Miracles Can Happen

Miracles really do happen. We have been trying to finish our basement for over a year. It has been really slow going. We are a bit limited because Cody and I don't know how to finish a basement. We have been at the mercy of both of our fathers.

Consequently, the only times that anything of significance gets done is when one of them comes to our house. However, this last week we have got so much done.

Here are some pictures of how it looked on Friday morning Feb. 13.

Here is how it looked one week later on Saturday Feb. 21.

We got the painting done with my dad on Friday and Saturday and then Cody's dad came up on Monday and we got the plugs and lights in as well as touch up paint. Then my dad came on Thursday and stayed until Saturday finishing up the trim. Cody's dad also came on Friday night to help with the tile around the fireplace. We are so lucky we have such wonderful dads. We are grateful for all of their help.

When this is all over I am hoping to take a little break from home improvement projects. However, we still have garden sprinklers to work on in the spring. It never ends!

The Basement

The basement has been our never-ending project. We have been working on it for over a year. Yesterday and today we finally painted. My dad came up to help us because we were going to use his paint sprayer.

My dad also made us a mantle for our fireplace for Christmas. Yesterday we spent half the day putting it together and staining it. The we put the primer on the wall. It took us about 5 hours to get the first coat of paint on the wall with a sprayer. We spend the first hour just trying to get the sprayer primed. It took Dad, Cody and I all doing something to get it going, but we finally got it going. However, it still wasn't working very well so it took us a long time.

Since we still had two coats to put on the walls and the trim to paint we decided to bite the bullet and rent a sprayer. Dad and I got up early this morning and went and rented the sprayer. What took us 4 hours to do yesterday took us 1 hour to do today. By 4:30 p.m. we had 2 coats of paint on the walls and the trim and doors painted. That includes 4+ hours of drying time.

We are so glad to have the paint on the walls. We are especially glad to have my dad come help us! Monday Cody's parents are coming to help with more things. This project might get finished one of these months.

Puzzles, Puzzles, Puzzles

Ty and Paige both got some puzzles for Christmas. They have loved them. They have enjoyed them so much that I bought Ty some more the other day. Today I got them out so he could try them. He has done three of them with no help at all.

I have decided that I really like puzzles because the kids love doing them by themselves. It will keep my Ty busy for about 30 minutes. Paige loves doing the same puzzle over and over.