christmas 2015

Merry Christmas! Christmas came very fast this year - it seems like before I knew it, it was here. Here's some memories for my online scrapbook.

How cute is Butters? He's starting off my photo story with the cutest picture of him.

My daughter said I could take Matthew to see Santa this year. Holly, Eileen, William and I set off to the mall. I was so excited to have a little one to take to see Santa. I sat him on Santa's lap and Matthew turned and looked at Santa - poked his beard and then started to cry. Bless his little heart. After that we walked the mall and he loved it! The activity of the mall kept his whole attention. It was so cute!! And I love this picture.

We purchased tickets to Holiday Nights at Greenfield Village on the nastiness night of the year. There was severe weather warnings with lots of wind and rain. Holiday Nights is mostly an outdoor event. Greaaaat...

With no refunds on the tickets, we put on our big girl panties and braved the weather. It wasn't too bad. They had the largest train set and lego build I've ever seen.

The amount of lego effort was amazing.

So with much detail - you could literally spend all night looking.

We rode the carousel - it was super old, built back in the 1800's.  With the wind and rain, I wasn't keen on using my camera and my settings were hurried and not very good.

And I got some pretty good shake in my photo. Overall the night was good. We were soaked to the bone when we left - but I would go again. It actually was a lot of fun.

Christmas morning and Holly and Eileen opening presents.

And Jason .... 

Holly made this for Burke. She did it all herself. She picked out the fabric and designed the embroidery on the apron. It says "Never trust a skinny cook." He was fighting the tears. Special daddy gift. I was really impressed how well it came out. The best part was she actually let me teach her how to make something.

Burke gets me a Santa every year - and here is the one for 2015. This Santa I can put down by my fireplace as it's ceramic based. He came bearing gifts of his one.

I almost forgot to take pictures and Jenny reminded me .... right before everyone was about to leave. So I quickly set up the tripod. The lightening was bad with this beam of light coming in and I wasn't able to do much about it. So .... we powered on.

The baby had just about had it for the day - ready for his nap. We were able to snap a couple and I was practicing with my photo editing skills.

The same with this one. I like how it turned out. It would be an excellent picture if everyone was looking at the camera. The dogs weren't cooperating either.

Jason was in the shower when we took the family picture, so I snapped one of him near the tree. It was a little dark so I lightened it up a bit. He was wearing his new Christmas clothes.

End of the day and everyone was gone. Time to clean up. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I'm looking forward to the New Year.

basement project - drywall

I realize I've been neglecting my blog, but with a basement remodel, new exchange student, Girls Who Code club, and Christmas - something had to give.  I'm especially geeked that we made some visual progress on the basement, so I'm taking the time out to write about it.

Mudding has definitely been the hardest thing about doing the basement.

With so many nooks and crannies - it was very time consuming to do the area properly.

See what I mean? This is the area under the stairs and will be the coolest treadmill space. Sooo many nooks and crannies in there.

My new sewing room area. I plan on making my own custom table space to house my 3 sewing machines.

A better picture of the furnace room (where the door is). I can't believe how quieter the furnace is now.

I love the pocket doors. It nearly cost me my marriage - but they are beautiful and now even Burke likes them. My new photography studio lies behind those doors.

I lined the windows with some 1/4 inch plywood. Lowes ripped the pieces for me and I cut them to length to fit the windows. These windows will end up holding my spring garden - making use of the deep wells.

The other egress window. Still needs lots of work.

So these pictures show the drywall all mudded and sanded. We ran out of primer and there is still a couple rough areas that need sanding. The great thing about the drywall primer is that you can sand it down.

I went through 6 five gallon buckets and it look me nearly 2 months to complete. If I was to ever do the much square footage - I would invest in some professional tools.

The finishing coat of paint is next and the floor is already downstairs getting acclimated to the new environment. I really excited to move forward. Stay tuned for new blog posts of the custom areas in my new "lair".