september

 I was glad to find my head still on top of my shoulders by the time September was over. I thought I was really going to lose it.
This is why: I told Spence that we need more space. Josh and Andrew are not the best sleeping partners. This is driving Spencer and I nuts. A.D. is such a light sleeper and Josh wakes up every night to go potty regardless and he has to make a big fuzz out of it.

Obviously we needed to get approved by the bank first to get our loan and for that our house had to appraise at a certain amount.
I started doing a lot of home improvements in the couple of weeks so that the appraisal could come in where we needed it to.
This is what I did: Only managed to improve my kitchen. I put all the hardware and painted the island by myself. I sent Spencer a 1000 bill for my handy work, just kidding!

 Spencer took some vacation time, which he spent by going golfing with his dad and by pulling our floor off. A couple of months ago our fridge broke and liked a lot of water into the floor which got damaged by it. Thank goodness for insurance.
This was a very special floor. Spencer, his dad and even Matt (fresh out of his mission) helped lay our entire floor in 2007. It took my sweetheart about 2 weeks to figure out how to lay it down and get it squared on the floor, not to mention all the demolition we had to do to get rid of the linoleum that we had when we first got our house.
We had to do lots of cutting, lots of measuring, we got lots of headaches and yet it was so beautiful when it was all finish and we felt so proud that we had accomplish something of that magnitude.
It was hard to see all of those hours of labor be gone in 30 minutes. That is all it took us to get rid of the floor. SAD.

Since we were tearing things off, we decided it was time to get rid of our old railing, we took it all apart. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube and learn how to it myself. I asked how much it would of cost to install the new railing with iron balusters and it was 1000 for material and installation.

Is amazing what a tight budget can make you do. Spencer and I took the project to ourselves and we did it. We had to go an entire week without stairs and a big falling hazard but we managed.

Here is a pick of the transformation!

Besides these projects we are getting our basement finished. Did you know how complicated this process is? I have spent hours investigating floor plans, looking at pictures, drawing and sketching every single room on my basement, sleepless night thinking about my ideas not to mention the fact that I had to figure out what the cheapest but best way to finish the basement was. The question to me was: do we do it? Or is It worth it paying a little extra but getting it done right. I am sorry to say that this was one project I was not putting upon myself.

It is hard enough being a full time mom for three little rascals I did not want a contractor side job.

So far I’ve just had to worry about where to put walls and how big the closets are going to be. I am however going to install my laundry room cabinets by myself. I got some used cabinets for 50 and I am hoping they’ll turn out as good as the island on my kitchen, fingers cross. I am afraid I am getting too comfortable at this building thing, Thanks McGyver, you are my inspiration, LOL.

But it hasn’t all being work at the Smith household we have had our fair share of fun. Grandma Smith invited Julia and I to go to a musical called: “Joseph and the Technicolor coat”. This was Julia’s first show ever and she absolutely loved it. The story portrayed is of Joseph in the Old Testament who gets sold into slavery to Egypt and manages to succeed by deciphering the pharaoh’s dream. I was impressed to see her clapping with the music and getting so excited about the story.

Her absolute favorite actor was the Pharaoh. Why, well because he looked and talked like Elvis. Julia of course doesn’t know who Elvis is, but she loved how silly he was.

We also celebrated Labor Day in September by going to Grandma Smith’s house for a bbq. The kids loved playing with their cousins.

Besides, running errands, doing carpool, teaching Josh's Joy school, taking kids to soccer games, tumbling classes and volunteering every week at Julia's school this has been pretty much September.