That's funny mommy, that's funny

Katherine says this a lot. She things everything is funny or silly. Usually I think she is the one that is being funny. She does do the craziest things.

Today in the car she sat in the backseat talking to her feet. She was actually scolding her toes for getting out of the shoes. She said, "toes not stay out or spanking (then she spanked her feet). Obey Katherine". I think she understands the choice we give her of to obey or to be punished.

A few nights ago when we were in her room she decided to run around in a circle from her room, her bathroom, Squeak's room and the hall. She thought it was so funny and kept saying, "I running, I running fast!"

She loves to climb in our front yard tree. She is not quite big enough to really get up there because of they way the tree branches out but she has fun playing in it. In this photo she is silly because she is wearing her pajama tops with normal pants - she wore it all day long.


Katherine had a few days where she insisted on carrying a specific pile of stuff everywhere she went. She would circle her hands over the pile and say, "my stuff mommy". In this pile of stuff was her small blanket, little lamb, baby, her baby's patapum (carrier), baby's blanket, "dada" (doll), "dada's" blanket, her pillow and what she calls her napmat but is actually an waterproof pad that we have her sit on when she is on the couch in case she has an accident. As you can imagine, this is a lot of stuff to carry and she gets quite frustrated when she can't carry it all. If I offer, she says, "no mommy, my byself" - her version of "by myself".

The day before we ripped out the bathroom, Katherine sat at my vanity table and combed her hair. She kept saying, "I pretty, hair pretty, so pretty".

Today when we were in the car I wrote down her commentary on the workers. I was pretty amazed both at what she was comprehending and at how many thoughts she was stringing together in a way that I understood.

"Nana workers come Nana's house, and Katherine's house. Come everybody's house"

"Workers make mess. Workers cleaning now."

"My workers, mommy workers, nana workers"

"Where workers go?"

"Workers fix mommy bathroom"

Bathroom Remodel #1

Well, the day to tear out our master bath finally arrived. We have been talking about what to do with this bathroom for almost 5 years since we moved in. As I mentioned before, we had grander plans that exceeded our budget so we had to scale back a bit. Today was demo day so last night I took some before pictures and today I took the post-demo, pre-reconstruction photos.

The bathroom vanity before.
Close up of the lovely wall paper
Bathroom vanity, after removal of the vanity, fur downs and flooring.
View of shower and door to hall, before. View of shower and door to hall after removing paneling and carpet. Ick, carpet in bathrooms produces very gross subfloors. We are most excited about the removal of the carpet and hope it helps some allergy problems.
Toilet area, before
Toilet area, before

Toilet area after removal of paneling, cabinet and fur down.
Bathroom vanity view #2 before
Bathroom vanity view #2 after.
Dressing room before
Dressing room after

Tomorrow we will have the electrician come out to remove the lights in the dressing room and bathroom as well as install new lights in both rooms and a exhaust fan/light in the bathroom. He was supposed to come today but ended up at my parents house to fix an AC problem that he caused during their remodel. It is a good thing he was not here anyway because our bathroom could not have fit the electrician along with the 3 plumbers. I think that is all that will be happening tomorrow. Monday they will tape and bed and texture the walls. Tuesday they will put in the tile. That night Sam and I will paint and on Wednesday they will install the vanity and faucets. After that I am not sure the schedule. Amazingly, it could all be done by the end of next week.

It is quite interesting doing this with a toddler. Last night Sam took off two of the cabinet drawers to save and use to practice painting since we may paint other similar cabinets in the house. This morning she was quite concerned that they were missing and wanted daddy to fix it. When the workers arrived she wanted to watch them. Luckily it was a MDO day and she was not around because they were in and out of the house all day, it was loud and she would have been in the way. The interesting thing about a bathroom remodel with a 7 month pregnant lady will be midle of the night bathroom trips.

I don't plan to post updates every day and may even wait until it is done for the big reveal.

Playgroup at the Zoo

Our playgroup met for a fun time at the zoo. It was a little crazy with 5 toddlers and 2 babies but it was a lot of fun.
The entire morning was a game of musical chairs. We had one "odd man out" of the stroller. This was Tess' first big outing since Gabriel was born and she did not think to switch what stroller was in the car so she did not have a double stroller. It truly was musical chairs. Every time we would load up the kids would just run for a spot and someone would be left out. Sometimes that person was fine with it and sometimes they were not. It was interesting.

Robert wants to be carried when "odd man out".

Katherine squeezes in with Laurie Jane when "odd man out".
Katherine thought the toad statue wanted some raisins.

After lunch we let the kids play in the water. Of course this was the highlight of the day at the zoo. Rather than messing with a swimsuit, I just let Katherine play in her panties and cover. Several times I caught her trying to take them off!

Ben and Madi

Louis was the fish of the group, literally going all the way in.
Ava is a new walker so she was a little hesitant.

Robert enjoyed the water.
Baby Gabe slept most of the morning. He is such a cutie.

I just noticed I did not post any pictures of animals. I did take a few but it was so much work keeping the kids corralled together that they were not really any good. The kids were animals enough though!

Catching up

There are always a few pictures that I realize I have not posted so this is a post that is catching up on some of those pictures.

We love to hang out with Gary and Alysha and their kids. We sure wish we were able to get together more but about every 8 weeks seems to be our trend. Ethan is 4 and Caleb is a month younger than Katherine so they have fun. This time Gary and Sam ended up out in the workshop (no huge surprise) and the kids followed. They loved playing in the truck.
Katherine loves the truck and always wants to go sit in it. It is too bad that I don't feel there is a safe way to put her car seat in the truck. It is legal to put it in front when there is no back but just because it is legal does not mean it is safe. I fear it will be many years before she and daddy are able to hop in the truck to go to Keller's and show it off while enjoying a burger and shake. Nana's birthday was April 13th and we celebrated with lunch, cake and presents at our house after church. Katherine loves birthdays so she was able to help Nana blow out the candles and open the gifts.

Katherine's gift to Nana was more toys to play with at Nana's house. It was a gift for both of them.
At the beginning of April I took family photos for Dan, Sara and Eden. Sara was in her final month of pregnancy and I am assuming (and hoping) that she has had baby boy by now. Eden is a few months older than Katherine and quite the cutie. She is hamming it up for the camera for sure.

Internets - I need your opinion please!

We are going to start remodeling our master bathroom this week. This is something that we have been toying with and talking about for years. Our bathroom appears to be in pretty much original 1971 condition. The carpet is actually "newer" but ick - carpet in a bathroom is pretty disgusting.

We will be tiling the floor, taking out the existing cabinets and counter and replacing with a furniture style vanity, getting rid of wallpaper and painting the walls and then replacing all fixtures, mirrors, lights, etc. We will also be redoing the dressing room and turning it into my craft room.

The thing that really has always bugged us about our bathroom is the fact that the master bathroom is the only one (of 3) that is accessible for guests without going through a bedroom. It is the first door you reach when coming down the hall. That is just a little odd. We originally thought we would gut the entire bath and dressing room and move all the plumbing to create a 1/2 bath off the hall and a full bath off our bedroom. Well, the price tag for that was prohibitive so now we are just going to seriously face lift what we have without moving the plumbing.

So here is where I need your help. We do have the option of removing the door from the hallway to the bathroom and making that a wall. This would make our master bath more like a master bath. Right now there are two doors that open into the bathroom and it makes for quite a crowded room, especially if we are both in there at the same time. The downside is that now when guests are over they would either go through our master bedroom to get to our bathroom or they would go to the bathroom in the office. The office is not our cleanest room but we could work on that.

So, what is your opinion? Many of you have been to our house and so you know the layout and where these bathrooms are. Is it too weird or awkward to walk through a bedroom to get to a bathroom? Should we leave it with a door to the hall or should we close it off. I would really appreciate your input and your comments. I have to decide this week as they will be starting soon!

Family Portraits

While we were in Tennessee at the "Old Home Place", I wanted to get some family portraits done. I actually checked with a photographer in nearby Huntsville about doing them but since she charged $500 sitting fee and $300-800 per print depending on size we decided to take the photos ourselves. They are not as good but we saved a lot of money.

All 8 of us in front of the "Old Home Place"

The Anniversary Couple

Our family - pre spouses and pre kids

Nana and Pops with their girls.
Jaime, Sophia and Will
Christy, Katherine and Sam

The girls

Katherine in motion

Other cute photos of the girls

It was an overall great trip for the family. The girls did great considering how much we were on the go. We really enjoyed spending time together. It was neat to spend time in a place that has so much family history and it meant a lot to my mom. The B&B keeper knew more about the family history and the house than any of us and it was interesting to learn.

Activities in Tennessee

Though our vacation was primarily in the boonies, it was close to some interesting sites. So, each day we ventured out and saw some cool stuff. On Saturday we drove about an hour to Huntsville, AL to the US Space and Rocket Center. We saw rockets, planes and exhibits on space exploration. All I really knew about this place was from the movie "Space Camp" that was out when I was in junior high. I had no idea that a major portion of of space research and development was located in Alabama. I think it would be pretty cool to go to space camp. They actually have an adult version now.

Sam and Katherine with a model of a Saturn V rocket.

Sam and Katherine in front of an SR71.
Mom and Dad in front of the SR71

On Sunday we went to tour the Jack Daniel's distillery. It is located in the smallest county in Tennessee (population). Pretty much all 365 residents work in the distillery. The interesting thing is that even though every drop of Jack Daniel's produced and shipped around the world is produced here, it is a dry county. They actually can sell it at the distillery, but not on Sunday. Fine by me, I am not a whiskey fan. It was an interesting tour though and I have been on my share of winery and brewery tours.

With Mr. Jack Daniel's himself

There is a barrel club where you buy the entire barrel and get a plaque on the wall. I think a barrel costs $8000-10000 depending on your state taxes. Interesting that the two plaques in focus were both a part of a military base. That is our tax dollars hard at work.

Monday we all left town at different times. Sam had a 9:45 flight on American but the rest of us were flying standby on Southwest. Will, Jaime and Sophia were trying to get out an an 11:30 flight but Mom, Dad, Katherine and I were not going to fly out until 2. So, we went to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. He was the 7th president of the US. It was a beautiful estate with a lot of buildings, grounds and a well done audio tour. We only had about an hour and a half to explore due to our flight back so it was a little frustrating to not get to see everything but it was much better than sitting in the hotel or airport.