Ah, February begins with David's birthday. Our sweet buddy on the night before he turns 4, dressed as Pikachu and snuggling with Buzz Lightyear in his Curious George sheets. I love all the comfort pieces of my boys' when they were little- David's lions, his white down comforter blanket from my mom. Yes, I am a sentimental person & I adore those little things that make him feel settled and peaceful.
I was feeling all those sentiments, so I pulled out his baby pictures just for the fun of looking at them again. Precious newborn baby, him&I the first time I held him, and meeting his brothers. They all look so little, and it fills my heart with such joy. They are the most precious gift!!
Our house: 2020 was the year of inside projects after we finished our outside ones in 2019 (roof, windows, siding). Inside we had quite a bit going on in February: we finished our half bath in the downstairs hallway, so we started on: the ceiling being scraped and retextured, the window seat being redone, floors in the sunroom removed and tiled, the painting started in the upstairs, and light fixtures being replaced. It was a LOT, but I am so grateful for all that was accomplished!
New flooring for our sunroom: tile! but looks like brick.
Calvin in the hand-me-down 100 day shirt that Hayden&I made. The googly eyes are just too much fun & sound like a rain stick when you move around. Have we washed it? nope. but he wore an under shirt, ha!
Sweet little David in his birthday crown from preschool and his cake. This face is the best, but clearly from the last picture of Calvin, all my boys like to make it! His gift was Playmobile Scooby Doo, who even knew there was such a thing, but I love classic toys.
My night stand book stack! Some gems right here.
Sun room with floors laid, then grouted!
The window seat redone! But, the top didn't fit. Took weeks to get him to come back with the new one & we had to use chairs in from of our new bench in the meantime. Also, he build the little boxes you can see for storage with lids in the bench, but I said please don't! (my initial understanding was the whole bench was a lid) All I could see coming from from these 'storage boxes' was spills going into them. The great news about him building a top that didn't fit, was it had to be redone anyway, so round two included NO seams- thank you Lord.
Work on the upstairs walls, removed the chair rail in the stair well, and they patched and sanded to the max.
First color paint- that we bought gallons of- was too blue. Matt&I thought it would be a nice undertone of blue in the grey, but nope. Blue walls, blue carpet, and blue cabinets in the bathrooms was too much!! So we gave away all that paint, and used them to stop painting immediately. We got a really lovely gray (repose gray SW), and I am so happy with it! Goodbye blue walls, hello gray ones. ps. How lovely are the widow casings? and baseboard? They are also new courtesy of our carpenter.
These blue cabinets were a bit of a surprise- Matt had asked for the detail work to be done in a dark color, and the sales guy said ok sure thing! Here they are with a light color accented. We decided we liked it anyway, and not to be upset about it. In hindsight, we should have had the cabinet company install these. We asked our contractor to do it, but they didn't really know how. Conclusion drawn from the first installation where the doors butted up against the wall. So, oops! They are mostly installed correctly.
More nightstand book stack!
Took Hermione out for a walk at the Girl Scout camp & let the boys run. Me? I'm in it for the view.
For Valentines this year, I had to pull our our 'not' first date picture. Matt&I snowboarding on 2/14/2004. The picture of YL club is Matt and Cole doing some ridiculous skit for valentines club. I had to include it because I love that he will do these kinds of things to connect with kids.
And CS Lewis speaking to my heart & to my young life girls too. This quote used by my friend Meredith in her book, 'In Want and Plenty'.
More house updates! Baseboards for the downstairs became a challenge when we discovered the hardwoods weren't laid to the wall. (facepalm) So, we then had to build out our baseboard by an extra half inch just to cover the gap. frustrating, but problem solved. Looks beautiful in the sunroom!
We took our boys on ski trip 2020! It was wonderful because we got to plan it around seeing our new niece, Evie! So we went up to NC, and had a blast together.
Day 1- I love that all four of them got to do it together!
After getting all four of them to the slopes and dressed, I needed a break. ha! It will wear you out, let me tell you.
Of course playing in the snow is the best part. I got to take Calvin down the mountain once by ourselves, but I admit, Matt did the majority of that. I mostly watched the boys going up&down the bunny slope. I didn't do much boarding this trip, but I was thankful Matt could and did!
James swapped out for skis for the second half of the day after being a bit discouraged on the board, so this pic is the end of day one: every.body.is.beat.
Day 2: it was a traumatic day. James decided to hide at the top of the bunny slope and build a snowball cache, but we got worried when we didn't see him. Matt went on all the other runs, we called ski patrol, I was trying to to worry about him being kidnapped or sitting in the woods with a broken leg, but we found him. He was under this little shed with his snowballs up past the top of the magic carpet, and no one could see him there. Praise the Lord for his goodness to us in finding our boy happy&whole, and I hope none of them try to ambush us in the future. It was not a fun experience.
We packed up our stuff and drove over to Alabama to meet our sweet new niece, Evelyn! When we got into town, Huddle House seemed the easiest&best idea, so everyone enjoyed waffles and seeing tiny Evie.
But holding her was even better! We got to attend John's church for the first time, and it was really cool getting to see more of where they live & their community.
Nora got to ride with all the boys! :-)
And then it was baby snuggle time. I couldn't believe how small she looked in James' arms. But it is such an honor and treat to get to hold their little girl cousins!! They adored her.
Unlce John and Nora introduced the boys to their favorite video game.
Precious Evie! We loved getting to meet you when you were still so tiny. What a doll baby you were! and we loved every minute.
We got home to see our family room looking really different! So exciting to have the ceilings done, the new ceiling fans, no more chair rail, new crown molding and baseboards, fresh paint, and then the built in painted white! I absolutely love it white. All these projects left the house a bit torn up, so I have a few pictures of the boys in our bed playing video games, or on the floor, haha! Its kind of cute to me to see them passing the time when they couldn't be playing the way the normally would.
New Bathroom upstairs looking so nice! and new stairwell light fixture. Love it and the fresh paint.
Me, picking out our new bathroom mirrors for the upstairs: two for each!
Our piano needed a new home since we ordered a new couch for our family room that was too long to fit the piano too. So we tried out the office. I loved the idea of looking into the room and seeing the piano, and the light from the front window is lovely when they sit there. But, the flow was a challenge. We moved it to in between the front windows, and it is a great fit.
The boys' least favorite store: floor & decor. But they were really good sports about going with us to choose our tiles for the bathrooms and floors. This one was for our master shower!
Trying out two different rug options, but decided on this one. Getting at least our leather chairs set in place, the tv, and the lovey white built in!
David's (and mine) first Monster Jam! We couldn't resist taking the boys on a last minute whim. You may or may not be able to tell, but they loved it. Not included: the creepy grave digger mask we got for free with our snack purchase. I couldn't bear to preserve for all time, ha!
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