Finished pictures!

Here are pictures of the hallway and our room




Finally, the upstairs is done.. I want to thank my wonderful husband for all his hard work on this project of mine! We both agree is looks awesome! An entire differnt upstairs. We painted, replaced carpet and knobs on the doors..its amazing what new knobs will do! Here are some finished pictures! Here are some pictures of the boys rooom

Thank you God...

I just want to take a minute to thank God for keeping little Joshua Childers from Missouri safe and sound in the 50 hours he was missing over the last couple of days. I was so relieved when I heard they had found him.. Ugh...I cannot even imagine, it brings tears to my eyes...tears of joy for the family and the little boys, tear of terror..imagining if it were my boys..I cannot imagine what was going through that little boys's family's minds and hearts over the last 50 hours. As a mother and even if I was not a mother..I cannot imagine what I would do. It makes me think about how precious our children are and just how lucky I am to have 2 such wonderful and loving little boys!
Just wanted to say Thank you God!

Chores

As the boys have gotten older, I have started giving them chores to do. For instance I have them set the table at dinner and the after the help clear it off. They use my swiffer vaccum to clean up messes under the table and are great helpers when it comes to organizing their toys...as I type this..I am seeing that I am a bit of a neurotic about cleanliness. Anyway, had to share a picture with everyone of Peyton's table setting the other night. He put each fork at the very end of the table and announced who was sitting where. Very funny! This is Peyton to a "T", he is very exact and a bit neurotic about things.. not sure where he gets that from.

Peyton has finished setting the table for dinner...

Here are some pictures of the room decorating as well.

Before and during:

The closet door before, with the old painted walls and carpet

The boys helping daddy take down the awful ceiling fan!The room again with the old paint and carpet


The new paint. The trim and carpet is not finished in this picture.

There have been some delays...but we are almost done!

There have been some delays in the painting and the new carpet on the 2nd floor of our house..finally I can say that we are almost there. Wednesday is carpet day and we will have our house back to normal! I am so ready to have my upstairs office back and my bathroom as clean as I like it to be. I have to stop here and give kudos to my husband. God bless him...we have had some minor setbacks in the painting..I was in the hospital for 5 days and while I was in, Peyton has double pneumonia and Owen had strep throat. Chris was home with them the whole week adn still managed to get stuff done around the house in preparation for our carpet being laid. I don't tell him enough how much I love him and how lucky I am to be married to a man like him. I am doing that now. In our household...there are times when Chris is forced to be a single parent. These are the times that I am unexpectedly put into the hosptial for days on end. We don't know when I will be able to go home and Chris is left at home with the boys, his work, school and the house to keep up...I don't know how he does it...while he is home slaving away I am in hospital sleeping and having all my meals made for me...I don't know how he does it! But I love him to death for it and want to thank him for all he does to help me. He will never know how much he means to me.
Now, for the updates on the rooms. The painting is done. I am going to post pictures tomorrow I hope. The boys room is looking awesome and we are so ready to get the carpet in there so we can decorate it and put their new furniture and bed in the room. It is finally going to be their own room! The carpet is all pulled up and the furniture us all moved, except our bed, which we will move tomorrow night. We are ready to have our house back together. The upside with having to move all your furniture into one room is that you tend to get organized and downsize a bit. That is what I have been trying to do as we have had our upstairs torn up. I have organized all the boys clotehs into boxes for winter/summer. They are all ready to go into the drawers whenever the furniture is in place. I have organized all the closets upstairs and gone through the stuff in them. Its very cleansing and refreshing.
I want to take the time now to thank everyone that has helped up out while I have been in the hosptial. Everyone that made my family meals, my mom who cleaned my house for me and did some laundry so that I could rest, my sister and Chad who helped paint one weekend and for everyone else who helped us out! You all mean the world to me and I am very thankful to have such an awesome support system!
That is all from here..pics are on its way!
Have a great week!

Projects, projects

We have decided to start some projects upstairs. We are getting new carpet, painting the hallway, the boys room and putting capet in our room, the boys room, the stairs and the hallway upstairs. It will be a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. I would have loved to have done this before we moved it, but that was not possible. The boys are excited about their room. We are going with a woodland/camping theme. We painted the ceiling last night, three coats...actually my wonderful husband painted the ceiling..I love you honey!
We are going to make a final decision on paint this week and start painting the room this weekend I hope. I will post pictures as the rooms progress. Wish us luck!!

Train...check!

Last Thursday, Chris and I took the boys on their first Train Ride. We took the Amtrak from Carlinville to Springfield, we then walked to my work and visited with many of my coworkers. Some of them had not seen the boys in a year or more. It was nice to catch up with everyone. The boys absolutely loved the train ride! It was about 45 minutes late and we were impatient. Here are some pictures of the boys waiting for the train!

The train finally came!

On the train at last...

The boys had a blast and we are already planning a train ride to Chicago this summer!

Anyone parents who has thought of doing this...its a blast! I am fortunate enough to be able to park at work at the capitol and just walk from the train station...but it was a very cheap trip and the boys loved it!

The Zoo..check!

Here are some pictures from the Zoo this past weekend. The boys loved the animals. They were most excited about the train..we rode is about 4 times! The minute we got there, they wanted to see the crocs and the snakes. Funny I thought..I always wanted to see the monkeys and the gorillas. They were not that impressed with the monkey house. The elephants and the hippos were another favorite and the boys even got to feel elephant skin...it is kind of hairy if anyone is wondering!

we had a great day and the weather was so nice! We are planning another trip to St. Louis in two weeks...to the science center!

I will be posting more pics this weekend...we have an Amtrak ride scheduled for Thursday from Carlinville to Springfield. We are going to go to my work (the castle, the boys call it) and visit everyone that we have not seen for about 6 months. Then we'll pick up some stuff for the house and head home.. the boys are going to love it! I will have pictures this weekend!