Framing Fix-up

Well framing fix up started in earnest on Dec 11th! I call it framing fix up because we had most of it framed from the last time we tried to get our basement finished, but we never quite finished it because we ran out of money. Apparently some of the framing that we did wasn’t done properly or wasn’t straight, and it needed some fixing up before they could continue on with the framing around the duct work and all of that. They took a chunk out of the wall leading into the family room. If they had left it, the doorway would have been too narrow after adding drywall and would not have passed inspection.

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An electrician came over to go over what still need to be done on his end, and he wanted to know why the can light in the part of the hall going toward the bathroom was so off center. I told him that it was because the original drawing showed three can lights straight down the main hall, but because of the air return in the ceiling, we decided to put one over here on the way to the bathroom. The reason that it wasn’t centered is because they were supposed to be putting in a small linen closet in the corner. Dave, the contractor, said “That’s right! I had forgotten about that.” Then he said “Patrick, will you get on that?” So Patrick got right to work putting our linen closet up.

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And now there is a closet in the girl’s future room! It’s smaller than the closet that we put in the boys room, because the ducts kind of prevent it from being bigger.

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Monday, a plumber came to do the plumbing for a sink in the laundry room.

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Today the framing is officially finished! They even put these 2×4’s in the wall where the door handles might hit, to prevent the kids from knocking holes through the drywall by slamming the bedroom doors. They may dent the drywall but they certainly won’t be putting holes through it.

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And now we wait for electric to be finished. 🙂

Conversations of Christmas

I was in the kitchen shaping snow globe cookies when I hear this conversation in the living room:

Tyra: Guess what Dinah, we saw Santa at the school today.
Jeremy: He wasn’t the real Santa.
Tyra: Ya huh!
Jeremy: No. His beard…was…PLAS-TIC!

Later as I was shaping more cookies I heard this other conversation between my boys:

Jeremy: You know what the candy cane presents?
Ethan: Represents? A “J” for Jesus, and the shepherds crook.
Jeremy: HOW DID YOU KNOW!?!?
Ethan: Because I’m smart.
Jeremy: Do you know what the lights on the tree represent?
Ethan: The light of Christ.
Jeremy: No! They represent the stars!
Ethan: No. They represent the light of Christ.

I love that my children can believe in Santa Claus, but that they also know that Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Art to Remember

In the past couple of years the school has been sending home stuff for a fundraiser called “Art to Remember” where you child can draw a picture, and you can send it in and have it turned into a whole bunch of things like put the picture on a mug or a t-shirt or something else like that. Well I don’t ever order anything. My kids always beg me to let them do it, but I’m a big meany and don’t.

Today Ethan came home with a drawing that he had made of a dragon, in the form of a magnet. He explained that his teacher had an art contest and his drawing won so she got him the magnet of his picture as his prize.

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In case you can’t tell, that is a picture of the magnet on my fridge. 🙂

Lunch dilema

Every morning I deal with the struggle of finding something for my kids to take to school for lunch. I’m always looking for new ideas because having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich EVERY day, gets old fast. I mean, that’s what my mom used to send me to school with and I NEVER want to eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich again. But I am getting really sick of sending my kids with a lunch, only to find that they didn’t eat it. Sometimes I don’t find it until much later and it’s a really nasty old lunch in a baggie at the bottom of their backpack or under a pile of their backpacks and jackets on the floor of the entry way. That is just extremely nasty. But here is another problem, if I don’t send my kids to school with a lunch, the school feeds them and then sends me a bill! Now we really can’t afford to be doing school lunch every day. A school lunch costs $1.75, and I’ve got three kids in school during lunch time. That’s $5.25 to get them all a school lunch for a day. $26.25 for a week. $105 per month. That’s a lot of money! But it’s just wasteful to send them with food that they are just going to try to hide from me because they didn’t eat it. So I’ve had some people suggest that I have my kids make their own lunches. I do like that idea. However, I think I need to go grocery shopping before I can start that so they actually have something to put in their lunches. 🙂 Then we will give it a try and see how it goes.