The Saga Continues...

I would like to take a moment and point out to everyone that Kevin and I know NOTHING about home renovations/repair, we would have been lost without amazing friends that know exactly what they are doing and who were totally willing to give up their holiday weekend to work at our house. We will be forever in their debt. 

So, we were all up and working early this morning. Some of these pictures are from last night after Kev got everything cleaned up for the night. 

I love these pictures because they help to remind me how blessed we were over the course of the weekend. We were blessed in so many ways we cannot really even begin to scratch the surface. Sherri and Toni and their children worked tirelessly all weekend long, Robin and Jim were more helpful than we could even begin to explain and Robin brought us over dinner in the middle of the mess which was amazing! We also had Chelsea come and get our children and take them away so they could get out of the house and have fun and not be exposed to all of the nasty we were tossing into the air the entire day. 

In the middle of this mess we realized our vacuum was not working and two friends brought over vacuums for us, one dear friend left a brand new vacuum on our door step today. We have been touched more than words can adequately express today. I should also mention the new vacuum was a two-fold blessing because our eldest son now is obsessed with vacuuming the house. Awesome!!!! We had other friends over the course of the week take the children, bring more food, allow us to shower and bathe after each disgusting and messy day, we could go on forever. 

We only made a small amount of progress today, but the new floor was so awesome that I can't even say how awesome it is. I am glad for two reasons, we no longer have nasty mold in the house, and we no longer have a huge hole in the floor that goes clear into the basement. I felt that was an accident just waiting to happen with Bug around. 

Tony got a lot of work done today, and he started the plumbing. Again Kev and I are humbled because this is something that we have absolutely zero skill-set for. 

Extremely humbled and very thankful today, it was a hard frustrating day, but the blessings are truly pouring in. 

Expect the Unexpected.

After spending what seemed like the entire summer with myself and our two little boys perpetually ill, my friend Sherri and I decided that our illnesses were probably being caused by the nasty mold inhabiting our main bathroom. The plan was that Sherri and I were going to tear up the floor and then we would just live on the subfloor while we made plans and saved some money so that we could have the new bathroom that we wanted.

The morning we were supposed to demo the floor my friend arrived at our house before I got there, she decided to get started without me. When I walked in the door she met me with a grim look on her face. 

"It's not good." was all she kept saying. I walked in the room and almost died for two reasons, one because it really was bad, and two because it smelled like something had died in the bathroom. We had water under the first layer of floor (yes I said first-in the end there was one layer of linoleum with an additional subfloor, and then two more layers of linoleum.) and the water was spread across the entire floor. There was saturation from the tub to the vanity and almost to the door. 

A decision was made immeditally to completely move ahead with the renovation, it was clear at this point that we were not going to be able to "just live with it" for a few months. Once the moldy floor was exposed it needed to be taken care of. As you can see in the photos above, this was a problem the previous owners attempted to deal with (unsuccessfully) and that there was serious rot through the floor. 

It is funny to me that I was most concerned with the area that I knew was moldy behind the tub, as you can see there is mold but that was nothing compared with the mess on the floor. 

 My friend Sherri and I got through almost the entire demo in a few hours, the only thing we had not managed was the removal of the tub and the rotten parts of the subfloor. Tony and Kev handled most of those types of things. 

The just when we thought we had a handle on how bad things were, Sherri and I headed to Lowe's to get the materials with my friend Robin and a few of the children. As we were checking out, I get a text from Kev that simply states "It just got worse." The only thing I could think at that moment was HOW?

Well, this is how. Sherri and I had identified damage in several locations in the bathroom, but while we were gone Kev and Tony removed the trim and the wall started squishing out water. Gross. One of the walls was completely saturated and disgusting. 

These are the pictures Kev took with his phone. As you can see in the photo above, there was considerable water damage that was masked by the drywall in our hall closet. 

Awesome. 

Tony pulled the thing down to the studs and removed all of the rotten wood he could, then he called in some of our other good friends the Lillroses for some advice on how to proceed. 

In the end the decision was made to remove all of the rotten wood and to reinforce and then rebuld the bottom portion of the wall. 

Sherri keeps snickering and telling me "Welcome to home renovations." for some reason this is not comforting to me in the least. Haha. For the time being, we are making great progress, but this is also our only shower/tub. Thankfully we have a second half-bath or we would be totally in gui right now. 

I think it is going to be a long weekend. 

And then it exploded...

So this morning, I woke up, ran 3.1 miles, and then headed over to a local bakery on our way to take Kevin to work. I love this bakery and we buy any bread for our family that I do not make from there. I recently read an article on some nasty stuff in store-bought mass produced bread, but I digress.

I was super excited to get some yummy bread and to pick up one of my most favorite treats a peach smoothie from a Michigan creamery. I love these smoothies and this was to be my reward after a wonderful run with an improved time. I happily chatted with the people in the bakery, snatched up my bread and smoothie and headed out to the van so that we could get Kev to work.

As I began shaking up the smoothie I noticed that although the bottle was sealed shut there was a little liquid splashing off of it, I was mildly annoyed but figured it happens right. Well, after a few more moments of shaking and more drips flying off I decided I was ready to enjoy my treat. I started to open the smoothie and instantly it started spewing forth nasty smoothie everywhere, the bottle was like a little mini volcano. Kev was on a call from work and was trying to ignore the mini eruption occurring in the passenger's seat but when I frantically yelled for him to pull over he did. I could not believe it but the thing just kept flowing. He waited for me to open my door when I indicated that I could not because I was at this point covered in smoothie. He came around and opened the door (still on the phone, still acting all calm and put together) and just as he opened my door the smoothie popped. It exploded in a brilliant orange plume of good. Smoothie was everywhere; it was in my eyes, on the ceiling of the van, all over me, all over Kevin (it made cute little orange drops in his hair), there was smoothie on the car seats and the children in the back of the van, there was smoothie on the windows, on the doors, even on the outside of the car! It was brilliant! At that moment I heard Kevin say something like... "Uh, I am going to need to call you back, we have a smoothie emergency going on here." Hilarious! Kevin never loses his cool! Kev grabbed some towels that we were supposed to return to Church but thankfully hadn't yet and helped me wipe off my face, then we tried together to wipe down the van the best that we could. I was apologizing to him when he looked right at me and quietly quoted one of out favorite lines from Galaxy Quest... "And then it exploded." I couldn't help but laugh.

I immediately called the creamery that made the smoothie and initially this young girl on the phone told me there was a problem with the peach smoothies (no kidding) and offered me a $10 store credit at the creamery, I initially accepted this along with her apology and then about a second after I hung up I decided that was insane (our van was a disaster!) and called back. While I was waiting to talk with the young woman again, I decided to hand the phone to Kev. (one of us handles these situations well and it is not me--shocking I know), he spoke with them briefly, gave them his number and then hung up. He told me that the owner would call him back to discuss this as the people in the office at that time did not have the authority to make any other decisions regarding our situation.

A few hours later- after Kev had priced out getting the car professionally cleaned, he got a call back from the owner and she told him that apparently the problem was that they had used a new type of peach in an effort to purify their process and make thier products better, and the shelf life was not what they had anticipated... the smoothies had been delivered over the weekend to the local stores and they were in the process of recalling all of the peach smoothies from that run. She then offered to pay to have our car cleaned immediately and was extremely apologetic. I am very impressed with the way that this was handled and although at the time it was a HUGE mess, it was pretty hilarious too. My regret now is that we did not take a picture of the disaster before we cleaned everything up... it was very impressive.

I would also like to get on my soap box and point out that they were so great and cooperative (I believe) because they are a small, locally based company. I believe their concern for our situation was genuine and they wanted to do everything they could to make it right. I was very impressed with how wonderful they were and how willing they were to fix this situation for us. I love the products this creamery produces; their milk is fantastic, I love their smoothies, and their chocolate milk is my favorite! I also love knowing that the milk and dairy products I am consuming and feeding to my family are processed on a small scale by real people.

Moo-ville is a great company and I will definitely continue to purchase their products because they are wonderful and because the owners did so much to make this situation right.

We also will be laughing about this for ages.

New Beginings

In our Church youth enter the Youth programs when they are 12 years old. Each year the program for the Young Women host an evening for the young woman and their families (including the girls that will be entering at any time in the coming year) that is focused on the Personal Progress Program (a goal setting program for the young women). This year was special because I was serving in the Young Women's program and Bean was entering this year so she was able to be there. It was a nice evening where the girls discussed goals they had accomplished in the past year and Bean and her friend B were also talked to about what they had to look forward to when they entered Young Women's. The thing I found most overwhelming about the evening was that my sweet Bean is going to be 12 in a few weeks and I will officially be the mother of a Young Woman. I hope and pray that my sweet girl and always remeber that she is a Daughter of her Heavenly Father and that He loves her. I know as she enters this Young Woman's program that she will be reminded of this each week. I am so proud of the smart and beautiful young woman she has become.

The End of May

I can't believe it is the end of May. Where is the time going?

I love the little moments where everyone is getting along. 

So, to conclude this very busy and full month, Kev decidede that we should move the furnature around in our Living Room. I believe he mentioned something about being very concerned that Bug was going to go over the couch and through the window. When he confirmed that he was actually having nightmares about it and that he was feeling impressed that it was urgent I went along with him. We spend several hours working on this room. 

Our options are fairly limited, so we decided to clear everything out and see where we felt inspired to deposit it when we were done. 

Kevin is a super-trooper about these late-night adventures. 

It always gets worse BEFORE it gets better right?!

Zee's First Solid Food!

In an effort to possibly halt the barf train that Zee seems to be on and because he will be four months old tomorrow we decided to introduce our little guy to rice cereal. 

Overall it went pretty well, and as you can see he does not seem to bothered by this new experience, now we are really hoping he will be throwing up a little less. 

I love this little guy and I can't believe he is growing up so very fast!

Memorial Day Fun

It is Memorial Day weekend and so we headed out to the Lake for some work and some fun. My Brother Shane is totally awesome and always makes time to pull the kiddos behind the boat. As you can see they thoroughly enjoyed their time out on the water as always. 

My heart feels happy as I watch my children make happy, wonderful memories in a place that is so special and important to me. 

Sharing

I happened to catch a sweet moment where Buggy was sharing one of his toys with Zee. I sure love my boys!

I want to always rememeber the moments when they care completely sweet with each other. 

Playing with Fire

Today the kiddos and I went to a nearby glass institute for their open house and they got to make glass beads. So awesome!

I was a little nervous about them working with the flame and when the instructor pointed out that the flame was about 2500 degrees (hotter than the oven for glass blowing) I was REALLY nervous!

Both of them did really well and Peanut made me a bead for my bracelet and i love it! Bean made an awesome bead for her to wear, they made 7 beads total between the two of them. I need to get some pictures of the beads.

It is an awesome activity and I am sure we will be doing it again, if you get a group of ten or more you can do this for $15 per person.

Date night!

Oh and doesn't Peanut look awesome in those glasses?

 

Michigan Peaches

My friend Robin and I often go to the Farmer's Market here in Kalamazoo. I love and enjoy market time, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go with her today. The highligh of my day though was this display of "Michigan Peaches."

I LOVE this! 

We have a few stands at the market that are run by brokers, they advertise Mighigan Peaches in May that are succulent and beautiful. I can assure you that those peaches are NOT from Michigan, not at this time of the year. I think it is extremely important for shoppers to be aware of these types of con-artists at different markets, if shoppers are not aware then well meaning people that are trying to shop locally end up supporting these brokers and NOT the local farmers. 

Looking forward to a summer of Farmer's Market shopping!

Father-Son-Daughter Campout

Today was supposed to be the Father-son Campout, however after a very long week, we talked to all of the children and everyone decided it would be more fun to have a campout at home. We felt it would allevite the stress of having only one car and half of our family pretty far away, we could all spend more time together and Bean would be able to join in on the camping fun. 

We had a truly delightful evening as a family. We had a nice fire, all of the children enjoyed the time outside and I think the children had a lot of fun camping as well. I really love our little fire-pit and I welcome any opportunity to use it and to have some outdoor fun. 

One content little guy!

Buggy is just loving being outside, he is our outdoor kid. I think he would prefer living in a tent to living in the house most of the time. 

Peanut enjoying his spoils! With an awesome looking tent all set up and ready to go, thanks to the VanderRoest family!

 Bean is really, really focused on cooking her hot dog. 

Zee was really digging being outide, I cannot believe how BIG he is getting. 

A Half-day at the Museum

Today we went with some friends to a nearby museum. We were completely slow about getting there, but in the end the chidlren had a great time! I had not been to the museum since they had updated it, there are a lot of really fun things for the children to do there. We went with some dear friends and all of the children really, really loved playing with the mock news studio and 50s cafe. I was really happy because Zee zonked and took a binky, success!

Always Interesting

I can honestly say that I never know what I am going to find in the Fridge. 

I love my son!

I smile everyday.

Quick Fun Visit

We had a Sister that served her mission come by for a visit while her and her husband were in the area. It was so nice to see this sister and to see how awesome her life is now. I think if she were closer we would all be great friends. I found myself wishing they could stay and hang out longer. It is fun to reconnect with the wonderful missionaries that serve here after they are home. I hope we will be able to see them again.

Thanks for coming Preston and Heather!

 

Side note: this is my first post from the iPad.

Awesome!

 

Baby Shower

Today I ran four miles for the first time post-baby. I am not sure I am going to be able to walk later, but it was totally worth it. 

A kind woman at Church thought it would be a fun idea to have a little get together to celebrate all of the babies born in the last year. There are a few missing, but this was the picture we got of the ones that came. Our little Zee is in the stripes at the bottom, he is one of the youngest there but obviously not one of the smallest. We sure love that little guy!

In this picture the babies were all lined up by age, the oldest ones are the farthest ones away. The little guy next to Zee is several months younger. 

The shower was fun, they had anyone that wanted bring books and then let the mothers pick. We came home with a few new books to add to our collection, it was wonderful. My favorite part however was the cupcakes. I am not going to lie, I thought they looked okay and was going to pass. Someone mentioned that they were really good so I grabbed one, Alisha (the host) had made them and had frosted them ganache! I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. 

We shall not state how many cupcakes were had, but it was more than 1. Sooooo good! I will never frost a chocolate cupcake with frosting again. 

Life changing. 

L.O.V.E.

I saw this cute idea for Mother's Day on a parenting website. They suggested you print letters and take pictures of the children holding them, then stick them in a four picture frame. We had a lot of fun with this today, plus my rhododendron is in bloom and looking amazing. While we were out taking pictures Peanut was getting all crafty with the letters. A friend stopped by and then offered to take a picture. I may have made some effort to look nice had I anticipated this, but alas. 

I made three frames, one for my Mom, one for my MIL and one for me. I think this has been my favorite Mother's day gift ever!

I included some of the outtakes from out little session.

Always a comedian, just like his older brother. 

Bean is such a pretty girl, kind and sweet. We love her so much!

Bug was not super cooperative, we got maybe four shots while he was whacking everyone with the letters in between pictures. We had to work with what we could get. 

Zee was not sure what the heck was going on.

Peanut was really proud of his idea to include a blossom in each photo. I think it was pretty creative and it reminds me how often he really does try to make things better. What a great kid! 

I had Kev make a picture with all of their pictures that we actually used for the frame. I love this so much! My family means the world to me and although there may be many times that we don't have everything everyone else does I hope my children will always be able to say that there was love in our home.