Ongoing renovations

Of course! Murphy's Law strikes again. Just after I commented on how smoothly the renovations were going, it turned out that one set of stairs was cut too short. Now we have to wait for the new ones but the humidity is getting in the way of a quick varnish dry! In the mean time, we have some ultra modern/hipster trendy plank steps ;) They are freaking out my old cat ;)

Happy evening to you all xox

Since my last post...

I think that I started a new blog post about 20 times over the past few days. A lot has happened but the time to sit down to write about it never materialized ;)

So, since my last post, what has been happening?

- We got our first floor back. The floors look fantastic (at least to us) and it was totally worth camping in the back yard ;)

- We celebrated the last day of school for the boys..... with ice cream ;)

- I turned 46 years old on Saturday. The concept of aging (or reverse aging) will be another blog post altogether. The older I get, the better I feel :)

- We went to a St. Jean celebration. This is a Quebec verion of Sankt Hans/Midsommer/Victoria Day... Andreas kept insisting that it was he planned it... for my birthday. Haha! Good try ;)

- For my birthday, the boys gave me a gift card to a local spa and a great t-shirt (I heart Swedish boys... see pic). Awesome gifts! :)

- We are trying to organize our first floor. That meant spending my birthday carrying boxes up stairs... Exciting? No. Full of exercise? Definitely ;)

- We had about a million soccer games over the weekend (please don't take that too literally). They were both real games and those on TV ;)

- Andreas and I went to Ikea and spent too much money on things that we didn't realize that we needed until we saw it. Enough said ;)

- Our hot water heater decided to die. Thankfully, it is in our garage so the big water leak basically drained itself. Bonus was that our plumber also installs water heaters... fast .... at a good price :)

- We had to get ready for the last phase of our renovations = the stairs! At least we don't have to camp for that one.

- The boys still have a better weekend social life than we do ;)

- I am sure that I have missed about 100 more things but I am trying to block them out of my memory ;)

Wishing you all a great start to the week xox

The floor in progress

Celebrating the last day of school :)

Yum!

Happy boys

More floor!

We get our bedroom back :)

St. Jean party

Can you tell that I posed them? ;)

Oliver in action

The old farts ;) Yes, I am older ;)

Yes, I have 4 boys ;)

Heading home.... to carry more boxes back upstairs ;)

My birthday cake.... decorated by Andreas ;)

My new t-shirt <3

The before picture of our stairs...

The leak! :0

Our driveway at 8am.... craziness!

Yes, of course, it has to rain for the stairs guy ;)

The supervisors ;)

Last day of school

I don't know who is happier: the boys because their school year is finished or me because I get a break from making lunches/supervising homework! ;) Bring on the summer holidays!!!

Wishing you all a great day xox

Just saying....

This is my house right now (see pictures). I had to rush the kids to school this morning... in a thunderstorm. Now, I am hoping that the thunderstorm does not come back for our camping excursion in the backyard tonight! On the bright side, Andreas and I went out for breakfast and the whole process IS exciting ;)

Happy day to you all xox

It is kind of like moving... only to downstairs....

I cannot remember the last time that I saw the back of my closet ;)

The boys' room.... defait ;)

Empty closets

Bye-bye, junk drawers ;)

Our basement....

Chaos!

Alexander's room

Taking out the old floor

At the hardware store... yes, I had to go outside :(

Now, add thunder!

Crappy subfloor = extra $$

No more vacuuming carpets :)

Our living room

Our kitchen....

Our entrance way.... welcome ;)

I am sure that this guy thinks that I am really strange..... say cheese ;)

First stage of renovations

For people who see me on a daily basis, this is why I seem stressed and a bit crabby ;) Stage one of our renovations (today) include replacing the back living room window and- FINALLY- our patio door. Needless to say, there is a crap load of dust in our house. Tomorrow, the workers start on stage two: replacing the floors on the first floor (main floor!) of our house. Next stage will be replacing our main stairs and railings.

Please send me some virtual sanity. I need it ;) Just thinking of the end product..... xox

My new best friends ;)

Happy Fathers' Day

Andreas' day started with lots of homemade cards, craft gifts and love. Happy Fathers' Day to Andreas and all the fathers- or those that fill that role- out there!

Wishing you all a great day! xox

My life this week....

.... feels a lot like this ;) This time of year is always nuts because we have both the school schedule and the summer schedule happening at the same time :0 AND I have NO idea what we were thinking when we decided to do major renovations to our house ALL AT THE SAME TIME! This coming week will include us camping in the backyard while the floors on the main floor are being replaced. Today, I cleaned up the garage so the contractors could deliver what seems to be 5 million square feet of flooring ;) We have 6 soccer games this weekend, groceries, house cleaning, moving furniture and emptying out closets. I have student assignments to finish reading and a manuscript to prepare.  Alexander will be home from camping this afternoon so I can imagine that will equal one tired/cranky boy plus LOTS of laundry ;) Looking forward to July and the WHOLE MONTH OFF :) I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (trying to end on a positive note) ;)

Wishing you all a good (and calm) end to the week! Happy Friday! xox

Celebrating!

Alexander and his grade 6 class are celebrating the end of their elementary school days with a camping trip. All the children and their teachers are going for 3 days of hanging out by a camp fire, canoeing, swimming, eating and more eating ;) I am so excited for him.... despite having to get up early to pack up his stuff (if I left it to him, it would be an empty pack... with a pillow). It will be a quiet few days until he gets back (relatively speaking, of course. There ARE still 2 boys left, you know). We will miss him.... but know that he is having the time of his life!

Wishing the kids an awesome time and a fantastic day for you all xox