Friday Funny

At bedtime:

Ellie: But when we get to heaven, how will I get my clothes?!

Me: God will give you beautiful, white clothes.

Ellie: Can I have princesses on mine?

Me: Um, I don't think so.

Next morning:

Ellie: God will give me a beautiful white dress and pink, sparkly high heels!

Me: ...

Project

I'd say life has been busy, but honestly, I guess that it's just been life!

We started a flooring project in mid-to-late July.  We had termite damage to our floor in the dining room, which meant we had to replace the floor in the dining room and library (as they are basically one room divided only by columns.  We intended to also take out the carpet in the living room, as no matter what we did we could not get the stains that were here when we moved in out.  We'd left it with little children, not wanting to have stains on a new carpet.  As we were putting in new snap together flooring, we just extended it on in to the living room--just might be too gentle a word though!  Is anything every 'just?'  We also had a dishwasher leak that made a kitchen floor change a pressing concern too.

Step one was to get the old wood floor out of the kitchen.  It came up easily where the leak had caused it to loosen, but the people who laid the floor used a large amount of adhesive to put the floor down--it was snap together and shouldn't have required glue...

 What we expected to take a couple of hours took more than a day, using steam to loosed the adhesive and a scrapper to clear the floor.  Even after that, walking across the sub-floor had me stepping out of my shoes!

My dad came down and helped Justin with the concrete board, tiling, and grouting of the kitchen.

 

The floors are lovely, and not at all sticky!

 

Next up, was the wood floor.  As the wood floors were mostly sound, we cut out the termite damaged corner of the dining room, as we did not wish to repeat the difficult, sticky mess of the kitchen through out the other two rooms, a closet and two corridors.  Once the damaged section was removed, we put in oriental strand board to bring the floor to level--and applying leveling compound to make a smooth surface. Evidently that wasn't interesting enough for me to take a picture of!

 

Here is what the wood floor we pulled up looked like with the damage.  We were so grateful that there was not even the tiniest bit of damage to the sub-floor.  They only wanted the engineered hardwood.

All the baseboards and quarter round had to be removed.

I packed up all the china in the dining room and the books in our library so that the furniture was easier to move around, and then we began to lay the snap together in over existing floors.
 

 

First third of the front rooms

When we got to the living room, we pulled up the carpet and repeated the adding of oriental strand board/leveling compound at the joint to bring the floor to level.  It took much longer than the tile, as Justin didn't take off work those days--the school year started, Ellie got pneumonia (again), Justin put up rack in what is not the girls' closet, but all told, the last of the floor went in last week--just under 2 months later.

Our new living room arrangement

The boxes we stored things in have been passed on to another family.  There are a few pieces of baseboard to go back in, but we have replaced the floor through the entirety of the downstairs, except for the half bath.  We do plan to tile that eventually too, but not yet!

Katie Turns Twelve

 Our Katie is twelve today.

She is full of energy, constantly in motion.

She is determined.

She is always looking for a new project, a new way to help.  She enjoys leading and little children flock to her.  She volunteers her time to serve our church's children.

She loves deeply. And makes friends with everyone she has a chance to.

She loves to write and to create.

Happy Birthday to our Katie!

Love,

Mama

Ellie Turns Four

Our Little Ellie is four today!

 

She has a contagious laugh and a quick wit.

She is an encourager, often telling us that we are doing a good job, even about the simplest things.  And she loves to tell us all that we are her favorite.

She learns people's names.  At that age, none of the others could tell us their Sunday School friends names, but she lists them off.

She loves Minnie Mouse, Elsa, and Beauty and the Beast.  She still calls the beast 'Narble' when he transforms because she thought that was his name when we said he was 'normal.'  I think I may always call him Narble.

She writes 'E' for her name and can fill in the 'lli' in the middle with a little reminder.  She likes to color and 'do school.'  She sings our Latin and geography songs with us and loves to listen to the books we read aloud.

She still has the little ringlets in her hair, like Kate did at that age.

We see bit of her that are like different parts of the other children: her chattiness, her careful care of her dollies, and mixed with some rough and tumble, from having her primary playmate being a boy, almost four years older than she.

We love you, Elliana.  You are a joy!

Love,

Mama

P.S. Here are some pictures from the party Katie planned.  I made the cake, but the rest was set up by Kate with some help from Gabby and Nate:

Friday Funny

Ellie: Mama, you're so nice, and fun to play with, and as cute as...[thinking] a tea pot!

Katie: Oh no!  That's not nice!