The Fourth

Yesterday Ryan and I spent most of the day putting the stairs back together:

It was a full day's work, but thankfully the weather was relatively mild for July in Kansas.  It was more bearable to work in 80 degree weather than the typical July temperatures in the 100's.  Ryan finished digging the trenches for the drainage tubes.  I put the plants in and mulched.

We did try to squeeze in a little bit of celebration by grilling out, a patriotic dessert and letting the kids play in the sprinkler.

Since that wasn't enough of a Fourth of July Celebration we joined our neighbor's block party to watch them light fireworks.  We even had some of our own.  Ryan showed Aric how to use a punk.  After that Aric continuously lit fireworks.  We didn't buy any fireworks this year, but had enough small fireworks leftover from previous celebrations to satisfy Aric.  I can already tell that we will need to make a trip to the firework tent next year.

Kellyn ditched us most of the night to go hang out with "the girls" as she called them.

She returned for the important parts of the night: sparklers, hunger, thirst, and bathroom breaks.  I'm already seeing visions of how her teenage years will be.

Today we will be resting and recovering from the soccer game, backyard projects, and all of our fun this week.  I don't think I can handle any more fun.

Our Holiday Project: Drainage

Last year I mentioned what we end up doing on long holiday weekends: projects.  We always end up working on some sort of project whether we had planned to or not.  Last year we worked on our steps over Memorial Day weekend.  We finished them and they turned out rather well.  This year Ryan is digging up our steps, or at least a few of them.

Last year we had our gutters draining into a rain barrel to keep the water from washing away the dirt underneath the steps.  It worked in theory.  In actuality the water still ran everywhere and not always in the rain barrel.  Yesterday we had new gutters installed as a result of the hail and wind storm.  A few days prior, Ryan began digging out a trench to install underground gutter drainage.  After consulting with the gutter installer it was decided that we needed to reroute the drainage underneath the steps.  Yes, underneath the steps.  The best way to do this was pull out the pavers, dig up the sand, and dig a hole to run the tube underneath the timber frame.

So far Ryan has been doing all of the hardwork.  My job has been to watch the kids and bring him ice cold water.  I'm sure at some point I'll be back to laying pavers and landscaping.  The kids are definitely entertained by this whole project. 

Aric and Kellyn thought it was great to have 100ft of "snake" to play with last night.  They had the snake all over the yard and even discovered the joys of playing telephone.

When we finally ran the tube down the side of the house, and through the steps, Aric helped Ryan and I push and pull it through.  Kellyn was our self-appointed cheerleader.  She ran around repeatedly yelling, "We are a family.  We can do this!"  I'm not sure it motivated us too much, but it did make us laugh.

Next time we will work harder on our drainage plans before we build the steps.

Roof

A month ago a bad wind and hail storm came through and damaged our roof, gutters, and truck.  Not good.  This past Friday they came out to replace the roof.  They were up there from 6am to 8pm with an hour lunch break.

It was a long day, but I'm glad they did it all in one day.  I don't think I could have handled more than one day of them banging away on our roof.  On Tuesday they come out to work on the gutters.  I'm hoping gutter replacement is much quieter.

Kellyn's Quilt

Kellyn's room is a work in progress.  I have a theme for it: fairy tale, but it has been a slow process bringing it together.  One thing that I finished this week was her quilt.

I found the fairytale fabric shortly after I finished Aric's room and I have based everything in her room around this fabric.  One of the quilting stores in town is eliminating their fabric section.  I went last week with Kellyn's quilt in mind and found exactly what I needed to make her quilt.  I spent the next few days cutting fabric squares and sewed it together over the weekend.  Apparently that's an insanely short amount of time to make a quilt from start to finish.  Once I get started on a project I tend to be driven.  It helps to have a husband who doesn't mind picking up some of the slack when I'm in project mode.

One of my favorite parts of the quilt; the fabric on the back is the same as the fabric on the front.

Now back to work on the rest of her room.

Aric's Star Wars Room

Since late last year we have planned to move the kids back into their own rooms.  We felt they would both need their own space again, especially after Aric started school next fall.  After Kellyn's acrobatic stunt, our plans sped up and the kids were moved. 

I spent the past month working on pulling together all that I had planned for Aric's room.  I'm pleased with the way it all turned out and so is Aric.

Before:

We kept Aric in Kellyn's old room and moved Kellyn into Aric's old room.  It was more to do with paint colors than any other reason.

After:

I ordered quite a bit from Etsy to decorate Aric's room.  A friend of mine made Aric's name banner in a Star Wars font.  I ordered the Star Wars art, and matted and framed them with Hobby Lobby stock items.

The Star Wars Encyclopedia and signed character were my brother's.  They had been buried in my closet.  I had Ryan install a shelf high on the wall to prevent Aric from getting to them before he's old enough to appreciate them.

I made the Star Wars character cross stitch for Aric.  He was a little slave driver throughout the whole process, demanding to know when I was going to finish "my work".

The bookshelf and star light were already in the room.  I added the print above the bookshelf.  It was another Etsy item and a stock frame from Hobby Lobby.

Everything tied in with his quilt:

 I am really happy with his room and how well it turned out.  It had better will grow with him for a long time, because I won't be redecorating it for a long time.

Next up is conquering this mess:

The Quilt

I have spent the New Year enjoying my family, catching up on housework, preparing for a K-State Bowl game watching party, getting ready for an anniversary trip to Colorado, and sewing.  After a year, I finally made and finished Aric a quilt. 

It went from this:

To this:

 

It started out as a dinosaur quilt, but over the past six months I wondered if maybe the dinosaurs would be quickly outgrown.  Star Wars seemed like a better, longer-lasting choice.  I previously decided my first quilt top was not going well.  It was an ambitious pattern for a first time quilt.  After research, I decided a rag quilt might be a better project for me.  It was.

I even like how the all red back turned out.

Now all we have to do is turn the play room back into Aric's bedroom.  But that is a project for another day...

This Year's Ornaments

How appropriate that after writing yesterday's post I spent two hours sitting on the playroom floor putting Aric's Lego Star Wars ships back together.  They were in a million pieces, it was fun, especially with two kids trying to sit on the Legos or help me.

He really likes his Star Wars Legos, but like any other four year old with little Legos he has a hard time keeping them together.  

This year when picking out ornaments I knew what I wanted for Aric: a Star Wars ornament, maybe R2D2 or something similar, and for Kellyn I wanted a horse.  She really likes horses and if you haven't heard her horse impression you are missing out.  I need to capture it on video one of these days.  I quickly found out when you procrastinate on buying ornaments your selection gets kind of limited.  After traipsing all over town I finally found these:

As you can see I did not find a horse and R2D2.  Apparently this is not the year for horse ornaments.  All I could find was a creepy horse head with feathers flowing out of its neck where a body should be; not quite what I had in mind.  I quickly had to switch to my second choice which was Barbie.  Kellyn likes horses and Barbie.  Barbie has been a recent discovery, but one that she is wholeheartedly latching on to.  Kellyn was quite happy when I came home with her new Barbie ballerina ornament.

For Aric I found General Grievous, because nothing says Merry Christmas like putting a creepy Star Wars character on your Christmas tree.  He thinks it's pretty awesome and is showing anyone who enters our house through the door or Skype.

Lesson Learned:  next year don't wait until December to search for the kid's Christmas ornaments.

Interior Projects

This past spring/summer we tackled quite a few projects.  I wore my husband out.  He was in and out all summer long on different business trips.  Every time he returned I had something new for him to do.  He finally told me he was tired of going away, because when he returned there was too much for him to do.

One of my favorite projects was this table for our entry way:

I found the plans for it on Pinterest and loved the idea of having somewhere for everyone to store their mittens, hats, and whatever else in a somewhat organized fashion.  It has been finished for awhile.  I was waiting to take photos until we had baskets for it.  Those were harder to find.  The size was a bit odd and baskets aren't cheap.  I ended up ordering the baskets used by the person who made the plans.  They were finally on sale and had free shipping.  I snatched them up!

The runner on top is actually a Christmas runner made by one of my friends.  If you need quilts, home goods, kitchen towels, or other wonderful Christmas gifts stop by her shop.  She is always coming up with the cutest things.

Our other big project was downstairs.  Ryan needed more shelving for his ever expanding collection of glasses.  He made more floating shelves to match the other ones.

As you can see, his man cave is overtaken with toys and my Sweat Shoppe.  It makes me feel bad sometimes.  Maybe that's why I recently bought him more pictures for his man cave.

I thought they added a little something to the wall.  It's still a work in progress.  We know the wall needs more things, but we are taking our time with it.

That concludes our projects inside the house.  The outside is a whole other post.  I'm hoping sometime this winter to tackle this last part of our basement: 

 
It's kind of bare and neglected.  Maybe more shelves, pictures, and who knows what else.