Baskettball and Ladders!

This month has been full. Lots of baskettball and lots of "floor" talk. Let's start with the most exciting part. Talia, finished up her first bball season successfully with the much anticipated trophy. She was a great player, and when she was focussed she was fast, tall, and quite a threat. Sometimes she had so much enthusiasm that she seemed almost unable to channel. She as always loves people, doing anything with them. It didn't seem to bother her at all that she was one of two girls on the team. Her biggest complaint was that people didn't pass very often. She made a number of shots and improved so much over the season.

The girls and I headed to Brigette's house for a fun weekend (away from the floor) We were able to celebrate Brielle's b-day, play with friends, and help Nicki move into her beautiful home. It was a wonderful weekend, though I was not highly successful at helping Getti with her projects. :{ Next time. The girls absolutely love Brielle and Keiton and count down the days when they can see them again. I don't think my very rambunctious crew helped their sleeping habits but I know they had fun together.

Here is Craig heading off to work. We used only the top floor and the bottom floor for a couple of days which made for a lot of ladder climbing, window climbing, eating in unusual places, messes, and general craziness. I don't think any of us will ever take our main floor for granted again. As is true for most home improvement projects, this one proved longer, harder, and more frusterating than any of the youtube videos depicted it to be. It is definitely one of those projects that should be prefaced with a disclaimer to "never try this at home." The details aren't crucial but I'll give a few just for our own sake. After about a day with an oscillating sander we realized that we would probably need to sand for about a month to cut through all the finish. Craig went out an rented a drum sander which was much quicker though much more destructive to the floor. After two full days of sanding (plus a week between) we put our stain coat on) This is the point where we couldn't use the floor anymore till it was completed. What we soon noticed as we put this beautiful rich stain on was that there were foot prints appearing. At first I figured I could handle one footprint; you know a conversational starter, or memory of my children's childhood. But as we progressed we found dog prints, a mans shoe print, a shoe print with a heart in it, a splash stain from the dog spilling her water, etc...ect....ect.... It looked terrible. This is where the girls and I took off and left Craig with this huge mess. It was a tense and very disheartening time. It wasn't one of those things you could just leave and do later-because it couldn't be stepped on. Craig ended up renting yet another sander which ended up being faulty. He sanded the entire floor (another day) and upon putting the stain down found that the sander had made cuts all over the floor like someone had run a raker through soft wood. At this point I returned and we rented two sanders and we both sanded till we could not stand it anymore. THen we put plastic down all over the floor to protect it from any contaminants. That weekend we completed the process. Staining, and then three coats of polyurethane. During this time we lived and ate on the top and bottom floor, accessing them through a ladder. At one point the cat snuck in and I had to grab her and put her out on the deck roof. She freaked because she couldn't get down and I had to capture her, wrap her in my coat and drag her down the ladder. We ate dinner and breakfast in the basement, and had our pioneer adventure. For two nights we also slept at Gma Harrison's because the smell was too strong. This was a stressful, awkward, and wild time for our family. Craig and I are glad that it is over. The floor has many many mistakes which is frusterating after so many hours of work. But we did our best and overall I think it is an improvement. The amount of dust that we had was ridiculous from so many sanding sessions. We still have lots of cleanup, and finish work to do, but we are done lily pad hopping on the towels and are enjoying the convenience of the stairs.

Since we have had a dump of snow recently one of Capriel's jobs is to clean Pepper off when she comes inside. She is very helpful and loves to care (sometimes in a suffocating sort of way) for her. Today Pepper came in with so much snow on her legs that she looked three times her normal size. Pepper's routine has been very much skewed with our home projects. I hope we can help her figure out everything again soon!

Here are a couple of pics of the floors. It is good for me to see them from these perspectives because the flaws really aren't evident. I've had a number of thoughts on this subject. I feel this is an opportunity for me to simply look for the good and not to focus on all the flaws. It is difficult for me. The old and new section flow well together, and I love the color. I love how this opens up the house and creates a cozier "front room." It also improves the accoustics significantly for our musicians. Thank you Craig for your willingness to do this project with me and for the countless hours and frusteration you endured to help me with it. I guess we can chalk it up as another memory made together. I love you!!

Here is a picture of Breck. She has had so much fun with Bball this year. She played both with a rec league and her church team (which went to regionals). She improved immensly and really felt like she found a new love for team playing and basketball in general. Her team played so well and with awesome effort beat the best team on the last game of the season. The biggest exctiement of all was when Breck made three points during the last minute of her YW regionals game! Her final shot was a buzzer shot. She wanted those points SOOO Bad! We are proud of her for her efforts.

Here is an example of one of Talia's latest hobbies. She laid this out for when I was going out on my Valentine's date. The other day she even parted her hair on the side to get a swoop look. She is a fun girl, full of spunk and enthusiasm.

Landen is working so hard at school. Math seems to occupy an awful lot of the free evening time at our house. I'm so proud of the kids and how hard they work to figure it out. Landen is up to like 12 pullups. He is currently working on teaching Pepper "come."

Rhyse is into quoting movies. Really this is a family hobby with Mom being the only one who simply doesn't remember any. Their favorite pastime is to quote and imitate movie lines, and Rhyse is no exception. She gets stuck on a few and asks me all day, "What's this from,......." Some days I'll bet I get this a hundred times! She also breaks out into her pretend world quite spontaneously. Once when Breck was putting her down for a nap, all of a sudden she started talking about how Breck was putting her in a dungeon, and that she was a Princess.... She'll get this wild look in her eye and you can tell she has been transported to another (usually dangerous and dramatic) land. She can play so well independently and loves to sing as she plays. A favorite is "Little Seeds." She is also loving puzzles, and homework.