House No Longer Under Construction.......for now

I know I posted back in July about our house remodel project. Now, 5 months later I think we're ALMOST finished. We still have a little trim work to do, but the bulk of the work is over! Here are a few before and after pictures of our last 5 months.

It was ALOT of hard work, and looking back now, Andersen and I both think we were totally insane, but I LOVE my new kitchen. And we had a lot of fun along the way. Here are a few pictures of our house under construction:

Here is Andersen building cabinets in the place of the old dishwasher since we had decided to keep the existing cabinets. Let me just say, it is NOT fun to sand, wipe, prime, sand, wipe, paint, sand, wipe, and paint two walls worth of cabinets!

Here we are in the kitchen laying down tar paper before we could put in the hardwood floors.

Steven and Jerusha came to visit while we were putting in the floors and we were EXTREMELY grateful for all their hard work. Nice form Jerusha!

Oh yeah, I love my hardwood floors too!

Andersen surprised me time and time again with his handy-man abilities. I think I WILL keep him around :0)

Although...I am glad that the granite guys talked him out of installing our countertops himself.

Will and Christy came to visit too and of course we put them to work. Will and Andersen trimmed up our tree out front and it is the perfect climbing tree. Good work Will!

Of course all the stuff we ripped out of our house had to go somewhere.

Luckily we were able to rent this huge dumpster for $30 and the city hauled our mountain away.

Ahh, nothing like a job well done! At least we think so.

Christmas Packages From Grandpa and Grandma Adams

Sorry Mom and Dad this took awhile to post. I had to teach myself how to use the movie maker so I could split up the video. The whole thing was too big to upload all together. I hope you enjoy the videos. The boys were all really excited so I think you accomplished your goal. We love you!

I Have a Date

So, this morning when I opened the door to my bedroom I ran into a rose hanging from the ceiling in our hallway. Andersen had hung 2 dozen roses from the ceiling while I was sleeping all the way into the kitchen and on the last rose there was...

this note:
And two tickets to see Twilight next Friday. Not only that, he cleaned our bathroom and did the dishes last night. I'm definitely feeling special right now.

Forget the Blood, Save the Costume!

Just a bit of warning, this post is not for the faint of heart. There is quite a bit of blood, but I HAD to take a video because I just couldn't have explained it any better. Don't worry, Campbell is doing fine, now that his costume is clean...

Like I've said before, Campbell is super tough, but he also has a sensitive side. That, and you just don't mess witht the superhero costume! I also want to point out that I do have Porter confessing to the crime on video.

Boys!!!

And The New Superhero Obsession Is...

Campbell turned 5 yesterday and of course you can't start your birthday around here with out a waffle breakfast. Yum!

Mason got up early to help me with the waffles. He loves to cook with Andersen and I and he's getting pretty good, MOST everything makes it into the bowl the first time.
This year, to my utter surprise, Campbell requested a "neighborhood" cake. He wanted a cake that looked just like our neighborhood and since it was a rainy day and there was no school I thought it would be a fun activity for the boys to decorate houses to put on the cake.

Campbell was very meticulous about his sprinkle placement.

Mason was not.
And unfortunately Porter's house kept collapsing.
They all did a really great job and had a lot of fun.
And the cake was a big hit. Here is our neighborhood in "cake" form.
For dinner we met Andersen at Gatti Town (it's like a Chuck-E-Cheese but much better) because we still had some money on a gift card our realtor had given us when we closed on our house. Thank you Deb! Mason is still convinced that this place is called "Daddy Town." Why don't I get a cool place named after me?
Then we went back home for presents and cake. Campbell got some really great gifts, thank you Papa and Nana, and Grandpa and Grandma!
The boys love these "I Spy" books.
Campbell is really into superheros and spy stuff and one of his presents were some kid's night vision goggles. We had to stop singing "Happy Birthday" just so he could find them to try them on in the dark.

This is just a video of the birthday chaos. Nick and Blaine in this video are two of the neighbor kids who are always hanging around with Campbell and Porter.



Cheese! Luckily there were enough houses to go around. Whew.

If you do not know Campbell very well, last year he wanted to be Spiderman for Halloween so we got him a Spiderman costume for his birthday which started this obsessive chain reaction. I think for a while there he really did think he was Peter Parker/Spiderman. He would even wear his costume under his clothes and would only wear clothes that would totally cover his costume! He also insisted on ME memorizing the Spiderman theme song so that I could sing it to him at night before he went to bed. Here he is in action.

Sadly, Spiderman retired since his costume was completely shredded, but never fear, there is a new superhero in town and his name is WOLVERINE!! We'll see if this costume can stand up to the test of Campbell.

Happy Birthday Campbell Wolverine.

Day Trip to Evans Orchard

I've had this post in draft for a few weeks so here it is, finally.

Today we went to Evans Orchard with a group of ladies from our ward. There was no school for Porter today so it was a perfect excuse to get the kids out of the house. I love being able to pick fresh fruit and am really missing Green Bluff in Spokane.
There was tons of stuff to do. Here is the tractor ride that took you to different parts of the orchard.
Luckily I remembered to pack lunches. Cheese!

The boys' favorite part was the play area and Coolidge could not get enough of this Corn Hole game.

Here's a video of him in action.

Here are the boys making their way through the hay castle maze. They also had a small corn maze.

This picture cracks me up! Mason was stuck like that for a few minutes trying to decide which way to go.
Coolidge even found a little tunnel just his size.
And if you have boys you will totally appreciate the power of a huge dirt pile. Yeah, they were covered from head to toe by the time we left.
Porter and Campbell loved these huge tubes.
Unfortunately, if you lost your balance you had to hold on for dear life until the tube stopped rolling. This was NOT one of Mason's favorite things.
And I even had a great time on this slide. A little bumpy but it was fast.

Campbell on a John Deere tractor.

Mason and Coolidge were fascinated by this goat and wouldn't let me leave.
And of course there was apple picking. Can you tell it was a posed picture? Work with me guys.
There were rows and rows of trees to pick from so we got a great variety. We got a huge bag of apples, but I have a feeling it won't last very long. The apples are delicious and I even got a gallon of apple cider that is amazing. I wish I had gotten 2.

Oh well, there's always next year.