Twenty Years Ago Today

Twenty years ago today was a Friday. I was a junior in high school and in a typical teen girl funk. One of my friends (Hi, Chuck!), in an effort to cheer me up, suggested I join him at the away football game. I didn't really want to go. I wasn't that fond of football and staying home to pout sounded like more fun (even without Facebook to whine on). But I went. At the time my going didn't seem like a big deal, but looking back it turned out to be an important decision.

At the game, we ended up sitting behind a group of his friends that I knew of but didn't really know personally. I sat directly behind a guy I considered to be a prominent member of the "nerd herd". I don't remember anything about the game, (I'm pretty sure we won, because I think our team went undefeated all the way to win the state championship) but I do remember having a good time. Instead of paying attention to the game I decided to tease the poor nerd in front of me. While I'm sure I was annoying, if you're a teenage guy you'll take any attention from a girl you can get.

Well, me and the nerd hit it off and now, TWENTY years later, we have been married for over fourteen years and have six kids! We've had good times and bad. We've changed a lot and learned a lot. We graduated (from both high school and college), got married, became Christians, moved across the country, changed careers, and had a family. We basically grew up together and I'm really looking forward to growing old together!

It was the pre-digital, pre-camera in every pocket era and I don't have a picture from that night in 1990, but I do have one from just a week or two later! I'll show it to you if you promise not to give the old nerd and his wife a hard time...

Shelly (age 16) and Jerry (age 17)
in November 1990

Happy "Anniversary" to my Sweetie! Hope the next twenty years are as much fun as the first!!

Tune In Tomorrow!!

Remember back in August when we went to see them working on the Extreme Home Makeover house in Neenah? Well, the Neenah episode airs TOMORROW! If you live in our area it's on Channel 2 (ABC) at 7:00pm.

If you want to read about our visit to the house click here. If you watch the show tomorrow, look for us across the street! :)

Fire Station Open House 2010

We have made it a yearly tradition to go to the Fire Station Open House. Some years it has been freezing cold ('09) and others ('08), like this year, the weather has been perfect! Warm and sunny!

There is definitely something special about family traditions like this. Not only is it fun to make memories, it also makes for some great photos. We have pictures each year of the boys on the fire trucks and it's fun to go back and look at how much they have grown over the years.

Just for fun, since I didn't have the blog back then, here are a few blast from the past pictures:

from 2006 and...

... from 2005!
(Even though the twins still look like babies,
Hayden was born just over a month later!)

Here are the shots from this year:

With hats

Without hats

JD and Justus

Everyone takes a turn spraying the fire hose (click to enlarge):

A Window to the World

I've already given you the tour of Wesley, Hayden, and JD's room... but the twins got a "new" room too. The transformation wasn't quite as dramatic. They chose a space theme. Dinosaurs were in the running as well... space won out in the end. I'll be posting a tour of their room soon, but wanted to show you the "window" I made for their room.

Since the other boys got a fun window I tried to find one for Eli and Justus. No such luck. I did find lots of space murals hand-painted on walls. I'm good, just not that good. I was not ready to paint something on the wall and then not like how it turned out. So I asked around for suggestions. I needed something smooth, lightweight, paintable, and easy to cut.

I almost went with luan board, but decided on foam board when I found out you can get it in very large sizes at Hobby Lobby. I ended up buying a huge piece for about $9 and over the course of a few days it was transformed into a space window... as in you are in space looking back towards Earth.

All good ideas start with plans. This was my inspiration. This was my plan on paper:
And then I transferred the grid onto the foam board:
And then I took a deep breath and cut the hexagon:
Actually, it went better than I thought. It cut beautifully with a utility knife and straight edge. Then I taped off the "windows" to paint the black sky:
Here is what it looked like after it was spray painted with the black:
If I get some weird lung disease, please remind me it was probably breathing in all that spray paint back in 2010. Then I covered the "windows" to spray paint the "metal frame" with metallic spray paint. I used plastic cling wrap and for the center circle a piece of transparent contact paper. The white is where the tape was on during the first round of paint.I spray painted the frame and then came the details. I glued real metal nuts all the way around the perimeter and between the window panes. Then I painted the moon and the stars. For the moon I traced a drinking glass, filled it in with off-white paint, and then used a straw dipped in grey to make the craters. I wasn't brave enough to hand paint the space station so I printed on offline and glued it on. The stars were just randomly dabbed on with a toothpick.
And then came the earth and clouds:
Final product: measures 40 inches high by 60 inches wide. Final cost: about $12. Final results: Overall it turned out pretty well. There are a few mistakes if you look really close. I am not a very neat spray painter and that stuff drips if you spray it on too thick. The tape and contact paper left a little bit of residue too. The only thing that really matters though is that the boys really like it!

Extreme Room Makeover: Blue Room Edition

Have you ever read the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? This is the story of "If You Give Shelly New Flooring" because you know she's going to want some new paint, blinds, etc. to go with it!

We decided awhile ago to replace the flooring in the boys bedrooms. It was getting pretty gross. It was the original carpet (about 10 years old) and showing it's wear. We shopped around a bit for carpet but decided that with five little, stain-making boys we'd just be in the same boat again in a few years. We priced laminate wood flooring and were pleased to find it was half the cost of new carpet if we were brave enough to install it ourselves.

But... before we put in new flooring we thought we would take the opportunity to paint the boy's room. Only one room had been painted an actual color when we moved into this house. And what a color it was! Thank goodness we had boys! I'm not sure these pictures really do it justice. The walls were a bright blue and the ceiling was a shade or two darker. Even the blinds were blue. This room gets afternoon sunlight, but it always seemed dark. The light (natural and artificial) was just swallowed up by the dark colors.

So the first step of the room makeover was painting. We chose a light tan. Thank goodness for primer and paint in one! I have to admit I was quite skeptical when the paint guy at Menard's told us it would cover the blue... but it did. Even after just one coat the blue was covered! It was amazing!Beside having poor taste in color... the previous painters didn't take the time to properly tape off any of the wood work. I gave up around the closet/door/window and painted the edges of the trim to cover it up. The baseboards were removed to prep for the new floor so I was able to scrape the blue paint off of those. Not a fun job, but worth it in the end.
We left the carpet in as a "drop cloth" while we painted. Once the painting was done it was time to rip out the carpet. We pushed this up on the schedule a little bit to catch the bulky item trash pickup week. Which meant the boys lived with only plywood floors for a couple weeks. Don't worry, I covered it with sheets so they didn't get any splinters. It was real high class!
Then came the laminate flooring. It was a learning experience and we made a few mistakes, but it looks AMAZING! Sometimes I just want to stand there and stare at it! It is such an improvement over the nasty carpet and we did it ourselves!
The final touches were the only thing left. So the boys and I discussed several options for "themes" in both rooms. We had already decided that the Eli and Justus would be moving to the front room and Wesley, Hayden, and JD would share this room. Since Wesley has always been my nature lover and we already had some leftover cabin/lodge decorations from their room at the old house that is what we chose for this room's theme.


I did a little online shopping and found some "Wallies" on clearance. Everyone loves the Wallie cabin window! We trashed the old (broken) blue blinds. Since they fit perfectly, we ended up moving the white accordion blinds from the front bedroom into this one. I hung Wesley's old quilt and sewed a new valance and we were good to go!!
Well, except for a bunk bed. When we went to reassemble our old set the wood cracked. So Wesley and Hayden ended up on mattresses on the floor until we could find a new set of bunk beds. After a fruitless search for a decent used set and pricing them new we decided that we would build them ourselves. What can I say we were on a roll! You'll get a peek at them here, but the bunk beds are another post!The painting and floor part took us about 2 weeks. The bed building and decorating took another week. In the meantime we still did our usual working, schooling, feeding, clothing, plus several other activities! The only things that suffered were our backs and our blogs!

Wacky Weather: Quarter Size Hail

This could be a "Wordless Wednesday" post, except it happened over a month ago on a Friday (August 20th). We had a hot, wet summer which made for some wacky weather at times. Here is a photo of the largest hail I've seen since moving back to Wisconsin 10 years ago:
The boys loved it. They were a bit scared, but fascinated at the same time. I'll tell you one thing: it sure was LOUD! I was very thankful the van was in the garage. Jerry was at work but they didn't get hail quite as big across town so, thankfully, no dents in the car. I ran out to grab these few pieces off the back deck to stick in the freezer to show Jer and to take pictures for the blog, of course!