Bedtime story

Jacob - just because

Creative kids

Rebekah & Samuel decided the trucks and racecars needed "beds." This is what they came up with for putting them to bed one night.

Notice, even the big trucks got something :)

Trip to Chicago

I'm on this committe for Rebekah's pre-school. They sent me to a conference in Chicago - at the Hilton!! The food was amazing and actually the conference was not that bad. It was all about literacy training. In any case, we had a little fun one night in Chicago - here are some pics.

The Willis Tower is the new name for the Sears tower. We actually watched an educational video all about how it was built and why and so on to the name change. As far as museum-type-videos go, this one was not too bad.

It is 105 floors tall. The elevator travels at about 18mph. I got a little motion sick myself - but nothing too major. It probably would not have bothered me if I were not pregnant.

Random Chicago buildings from the top.

More Chicago.

Yep, still more. Notice how small the cars look.

They had these cool glass room things (3 total) added to the tower (I think just to impress tourists). But they were kinda cool to stand in and take pictures.

Looking down in one of the glass room additions. Yes, those are my feet.

Me, getting proof of how brave I was. (Some of the people would not step out into the glass rooms - I must admit, the first step was a little frightening.)

I belive this is called "the bean" and other than that I'm not really sure of its story. But it sure looks cool.

I'm not exactly sure what it is made of but I do know it is not glass - as you would think.

This is a view from underneath - looking straight up. Kinda neat I thought.

INTRODUCING. . . THE NEW ROOM!!!

With another little one on the way we decided we needed another bedroom in the basement. Our three children share a room now and that seems to work well but it is (was) a little cramped. In any case this recently finished room is their new room and they are very excited about it. I am excited to have a place to put the new baby, as well (their old room) rather than in our room. The baby will often sleep in our room, no doubt, as babies do when they are very little, but it is still nice for the new babe to have its own room for when it starts sleeping better and such.

I am really bad about forgetting to do "before" pictures when I start a project. Here is the earliest pictures for this "project." These are right after I put the first coat of sealant on the concrete walls.

Here is where we put the closet in. Did I mention my husband is amazing?

Here are the walls again after two coats of sealant, two coats of texture, and one coat of primer. They are "very" ready for paint I think.

Here we just put the door in and started mudding the other walls in preparation for painting them. As you can see to the left here, these walls had some nasty stains on them (we think they might have been from laundry detergent spills - as this was the laundry room) but my amzing husband was able to cover them :)

More mudding on the ceiling and such.

Fresh paint on the walls. The table in the middle shows that no room in this house goes un-used for very long - in some way or another - no matter what the circumstances.

The closet door is up in this picture - I was very excited about the closet (I am a girl, you know :)

Carpet time!! We got this great deal on carpet and once again my amazing husband cut it and did all that jazz. I really love him.

Jacob loved to "help" Daddy. He would often be found downstairs with Daddy when everyone else was upstairs doing other fun stuff.

More carpet.

Finished carpet - notice he managed to cover the platform over the drain, too? And the kids love having that step. I love that it is wide enough for a dresser.

Finished product. (So as I look back on this picture I find it entertaining to see cloth diapers on top of one dresser and box for disposable diapers on the other - as if we can't make up our minds or something. The real story is that we occasionally use paper diapers for trips or what-not. I believe this box was used while I was gone in Chicago and Grandma & Nana watched the kids for me. Of course, it does not actually have diapers in it now - it has pull-ups for Rebekah in it. She is too big for my brilliant cloth-night-diaper-solutions that work so well on the boys. I'm still working on coming up with a cloth solution for her but maybe she will just save me the trouble by being dry at night sometime soon. Of course, my pediatrition says it is totally normal for this not to happen until age seven. . . )

Thanks for "taking the tour" - hope you enjoyed. We are loving it for sure! :)