19 months old

All ready for church. 

So proud that he is one.

Sitting on the front pouch with his cute cousins Jackie and Bridget.

He is going to be a great big brother.

Celebrating Brian completion of his test with a cake made by Karen.

Amazing Family

Pictures from my early birthday present.  We all had so much fun. 

Thanks Dad, Suzy and Jenni for the great time. 

Working in the yard!!

Jayden first parade. He loved all the candy!

Jayden loves Aunt Jenni. Even if she made him cry when he was trying to stick the screwdriver into the electric socket.

Jayden had so much fun with Grandpa and he loves baby Russell.

Jayden first hair cut! He is getting so big.

Jayden and Aunt Suzy


So this is what an amazing job my sisters can do for super cheap and in like a day and a half.

Made the curtains and the flower arrangement.

Put up curtains, table runner, flowers, covered the chairs with fabric and then plastic so Jayden will not destroy them. Amazing.

Dad painted both bathrooms blue.

Hung up all our pictures and got the big iron rod thing of the wall. The best deal was the wool rug. $299 on sale for $75.

Made pillows and curtains

We also got new light fixtures. That was an exciting thing since the ones before were from the 60's

Construction

The hole we dug into our concrete foundation inside for the bathroom. Took a diamond tipped blade, hard work and patience. This was actually day one. So we used a ward members help to frame the bathroom.  The foundation and walls took 3 days. One to cut into the foundation and do the plumbing. One to pour new gravel and cement, and another to frame the walls.

This is our first wall we did on our own. Not bad, but took us a full day to get two walls framed. I have learned a ton about all sorts of home improvement. We actually did a good job. This is the back wall of the new bedroom.

The other part of the house. These pictures are not fully in order, but this is actually pre day one - during the tear down phase.

Another view

Walls of our bathroom and a nice closet in front

This is roughly day 5 or 6 for the bathroom

Work is moving along with more long days. We worked 6 days a week about 12 hours a day on the basement. Then I would go upstairs and finish a project upstairs. With a construction guy helping from the ward, we got another two walls framed in one day, but 60 feet of wall and working around pipes. 

We started building phase day one on May 2nd. This is May 15th , give or take a day. As you can tell, framing is done, so is adding 4 new circuits, plumbing, and most of the insulation. You can get a hint of the drywalled, and mudded bedroom in back. Behind the two workers are the stairs down.

The bedroom

another shot.

Jayden so wants to help. He did what we did. That was bad and good. He was us screw in the outlets and wanted to do so too. We had to keep the breakers off until the covers came on just to make sure he didn't stick a screw driver in a live circuit and electrocute himself.

We sand, so he does too. Really cute. He also took my  power screwdriver and would put it up to the screws in the drywall and actually put it in the head of a screw. I was impressed with his motor skills.

He is so proud of himself and we are too, even if he got ignored a bit.

Our days of rest were so nice. Enjoying our new deck. It will be better when we get our grill. Found a used 3 burner Weber grill and tank for 75$

Eating his otter pop

Our wood floor pre and post sanding

Picture 2-sanding down: the floor all stained will come later. Did better than expected and looks great.  My three nights up until one am paid off. Tiffs sanding job was great as well and is 75% of the reason it turned out sooo good. She is great and patient during the construction project upstairs with not having a bathroom shower for a week- at least here, our apartment still had access to one.

The hole in the plywood we cut out due to the leaking toilet.
The new piece went back in great and we were able to get most of the damaged board out.

Our tub surround had a crack and to fix it we of course had to replace the whole thing. So here is our toilet also being repaired inside our tub.

Our work sink and old shower that was in the basement. The shower is now a bathroom. The sink will be replaced by a washer and dryer for now.

Jayden loved the tools. I should say loves. He wanted to do whatever we were doing.  You can see the insulation that was in the front wall. Unfortunately the work was poorly done with 3/4 inch boards and moldy-did I mention black mold? Fortunately it was just starting so we sprayed it and got it out with masks on. You can see the pipe cover which is gone now too.