He did it!!

Andrew finally got sick of waiting for Daddy to help him learn to ride his bike and decided to teach himself. Mommy tried to help, but she couldn't run for very long or very fast -- he fell one too many times with mommy. He started at the top of the driveway and rode into the grass. It took him a few tries, but he was finally able to figure out how to push backwards to stop. He ran into the mailbox once, but for the most part he would fall into the grass. While he was practicing, I made him wear his helmet, but he decided that he looked too goofy with the helmet on for the pictures. I told him that as long as he promised to wear the helmet when he was riding, that I would take the pictures without the helmet on -- saftey first!!

He has to concentrate pretty hard to keep everything moving at once. He tended to turn the handle bars whichever direction was the same as the foot he was pushing downward with.

He wanted me to take a little video so that we could show daddy -- Bill is in Florida delivering furniture this week. He will be home tomorrow -- we're both ready for daddy to come home!

After the video, we decided to go for our maiden voyage around the block. The first half was a little rough -- he still tended to turn the handle bars when pedaling. He fell once, but there was no blood, thank goodness, I don't think I would have gotten him back on the bike if there was. Going up the hill was challenging, he was all over the road. The second half of the block was a breeze -- you'd have thought he'd been riding for years. He did great and was so proud of himself.

He wanted to call Grandma Doughty right away -- look Grandpa -- he did it before he turned 8 -- he's got better balance than his mother did ;-) Of course, I took away the training wheels a year and a half ago, before he had a chance to develop the mean lean...

Granite...

This truly is a lengthy process. Everything needs to dry for a certain amount of time. No snapping your fingers and being done... You know how I am about being patient -- the waiting is killing me!!!!


Last week the guys put up the cement board that goes behind the tile. They also drywalled the ceiling and the wall. I guess there are several coats of mud that have to go on drywall...



Anyway -- the granite was installed today.



The shower seat, threshold, soap dish, and shampoo dish are made of the granite.



It's really hard to tell from these pictures, but the granite is a

purplish brown. With the beige tiles it should really pop out.

This is a close-up of the soap dish.

I can't wait -- did I say that already ;-)

The tooth fairy strikes again!

On Wednesday August 6th, Andrew lost his second tooth. He looks a little funny, but he's quite happy. He kept complaining that his wiggly tooth got in the way when he was eating. The empty space doesn't seem to bother him.

He was surprised to wake up to another dollar fifty (this time it was one dollar, three dimes, and four nickels). He had fallen asleep on the couch and didn't remember getting into bed. He came into my room in the morning waving his plastic bag of money shouting "Mommy the tooth fairy brought me money and I didn't even leave her my tooth." I had to explain that mommy left the tooth in his bed for the tooth fairy to find since he was too sleepy to remember to put his tooth under his pillow.

We didn't take another shopping trip as of yet, but one is coming since he has to get a birthday present for his friend's birthday party this coming Saturday. I'll be staying far away from the video game aisle ;-)

Tile Galore

My bathroom is coming along nicely. I've been looking at tile, granite, paint colors, and laminate choices. I think I've picked out some of it.

The green represents the color of my bedroom. The purple is going to be the wall color. The multi-colored tiles you see will be the floor and will somehow accent the walls -- I haven't decided on a pattern yet. The 3x12 tile (it's called a bullnose) will be most of the shower walls and ceiling. The one on the top is a 12x12 that I didn't get fully in the picture. The laminate will be the one all the way on the right -- it has black flecks in it that will go well with the dark granite I chose. I wanted the shower seat to stand out instead of blend in.

So far they have cemented the floor, roughed in the shower seat, shampoo shelf, and soap dish, and put a light in the ceiling above the shower. After I took these pictures they also put up a cement board all the way around the shower -- it looks like drywall, but it's made of cement. I can't wait for the tiling to start!!!

Demolition begins!

For those of you who haven't had to listen to me complain (lucky you!), the shower in our master bathroom was leaking. I found the leak by chance. My student teacher wanted to read the book Holes to my class. I knew that I had purchased it for Cindy or Chris for Christmas one year, so one mid February morning, I went in search of it. Boy was I glad I did.

Of course I didn't look for it until the morning that I was supposed to bring it to school. So Bill was in the shower while I was rummaging through the kids rooms. I opened Cindy's closet and heard a dripping noise. I looked up and to my horror, there was a hole in the ceiling with water dripping out of it. Luckily Cindy had a ton of stuff in her closet on the floor. All of the water had dripped onto a comforter that she had stuffed into the corner. My carpet seems to be fine -- the comforter is another story -- it ended up in the garbage can. The leak was enough to cause damage in the ceiling, but not enough to soak all the way through the comforter. It probably was mostly dry before getting rained on again the next day.

So since February, we've been showering in Andrew's bathroom. I've been saving money and hoping it would be enough since I wanted to get it done before going back to school. R.J Schmidt Builders had the best recommendations and the best price -- still more than we were hoping, but I'm getting a whole new bathroom -- for the most part.



They had to rip the ceiling out of Cindy's closet. You can see the black mold that was around the pipe. It was all over the drywall of the ceiling as well. We sprayed it with Bleach, but the builder said that as long as we don't get it wet again, we shouldn't have issues from the toxic mold. The section that you can see in this picture was cut out of the plywood. He moved the drain to the side and there is very little mold left in the closet. We were able to shine a light on the drywall ceiling above the bedroom and bathroom, and we couldn't see any spots of mold.


There was a ton of insulation around the shower. As you can see it was the newspapery stuff which they blow in between the walls after they put up the drywall. It was everywhere. I'm so thankful that the builder is fantastic, and they cleaned up everything -- they even vacuumed the kitchen rug where they had tracked a few small pieces of insulation. I've been very impressed and so far, I would recommend them for any project!!