Boat Shoes

The kids were doing some cleaning today (I had to make a Rural King run to get some stuff for the cows).  Most of them were working in the basement, but Garrett wanted to clean his room.  Once in a while he gets into a whirlwind cleaning frenzy, and today was one of those days.  Anything in his way gets put away or swept or cleaned - very quickly and thoroughly. (It is really hard to put it into words, just something you have to see, but picture him taking off the couch cushions and throwing them on the floor, grabbing the broom and giving the entire couch a sweeping, then putting the cushions back on the couch all in about a minute using a broom twice the size as he is. It is just something he occasionally does, not something you can talk him into, unfortunately. :)  Anyway, back to his bedroom cleaning today... He came out to inform Laura that he was dusting all of his shoes because they had cow pies all over them and he wanted them to be clean.  A few minutes later, he came out to the kitchen where she was washing dishes and tried to get down the vegetable brush.  "What do you need the vegetable brush for?" "I'm cleaning off the shoes in the bathtub."  "Oh."  She went back to the bathroom to investigate.  There were several shoes bobbing around in the half filled bath tub - and not all of the water had stayed in the tub.   When he started using the screwdriver on his new pocket knife (yes his Dad did decide he was old enough to be able to handle a pocket knife)  to "straighten" the outlet covers, Laura decided he would be better off with the rest of the cleaning crew in the basement...

I think I'm old enough... do you?

The kids have all been helping out building the new bedroom. Todd has taught them how to use several tools for the job (under supervision and ability appropriate).  The boys have used Todd's pocket knife a lot - opening up boxes and whatever else a pocket knife is useful for.  They have been taking turns carrying it in their pockets.  The other day, when we were at Menard's, Garrett was walking beside Todd and looked up at him and said, "If you think I am old enough to handle it, I think they have pocket knives here."

At the end of today...

We replaced the old vinyl sliding door that had been used as a shed door a few too many times and was broken in several places.

Replacing a door at the end of December (and painting the wood part of it) is a chilly job! We were glad for the sunshine and above freezing temps today.

Glad to have that job behind us - it involved cutting out the old door, including cutting and replacing some siding to get the old door out.  Todd will have to go back to work to get a rest.  It has been a nice vacation staying home (except for trips to Menards for more supplies) and all working together on the room.

The flooring got done as far as the closet. We wanted to take advantage of daylight to get the door replaced.

Lots of fun running and spinning and sliding!

On to the floor!

The first piece 

Making progress

Almost halfway there!

A new game

We bought Laura a game for her birthday - Axis and Allies. It is a strategic game of World War 2 and since Laura is a World War 2 history buff, so we thought she would enjoy the game. We hadn't had a chance to play it since her birthday, so we thought we would take a little time today to give it a try.  Todd opened it up last night to read the instructions and we realized that it would take more than just a little time when he looked at the last page of the instruction booklet and it was page 31...  He read the instructions and then we found a 1 hour video online (broken up into 4 segments) about how to play the game.  We got started and 2 1/2 hours later we had gotten around the 5 players... 1 time...  Laura, Abigail, and Charlotte all think they will enjoy the game - Todd thought it was fun... I had glazed over eyes by the time my turn came (I was player #5) but I think it will be a good game and will go a lot faster after we get all of the steps and exceptions to the rules figured out.  (Kris R. - if J & H are interested in playing some day let us know (it is a lot more involved than Catan but if they like strategy games they will probably enjoy this - they  might want to watch the YouTube videos of the 1941 edition first - we'll try to get it figured out better too - it is a relatively realistic set up of the war)

Trying to figure out how to set up the board

Moving her troops

Fighting a battle

More basement pictures and a few pictures from the week

(Feel free to skip all these basement picture posts - we just wanted a timeline of them for our memory :) )

Garrett playing the piano and the guitar upside down

Just being cute

Cutting up ceiling tile scraps for "soup"

Ceiling tile cakes (cutouts for the lights - the stove wasn't burning)

Painting trim

Cutting ceiling tile

Pretty close to being done with the ceiling - there is an old light fixture to remove and then we can put in these last tiles

Abby and Laura put in most of the outlets

   

Emily kept everyone happy with chocolate chip cookies

More basement progress...

More pictures of the basement progress and a funny

I was downstairs looking at progress in the new bedroom along with Heidi & Garrett.  I told Heidi that I hoped that when she got married she could marry someone like her daddy who knew how to do "all this stuff" - like dry-walling and finishing the drywall and laying floor and hanging ceiling and wiring and hanging lights and..."  Garrett pipes up, "No, don't marry someone just like Daddy - he sometimes accidentally drills his finger..."

When the toilet paper runs out...

This morning, Lincoln came and told me that only the tube was left on the toilet paper holder... "So do you know what I did?", he asked. "Put a new roll on?", I replied.  "Well no... do you want to know what I made out of the tube?" "Sure, what..." "A pencil holder." "Great!  Now do you think you should put some new toilet paper on there for the next guy?"  And he did... Cracked me up!!

More basement pictures - Primer is done - now time for paint!

Primer is done

Primer on the outside wall