Nettie learns to jump in

One comment that Nettie's swim teacher made was that Nettie was afraid to jump in the pool and climb out by herself. We are hoping she cured that today

The finished product

I still have a couple little things to do, but here is the finished bathroom:

Pictures of the bathroom renovation(phase 1)

Here is how Ben and my Dad spent their Memorial Day weekend.....
Before:



After:

There are still a few things that need to be done, but it already looks so much better. Plus, now when we shower we won't wonder how much water is actually going behind the tiles instead of down the drain!

sometimes growing up stinks....

As I am writing this, I am listening to Nettie (in bed) yell at John (in bed) "go to sleep" and then they both giggle. Neither of the kids are sleeping tonight because as the try to go to sleep Ben is pounding away in our bathroom trying to remove the tiles from what we have found to be our mold infested bathroom walls. Last weekend I decided to clean the shower in our bathroom, while cleaning the shower the seal around the base came off in my hands. Now, this was not a shock that it happened, it has happened before. But this time, the grout came off too, and then suddenly there was a hole between the tile and the wall behind was exposed and wet. That part has never occurred before. We then started talking about next steps, we knew we were going to redo the bathroom, this summer, but were hoping to put it off until late June, after our camping trip and after Jack's visit. This sudden shift to one bathroom and mold in the walls immediately changed our plans. After several days of trying to decide how to complete the job that needs to be done, and many hours of looking at how to complete the project without being out of a bathroom for at least a month, we had to make an extremely difficult decision and cancel our family camping trip with Ben's entire family. So here we are, with a mess in the bathroom, a small fortune left at Lowe's and bummed out that while all of our family will be having fun in the mountains this weekend, we will be stuck here in home renovation heck.
We know that this has not been easy on anyone that has been affected, the kids aren't sleeping, my Dad is giving up his free weekend to help us redo a bathroom in 3 days, and our annual family camping trip is now short one family, which is making us extremely sad. The choices that you have to make when you get older stink, and I don't think you ever realize how hard they are going to be until you have to make them.
So, in this last beautiful week of May, I have learned, I might like to garden, Mom was right, pulling weeds in the rain is awesome, they come right up, and sometimes growing up stinks.

Happy Girl

Lily's daddy knows how to make her smile!

Happy Easter

Poppie wasn't enjoying himself at all! It was amazing to get all 3 kids to look at the camera and not be crying. It was a fun brunch at Paul and Kathleen's complete with Easter egg hunt. Next year Lily will be joining in the chaos.


We finish Easter with dinner with the Eva's. The kids had so much fun together, hunting for Easter eggs and playing. Overall, it was a great day with family.

What happens when your 2 year old gets a hold of your liquid eyeliner

Luckily, I caught him quickly. I have since moved this out of his reach.