Let there be light

Before


After

This was our project last night. Our living room had no lighting except for lamps. Since we had access to the wiring through the family room we decided to put recess lighting in both rooms. It is so nice to have lighting.

No updates for tonight. We both had to work and Ryan has meetings at church tonight. We'll be back to the grind tomorrow night hanging drywall. By the way, did I tell you how excited I am to get this project done. Yeah!!!

While The Children Are Away

This is our family room, but will eventually be a dining room once our back room is finished.


So, we are taking this opportunity to complete a project while the kids are away. We could have NEVER done this with my Trevor, so thank you to my family for watching them.
The family room was put together with panelling and ceiling tiles (yuck). We have wanted to put up drywall from day one, but we ran out of time and money when we first bought the house. We also wanted to join the living room to the family room, which the family room will turn into my dining room once we have the other room (back room) finished. We hope one day all this sweat equity will pay off. Stay tuned as the room progresses. We hope to hang drywall Thursday night. We have access to the living room's electric work, so we will be putting in recessed lighting in tonight.

Trevor's Farewell Mess

My children left for two weeks to spend time with my family. Trevor is a tornado of a mess, and left me with one last mess to clean up. Trevor has discovered that if he pulls out the drawer in the bathroom while the door is shut I can't get in. Friday during the day he decided that he wanted to make a spider web with our floss. Of course, I couldn't get in because he had pulled the drawer out. I have learned that if I have a hint of anger or frustration in my voice he will not let me in the bathroom. So, I lured him out by saying that I wanted to come in and see his cool spider web.

So, from now on if you come to visit me and use my bathroom you will discover that we have a missing drawer in our vanity.

Our new camera

In one of my previous blogs I wrote about the shed. It is now completed minus painting it.


Another goal was to get the garden planted. It too is done. We think we lost the carrots because it has rained so much lately.

Ryan took the kids to the park while I was at work last Saturday.

Hey don't tell my mom and dad what I'm doing.

Kayla playing at home.

Her love for animals

About two weeks ago Kayla and Trevor were playing outside. When I went to check on them, Kayla was chasing a bird. She is such an animal lover, and she told me all she wanted to do was pet the bird. I told her the bird was not a pet, and she needed to leave it alone.

About 20 minutes later they were in the backyard in the fort part of the swingset. I could see they had something, so I went outside to see what they were doing. Well, to my surprise she had caught the bird. Of course, the bird was freaking out and flapping its wings trying to get away. Once she saw me coming she let go of the bird and both she and Trevor were covered in feathers.

I have a feeling that one day her compassion for animals will turn into a vet clinic at the house.

Bringing Up Boys

So, like I said in the previous blog I am reading Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dopson. I'm reaching for anything to help me help this boy to channel this extreme energy he seems to have. I thought I would share one of the stories in the book that made me laugh, and gave me hope that I'm not the only mother out there with a mischievious one. May I never have to blog a similiar story.

"A friend and I found a coffee can of gasoline in the garage and decided to pour some down a manhole, light it, and see what would happen. We popped the manhole open, poured some gas in, and replaced the cover so that it was ajar. We kept throwing matches down but nothing happened, so we poured all the gas in. Finally, there was a noise like a jet engine starting up, and then a big BOOM! The manhole cover flew up and a flame shot up about fifteen feet in the air. The ground was rumbling like an earthquake, and the manhole cover crashed about twelve feet away in the neighbor's driveway. What happened was the gas ran down the sewer lines for a block or so and vaporized with all the methane in there, and blew up all our neighbor's toilets. I'm a plumber now; that's how I know exactly what happened."

This story illustrates one of the scariest aspects of raising boys is their tendency to risk life and limb for NO GOOD REASON!!! Why?

You teach them correct principles

and hope they will govern themselves. Right?

First off, in the previous blog I informed you that one of our cameras died during my 5K race. We HAD a second camera that Ryan used to take pictures for his designs at work. He would never bring it back home, thus the second camera. Well, last week at work someone took it. The only pictures on there were of Kayla's preschool graduation. His boss was kind enough to buy him a new camera, so hopefully I'll be back to blogging. I enjoy blogging so much better with pics.

Now back to the introduction of this blog.
When I wake up in the morning one of my first thoughts are, "What principle am I going to be forced to teach this day." Usually referring to, what is Trevor going to do today? Kayla seems to just "know" not to do or say certain things. Trevor, well he's the reason why I am reading "Bring Up Boys" by Dr. James Dopson.
There are times though, that I think Trevor rubs off on Kayla and she does something that is out of character. Last week she did. We were at church and the kids were quietly playing in the YW's room and I was in the kitchen. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them. I guess they got the idea that it would be fun to jump off the table. I guess Trevor did it first, and he had shoes on, and then Kayla followed but she didn't have shoes on. I heard her jump and with it came an instant scream. Usually it's Trevor that has to feel the pain before he stops misbehaving, but this time it was Kayla.
I checked her out seeing if anything was broken, and within a few minutes she was able to walk on, but with a limp. We gathered up our things to leave, and as we were walking out the door we were talking about how we don't jump off furniture. She then looked at me and said, "Mom, I asked Jesus to heal me and he hasn't yet."
My heart melted at that point. Although, the principle of why we don't jump off the furniture was temporally forgotten, the principle that Jesus can heal us is there. Am I glad that she felt pain that day, no. Am I thankful that at 5 she understands and has faith enough to ask Jesus to heal her, yes.