The Dust Bowl

Two words to sum up Thanksgiving 2014: Turkey and Tile.  Jon and I have been in the middle of a slow kitchen remodel.  After this weekend, I think I can officially say the demo is done. 

 

Here's a couple before pictures from June.  Forgive me if I have showed you these before.  It's hard to remember what has been posted when the demo takes roughly five months. :) 

 

Motsinger kitchen, June 2014

Note the wall behind the table.

 

Here's another picture of the wall from another angle. 

We have plans to make a long farm house table and wanted lots of seating in the kitchen, thus the plan to remove this wall was hatched.  Now, if you have never stepped onto the slippery slope of remodeling, it is much like the classic kids' book, "If you give a mouse a cookie".  One thing naturally leads to another, and it's hard to find a good stopping point.  Hence, our weekend of tile removal. 

Here's the only really grainy picture I can find right now of a half torn out wall from the summer.

 

We also decided to take out the upper cabinets for a better sight line.  It's probably the best thing we've done yet in our demo stage.  It makes a huge difference. 

 

They weren't even too terribly difficult to take out. 

 

Okay, all this is background on our kitchen demo that was done previously. 

This is what we tackled this weekend.  Tile.

This tile really wasn't completely terrible.  The biggest problem with it was a rectangular concrete patch where a wall once stood.  The snowball continues.  This tile was also really weird in that it didn't have a standard thickness, making it really uneven and lumpy to walk on.  Ah, the 70's.  What were you thinking with your lumpy to walk on tile? 

Josh was here to help us, and I'm so glad we had three adults to tackle this project.  It would have been so much harder with just Jon and I.  Thanks, Josh!  Next year I promise we will just focus on turkey!  Here are Josh and Jon doing a little pre-whack prep to hopefully contain the dust.   

 

Everyone grabbed a hammer and tried to get a square out.  It was pretty much impossible.

Enter a jackhammer (officially a hammer drill) rental.

 

Mostly Jon jackhammered, Josh scooped broken tiles in piles, and I hauled a wagon filled with broken tile and two monkeys countless times to the dumpster, but Jon got a picture of me jackhammering, too.

 

And now we have a concrete floor! All it took to get here was a four-hour rental with a jackhammer to pop up the tile, a four-hour rental with a different bladed jackhammer to get up the remaining thin set, and four hours every day for the rest of our life to try and get all the dust cleaned up. 

 

And viola!  Demo done!  Now time for the fun part, putting the kitchen back together.  We've got picking flooring, counters, backsplash, and paint ahead of us!  Tips and advice welcome, especially regarding flooring options as that is likely what will happen next.

 

Our Four-nager

November

I'm so glad that I finally uploaded our pictures!  I'm quick to forget what we have been up to!  This picture represents the perfect Saturday a few weeks ago.  We were outside playing and picking up pecans all day and ended the night with a fire pit, having hotdogs and marshmallows for dinner. 

 

I kid you not, this happened the very next day. 

Adorbs.  And you can stop growing now.

Not the right consistency for snowmen, but perfect for angels.

 

We said goodbye to our Ashy Baby Peanut about two weeks ago.

Ahhhh!  The cuteness can not be contained!

 

 

 

ROAR!

I texted this picture to my friend Laura, who promptly replied,

"Oh poor baby!  She wanted her kitty hat!"

It still makes me chuckle.

 

 

We've been busy...

taking out predators,

 

reading books,

doing gymnastics,

learning new games,

 

visiting daddy at work,

and of course parks and geocaches.

 

Thanksgiving Lego time with Uncle Josh!

 

Snuggled up watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  

 

Lots of, "I don't like that" 's and "what is this? do I have to eat it all?" 's and "can't I just eat rolls?"  

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

Thaw the Turkey!

My dad always said his favorite holiday was Thanksgiving.  As a kid, that always sounded like crazy talk to me.  I did not love turkey or any kind of pie for many years.  Stuffing was weird, cranberries too tart, perfectly good marshmallows ruined on top of sweet potatoes.  Thanksgiving was good for sticking olives on all your fingers and eating your weight in mashed potatoes.  Where was the excitement of Halloween or Christmas?

Now, of course, I see my dad's wisdom in this being a top-ranked holiday.  This week everyone has been so excited that Seth only had two days of school and Jon would get W,TH, and F off as well.  Five days in a row to spend together as a family?  Halloween looks like a chump in comparison.

This morning the boys ran in and asked if it was morning yet (short daylight hours is always confusing for the non-clock readers), and as it was 7:12, I said "yep" and thus the day started.  Jon was telling me about some fun wintery activities in our upcoming schedule (a winter lights parade!) and I grabbed the computer to look up some more turkey day recipes, feeling thankful that after a week or two our internet was finally fixed yesterday.  Although in the fixing of our internet, they did turn off our magic cable.  In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm trying to feel thankful that we had magic cable for a time and trying not to focus on the whole turning off part. 

We will have our second annual gluten free thanksgiving with Uncle Josh, and let me tell you, I am a person who down right gets excited about thanksgiving cooking these days.  Don't have anything to do this year? Come to our house!  We will have food to feed a small army!  Can't come this year? Make plans to come next year!  Thanksgiving very much seems like a more the merrier type holiday.

I've just decided to add a pumpkin cake roll to the menu, I only hope I bought enough GF flour.  I think it will go nicely with our pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  Our pumpkins used to have spiderman stickers all over them, and they have been removed and cooked down into mush.  Our pecans came straight from our backyard.  Is it weird that knowing the background on the ingredients makes me love the items more?  (I can't say for certain, but I very much doubt I would feel this way about our turkey.)

If you are considering buying a new house, I would highly recommend having a pecan tree in your backyard.  You may even consider the lack of one as a deal breaker.  It's definitely one of my favorite things about our new house.  Every day we spend time outside gathering pecans, delighted in our growing pile.  So far we have taken 26 pounds to a local farm for shelling, and I'm guessing we will end up with another 26 pounds or more to take later in the year.  Last night our family worked together to shell just enough pecans for our thanksgiving pies and in the end it looked like someone dumped mulch all over the living room carpet.  Small sacrifice when everybody got to pitch in and the first pie turned out so great. 

Okay, I better be off, there's cooking to start after all.     

Thankful, I am:
for a wise dad
for a mom that always had the most aromatic house on the block on thanksgiving morning
for time to spend at home with my husband and boys
for boys who ask if it's morning yet after the merciful 7 o'clock hour
for the ability to relax and lay in bed with a laptop and working internet
for a husband who plans fun family activities
that we get to spend time with Josh
for being excited to cook for my family, happy to provide for their bellies and holiday traditions for their memories
for desserts
for enjoying God's creation outside, picking pecans
that I don't have to butcher my own turkey
for kids who enjoy helping, who think nothing is better than helping mom and being like dad


 

They'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain when they Come...

Look who we got to hang out with this past weekend! 

 

Ollie: "Mama, but when? But when are the Steg-uh-nuhs coming?  I just want to see Juke and Lubal!"

 

We had a full house; kids ages 6, almost 5, 4, 2, 7 months, and 12 weeks.  We coulda used a three year old.  ;)  This was my best group shot.  You read the ages.  You understand. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Thanks for stopping by J&P!  Love you guys!

Heart Bursting Cuteness

Seth's art had been blowing me away. It's so classic kid cute!

              Seth and Ms Kenimer

She was gone today and he had a sub, so he made her a welcome back picture to give her tomorrow. 

"Mrs Pirkle (the sub) said to the whole class, 'I'm friends with Seth's mom and I'm friends with Ms Kenimer'. I'm so lucky to have a mom like that."

Gaaaaaaah!

Redemption of a Pumpkin

And here's how it's supposed to turn out!

(I also wised up and cooked it in a casserole dish.)

 

Smell my Feet!

We got lots of good things to eat!