Monday's Happening

So this top picture is a cute picture of our now happy boy who fell down the stairs yesterday and put a nice little gash on the top of his head.

 His gash required 3 stitches.

Here's a better picture after we got it all cleaned up last night:

I was in town picking up a few things when it happened.  Scott called me and said Can you come home we need to take Matthew in to get a few stitches.  My heart instantly started racing.  How can Scott be so calm? I did okay until I got home and seen the blood but after I came in and gave Matthew a hug I felt better.  Matthew and Scott had been working outside.  They came inside to get something to drink because Matthew was thristy.  As they went back out, Matthew fell down the stairs outside and went through the railing (after we moved the deck this past summer we put the old deck back up temporarily and the railing on the deck has the top handrail and then a short handrail).  When he fell, he went right under the short handrail and Scott said he grabbed for him but couldn't get enough of his coat to stop him.  The doctors and nurses we had at urgent care was wonderful.  I didn't lose it until they had to strap him down to do the stitches.  Scott held his head and I got to hold his hands.  I am sure that eveyone in the clinic could hear Matthew screaming and the screaming is what made me lose it.  After the doctor was done, it didn't take Matthew very long to calm down after he was in Daddy's lap.  We took him for ice cream for being a very brave boy while getting stitches.

After we got home, we put batteries in his microphone that he got from Santa.  He was singing and then he said(into his microphone), "I fell down today and bonked my head and got stitches in my head."  It was cute hearing him say his version of the story.

Later in the afternoon, Matthew was playing and hit his elbow on something.  I asked if he was okay and he said, "It's not bleeding" two times.  Had to reassure himself that he didn't have to go to the doctor again.

He got to sleep with us last night so that we could make sure that he was okay.

He is doing good.  He has been his silly little self and continues to make up laugh.



Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!!

Christmas Program at Church

This is Matthew's first year in Sunday School so it was his very first Christmas program.

He was a "cow".

The last 2 years I have been taking pictures of all the kids that are in the program.

 Matthew standing by his cousin, Emma, and they are singing This Little Light of Mine.

 Then our little cow started grazing and I'm sure he was saying Yum Yum Yum.

Right after he got his costume on, he starting acting like he was eating the carpet and saying Yum Yum Yum!

 Here is our wandering cow:

We were both very surprised that he stayed in the program.  He did wander a little bit but he did a great job!



Christmas

The whole month of December has been a crazy busy month for us!

We have had or have been to lots of Christmas parties already!

We had a wonderful evening with Matthew's birthmom and her family a few weeks ago.  It was a wild one and I haven't laughed like that in a long time. 

Then last weekend we had a fun evening with Matthew's birthfather's family (we were really sad that his birthfather couldn't join us because he ended having to work).  We will have a schedule another time with him.

Here is what birthparents and grandparents received this year from Matthew

(Mom if you are reading you might want to stop right here or it will spoil your Christmas present from Matthew)!

I started with 4" x 4" tiles from Home Depot and some Mod Podge:

 Put the Mod Podge down, then picture and then Mod Podge on top:

 The tiles as they were drying.

After they dried, Scott put 2 coats of an acrylic spray lacquer on them. 

Each birthparent and grandparent received 4 picture coasters tied with a ribbon!

I found this idea on Pinterest!  It's a great website to get great ideas but it is addicting!

I heard the same comment from all who received them that they will NOT be used as coasters



Another Dusting of Snow-November 20

We got another little dusting a few days later but it too didn't last either.

Matthew was helping Daddy do a little shoveling

First Snow-November 15

On November 15, we got a little dusting of snow. As soon as Matthew woke up and seen it, he wanted to go outside. He wasn't even up 5 minutes before we headed outside in our jammies!  He had snowpants on so you couldn't really see his jammies.

It was all melted by the end of the day!

This has just been a crazy winter!  It's almost Christmas and we still don't have any snow!

I'm okay with that though.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only a few days away. 

A Catch Up Post

I know I know!  It's Christmas not Halloween!

That just shows you how far behind in blogging that I am!

I am working on catching up and hope to be caught up by the end of the year!

Matthew was Tow Mater from his favorite movie Disney Pixar "CARS"!

 Matthew and Daddy

 Matthew and Mommy

A Little Snippet of Today

This morning as I was getting everything ready to give Matthew a bath, he started telling me a story but the funniest part of his story was the beginning.  He started his story by saying "When I was a young boy............He cracks me up!

Finally!!!!!!

I'm sure this is what you have all been waiting for........

I know that it has taken me a long time to get pictures of our house up but I have been debating what to do.  I thought about starting a new blog with just house pictures and all the things we are or have done to it but at the same time it is a part of what our family has done or is doing so here they are.........

The before pictures:

(Back side of house)

We are really not sure why it was missing siding but we thought within a few years we would reside the whole house.

 Front side of house

 Garage

This is what sold Scott!

It's a dream garage Right???

Off to the right side is a 3 season porch.  Why on the garage? Not really sure.  I thought about turning it into a photo studio but after looking at it and with much discussion with Scott it would take to much time and money to convert it.  It wasn't built to be insulated I don't think.

Or it could have been this long driveway (that he could use his tractor to plow in the winter) with beautiful trees and a circle drive.

Plus the 4.4 acres helped too.

We are a good distance off the road.

See that pile of brush..... Yep that is where we kept the burn pit. Did I tell you that we have had many fires already?  That is the best part about having your own home and a fire pit.

I'll show more inside photos at a later date.  But let me start by telling you a little about what we found in the interior.  Not sure if I told you but we planned on redoing the sheetrock because previous owners were smokers and it smelled terrible and then new flooring and cabinets and we had talked about possible reinsulating the walls and knew the ceiling/attic would have to be.

Well when we removed the sheetrock from the ceiling, the insulation of course came down too and I told Scott that a couple spots looked wet.  After the insulation was cleaned up (which was a job and a half but thanks to the help of Scott's brother we got it cleaned up in about 4 hours I believe), Scott decided to get up on the roof and check it out to see if he could find any leaks.  When he almost fell through the roof, we knew that we had to replace it before we could put any money into the inside.

Here is Scott working on the roof and shortly after this picture the chimney also came down because it was not being used and it was all cracked up.

 The chimney was so bad that Scott only had to give it a few good pushes and it came crashing down.

This is how it landed.

It broke off about 5 feet from the ground so I got to take my frustration out on the rest of the chimney with a mallet.  It helped a little!

 New roof is on!

Back side view

 Front side view

 Shingles going on!

As you can see some of the siding is missing and was missing when we bought the house. As we researched the issues that we found inside the house to outside, we realized that behind the insulation there was only a 3/4" foam insulation panel with that ugly composite (or whatever it was) siding.  Are you getting any ideas as to what we found on the inside behind the sheetrock yet? Let me show you a picture of what some of the stud cavities looked like:

Do you see the missing insulation from that cavity?

There were some even worse then this one.

That's what mice will do!  Let me tell you that it is DISGUSTING and smells REALLY bad!

Yep! Mice were getting behind the siding and chewing their way through the foam panel and had the run of the house.  Let me just tell you that I cried and wanted to burn the place to the ground!  I may have even said a few choice (maybe bad) words.

So it was onto replacing all the exterior with OSB but only after a good powerwashing and bleaching of all the studs.  In the process, we changed a few things too!  We added a patio door on the side and a window in the back where the door currently is in this picture.

 Both ends were completed in just less than 2 days.

 Then we did the back one weekend and the front the next weekend.

 The next weekend, it was on to the house wrap.

It was a windowless house for a week or more.  As I remember back, I believe that it was longer than a week because they had to do the soffit and fascia before they moved inside.

 New windows upstairs.  Almost all windows have been replaced except the two basement windows in the front.  We painted them to make them look better.  We hope to replace them next year or at least before we put siding on.

We also put on a new front door in because the old one was rusted.

 Since this picture, we replaced the two basement windows in back because when Scott's mom went to paint the windows, these two crumbled under the paint brush.

We also took all the rock from around the house out because they were not at the right grade and let the water run down the side of the house and into the basement.  No problems since then with water.

 We planted grass!

We also put the old deck back up with a few replaced boards and then painted it.

This is what it looks like now!

We also put in our bird feeder and have lots of birds!

Hope you enjoyed the view into our house project this past summer!

Next up is the inside but that will have to wait for awhile.  I still need to take some pictures of the upstairs and what the downstairs looks like now.



Veggin Out

Some times all Matthew wanted to do was veg out and watch a movie:

So that is what we let him do:

Most of the time we used it for a quiet/rest time.

Here he is in our screen porch that is attached to the garage.



Helping

Matthew had lots of fun helping Daddy work on the house this past summer.

I don't think that I showed you this picture.

Matthew had to bring his own tools to help Daddy!

Are you patiently waiting to see more of this house?

I am working on it and hope to have another post up soon!



Leaves

Leaves, leaves and more leaves.

Holy Moly do we have leaves at the new house.

One day I spent 4 or more hours picking up leaves (really fight with the lawn mower because every 2 minutes or so the shoot would get plugged up).  And I broke the leaf blower.  It wasn't a good day.

I decided that there were way to many leaves so I was just going to have to rack.

So I racked up a big pile and let Matthew play in it.

Matthew played his little heart out in the leaves even after dark.

A week or so later, I racked the whole yard of leaves into small piles.  Man did I have piles!

It took me all day to rack everything into piles and then another 1/2 day to move the piles (Thank goodness I had help moving the piles otherwise I would have been at it for a whole day!)  Did I hear you say that you wanted to see our yard?  Ok since you asked so nicely.

Here is a picture of it the day we bought it:

And here are some recent ones:

Looks different doesn't it?  The house does anyway.

We had to completely redo the exterior including the roof, windows (except 2 that we have to do next year) and whole exterior had to be redone to get rid of the mice invasion (I'll tell you all about that in another post).