More pictures of my bathroom than you ever wanted to see. Yeah!

Okay, I almost don't want to post any pictures yet, because the bathroom isn't finished all the way yet. But, since I have a hard time waiting, here are the "afters". I will tell you after the pictures the few little things I have left I want to do. But, I thought I should go ahead and put pictures up in case my house gets sucked up in a tronado tonight and no one ever gets to see it. :)


A few "before" pictures to refresh your memory of how far we've come

After a little ripping out! Danny's favorite part.

A few shots of it now. I took a lot since Mommy probably won't be able to come downstairs to see it for a while. Amazing how many pictures you can take of the same stuff!!

What do you think? Pretty shnazzy, huh? Now, no one use it! I want it to stay new looking! So, I painted the birdie frames because I loved the prints, but the frames were not so nice. But now I realize that tan was not the right color. It was just what I had on hand. So I think I will borrow a little of Meggie's blue, add a little white to it, and paint them again. And I want to make a really cute Kleenex box cover like Meggie's with cute fabric on it for the shelves and a couple more little accessories on the shelves. The top wicker basket has extra rolls of toilet paper in it. I am trying to be practical and remember that this is after all, a bathroom, and one that will be used by teenagers someday! Aahhh! So, practical, yet pretty. The kids love it and always want to use that toilet when they go to the bathroom. Tristan thought it was soo cool and said, "It's a little house!" and then asked if I would bring him in a bed and a tv! Um, no. Oh, of course what you can't see in the pictures is the still totally ripped apart shower! Yeah! That will have to wait for more money, time and energy and for some other projects to get finished first! Anyway, moving on.

Here are my like 3 pictures of our Saturday trip. I couldn't find the camera for most of the time. (It turned out we had left it at the arena.) But I have to say, the last picture of Alex is priceless, if you can see his face. I look pretty goofy in it, too. But that's normal.

Tristan riding


This is the best Alex picture!

Zoomed in, for your benefit.
The kids had soo much fun riding the horses! And I loved it, too! Now I am too tired to write about it at all, but you were all there and if you weren't, see Megan's blog.

I am soo tired and soo tired of home projects. I am done!!!! At least until tomorrow. :)

Almost there!

Here are a few more pictures to show you what we have done. And you can kind of see the stages it has gone through thus far.

Doesn't it look totally different with the trim and moulding on?! I couldn't stop looking at it tonight. Which is probably why it is 1 am and I am still awake. But who cares?! We're getting there! Hopefully, tomorrow night we will put the new toilet in and the sink back in with new hardware, then put up the new mirror, toilet paper holder, newly painted shelves, etc. I hope it all comes together okay!

And yes, someday I will take pictures of my kids again and put them on here. This has just had such a time crunch on it, because we are really anxious to put the toilet back on. Especially since Alex came in there yesterday, looked at the floor and said, "Go potty?"and started to pull out the sacrificial towel! I yelled, "Nooo!" and ran after him. Probably scared him a bit.

So, after this we will replace the doors and closet doors, paint the hall and finish the family room. Whew! It will feel like we have added a whole new floor to our house. It's so hard to wait! And then I can blog about things like what I ate for breakfast again. It was eggs today, in case you wondered.

Very tired...

How's that for a blog heading? But I am soo tired and it is making me very snappy and I can't stand squeaky voices anymore! And how can the house be this messy when we were gone all day yesterday and all morning have been at church?! Did you ever feel like this Mommy? Surely not, as we were perfect children!

I'm tired because on Friday night we stayed up until about 1 am working on the bathroom. Here are some pics. It might not look like much, but that represents a lot of work. Just taking out the old floor took hours and some blood(literally), sweat and, well, no tears, yet. You will be surprised at how different the beadboard will look when we get the trim and baseboard on it! We are going to try to put that on Monday night. And, obviously, the beadboard will go all the way around the other walls, too.

It still looks pretty bad, but give it a few more weeks and it will look a lot better!

Another reason I am so tired is that we went down to SLC yesterday and back and then I had to go to Wal-Mart at like 12:30, so I didn't get to bed until 2 am and had a meeting at 7:30.

Our trip to Salt Lake was pretty fast and not much to tell. I got the rest of the bookcases for the family room! Yahoo! I can't wait! On our way home we were running late so we got Famous Dave's To Go and thought we would eat it at home. But halfway home Alex started saying, "I'm very hungry at breakfast," and pointing to the food, which was his way of saying he was hungry. And boy was he! We didn't have any utensils in the car, so we used a straw we had to feed him and Alaina potato salad, mac and cheese, potatoes and corn muffins. But Alex's favorite part was the meat! I have to say, we have been checking out barbeque a lot lately, and Famous Dave's is one of the best! Second only to Smok'd, and that's in Chicago! Their sides were all sooo good and the meat was soo tasty! It was funny trying to feed them with a straw and Alex couldn't figure out how to get the meat off the ribs, so I would pull bites off and give them to him and Alaina. I felt just like a mommy bird. But Alex really liked it and ate a lot. We really liked it, too! It was a very odd thing to be eating in the car, barbeque, but my, oh my, it was tasty!

On the way home we picked up Tristan from Mommy's house where he had spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa! He was curled up in their bed watching a movie and looked very comfy and spoiled! He said he had lots of fun and went to the store with them and played with Leto a lot.

One of the funniest things was on the drive home. At Ikea we had bought a sheep hand puppet and I talked to Tristan with it on the ride home and he loved it! I asked him all kinds of questions and it was so funny to hear his answers. A few key ones- The names of Mommy's kitties are Pet and Jasmine, and they are very nice and don't scratch him. He told the sheep that Daddy makes cocoa and fires, and when asked what Mommy does, he said, "Makes cookies for us to eat!"

"What else does she do?"

"She takes the cookies out and we eat them." Sounds like a Norman Rockwell childhood! When the sheep asked him what Daddy does at work, he said, "He steals money so we can stay at home." You know, steal, earn, it's all the same. And when he was asked what Alex does at school he thought very seriously for a few moments and then said, "He bothers the kids!" "And what will you do when you go to school?" "I will get lost." Wow, no wonder he's excited to go to school! You can get lost and bothered by Alex! He said lots of other funny stuff, but I can't remember it all.

I will try to put more pictures of the bathroom on as we get more done. I hope you don't mind! At least then I don't have to try and explain it to you! To end, here are some pictures of Alaina. She loves the potty and always wants all of her clothes off when she sits on it. She has never gone pee in it, but she did go on the floor next to the potty once! When she sits on it she says, "Peepee poopoo caca!" How sweet! Bye for now! I am going to go take a nap, so that maybe I will be nicer when I wake up. At least that is my excuse.

While visions of toilets danced in their heads

This is a long story that I will try to make short. Last night our toilet deided to leak gallons of clean, (clean?) toilet water all over. Very annoying. But it just might have a happy ending. Dealing with the clean-up reminded me how very much I truly hate that bathroom. (The downstairs one.) A few examples- 1. We have lived here 4 years and I have used it twice. 2. The door got locked and we couldn't get it unlocked. So we just left the door shut and locked for like 2 months. No one cared or noticed. I think Tristan finally asked when we were going to unlock it. 3. Soon after said door was unlocked, the light bulb burnt out. I just replaced it yesterday because of the water issue. No one noticed or cared. Except maybe Tristan. 4. The toilet had a red seat that was cemented to the toilet bowl. 5. The trim was black vinyl.
These are just a few examples of why and how much I hated this bathroom. So I figured, as long as the plumbers had the toilet off, why not just keep it off and put on a new one? And if we are replacing the toilet, why not the flooring, too, which was grey and black? And if we do that, let's paint and put in beadboard and change the mirror and get curtains and a new faucet!
But what to do about that shower? Literally a hole in the wall that only technically qualified as a shower. I always figured that someday we would redo the bathroom when we had like $10,000 saved up. But I called Tyler to see if he would look at it and see what we could do with it. He came by tonight, and we started ripping! He is going to help us put in a new fiberglass surround shower, assuming we have any money left. In the meantime, we are rippinng it all out, then I will do the floor, new toilet, mirror, beadboard, new trim, curtains, new mirror, toilet paper holder, and new faucet. I already bought it all and ripped out all the old flooring. And even if the new shower doesn't go in for a year, I already like it sooo much better! I would rather stare at studs than what was there!
Oh, the pictures at the end are what Alaina was doing while we were talking with Tyler about the shower. Like Megan said, just because they're being quiet, doesn't mean they are being good!
Anyway, I'm very excited and will be staying up verrry late for the next few weeks. Who needs sleep? Remember, I am still working on the family room, too. But I have to say, doing remodeling projects in the basement is a lot funner than upstairs, because no one sees the mess, it's not in the middle of the most used rooms, and you can walk upstairs to a clean house! Yea! Wish me luck!


What it looked like this morning.......

What it looks like now......

There was always this weird door in the wall in the hall that didn't really go anywhere. Now it goes into the shower. You know, for convenience in talking with people while you are in the shower! Danny is demonstrating this.

What Alaina was busy doing......

Before and Afters.. well, almost after

Here are some pics of the desk and chair I got. The desk was $25 and the chair was $20- it would have been $2 at a garage sale. You will have to use your imagination a little bit. They looked worse in real life before and they look better in real life now than the pictures show. (The chair particularly was rather horrendous.) And of course, it will all look a lot better after I finish off the room. But now I will be working on the bathroom, too. Like I didn't have enough to do already! I will try to take some better pictures soon. Sorry!

Once Upon a Time....

Once upon a time, there was a lovely family that decided to take a trip to Salt Lake City. This is their story. Well, this might be a long post, so don't start reading it if you are short on time. I figure I am going more for quantity than quality.
So we left Friday morning, about 1 and 1/2 hours later than we meant to, but deep down didn't we really know that was what was going to happen? The kids all started the trip with a bag of goldfish, animal crackers, gummi worms and a string cheese. I think they are very spoilt. They don't think so.

First we headed to Logan to get the oil thingy on the truck fixed so that it could run on oil again. Danny dropped me and the kids off at the McDonald's while he took the truck in to get fixed. First of all, I have to say that I love Logan! It's so cute and clean and everybody seems so nice. Anyway, I don't know where I put my brain, but when Danny dropped us off, all I grabbed was my wallet, and I barely remembered my cell phone. Hello!? You know how long it takes cars to get fixed! So here we were at McDonald's and I didn't think to get the kids' coats, extra diapers, the stroller, anything that might be nice to have. And of course, as soon as Danny pulls away I look at Alaina and her face is all red with concentration. We all know what that means. Now we stink.

The kids ate and loved the playland there, but after a while they were getting bored. So back we went and got ice cream cones and the Spider-Man toy from the Happy Meals. Did you know that you can buy just the toy and not the whole meal? But the toy costs $2, and a Happy Meal only costs $2.80, so I'm not sure it's such a great deal. But it was definitely worth the $4 that day. So Alex and Tristan were very happy running around with their Spider-man toys and Alaina was just happy to be stinking up the place.

I was starting to get really tired of McDonald's (it had been about an hour) so I called Danny and they had just barely started to look at the car! What!? Then I looked over and saw that Alaina, who only moments earlier had been happily drinking her water, had now spilt her water all over the bench and had completely soaked her pants! Well, now I was happy to have the stinky diaper, because otherwise she would be naked! I kept looking around at the other moms and trying to pick one out to maybe ask for a clean diaper, but it looked like no one had diaper bags! What was the matter with them?!

After two hours I couldn't stand it anymore and decided we would go for a walk, no coats and all. It was nice outside and we needed a change of scenery. I had already watched 3 sets of customers come and go. This decision was the equivilant of the person stuck in a snowstorm deciding to get out because they are tired of being in their car.

I wrapped my coat (yes, I had brought my coat) around Alaina's bare legs and had the kids all hold hands and figured if we could just walk to some store like Smith's that had shopping carts, we could easily kill an hour looking around. Well, it was sunny outside, but I didn't realize that it was so windy! And we were walking along the edge of a four lane road with no sidewalk! Luckily, there was a large shoulder and so I held Alaina in one hand and was holding Tristan's hand on my other side, who in turn was holding Alex's hand. We must have looked pretty desperate because it wasn't long before a nice Mom stopped and asked if we needed help. We had only just began our adventure, and so I said that we were all fine and just going on a walk. I should have gotten a ride!

After a while we stopped to put Alaina's pants on and when we sat on the curb Tristan put his feet up and said, "This is so comfortable."

My arm was about to fall off from holding Alaina with one hand, but I could see a sign for a Big 5 store ahead and thought that it looked big and surely they would have shopping carts. Who cares at this point what we are looking at? So we all waited and at just the right moment ran holding hands across all 4 lanes. The kids were very good and ran very fast.

For your own future reference, should you find yourself in this situation, Big 5 is very small and has no shopping carts. Very disappointing. I asked the cashier, "Where is the closest store that would have shopping carts? My husband is getting our car fixed and we just need to kill some time." She just looked at me and said, "Yea." Ummm... I asked again. "Do you know somewhere close that would have shopping carts?" She kind of smiled sheepishly, clearly thinking I was crazy, and said, "Ummm.. yeah." That was it. Am I not speaking English here?!

So off we went again, none the wiser for our questions. Tristan looked up at me and smiled and said, "This is a fun adventure!" By the way, I had a small paperback book with me and my wallet and didn't have any way to carry them, so I stuck them in my pants in the back. I saw my reflection when we passed a storefront and I looked like I had the biggest, roundest bottom you have ever seen! I don't know what peole thought who were behind me. I'm surprised we didn't have people stopping every few minutes to offer help!

So, on we walked. And walked. And walked. There was nothing but small, independent stores with lots of breakable things in them. Where are all the super chain stores when you need them? I kept having the refrain from "Climb Every Mountain" run through my head. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that all the stores are on that busy main road, and so I had to hold tight to all the kids. I put my coat on Alex, since he was the only one wearing short sleeves, and now the picture was complete.

Finally, after about an hour and what felt like miles, we came to a Joanne's fabric store and they had carts. At which point, naturally, Danny called me and said he was on his way. We were rescued by Daddy, changed Alaina and wiped noses. The kids all seemed to think it was a great adventure, which shows how much a parents spin on something can change it.

The good news is, the truck is fixed and is running on oil again! Yea! Oh, on the way out of town, I checked the odometer to see how far we had walked. About one and a half miles. I was so sure it was 10.

I'll try to summarize the rest of the trip now. We went to Salt Lake, on oil, got Alex a new kilt, and then went to the Temple Visitor's Center with the Christus, which Alex loooves. The kids loved that and I loved that there are already flowers blooming on Temple Square! Color!





Next we went to this dive called Pat's Barbque that we had found on-line. They had a live jazz band and a cool atmosphere. As for the food, they had a cooker break and were out of 2 of the three things we wanted to try. We got ribs and meatloaf. The kids ate pretty well, Tristan loved their cornbread and Alaina loved throwing their spoons, but Alex accidentally got some of the hot barbeque sauce and started crying and holding his throat and saying, "Owie!" Eventually we had to ask for ketchup for Alex. How insulting! All in all, the food was quite good, but I've had better.

The kids were getting really tired and Tristan was falling asleep in the car, but they all woke up when we got to the hotel. It was so cool!

We stayed at Residence Inn and got it on Priceline for $50. We got a one-room suite, which means it had a little kitchenette, a fold-out couch and tv in one room, and then another room with a big bed, another tv and bathroom and vanity! It was sooo cute and comfy and nice! But the best part was that their pool is open 24 hours! So we all changed and went down to swim at 9pm! The best part was, we were the only people in the whole pool area! We brought the kids' lifejackets and so Tristan and Alex were pretty independent the whole time, swimming around on their own and Alaina looked like a little frog in the water. I liked the hot tub the best and spent most of my time in there. It was so fun and relaxing! We got out at like 10:15.

Then we put on jammies, put Lainey in her porta-crib and, believe it or not, Alex and Tristan slept together on the pull-out couch! They were soo tired and fell asleep facing each other. It was sooo cute. Then Danny and I went and watched Minority Report in our room! Yea!

I forgot to say that Tristan thought the hotel was sooo cool and kept saying, "This is our house! It's so cute!"


Next morning we were up early, got dressed and then went down to breakfast. They had a great hot breakfast with eggs, toast, bagels, waffles, potatoes, cereal, muffins, juice, hot chocolate, you get the idea. The kids all ate really well, even Alex who put sooo much salt and pepper on his eggs that you could actually see the salt on his eggs. He ate a muffin, too. Weird.

Then we went to the St. Patrick's Day Parade and marched at the beginning of the parade and the weather was perfect! The kids were so good and Alaina kept waving and blowing kisses at people and Alex waved funny with both of his hands and Tristan waved his Scottish flag. Good fun. Glad when it was over.

Next we went to a St. Patty's Day party, then hit a few decoratey stores. We went to Ikea and got another one of my bookcases for the downstairs. We ate at the restaurant there and it was soo good! I got pasta with marinara, garlic toast, salad, and chocolate milk, Tristan and Alaina shared mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and swedish meatballs, Danny had meatballs (hehehe... the meat balls are very small tonight.. hehe.. sorry- inside joke) with potatoes and Alex ate a big buffalo chicken burrito with blue cheese. I know, weird, huh? He said that was what he wanted and he ate it all. It was all soooo good and hot and all together cost like $20. It was a very good deal for a lot of food.

I am liking Ikea more and more. They are so kid-friendly. They have a big play area where they will watch your potty-trained kids for free, at the food area they have toys for the kids to play with and the family bathroom has toys for kids in it and complimentary diapers and wipes! I was really glad about that, since Alaina had a huge blowout and I had a diaper but no wipes with me.

Anyway, we left Salt Lake at like 6:30, stopped at Pat's on the way out and got some of the brisket and pulled pork they had been out of to take home and got home around 10:30.

It was such a fun trip and the kids were all sooo good! (They are making up for it today.) Sorry this was so long. Mommy is probably the only one with enough time and patience to read it. I won't normally put on such long posts, I just wanted to get all this down, partly for my own record.

It was so much fun, but it was great to get home, where not only do each of our kids have their own bed, but their own room! I looove traveling, and I looove even more coming home!

And they all lived happily ever after. Well, at least they slept well that night. The end.