie Downer here, but I really just thought Bodey would lose because he probably had a chip on his shoulder from last weekend, and this kid wanted revenge SO BAD!  It's so hard when your child wrestles teammates.  Especially when they are friends, and you really like the parents too.  I honestly think it's hardest on the moms.  We are nervous by nature.  Long story short, Bodey was losing until the last second and got 2 back points to win the match by 1 point!  HIS FIRST GOLD and he deserved it!

I know I am severely behind on blogging.  We have been super busy with the house, and hope to move in within the next 3 weeks or so.  Once things settle down, I will post more pics.

Never Dull Moment With This One!

Bodey brings a lot of action to the table.  He's crazy, energetic, and you just never know what's gonna be next.

Like for instance, the time he busted out a window in our new house!  Yes, someday we will laugh.  I was in the garage when I heard an extremely loud bang.  I thought that better not be what it sounded like.  Low and behold, I walk outside to see a broken window... and kids nowhere in sight!  I just yelled BOYS!!!!  They both came running around the corner, Bodey just saying, "Just ground me, just ground me!" over and over again.  Booker claimed his innocence.  Somehow a piece of 2"x4" hooked to a sting got sling-shotted (that's a word now) through the window.  Seems like a step backwards in the house remodel, and the $295 repair job stung a little, but this, too, shall pass.

Last year at flag football, he was completely lost 100% of the time.  This season, he threw a touchdown pass, ran a couple of touchdowns, and pulled several flags.  He was on it.  Today, when I asked him how many flags he got, he said 3 and 1 tackle.  I said I thought he had another one and his response was, "Yeah, I saw that.  The quarterback dropped the ball.  That's when I was the rusher."  Slight improvement from last year!!!

And, most surprising of all, Bodey and school.  This is an equation that I wasn't quite sure what the answer would be.  Last year of daycare = total wreck.  1st year of preschool = my worst nightmare.  2nd year of preschool = improved behavior, no interest in academics.  Kindergarten?  Well, short of being told he needed to learn self control the first week of school, it has actually been (knock on wood), FANTASTIC!  He is totally digging it, academics and all!  Something has clicked with Bodey.  He is sounding out every word he sees, and says his favorite activity is reading.  HUH?!?!  Crazy, I know.  But, I'm so excited!  I've only had one call from the principal (for something I didn't really agree that he should have gotten in trouble for anyways) and his report card was fairly decent.  Great on all the academics... so-so on the behavior stuff.  :)  Either way, I'll take it!

Remodel Updates

SHOP

The shop went up in 4 days.  I still can't believe those guys were so fast!

Ground Zero

Start of Day 1

 

 

End of Day 1

 

End of Day 2

 

End of Day 3

End of Day 4

LIVINGROOM:

So far in the livingroom, we have scraped popcorn ceilings, pulled carpet, raised the ceiling from 8' to 11', sheetrocked, painted ceiling, re-did trim, painted the walls and got hardwood floors.

Before - 8' ceiling, stained trim, carpet

Raised ceiling

It wasn't in our budget to replace all the trim in the house with the higher baseboard.  Thankfully, Pinterest showed me how to make faux tall baseboard.  Looked kinda funny at first.

But it turned out!

 

 

Painted

 

With hardwoods!

DINING/KITCHEN:

Dining - Before

Added chair rail and boxes

 

With paint and hardwoods

 

Kitchen - Before

Took out old countertops
 

Replaced with granite countertops

And siligranite sink

Dusty cut the panels out of these cabinets.  I don't really like them, but I need to keep them for storage purposes.  So, we are putting glass in the panels to help open it up.  Today the painters started on re-doing our cabinets!

 

 

And, we still have a long way to go, but at least we are out of demo mode and moving forward!  The basement is about 4-6 weeks behind the upstairs, but we hope to move into the upstairs after the basement is sheetrocked.  Oh, and then there's tile.  We have a lot of tiling to do, too.  And painting.  Ugh.

Progress

I have to start out by saying my husband is incredible.  This guy can do it all.  Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, framing, sheetrock/tape/mud, layout, tile, etc.  But, most of all, he can visualize anything and have a little map drawn out in his head of what needs to happen and when.  I'd be completely lost without him.  Ok, I'm still lost, but I know he knows exactly what needs to be next.  I'm so glad we don't have to hire someone to design and map this house out for us.  So far, we have made a great team.... we have a history of fighting when doing these kinds of projects together.  I just have to do what he tells me to and all is good.  :)   I also can't imagine how burnt out Dusty is.  He goes to work at the butt crack of dawn, works all day, then goes straight to the new house and works on it until about 9-9:30 every night.  Then he puts in 14 hour days on the weekends.  Right now we can't even imagine what it will feel like for this house to be done and to get to actually RELAX in it!

Pulling up linoleum.  We also had to pull up the wood underlay to get to the subfloor.  And then I had to go back and nail down about 10,000 little nail/staple thingys.

If you look at the picture above, behind Dusty on the pink wall is where the pantry door will be.  It's kind of scary to watch him just take a sawzall to the wall.

And whala!  There is our pantry door opening.

I scraped all the popcorn off the ceilings.

This is the old office closet looking in to the old laundry room (left) and the master bathroom (right).

It is all one room now that will all be the master bathroom.

In the picture above where Dusty cut out the pantry opening, you can see this wall before we took it out.  It was a half wall with weird wooden shelving above it.

Now it is gone.  :)  Look at Booker being such a helper!

The stairs to the basement were originally in the garage.  So Dusty moved them inside.  Again, scary to just cut a huge hole in the floor of your house.

But, it all worked out.  Can I just tell you that I can't believe Dusty designed these stairs?  A lot goes in to it.  Degrees, angles, rise, run, # of risers, etc.  And it all has to follow code.  Impressive.

We are filling the old stairway so it will be more garage space.

And, where the old stairs were can now be a storm shelter or gun safe room.

The whole house had 8' ceilings, which isn't the end of the world, but I wanted at least room to have higher ceilings.  So we raised the ceiling in the livingroom 3'.  It really made a big difference!

And my current project is tearing out the old carpet, pad, and tack board.

Now What, Supermom?

You've seen it.  You've probably thought about trying it.  Well, today, at my wits end, I tried it.  The Get Along Shirt.  You see, my boys have started digging my grave.  And it's time for school to start.  Ask me two weeks ago and I would have nearly been teary-eyed at the thought of my time off with my precious boys coming to an end.  Not any more.  They be bad.  Real bad.  So I tried it.

 Aren't they cute?  Well, probably because that, my friends, is not a picture of my heathens.  That is some other Supermom's heathens.  This Supermom didn't think of taking a picture when I first put the shirt on them.  And, no, I didn't take any special craft time to neatly write anything on the front of their cutesy shirt.

 Our shirt started out looking like the other Get Along Shirts, and ended up looking like this.  And do they appear to be getting along any better?  I didn't think so either.

But then, this!  They found a use for the Get Along Shirt.  And this "getting along" lasted all of about 2.3 seconds. 

So, Supermom, I'd like to know what brilliant idea I should try next.