Where oh where could they be?

The other night the boys hauled out all of their blankets from their room and were trying to make a fort, well with a little help from Mommy they had a pretty big fort, with multiple doors and lots of room for toys and laughter! The boys thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever!

They were just laughing up a storm in here, especially when Ben walked in and pretended like he couldn't find them! 

Here is their fort, it was a lot of fun to build and play in but I think the boys had the most fun jumping on top of it to take it down!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!

Feb 1st was Ben's birthday and Braylon got to spend the day with me, Porter spent the day with Grandma Joan (it was his Wednesday). Braylon and I made cookies in the morning for Daddy and then went down to work and dropped them off for him and his co-workers to enjoy!

Mixing like a pro!

Lady A!

Such a quizzical look!

A day home with Mommy!

My maternity leave is coming to an end, only two weeks left :( (I am the saddest mommy in the entire world!), but I have had the opportunity to enjoy the time with Adalyn and have kept the boys home a few days with us too. We took the opportunity to bake cookies, paint, work on our shapes, colors, writing and letter recognition. The boys had so much fun and Braylon asks me every morning if he gets to stay home with Mommy and Adalyn. I wish I got to say yes every single day, because unfortunately they grow up WAY too fast!

Braylon painted Monster trucks, construction vehicles, tractors and various other motor vehicles, Porter painted me shapes, announcing every color he was using

Close up of Porter's art skills

Bray's monster truck...

Long night...

Adalyn and I made a trip to the ER last night at 3am, after she finished nursing she spit up blood (and it was a fairly large amount). So I packed her up and she and I went to the ER. Well turns out Adalyn is perfectly fine and the blood actually was from me nursing (I have mastitis and the doctor assured me that the blood was caused from that, not from Adalyn). But since we were up most of the night, Adalyn and Mommy were a bit worn out today, lucky Adalyn got to sleep as much as she wanted, while Mommy had a few things to get done for the basement and wedding, equalling no nap for me. Hopefully tonight is a bit less eventful for us and we can all get a good night sleep!

Sleepy Head!

Day 4 all wrapped up!

They came and conquered the basement in 3.5 days! They arrived at 7 am to do the finishing touches on the Sheetrock and exterior door and they were gone by 9:30! Tomorrow mudding and taping begins (could take a week to complete, due to the dry time and the large volume we have to complete), Then Scott comes back to do trim and interior doors and finally Aaron comes to do carpet, then done!

It looks so different already!

All sheetrocked!

Our new exterior door! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! It adds so much more to the basement! It even has mini blinds in between the glass, so the kids can't wreck the blinds!

The other side of the room.

Day 2 and 3 progress

Here is the progress that was made during day 2 and 3 of the basement renovation! I could just sit downstairs all day and watch them work (I don't, but I sure could)!

Our new exterior door...

YAY! It is all coming together :)

These are for my knee's... These are for my elbow's?????

Braylon found his knee and elbow pads while I was going through some baby toys... He thought he was pretty funny wearing them around the house and sliding on the floor.

Ben was running the camera and had the setting wrong so the rest of them came out blurry, this is the best he got! I am sure there will be more opportunity!

Sleepy Head

The boys didn't take a nap today, due to them falling asleep 3 blocks from home and then not going back to sleep once I got them in the house... Well no nap means no ears... So Porter was hitting and throwing things at his brother, the dog, mom and daddy, so he had to go in his crib to think about his actions... He was very quiet and this is what I found when I went in his room. It was only 7 o'clock, hopefully he makes it until 7 tomorrow morning!

He even allowed us to change his diaper and put his jammies on, without fighting us when we put him back in his crib!

After Day 1

After 1 day of work... It is sad but Ben and I can't wait for Monday so that we can see more progress! We have ordered our carpet, have our trim and interior doors ordered along with our exterior door, and we have picked out our paint colors! The only thing that is left to do is get our furniture picked out. But I would be happy to sit on the floor as long as it is done!!!!!!

The steps, plywood taken down and the box made for the heating duct work...

The long view

The other side of the long family room

This is the closet that will be in the play room! It is HUGE!!! Lots of storage :)

The play room

The exterior door (which will be replaced by a beautiful full glass door)!

We can't wait to see all of the progress that gets made on Monday!

Grandpa's Girl!

There isn't much more to say, the shirt says it all!

Matching Boys

We don't dress the boys identical often, but today we did. They sure looked cute, until Braylon took his pants off to go potty and refused to put them back on (not anything out of the ordinary in our household)!

Playing wrestle together!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can not even begin to tell you how excited we are to FINALLY get our basement completed (or progress made), we have hired Scott Kral to complete our basement project. In two weeks we should have a finished completed main family room and play room, we will be doing the bedroom and bathroom at a later date (both are functional right now). We have picked out our carpet, paint colors and are working on trim and furniture. We spent some time down there last night allowing the boys to play with some of their downstairs toys before Ben and I cleaned up the space so Scott can begin work today! This is Ben and I's first major renovation project together (in our house, we have done one to the duplex), and so far we have been on the same page, which is basically me deciding what I want and Benjamin going with it (the way I like it, ha... only joking, I can visualize things easily, Ben can't do that so well, so he trusts my judgement).

Angle 1

The walkout basement door.

Stairs

Bathroom on the left, storage room on the right

Bedroom on the left, bathroom on the right

The total size of the family room 12.5' x 55', we can't wait to enjoy every inch of it!

This will be the boys playroom, they will enjoy the space!

This walk through to the storage room will be made into a closet!

Design Home delivered supplies for Scott this morning at 8 am!

I stirred up horrible memories for Ben of 10th grade basketball when I made him give me a thumbs up for getting the basement started!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited we are for this project to get underway and finished! It will feel like we have doubled our house size when we get this project done!

By next weekend we should be painting!

Stay tuned for more updates on this project!

Growing, Growing, Growing!

Adalyn is growing so much, it amazes me every single day how much she is growing! You can see it mostly in her cheeks! But she is getting rolls everywhere! She has started to smile a little, usually when Braylon talks to her or when you change her diaper and she looks at her self in the mirror! It isn't a lot but she sure has a beautiful smile and I can't wait to see it all the time! She is such a good baby, she sleeps about 6 hours most nights, and she is a very content baby, doesn't mind the noise that her brothers, daddy and dog make and LOVES to snuggle with mommy!

This is the first bath she has taken that she didn't scream the entire time! We were actually able to enjoy it a bit!

Look at those cheeks!!!

:)

Happy after getting so fresh and so clean!

She melts my heart! Just adorable!!!!!

Undies, Undies, Undies

We are trying to get Porter pottytrained, it has been more work then with Bray, only because we have been twice as busy! We are starting to get on a schedule with it. I don't think it will take much of anything to get Porter potty trained, he has bladder control that amazes me, he can go 4 hours without peeing. I have to remember that pottytraining is more about training yourself... Sometimes we find Porter's diaper in the hallway, followed by his pants as he sits on the potty and does his business, he does it all himself. It is pretty cute to find him just sitting on the potty and you ask him what he is doing, he says "I go poop!" and he does!

Porter enjoying his train undies!