My try at DIY

I've been wanting to do this project for quite some time... Recover my dingy dining room chairs. After 13 years, 4 kids, lots of dried on play-doh, milk stains, juice stains, etc... these chairs deserved a face lift. It took me two days and some help from my friend Amy and I think they turned out pretty good. :) The girls thought they were just awesome and fought over who was going to tell Daddy about them. I wanted to keep it from Brian in case he squashed my idea! He like them too. :)

Now they have about an inch of dust on them...maybe I should have waited until after the remodel...

The Light at the End of the Tunnel????

We are on to another HUGE phase of our remodel project. THE KITCHEN... (dining room too)

Last week Brian took off work to start demolition. He and our nephew John did an amazing job! It was very messy Monday and Tuesday with all the plaster and old insulation coming down. We had beautiful weather and was able to open up doors to air out the place. Who would of thought we would have 80 degree weather in the middle of March. God was definitely blessing us! It was also nice to grill out since I don't have a stove/oven for at least a month. It's going to be hard for me to be creative with the crock-pot! So far it's going better than I expected and the kids think its great! The electrician finished up today and Brian will be putting up sheet rock this week/weekend. Things and people are scheduled so this part of the project should go pretty smoothly. Fingers crossed! I love that the space feels open yet still maintains the feeling of going from one room to the next. My favorite space is the french doors going from our bedroom into the new sunroom. My other favorite space is the landing area from upstairs. We used to have that silly corner closet but it's now gone and the space we have now is great. no more tilting the laundry basket vertically to get through the doorway! We still have a long way to go but I do believe I see the light, very dim, at the end of the tunnel!

The Before...

The After....

School Fun

Thanks to my friend JoAnna, I have pictures of my kids having alot of fun at school. The first photos are from Catholic Schools week in which the kids got to go to Lake Crystal Rec Center for an afternoon of swimming, playing in the gym and climbing the wall. The rock climbing wall looked like lots of fun! I only have pictures of Emily and Rachel because JoAnna's kids are in their classes! I know Caitlin had a good time too!


Rachel's Class (she's the 6th one)
Emily's class (shes the 10th one)

Emily's Class doing morning prayer service.

Rachel in kindergarten having fun with Miss Eichler during the Valentine's party

Emily giving her Ecosystem presentation or she would like to call it "presentating"

The kids are learning how to roller skate and it's something they look forward to every year in Phy Ed. Emily has no fear and she's always had a good sense of balance even when she was a baby.

Fun with Family

Arrowwood Resort-Alexandria, MN

This past weekend, our family along with my parents, brother & his family and my sister and her family, vacationed together at Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria. It was nice to hang out together and the girls loved being able to play with their cousins. We stayed in a cabin while mom and dad stayed away from the chaos and was at the hotel part of the resort. Outside our cabin was a small ice skating pond. It was so much fun despite Rachel's head trauma, Natalie's elbow accident and my Dad's butt pain. We also spent time at the waterpark and swimming pool. Most of our time though was spent playing games and eating in our cabin. Yosts and Schloesser's were also there and our time overlapped and we were able to chat with them too. I was happy that Mya could meet Lydia. They're the same age and are very similar in personality! Spunky and fun! Thanks Mom and Dad for a great weekend!!
Elijah Yost and Natalie watching the action and having a good conversation!
Lydia Yost and nieces Ally and Mya

Rachel-looking like an 'ol pro!
Brian-Just like riding a bike!
The skaters
Best looking sisters EVER!
Me and my girlies...

Laura making us breakfast! Yummy!
Rachel and Jack
Monkey's jumping on the bed
The guys...
Big brother Owen
Only in MN...bomber hat, snowboots and swim shorts...hmmmm

Big Boy Jackson

Brian taking the Plunge...Polar Plunge that is!

He did it again! Crazy...is all I can say. After having a week of very balmy temperatures, the day of the plunge only reached12 degrees. It was nice and sunny, so I'm guessing that helped a little. :) St. Peter had over 600 jumpers and raised over $100,000 dollars for Special Olympics. Awesome! The girls and I were having fun at Lydia's party while Brian was jumping so thanks to Jen for the pictures!!

Whoa...Update this already!

Honestly I can't believe it's been over a month since my last blog post. My sister seems to be the only one keeping tabs on me though, so I guess she's the only one "watching" us. Or you all are too kind to comment??!! :)

Ok...since we last left off we were celebrating Emily's b-day. Then my computer crashed...That's why I didn't update! Amazingly we did survive without the computer for a whole day and a half. Glad to have it back and that I didn't loose any important things like pictures. Caitlin was looking for ideas for her Valentines Box creation and apparently these virus people are now putting virus's on kid's websites. Nice....Really they should do better things with their time. Well, she did come up with a really cool idea that she came up with on her own and it took 2nd place in the 5th grade class competition. Here's the finished product. I thought it was really neat!

Emily's Birthday

So for Emily's birthday she invited 3 friends out for bowling and pizza. Afterward we went to the boys basketball game and one of her friends stayed the night. On Sunday, we had Grandpa & Grandma Salfer, Grandma Elaine and Grandpa Tom, Mike & Irene all over for brunch to celebrate Em's 9 years. It was a whirlwind of a weekend but definitely fun.