Milestone for Micah

One small milestone for baby Micah, one major leap for our marriage! Micah is no longer sharing a room with Mommy and Daddy! We have been room shifting. It's kind of like moving into a new home except it's more like turning an existing home into a rubix cube rather than moving into a new place to live. You cannot move one piece of furniture unless you have plans to move at least two other pieces. I don't believe we have too much furniture, I think the rooms are just a little snug.

At any rate, Micah is in a crib in what used to be a guest room (and partially still is), while Abby and Nate are both in toddler beds. Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy have a room all to themselves for the first time in about 6 months. Yes, it's been that long. We knew moving the kids beds around would be a big ordeal so we had to wait for the right time. I was motivated to move it all, and it's best to move and rearrange when you're motivated. Otherwise, it can be quite difficult.

This is kind of like a vacation for us. No more tiptoeing around the bassinet while I get ready for work. No more wispering. No more waiting until the kids wake up to get access to our things.

But in all honesty, as much as our new freedom is exciting for us, in some ways it is sad. Ashley was very sad last night about Micah not being in the room with us. He's grown so fast. They all have. Now he's in the crib and Nate's in a toddler bed.

So the question we are asking ourselves is this, "Are we making the most of the time?" Are we investing timeless truths and love into the hearts of our children? I think we are. They aren't ours forever, but they will be our children as long as we are all alive.

So while we will not wake to the cries of a newborn, we will now fall asleep to tears of joy that life's changes are coming at their usual rapid pace and we can do nothing about it.

What a Week!

I'm so glad it is Friday! I'm actually looking forward to finally knocking out that "honey-do" list. It grows ever so long by the day! Am I using too many exclamation points?!

New Windows - Finally!

Well, one of the things we should have done when we first moved into the new house was change out a few of the windows. Two upstairs had broken seals, meaning they trapped moisture and wreaked havoc on effeciency. The two windows on our front porch that are molded together needed to be changed because an entire sash was missing from one of the windows. It was just a piece of glass caulked into the space where the sash was.

Ever since we talked about the new window project with our family, we have gotten consistent feedback from several that we shouldn't pay anyone to replace them, but should replace them ourselves. They said over and over again how easy it would be to replace them.

Well, having replaced them now, I would agree with them that it was not a difficult job at all, and I'm so glad I didn't pay anyone to do it. We saved roughly $400 by doing it ourselves. It was simply a matter of pulling back the wooden trim around the old windows, removing the nails from the old windows, removing them from the house and replacing them with new ones in the reverse order. That's it!

We had Lowe's measure the openings for us to ensure our order would be the right size. When you order something like windows, they have to be made to fit your openings. Lowe's may not have your size in stock (most of the time they do not). So if the size is wrong when your order them, too bad, you're stuck with them. So we let Lowe's carry that burden for us. Since they measured, if they're measurements were off, then they were stuck with the windows - not us.

The only snag I ran into during the installation was with the two windows that were moulded together on the front porch. You see, those two windows came as one unit, but were just two windows joined together at the factory. Well, when Lowe's measured they found the rough opening to be 70 inches wide. When they made the windows, however, they made them both at 35 inches wide. It should fit then, right? Well, not quite. You see, when you join two windows together, there is about a quarter inch gap between the two that is filled with adhesive and a moulding strip. This then makes the two windows 70.25 inches wide. So I had to trim away at my rough opening in order to get the windows in. Not too big of a deal really, just a headache. It would have been nice to make the windows at about 34 and 7/8 a piece. That should have made up for the quarter inch gap between the windows. BUT we made it work anyway.

The other two single units upstairs were an absolute breeze. Except for being chased by bees, it was a very safe experience.

Enjoy the pictures!

It wasn't exactly a cold Saturday, but we managed to cool off. Abigail and Nate played in the kiddie pool while I worked on the windows.

Notice the essential tools used in this project - measuring tape, power drill, and wasp spray!

This is one of my favorite shots. you can see the old windows out and new windows in on the upstairs. It took me less than two hours to do the upstairs, that's how easy this project was. Now it really wasn't finished though without caulk, insulation, and the final trim work. But that didn't take too long. Those black shutters were harboring the killer wasps who dared to attack me. I found about 7 or 8 wasp nests behind all of them. But I won and they didn't survive to tell about it.

Overall we saved a ton of money. We purchased energy star windows, so we'll get a tax rebate. We purchased them when Lowes was having a 20% off sale on windows (which is very rare - usually it's only 10%). We purchased the windows with a credit card promotion (which is the ONLY time I ever purchase anything with a credit card - when they have a promotion) that gave us $100 credit with a $500 purchase. And we installed them ourselves, while Lowe's charges about $100/window for installation.

Would I recommend just anyone doing their own window replacement? Absolutely. It is very hard to go wrong as long as you have the right sizes. But installation rates are probably so high because they know people will pay that much money because they think it's such a hard job. And you know what's even worse, when you order replacement windows, they do not even remove the old ones from the house...they just replace the sashes! We had to get new construction windows, however, since our sashes could not be removed.

I'm glad this project is accomplished. It was certainly well worth the effort.

Wooden Train Adventures

Nathaniel loves playing with choo-choos. So yesterday morning while Mommy went for a coupon run, Daddy decided a good distraction from Mommy leaving would be to build a mega wooden train track. While it never quite made it to the "mega" stage, it was still rather big and was a whole lot of fun for the kids. We still had a whole box of pieces left over, but I had hit the end of the line of my creative juices for the moment. Besides, being wooden tracks, they weren't too stable. Nate and Abigail really enjoyed it. Mom and Dad are still here and I think Mom just enjoyed watching me try to build it. I leanred that the key is symmetry. What you do on one side of the station you have to do on the other side so the track will line up. I wish I had this sort of set when I was a kid. Most of these pieces came from a free craigslist box of toys. Check out all those trains!

Eat More Chicken!

Mom and Dad were in town this weekend. For our Friday night meal we went out on the town and took Chik-Fil-A by storm. They were having a promotion for Cow Appreciation Day. If you dressed up like a cow you got a free combo - any combo of your choice. The pictures say it all.

I was definitely the only brown cow in the place. I wanted to represent all the forgotten brown cows out there. Most of the cows were black and white, but there are so many other kinds of cows out there. We were privileged to have our neighbor Shawn join us in our crazy adventure. It was definitely an experience we will never forget. Chick-Fil-A gives away more food than any other restaurant out there. We don't go there too often because they don't have a dollar menu, but they certainly give away a lot of food from time to time.

Back in Business

Hey everyone! We have a new computer now. So, you'll probably see more postings in the future. The only thing that will probably keep me from posting more is just fatigue, since I don't stay up too late any more.

We'll keep coming back, there may be more very soon!

Jonathan