New Floors Part 2

We are so far behind. It just feels like we are working so hard, but without much progress. We finished Littlebit's room and our room (except for our closet because we need to order another transition). Big Daddy and I are still sleeping downstairs because our room is the staging room and the office is holding everything else. It has been over a week and I just want my bed back.

We were hoping to not have transitions between the bedrooms and the hallway because it is quite small and we didn't want it to look choppy, but we were off by an eighth of an inch. We tried moving the floor, but it wouldn't budge - so now there will be transitions in the doorways. Argh.

We have also completed the landing at the stairs and Big Daddy is working on the hall right now. Tomorrow we will work on Lovey's room. I moved all of the furniture out last night and we prepped it this morning. We didn't work much today because we went to a friend's for a BBQ.

I'm also trying to stay caught up with painting the trim, but since it insists on raining the saw is in the garage, so I can only paint once at night. Even though I used 2 coats of primer, I'm still having trouble with the faux wood flashing through. I used 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint on Littlebit's trim and it still isn't totally covered.

I want to paint the stairwell and hall when we rip up the carpet, but I can't decide on a color. I'm leaning towards grey and the one I picked out is a green grey, but in the hall it is a blue grey. Is it too cold? I don't know. We have cool tone paint colors in our house and the floor is a warm color. I hate choosing paint. We painted our front room twice two years ago and I'm still not happy with it. I need my mom, she's good at choosing paint colors.

Back to work, so much to do.

Littlebit's room. I love the white trim in here!

New Floors part 1

We have finally started on our new floors! Saturday we moved Littlebit into Lovey's room and started to rip out her carpet. We also moved all of our stuff into the office so we could start on our room too. We wanted to start the two together to eliminate using transitions at every door. (Our hallway is small with four doorways very close to eachother.)

Littlebit was very excited to have a sleepover in Lovey's room and the first night it took them awhile to get to sleep. Last night they were asleep by the time we shut the door. I don't know why, they spent Sunday watching three movies while we worked. Bad Mommy!

We didn't finish either room, but there were a few cuts that we were struggling with. We have replaced flooring before, just never with kids. It is hard to replace floors and still make sure everyone is entertained (movies), make dinner and do the laundry. I don't know how the laundry became my job yesterday, but it did.

I love the floors and can't wait to finish our room because I am tired of sleeping downstairs and being in disarray. Unfortunately because of a crazy schedule we can't finish them until Wednesday. Yikes!

The Play by Play

Lovey is really into baseball this year and he is a huge Mariner's fan. Everyday he asks us to play baseball with him. Each morning he checks the paper for the Mariner's score and schedule for the week. Then for the rest of the day, I have to listen to the play by play of the part of the game that he has listened to on the radio. We finally had to start turning off the radio when we left his room at night because he would be up late listening to the game. Last night he tried to sneak listening to the game, but he was jumping around cheering which was an easy giveaway. In the car he wants me to turn on sports talk radio. Uh, please, that is so boring...

I love how he describes the plays that he hears and the questions he asks incessantly about the game. Big Daddy is thrilled that Lovey is such a fan and they are slowly trying to get Littlebit to be a fan too.

Truffles

Last week was Teacher Appreciation week and Monday was the day Lovey's class was to bring in treats for the teacher. Hooray! I had a few things I have wanted to try and this was the perfect opportunity.

Usually as a teacher I have a no homemade edibles rule, but I wanted to try Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles and not have to eat them all myself, so I was bringing them to school and if the teachers didn't want to eat them, I would never know. Just incase they didn't turn out I also made Oreo Truffles. Another favorite in our house!

Oreo truffles waiting to be dipped in chocolate.

Both truffles were delicious and made quite a few, so Big Daddy took some to work too. The cookie dough truffles turned out a little salt, so I think I would cut back on that next time. This dough would also be perfect to add to ice cream to make cookie dough ice cream. (One of my all time favorites!)

I ended up using a mixture of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate as the coating and it turned out pretty good. Although I spent the better part of my Sunday making truffles, I would definitely make them again.

New Floors

Big Daddy picked up our new floors yesterday! I am so excited!!! We are taking out all of the carpet and current laminate and putting in a different laminate. Even on the stairs. I have heard mixed reports about it on the stairs, but I really want to get rid of the carpet. If it is too slippery I might buy some stair treads. We will see. We have to wait until the end of the month before they will be installed because Big Daddy can't take time off until then. I am impatiently waiting.

Now we need to pick out tile for the kitchen and bathroom.

We were going to remodel the downstairs bathroom too, but unfortunately my plans are not going to work. Boo. I wanted to seal off the current bathroom door and put a new door in through the laundry room. We found out there are two pipes in the wall on each side that we could put the door and it would cost a lot more than I want to spend on this bathroom. So now I will continue to have a bathroom door that opens to the dining room. Funny how those things don't really click when you are looking at the house when it is empty.

Baby Birds

We have three bird houses in the backyard (and 2 more waiting to be hung up), but where do the birds decide to build a nest?

Under the bench on our vegetable garden.

We had seen birds start to build nests in the birdhouses, but then they stopped and we didn't know where they went. That was until we started playing baseball in the backyard. A bird would fly out from under the garden shelf whenever we would get too close while playing baseball, so I decided to take a look through the tall grass/weeds (yes the lawn needs to be mowed). I didn't see anything, so I figured the bird was just hiding out there or eating some great bugs.

On Saturday, Big Daddy mowed the lawn and while we were out playing baseball in the backyard, the bird flew out again, but this time it sat in the fruit tree yelling at us. I decided to look again and there was a nest with three baby birds inside. (Now looking at the picture, I think there are four.)

Baby birds thinking there was food coming. I forgot they were there and clunked a pot down on the ledge and they started peeping for food.

Waiting to bring food back to the babies. It is fun to watch the bird sneak back into the nest, always choosing a different route and looking around to see if something is watching.