Carpet and Doors

The flooring guys finished a day early so we had a break from workers on Thursday. It was good because the girls had parent teacher conferences that afternoon, so I didn't have to worry about leaving for those. Charlotte is struggling with writing but she is improving since moving here. She also needs to practice her multiplication facts more because she seems to be stuck on the 4's. Alice is doing really well and really nothing to worry about with her. She had a parent teacher conference because her teacher, Mrs. Shay, decided that she likes meeting with all of the parents during the spring, not just the Fall. Mrs. Shay let me know that Alice will be receiving the citizenship award on March 28th and that she has just been such a great addition to her class. Alice has adapted very well for having come in the middle of the year. So good to hear that! All of the kids are doing well in school. The boys have even brought some of their grades up. Last I checked, neither had D's or F's, which they did in 1 or 2 classes for a little bit. They now have mostly A's and B's and maybe 1 or 2 C's. 

Charlotte was also begging for me to make a pumpkin pie during the week. I obliged on Thursday since I had the time and the girls got out of school early that day. We never got to make one last Fall or Winter so it was fun to make it and it tasted delicious. I got to use my new silicone mat that has the measuring circles on it so I knew how big to roll the dough out and I love it! The mat stays put and it's an easy clean up. I didn't even need to flour the mat either.

I didn't think to get a picture until we had eaten most of it.

Anyway, now to carpet! I love the smell of new carpet and now our downstairs looks almost like a new house and we actually WANT to be down there. We love the new carpet! Now to get doors and the smaller stuff taken care of like trim, closets, blinds, and electrical outlets.

Waterproof padding.

Alice loves the carpet!

The girls love sitting in front of the window on the ledge in their room.

While the carpet guy was working, I decided to do some more work in the laundry room. So much for waiting on doing the laundry room later, ha ha. I didn't really have anything else to do so I figured I might as well. Also, Curtis wants to move the water softener over to a new spot so I wanted to make sure I painted behind where it will go.

This is where the water softener will go. I stopped to take a picture so we could see the difference in color of paint. It's looking nice even in the laundry room!

This wall is painted already and was where the water softener was but we want to add a utility sink right there.

This wall is mostly done. There were three holes I had to patch up and wait for them to dry. I will have to sand them down and spray texture on, then paint later. Eventually, we will paint the ceiling as well.

Just to see how bad some spots looked. This is right by the door. I painted the right side, then took a picture and painted the other side as well. We may need to replace that strip of wall in between the door and the cement wall. It looks so bad.

This is the wall on the left side of the door. Half of it is a concrete wall. It was dirty (as you can see) and has lots of holes in the concrete. I later wiped off what I could and filled spackle in the holes. I will have to get a picture of what it looks like now, which Curtis says looks like it has poison ivy, ha ha.

The girls also got out of school early on Friday, which was St. Patrick's Day. It was such a nice day that we had our first picnic outside, with lots of green at our table.

We ate sandwiches on green plates and a green apple that we sliced with the green spiral apple slicer. Then some apple juice to drink in green cups.

Friday night we relaxed (after I did some touch up painting) and watched the 7th Harry Potter movie. Saturday our big project was purchasing new doors for the basement and getting them cut and painted. Curtis had to buy some new tools to cut the spots for the hinges and holes on the doors. He taught Garrett how to do it as well. They would cut out the door, then pass it to Jack and I to paint. The weather was perfect for painting outside, sunny and warm with very little wind.

I told Jack to get pictures for me.

Getting the paint ready for the doors.

Jack took a picture of his shadow.

The girls just played out in the backyard while we worked.

I had to ask Curtis to get the canopy out for shade because the sun was drying the paint a little too fast while we were painting. We would move the door to a sunny spot on the driveway after we finished painting it, then over to lean against the house when it was mostly or all dry.

We brought them inside to keep them safe. Some of those are upside down. I still need to touch up paint on them so we couldn't hang them up yet.

We bought Panda Express for dinner that night, except the girls got happy meals from McDonald's since they don't like Chinese food. I told you Panda is one of our favorites! Jack is always suggesting it. We had to watch the last Harry Potter movie earlier than usual because both of the boys went to the stake dance that started at 8:00. They didn't get there until about 8:40 or so though. Jack found some friends from school that he hung out with and said he had a good time. He even danced with one girl at the end. Unfortunately, he ditched Garrett and Garrett did not have a good time. He said he stood against the wall the whole time, didn't dance with anyone or talk to anyone or even eat any refreshments. It was very crowded they said. Garrett struggles with crowds and he's also too scared to talk to people. He looked pretty depressed after picking him up but it wasn't until Sunday morning that I got information out of him. He was still looking depressed and wasn't getting ready for church. He's very sad that he doesn't have any friends yet and it's so hard because he's scared to talk to people. We're hoping that with Curtis being called to work with the priests, that maybe that will help. We have been talking about getting Garrett into therapy and now it looks like we really should. I just hope we can find someone good. Curtis wasn't feeling good on Sunday morning, so he stayed home with Garrett from church. My heart is just breaking for Garrett.

We were able to cheer him up later. In the evening Curtis, Garrett, Jack and I played Yahtzee down in Jack's room on the new carpet. Then I suggested that we at least move the boys' beds in the room so that they could sleep on a regular mattress again. They were all for it! It took longer than I thought to get it set up but they were pretty happy when we went to bed last night. The girls were of course jealous that the boys get to sleep in a new room and they wanted to sleep in theirs. I told them I wasn't going to move their bunkbed yet, but the girls said they wanted to sleep on the cots that the boys had been using, so that's what they did.

This is where Jack wanted the bunkbed, right in between the windows. It fit perfectly!

He moved all of his stuffies up with him and wanted a picture. They take up half of his bed!

The boys having a little fun.

Don't worry, that plunger has NEVER been in an actual toilet, ha ha. It's the one Jack bought just for fun.

All set up on the cots to sleep in their new room.

Being a little silly.

A dog with human hands (Charlotte's).

Well, it's been a long post but there were a lot of things I wanted to share. Charlotte and Curtis were both dealing with feeling a little sick over the weekend. We're hoping they feel better by this weekend when we make our first trip back to Idaho!