Ketchup

Well, who has time to catch up on blogs?  This is where we are.  We had Christmas.  It was nice.  Rushed in the new year.  I liked that too!  Currently?  Well, I guess we have just been the proverbial chickens, running around without heads.  Does that sound gross?  Well it doesn't matter because it sums up what we have been going through.  The house is painted.  That may not sound like such a big deal to you, but for me, it is glory hallelujah, praise the Lord I'm free at last, and all that.  I was eating and sleeping paint.  That is not the case any longer.  Most of the projects are done and I almost have laundry caught up again...after 2 months.  Not bad, I guess.  Sigh.  I do have some pictures of the house, but before I show them, this is a snapshot of what we have been doing the past 2 months.  Here goes:

We read for the 3rd Advent candle at church, 5 of us speaking while the younger two entertained the congregation by trying to snuff out candles 1 and 2.

Titus became the first Svoboda child to finally figure out that you can indeed cut your own hair...and your jeans and mommy's bed pillows.  Little Dutch boy, right?  Donna, if you are reading this, do you remember when Dolly did the Dutch Boy look to you??? 

Sledding.  This is the midwest.  It's winter.  Need I say more?

The hill is a couple doors down from mom and dad and yes, it goes right onto the lake.  In one word...fun!  That's all there is to it.

I had a lot of work to do, and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT!  Paint, paint and more paint.  I couldn't have done it with out you grande iced vanilla latte, non fat with whipped.  For the record, since the work has stopped, so has the love affair with Starbucks.  She is now only a dream once in a while visited.  Sniff.  Sniff sniff.

Next we have my trusty ol' painting pants that have stuck with me through 3 houses so far.  Well, technically only 2 1/2 since we only did work in the basement of our first build.  Shall I retire these?  I don't know.  Trends these days may make these a hot item on ebay!!!  Any lookers?

Last, but certainly not least was celebrating mom's birthday.  Ruthie met mom, Micah, Kitty and me at Panera on mom's birthday.  Somehow Kitty got in the picture instead of Micah.  Not sure why...or how.
 
Ok, so now for some of the house pictures.  The bedroom ones I took after all the kids went to bed, so they aren't all that good because I was in a hurry so as not to wake them all, but you get the idea.  Now remember, when you think of the "before" picture, just picture a plywood floor and drywall walls...everywhere.

This is right at the top of the stairs, as you can see.  It is a nice entryway table but the entryway couldn't hold it.  I think it goes perfectly...

This, of course, is the girl's room.  I have since put some painted flowers and the girls' names on the walls next to their beds, but I will post that later.  This room is one of my favorite.

At the end of the upstairs hallway used to be the bonus room and we divided it into 2 bedrooms.  This is the one to the right, Elijah's room.  This is the view of Elijah's room from the doorway and behind the Indonesian flag is an opening to a tunnel that comes out in the other boy's room.

This is the rest of Elijah's room, a little nook of sorts with a door to another "hideout" room that is right behind the dresser.  This is one of my favorite rooms.

This is the far end of Levi and Titus' room.  This is the window that looks out the front of the house, and it is Titus' side.  Levi got first pick on where his bed would go.  There you see the entrance to the tunnel to Elijah's room.  It is carpeted so they don't gather all sorts of dust while going back and forth.

This is Levi's side, obviously, and it is closest to the hallway as you can see.  The closet door is to the right  and inside that closet is the third and final "hideout" area that is what used to be attic space.   This is one of my favorite rooms.

Our room was the last bedroom to be painted and I will have to say, I love it!  We have cream and brown faux fur zebra print bedding and the red, cream and brown curtains were the perfect addition.  I may only be saying that because we have had absolutely zero privacy in the Master bedroom for over 2 months.  I would have been crazy about Barney bedsheets on the windows, and I HATE Barney! This is one of my favorite rooms.

This is the best picture I have of our bathroom.  It is one of the few works in progress, but it is leaps and bounds different than before, and the water doesn't even smell like rotten eggs...anymore.  Two months of that nearly did me in. 

For a few pictures of the downstairs, I will start in the entryway.  This is it.

This is also it, but the color is terrible. 

This is Tim's office, the first room to the right when you walk in.  It will be a work in progress until we can find all the appropriate furniture and all, but it's functional.

This is the other side of that room.  The piano is going to go here as soon as it gets here but I think that is low on the priority scale.

This is the family room, the room immediately to the left when you walk in the house.  I wanted a warm cozy feel to the room and really love the dark brown on the walls.  It is more of a dark chocolate while I would have preferred more of a milk chocolate, but apparently men do not care how difficult it is to commit to a shade of brown to match the curtains and for pete's sake just pick one already...this is what we got.  This room is also a work in progress with the beams on the ceiling needing to be covered and the fireplace needing a surround.  It will be a stacked stone surround that goes floor to ceiling.  As I recall, it was months after moving into our last house before we had a fireplace surround.  They are highly overrated anyways.  Yes, I'm just saying that.  No, I do not mean it.

If you notice, I haven't been able to commit on a sheer color yet.  Details like that can drive me crazy.  Are they important?  No.  But still, they can drive me nuts.

 

We are in desperate want for a new couch.  This one has been chewed up by a dog, kids (I think) and perhaps some vermin while in storage, but since we cannot afford a different couch, I will remain in denial about that last one.  Grunt.  I still have some tweaking to do on decorations and all, but it's becoming quite homey.  

This is a look into the breakfast area from the family room.  The main project to do in here, and in the rest of this house, is to paint all the doors.  Spring.  I plan to do them in the spring. 

Here is the powder room on the main floor.  We did remove the vanity that was there and replaced it with a white pedestal sink, but it isn't hooked up yet.  In actuality, the sink was from one of dad's jobs and it looks more like a glorified bird bath and I don't care for its small size, but until we have money to buy...well anything...it stays.  I love this color.  It is one of my favorite colors in the house.

This is the kid's bathroom and I had a lot of fun painting it.  I wanted to do the whole bathroom green but in the end, thought it a bit overwhelming...this stripe thingy was a great compromise...well that is, until Tim brought up that it's done in Packer's colors.  We are Bears loyalists..I promise.

We have things to do, yes, but we are tired.  Right now we are going to rest in knowing that our requirements for the bank have all been met and now we can dictate what gets done and when.  As I get the house cleaned up and organized and on some sort of schedule, I will take more pictures of the downstairs and let you see them. Guess what?  It is next to impossible to get the house clean AND remember to take a picture of it all before it goes to pot once again.  That's pathetic but true.  Sort of.  Until then, I hope you enjoyed the walk through our house.  Stop in and see us next time you are around!  We love having company.

We are in!

We have officially been living in the house for going on 3 weeks now.  Does that mean we are done, you may ask...?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  We are living smack in the middle of Chaosville with Mayor Mess and Sheriff Shouldn'thavemovedinyet.  OK.  That was dumb.  But it gets the point across, right? 

Only the kitchen downstairs is painted.  There is flooring that needs to be finished.  Trim that isn't done being painted.  Nail holes and joints that need to be caulked.  There is no fireplace mantle or surround and a half-built hearth screaming for someone to hit their head on it and get sent straight to the ER-unconscious.  I have no washer and dryer, 2 pantries with no shelving so I can't use them and no window treatments in our bedroom or the whole downstairs.  The master bathroom sinks leak, the kids' sink isn't hooked up, their shower leaks and their toilet is currently clogged with no-one-on-earth-wants-to-know-what.  All the 30 year old windows are leaking cool, Midwestern Fall air, and after having broken it, I am having one of them repaired for $100 when I could get a completely new one for $150.  (We are good investors!!!)  Tim is currently down in the dining room ripping out the hardwood that was installed the other day because the last 2 boxes were crooked and left gaps so big you could see the underlayment.  But wait, there's more.  Of course I'm not going to tell you anymore lest you all covet this house that I have.  :-)

Here are a few pictures I can leave you with just to give you an idea of what we are doing to ourselves...just remember, it's what you CAN'T see that is the problem.  Oh, and in case you all were wondering, I am so entirely thankful for this house!

 Introducing The Boys UNDER the Sink.  That's for you Veggie Tales fans!

 The counter tops look wonderful!

These guys couldn't get the gas hose to lay right in order to push the stove in all the way.  It was a lot of fun watching them fiddle back and forth...and it was late at night, so they got a touch slap happy.  You could imagine!  Perhaps I will take pictures of the kids' rooms...they are pretty well put together...and then you can get somewhat of an idea of what our house will be like when the mayhem goes away!

Finally...

I am just now, after almost 3 weeks, taking the time to catch up on what's going on around here.  I am not blogging about the house, although that is definitely word worthy right now.  I am blogging about our first snow.  It happened November 6th.  Yes, it is the 20th and it is totally old "news" but it was a fun day for us and I don't want that to slip through the cracks!

 The trees were beautiful!

The lake was peaceful.

The children were ready.

 Micah didn't care what she had on.  Once they all found out there was snow on the ground, they were out the door, pajamas and all.  They were only on mom's deck, but Micah didn't even take time to put on shoes.

She was outside for over 10 minutes before she decided she wanted sleeves on.  Then she also changed into some shoes...but no socks.

Eden was sure to have plenty of sock...on her hands.  We didn't have any of our winter items out of storage so out came all the socks to keep all the hands toasty.

Titus has an undershirt and zip-up sweatshirt on and is quite content.

No matter how much there is, there is ALWAYS enough snow for a snow angel.

Making snowballs isn't near as easy when you don't have use of your thumbs.

Not too sure what the problem is here, but the picture was funny.  From what I remember, she was getting snow thrown in her face by Titus, who wouldn't let anyone throw snow in his face.

To top the whole morning off, the boys, in true boy fashion, built a fort.  Clearly their imagination far surpasses mine.  All I see is a sad pile of snow. 

We haven't had snow since that morning, though we did get a brief sleet/hail incident one day.  Perhaps that means that we are in for a doozie of a winter.  It's almost December and I still haven't really needed more than a sweatshirt.  Well, no matter what happens, the kids had a wonderful morning playing in the snow!  Thank you God for making kids so enamored by the wonder that is snow!

Carpet...at last!

Today was one of the longest days I have given to the house.  Practically everything on me hurts.  We have carpet coming for the upstairs tomorrow and as usual, I was optimistic on how much work would actually get done in time for this.  While I didn't get all the painting done that I wanted, we are ready for carpet nonetheless. 

The only room that needed to have carpet removed was the girls' room and I can't say as I'm sorry to see it go.  When all the carpet and the linoleum was finally out, all I can say is, "Holy pet pee, Batman!"  Someone had a pet who couldn't find the facilities on several occasions.  Yowzers!

I still had one section of ceiling to paint and, at the time, didn't have any scaffold to use, so when I'm in need, I improvise.

Because we are getting carpet in the morning, I have a mandatory day off, and let me tell you, I need one!  I have a hair appointment at Cori's (CJ Warren Salon in Crown Point) and then I need to hit some thrift stores for jeans for the boys.  I hope I get lucky...they are in dire straits for jeans right now!  After the brief intermission of carpet installation, we will get the POD dropped of and unloaded and then sometime next week, I will be starting the whole thing over again...downstairs.  Deep breath and a sigh.

Fall Festival 2010

We just got the kids home and tucked into bed...all full of sugar.  Yes, we are indeed responsible parents who give their kids candy before bed.  Well, let me change that.  Tim is the responsible parent in charge of giving the kids some of their newly acquired booty before bed.  I had NOTHING to do with that.

Tonight we had the Fall Festival/Trunk or Treat at church.  In the auditorium there were 6 or so gigantic inflatable things...Pirate Ship, Large slide, Obstacle course, 5yr old and under jump house, older kid jump house and a Train...and in the foyer there was face painting and balloon twisting/shaping and perhaps more, but I didn't look out there much.  It was all a lot of fun, but we were intending to get in, get candy, play and get out.  We did alright.

John Paul and Sarah had a trunk outside where they passed out candy.  "Confucius say, "Too cold for satin!"

I Didn't get what Sarah said about her costume except that it was too cold to put it all on.  It was FREEZING!!!!

I will have to be honest.  With all of the house stuff we have been doing, I didn't take any time for costumes this year, so I am very grateful that we have dress up clothes for all of them.  Sure we pulled repeats, but who cares...they got the candy they wanted and I didn't spend a dime on costumes.  I would like to, one day, do a family costume theme...One guy came in the church tonight as a wizard (or whatever) and had 6 kids all in the Harry Potter school uniform.  It was kind of fun seeing the whole group.  I should think about it now and start looking.

 The lines were quite long, but the kids were patient and fairly calm and I was quite pleased with them.

Eden found Abby and they ran around together feeling like such big girls!

 Levi found Jackson and they hung out.  All in all, we had a good time, but it was quickly time to go home to get everyone in bed.  After all, there is school tomorrow, so the fun must come to an end!