Lights, Paint, Action!

We finally got to primer and paint. We broke down and bought a sprayer and Loren sprayed the house inside with primer and then two coats of paint.


Loren was covered in white paint after each painting session.

















The most difficult room to paint was the two story family room. We had to rent scaffolding for that room.


I did some faux painting in our bedroom and bathroom. It turned out pretty cool, but different than I imagined. It takes awhile to figure it out and by the time you do, you're done with the project. We also got our cabinets put in. They still have to put on the crown molding and toe kicks and glass in some doors, but they're mostly in. We got rustic maple in the laundry and upstairs and cherry in the kitchen and downstairs bath.
We also got most of the electrical fixtures put in. We'll probably have electrical hook up next week. Gas will get hooked up today. The heating guys and rough in plumbing should also be done this week. Although it'll be awhile until the fixture get in since we're doing that ourselves and we also need to get flooring and counters in first.












I painted the laundry room gray, but Loren says it's purple. The paint chip looked as grey as can be. I might paint it over. It's hard to see without any lights yet since there aren't any windows.














It was getting dark, but here are a couple of shots of the kitchen cabinets. This is just the wet bar and island. We're going to get a mini fridge and see if we can actually keep the wine rack stocked.

Caleb turns 2! Caleb turned 2 on November 16 and he got to have two parties in one day. It was his last day at daycare where he's been going for the last year and a half. He'll now be going to preschool two days a week with Nolan at ABC preschool in Arcata. I'm sure he'll miss his old friends, but it'll be fun and easier for us too. It'll be nice to have the boys together during the day.

Gabe, Julia and Quinlin helped him celebrate his last day and birthday at Karens house. He got a cupcake and presents

He also got to color which is his favorite thing to do. They made him some great cards and took these photos for me.


We also had a little present opening and cake at our house too. It was just stuff from Loren and I, Grammy and Darin and Elsa. We'll have a bigger party for the boys in December, but it was fun to just do something with us.

Caleb couldn't really open his present well yet, but Nolan was very willing to help him out.

Both of the boys were really into all of the Dora and Diego toys. Caleb was really into his toy piano book and light up toy from Disneyland. He also really liked a small basketball hoop we got him. He's got a pretty good arm!!

Mud, Mud, Mud...... There is mud everywhere right now, but there is a huge amount at our house. Between the tractor work for the tanks going in, the grading around the house and numerous ditches and disturbances, the bare soil is very wet and mucky around here right now. Our mudroom is just what it's called!



Although I haven't been enjoying all of the extra sweeping, vacuuming (when the stuff finally dries) and laundry. The boys and puppy couldn't be happier.



There is even mud inside our house as the sheetrock finally got put on and the drywallers put the drywall mud up. They were really fast and great workers and the hand-texture turned out nice. Our drywall guy actually had emergency heart surgery but his sons came up from the bay area and did the work for him. Hope our sons are that nice when we're old.


To prepare for some of the rain and mud we bought some rice straw (also from the bay area apparently) from the local ag store and mulched as much as we could around the house. Although our gutters finally went on yesterday, they were not on for awhile and the house was getting wet and muddy. Nolan took a break from wallowing in the mud to help us out.



The hay isn't only good for keeping the house clean and dry. Hopefully it'll keep Caleb a little more clean and dry as well.

Nolan also spent quite a bit of time helping dad dig over 200' of ditch for our water and gas line. It had to be hand dug because it's too wet to get a tractor in and no one would come. nolan also helped cover the ditches back up.

Crescent City and Birthdays!

We decided to take a quick trip up the Crescent city and see their new Home Depot on a whim. We stopped at the beach to play a couple of times. One things we'll have a lot of is beach pictures as the boys get older.



Sometimes we take toys, but the boys are generally happy to just play with sticks and rocks. I was a little nervous and sad because we were at Freshwater Lagoon where lots of young children have drowned due to large set waves that come up and catch people by surprise and the fast currents in the area.



I like to keep them far from the water here.



The dogs had fun and Loren always enjoys spending time with the boys at his favorite place.


Caleb has learned about hot chocolate now and was very happy to get some from Dutch Brothers Coffee on the way back home. He doesn't even stop to breath once he gets ahold of the straw!




We've had a lot of birthday parties to go to lately and it's been a lot of fun. We got to go to Acacia's birthday party last week.

Home Depot is one of those great stores with fun race car carts that keep the kids entertained for a little while at least.



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I'm not sure if they were kissing or biting, but they were having a lot of fun in the cart and we decided we'd have to take a photo for future embarassment.


A couple of weeks ago we had a surprisingly warm and muggy fall day and all the boys joined Carson and Cole in some birthday suit play. I had to get a couple of photos.



I added the happy faces to censor them down to a G rating.

The house is moving along, slowly but surely. Eric and James are done framing and siding and our drywallers are done hanging. They are just starting to tape and texture. We should be painting in a week or two! The insulation was fun to watch being blown in and it definately makes the house feel more homey. Dad came down and helped us do some grading and drainage. We rented the tractor and he kept busy digging ditches and putting in gravel and pipes. We got some gravel for the road too. Nolan has been really into riding his bigwheel around the house. He loved having Grandpa here too and him and Caleb are really enjoying time in the dirt and mud. Right before the big rains they were able to get our septic tanks in and that was fun for Nolan to watch.

Halloween came and went. Nolan really enjoyed all of the decorations, parties and candy of course. We actually didn't do too bad on the candy since we didn't go trick or treating. We did go to a couple of fun parties. One was at Kaitlin's house (his friend from preschool). Her parents had put a lot of work into a fun party. They had a big trampoline and lots of toys in their yard already. They also had bobbing for apples, sack races, pin the nose on the pumkin, cookie decorating, a pinata and lots of prizes. Both of the boys were spider man since that is what they picked out. They didn't want to wear their masks for my pictures though. There were a lot of spider man costumes this year.

Nolan got to jump with the big boys on the trampoline.
Neither of the boys would do the sack race but it was fun to watch.
Caleb will always find a swing if one is around (and an apple)
Nolan finds the cookies.
Caleb is getting very into driving now and will sit for long periods by any wheels he finds. I used to let Nolan pretend to drive our cars, but Caleb sticks our change in our tape and CD decks if I let him so we've avoided this recently.
This is Nolan squeezing Caleb out of the way and Caleb pushing him off.
Caleb decided bobbing for apples with mouths was too hard and decided hands worked much better. At least he got an apple!