I’ve been eagerly awaiting carpet for a lot of reasons. One reason was more unconventional than the rest, but I admit, it was towards the top of my list. And last night, we got into it.
Yesterday, once the little kids were in bed, Brady, Cher, and I went downstairs with ALL of the Lego, ALL the old instruction books, and some treats. Dekker came along for the first half hour, as he has a later bedtime than the others, and he helped us get started. We dumped the Lego out onto a sheet and we began the work of breaking everything apart. Everything. We also made a pile of tires/wheels, and one of Lego guys. (Does anyone elses kids disassemble the guys?? Yellow. Hands. Everywhere.) Dekker helped as long as we let him, and was disappointed when bedtime came, but he’s such a good kid and understood. Once he was off to bed, clicked on the Office, episode one of season one, and got things moving.
I separated the books out and found which ones went together. Brady did another task before he joined us for the Lego. And Cher began the gruelling job of separating colors.
Brady and I each grabbed a set and got to work. Cher opted for separating rather than building, and once I had completed my set, I passed it to her with a ziploc bag, where she broke it up once again and bagged it. Boom. One set done.
A truck, two quads, a trailer, and I’m pretty sure a keg…
I gave Brady the biggest set to work on so he didn’t compete his in the one sitting. Considering we’re sifting through maybe 10-ish sets, I won’t heckle him on it too much 😉
We probably worked (played) until 11:30, maybe midnight, when we hit and wall and no one could find pieces anymore. It was time to pack it in. Plus we were all completely exhausted, haha! It was so worth it, though. I had so much fun playing (organizing) Lego, watching The Office, and drinking vanilla Coke. (Anyone know where I can get cans of that stuff? Because I need more.) I’m also really excited to present my kids with these sets all separated back out. In the beginning of their Lego days, they’d build the set once, and then we’d just bust it up and play with the pieces. The kids are getting so much better at Lego and enjoy the sets so much more, I think they’ll love this! Its going to be so worth the work. Aaaaand if I’m wrong and its not, at least we had fun!
I had so much fun this afternoon. I worked on a gift for the homemade gift exchange, flopped it, chucked it, and worked on it some more. I was disappointed at first, but was able to make it work even better than my first run!
While I did that, Cher worked on a project, too. She overtook the island and carved…
Brock.
Brock fits in
Brock is hilarious and happy and well loved by his family. He’s a little old, perhaps, based on the security of his teeth staying in his mouth, but we’ll do our best not to beat him up too hard. He seems happy to be here.
Was a fun productive day of projects that we both enjoyed doing and didn’t have to do. It was fun! A good way to spend a Friday. And there is so much more fun to be had! I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Not so long ago, Rowan didn’t care to color or draw or anything like that. No way. He’d sit at the island and watch the others, and at the most, he’d scribble or draw a couple of lines and call his masterpiece complete. Its changed recently into crude drawings of “vehicles” that are basically just squares. But just the other day, he discovered our book that shows step-by-step instructions of how to draw animals. And wouldn’t you know – he’s pretty great at it!! This was his first animal.
Pretty awesome, hey?? He was SO pleased, as was I. Its escalated from there, and sometimes I don’t actually know what he’s drawn, but he’s always super proud. And really, I can usually figure it out. Its mountains above where he started! But we al start somewhere, I suppose.
This dog definitely looks like its pooping. Awkward. But its back legs are just little, lol!
He’s getting braver to try new things, and its almost always geared towards the crafty side of things.
Of course I had a lapse and didn’t take a picture of his finished product but he took genuine time with it.
Maybe its a pro of him being left handed 😉 I hear those kids tend to be extra creative. Now that he’s started, he is such a natural!!
Great job, Rowan!! Keep practicing! Its paying off!
Isn’t it pretty?? It still needs baseboards, so it looks a little naked, but we’ll get there shortly. This needed to come first, and I’m SO happy with the results!
We couldn’t resist, though. The couches already came down, too 🙂 That was a labor of love. I don’t think my wrists are going to work for the rest of the week…
Was worth it! Eek! Its like people could actually hang out down here!!!
So, here’s how it went.
We were under the impression that the carpet guy could come Monday morning, work all day, and the job would potentially run into Tuesday morning. But it didn’t quite go that way. I waited for the guy for a couple of hours before I texted Brady at work that he wasn’t here yet. It felt a little odd, but we hadn’t nailed a time down, so we figured maybe he had a previous job to finish up that morning. We get what its like to work in the trades. No big deal. But truthfully, we were pretty antsy and eager. He finally showed up around 11:00. He introduced himself and headed downstairs. And he just kind of hung out down there for a while, measuring and such. Then he went to his truck and brought a bunch of stuff in, but he was really quiet about it. Had headphones on the whole time. While that was happening, the kids tidied up the toys and had lunch. And as it tends to happen, the moment they were all down and quiet was when the hammering began. So he hammered and hammered and naps were kind of shot, but sometimes my kids rest even better when they have something to listen to, so they rested and listened and it kind of worked out.
And then he left around 4:00, which kind of surprised me. We were constantly told that the prep was WAY longer than the actual carpet laying, and that was only a five hour day…
But ALL the prep was done!!! Wooooot! Underlay and tack strips were all in place. The underlay was so soft, and the tack strips were straight with no gaps. It already felt so much homier. It doesn’t echo anymore, which sucks for our band practices but rocks for the rest of our life.
Tuesday was the last day our carpet guy was scheduled to be here. And once again, he showed up after 11:00! Gah! Whyyyyy?? I decided to trust him, because, being that he wasn’t the youngest guy, he probably had experience and knew he could finish in the time he had left himself.
He worked later on Tuesday. It was just after 5:00 when he surfaced with a load of stuff to take to his van. And then to my surprise, he only had one load, and he never came back in! Just left without saying a word! I felt kind of crappy that I didn’t thank him or speak to him about his work, but I had no opportunity! Totally missed the mark :/
As crappy as I felt, you better believe I ran downstairs and checked out the situation immediately! And guys, it was just SO NICE!!!
We broke it in my letting the kids loose down there, where they ran laps and raced through bedrooms and slid around and wiped out without crying. They LOVED the new carpet. I invited our neighbour to pop over to check it out and her son joined the fray while the rest of us talked basement renos and motivation and project goals. It was pure chaos and awesomeness. I loved it. We all did.
We love it. The kids love it. It smells a little funky, thanks to the adhesive he used to close the seams, but that’ll dissipate soon enough. I can’t wait to truly finish it up!! The reality that we’re actually on our way to being done is crazy amazing and a bit surreal. And this is one HUGE step taken! Eek!
I went to Edmonton this last weekend! Cher was going on the hunt for some Christmas things, and invited me to tag along. So I did! It was really refreshing to get away from my house and all the sad things we had been dealing with, and get some real relaxation and rest. We stayed at a really comfy, quiet hotel and ate yummy food for every meal. We stayed up late and slept in. We watched a movie and ate cheeseballs and dried pineapple. Its safe to say our first sleepover was a huge success 🙂 Hopefully she agrees.
Ya, we match. We’re cool like that.
Our first day in Edmonton was spent at the mall. Neither of us were rolling in money at all, so we moseyed slowly, ducked into whatever store caught our eye, and were pretty choosy with our purchases. That first day, all I purchased were a few little dresses for Laela. She has recently discovered a new love for dresses, and she only has one dress at home that isn’t a tank top style. I’ve kind of nixed the tank top ones for the season, so she requested more long sleeved dresses. Old Navy took care of that.
To jump ahead to the last day, we headed back to the mall, where I purchased Solly one of his four category Christmas gifts. Just a little cheapie but he’ll be pretty excited, I think 🙂 We even hit up Value Village that day, but didn’t buy anything.
Ok. Saturday. Saturday was Ikea day. I LOVE Ikea. Could’ve spent the whole day there, haha! But I did enough damage in the few hours we did spend. That being said, very little of it was frivolous shopping, so I don’t feel so bad about it. Here’s a run down of my purchases 🙂
I got two boxes of small drinking glasses. They’re the ones the kids use, and while they haven’t broken any themselves, they’re kind of fragile anyway, and we had a few break within a few weeks of each other just in the dishwasher or in the sink. Merp. So, more glasses. Might only open one box at first but we have extras. They all stack into each other really nicely, which is why we wanted to get Ikea ones again instead of going to Walmart or somewhere like that.
I bought dessert bowls. Like, just little bowls. Our cereal bowls are really big, and sometimes we just need a small bowl, and we don’t have any! We have two or three, but that’s not enough. So I bought some cute matte pink ones, because the boys in my life are tolerant. I somehow came home with 13 instead of 12 though. Whoops! One for good luck, I suppose. At least they were only $2.
I bought an oil and vinegar set, not because we really do much of that, but because our beautiful oil drizzler thing clogged forever ago and no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t get it clean and had to pitch it. And now, I just have a big jug of oil that I have to heave out of the pantry and pour from every time, and I’m over it. So I bought the set to have an oil drizzler again. And a back-up, I suppose, unless someone wants one!
I bought napkins. Three packs, I thought. But I definitely only came home with two packs. Oh well!
I bought more hanging baskets! Have you seen that we keep apples and bananas and other food in hanging baskets under our cabinets now? Its SO pretty, and I love having the food off the counter. Plus the apples being in the baskets frees up room in our fridge for more veggies! Lettuce almost always lives downstairs, and now it can live up! Our current baskets have been great, but these are deeper and fit a little better. I like them better. The old ones will still be useful, though. I think they’ll end up in closets! Maybe for sock and underwear. Maybe. We’ll see.
I bought Brady and I a new duvet. We’ve had the same one for several years, and it has been a picture of luxury, as its a real wool duvet. However, a small drawback is that is gets lumpy over time. A large drawback is that is it NOT easy to launder, and after years of babies feeding and changing on our bed, its getting pretty yucky. I found a beautiful heavy, warm, washable king sized blanket at Ikea with rave reviews. I also purchased a new duvet cover with matching pillowcases that I LOVE that is Brady approved. It’s floral. Eek! I love it. The blanket and cover was more than half of my bill at the end of the Ikea shop, but hopefully it takes us a good few years. Luckily, our pillows are a few years old and still amazing.
I bought some massive ziploc bags that hold a whole batch of granola bars.
I bought another duvet cover set for the kids. We have four kids currently using twin sized bedding, and we have seven fun sets. Changing bedding out is a bit frustrating when we have to do laundry before putting fresh bedding on, so ideally we’d have two per kid. And now we do! I bought a robot set.
I bought Wavy a Christmas gift 🙂 Her “want.”
Aaaaand I bought myself a pair of cute craft scissors, because my scissors that I use for knitting and crocheting barely cut anymore. So I didn’t feel TOO bad spending $4 on a fun new pair 🙂
No joke, I’m probably more excited about these than anything else!
I’m genuinely excited about pretty much everything I got. I mean, I’m neutral on the napkins, lol! But everything else 🙂 I feel productive and like I made good, informed decisions. Win!
It feels like things are coming together. Finally.
I figured I’d make a little jot note list of the things Brady worked on while I was gone, and I’m almost embarrassed at how extensive and impressive it is. That guy has such work ethic, and he does it all with such a happy heart. Yes, men like him do exist.
When I go away for a weekend, which happens a couple of times a year, he often uses that time as an opportunity to get stuff done. Sometimes its chores around the house, and sometimes its a project. He made me makeup lights once, and painted a new front door another time. The mug shelf was also a “weekend away” project. Its always pretty wonderful to see what he’s going to do. Not that he can’t do work while I’m home, but we tend to like to spend that time laying low together, not crushing all the jobs we can think of. I’m SO grateful for his work this last weekend. My goodness.
Let’s break that down now.
Brady finished the Christmas lights, but you guys know about that from his blog on Saturday.
Brady’s emptied out our basement (except for the furnace room, of course) and swept it to get it ALL ready for carpet. He patched a couple of holes in our concrete floor with a few layers of tile grout. I know thats not optimal, but it was our best option at the time, and it’ll be fine. Alongside that, he also did some more patching on the drywall, mostly in our entrance and the stairwell. It got pretty beat up a couple of years ago already when we brought materials downstairs, and then we added a light fixture in the entrance and needed to cut two holes in the ceiling, once which needed to be patched. So he did that. And two in our dining room from about a year ago when we took down Waverly’s name sign and it took some paint and drywall with it. Whoops. LOTS of patching.
Another big thing Brady worked on was our laundry area. We have a big beefy closet that encloses our machines, and a long time ago, we bought an industrial track system for the doors. It was annoyingly expensive, but it’ll be the perfect system for us. Brady took time this weekend to place the track on the floor so the carpet guy knew how far to go. He also called the place from where we ordered it, and ordered one more part that will make it perfect. That last part will make the area more versatile and there will be no dead space. It’ll even free up space for a small linen closet area maybe! We have a linen closet upstairs but with all of our people, we have a lot of linens. Having two spaces will be huge for us. Maybe one for towels and one for sheets, or maybe sheets and towels for each level? I’m not sure yet. But the freedom to actually have some cabinets in there is just awesome.
Speaking of laundry, Brady took it upon himself to try and get the smell out of my clothes that I foolishly washed with my post-op underwear. If you remember, I had a pair of underwear that I wore right after my D&C when I was still slathered with that orange anti-septic, and I washed them together with pretty much all of my finicky, slightly high maintenance laundry, and for the life of me, I cannot get the smell out. Brady worked at that for a full day, laundering them 5+ times. They still stink. Not as much, but some. Its ok, though. I know what I’ll try next. Unless someone has experienced this before??
Brady called the vacuum store we recently ordered a part from. Our vacuum broke a while back, and Brady ordered a new part, but it turned out to be the wrong size. As you know, our plate has been pretty full lately, and we haven’t gotten around to returning and reordering the part yet. But he called and made a plan with the vacuum store. Another thing off the list. Which is important, considering we’re gonna need a vacuum to get all the little bits out of the new carpet pretty quick here.
Some things Brady did outside, besides the Christmas lights, were based around the garage. First, we installed the garage key pad. I mentioned to him the other day how odd it was that everyone around us had one, but we didn’t. And he said “Oh, we do. I’ve just never installed it.” So he installed it! Haha! Easy peasy. And then he painted and replaced the door leading from the garage into the house. Thats a bit of a long story, but the Reader’s Digest version goes like this: When we built the house, we chose beautiful doors all through our house, including the entrance closet doors. When we actually got here, they took off the construction doors and put on the real exterior doors, and they looked SO BAD next to our beautiful closet doors. Almost immediately upon moving in, we ordered a new doors for our entrance. And then they sat forever, because it wasn’t a priority. Last year, Brady painted and installed the purple front door, and this weekend, painted the other one white and traded out the last ugly entrance door. Woot!
And because there was still time on Sunday afternoon, Brady kept on going. He got the tv mounted on the basement wall, which seems premature, but if you’ve spent time at our house, you know it isn’t. We don’t watch much tv, and we’re more eager to have it out of our main living room than anything.
Going to be SO much nicer!
Plus, as soon as the carpet is in downstairs, we have those beautiful, cozy couches to move down. We may accidentally start watching tv again, hahaha! Just as accidentally as we stopped! When the tv was on the wall, he decided to run the cables and get it working. And once it was working, he decided to be a sucker for punishment and move the whole big stand downstairs by himself and slip it into the furnace room, so we can have the storage space there as soon as carpet is in.
Can you guys tell we’re really excited about getting carpet installed? Where is that guy?? He’s late…
Beyond these things that I’m super excited about, Brady also worked on invoices and completed his quarterly GST report.
Aaaaand if that wasn’t enough, he was also a top notch, involved, loving dad to our children. Which shouldn’t be so unbelievable to so many, but is the thing I’m the most grateful for.
Brady took the kids outside to play. He bathed them all and took them to church.
He took Wavy on a donut date while the little ones were in Sunday School.
He made them baked oatmeal.
He helped Dekker hang a poster on his wall. He wrote a blog for me.
This man is unstoppable.
I am SO grateful for all he has done, and all that he is.
Wasn’t Brady’s blog yesterday so good? <3 I would be SO IMPRESSED if that was all he got done while I was away, but as usual, he crushed WAY more. I’ll tell you all about it, maybe tomorrow.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m home! Cher and I got home tonight around 9:00ish. Brady helped me carry everything in, and I ran a couple of things next door to my neighbour that I had picked up for her. Now we both have the same dishes! Lol! Maybe I’ll tell you about my purchases tomorrow, too. We’ll have to see how I lay the blogs out this week, because there is going to be a LOT to talk about!
Carpet starts tomorrow! We are SO ready for that job to begin, and hopefully to end pretty quickly thereafter. So we’ll have that to talk about. And there is so much in the works to get that place up and running soon. Gah! I can’t wait! I think I had written off the basement, somewhat, almost as though it was just never going to happen. I’m SO thrilled its on its way.
Tonight I’m so thankful. I’m thankful for my husband and his work ethic. For my friends who I can travel with, and the ones who check in and love me when I’m gone. For my kids who I miss. For my break from my life this weekend, that I was excited for but didn’t realize I needed. And for home, because this is always my comfy, safe place to fall. And its only gotten better with time. I love it here.
Tomorrow will be great 🙂 We’ll talk soon, friends.
This is Brady, Hailey’s husband, and I’m filling in today because is away for the weekend. I’ll let her fill you in when she gets back.
So this last week I was scheduled to be working for a general contractor that I’ve only worked for a couple times and they seem a little disorganized. Unfortunately, this week they were incredibly disorganized and out 3 days scheduled I only worked 2 hours on Tuesday afternoon. Of course I can always fill my time at home when I get a day off here and there. Thursday I chose to get up on roof and put up Christmas lights.
After a bit of messaging with our neighbours I was able to borrow roofing harness and made the 20’ climb to the roof over our living room.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I’m much more confident on our roof than I was 3 years ago when I did this the first time. I was comfortable getting close enough to the edge to easily reach the eavestrough to attach the lights and move around confidently.
I was able to get the in a groove putting up the first 66′ string because it was just a straight line up from the lowest eave.
Pretty quickly I found myself out on the corner of our front porch roof where I struggled the hardest with my fear of heights last time. I went like a breeze and I took the opportunity to text Hailey for a photo op.
Is anyone else so impressed how clean our eavestroughs are? 😉 Protip: They’re brand new. 🙂
And it didn’t take long to finish off a second 66′ string.
I knew I had less than 66′ to go to finish the upper level of the house so i switched to a couple of the 20′ strings and it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly!
I was able to run a couple extension cords do the back of a downspout to the lower level of the roof. This was even more ideal than how it turned out a few years ago. I was pumped. I called a day at this point as we had some awesome new couches to spontaneously go pick up. 🙂
On Friday afternoon with Hailey headed out on her weekend away, the big kids in school, and the wee three in bed, I was able to get back outside and finish the lower level.
I started from where I wanted the lights to end over top of the walkway to our front door and worked back from there. Starting with the last 66′ string followed by the last 20′ string I was able to get it finished in an hour or so.
It didn’t turn out quite right as the last string ended about 3 feet from the end of the eavestrough where I had run my extension cords down to the day before. But luckily I ended up with about 3′ of extra extension cord. 🙂
So now we have a fully Christmas Lightsed house!
And it looks even better at night than I remember it looking. 🙂
We are SO excited about how well the carpet sale worked out. The installer is coming MONDAY!! Thats SOON! Once that is done, we’re going to be very eager to get things finished up down there. As we were dreaming about everything yesterday, we started perusing Facebook Marketplace for a couch set. Were we jumping the gun a little? Perhaps. But as many of my family members will tell you, I have a knack for finding amazing deals on places like Marketplace, Kijiji, etc. Our current couch set upstairs is from Kijiji, and I found it for $400 for both a couch and loveseat, genuine leather, with one cushion slightly worn. The rest may as well never have been sat on. It was an awesome find. So I decided to start looking already yesterday, so we could get a feel for what we wanted.
Marketplace had nothing. We didn’t want leather downstairs, and it seemed we were between either really shiny stiff leather, and really old beater couches. We wanted comfy, not so beat up, not so expensive.
And of course, I found them. Because why not?
A couch, a loveseat, and a chair. The ad said things like “no smoke, pets, or small children.” They were three years old, like new condition. The price was even brought down $100 as a Thanksgiving Day Special, so I felt confident the owner wanted to get rid of them. I inquired with the owner, and he was out in Hafford, which is almost an hour drive from us. We decided to make it a family affair, so Brady could drive his empty van to bring them home, but also that he and I could decide together.
We got the kids some supper in the van and drove out in convoy. We listened to Christmas music. It was really nice. When we got to the place, we knocked. It took forever for the people to come to the window and ask us to come around the back. So we did, and then we still had to knock and wait. And then it was the wrong house. Sigh.
“We’ve been in contact. Are you Ron?” “Nope. I’m Don.”
So close.
Turns out we were two blocks away, on the wrong side of main street. When we did find the right house, the owner, his wife, and their son were waiting for us. SUPER friendly people. We found out he was actually the mayor of town.
I’ll save you the run around. The couches were SO COMFY. And seriously, virtually untouched. They said the loveseat especially was probably only ever used during holidays. They showed us the ONE mark they could find, and said it came home from the furniture store like that. True story, I still can’t find the mark. Didn’t see it in the moment, haven’t found it since. But apparently there’s one somewhere. I’m super unconcerned. The SINGLE downfall of the set is the color. Its brown. We don’t have brown anywhere anymore. We have grey, and vastly prefer it. But these couches are the BOMB, and I thought it idiotic to pass them up because they’re the “wrong” neutral. Maybe not for my main living room, but for the basement? No way. They’re perfect.
The owners son had come solely to help Brady load up. We happily agreed to their price of $500, because thank the Lord, our carpet had come in so far under budget. SO awesome!! While the men took off the door and started loading them couches into Brady’s van, I talked with the owners. They insisted on sending some Halloween treats for the kids, who were waiting so patiently in the van with their snacky supper and music.
Brady was able to fit everything into his van, we all shook hands, and went on our way. We drove by our old house before heading back home, as per the kids request. Can’t really tell if anyone lives there anymore, but its funny. I don’t care very much. It was a nice place to live for those years, but I feel almost no attachment to it at all. Our home now has always been in our hearts. Its always been home, even before it existed. The Radisson place did the job, but it wasn’t really home. Radisson wasn’t home. We’re home now.
We got home at the kids bedtime, and got them all tucked away before actually unloading the couches into our garage. They’ll live there until mid-next week ish. I cannot wait!!!
Waverly has a new love. And that new love is dress-up.
Her “flasher” look in Dekker’s button down.
It is the cutest little thing thats been developing for a while. If she finds laundry on the floor, she’ll bring it to one of us and wave it around until we put it on her. Even if that means pants going on her head. That counts too! For a while, we kind of just did it for our own entertainment, because she was just a little baby and maybe didn’t know what was going on, but wasn’t mad about it. But its very clear and very intentional now.
Again, with Dekker’s shirt.
Shirts, pants, hoodies, whatever else. Even one of our sweaters hooked on the railing is fair game. Its gotten WAY cuter since she started babbling more. She talks, and says the same sounds over and over, so you know she’s actually saying words. Today, she stood over by the railing, holding Brady’s hoodie sleeve, and asked “Wear this?” Clear as day. So, she wore it!
She LOVED it, even though it was WAY too big to even drape over her, so we loosely tied it to her like a cape.
Another one today that I sadly do not have a picture of was the fanny pack. We got Rowan a little fanny pack type thing last Christmas so he could keep some of his little treasures to himself. Wavy found it and wanted it on SO badly. She waved it and shrieked at us to put it on her. We finally got the message and Brady started to reach around her to click it on. She raised her arms and danced her little hips back and forth while she jabbered and sang and celebrated. It was the CUTEST thing!
Once this basement thing is done, I cannot wait to pull out all of the dress up clothes again!! Our kids will ALL have a hayday with that, Waverly included!
