Basement Remodel: Update #2

We've been working away at the basement now for 3 weeks and it seems as though all the big things are almost done. Thank goodness because having my basement as a construction zone hasn't been ideal. 

 Perry finished getting all the dry wall up last Sunday while I was at work. This time I made him hang something over the basement entryway to minimize the amount of dust throughout the rest of the house. I haven't been, but I seriously feel like I've been dusting every day. (If you come over between now and the time the basement is done, just view the dust as an accent to compliment the decor!)

 

 Since he took Monday off of work to care for his sick wife, Perry finished up texturing and puttying the seams. By Wednesday I was feeling up to painting the room. Perry had told me not to go out and buy more paint because we already had a ton in the garage, which is true, but most of them were almost gone. I settled on the purpley-grey that I used 7 years ago in the downstairs bathroom. It looks more grey in the can, but more purple once its on the wall. I'm not in love with it.

By the time I was leaving for work on Saturday, Perry was beginning to lay down the carpet but ran out. By the time I was leaving for work on Sunday, the rest of the carpet was in. He wasn't thrilled with his installation job. He's mad that he mismeasured and laid a roll of carpet down wrong so the twill (?) doesn't go the same way. I didn't notice...

We wanted to get carpet in the room before my high school friend came to stay, otherwise it would be a danger zone in there. After she leaves, I think Perry is either going to finish up the trim work and then take the carpet out to re-do it, or take the carpet out and then finish the trim. Who knows at this point?! But the rooms looks great so far! I'm excited to get the hallway done!

Ninja Turtle Cake with Bricks

I was so relieved to be feeling better by the end of the week so I could confidently work on this cake. My coffee date plans for Thursday evening didn't pan out, which was probably a good thing, so I was able to get a jump start on baking and frosting. My stress level plummeted! Woohoo!

I love Ninja Turtles, and have since I was young, but I really enjoy watching JP get excited as I build Ninja Turtle cakes. He doesn't mind they're not for him, he just has a deep love for the Ninjas. You can see the cake I made for JP when he turned 4 here. These two are similar in that they both have the turtles coming out of the manhole, but I like the brick on this one a little bit more. I was pleased to get high marks from him on my cake! The birthday boy was pretty excited too when I delivered it. "Can I eat it now?!"

Family Sunday: Skate Club

After the week I had, a fun day with my family was just what I needed to get myself out of my stress bubble. 

A few weeks ago, Hunter's teacher emailed to tell me how Hunter has been struggling to pay attention during reading sessions, and if I had another suggestions or incentives, to let him know because he was running out of ideas. I'm not sure how I came up with it, but I ended up making a few punch cards for him. If he's behaving during reading he can get a punch, and when he fills his card, he can turn it in for the prize listed. He filled up a roller skating card first. He was SO excited to bring it home on Tuesday. We were going to go skate on Thursday but he was kind of feeling sick, so I told Perry we were all going to go for family skate on Sunday. 

 I may or may not have told the boys their shirts were required to be tucked in otherwise they might snag their shirt on something and fall. It worked, they tucked them in. *giggle giggle* JP brought his roller skates from Santa!

 I'm not going to lie, it's been a solid 20 years since I've been roller skating, and maybe 15 years for Perry. I think I looked like Hunter here when I first started...

I caught on pretty quickly and I was surprised as to how quickly Hunter and JP caught on too. They were still nervous about skating, but they both were doing much better staying up by the end of it.  

 I was also impressed with myself that I was able to get Perry to roller skate too. We held hands and skated a little bit together while the kids rested. JP rested most of the time we were there because he was "too hot." I think he was just nervous.

Charlotte came along too and was very disappointed there were no skates her size. I didn't expect there to be. I'm thinking about getting here an adjustable pair. We'll see. In the meantime, she held my hand and ran next to me as I roller skated. She was the best partner!
I really enjoyed watching Hunter skate though. I'm not kidding, in his orange shirt with his hands waving every which way, he looked like a "wacky-waving-inflatable-arm tubeman" like you see as car dealerships. I'm anxious to go again!

Underwater Themed Cake

This was quite the week for me! As I said last week when I was finishing up my post about our basement, I had a few upcoming cakes this week. This is the first one that needed to be done.

The theme of the party was whales, as it was for a 1 year old. He has an adorable blanket with whales on the back that his mom wanted his party themed after. Adorable. In my mind, there would have been more waves on the top tier, the portion he got to smash into, but Monday happened. I had the entire bottom tier completely done, as well as the cake baked and layered for the top tier by Sunday afternoon. The whale was even made. All I needed to do Monday morning was frost the cake and add the waves and the octopus.

I swung by the store after work Sunday night to pick up a few things and by the time I was checking out, I felt so weak and pale. I didn't think much of it because I was exhausted (and a bit stressed). Instead of working on the cake when I got home, I opted to work on it Monday morning while the twins (I babysit now because I have baby fever!) were napping, except I woke up in the middle of the night completely sick. Every time I moved I would start gagging. It was terrible. And that lasted until the next afternoon. My whimpering/moaning in the middle of the night woke my wonderful husband up so he just knew he'd better take a sick day and stay home with me. Bless his heart I didn't even have to ask <3 p="">
I slept on and off all morning, the best I could with Charlotte still wanting mommy. (And because someone spent his day off working on the basement...) I probably could have rested easier if I wasn't so worried about getting the cake done. It took a solid hour to get frosting on the top tier. That task usually takes just a few minutes. I was a wreck until Perry went to the store to pick up some anti-nausea medicine for me.

After the boys bounced through the door after school, we all loaded up to deliver the cake. I knew I wasn't fit to be driving and I'm glad I didn't because I started feeling sick again on the way home. I hate hate hate being nauseous. I don't remember being so sick before in my life, but I'm pretty sure I feel that way every time I get sick...

Anyways, here's how it turned out. Normally I take a few more "professional" looking photos, but I just couldn't this time. All things considered, it turned out decent :) 
<3 p="">

Getting Our Golf Game on in February

Waaaayy back in February, the golf course my lovely sister Kim works at opened the course up for golf, in the middle of February! How often does that happen in Montana?! Hardly ever if I'm correct. Conveniently enough, my dad just happened to be in town, with his clubs none the less, so he convinced Kim and me to go out golfing with him Monday afternoon. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Perry was home on his "vacation" so he was able to watch Charlotte, and it was Leap Day! You have the opportunity to golf on Leap Day once every four years, but the chances of that happening in Montana are pretty slim, but I did it!

I almost bailed on the golfing excursion for multiple reasons, the main one being cramping. I've never cramped so bad before! I asked my sister to "lace my sandwich with Midol" as I was on my way out to the course, but she didn't find the humor in it quite like I did. Aside from that Perry joined his mom earlier that morning to put down his dad's dog, Katie. It took longer than planned so I almost missed the tee off while waiting, curled up in a ball on the couch.

When I finally left the house, I grabbed a light jacket. I think it was around 45* out, which is not that cold. What I forgot to take into account was the wind. Our house is pretty sheltered. The golf course is not and boy was the wind a bit chilly. Luckily my mom was there, and not staying for golf, so I borrowed her winter coat. Kim and I loaded our golf cart with blankets and my dad brought along hand warmers. Off we went for some family bonding!

Here's Kim teeing off. I struggle teeing off but I almost hit the geese!  Kim said the week before a guy hit his ball onto the pond, which was still iced over, so he jumped on, hit is ball, and hopped back on to land. Only in Montana...

I know he won't admit it, but I'm pretty sure my dad was freezing. On the ninth hole, you could hear the power lines buzzing, and the flag poles were bending in the wind. I also had to re-tee my ball a couple times because it kept blowing off the tee. Now that's wind! After we finished up, we warmed up in the club house with hot chocolate. Yummm!

Basement Remodel: Update #1

Last month Perry and I, mostly Perry, gave JP's room a needed updated - we gave him carpet! Perry did it all himself :) He's so handy! He also bought an extra roll of carpet. When we finished up the room, he was going to take it back to the store but then we began talking about what we were going to do with the queen sized bed that used to be in JP's room. I didn't want to get rid of it because the kids LOVE to have sleepovers together and I didn't want that to end just yet.

We've talked about doing something to the basement off and on for years but nothing ever came of it until now. After a lot of discussing and measuring, we agreed to put up a few walls to create a 5th bedroom. It will also have a walk-through closet that leads to a storage area. Earlier this year we were talking about taking out one of our closets upstairs when we remodeled the kitchen, but would need somewhere in the basement to store the vacuum and such. I imagine this new space in the basement will be where the vacuum, mop, and shampooer go, when, and IF we remodel the kitchen. Not ideal, but hey.

The new space in the basement will house the extra bed and double as my sewing room. Currently most of my sewing things are upstairs in our living room area, and it's driving me nuts! I'm working on a quilt and I have no room to lay it all out! I'm hoping for the best... The bonus to having the spare room down stairs is solely the fact that there will be a door on it. I can lock the kids out of my sewing stuff. FINALLY!

I was going to post a few pictures of what the space has looked like over the years but I may or may not have misplaced my external hard drive. I am trying to remain calm about it but on the inside I'm panicking about where it could be! There's only 8 years of memories on that bad boy...!! I've been praying to Saint Anthony, the saint of lost and stolen things, but he hasn't pulled through yet. Just keep praying, just keep praying...

Anyways, when we moved in, we housed our green couch from the apartment downstairs, as well as Perry's extra couch and chair. Basically it was a sitting room that no one actually sat in. Ever. Eventually we moved all the kids' toys downstairs and made it into a playroom. You know, why not? keeping their room clean was hard enough, let's give them one more space to have to clean... I've had high hopes for this room, but the vision never really pans out so I'm just excited to be able to make it into a new space.

 Perry was supposed to take a trip to Spokane and be gone for the first week of March. I love when he has to be gone for the whole week. (Can you sense my sarcasm?) A few days before he was set to leave, there was a change in plans so he ended up no needing to go. Because he was already planning on being gone, he opted to use up a few of his thousand vacation days and stay at home with his lovely wife (and start on the basement).

We started taking out the floor on February 29th, but before we began, I managed a couple pictures of our mess of a basement. This first one is standing in our "office" looking towards the family room.

 This second on is looking towards the family room from the bottom of the stairs.

 This one is standing by the window looking towards the office.

 I spent the morning packing up all my sewing things.

And Charlotte helped dad by stacking up the small flooring pieces. She was such a good helper! 

 By the end of Perry's "vacation" he had most of the framing done. There was way too much banging going on for my liking, so I'm glad that part is done.

 Perry decided we are putting in a pocket door. I would have liked a normal door, but there was some kind of problem with the door frame size. We also agreed to wall in the hideous post that is just hanging out in the middle of the hallway. On the other side of it, we'll add some shelves for storage. What would have been the end of the hallway will now be a walk-through closet, and where Perry is at will be a "large" storage area. (He wasn't thrilled to have his picture taken...)

 Perry spent that Saturday and Sunday mostly working on the electrical but by the end of the weekend, we had a few walls up! 

I'll be posting more progress soon! And by soon, I actually mean after I finished two cakes...Check back next Sunday for pictures of those and more basement progress!

Mom Confessions: Rejection Still Hurts

At the beginning of the year, I had a meltdown and wrote about how I had been feeling rejected. To sum up a really long post, my neighbors and I had planned to do a progressive dinner party over New Years, and no one showed up at my house, or invited me to theirs. I spent the whole day preparing appetizers and cleaning the house so naturally I was really hurt. I did my best to be an adult as I tried to pretend I wasn't hurting, but they could see through me. Clearly I'm not good at hiding my feelings...that's not always a bad thing, right?

One of them realized something was up when I waved "hello" instead of saying it. Eventually I caved in and told her I was really hurt by their actions and really just needed some time to "recover" from that. She then told the other neighbor, who then confronted me about it. Talking about my feelings is so hard! I felt so vulnerable! They all apologized for making me feel rejected as they didn't intentionally leave me out, because they aren't "those kind of people" and I should know that. Cue the eye rolls....

Fast forward to my birthday, which I don't celebrate for a reason. It landed on a Thursday this year. The previous Friday, we ran into our neighbors while out eating and later went to their house afterwards for a while where we made a plan for the ladies together the next weekend. A few days later Perry's mom took us out to dinner on Tuesday, and then my family took us to dinner on Wednesday. My gut couldn't handle more restaurant food otherwise Perry probably would have taken me out to dinner for my birthday too. But I had a nice birthday none the less. (He gave me a foot massage and my feet staaank!) I was stupidly getting excited to for the weekend ahead as I managed to have a couple people cover my shift at work so I could have Saturday night off to celebrate my birthday with "friends." 

Our first plans of the ladies getting together on Friday night fizzled out as everyone ended up really tired so Perry and I found ourselves playing Dominos by ourselves until midnight. The following afternoon the ladies and I group texted about the night. My husband was invited to play poker with the husbands while the wives got together. After some close friends made dinner for us, I let the group know they could come over whenever. Turns out two of the three ladies joined in for poker, and the other spent the night watching hockey on tv. She eventually showed up around 10:30p, but again, I was feeling rejected again. I took the night off work and was stood up again. I'm always asked why I don't celebrate my birthday. This is why. I can't handle the disappointment. I've had so many crappy birthdays. 

At this point I don't want to even think about getting together with them again. I'm not going to put myself in that situation again. I'm also at the point where I want to delete my Facebook account because I really just don't like seeing pictures of the ladies all hanging out together when I didn't get an invite. If my cake page wasn't attached to it, I'd probably be done with it by now. I'm always brought back to the same question: What am I doing wrong to not be included? I just don't understand. I think I'm a pretty likable person.