Workin' 9 to 5....and 5 to 10...and 8 to 12.....

We are working so hard right now!!!! Carpet comes tomorrow so we needed to have all of our part of the work done for that. Well, we got most of it done...we still need to reattach the air conditioning vents, move the bunk bed and guest room furniture, and I thought I could just touch up the office paint but its gonna have to be totally redone. We have things that still need to be done like window sills and baseboards installed but those are going to wait until after carpet. The only reason I haven't run back to Home Depot for more paint is b/c tonight is communion at our church and I won't quit painting once I start. After communion tonight I'll try to get the first step done on the office walls and then try to hit it hard b/f the carpet guys get here in the morning.

The cleanup from the construction has been unbelievable. By the way I think that painting ceilings is a job that should be reserved for convicts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's awful!!!!!!!!! And painful. I'll probably be coughing up sheet rock and texture dust into the new year.

I'm glad Jon Michael like to take pictures so much, he's chronicling our work very well. I'm to exhausted to sit here and arrange the photo's in order so I'll just tell you about them in the captions.

We'll take pictures as things start coming back into the house from storage, we plan on trying to get that done in the evenings and when Jonathan is off on Monday.

FYI...you can't touch up suede faux technique!!!

Me touching up the ceiling and walls...yep, I'm 2 stories up on top of a scaffold!

This was last night, we worked for 5 hours installing the fan and lights in the house....IN THE DARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bought some awesome flashlights that worked pretty well for us.

Hanging the entry light...my arms were shaking and cramping!

Jalyn "helping" Daddy install the wall switch for the fan/light.

The camera flash is brighter than our flashlights!

When its pitch black in the house for 5 hours there's not much more to do than go to sleep.

Every time Jon Michael would take our picture we'd joke and say it was the last one of us together b/c once we were done one of us was leaving the other!!! We really work very well together and it always brings us closer BUT there's lots of "suggestions" to each other how things should be done...its stressful but fun working together and we're always proud of each other, how hard we each work and what we accomplish.

As Good As Christmas!!!!!

Well of course nothing is as good as Christmas but this was right up there!!!

When we were pulling in the driveway this afternoon I saw a county dump truck coming around the corner!!! I told Jonathan, "Hurry, Hurry, move the vehicles so they'll have room to get our debris!!!!" We put our vehicles in empty driveways, thanks to those at work, and then sat outside and watched like little kids. I literally was jumping up and down at one point AND thought I was gonna cry! You have no idea how happy we were to get all that wet, stinky, roach infested, and fire ant infested trash outta here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know that no one else will be as excited or impressed as we were but still it was a great day I had to share. It only took repeated calls to the city, county, FEMA, and two seperate work orders to get our streets trash picked up......ridiculous.....but seriously we're so thankful!!! Our little corner of the block filled up 3 entire dump trucks...that's only 6 houses...they had to call in more dump trucks.

It was like the calvary was here!

So cool watching "the claw" at work.

Can you tell our joy was contagious?!?!

Now the streets are debris free! Can't say that they are actually "clean" but its close enough!

More Trunk or Treat Pictures

Jalyn getting in a power nap before the action starts.

Diego, a friend around the corner.

Lots of joy jump fun....

Fishing for goodies.

I thought this was a cute trunk.

Caught something!

I was supposed to post some pictures of the house BUT this is the first day we've had since the hurricane that when Jonathan gets home from work we didn't have something we absolutely had to get done for the house.....SO, we decided to celebrate a boring night with a NAP!!!! Its not like we don't have lots to get done but we found out carpet will be installed on the 13th so that gives a little bit of time to get the painting done and my neck needed a break from priming the ceilings. We sent the boys upstairs to the guest room to watch cartoons, with a load of candy, and told them it was quiet time!!!! Which of course if you're a parent you know that doesn't really mean quiet time for the kids its really quiet time for us parents!!! Jonathan said that I woke him up snoring...no I'm not embarressed to admit that! That's how totally exhausted we are!!

The plan for tomorrow is to get the garage floor finished so that we can get the storage unit out of the driveway. After church, before Jonathan gets home, I'll get back to priming the new ceilings and walls and if I can start painting the office and hallway...we'll see how far I get. Hopefully things will start moving a little bit faster now that its all up to us to get the work done b/f carpet gets here, so we should have updated pictures rolling in!!!!

I talked to Grandma this week and she said if she lived closer she'd be down here helping us..I said I was just up on the ladder painting and thinking that our families are probably glad they don't live closer or I'd have them here helping me paint!!!! Love and miss everyone, thank you for your continued prayers!

Trunk or Treat!

Ok, so going against all things that I was raised to believe, I submit to my husband every year and let my boys dress up for Trunk or Treat...I refuse to say they dress up for the "H" word!!!!

Here's pictures from the Trunk or Treat at the church down the road from us.

The boys with some friends from our church.

Jalyn can't take a picture without some kind of ninja pose.

I'll post more tomorrow the boys just wanted to get some pictures on the computer tonight so everyone could see the great time they had. I'll also post pictures of the house progress tomorrow, it's slow but moving along.

House Update

Here's the latest update on the house. We've got all the walls and ceilings up. I got most the walls in our bedroom painted today. I've still got the burgundy wall to finish and then the ceiling. We got a bid on painting the front room and all the ceilings today.....$1500 PLUS the paint!!!!!!! SO, we'll be renting scaffolding and painting the front room ourselves, we'll see how that goes!!!

Tomorrow Alfredo will texturize the front room and ceiling.

So far this has been the hardest part of this process, ok probably not the hardest part but it definitely ranks up at the top.....our house is filled with mosquito's!!! The workers come in and out all day long and mosquito's are awful right now so some have made our home their home!!!

This is a mosquito bite I got on my eyelid while in the kitchen this morning!!!!! During the day I spray us down with Deet but at night I can't sleep b/c the smell keeps me up so I'm going to try some essential oils that Lindsey recommended.

Tomorrow I'm going to start putting primer on all the ceilings and then paint them. Jonathan's off in a few weekends so that's when we'll tackle the front room. I've got the carpet guy lined up to measure on Wednesday and then the wait is 3 weeks for the carpet to come in and get installed. I'm hoping we can be on our way to some sense of normalcy by Thanksgiving!!! Stay tuned for more updates!!!

Tournament Time!

Yesterday was our local taekwondo tournament. It was put on by our school and Global Taekwondo. Jon Michael had a great time competing.

Jon Michael doing his pattern.

I kept laughing so hard b/c Jon Michael had to keep chasing his opponent around the ring....so funny!!!

Jon Michaels bracket was age 6-11...this boy is almost as big as the black belt!

But Jon Michael tried to stay in there with him, he did pretty good. It was pretty neat to see how the older boy could predict and analyze his opponent.

Kaleb swept their bracket in patterns and sparring. Jon Michael got silver in sparring.

So cool seeing the boys good sportsmanship.

His Knife Hand break.

This was just super cute to watch little ones sparring...and they were going after each other!

I know you can't see him, they kept moving to fast for my camera, but the black belt in the middle came all the way from Peru to compete and help with the tournament...very cool.

Like I said Jon Michael had a great time and I'm so glad he enjoys competing with other kids.

Papa, This Ones For You!

Yesterday walking home from taking Jon Michael to school Jalyn looked up at me and said, "Can you take a picture of me doing a knife hand and a really scary face so Papa can see it?" What was I supposed to say?!?!

So, Papa, this ones for you!!! Hope you enjoy!