Showing posts with label Jared. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jared. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The teeny tiny flood

At the beginning of July, we replaced a faucet in our kitchen.  It turns out there was a faulty valve involved and a tiny little drip occurred for about 24 hours.  You couldn't see or hear anything, but I noticed it when stepping on the kitchen floors and water squished out from the grout in the tiles.  I also noticed the foundation was wet on the exterior of the house all the way from the siding to the sidewalk.  

Then we went downstairs to the bedroom below the kitchen and found pockets of water in the ceiling and water damage halfway across the room.
Such a mess.  We have been in construction ever since.  The mitigation process is looooong.  Jared is doing the repair work, and it has been turning out great.  Because he is doing the work himself, we have been able to do more of what we want.  We are excited about the results so far.


The tent to keep the air contained and drying the subfloor.

It was like this for a week or so.  Then they gave up on the subfloor and tore the rest of it up.

The bedroom downstairs.  The fans didn't cut it, so they had to bring in a huge de-humidifier that drained through a hose out in the basement living room.

Choosing flooring was a bigger process than we anticipated.  Hard to commit!
 
The dark green tile we found under the pergo in the kitchen.

The flooring stripper that still took 4 1/2 hours to "remove" the tiles.  Then we had to scrape and pick the pieces of the sticky subfloor.  This was the worst part by far.

Before the subfloor.  We had some incredible friends stop by Friday night and paint the living room and dining room and lay the subfloor for 3 hours.  We were so grateful to wake up Saturday and only have laying floor to do.

 Seeing how it would look.

Getting started in the kitchen.  Lots of fun angles and corners.

Finished kitchen.


Finished dining room.

Finished living room.  With furniture, even! :)

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Happy Father's Day!

My Dad is 3 years old.
His hair is kinda like my hair and his eyes are blue.
My Dad likes to wear clothes.
He loves to eat chicken nuggets.
He is smart because he knows about Jesus.
My Dad works hard at work and making presents.
Dad always tells me to clean my room.
It makes Dad happy to go to Lagoon.
If he could go on a trip, he would go to Grandma's house.
I really love it when my Dad helps me clean.
If I could give my Dad anything, it would be car or a toy or a truck or a cookie.
My favorite thing about my Dad is when he helps me.
                                    Love,
                                    Briggs



My Dad is 17 years old.
His hair is blonde and his eyes are blue.
My Dad likes to wear his basketball shorts.
He loves to eat my bagels.
He is smart because he goes to work.
My Dad works hard at his work.
Dad always tells me to play.
It makes Dad happy that I hug him and cuddle with him.
If he could go on a trip, he would go camping.
I really love it when my Dad helps me climb.
If I could give my Dad anything, it would a tool.
My favorite thing about my Dad is when he makes me fun stuff.
                                    Love,
                                    Maddie



My Dad is 29 years old.
His hair is blonde and his eyes are blue.
My Dad likes to wear church clothes.
He loves to eat oatmeal.
He is smart because he knows how to make things.
My Dad works hard at work.
Dad always tells me stories.
It makes Dad happy when I hug him good-bye.
If he could go on a trip, he would go to New York.
I really love it when my Dad kisses me goodnight.
If I could give my Dad anything, I would give him a tool.
My favorite thing about my Dad is that he jumps on the tramp with me.
                                    Love, 
                                    Emma

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Emma is 6!?!

We went to a fundraiser dinner at Jared's old high school.  The kids thought it was so fun, especially exploring the halls afterward.  

We even found Jared's picture on "Highland's Hall of Fame".  He is #49.

The kids started swimming lessons this week.  They were so excited on the first day, but their excitement has only grown each time.  It doesn't get old listening to them gush about their lessons and all the things they are learning and thank us for signing them up.  Very sweet.

Emma wanted another My Little Pony birthday, but ended up deciding that an Eye of the Tiger party would be fun so we embraced it.  It ended up being really cute.  One of her favorite gifts was her beanie baby tiger that she named Rajah.

We gave her a scooter for her birthday, and she was thrilled.  It is hard for her to try new things because she gets nervous, but she embraced this quickly.  Also, she got a sticker at school that said it was her birthday and she changed it from her school clothes to play clothes to pajamas.  The next morning, the first thing she did when she woke up was pull it off her pajamas and say, "Well, I guess it's not my birthday anymore!"

She doesn't like cake so the big decision for her was what other kind of birthday dessert she wanted.  She went for chocolate pudding pie.  Easiest birthday "cake" ever.

Anderson is OBSESSED with books.  When he disappears, I find him with a book(s).  He has looked through so many of them now that he knows which ones have horses in them, and he opens them up to them and will only let me read those pages to him.  Too funny.

We picked up some DI roller blades.  Emma is much happier teaching Maddie and Briggs to use them than wearing them herself.

Sometimes the boys get so tired of being in the car dropping off and picking up the girls, so when we have a minute, we play in dirt.  Their smiles say it all.  Boys and dirt- I can't explain this relationship- I just know it is very real.

Emma is loving her goggles and how much of a better swimmer she thinks they make her.  I can never see her in the pool because she is underwater so much.  

Maddie just likes to wear them in various ways.  She doesn't use them much.

One of the wrestling matches that takes place at our house nightly.  My favorite part of the day.

Anderson loves to put his dishes in the sink after meals.  He was in the process of doing that(I thought) when I turned around and found him licking his plate.  

At the birthday celebration with Jared's family on Sunday.  The Frozen purse she has been dying to have, that she thought was gone.

Jared's brother and his family gave her a giant jar of pickles because they "love her more than pickles".  She says that to me all the time.  That is a big deal because she really really loves pickles.

Anderson saw a photo shoot going down and had to jump in.

It is time for spring sports registration.  I asked Briggs if he wanted to play baseball or soccer.  He said, "Basketball!!"  He is such a good dribbler and shot.  I think he is just excited about it because Jared is coaching a team and our nephews are playing on teams so we've been to lots of games lately.  It has motivated all the kids to practice a lot.

Anderson has to get in on the action, too.

The reason for Anderson's love of horses.  Max.  If the weather is even halfway decent, the kids go on weekly rides.  That is our nephew, Logan, he is such a sweetheart and a horse lover, too.

Emma and Maddie helped make these delicious little ladybug snacks.


Monday, February 2, 2015

Golden Shovel

Went for a walk the other night with some really cool fog.

When I got to Emma's class, my neighbor watches Briggs, Maddie and Anderson.  As they walk over there, Maddie gets super protective of Anderson and it is adorable.

A couple that Jared home teaches gave him some wack-a-packs for the kids.  They are self-inflating balloons that start when you pound them.  They pop at the end.  The suspense was most intense for Maddie, she was hilarious.

Anderson is in an awkward growing stage.  He wants to use the potty, and he doesn't want to sleep in his crib anymore.  The result is that he doesn't sleep well every night.  This must have been one of them.  He was so out of it that he fell asleep in the grocery cart.  I couldn't believe it, he is such a light sleeper but he slept through it all!


We dog-sat McGraw for the morning this week, and I think he was more than ready to leave by the time Kendra came to get him.  He was a good sport, but he was either on a leash or wearing a costume of some kind(batman cape, etc.) the whole time.

The ground breaking for the girls' school was this week.  It was rainy and cold, but the kids were so excited.  They even had fancy gold tipped shovels for the kids to use.

Enjoying the rain in their umbrellas.

Maddie, Anderson and I walked Briggs to school in the rain Wednesday morning.




Anderson helped me make banana bread Thursday morning.  He was so involved in every step.  He knew exactly what we were doing and was so excited when the kitchen timer beeped.  So cute.

We got to spend the day with cousins playing at our house Thursday.  I was loving my niece's creativity in dress-ups.

We took the girls skiing Thursday night.  Maddie was SO excited and tried her boots and skis on so many times.  She was a pro by that night.  So thankful for good friends who loaned us so much of their ski gear.


Anderson can sit still for a couple of minutes now!  They are becoming better and better buddies.

Another month of homework and reading done!  We are starting to get the hang of it!  Also, this is her favorite new "ponytail".  

Paige and her cousin Ellie spent a couple of hours doing Maddie's hair and she loved it.

Jared started coaching a couple of weeks ago and we got to go watch.  It is fun seeing him doing one of the things he loves so much.


Our nephew had a game right after Jared's, so the boys were playing in between games.

Saturday night we went to Jared's parents' church for dodgeball and Norwegian kickball.  We had a blast.  The kids got to shoot around for a little bit, too.



Picking teams

Katy Perry halftime show.  My girls love a couple of her songs.  Luckily they lost interest during the songs they didn't know.

After halftime, Emma retreated into a bedroom to color on Grandma's iPad.

The boys love wearing football helmets during games, the Superbowl was no exception.