35 Weeks

My Little Honeydew

Heaven Sent Contractor

Have you ever hired someone to do a job for you that just continued to go so far above and beyond what you asked them to do that you aren't even sure how to truly thank them??
We have that guy working for us!! Richard showed up this morning to do the push out for the garage addition and decided that even though he knows there is no more money in the budget for his time, but that since he was already here for the day he would just continue working in the backyard and on the rest of the driveway. We weren't even planning on doing the driveway, and that being said, have already redone a good portion of it. . . but when he came today he decided that we needed to get more gravel and just finish the driveway. Michael informed him, we have shot the gravel budget and that he (Richard) has already exceeded our expectations of what we hired him to do so it would just have to wait. Well Richards response was, I'll just bring my dump truck over and haul the gravel myself from the quarry which will be a lot cheaper for you and you just pay me for fuel. . . .Michael says, that means you are working for free. . . . Richard, Ya I know but it would just be so nice to finish off the driveway and you really need more gravel in here. WOW! I don't even know the right words to express the way Richard has blessed us.
By the way, if anyone needs Excavation work done I would recommend Quality Excavation Systems, he is out of Salem and has been OUTSTANDING. 503-363-4323 ~ Richard http://www.qesinc.org/

Look What We Found

The kids and I were playing in the front yard today and look what we found.

On Day 3

I guess from afar the shed/garage building behind Michael's truck doesn't seem so bad, but once you open the door you would think twice. There was so much garbage in here and critters and oh the smell!! Actually the right side of it was open for goats at one point. . . . so, it had to go.
Michael removed the windows and siding that was salvageable and Richard (the excavator) got to work. . . or play I think. What guy doesn't enjoy demolition?

I will have to take another picture from this angle (above) the change is amazing. The little house that is left there is the well house, we aren't sure what to do with that yet.
The picture below shows the tractor sitting where the shed used to be.

View Other House Posts:

http://mbdoty.blogspot.com/2010/02/all-in-days-work.html

http://mbdoty.blogspot.com/2010/02/driveway-project.html

Front Yard Fun

Mud is such a fun toy. We headed outside today to plant trees! What a beautiful sunny day! Michael went to Weyerhaeuser this last weekend with Byron and came home with 70 trees. So with their new gloves and shovels the kids headed out to work, however we didn't make it past the first mud puddle for about a half hour. Great day for rain boots and mud stomping.

Eventually we did make it to tree planting. The kids and I helped for a while, but Michael did end up doing most the work.
See my worm? We spent a good part of the afternoon finding worms and "Rolly Polly" bugs. Makayla probably had 50 rolly pollys in her bucket.

Driveway Project

One project leads to another. . . .
We hired an excavator last week to do the push out for our garage addition. We also talked with him about removing all the concrete in the backyard and knocking down a "garage" building (a rotten shed). Well since he has been here he has completed the backyard, in a matter of hours, demolished the shed and took extra dirt from here and there and leveled out a spot that Michael can eventually put a shop, then decided that we could really use a driveway overhaul. His name is Richard and apparently he is having so much fun working around the property that he keeps doing little extra things . . . like collecting all the big rocks from around the property and building a rock retaining wall in the front. He has improved the look so much we are in awe. We know we will have to pay him more than we originally agreed upon but we are so pleased with his work it will be easy to do so. Here are pictures of the driveway project. He even brought us stuff to put in a drainage system to re-route the water that comes down the driveway. Maybe on Friday we will actually do the push out for the garage.

Digging out for the drainageMichael and Richard laying pipe in the HUGE hole.

First two loads of gravel show up at 2PM on Monday. . . I have 11 ladies coming to our house at 6:30 for Bunco!! Will we have a driveway?? Michael and Byron worked their back ends off to get the gravel spread.



I can not believe how much gravel had to be brought in to do just this bottom portion of the driveway, but we are so happy with the way things are turning out. We definitely shot the gravel budget.

View Other House Posts:

http://mbdoty.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-day-3.html

http://mbdoty.blogspot.com/2010/02/all-in-days-work.html

Baby Room Progress

The kids have been helping me get the Nursery ready for baby. They LOVE to help paint. . . it's really a patience tester for me, but I try my best to let them be involved. We have the room painted and furniture moved in. Makayla and I have started going through boxes of clothes to see what we have the is neutral enough for boy or girl, so we are doing laundry and hanging some stuff in the closet. I have a few things to get up on the walls but am still not exactly sure how/what I want to do yet.

When we find out what baby is we will add the appropriate color to the room.

My big helper!

Big Boy Room

Kaden's room got a complete overhaul. He had to wait the longest but I think it was worth the wait. Even though the carpet was only a couple years old it had a lot of "YUCK" in it so we started by ripping it out. In the same day the room was re-carpeted and painted. Michael gets all the credit for painting this room, besides a little help from Kayla and some touch up from me, he did it all.

Jonathan and Kaden helped me put together some storage systems for Kaden's room. They really turned out pretty neat and matched the room better than I could have hoped.

His room was suppose to be cars. . . .. but we have so much "fire" stuff that we ended up with a fire theme, with a touch of sports here and there.

I am not quite sure what to do on this wall but you really don't even notice how bare it is when you walk in cause the rest of the room is so busy. The picture sure makes it look empty though. Maybe we put (paint) a road with some vinyl cars on this blue wall??

The Pink Big Top

Besides painting the bathrooms, Makayla's room was the first one to be done. She couldn't wait to have her room decorated! She picked out some crazy animal bedding and wanted the walls painted practically every color of the rainbow. So we settled for a circus bedroom, it is the PINK Big Top. We still need window treatments in everyone's rooms but she loves how her room looks now.

All in a days work.

When we bought our house we were left with many "loose ends" to tie. One of them being clean up of the foundation/basement of the house which sat here before ours was built 3 years ago. As you can see in the first few pictures there is quite a pile of concrete here. Well, we hired an excavator to come out and help us with this process as well as do the push out for our garage addition project. He figures he will be here 3-4 days but this is what he did in just 4 hours of work.

Now you see it. .. . .

Now you don't. . . .