more hogan photos

hogan so kindly has taken his own pictures of our progress. once again he has captured our adventures from such a great perspective - from the eyes of our children. he's also taken the pictures that we've missed. you know, we adults miss so much in our business of busy ness. oh, i'm so thankful for our children. we would miss out on so much of life without them!

mark has worked on quite a bit of our household electrical. hogan made me a special message one day as he was helping dad.

these are the best before and after shots! hogan just added all these pictures to our computer file this week. it was so fun finding that he got these.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

IN BETWEEN:

AFTER:

IN BETWEEN:

AFTER:

we almost completely lost record of this aspect of our construction adventures.
able became a mobile baby and also became aware of what happens when you touch the wood stove. he is our first child to experience a burn from the wood stove. we needed to keep him safe from his own curiousity and all the mess and dust and dirt of destructo, so we trapped him in the pack and play for a couple of weeks while his blisters were healing. amazingly, the hand injury did not phase him at all. he was happy here, but he was not such an amiable boy with his adventuring getting cut off.

i know we showed photos of our island already, but i thought this was funny that hogan was taking a picture at the same time as mark.

hogan got a much better picture of our new mud room paint, trim, and super fun letters!
and he's the first one to take pictures of the pretty new painted walls in the front room.

and of course hogan did a great job capturing the handsome features of my favorite man.

remodeling adventures

here are some updates on our kitchen remodeling project
we actually spread into working on 4 rooms
amazingly enough, all this has been done in less than 2 months
whoa!

the kitchen is fully functioning now
a bit more finishing touches are needed before we can call it done
that might be a while
but that's okay

notice the mudroom in the background
oh this room is so nice now with paint and fun letters over the children's coat hooks and new flooring and matching painted trim
we just need a door that opens to the outside to finish it off
that's a big project a long ways away

we love having an island!
i think this is going to be a favorite spot

we had a jammy breakfast this morning
mark was embarrassed about his hair - thus the napkin on the head
but this gives an idea of the new dining room colors
ahh, no more boingey greens, just restful
i actually felt like the room was foggy before we put a bit of furniture back in the room


and then there's the front room
we call it the sitting room
my men did some amazing work in here!!!
they hung new drywall to fix the past plaster problems on the stairway wall
then while waiting for the mud to dry in the stairway, hogan and owen decided to rip off all the old wallpaper and grandpa strub skim coated all the walls of the whole big room so we could paint on smooth walls
but then these guys had to sand all that mud
three generations of cute dusty men, huh?


yes, they even let the pregnant momma play with paint
the only condition was that i could not climb a ladder
i even mixed this color myself with free paint from some of my dad's past jobs
1 part mcdonald's bathroom ceiling green - 1 part golden mist - 1 part stone house = honey hazelnut (grandma strub's name for the new color)

able really wanted to help and be a part of all the progress
every time i turned around i found that he had snuck into the work zone
he's a quick one
i just had to let him play a bit so i could snap this shot before rescuing him from the dusty mess

nikao loved helping grandpa work, but he didn't like the noisy shop vac
the earmuffs were grandpa's remedy
nikao has really loved helping anyone work and he's a great happy helper
almost every morning for the past 2 months he's been getting dressed making sure that we understand that he's ready to work


all this has been such an exciting adventure
the best part is enjoying the children as they discover their own adventures
we love living in our house again
though we're far from back in order, it's all livable
i feel like we are in a place that we can relax on the remodeling process and get back to some priorities of family time, learning time, and get ready for baby time
we've got less than 6 weeks left before our baby's due date
there's a whole bunch i'd like to accomplish before baby milligan arrives, but that's where that nesting thing comes in handy

hmmm, every time i post something new i think of all the things that got left out
so we'll have to continue updating more fun stuff later

The latest in kitchen work.

Able gets painting lessons from Grandpa Strub.

First the priming coat.

Then the new green!

Grandpa Strub sure trusts Hogan since he's letting him roll close to the cabinets!

Lots of industry!

All tuckered out.