Catching up

This past month has flown by! We've had some busy weekends so I thought I'd try to catch up in one post. Around Thanksgiving Dan went up North for a weekend, so my mom came to visit and we had a girls weekend of Christmas shopping. We had Rylie putting her hands up yelling "Girls Weekend!" So cute. We made our rounds to the area malls and stores and restaurants. I don't have any pictures from the weekend, but we had such a good time. My mom is one of my best friends and it's so nice to spend time that kind of time with her since we don't get to do it that often. I feel so blessed to have the relationship we have.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we went to the Christmas party my company hosts for employee's kids. They rent a room at Stonefire pizza...where we eat a lot, get a gift from Santa and spend the remainder of the night playing games and trying to earn as many tickets as possible so Rylie could take home a little souvenire. Rylie had a great time and loved her present from Santa- a doctor set. She also told Santa that she wants a dolly house for Christmas. She gave him a strange look at first, but warmed up to him a little.

A couple of weekends later, Rylie and I came to La Crosse for a long weekend and my bestie Elaine and I went to see Lady A in concert, which was awesome! A little more low key than some of our nights out in the past, but a great time. I also got to see some old co-workers - Julie, Debbie and Kim- who we met for dinner at Sloopy's. We spent time with both Grandma's that weekend too.

Throw in a couple birthday celebrations in the month of December too and the remainder of our free time has been spent preparing for Christmas. Amidst all of our house projects, we somehow got up both our Christmas tree AND exterior lights up for the first year ever (thanks to my hubby). Unfortunately this is a crazy busy time of year at work for me, so the time of year when you'd really like to be spending more time at home with family, I've been working late. Dan has been a savior doing the dropping off and picking up of Rylie and getting dinner started on my late nights too. Don't know what I would do without him.

My house is forever a mess. I wipe everything down and the dust makes its way back up from the basement within 24 hours. So I've given up. Dan is spending a lot of his "free" time in his new man cave, which is our guest room- the temporary location of our basement tv- a 10x10 room and 50" tv = Dan's in heaven. And I can't wait to send that thing back down stairs. On the topic of the basement...we are getting the insulation sprayed this week and drywall delivered. I'm really hoping to have my lovely white box of a basement by early January so I can take my dining room (and possibly my garage) back!

Here are a couple of the very few pictures that we do have from the past month...

And just for fun...this is Rylie's pirate face.  She says "aye aye matey!" 

Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving in La Crosse this year and had a holiday packed full of activities.  We left Wednesday afternoon and went straight to my Grandma Kearns' house for dinner with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids.  It was great to see everyone as we'll miss them at Christmas this year.  On Thursday morning, we got up and went to the radio station to join my dad in his annual holiday party at the radio station...which consists of drinking beer and bloody mary's and eating shrimp and other apps during his show, all brought in by customers and friends of his. We arrived at 8:00 for the last hour of his show.  Rylie was a little more outspoken this year yelling "go pack go" and saying hi to Gamma and Uncle Patrick.  She very quietly told us that her favorite Packer is Aaron Rodgers and that his position is quarterback. She also practiced pushing buttons and turning Papa's microphone on and off. After the show, my dad and Dan headed out to Features in Holmen to do his show before the start of the Packer game.





After the guys returned from Features, we watched the Packer game and prepared Thanksgiving dinner.  The Grandma's were able to join us and Dan carved the turkey for the 2nd year in a row.







After the post-turkey naps, Dan and I left for Target around midnight.  We were out to get one item and we were successful...which means we didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn Friday.  Instead we went to get our Christmas tree with my parents and after that Mom, Rylie and I went to the Disney Live show.  Rylie had a great time since she recognized all of the Mickey Mouse gang and several princesses.  She was scared at one part, but overall had a great time.  She ate popcorn and got a princess wand...what could be better?  The three stories were: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Cinderella; and Beauty and the Beast, with the Mickey Mouse gang narrating.



















We spent Friday night listening to Dan Sebranek at the Freight House and went to visit Great Grandma on Saturday.  We took another 4 generation picture now that Rylie is a little older.  Saturday night we went back to the Freight House where Dan and I met up with Elaine.  Mom and Dad took Rylie through the Christmas lights before taking her home while Dan and I spent the night out.  On Sunday we got out some Christmas ornaments and helped decorate my parent's tree.





We have so much to be thankful for.  We are thankful for our health, for each other, for the sweetest little girl anyone could ask for, our supportive family and friends, our jobs, and while they are never-ending, we are thankful for our many home projects as we continue to make a home that best fits our family.

Have we taken on too much??

It has been one crazy year of projects at our house! While we don't consider them to be major projects, somehow they are all only partially completed. And in the midst of all of these partially complete projects, we have decided to take on a doozy- gutting our entire basement! Okay, so we didn't really decide to do this...we had to do it. More on that below.

Our 1st project this summer: updating the kitchen. We were fortunate to have new cabinets when we moved into the house, so luckily we were able to avoid that gigantic expense. We have slowly been updating our appliances. Our fridge had started to leak water on the floor. Pieces in the interior of our dishwasher were breaking off and rusting. We found a great deal on a stove and were able to Craig's List the old one. We have HATED our sink since the day we moved in. And with the kitchen update came a mounted microwave which equals more counter space! Other than the appliances, we knew we eventually wanted to get new counter tops and put in a breakfast bar instead of the weird lower level counter that previously existed. Rylie sped up this process by climbing on the lower counter up to the higher one in the couple of seconds that I was looking in the fridge. Pictures are below...

The kitchen when we moved in- nice blue vinyl floors

Another angle

The first project in the house- new laminate floors

The kitchen as it stands today- new countertop, appliances, and backsplash

No more microwave in the corner by the fridge

Yet to be completed:  New cabinet hardware, new lighting, new trim (it was mangled in this process), add a sideboard for extra storage, window treatments

So yeah, we have a ways to go.  However, this more recent project, "the doozy", has added years to our stay in this house, so we have plenty of time to accomplish those above.

2nd project this summer: Painting the exterior of the house.  It was green....and so ugly with the pinkish stone. We were lucky to have our parents do a TON of the painting for us.  For some reason I was holding a garage sale the same weekend. Not by choice...pretty sure this painting project was delayed a few weeks and landed on the same weekend as the planned garage sale.  We also painted the shed...finally a matching color.  I didn't upload a picture of that.

Front before

Back before

The front after/finishing painting

Back after

Yet to be completed: Paint all the window trim white.  Finish off the new post in the front with trim. A little thing called landscaping around the entire house.

And finally, the basement project.  We loved the basement when we first moved into the house.  It served a great purpose for two kid-less people.  But over the past year, we have noticed more and more dampness to the point where we were emptying our dehumidifier on a daily basis.  We also started noticing signs of mold. Not Good.  We also started seeing stairstepping cracks in the foundation of the unfinished part.  Also Not Good. So we called a contractor to have them look at it...a couple contractors actually.  The news was pretty much what we expected- we needed to put in a whole new drainage system on the inside and dig out the outside to seal up any cracks that had formed.  Yippee.  In order to do all of this, we had to empty out the contents of our entire basement.  And taking it a step further, Dan decided to pull out all of the drywall and pull up the tile as well as we new there had been water underneath.  We wanted to get rid of any sign of mold.  We already had plans to refinish the basement bath and take advantage of its size by creating wall to wall cabinets for more storage. So we went ahead and gutted that area too.

The basement prior to moving in

Another angle

Mid-packing

Found this guy behind the drywall

The bathroom mid-demo

Accent wall coming down

And it's down

We had to remove at least two feet of tile for the contractors to do the work

Drilling down into the cement for the new drainage system

What our back room looked like prior to this news

Prior to the work

Mid-work

Finished new sump pump and back up

A dark look at the partially dug outside

Our basement in its current state

Another angle

Looking into what was the bathroom (notice the new cement)

Bathroom

And once again our dining room has a new purpose.  It was a den when we moved in, became a wedding supply storage room, then a wedding gift storage room and finally our dining room.  Now it is once again storing the majority of our belongings from the basement...the garage is storing the bigger items- the bar, cabinets, etc.   

Den

Dining room- somewhat recent picture



Dining room today

Yet to be completed: EVERYTHING! There are so many things, major and minor, on the check list, but basically, we are going to epoxy the floor of the unfinished area and paint as well...try to make it into a place where I like doing laundry. Rebuild the shelves and move storage back down- in a slightly more organized manner.  In the main room- put up drywall and new insulation (luckily I know a guy in this business).  And from there we will finish the bathroom first and slowly but surely finish everything else.  The goal for all of this: May 2012. 

While it wasn't the best news we've ever received, it was something we had to do for our safety and to eventually be able to sell this house.  We'll just be here a few more years than planned, which is OK because we love the house.  Another positive is making the basement into an area we can use as a family.  There will still be a "man-cave" part to it, but it's also going to be a more kid-friendly space as well.  We're planning on doing wood floor and carpeting, now that we know there won't be water issues.  There will be a place to go with toys!  And of course still a bar and pool table.