One year old basement

I've had a basement now for one year! I had a whole "I love you basement" post written and ready to post, and then our water main broke and I got really angry and started to hate the basement.

It is all fixed now, so I can say again that I love the basement, but I am not looking forward to our next disaster, which will inevitably come.

That's what happens when you live in a 50+ year old home!

So, thank you David for my wonderful basement, my wonderful roof (which in May will have its 2 year anniversary!), and wonderful home. Hard to believe that just a little over a year ago Jackson was still sleeping in the dining room, and all our furniture and chaos was stuffed into the front room.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This was Jasper’s last year to give out Valentine’s day cards at school. I honestly hate buying them and getting them ready, but I tried to have fun with it this year.

I got him NBA valentines to pass out, which came with washable tattoos instead of gross candy hearts. So the evening before he had to pass them out, David, Jasper and I got them all ready, folded and addressed. I then told him to immediately go and put them in a bag, and put them in his backpack so he wouldn’t forget them. I then headed out the door for my nightly run (I’ve been going to the gym consistently, yeah me!).

In the morning as I was getting Jackson ready and yelling out reminders for Jasper to brush his teeth, I made sure he had his valentines. He hadn’t put them in his backpack immediately the night before (of course) but he did have them in a bag, so he quickly grabbed that bag and we headed out.


When I asked him how Valentine’s day went – and If he passed out his cards, he avoided eye contact and mumbled “It was fine.” I asked again – did you pass out the valentines?

He then went on to explain that when he went to grab his sack of Valentines that morning, he accidently grabbed the wrong sack. Once at school, when it was time to pass them out, he reached into his bag, only to find a bag of dirty diapers!!


I’m sure his class was glad he decided not to pass out what was in his bag.



I wondered why he didn’t question anything before, you know - when his bag was really heavy and smelled like poop!!

In his defense, our house has been a complete mess/disaster area since our water main broke and our basement flooded. Yes, that basement that hasn’t even been finished for 1 whole year.

Happy Valentine’s day! Here’s to a less stinky one next year.

Jasper's Bedroom

When Jasper first came to live with us, the basement was still a dream, nowhere close to being finished. Once we started construction, Jasper was a little wary of living in the creepy downstairs - and I don't blame him! I promised him once the basement was finished that he could paint it whatever color he wanted.

Oops!

We ended up compromising since I was not going to let him paint it ALL BLACK or ALL RED.

I think the end result is just right.

Before:

Here is part of the compromise - a black magnetic chalkboard, using Rustoleum paints.

After:

A dark brown wall - looks okay actually!

I might even use some of this green when I'm up to painting Jackson's new room (upstairs in Jasper's old room).

My dad made this dresser for me when I was little. It is still in great shape and just right for Jasper's new room.

Guest Bedroom

Before:

After:

Basement: Hall and closets

David was great and built me LOTS of storage, which is one of my favorite things about the basement. Here are two of the closets - we also have some storage under the stairs and in each bedroom.

Before:

After:

Before, Storage Room:

After:

Utility Closet before:

After:

Basement: Family Room

I have a ton of pictures of our new basement, so I'll post it in parts.

I still have pictures to hang, and light fixtures to mount, but I'm so happy with what we have.

This is our Family Room!

Here is the before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

And these are the BEFORE before pictures, just so I can remember how much work was done:

More pictures tomorrow!

Finished!

Happiness is a finished basement.

More pictures to come soon, I'm busy decorating.

You know you might be tired. . .

... when you

• fall asleep in primary, as a teacher, in the front row. Then while asleep hear the lady doing sharing time ask all the moms to raise their hands. So you raise your hand and wake up, only to realize she was talking about the 5 year old girl, who was playing a mom in her sharing time activity.
• go up to the pulpit to say a prayer, and once you get back to the pew you see that you have a button on your blouse undone and your skirt zipper is also not zipped up. Its been like that during all of church.

It has been a rough week and even rougher weekend, but we are so much closer to our basement being done. Saturday my whole family came over and my dad finished touching up the drywall and mudding and taping in the two basement bedrooms, and we primed, painted and got in fights. Jasper was concerned about the sisterly fighting until I assured him it was "normal."

I made an ambitious (dumb) goal of scheduling the carpet in our basement to be laid this coming Friday. I figured that if I scheduled it then we would just have to bust our butts and my dream basement would be finished!! Although we worked really hard, we still have one whole room to touch up, prime and paint, some closet shelves for David to build, a ceiling to finish painting and more. So... I might have to call and reschedule the carpet guys. Ugh.

I guess if I've waited this long what is one more week, right?

This little guy thinks mommy is slowly

going crazy with all

this basement nonsense.

Basement remodel

At this very moment, three big guys are delivering drywall and stocking it directly in our basement. Then tomorrow my husband and I - and my sweet family will be hanging it. I feel like I could die right now of happiness. This basement project has taken so long. We've been doing it slowly, paying as we go. We need the space this basement will provide so badly. Once the sheetrock is hung - there is still so much to do, but the idea of seeing walls down there just gives me the biggest smile. Yipee! Go basement!

On the move

Jackson is on the move! He crawls about a mile a minute and has taken his first few steps! I've unsuccessfully tried and tried to get photographic evidence of his walking attempts, but he is very stubborn and will only do it when he feels like it - which is normally when I forgot my camera.

He also says "Hi!" and loves to do it while holding a cell phone up to his face.

He loves to go through my purse and taste everything inside of it.

Although still picky and stubborn when it comes to eating, he does love spaghetti.

And then there's this guy. This is Jasper as a baby, I'm not exactly sure how old. We have this picture sitting in a frame in our front room, Jackson loves to try to eat it almost daily.

He's still just as cute.

Jasper is 10 - and he is still afraid of the dark. I really don't know how common this is. I never had my own room as a kid, I always shared with a sister so I don't know how afraid I would have been in a room by myself at his age. He always wants his light on in his room, a radio on, his door open and our door open. I'm would be fine with all of that (we need our door closed though, sorry!), except keeping the light on also keeps him awake, or he wakes up in the middle of the night and knocks on our door at 2 am. It was so much worse when he first came to live with us, but we eventually got him to stop needing a light on in his room. But last month he changed his mind and insists on a lamp again. I could deal with this fine - but soon David will finish the basement (not soon enough), and then his room is going to be down there, and I know its just going to get so much worse. I've been talking up the basement, trying to make it seem so exciting to have his room down there, but I see the dread in his eyes. He has already asked me "um, why can't Jackson just have his room down there and I can stay up there with you guys?" I just know it is going to be a rocky move for him. Have any of you gone through something similar?