Swimming Lessons

Jocelyn completed her 2 weeks of swimming lessons yesterday!  She had fun playing in the pool 30 minutes each day, and has become a lot less afraid of the water.

Every day on the way down to the pool she picked flowers for her friend Abbey and gave them to her when she saw her.

Getting in the water on her last day.

She decided she would rather jump in...

Another jump

Kicking around on the kick board

Working up the courage to go under the water to grab the rings...

So proud of her!  This is really BIG for her!

She really enjoyed her time at Brentwood Pool taking lessons from the life guards.  I wouldn't' say she is a swimmer yet, but she is well on her way to learning!

Beautiful Jocelyn!

4.5 years old!

Kristin Becket Photography

Family Photo Time!

Reagan's 2nd Birthday Pictures!

My two-year-old beauty!

Reagan Olivia

All images thanks to Kristin Becket Photography!

Kitchen Remodel: Phase Five

Phase Five: Appliances and Lighting 

Finally!  I can cook again!  After the cabinets were complete, we moved our appliances back into the kitchen.  Luckily, we have newer appliances (except for the refrigerator) and only needed to buy the above-the-range microwave.  That helps a lot with the kitchen remodel budget!  We are pretty happy with the way it looks so far...

A nice, new stainless steel refrigerator will look great here...one day, but for now:  this one still works.

 Then we finally found some lighting that we thought would look good!

A new light for the ceiling and above the sink

Mini Pendant

Another view of the light.  How do you like our counter tops?  Some sturdy cardboard is working well for us until the counter tops are installed.  It's pretty hard to cook without a counter top! 

And here are our new lights for the back yard

I guess I have looked forward to each phase of this project, but now that the end is in sight, I am really anxious to get our counter tops and sink in.  Cooking in a kitchen with cardboard counter tops is one thing, but not having a sink is another!  Our spaghetti dinner the other night was interesting...carrying a pot of boiling water down the basement steps to strain the noodles into the slop sink was fun!

When will the counter tops be in?  Nobody knows!  Hopefully we will get a call on Monday for an installation date.  The measure was on July 30th, 5 days ago, and the guy told us it would be around 7-10 days for installation.  It has been 22 days since we have had a sink in our kitchen.  I. Am. Ready!  Just having a date that I know it will be happening will help.  Please!!!

Kitchen Remodel: Phase Four

Phase Four:  Cabinet Installation

July 28th & 29th

So, we lucked out with this part of the kitchen remodel!  In the beginning, when we were only talking about remodeling the kitchen, Todd and I discussed installing the cabinets ourselves to save money.  We knew it wouldn't be fun, but we just didn't want to spend a fortune on having the cabinets installed.  We did, however, pay for our kitchen to be measured to make sure our design would actually fit in the space we had.  When the guy who did the measurements came out to measure, he told us he would be willing to install our kitchen on the side for 50% of the quoted installation price.  We couldn't pass up the offer to have our cabinets professionally installed for 50% of the price.  It was just too good to be true.  The guy could probably be fired for offering, but we weren't going to tell on him!   So, when Saturday, Jul 28th rolled around it was finally time to start seeing our kitchen design take shape!

The refrigerator area

The sink area

The stove/range area

The right side of our kitchen.

 And that was it for day #1 of installation.  We were excited to see our kitchen starting to look like an actual kitchen once again!

On Sunday, there was even more excitement as the molding and cabinet doors were added!

We were starting to fall in love!

The next phase was one we were all looking forward to after being without a range and refrigerator for 16 days!

Kitchen Remodel: Phase Three

Phase Three:  Electrical, Plumbing and Patching

July 23rd-27th

Three days after the final coat of polyurethane on the floors, it was time for the next step in this whole process: Electric.  

With our new floors protected, the Electrician did his job over two days.  He added a switch for the light over the sink, an outlet for the new above-the-range microwave we would be adding, a new outlet for the new placement of the dishwasher, an outlet above the counter top located beside the refrigerator, and a new outlet for the new counter top to the right of the range.  We also decided to take advantage of having the upper walls open in the kitchen and run some electrical to the back of the house so we could add some lights back there.  Having light in the back yard was something we had wished for since we started spending time out there, but never imagined it would be possible since there was absolutely no electric back there at all. 

You can see some of the electrical work done here.

 After the electrician was finished with his work, the plumber came in to make his repairs.  When we disconnected the sink, we found that the vent pipe to the sink drain was rusted through and disconnected.  The drain pipe was also too high.  The combination of those two things left us with a kitchen sink that did not drain properly.  The plumber cut off the bad part of the pipe, lowered the drain pipe and also capped off our hot and cold water pipes so the sink cabinet could be placed over them easily.

 The plumber also moved the gas pipe for the stove back toward the wall so we could slide our range in a little further and added a shut-off valve, something we previously didn't have, but definitely should have!

After all of that work was complete, it was time for Todd to start another part of his job:  Fixing all those open holes in the kitchen walls.  Most of the holes would  be covered with cabinets, so Todd did a lot of dry wall without the mudding part.  We also put insulation where we could get it.  There is no insulation in ANY of our walls!  :(

Cutting some insulation for the holes.

Then the painting began.  Todd's favorite part!  ;-)

He painted what he could, but some of the new drywall needed more time to dry first.

So, that was about as far as we got with the painting before the next phase of the kitchen remodel would begin!