A work in progress...

Here are a few shots from this past weekend. Ray was working hard at digging out the old patio and making sure there was 6 inches dug down which Aaron required for the new patio. I took a photo of the sand -- this was when Ray was about 60% done so picture about another 40% added to the pile. To get the full effect, look at the boys' sandbox in the background and how it is dwarfed by the tarp of sand. Ugh!

Liam's New Bedroom

So here are a few shots of Liam's new bedroom. The coloring in these photos is really poor (the bottom two photos have the best coloring -- the top looks yellowish), but you can see that there isn't a lot of true gray color on the walls. The pictures are the comic book superhero pix that I framed and the lamp shades are my own artistic designs :-) I do like the combo of the black and gray with the lime green and royal blue accents that I came up with. Sharp and fresh!

Goofy Boys

We did have a chance to run the sprinkler one day last week and I tried to take some photos of the boys. Aren't these cute?

The Last Two Weeks

Where has the summer gone? Well, I guess it's only turning into July tomorrow, but still. I'll try to summarize the last few weeks.

Connell went to a camp called Camp Invention from 9 am until 3:30 pm every day last week. Since it was about a 15 minute drive each direction, Liam and I spent 1 hour in the car every day just dropping him off and picking him up. We did have time to just hang out, run errands and do some other things (saw a movie and had John Henry over) while Connell was gone.

After Ray saw the beautiful patio that our neighbor's boyfriend put in for her, he hired the guy to redo ours. So Ray spent last weekend (in the terrible humidity) digging out the old patio. It was long and tedious work, but he did a great job. Now we've been advertising free landscaping sand/fill and free old pavers, etc. on craigslist trying to get rid of all the old stuff. We did pay a hefty amount for one large tarp of it to be taken away and we had a guy in Rosemount take three truckloads of the sandy fill and we had a couple in North St. Paul take all the pavers that hadn't been broken. So we are making headway, but we still have lots to dispose of. Aaron has started working on the new patio and will have it done before this weekend (which is perfect timing since we host the annual Wacek/Waldrop/Mathot/Boyce family 4th of July bash. There will be 17 this year as my uncle Paul has to work, so hopefully everyone will get to enjoy the new patio. I will post photos of the "before and after" when it's completed.

In addition to the above craigslist listings, I have also been using it to get rid of other things -- clothing, old computer, etc. I'm really good at getting people to take things for free, but not so good at selling on there. We really don't have high-quality stuff to begin with (since most are hand-me-downs or thrift store finds) and so better to give away than sell. But you can tell that I have been doing a lot of craiglist transactions when the lady yesterday stopped by and I couldn't remember what she was coming to get until she reminded me! Oops!

Oh, and I got the notion to paint Liam's room. We had never painted that room -- it was white with scuffs. And although there are several parts of our house that have never been painted (like the entire area as you walk in -- front room, dining, up the stairs and upper hallway -- when it has to be done, we will need to hire someone since it is a BIG job and very high and dangerous), I thought that Liam's room would be a "tolerable" job. Well, silly me. I decided to have that done before the 4th of July as well and so it ended up having to be last weekend -- which coincided with Ray's patio removal project. Somehow we thought the boys would just love to stay out and watch daddy. Nope. They would help him, get their shoes muddy from the digging and then walk into the house and up the stairs to tell me something! So mud was all over my house and I was nearly in tears from the sad situation. Painting for the first time in 2 years, I was reminded that I despise painting and how I really am terrible at it. Ray did try to tell me that but of course I had already bought the paint and was determined to do it regardless. Well, in the end I looked at the light gray color that I chose and realized that you can hardly tell that it is a color at all and so I am disappointed that I didn't go with a nice, deep, bold gray instead. Grrrr! So all the painting work, muddy carpets, screaming at kids and you can hardly tell that I did any work at all in there. My neighbor had the idea that I buy some darker gray and do an accent wall and yet that would mean more taping, painting and heartache and so I am not sure I want to undertake that. At any rate, it feels cleaner (less scuffs at this moment) and looks fresher, so I guess I will have to look at those things as positives. Oh, and Liam wanted to change from a sports theme to superhero theme so we gave away all his sports stuff and I framed a bunch of comic books for his walls. Combined with the painting of the frames and lamps (just basic craftsy things that I love to do) that part looks cute. Will take photos when I get the throw pillows made, etc.

That's basically the update. Consumed with painting, patio stuff, getting rid of stuff and oh, trying to keep an eye on the boys as well! Put in a few doctor and dentist appointments in there and you have an idea of the last 2 weeks.

Camping and Floors

Well, the boys did it. They managed to spend their first night away from their beds since '05 and '06 (Connell was 10 1/2 months and Liam was 4 months their last time away from home). Ray went camping with them at Lake Elmo Park Reserve along with the Schultz/Tong and Hoffman families. They (the Hagens) made it one night in threatening weather but came home during the downpour the following afternoon. They slept in sleeping bags in a simple tent -- no camper, no cots, nothing. The campers on the next site were uncouth to say the least and had their radio on all night long. Ray got very little sleep although the boys were pretty knocked out.

I joined the group from about 9:30 am until 2 pm on Saturday but the rain put a damper on any fun outside activities for most of the afternoon. It was freezing cold (about 60 degrees and windy and rainy) and so not the best weather conditions for June 11th-12th.

Since camping is not my cup of tea, I stayed back Friday eve. While they were gone, I worked on a long overdue project. I stripped the vinyl kitchen floor. We knew for a while that it needed to be done as patches of light were peeking out from under the build-up. You can see in the photo how dingy they had gotten over the 5 years and what an improvement I made. I figured no one would notice the difference once the entire floor was done, so I had to take photos as I moved along the kitchen floor to prove it! Isn't the difference amazing? That is build-up that the regular cleaners never got off over the years and made the floors dark and dingy. Now they look fresh and clean -- for a while at least. I used professional strength stripper and it took a lot to get through all the grime that we had! I really do love the vinyl flooring that we picked out 5 years ago when we redid our kitchen -- it just has a slight marble look to it which I like so I would like them to last a few more years.

Does this stuff look important to you?

Well, I am once again getting sick of all the paperwork scattered all around the house. I collected about 100 pages and many of them look like this. My best guess is that they are related to Pokemon since that is Connell's latest obsession. They appear to be "fake" game score sheets or something -- for Connell, Aaron and Jake. Not sure -- but they all got put in the recycle bin this morning while Connell was at school. These sorts of papers are almost always scattered all over the basement, first level and Connell's bedroom. Only our bedroom and Liam's bedroom (and the bathrooms) remain free of them. Ugh!

Liam turned 4!

A superhero themed birthday celebration for Liam this year. I combined DC and Marvel comics much to Ray's dismay because Liam just wanted everything "superhero"! You can see how Batman, Spiderman, Ironman and others came together for the affair. We got Liam a little Spiderman car and some Ironman coloring pages and tattoos and Connell got him a Batman action figure and a pack of Spiderman trading cards. Liam used a little of his birthday money to buy the Ironman thing on his arm and then the rest of the money he got will go in the bank.

After spending the morning at his friend John Henry's house (a last-minute invitation), I took the boys to the Mall of America to each spend $5. in tokens at the arcade. We had Liam's choice of mac and cheese for supper at home followed by cake. Liam was tickled after all was said and done and is already planning for his "next birthday".

Shirt finally finished

Connell finally put the finishing touches on his t-shirt this morning and so I let him try it on. The front has his name in bubble letters as well as stars, a great baseball and lots of Pokemon info. The back is covered in Pokemon characters -- complete with their HP numbers (hit points). He put hours into this since it's hard to write on the fabric and he did several coats of marker in certain spots. He definitely is proud of it!

Jake came over

Connell's friend Jake came home with him on the bus and stayed for about 2 1/2 hours including lunch and a few games and activities. I bought some fabric markers and Dollar Store t-shirts and each boy colored a t-shirt. Connell was way more into the activity than Jake was. Both boys are really into Pokemon cards and so they spent time talking about the characters. Liam nosed into every activity although both Connell and Jake were pretty receptive to him so it was ok. But I could tell that things just weren't exciting enough around here and so at one point he looked at me and said "I want to go home now" and Connell immediately said, "But it's only 1:47 -- you can stay until 2!" and Jake said once again, "But I want to go home now".

Little Batman

Liam was begging for a Batman costume and so I got a few pieces of fabric from the thrift store and made the following. I haven't attempted the hood with bat ears yet (in blue) as I just haven't seemed motivated to make that part yet. The other parts were fun although it will not fit him for long so there goes Halloween for this year. With the amount of wear the costume already gets (even halfway done), it will never make it until Halloween anyway!