It has begun...

Sophia is amazed at the changes occuring in our home...


Today, we completely removed everything from our library. Boy what a job! It took Allison and I 3 hours to get it all out. My Mom took the little ones to Chuck E Cheese and that was a huge help.


After we got the room cleaned out, we removed the carpet and the tile from the hallway. Oh, we're homeschooling now! Jon had fun getting that tile up. The builders who laid the tile DIDN'T use morter under the tiles. That made removal easy but boy am I glad we decided to take it out! It sure wouldn't have held up for long.


Allison got the high spots for me. This is the new color...Bagel! We love it. I bought an automatic paint roller and it is amazing! We were able to paint the room in under an hour. Very nice!


Right now, we're painting the hallway with primer and tomorrow morning we'll finish the hallway so that we can begin the tiling job. I'm so excited to be making such good progress so fast!

Blessings,

My Newest Project

The Lord blessed us with some extra money this year and we decided to invest some of it into our house. We are the happy owners of 815 sf of tile that we will begin to install AFTER I repaint most of the house. What a big job! I'm excited to see our home looking great after all our hard work.

Here's photos of the tile...






I've already begun clearing out the first room. I think this is going to be a busy year!

Blessings,

Decorating Through the Year 2008

Well, I'm late.lol After one late night and long day, it is complete!

Here's the before pictures...

Remember the baby poop color?


Here's the fridge-stove section, still with builder's grade paint...




We prepped the kitchen for painting during the afternoon while Sophia napped and Eric had the littles at A Day of Play. I spackled and taped, then sanded and swept. Then I joined Eric with Sophia. They played and played.lol We took them home, fed them a hearty dinner of Bacon-Lentil soup and sent them off to bed without so much as a peep from them.lol

Then we set to the task. Here's a photo of all the busy bees working late at night...


We put Allison on the extra tall ladder that my MIL provided the funds for. This is such a BIG blessing since we're planning to paint the whole house over the next year or so! Allison isn't afraid of heights and did great up there...


Here's Jon's section.lolol He called it "His Practice Area." We've finally found something that isn't his speciality.:snort: It was so funny. He'd paint and Allison and I would go over it. Finally, he was moved to behind the fridge. At one point he said, "Great, I can't even grow up to be a laborer. I'll have to be an assistant laborer."LOLOL


Here it is! The finished paint job! I LOVE this color! I had my whole house painted this in Miami.LOL Inside and OUT.LOL I'm not going to go that far this time. I have a couple of frames from Christmas and I'm going to put some photos of those orangey flowers that Isaac was squishing and hang them on that corner area by the orangey light. Should be pretty and free.lol


Here's the new fridge-stove section. Very nice...We're going to paint that upper section above the cabinets the great room color since it's all connected.



Now that we've painted, I have to admit that the rest of the house looks pretty yucky.LOL The builder's grade paint just isn't made to last with 5 kids touching it all the time.lol

Also, I didn't get too much clutter cleared out. I've found that no matter how much I clean, there are THOSE in the house, who come behind me and undo it. I'm tired and will call this area DONE!

Blessings,

Decorating Through the Year 2008

I know I've been a bit behind posting photos of my newest decoration area, so here it is...

The Kitchen in all it's, uh, glory...

Notice the amazing amount of clutter...


Even the Fridge is affected...


My favorite feature, the baby poop colored wall...



I know. What am I thinking picking this room during the shortest month of the year?!lol Oh, well. I need a challenge and this fits the bill. I've already begun by decluttering and cleaning the laundry room and cleaning off the top of the fridge. My dear, dear hubby bought me the paint for the walls this past weekend while he was there to buy the wood for the new sandbox, so here's the cost write-up...

Paint- $27.98
3 pack roller covers- $6.47
Trim Edger- $2.78

*Total= $37.23

Remember my goal is $30-40 for each room, so I'm just under budget.

*One thing about this total, these items will last me through several rooms, so I think that it should be divided between the rooms they get used in.LOL I don't plan on buying anything else for this room though, so I'll just count it here.

Now for the yucky part.lol I'm going to go through each cabinet and clean out things that haven't moved since we moved here. I'm also going to rearrange those things that I keep to make the kitchen work better. I have A LOT of appliances that I just don't have a place for and my pantry is awful. Notice I didn't take photos of those...lol Please remember that I'm not perfect! My pantry is a mess, my floors are dirty, and my fridge needs major washing out.LOL I'm willing to admit it.lol

Blessings,

Project 365: Oooh, spooky...

Our backyard neighbors on a foggy morning.


Blessings,

Decorating Through the Year 2008

So, I've been pretty silent about this challenge but I've still been hard at work.lol We ended up not painting this go around, it's just been too wet or cold to do so. Maybe next time we hit this bathroom or maybe when I paint the kitchen, I'll hit this room also. We'll see.

Here's the before photo...



Here's the after...


Here's the price breakdown so you can see that I really did stay in budget.

Shower Curtain $10 at Target
Shower Hooks $1.19 at Target
One large Bathtowel on Clearance at Target $4.18
One Handtowel at Target $2.49
One washcloth at Target $1.99
One very cute Froggy handsoap pump at where else? Target...$10.49

Total: $30.34

I like how it's turned out so far! I just need to paint at some point, but that can wait until my knee and hip have recovered.LOL

How is everyone else's challenge going?

My next room will be the kitchen. I will be painting in there and decluttering/organizing. It's a true mess but I've decided to no longer mess around with an easy room.LOL May as well jump in with both feet. Wish me luck!

Blessings,

Here are the Kumquats...

Sour little critters...



A friend of Allison's gave us these free from their yard. Jon, especially, is enjoying them. He's a glutton for punishment.LOL I took great pleasure in taking photos of everyone.LOL

Decorating Through the Year 2008

Well, I've chosen my room. It was a hard decision. I had to balance need vs. budget. And the room is.....

The kids bathroom!





Allison and I would like to do an Art Deco style in here. We're going to say goodbye to the lighthouses and hello to Miami.




So far, we've decided on using the leftover green from Jon's room as a base, then we'll be adding circles around the top of the wall, near the ceiling, in a blue color. We'll use our budget to buy a new shower curtain, since everyone is having white sales right now, and maybe some pretty towels.

Here's our list of things to buy this month:

1. Paint: 1/2 gallon of blue
2. shower curtain
3. bath towel/hand towel for the towel rack

I'll list out how much everything cost as I buy it and once I've hit my limit, that's it. I started with a small room to see if one room a month is do-able. If not, then I'll be readjusting my plan to one room at a time until the year is up.LOL

Blessings,

Our Thanksgiving Day...

The tree is a work in progress. The littles can't be trusted within twenty feet of the tree without dismantling it, so it changes hour to hour. We had to move all breakable ornaments to the top of the tree, along with all the candy canes and Isaac spends all day knocking all the bottom ornaments off the tree so it's not ever going to look like something that you'd see in a catalog or movie BUT they love it and that's all that matters.lol


Voila!


Here is our very first homemade icecream pie! The kids want this as our new tradition from now on. We got this idea from De'Etta's and Kathy's blog. We used chocolate crust, chocolate icecream, three Musketeer's candy bars, Cool Whip and melted Chocolate chips drizzled on top. Yum!


All in all, it was a good day. I think the littles had fun and I think the older kids had fun and that's hard to do with that big of an age span! We had issues but life has issues so I'm calling it good.LOL

Blessings,

My Daily Ramblings...

Now it says on Photobucket that I reduced the size of the photos but on here it's showing them fullsized.LOL Oh well, enjoy them anyway.

Here is Evie in her halloween costume. What a ham.LOL



Isaac decided to be Santa Claus. Everyone got a kick out of him. They kept saying he was a little early.LOL We don't even celebrate Santa but he loved the costume.


Isaac decided not to wear the hat and Sophia was a good sport and hung on to it for him...

Here is the new door! Yay! You wouldn't believe how many people in the neighborhood came by to ask what in the world happened. Some, just checked my blog.lol We were boring and chose close to what we orginally had. I like it though and it goes well with the house.

Debbie mentioned the Knifty Knitter on her blog when she met up with Lisa from Maine. Well, I went to Michaels and they had the whole set for half off! Here are my first creations---two hats! I had to bribe Isaac with gum to pose for me. I guess you get what you pay for.LOL

This photo of Evie is probably the best photo I've gotten of her in a long while! It'll definitely be on the calendar this year! She's so beautiful.


Well, I've been frantically running around all day today. Jon is leaving for a middle school youth gathering in Orlando with our church at 4:15 today. Yikes! I've got the last load of his clothes in the dryer right now. I went to the store to buy appropriate traveling food. I baked granola bars. I've packed his lunch and snacks for the whole weekend. I've gathered up all the odds and ends he needs and just need to shove it all in his bag once all the clothes are dry. How's that for waiting until the last minute?lol I think my brain went on strike and just didn't compute that I'd actually have to DO stuff to get him out the door today.lol Luckily, I figured it out this morning and have most of it done now. I hope this trip is a blessing for Jon and that he makes like minded friends from our church.

Blessings,

My Weekend...

How was my weekend you ask?



Well, they say that a picture is worth a 1000 words...



or is it $1000?

Either way, this weekend will cost us a $1000...

or maybe two.

UGH.

Blessings,

Lisa

PS: No children were hurt in the making of this photo, although one will have a hard time getting behind the wheel of my car until we pay the damages. I guess this is homeschooling at it's finest.LOL

My Daily Ramblings...

This is what I did today...

Dining Room

Great Room

I've been avoiding this for quite some time but it had to be done. Both carpets required me to go over them two times and I had to apply pretreater just to get everything up. They are now drying nicely and if I can keep these kids off the carpet until completely dry they should be in good shape for a while. I also cleaned the couch while I was at it.LOL

Allison did a great job making granola bars this morning for breakfast. It is so nice to have help. She's really stepped up and has also been getting her math done in record time. I can't wait to get her in the next book. She's been struggling in math for a while and to see her get through this is wonderful.

Jon's ill. He caught whatever has been going around the house. I'd be grateful for prayers for him. He really struggles with illness.

Isaac and Sophia are getting better! I'm so thankful for everyone's prayers! What a blessing to have so many people praying for my little ones. They have truly been felt.

I have two more posts I'd like to get to today, so I'll cut this short.lol

Blessings,

Lisa

The Back To School Clean Up Challenge...

Here is the first cabinet...

I will still be switching things around as I reorganize the other monstrosity over the next week or so. I bought some more bins to keep things in and hopefully it will help keep the art supplies under control.

Blessings,

Lisa

The Back To School Clean Up Challenge

I have picked my clean-up challenge. It was hard to pick just one thing since many things need my attention BUT I wanted to pick a room or area that directly affected our homeschooling experience. So without further ado...

This is one of my supply cabinets...it contains old preschool stuff, a few appliances, and some very old snacks and drinks...

This just plain is the bane of my existence. I clean it, organize it and it looks like this in a week's time.

I'll try to do the other two cabinets also but these need it the most. I have my work cut out for me. I not only need to clean and organize. I need to find a way to keep it that way!

Blessings,

Lisa