House changes are coming

We got the word that this week is the week to start the renovations on our house. Everything will be delivered on Thursday morning. Our contractor will be here either that morning or Friday morning and start work. We are so excited. I can't wait to see the house during and after the process.

We decided on Natural Clay siding with white trim. It took me a long time to come to this decision though. Now that things are finalized I can't help but second guess my decision. We bought the lights for the house which I really like. We decided to go with a bronze finish.

I am adding the before pictures into this post and then will update as things get done. I am so excited to have all new double hung windows throughout the house. We are looking forward to not feeling the wind blow through the windows even when they are locked. The heating costs that we can save will be great.

Front of the house Before A new light will go up next to the door as well.

North End of the house. The window in the middle on the bottom row is going to be taken out and boarded up. That window is in our bathroom and right in our shower.


The back of the house. We plan to extend the deck out next summer as well another 9 feet to the Left. We are very excited about that. A new light will go in next to the sliding door.

Our back cement patio. Then the next picture is a door into the garage. That door will be replaced as well. The light will be too.



This is the south end of the house.


The garage. We cant wait to get rid of that stinking down spout. At our house water travels uphill. A new Motion light will go up on the garage too.


This picture is of the entrance that we use all time. Then we are also putting in a new door into the garage straight across from the other entrance. A new Light will go up by the main entrance.

Our Camping Trip

We went camping this week and had a blast. It was just the women in the family. My mom, the 8 grandkids, my 2 sister in laws and me. We went to Jellystone Park in Frankenmuth. It is such a nice park over there, especially during the week when it isn't extremely busy. The kids loved the indoor pool. I have some pictures and videos of the kids swimming. They also loved minature golf, the playground and the scheduled activities.

The kids loved the pool...especially mine. Makenzi could swim the width of the pool all by herself the first day (25ft) and by the second day she was swimming the length of the pool as long as somebody was swimming next to her (52ft). She was jumping and swimming back to the ladder. Braxton showed a lot of improvement. Earlier this year at the cabin he wouldn't even jump off the dock even if somebody would catch him. At the pool the first day he started jumping off the side of the pool in his swim vest onto a noodle as long as we were holding his hand. By that night he was swimming to the ladder in his swim vest and with the noodle, climbing the ladder, throwing his noodle into the deep end and jumping in all by himself. He would even do this if nobody else was in the pool with him. He didn't want anybody to help him.

They rode bikes a lot as well. We were in a perfect spot that they could ride their bikes to the playground and we could watch them from the trailer. We had beautiful weather too. They enjoyed seeing Yogi Bear and Boo Boo too. Makenzi wrote a letter to Yogi and is now planning to get a letter in the mail from him.

Today we did a ceramic art project. Each kid got to pick a ceramic to paint. Makenzi picked a flower with a butterfly on it and Braxton picked a shark. They both did a great job painting them. Braxton's shark looks really good. He painted it black and dark blue. Makenzi did a great job painting hers too. She did pinks and yellows.

Overall we had a great time. Scott and I really want to take the kids back soon. Braxton didn't want to come home. He wanted to stay and swim and play.

What a day it started out to be. I woke up before the kids this morning which is always nice to do. I had an appointment to take the van in for an alignment this morning, my mom was coming to follow me up to drop the van off. Braxton came out of the bedroom at 830 and was instantly complaining that his belly hurt. He went in to go potty and then wanted to eat. He took two bites of his breakfast and then laid down. No sooner got comfortable and he got sick. It never fails that he gets sick whenever I have something planned. Braxton got sick 2 more times, fell asleep for 2 hours and woke up fine. He was bouncing around, drinking and eating like nothing ever happened. This is the 3rd "episode" like this, this year. I can't pin point what is causing this but I am happy his return date to Ann Arbor is next month. I want answers. I am demanding them to at least re run the celiac panel, since they say it was a false positive. I want proof that it is negative.

Unfortunately I know all to well how Braxton feels. When I was younger I did the same thing. Randomly I would have these "episodes" where I would get really sick and end up admitted to the hospital for dehydration and vomiting. Thankfully his "episodes" aren't as bad as mine were but he still has them. I had always hoped and prayed that none of my children would have to go through that. It looks like whatever caused mine was passed down to him. It could be the gluten, good be an allergy to something that we aren't even aware he has.

Pray for Braxton that the answer is found to these "episodes", that the new gastro doctor we are going to see is a great listener and really truely hears us. That s/he has great bedside manner and is really good with kids.

Spinning out of Control

Have you ever felt that moment where life feels like it is spinning out of control? I have a few times and I am at that point again.

I feel like our children are out of control. Each one has their own personality and certain things really stand out. Makenzi is bored out of her mind being home all summer and she can't wait for school to start. Since she is bored she has decided to be naughty. She won't listen, refuses to sleep, whines and cries constantly. It is like having a toddler all over again. It is driving me nuts because she is 5 1/2 years old and knows how to behave. Her fits are out of control. Drives me nuts. I am at a lose of what to do with her. Tonight she "doesn't feel safe, something will get her".

Braxton is a very very persistent child. We have to be very firm with him. If he doesn't get what he wants he will kick, scream, cry for an hour. Today we were in Meijer and I wouldn't buy him John Deere fruit snacks he cried all the way through the store. I didn't give into him, I told him no and I stuck to it. He sure knows how to push my buttons. He is becoming a horrible sleeper. Tonight he has thrown 5 fits and woke both of his sisters up.

Makenzi has been going to Vacation Bible School at St. Michael's Church this week. She is loving it. She has been learning a new song every night and is really enjoying it. Thursday night she will get up in front of the church with her group and all of the other kids and sing these songs. Afterwards they will put on a big celebration for the whole church and their families. Makenzi is very excited about it.

Makenzi is also counting down the weeks until school starts. She is very bored at home and can't wait to go to school all day every day. Braxton isn't so sure about Makenzi going to school all day every day though. He will miss her tremendously.

Arianna is really starting to grow up fast. She has just started walking. She likes to crawl more than walk still but she is very capable of walking all over the house. When she sees something she really wants she takes right off. She says several words (momma, dada, kenzi, braxton, alex). Nothing extremely consistent but she can say them.

Braxton is peed trained on the potty finally. We are still working on the others but aren't getting anywhere. Which is very annoying because I really feel he is just being stubborn. Otherwise he is doing really well.

House Renovations

We are in the process of having a lot of work done to our house. Right now we are in the first stage: planning and deciding. I don't want to do any more planning or deciding and I am not done yet. We have decided we are getting new windows, new siding which also includes foam board insulation and tyvek, 3 new doors, all new outdoor lighting. That was our first decision...what all to do.

Now we are onto deciding window brands and styles and siding color and style. Windows we have figured out: double hung and 1 frosted window for the bathroom. Siding is a totally different story. I have the color narrowed down to 2. Cypress (green) and Natural Clay. We have decided that with either color we are doing white trim (windows, soffits, gutters etc). The corners will be the siding color. I never thought deciding siding color would be such a challenge. I really like both colors . The style I think we have figured out as well in siding. We are going with the Dutchlap style.

Light fixtures totally depend on what siding we go with. If we choose Cypress I am thinking Black lights, if we choose Natural Clay I am thinking Bronze for the finish. Although we could do white since we are doing white trim...maybe I should go that way.

Doors are the easiest. Two of them are going where doors already are and the last one was an easy pick.

Scott is not much help in these decisions because he likes both colors and told me it is up to me what I want. I have been driving around looking at houses with these two colors to see what I think. That is the best help but even with finding houses I can't narrow it down to just 1. Oh the decisions.

Ahna Baby

Well I posted yesterday that she refuses to walk. That all changed today. We were at my parents house and she was showing off to my parents. She took 9 steps to get a toy phone that Makenzi was holding. She actually would fall down and stand right back up and try again. She would take 9 steps fall down and then take 2 steps. She thought she was hilarious though. I am in no rush to make her walk. She is already busy enough when she crawls I can't imagine when she gets really good on her feet.