Memorial Day 2012

Memorial Day weekend in Montana was cold and...snowy. :(  That made for some indoor activities for the kids and me and plenty of time for CK to work on the house.

 CK has been a tiling maniac these past few weeks and the master bathroom is really looking good.  Reese, Asher and I took a trip to the house yesterday to inspect the progress.

 view from the doorway entering the bathroom; once you walk through that opening, the shower is on the right and the toilet on the left

 CK cut all the travertine from the larger 18" x 18" pieces

 this is the view from the loft looking down

 slightly different view, the flooring will be carpet/hardwood pretty soon

 and turning to your right looking down from the loft.  from left to right doorways- mudroom, steps downstairs to basement, steps upstairs to 2nd floor

 Dad, I can't quite climb this...yes, Asher, that was by design

House updates

CK has been very busy on the house and it's starting to look...well, almost finished.  Here are some updated pictures from today:

This is the main floor bathroom- grey tile

 and...wait for it...we have a toilet!  One of the biggest milestones yet ;)

 We love our knotty alder doors.  This is the finished pantry (just outside the kitchen) in the middle, playroom door to the right and master bedroom door to the left

 CK built the loft railing so the kids can finally roam around upstairs without me having heart failure.  Looks pretty spiffy, no?

 Asher loves going to the "new house" now because there are endless tools to play with.

 CK started putting in the wood floor, this is the dining room area

 Kitchen floor tile in and boxes of hardwood floor waiting to be installed around it

 This is the entryway.  There will eventually be a front door in that back wall but it's drywalled for now since the drop outside is about 30 feet.  door on the right goes to the mudroom/laundry room/garage

 Asher in the mudroom door

 Laundry room, this is a pocket door that CK is rigging to open per a motion sensor.  Sounded like a great idea when I thought he was doing it for himself but he's assured me that even the fancy self-opening door won't encourage him to do more laundry.  Oh well.  CK also tiled the platform where the Washer/Dryer will go as you can see.

 A closer look at the mudroom floor (same as kitchen and main bathroom)

 CK also built the railing going upstairs past the dining room

 Playroom floor is in- this room needs trim and then it will be the first to be DONE.

 New fridge is in place.

 Master bath travertine floor

 And...the grand finale...my Mother's Day gift.  What every woman wants- a new man-lift.

 CK decided to take Reese, Asher and Grandma on a little test ride

 Asher's face is pretty priceless

 Not sure what I think about this thing, Dad

6 week update

Despite the fact that we haven't blogged in awhile we have been taking pictures with the intention of blogging.  Unfortunately our home PC is on the fritz and we couldn't find the SD card reader so I could upload pics onto my laptop. Then we bought a new SD card reader that doesn't work...anyway, it's been a saga but we were trying I promise!  So...finally...here are some pics from the last 6 weeks or so.  Some cute ones of the kids playing in the cabinets at our condo.

 Easter morning, Reese and Asher loved getting their baskets.  They had more fun later that day with their cousins, though.

 It turned out to be beautiful weather for Easter so we did the egg hunt outside, which was a lot of fun.  This is the pic of the older kids waiting for their turn to "be released" while the younger ones run around in the yard looking for eggs.  Look familiar, Lageman/Joynts?

 Asher had fun filling up his bag with eggs

 Reese found about 3 eggs and then just wanted to swing.  This is her sitting on the swing, looking at an egg that CK brought over to her that had her name on it.

 The men, of course, had to show the kids how a pogo stick really works.

 Despite the plague we brought back from our East Coast trip, CK has managed to get himself well enough to get a lot done on the house.  These pictures are from a few weeks ago but he has been busy staining the posts/beams and building the railing for the upstairs loft.

 Our doors arrived and we love them.  They are knotty alder stained in a walnut stain.  CK has installed most of them and i helped put in the door handles on Friday evening so I'll try to get some updated pictures this weekend.

 This is the view of the loft railing from the upstairs.  Much safer already :)

Something I wasn't able to get a picture of because we were too busy trying to fix it was our first "kid threat" to the beautiful new house.  CK and I have been joking around that we are buying these great new wood floors, beautiful tile, cabinets, etc. and then reminding ourselves that with 2 toddlers, the house will be "ruined" in a matter of months.  Ok, so probably not ruined, but you know what we mean.  We brought Val up to see the new doors yesterday and left Reese alone for a few minutes (yes, that's all it takes) and when I turned back around she had managed to find a red permanent marker and was drawing on the new playroom door that CK just installed this week.  Seriously.  After a few expletives by me and CK's quick thinking with paint thinner, the door is as good as new but man...we thought the fun wouldn't start until we actually moved in.  Ha!

This week, CK is starting to tile the entry/kitchen/mudroom (dark grey tile) and then probably the bathrooms (same grey tile in one and travertine in the master).  Our appliances should arrive this week and the cabinets are due in mid- to late May so we're getting closer.

Mike & Jill's visit

My friend Mike (from Duke) and his wife, Jill, and their 2 kids (Kate is Reese's age and Alex is 18 months) came to visit last weekend and we had a great time.  Luckily it was a beautiful weekend so we got to spend some time at the park in addition to watching the ACC tournament and another fun afternoon at Exploration Works here in Helena.  The kids had a lot of fun playing with each other and Reese has been talking about visiting Kate in Texas ever since.

 Reese checking herself out in the funny mirrors at Exploration Works

 Mike getting his upper body workout in

 Kate and Reese showing us their tongues

 The engineer showing the kids how it's really done

 It's always more fun to slide in a bumblebee costume