Pinewood Derby

Last week was the Pinewood Derby for my boys.  This was Thomas' last and Jack's first.  As usual, we didn't plan on our cars being very fast, so Jeremy and the boys worked hard to make them look nice, to try to place in the show category.

In the end, both cars ended up being pretty fast.  Jack took third place for speed.

Here he is with his trophy.

And here is a better (but blurry) look at his car. If you know Jack at all, you would have been able to tell that this was his car with no trouble.  The kid loves Legos, and he loves green, so this car fit him perfectly.  It turned out very cute.

Thomas was pretty mad that his car took fourth place in speed, so this made him the alternate to go to disrict and took him out of the running for a trophy in the Show category.  His last two years he won first and second in show and was hoping to make a clean sweep of show trophies for his pinewood derby years.

His car turned out really cool.  It was a Star Wars speeder and this picture does not do it justice.  I am confident it would have taken show if he hadn't taken an award for speed. Oh well.  It is good for kids to deal with a little disappointment now and then.  I would have thought he would have been glad to have a car that was winning more than losing for a change.

Every year I keep the tally running of how many cars we still have to go.   With five boys, that means Jeremy had 15 cars to help with before he is done.  We are down seven, only eight to go.  We are almost halfway there.  After three years of doing two cars every year, next year he will only have one, so it will seem like a piece of cake, I'm sure.

New House

Well, it has finally happened. We started moving into the new house on January 1st.  We are still in the process of getting boxes unpacked and things situated, but at least we are in.  We also still have a lot of things to finish before the place is officially done, but it was done enough  to move in and we jumped at the chance to get out of our little rental.

Before we moved in, I walked through the house and took a few pictures.  I will share them today, and I will share more pictures as the house starts to come together a bit more.

My new kitchen!!

The living room.  Those chairs don't go in there.  I currently have NO furniture for that room, except the piano.  I am hoping I can afford to furnish it soon.

The family room.  Obviously the fireplace needs to be finished and the floor is a complete mess in this picture.  The construction dust loved to stick to this particular flooring.  I went over it numerous times. My awesome sisters-in-law came over and spent hours helping clean up the construction mess, and they went over the floor a few times too.  It still looked like this.  I was seriously worried that I would never be able to keep this floor looking even close to decent, but after a few more cleanings it was finally clean enough to move in, and it has stayed looking pretty good.  So, I think it will work out after all.

This room belongs to Thomas and Tad.  Since Thomas didn't get his own room, we let him have first choice of roommates, so he chose Tad.

That left Jack and Drake to room together.  This is their room.  Very green!!  They chose the color and they love it - so I love it too. ;)

The main bathroom - minus mirrors.

 The main bathroom's tub/shower.  I love the tile in this surround. The accent tile is actually a dark blue, but it looks more black in this picture.

A picture of the whole room.  The four younger boys will share this bathroom.

This is a quick shot of Dallin's bathroom.  Obviously it still needs a lot of work.  I didn't include a shot of his shower since it isn't finished.

This is Dallin's room.  He gets his own as long as he keeps it clean.

This will be my sewing room/office.  Currently it is full of boxes and making me feel completely overwhelmed.

This is the dining area.  It is really a good size and I love it.

I didn't take pictures of the laundry room, mudroom, storage room, or master suite.  I will just have to share those when they are a little more ready to be seen.

We feel overwhelmed with all we still have to do to finish the house and get completely moved in, but we are so grateful to be in and we love this house.  It is perfect for us.

Thomas is Ten!

Thomas had a birthday a few days ago, and is now officially a decade old.

Our celebration was a little on the sparse side, since we are still in the middle of moving into our new house and cleaning up the rental so we can get new renters in there ASAP.  But - - we did manage a few fun things.  We surprised him by picking him and his brothers up early from school and took them to see the new Star Wars movie.  We also took him to his traditional early morning birthday breakfast at Trapper's.  He got to request his dinner and type of cake (Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie), and he opened a few presents.  All in all, I think it was a good day.

Thomas is a great kid, who works so hard in school and tries to do his best.  We love him.

Jack is Eight!!

 Jack turned eight a couple of weeks ago, and was baptized into our church.  It was a special day that I hope he will always remember.

It was a short and sweet service and Jack did such a great job.  Jeremy also did a great job with the baptism and confirmation.

Continuing with tradition on this special eighth birthday year, I want to share a few pictures of my Jack Jack through the years.

Jack is such a sweet kid, and as you can see from all these pictures, he just radiates sweetness.  We are so grateful to have him in our family.

House Progress

It has been awhile since I posted any pictures of progress on the house, so I am putting up a few pictures I snapped the other day.  Please ignore the mess, construction dust, painter's plastic that hasn't been completely ripped down, etc.

Here is a picture from the kitchen looking into the family room. I am loving how this room is turning out.

My favorite part of this room is the ceiling.  We decided to use tongue and groove lumber on it, rather than sheetrock.  I think if you have a vaulted ceiling, you need to do something to highlight it, and this treatment goes perfectly with the feeling I want for the house.  When we were installing it everyone told me I was crazy for painting it.  I get it, I really do.  Once you paint wood, there is no going back, but I am not building a cabin.  I did not want a rustic look or feel.  This look is exactly what I wanted and I am so excited about it.  It looks even better in real life.

I also want to take a moment to say that I helped Jeremy install this ceiling.  The peak is 18 feet high. I have never thought I had a fear of heights, but let me say that standing on the top rung of a wobbly 12 foot ladder with my arms all the way above my head holding lumber in place while Jeremy is using a bowwrench to force the tongue and groove together was a little daunting for me.  It is a good thing I wanted this ceiling so badly.

Here is a peek at the kitchen.  We hadn't finished installing the hardware on the doors yet when I took the picture, and we also hadn't installed the  raised bar top yet, so that is why it is looking pretty crooked in this picture.  I have always wanted a white kitchen.  I have loved them since I was a teenager.  I designed this kitchen, so I was nervous about it looking like I envisioned, but I love it!  I also love that all of my bottom cabinets are drawers.  They are so much more practical and easier to deal with than deep, large cupboards.  I also love that my little photobomber made it into this picture. It will be fun to look back at these pictures years from now and see how little he was when we built this house.

Another shot of the kitchen from a different angle.  We haven't installed the sink yet, but you can see it in the background there, sitting in the dining area.  I also haven't peeled the ugly white protective film off my vent hood yet.  I will wait until construction work is completely finished in here.

We ended up going with butcher block countertops in the kitchen.  I really wanted quartz countertops, but the price tag was out of our price range by the time we got to this point, so butcher blocks were my second choice.  They are actually a lot prettier than they look in these pictures.  I hope they hold up okay.

That is all I have for today.  I will try to get some pictures of other areas of the house soon.

Soccer

My boys' soccer season ended a month ago, but I have been so busy working on the house that I haven't taken the time to sit down and post a few pictures.  So, these are a little late, but better late than never.


Jack didn't want to play this year, and Tad is too young, but the rest of my boys had a great season.

This was Drake's first year.  He had a great time being part of a team and attending practices and games.  It is always so funny to watch the littlest ones play.  It is amazing how much they develop their skills in their first few years.

Thomas moved up to an older age group.  He did a great job and had really good coaches and a good team.  It was a good season for him.  He was a great team player, and kicked a few goals as well.

Dallin moved up to the oldest boys league.  He was the very youngest player in that whole division. We were so worried about him moving up to play with boys that were so much older than him - some are in high school and he is only in fifth grade and wasn't even eleven when the season started, but he did great and was able to be a top contributor on his team.  He had such nice teammates.  They all treated him great and respected him as a player.  He lucked out again and was drafted by really good coaches onto a great team.  They had a fantastic season, and worked so well as a team.  They ended the season by winning the championship!!

A not so great picture of the championship team.

A little bit more of a close up of Dallin with his championship trophy.


Another fun soccer season.  Good job boys!!

House Progress

I have had several people request some pictures of the progress on the house.  I haven't been posting anything lately because the work we were doing didn't really show.  Jeremy and his dad put nailers up in the attic to support the board and batten that will be installed on the gables this weekend.  They also finished installing the chimney.  We finished the eyebrows on the front of the house.  But, the thing that took the most time was the tape and texture.  I am happy to say that is all done, but the pictures really don't show the amount of time and work that went into all these steps.

Here are a few pictures anyway. . .

This is a picture of the first fire in our fireplace.  We had to test the newly installed chimney and make sure that the smoke was being drawn up and that there were no leaks anywhere along the way.

This is a picture of the kitchen after all that tape and texture.  It had just been primed here and was ready for paint.  The texture we chose for the house was a difficult and time consuming one, but I love, love, love it.  Now that we are finally finished with it, I can say it was worth the extra time and effort.  We heard it referred to as the millionaire's texture because it is labor intensive.  We are definitely not millionaires, but we are pretty good DIY'ers. :)

Finally, I am just sharing a couple of pictures of  some of our paint - no, this is not all of it.  Yikes.  We are in the middle of finishing up the painting on the interior.  I usually hate to paint, but after all that tape and texture, painting seems like a total breeze.

More paint. (Still not all of it - it takes a lot to paint an entire house.)  You should hear the comments I get from people every time I go pick up a big old batch of paint.  I guess people just aren't used to seeing a woman with one or two little boys in tow dragging around big carts of paint.

The kitchen cabinets are being installed today. The gables outside will be finished this weekend.  Doors should go in next week along with flooring getting started.  I should have more interesting pictures to share with you soon.