Shawn is fantastic

Shawn was fetured on our gym blog this weekend. You should go read about how cool he is here.

Cluck Clucks

Today the girls came running into the house yelling "An egg! An egg! One of the chickens laid and egg!"...then they promptly dropped it on the floor. Sigh.

On that note: here is an update on all the ladies:

Delilah is our Easter Egger. That egg might have been from her. Delilah is quite a character. She come running whenever we com into the yard. Her biggest motivator is food. If she thinks you have a treat for her she is all over you. She is my kind of girl.

CeeCee is our Ameraucana. She was a surprise. We thought she was going to be a Barred Rock. I love her tufts of feathers on her cheeks, or her beard. She is a very pretty bird, and also quite mellow.

Peck is probably our odd duck. She has a birth defect that resulted in deformed feet. I'll have to take a picture some time. She does not like to be held and will actively run away from you if you try. She is definitely the most shy and stand-offish of our birds. She is sweet and quiet. She was the first bird to show an interest in roosting...on our 8-foot fence. Silly thing.

That egg probably came from Stretch. She is our Barred Rock. I think she is a couple of weeks older than the other birds and she has been nesting lately. I guess we will see with time. Stretch seems to think she is a dog. She spends lots of time on our back deck pecking at the glass door, like she wants to come in. She will run to us when we come in the yard and she loves to be held. She will jump up on my shoulder and hang out there when I am working in the yard. She is a super-fun bird. She is also the boss, at the top of the pecking order.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring a new egg...one that doesn't end up on the floor.

Home Remodel

I have terribly neglectful of our blog this summer. I guess I have been busy doing other things. We have been doing a giant home remodel and it is nearing completion. I also need to post about the other things we did this summer: Brynn's baptism and birthday, the races I participated in, some new haircuts for the girls, and a few other fun things. I will start with the remodel. It has been all-consuming for months now and I can't believe we are almost done.  So here is a huge picture rundown of what we have been up to:

Kitchen before. Notice dark cabinets, wall by stairs, and ugly lamp over stairs. Soon they will be gone.

Living room before. Notice entryway with it's special posts, the stairway that is not up to code (plastic latticework) and the decorative railing behind the couch.

Living room/kitchen before.

Cabinets coming down. I did this by myself in an afternoon. I must say it gave me a bug to destroy everything. Demolition is so much fun! The girls sat on the deck and watched me. They were my cheering section. "Hit is again, Mom!"

 

Cabinets gone. We should have done this years ago. I have not missed the cabinets for two seconds. They were so narrow you could not even fit a dinner plate into them.

This banister is up to code, right?

 Shawn and Dad discussing the important things in life: How do we rip this railing out of here?

 

Shawn working on taking the fireplace out. We had to cut the wall out to get to the stovepipe. We had to cut through the stovepipe, which was three layers thick.

Fireplace gone. We were left with a super creepy hole in the wall. The stovepipe was left hanging there. We thought it would be fine. Shawn tarred around it up on the chimney to close a water leak and everything looked good. We came home from church to find the stovepipe had fallen through the chimney and was sitting on the floor in the wall. There is now a 14-inch hole in our chimney where the stovepipe used to be. We just left the stovepipe in the wall and sheet-rocked over it.

We took out a little wall here by the stairs. My new can lights are in place and we have started painting.

This is the sheet rock repair job where the fireplace used to be. It was so nice to not have a giant hole in the wall anymore. The cat had been crawling around in the hole the hour before we closed it up. We made sure we knew where she was at before we closed the hole.

Stair banister gone. I tore this out by myself one morning. Again, I think I like demolition a little too much. Claire is practicing safe stair-climbing technique in the picture. Do you all want to send your kids over to play at my house. I promise it is super-safe.

This is the wall where the fireplace used to be, patched and painted. You would never guess there used to be a fireplace there.

One of my new light fixtures. I LOVE them!

Just a happy kid. Our kids have been so patient with this whole thing. Such good girls.

This is what we found underneath the floor when we tore it up. I think this we the original linoleum in the house. Isn't it pretty? Claire was calling it our treasure floor. The girls loved it and wanted to keep it. It is still down there, so I guess we kind of did.

 Old kitchen floor gone. Kind of.

New laminate going down. This was an exciting day. I love this floor and the new feel it gave to this space.

New floor just about done!

Old carpet coming up. My parent and Jake came over and helped us pull staples for hours. Then as payment I gave Jake the old carpet. It is headed for his garage. Heehee.

Old sink on it's way out. Countertops gone.

New countertenors. They are so pretty! And I love the way they make the cabinets pop. It is finally starting to come together!

New sink. I have wanted a stainless sink for years. I am so excited

New carpet. We finally can start putting the house back together. The carpet looks great! The girls spent all afternoon rolling around on it.

New ceiling fan. We have had no ceiling lighting in the living room up to this point. I am so excited about this lamp, and anyone who know me know I am hot all the time so the fan will be great!

We cased all the windows and put up new molding. This was a huge job, but so worth it. It all looks great and really finishes everything off.

That is about it. I will post some more pics when we get the furniture back in. The bookcase will probably go in around November. Shawn has worked so hard. Thank you baby!! Also thank you to my parents who helped so much. THey would call every day and ask what I got done and what I was going to do. I think they were worried that they would get stuck with the work so they were highly motivated for me to work hard. Seriously they helped a ton. We can never repay them.

So now for the next month I am going to sit on my couch and look at my pretty new house. Come over and you can sit next to me and we can stare together.

Syd is 10!!

 Syd recently had a birthday. She is 10! Can you believe it? Here are some higlights fromher birthday:

We had a small family party.

 Syd and I went into town earlier in the day and got her ears pierced. She was so brave! Not one tear was shed. Then she picked out some earrings and I wrapped them up and she did a great job of acting surprised when she opened them that evening.

 She got some super cool sunglasses from Grandpa Dave and Grandma Leslie. She looks totally chill, huh?

 She also got a very cool kite from Grandpa and Grandma. As a side story: Her birthday was on a Wednesday. On Sunday she took the kite outside to try to get it to fly while Shawn and I were taking a Sunday nap. She came in after just a few minutes soaking wet. She had been paying so much attention to the kite that she backed up and fell into the pool in the backyard. Hee, hee. We are excited to try out the kite at Grandpa's house where there is a little more room and no pools.

 Syd has been playing softball on a ponytail league this summer and loving it. Grandpa and Grandma got her a softball.

 I got her some curclers for her hair. Everyone had to try them out. Very pretty.

 We also got her a new bike. She was not expecting this at all and we surprised the crap out of her which was lots of fun. It is her first geared bike. She seems to really like it. Another story: She and Brynn went for a ride the next day. They had been gone for about 10 minutes when Brynn came screeching into the house yelling that Syd had crashed on her new bike and it was broken and she was bleeding. So I went out to find Sydney walking her bike home and crying. She was banged up pretty good, but she was more worried that she had broken her bike for good. I put the chain back on and it was as good as new. She now has some awesome bruises and scraps to show off, and the bike was not hurt.

 I had to try the curlers too. I felt like a witch. Cackle, cackle.

 Syd requested a Kit-Kat cake. Kit-Kats are her favorite candy bar so this cake was perfect for her.

Blowing out the candles.

We had a great birthday with Syd. I can't believe how grown-up and big my baby is getting. She is such a good girl and we are so proud of her. Hope you had a great day, Syd!

Mindy in the spotlight

The gym we go to did a profile on Mindy this week. She rocks so you should check it out!

Mindy's Athlete Profile

We will have to do a whole post about the mud run, but here are some more pics to wet your appetite.

Brynn's Dance Recital

Brynn's dance recital was just over a week ago.
She did fantastic!

Brynn has done ballet and jazz this year. Her ballet dance was from Swan Lake. It was absolutely charming. She did fantastic and I loved her cute black tutu.

Her jazz dance was Say Hey (I Love You) by Michael Franti And Spearhead. It was lots of fun and Brynn's even got a special part in it. Here are lots of pictures of her in her costumes:

We love you Brynn! You are a great little ballerina!

Night-time Antics

So apparently things are happening at my house while I sleep. This morning Claire was asleep on the couch downstairs. Like REALLY asleep. I chatted with Brynn (her roomate) and from what I can piece together this is what happened last night:
Claire got up at 10:30 to take herself potty. We were super-proud. She got up again at 12:30 to go potty again. Proud again, but a little suspisious at this point. She never needs to go more than once at night. Shawn went to bed shortly after this and apprently this is when the party really got underway. Claire got up and sat in the rocking chair in her bedroom and read stories. After a while she started reading out loud to Brynn. This was somwhere around 4:30 AM. Brynn told her to stop and go back to bed. Claire came upstairs and told Shawn and I that there was water in Sydney's window well. This caused immediate action because this really has happened before. Shawn assesed that there was no water anywhere and put Claire back to bed. At some point after this she got up again and found a pen in the family room. She proceeded to color all over her arms and legs and tummy, and she even gave herself a moustache. I think she fell asleep on the couch after this. I am not sure, but that is where Sydney found her this morning at 7:00 when she got up. I woke Claire up at 8:45. It took some good effort on my part and she was not happy to have to get up.
So I guess the conclusion is that if you want to party, wait until the parents go to bed to get things really rolling. I am a little scared that she knows that this early. But don't you like her mustache?