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.

Temple

So we walked out of our ward party tonight and this was the view. This beautiful temple is just a few minutes from our home, really walking distance. Kayla told me she wanted to go to that castle to see the prince. I told her it was the temple. So she said she wanted to go anyway. I told her that she could not go inside until she was ready to get married. So she told me she wanted to go get married to a prince because she was dressed like a princess after all. I told her she had to wait until she was grown up. she told me that she was grown up now. I told her she had to be bigger. She said, "Oh, like when I go on the big rides at Lagoon?" I told her when she went to college and was big like Heather, (her cousin that just got married) she could go to the temple and get married to her prince. She seemed to be ok with that answer. She then asked if she could stay up and watch a movie or if she had to go to bed. I sure love that little girl even if she does drive me nuts!

Halloween Party

Tonight we had our ward Halloween party and chili cook-off. Kayla and Cayden were so excited to dress up in their costumes. They have been very patient, I have not let them play with them because I did not want them ruined before Halloween. Cayden is a white Ninja and Kayla is a pink princess. If you ask her, she is Sleeping Beauty.

Here they are posing after the party. Kayla had to pose too because she follows everything that Cayden does, he hates it (at least that is what he says, I think he loves it really!)

Her is my princess getting ready for the ball.

She has her golden sparkly princess slippers on and her beautiful crown. She knows she is beautiful. Whenever anyone told her how pretty she was at the party, all she said was, "I know!" Then she would show them her earrings and her necklace. She got to wear mommy's real pearl necklace and hoop earrings so she thought she was a rock star!

Football

Cayden was so excited to play flag football this fall. When he brought he flyer home from school, he asked me every day if I had signed him up yet. Mind you this was at least 2 months of asking, he brought it home the beginning of August and the sign-up were not until the end of September. He had a clinic on the basics to start off the season, and then they had games for 5 weeks. he had so much fun. The team only won one game, but I just asked if he had fun after every game. He never said they lost, he always said, "Mom, I had so much fun today at my game!" I was so grateful to the coach for teaching my son that playing was not all about winning.

Cayden is a good little player, when he pays attention. He made a ton of plays where he pulled the flag of the other team members. He was not so good with the running, but he does not want to practice either. He thinks that he should just be good at it like the other kids. He just would argue with me when I told them that the other kids practiced running at home. Oh well, maybe he will be a lawyer like his brother Jared.

Promised Photos!

Cayden on the ferris wheel at Lagoon. Kayla

My little Josh

Funny hair-do for Kayla. I love looking up hair -dos for her. I love having a little girl!

My little Josh playing video games. He did this most of the summer. In fact, he summer consisted of video games, lagoon and working with Blaine.

Cayden learned to swim this summer. He has gotten pretty good at it. We have a pool at our club house so we go about once a week.

Kayla swims with her floaty. She was in swim lessons but she has not learned to swim well enough to go without it yet.

The last night we all got to go to Lagoon before Josh left. I really loved having him here for the summer. I just wish Jared would have wanted to come also. Josh is about 8 inches taller then me and outweighs me by 75 pounds. I kept teasing him that he was my little Josh, and her would respond back that I was his little mom.

Cayden's first day of second grade. He is getting so big!

Kayla's first day of preschool. She was so excited to go to school like Cayden!

First day of school hair. Have I mentioned that I love doing her hair??

One room of our flooded basement is almost finished after 2 months of living out of boxes. Hooray!

Here is the other room.

and the great room in the basement holding all of the crap from the two flooded rooms

Summer.....

Well, there is so much to update everyone on. I am almost done with my bachelors degree, less then a year left. I have slowed down and am not working any extra shifts and I am just taking one class at a time. I was under too much stress and pretty much had a mental breakdown. I have learned that I must accept the things that I can not control, and all that I am able to control is my attitude. I hope that this lesson sticks, I really am not wanting to learn it again. Cayden has one more week of school. He is remaining on D track and is so excited that he is going into the second grade next year. He is reading chapter books and is awesome at spelling and math. Kayla is officially potty trained both day and night. She just decided that she did not want diapers any more and pretty much did it herself. I was so happy that I did not have to buy diapers any more. It means that I will not have any more children in diapers! HOORAY! Blaine is still working for the same company. He is also working with his brother roofing and remodeling homes to sell. He is enjoying the hard work, but is glad that it is not a full time thing. Josh finished the 10th grade. He is getting so big! He is taking a CAD class and learning to build robots. He is really enjoying the class and is so excited to continue with the class next year. He will continue to live in Huntington Beach with his dad and come here for visits. He has gotten the best grades of all his school years this year, so I thought it would be best to allow him the choice to stay. He plans on working toward an engineering degree, so these classes will help him. Jared continues to be my challenge. He also will remain in Huntington Beach with his dad. He was promoted from the eighth grade and will start high school next fall. He is excited for this new journey. I just pray that he will do better then he did this year so that he can graduate high school. We are planning on living in South Jordan for a while longer, (hopefully a very long time) I really am not thrilled with the idea of moving.
We are looking forward to a warm summer and playing at Lagoon. We got season passes this year, so we plan on going at least once a week. If anyone wants to join us, let me know. I will post pics of the kids soon!