Chritsmas Eve

J and Jd were here for Christmas and Christmas eve this year. We had so much fun celebrating and doing our family traditions. I really loved that all of my children were here for the holiday. First tradition: pajamas so that Christmas morning pictures are taken with new and not faded pajamas. We each got our favorite things:
Mom- Tinkerbell Dad-Broncos

Jd- XBox

J- MW3, well they were camo but they represented MW3.

C- Broncos

K- princess

Tradition # 2- frost cookies for Santa to eat when he comes

Jd-not really wanting to make or frost cookies this year. I guess being 14 is being able to decide what traditions you do not want to be part of.

Tradition #3-make the cookies that need to be frosted for Santa when he comes. J took over this and was cute with K and C, he was teaching them how to roll out the cookies and cut them out. I really almost cried, but was able to hold it together until they went to bed that night. He is turning into an adult and it makes me a little sad. The fact that he is so responsible and so sweet to his little brother and sister makes me happy though.

I found the coolest website that sent C and K certificates and letters from Santa. It was so cute. They even got a portion of the nice list with their name on it. It was so awesome. C was starting to not believe this year and I think this helped us last one more year.

My room

Since we were updating so much, I wanted something new for our room. Here is the before picture. I found this bedding set at Sam's Club for $150.00! I was so excited. It included all of the pillows, shams and sheets. It even had a valance that I did not need. I found these curtains on clearance for $8 a panel and I used the blackout curtain we had up before and put it behind the chocolate ones. It is easier to sleep during the day if it is darker.

Huge difference and all I changed was the bedding. I think I found the best bargain ever!

C's new room

C decided that he wanted a blue room. I had found some outer space vinyl and her decided that he would love to have an outer space room. Here is what he room looked like. He does not like green and complained about it just about every day. Since we are renting, we wanted to make sure we were going to stay before we made any changes. First thing to go was the awful wallpaper boarder. I am not a huge wallpaper fan, and this was not really that pretty.

I painted the ceiling a really dark blue almost black. Then we put the vinyl planets and stars on the ceiling. So when he looks up at the ceiling, it is like looking into outer space.

The walls are a grey blue color, kind of like the sky. Blaine got a Walmart gift card for Christmas from work, so we got C new bedding, a bench with bins for his toys and a new lamp, without spending any extra money.

I found dark blue curtains on clearance, and he got the wall tracks for Christmas. I found some material at Hobby Lobby and made a cover for the window seat cushion.

He loves his new room. He really likes that he has two places for people to sleep, so he can have a friend sleep over. I was so happy to see the excitement on his face with every step that we finished!

Flood and remodel

So after moving into our rental in October of last year, our home flooded 4 times in less than one year. The first flood was over Christmas Eve. After the fourth flood, on father's day, we were tired or moving our furniture and belongings around every month to accommodate the areas that were flooded in the basement. So, Blaine and our amazing neighbors decided to find out what the cause of the flooding was. They dug up the french drain (translation-the tube that is suppose to drain the water from the back of the lot to the street) and found that it did not lead to to street. It led to the window wells between our homes. They dug a trench and rerouted the drain and we have not had a flood since (knock on wood here). It has been 8 months so I am hoping that the problem is solved, but we will see. During this last flood, I was convinced that there has to be mold growing because of all of the flooding. So I made Blaine throw out the carpet and pull the baseboards off the rooms that flooded the worst. AND...yep, I was right. So here comes the remodel. The good news, we are planning on buying the house so all of our supplies and labor are going towards the down payment (nice). This is the older boys/guest room.
I mixed up the pictures when I was loading them but there is the baseboards removed on the bottom and then the sheet rock cut out on the top.

This is the room with new sheet rock and paint. K wanted to help, so she drew pictures all over the walls. I thought they turned out pretty well so I took some pictures for her before we painted over them.

Here is the room with paint finished. SO much better. I love the paint that I picked. It adds so much warmth and color to the room.

Here is the room with beds and curtains. I got some vinyl for the walls of baseball guys but since the walls have the orange peel texture, they did not stick very well. I am still looking for something that is sports themed that I like to put on the walls, but at least it looks like a boy room for now.

This is the office/craft room. This room had the most damage and took the longest to finish. We had to cut out the sheet rock from every wall in this room. The drain was right outside of this window well and I think that this contributed to the mess in this room.

Still a mess!

Here is the sheet rock finished and waiting on paint. Still a mess!

Here is the finished room. The flooring is tile that looks like wood. I love it. The best part, if it floods in there again, I do not have to tear anything up!

My craft closet, LOVE it. Thank you Ann and Steve. I definitely love the shelves.

Here is the great room. We had to use this to store all of our stuff that went in the other two rooms for months. So we pretty much were not able to use most of the basement for most of the summer.

Another view of the great room/storage room. We have so much crap!

Here is the remodel. Definition: the man cave. Blaine loves this room. His brother Steve gave him the projector and screen and he is positive that he can never have a smaller TV now.

Here is another view of the man cave. So much better without all of the other stuff in it.

We love the way the basement turned out. I just wish that we did not have to have a major amount of damage to get it to this point.

Halloween

This Halloween we had a ninja and a princess at our house. K wanted me to be in a picture with her, so here is one of the rare photos of me. Here is our ninja. He is the white ninja from G.I. Joe. He was really excited to wear this costume, he could not wait for Halloween when it came.

Here are the two trick or treaters posed together. K wanted to pretend to be like C so she is holding her arm in the air like him.

Here is k all by herself. My awesome sister made her costume. She is a pink princess, her most favorite thing in the world. She told everyone she was "Seeping Ueauty" for Sleeping Beauty.

They had so much fun, K was old enough to enjoy going to each door and getting candy. I tried really hard to get rid of all the candy I bought to pass out, but they brought home double what I bought.