The Basement is DONE!!!

Besides a few small projects like caulking and washing windows, our basement is complete! I'm so happy, I can't even tell you. For the first time since we moved I feel ORGANIZED! And coming from the gene pool that I came from, that's a very important way to feel.

We're now done with 2am bedtimes, midnight runs to Wal-Mart for more primer and ceiling paint, and Saturdays full of trips to Home Depot. I am ecstatic!

Now maybe I can get back to blogging about other things. The basement has taken over our lives for the last month and I can finally concentrate on something else (including my children). :)

Here are some pics of the final product.

Kids' new playroom (a huge hit w/the littles)

Schoolroom (huge hit w/the teacher) ;)
And the bathroom (huge hit w/anyone who feels the urge)

There's also an extra bedroom and an exercise/storage room, but they're pretty much empty at the moment, so I didn't get pics of them.

Of course nothing is really decorated yet, but it's all functional and that's good enough for me right now.

Come on by for a visit if you're in the neighborhood!

Busy, busy, busy

(Can anybody name what movie the title's from?)

That's what we've been around here lately. So much so that my dear blog has been neglected. What have we been up to, you ask? Just small stuff like finishing a basement and starting school. You know, nothing huge.

We started school on Aug 24 and I think this is going to be my favorite year so far. I really do love teaching the kids and watching them learn and grow. Tink is more involved now and is having a great time with it. They're all learning Spanish this year. Isn't that fun? Roo keeps calling his sisters "nina." (How do you put that little symbol on top of the second "n" to make it Spanish?)

First Day of School 2009

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit that night and bring us our most-comfortable-and-most-economical-flooring-ever. (They get it at Sam's Club.) You can see it in the pics of the exercise room below.

Some before and after pics of our basement.....more "after" pics to come as soon as there's more "after" to show. ;)

Playroom before:
Sorry, no pics of the playroom after....hopefully later this week. It's got paint up except for 3 walls which we're going to paint some fun colors. And the carpet's being installed next week.

Exercise room before (Brent putting down the cheapest-most-comfortable-flooring-ever):
This was the flooring we used in the playroom at our last house, except we used the colorful sides. :)

Exercise room after:

School room before (floors were down, but no paint yet):
School room after:
Bathroom after (sorry, no before):
Brent's parents and brother helped us get the first coat of paint up last night. And we're having another "painting party" on Saturday to get the second coat up. Brent and I will paint the accent walls in the playroom sometime this week and then carpet's coming next Tuesday! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I think I'm more excited for the school room than anything else. I'll have space for everything! And the kids will get to do crafts again (most of the craft stuff has stayed "packed" since the move. Too much mess to deal w/in the kitchen).

So hopefully after next Tuesday there won't be anymore 2am bedtimes for Brent and me after working long hours in the basement after the kids go to bed. Although I do love working side-by-side on projects with Brent, I prefer them to end by midnight at the latest.

I have a ton more posts in my head, so hopefully I can squeeze some more time in for them sometime this week.