Pinewood Derby

Joe and the boys had fun making pinewood derby cars this year. Only Adam is in scouts, but he made two- one for each boy. Here is Adam's he wanted his to look like a bullet:

Here is Michael's:

Another view of Michael's. It is made of wood, I promise:

All the cars after weigh in....don't worry, that is not my tummy.Adam racing his car: We had an aluminum track this year with timers on it. It was quite useful as there were a lot of cars and there were some VERY close races.
I will try to get a picture of Adam holding his car so you can appreciate how cute he his in his cub uniform.

MLK

The kids learned about Martin Luther King at school this week. Michael brought home this project:

Here is a close-up of his writing so you can FULLY appreciate it:
Apparently being "P.C." is not taught until 2nd or 3rd grade.

Downtown Aquarium

Houston has a pretty cool, but somewhat small aquarium that is downtown. It is really expensive to go to, unless you go with a field trip and then it is quite reasonably priced. Fortunately, one of our friends who is a preschool teacher set up a field trip for us to go on. She planned it on a day that was a holiday for all of the kids from school, so everyone could go. Unfortunately, it was cold that day, so we all bundled up and went.

You get to walk through some really well done aquariums. The fish that I am most fascinated by were the sea horses, but there were also several tanks with turtles in them that Adam liked to look at, and an alligator that was moving around a lot.

They had a room in which the kids could touch stingrays, urchins and some type of sand shark.

At the aquarium is also a tiger, of course, because tigers are often found in aquariums.

The aquarium also has a large shark tank. You ride a train into a building and that tank surrounds you like a tunnel. It is really cool. The kids really enjoyed the train ride.

There are a lot of sharks in the tank and it is really neat to see them swimming around.

We went twice. The second time Ellie wanted to sit all by herself. The boys wanted to be at the back of the train the whole time so I let them.

Since our friend set up the field trip, there were a lot of the kids friends there to see and interact with.

We also rode the carousel, but this year we skipped the Ferris wheel. Adam was sure there was no way he was going to get on the Ferris wheel.

I hope we do it again next year!

Me and My Girl

I bought Ellie this cutest skirt a while ago, but she refused to ever wear it. I finally figured out how to get her to wear it, I got myself a somewhat matching one. She says now she will wear it again.

When I got dressed for church, Joe saw me and said I looked rather "pink." I asked if I looked funny and he said no, but I don't usually wear pink. Hmmm, I wonder what that really means...

Lake House Kitchen and Bath Before/ After Pictures

This has been a long time coming, and by far the biggest project yet that we have done at the lake house. Here is the kitchen before we did anything to it, we may have cleaned a little on the counters. The cupboards were stained with nicotine. There were laminate counters in pretty good shape, with a wallpaper backsplash that was glued to the laminate backsplash. Above the cupboards the wall board was stained and had stencils of birds and flowers. The windows had been broken into so that the edges of the glass were exposed in some parts. The oven was tiny. Everything was filthy. Every time we went to the lake house at first I would avoid looking at the kitchen because it would make me feel overwhelmed and tired.

Here is after. We pained the walls green/ tan and the trim and cupboards white. We replaced the counters with silestone. We got the silestone from our last house, some areas of it had become porous and so we called the factory and after a lot of calls and harrassments, they finally replaced the counter. Because they no longer manufacture that color, they had to replace the whole kitchen. We saved the countertops and Joe was able to fit them to this kitchen. There are a few pieces in unusual places, but that is okay. There wasn't quite enough countertops, so Joe is making an intricate cutting board for above the dishwasher that will bridge the gap that the counters didn't cover.

He also replaced the light and the windows. He took out the entire wall that the back splash was on and rewired it and put on a back splash that is travertine tiles and small glass mosaic tiles. He cut the hole for the oven bigger so that we could get a slightly bigger oven/stove. Its funny, but it costs more to get a smaller oven, probably because you have to special order it. We changed out all the knobs on the cupboards and got a newer fridge with water and ice features (such a nice feature). We replaced all the flooring with tile.

He replaced the sink and the faucet too!
It is SOOO much nicer that it was!

Here is the bathroom before pictures. If you thought the kitchen was bad, the bathroom was worse. It was so filthy you felt gross just going in there. It took me several hours just to scrub the scum off the shower. The counter was a very retro teal color. There was a medicine cabinet, but it was very dirty and covered in stickers.

Just this weekend, Joe replaced the counter for me!

At the end of the counter were some shelves. He didn't cut those completely off because then we would have to work on the tile, but he shortened them so that he can put a longer toilet in soon (it's a guy thing I think).
Luckily, right before Joe was going to start cutting the granite for the counter, our friends showed up. Taylor was happy to help Joe cut and carry the granite in. Granite is surprisingly fragile when you are cutting it, so we were very thankful they could help us out. He cut the granite to shape outside and then cut the hole for the sink inside. We got the granite from the house we live in now. When the painters were staining the banister, they set their can of stain on the counter and it left a ring in the granite that was noticeable. We had them change the granite out. Since it was such a large piece of granite, we saved the pieces from the counter and Joe could cut this smaller counter from it.

Here is the finished vanity. He used the edges from the rest of the counter to do the back splash, so they also have a rounded edge, and he didn't have to sand any of it. The sink, faucet, light and mirror are all new. I painted the walls brown to match the counters, and there will be a chair rail up at about counter height.

Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to the shower yet, it is one of the next big projects. Just so you can appreciate what a project it will be, here is a before picture:

When my parents visited for several weeks last month, they ran wires and electricity to our metal building. It didn't have any lights before, but now it does. Joe then could see to clean it, it was really nice.

Fishing, Four wheeling and some time away

Joe had Thursday and Friday off, so we did what we always do and we went to our lake property. The kids spent a lot of the time riding their four-wheelers. These first pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, Joe dug out a tree stump and then let the boys ride through the hole. They were are little timid at first, but they caught on really quickly. He has since filled in the hole, but made another hole in a different area, next to a few piles of dirt that the kids like to ride over. (Actually, Joe put the piles of dirt there so he could jump over them on his four wheeler, and he has more fun doing that than the boys do riding over it).

Ellie is getting really good at riding her four-wheeler too.

This weekend, we had a couple of visitors. Sara and Nathan came up and Sara loved to ride around with Ellie. It was a perfect fit since Ellie liked to do the driving.

Joe recently bought this contraption. He calls it a mini-bike. It is pretty funny to see him ride it around.

He also bought the boys a little motorcycle, but only Adam has figured out how to ride it. I haven't taken pictures of him on it yet. (I keep reminding Joe that he is spoiling the boys, but I think it falls on deaf ears).

Here is a picture from a couple of months ago, but it is classic to how they often look... all lined up and riding together.
Saturday morning, we went out to Lake Conroe to go fishing. We didn't want to get up early, so we got up at our regular time and went out. It was really windy and choppy and COLD. Luckily, we brought blankets so we could all wrap up and get warm. We didn't catch anything, but Adam did learn to drive the boat and did fabulous at it.

We did get some relaxing in, but we also got some BIG projects done that I am going to post about separately.