Soccer & Wood Floors Revealed

Kirstin has been playing soccer on the high school team. She's enjoying it and I like that it's getting her out of the house and moving. 

They're playing her more and more each game and she likes it quite a bit. I love watching her play. Much more than softball, I must admit. They're a good group of girls. 

So for the past 3 weeks I've been busy with flooring and Girls Camp. (Yes it's that time of year again!)

And I'm happy to announce we have finished the wood flooring in the upstairs!!!!

(I feel like I've given birth or something!)

We started in Emil Michael's room the week of spring break. I figured it would be the easiest since he's not home yet. I wasn't going to paint the room but once I moved all the furniture out and realized it hadn't been painted since we first moved in and still had the rockets I had stenciled for him when he was ten I thought "maybe it's time". 

I'm so glad I did. I love the color I picked. It's called "Rivermist" from Lowes. I have this thing for Blues. It's clean and bright and while trimming out the doors I discovered a new painters tape called frog tape, that works great. If you're painting soon give it a try. It is more expensive then the typical blue tape but if you're only painting once every 10 years go for the splurge!

 I pulled up the carpet and padding and had Noah help me move that from the upstairs. It wasn't too bad because I cut it up in small sections.

Emil has been working feverishly on his thesis and wasn't available for much help but he did get me started and help me finish. Noah helped a little one day lining up the planks and Kirstin helped me finish to here.

 I cut and measured and stapled the planks in with that stapler against the far wall but when you get this close to the edge you have to use a nail gun and that's where Emil came back in. 

And ta-da! The finished product!

Because of the lighting from the window the room looks fairly dark but it's actually very bright. Here's some other views. 

Did I mention I did that! I'm so proud of myself! Here's a closeup of the planks. Aren't they beautiful?

Body aching but feeling a sense of confidence I decided to tackle Kirstin's room this last weekend. I had her move out most of her furniture. 

(Same issue with the windows backlighting here)

 I'm not crazy about her choice of wall color. I call it School Bus Yellow. (it hurts my eyes) She has a yellow, black and white theme going on in there.

It's very bright, but she loves it. 

Thankfully there was a break in the closet which is still white. 

Ahhhhh. Better.

Before & After

 

Emil helped me a lot more with Kirstin's room. It's more angled and the closets which are always hard were even harder here but it's done!!!! Happy Day! 

Also Emil's thesis is done too! Tomorrow he will go to East Carolina University in Greenville to defend it and then graduate on May 10. It is so nice to be closing chapters in our lives on long worked for goals. 

Remember my goal jar from the beginning of the year? The slip I picked for April was a "free" month. 

(I had to re-pick twice before I got it but I figured the flooring more than covered my productivity status.)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

We have been on the go lately.... I don't even know where to start. 

Just to update- Emil's achilles are doing well. He's walking around easily although he still has a slight limp. The one he had done before Christmas has healed quite well so we're hopeful that given a few more months he will be up to speed. Just in time for summer, and surfing... hmmmm. (it wasn't coincidental)

He is really trying to finish his thesis this go around and hopefully he will make the deadline for graduation in May. Keep your fingers crossed! I asked him if he still wanted to pursue a Phd. and he said he did in maybe a year or two. He also informed me that when he got a Phd that he expected me to call him Dr. I said there was no way I was doing that unless I was called Madam Dr. 

Neither one of us would commit to those terms so we are at an impasse. I guess it's really all hypothetical right now since he still needs to finish his Masters but this just gives you a look into how our negotiations usually go and the end result. ;) Since I'm a spanking good cook, it works for us.

The Lorrie or Dark Chocolate Raspberry

This is my first original cake. I combined different recipes I had and tweaked them to what I wanted and here you have it. 

Dark chocolate is good for your health. Did you know that? Raspberries are fruit. 

Hence, The Lorrie = Health food. (This is how I think, people.)

I had good amount of Easter orders. Which lead to lots of these and some new flavors of cake pops. Raspberry Sherbet and Orange Cream. I may be taking my business in a new direction come fall but for now things are still up in the air so I'll just tease you with that tidbit until it's definite. 

We finally got all the shelving in for the bookcase project I had in the works but decided to go crazy and put in wood floors in the study, hall, stairs and dining room. I wanted to run it under the bookshelf so we've held off on trimming it out for now. Here is the flooring we got though!

These are the steps and will have to be stained.

 It's hand scraped, which just means it's not completely flat,  hardwood and it's called Burnished Acacia. So pretty! It's taken us a while to get to this point. When we moved in 11 years ago we planned on doing wood on the floors after about 4-5 years. Now's the time. However it will have to wait until the thesis is done :( but at least we have the supplies and can start as soon as time allows.

Beside home projects we took a family temple trip in March where I insisted we take a picture. I so should have let Kirstin do it since she's much more experienced with the self portraits.

I also attended the Manteo Quilt show with some friends. I saw some very cute quilts. This one cracked me up. I can't remember the name but I decided "Snow it goes"would be apropos.

The life cycle of a snowman

 I really liked this Owl one too. The trees were very simple and the owls absolutely adorable. 

It inspired me to get busy with some Easter ideas I had been brewing so I decided to make these dish towels for some friends. I love the way they turned out. They were great for using up scraps and came together in about 15 minutes. I just used a  cookie cutter for my template for the eggs. The towels I found at Marshalls. It was a pack of 10 for $9.99. So a $1 a towel?!! Got to love that!

This week is spring break and the weather doesn't look very inviting. I've been up since 2am. Just couldn't sleep but at least it's given me the chance to finally get blogging! What are your plans for spring break?

Cool Man

Can it be? My Noah's 13! His birthday was on March 22nd but I've been slow getting it all together here! Sorry Noah!

Kirstin, Noah & Emil
March 2002

Cool Man was Noah's self given nickname. 

We usually call him Noah S'moah or my personal nickname Mr. No.

Summer 2006

I love those sweet cheeks!

Noah & Kai
June 2006

This is probably my favorite pic of him. Emil took it when I was visiting my family in Ut. Kai was sad because Emil had caught them getting all muddy and they had to wash off in the cold water outside before he would let them go inside to take a proper shower. I'm pretty sure I know who the mastermind of the whole adventure was....

Dog on head 2011

May 2009

He loves his Blaze dog! She is his constant companion. But she keeps him under control. 

(In a manner of speaking.)

I love his silly antics and how clever he is. He loves to snuggle up to me still and I love that! He's mischievous and mercurial and we love his bright smile and all he adds to our family.

Anyway you slice it he's a teenager now and I'm not quite sure how that happened.

We love you Noah!

March 2012

To celebrate we had a family dinner at Emil's parents. Here he is playing with his cousin, Cara. She absolutely adores him and he's her undisputed favorite. I love how patient he is with her. 

  We went to the Norfolk Zoo in Va for his birthday. It was a bit chilly but nice!

 They had this amazing Elephant statue made out of butterfly shapes. It was cool!

Noah the Brave!
The sign says "Caution Tapiers can spray backwards 7-10 feet. Please stay alert! Urine Danger" 

Even I couldn't help but be amused by the Tapiers and their "special" talents.

This was the Meerkat habitat. It helped to get a good idea of their point of view.

This past weekend he went rappelling with Kirstin and Emil at Raven's Roost. It's an 80 foot rock face so he was pretty proud of taking that challenge.   

Noah and Emil March 2013

 What a blessing our children are. We love and miss our Kai. This month will be 4 years. I'm so grateful for spring and the promise of new life but most of all for the beautiful plan my Heavenly Father has for our family to be together again someday. 

I found some quotes I really like this morning. Thought I'd share one,

"Faith in God, means faith in his timing." - Neal A. Maxwell

"Faith makes things possible... not easy."

Kiss your dear ones and make the most of every day!