Our "New" House

A photo essay of our "new" house...

 

Disclaimers: I didn't do any special cleaning. The boys love to be in pictures. All basement pics are missing the baseboards and other things, as noted. Upstairs pics are just to admire the carpet. :-) And as I look through the pics, I think we need a new camera. Everything looks better in person, I swear.

MASTER BEDROOM

NURSERY (BEDROOM #2)

 

BOY ROOM (BEDROOM #3)

GUEST ROOM (BEDROOM #4)

August

August

No furniture to speak of yet, but at least there's a bed with blankets and pillows.

Today

LIVING ROOM

FAMILY ROOM (PLAY ROOM)

August

August

September

 Ha ha. Look at this mess. At least they love it, and I don't have to look at it!

Today

FAMILY ROOM (THEATER)

August

August

 Need some wall decor and throw pillows. Also need baseboards and some "prettying" of the electronics in the corner.

EXERCISE ROOM

August

August

 Still need to raise the tv a few inches and put in the baseboard, but everything works great!

Today

BASEMENT OFFICE (CRAFT ROOM)

August

Still needs some more work organizing, but I couldn't be happier!

Today

KITCHENETTE

August

Countertop and cabinet are not officially mounted yet, and obviously it's totally cluttered with tools too. There's a microwave inside the cabinet we'll put on top when we're really done with construction. We plan to stain the post black. There will be a gap at the end of the cabinet for a fridge... some day.

Today

Oh you can also see we still have to paint the french doors into the office/exercise space, which is why it's open in this pic.

 

And that concludes the tour of our home. We are so happy. There's still lots of finishing (like filling all the nail holes in the mouldings, sigh) but at least it's all usable space now. Hooray for doubling our house size!

October Goings-on

Other than basement work, carpet installation and Halloween... We did some other fun things in October.

General Conference

General Conference was something I looked forward to as a kid. I know, strange huh? We had special food we always ate, we had special activities we always did, and I knew we'd all be together as a family for two whole days (no soccer, no church meetings).

Now I am trying to start traditions with my own little family. We eat the same food I did growing up: appetizers during the sessions - carrots & ranch dip, apples & caramel, black olives (Collin's favorite), chips & salsa. And between sessions on Saturday - ham sandwiches and potato salad. Between sessions on Sunday - ham and cheesy potatoes. Yum.

I have always tried to create some activities for the kiddos to do so Ryan and I can listen. Last Spring and now this past month, I have used 15 ziploks with a picture of each of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve on the outside of each.

Inside each bag is a different quiet activity for the boys. I know it would be better if the activity had something to do with the speaker, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. :-)

 

They did great this time around. Miracle of miracles was that Collin and Brennan both slept concurrently DURING ALL of the second session on Saturday. C hadn't napped in three weeks at that point, and B never had napped for two hours straight, ever. It was totally awesome.

Tanner's Orchard

In accordance with tradition, I took the boys to Tanner's one Friday morning for playgroup. We bought cider donuts, a jug of cider and a bag of Honeycrisp apples (my fave).

They wanted to play and play and play, but I forgot my coat and was cold and crazy grumpy.

 

 

I finally dragged them away after two hours.

Leaf-Raking

The day after carpet went in, Ryan took one more day off work and painted all our baseboards, door and closet mouldings, and stair handrail on the driveway. Our neighbor across the street commented on what a work horse he was. If you only knew, Kristen!

While he painted, the boys and I raked and played in the leaves.

They were the cutest. Playing in the leaves is one of my favorite photo-taking opps. Can you tell?

Nauvoo

Last weekend, Ryan took off Friday, and we headed to Nauvoo for our ward temple trip. There is a hotel there (Nauvoo Villas & Vacation Condos) which will rent in the off-season to temple district patrons attending the temple for $50. Awesome, eh? We got a two-bedroom, two-bath, full kitchen with dishwasher, and living room with sofa bed all for FIFTY BUCKS!

Saturday morning we went to the temple while the youth and young single adults from our ward watched our kids at the Nauvoo Stake Center. Thank you to those who volunteered their time! Ry and I hadn't been to the temple together in quite some time. Peace like we hadn't felt since before Joliet.

Museum of Science & Industry

On our drive back to Peoria from Nauvoo, Ryan's youngest sister Mallory called to say she was in Chicago for the weekend for her boyfriend's best friend's wedding. Could we come?

So Sunday afternoon after church, we headed to Chicago. We stayed on Marriott points and picked up Mal & Friend Monday morning.

We headed to the Museum of Science & Industry, but we only had about three hours before our kids (who had only slept from 9pm-4am) expired and Mal had to go to the airport. We were a little disappointed, but ironically we selected the one day in November that was free for Illinois residents, and the worker let Mal and Blake in free too. For free, it was great.

It was so fun to get to see Mallory though (who lives in Brooklyn) and meet her new boyfriend. Who would have thought we'd be the first of the family to meet him?

Conclusion
So despite my lack of blogging this month, we have been QUITE busy. Life will slow down soon, right? After Christmas maybe?

Oh and don't worry - I haven't forgotten about those pictures of my new house. ;-)

The Hundred Acre Wood

Happy Halloween

 from the Hundred-Acre Wood -

 or rather - the Williams' Home!

 

Look how Tigger admires his friend Pooh Bear,

and even more love is shared between Christopher Robin and his best friend, Piglet.

 

 Hope yours was as sugar-filled as ours.

 Happy Halloween!

Carpet, Carpet, Carpet!

Can't start this post without sharing this mishap one of the final LATE nights before carpet. We were cutting the wood for covering the support post in the basement, and I was supposed to "catch" the wood as it came out of the table saw. I missed.

It was terrifying. Let me give you an idea of the power that thing must have come with off the saw. It penetrated the 3/4 inch drywall AND the 1/4 plywood (this is a support wall). It did not come out on the other side (the exercise room), but it was certainly at head/eye height of our children. If it had happened while they were down there (which was pretty much always except for after bedtime) it could have been catastrophic. It also could have really done some serious damage to my or Ryan's thigh. All in all, we got it patched and painted before all the real fun began...

Saturday, October 20th

Ryan (aka He-Man) moved all our upstairs furniture off the carpet. We emptied all our closets, moved all our beds, took apart all the bed frames, moved all dressers, and basically moved out of our house.

Living room furniture-less

Master bedroom furniture-less

This is what our front hall/dining room looked like.

Awesome, eh? That is all our life on non-carpeted surfaces. I now know while everyone gets carpet before moving in or after moving out.

 

Monday, October 22nd

 

I took Collin to school, and my parents came and picked up Brennan. They did all kinds of fun things (playing at the hotel & McDonald's) while Ryan and I WORKED.

One of the worst areas of stain in the living room. Not a tear was shed to see this crap on the curb.

We washed all the baseboards, pulled all the carpet, pulled all the pad, yanked all the staples, and swept and vacuumed until we thought we drop. I also sprayed everything down with a bleach/water mixture. (Thank you to the Balls for their help!)

 

I had the bright idea (at 4pm?) to paint the hallway to the bedrooms while the carpet was removed so we wouldn't have to use drop clothes doing it another time. It looks great, but we were up until midnight painting, cleaning and prepping. Sigh.

 

Our wonderful neighbors (Thank you, Marshes!) let us use their home for nap times and nighttime. I was able to put the boys down there on Monday afternoon, Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. Don't know how we could have gotten it all done otherwise.

 

Tuesday, October 23rd (THE BIG DAY!)

 

I "slept" (aka fretted) at the Marshes and at 8am the carpet-layers were calling to say they'd be at the house in 10 minutes. I drove the boys down the road, and they were pulling in just as we got there. Ryan was barely dressed (he'd thrown a mattress on the bare boards the night before), and they got right to work.



The boys were pretty interested in the work for an hour or so, but as they expired my parents showed up from their hotel and swept them away. It was wonderful! They loved time with Grandma and Grandpa (Chuck E Cheese, shoe shopping, Dunkin Donuts), and we loved watching our house transformed.

Like that pad? I particularly love the complementary red argyle and blue & brown pinstripes.



And by 3pm - we had a new house! We moved all our furniture back in (words can't express the exhaustion by this point...) and slept in our new home that night.



It is so soft and plush and cushy on your toes. It is warm and comforting. The house is so much more cozy. A new house, really.

 

And we have a play room (and theater! and exercise room! and guest room! and craft room!!!!) in the basement! Hooray!

 

Want to see pictures? You'll have to wait a little longer. I need to clean. :-) 

Fall

An update on our family seems an order...

 

Time Out for Mom!

I went away for the weekend and it was awesome and I only took one picture to prove it. Ha. This one is of our carload.

 

We went to St Louis Friday morning and got back late on Saturday night. We went to the art museum and the St Charles boutique shops. We attended the program on Friday night and all day Saturday. We stayed up late in the hotel and got up early to work out. Good times.

Fortunately, despite my ineptness at photos, this one is on Facebook. It shows our whole group, sixteen in all. Like the buttons? The girl who got our group together and helped organize everything made them for us. They said "Peoria IL loves Time Out For Women." It was fun to be so unified. Hope I can do it again sometime. It was awesome.

Trains & Parades

Ever since the pumpkin festival, the boys have been obsessed with parades. Good ol Dad made this beauty one morning for the boys to play with. He strapped them together with a string.

Brennan is at the perfect age to obsess over anything he can say really well. (Keep reading for more about his tractor obsession.) He loves to say "choo choo," and it really is about the most adorable thing I've ever heard. He has so much enthusiasm when he says it. Cutest ever.

We cross a set of railroad tracks on the way to church, and he proudly announced "choo choo" as we crossed last week. How did he know!?

I love this age when the language explosion takes place. Brennan says about three new words per day, I estimate. Tonight he said plate for the first time. It is so exciting, and Collin cheers for him too. So fun.

Outside in the Fall
We've been enjoying the beautiful weather too. I feel like every day could be the last, so we've been outside constantly. I hate knowing it's going to end...

Anyway, I shot this beauty one afternoon in our sandbox. We had two families over rather impromptu. Each of us has a child born in 2008 and another born in 2010 (Brennan is only barely in 2011...).

And as long as I'm talking about impromptu play dates - We have the best neighborhood ever. There are so many kids the same age as mine, and so many stay-at-home moms too. I love going for walks and playing outside and having so many kids around for mine to play with. The other moms are super great too. We've made so many good friends. It is a great place to live.

Normal Children's Museum
We made our fall trek to the Children's Museum closest to us too (about 45 minutes away) last Friday.

As usual, I couldn't pull them away from the water table.

Brennan also LOVES to say the word tractor. Here he is driving one.

He also got super obsessed with this one. 

 I mean, really - He walked around with it for about 20 minutes.

 He wouldn't share it with other kids; he was quite possessive.

The whole time he was chanting, "tata, tata." Adorable. Luckily, his hunger button went off, and a friend coaxed him over to the tables to eat. I don't know how I would have gotten him to put it down otherwise...

Speaking of "hunger buttons," this little one can pack it away. He eats and eats and eats. This picture doesn't really fit here, but Ryan captured it one morning at breakfast.

What do you think of our Cheerio monster? I'm thinking it would make a great Halloween costume, lol.

Here's my eating machine at his next favorite thing: art work. He is the best color-er there every was, and let me tell you: He can paint too. Pardon the blurry picture, but he was going to town. My own little Picasso. Look at that smile.

Ryan & Lindsey's Bday
We also celebrated our birthdays - 31 years. Yikes. We did our usual bonfire with friends, cheesecake yumminess to share, out to dinner together sans kids, and another dinner with children. Somehow I have zero picture documentation of all the events. Oops. Must be my 31-year-old brain getting worn out...

Christ Apple Orchard
The morning of Ryan's bday, we headed to the apple orchard. Our usual orchard outlawed apple picking this year (shame on you, Tanner's), so we found this new gem.

Oh my goodness - such a wonderful place with WAY less commercialism. We plan on making it our new usual.

 

We had a great time picking a peck of apples. Look at this gargantuan one in Collin's hands.

We also picked three pumpkins out of the patch and got some of the best cider I've ever tasted. I love the Midwest.

Basement, Basement, Basement

 

And last but not least - We've been breathing basement. Every time the kids are in bed or occupied (ie watching tv), we are slaving away in the basement. But we are on the home stretch! We've painted long into the night for weeks, and the exhaustion is showing. I nap almost every day, but poor Ry just keeps plugging away.

We have ordered and paid for our carpet (the last step except doors and moldings). Yippee!

The wood floor and kitchenette are also installed. We also got the surround sound in (listened to Pandora on the receiver this morning!) and the exercise room tv is mounted too. We are so close. Can't wait for carpet!!

And there's our update. Hope you are each enjoying Fall too!