Out with the old...

Out with the old and in with the new!  January has brought some changes to the Ferstle family!  Starting with my new ride...

It took two solid weeks of emailing back and forth to Fox Hills in Plymouth and my dad calling countless dealerships looking for the perfect minivan for me, but I finally traded in my Town and Country (two months early to avoid going over miles) for a new Pacifica Touring-L.  It has all the same features of the Town and Country, but it's newer, smoother, and has some new bells and whistles.  I picked Velvet Red and can't wait to add a Minnie Mouse decal sticker to the back window! 

Over Christmas break, we put the finishing touches on the computer room.  It took a few months for us to re-do this room since we were in no rush and could spread out the expenses.  My parents helped us over the summer paint the trim white instead of the dark brown so that really helped.  Some new furniture and de-cluttering was the most important part.  I kept my craft desk from Ikea and we bought a new bookshelf in white and a new small end table with drawers and we were good to go!  I bought the rug on Amazon, some artwork on Amazon, and the chair from Amazon too.  I love the chair!  I feel like it really ties the whole room together!

This was our before.  Mis-matched furniture and lots of clutter since we were sort of jamming all kinds of things in one room.  And now...

I love it!  It's not so much of an eye-sore anymore and it feels good to have gone through everything in the room and closet.  We got rid of many things we were keeping for no reason and re-organized the closet. 

Lastly, I rejoined Weight Watchers this past month and am trying their new Freestyle program.  The first week went really well and I lost 5 pounds.  The past two weeks have been much slower only losing one pound each week.  I know it will take a while for it to come off in a healthy way, but I can't help but wish it was faster.  I've started going to Jackie's gym, Hale, in downtown Plymouth for a Women's Strength Class that kicks my butt.  It's a circuit with 6 people and 5 stations doing things like chin-ups, all kinds of different crunchs/ab work, lifting weights, lifting 75lb bags of sand, and pulling sleds full of weights.  It's the hardest thing I've ever done, but I'm ready and committed to seeing some results.  I also bought a Groupon to try CycleBar in Northville.  I've really enjoyed the classes and they are definitely a workout!  I leave a sweaty mess, but feeling the burn.

We're ready for some changes in 2018!  Healthier, stronger, and more financially savvy.  We have some big goals, but we're motivated.

Refinishing our hard-wood floors...a journey.

It's the first week of school for Scott and I and I'm actually rolling into a new school year feeling ready to be back to work this year.  I honestly feel like I had a fulfilling summer home with my family and am ready to see all my students and get back into what I love doing.  Don't get me wrong; we had a great summer!  But, it had some challenges too.  I guess home projects will do that to you.

New roof and gutters.  Yup, that was painful to the bank account.

And now freshly re-finished hard wood floors for the first floor, thanks to my handy hubby.  This project was no joke and about three times the amount of work it took for him to do that to our floors in Clawson years ago.  Knowing we'd need to be out of the way, I took the boys and Bailey to my parents' house in Troy for the week.

My least favorite part?  Moving every single thing out of the first floor, including all the closets and the china cabinet.  I don't think we'll ever do that again unless we're moving.  It was quite the project!  As can be seen above, the floors were in pretty bad shape when we moved in.  But, with our growing family and dog, we knew we didn't want to put the work in initially.  And we're glad we waited.  The kids and Bailey have both been rough on the floor.

Scott and his dad worked hard on Monday and most of Tuesday sanding the floors and then cleaning them up so Scott could stain on Wednesday morning.  Tuesday night Evan had his last t-ball game, so we came back home and checked out the floors before going back to Troy.

Wednesday morning the stain was applied.  And then it got interesting.

The stain did not dry in the time it said it would.  Thursday morning Scott was hoping to put the first layer of polyurethane on, but they were nowhere near ready.  He had some spots to touch up where it looked like it streaked.  Scott was freaking out on Thursday morning when they still weren't ready.  Luckily, his mom came out to help him do more touch ups and to check them out.  Finally, Friday he was able to poly the floors.  Woo!

We opted to use a satin finish so it wouldn't be shiny and I'm glad we went that route.  He applied the second coat on Saturday and the final coat Sunday morning.  He cleaned up the house, packed a few things, and drove up north to meet up with me, the boys, and Bailey as we started week 2 away from home.  We were lucky to have his parents' cottage to go to while we let the floors cure.

And then it was finally time to come home the following Sunday and it was my first time seeing the floors!  They're not perfect, but they are pretty darn awesome and a huge change from what they were before!  We're waiting a few more weeks before the rugs come back in and we have been very cautious with moving everything back in and letting the kids play on them.  But, I'm so proud of Scott and all his hard work!  Aren't they something?!

My parents helped us move everything back in and a few days later his parents came back to put the shoe moldings back up and do paint touch ups to the white moldings.  This place looks great!  And I'm excited to add back in the rugs to make it more like home.  I think after everything we accomplished this summer at this house, we'll go easy on ourselves next summer.  Maybe paint the upstairs hallway?  Maybe do nothing?  I'm good for a while.

Home updates!

This summer we had lots of help from my parents and were able to cross off some major painting jobs on our to-do list!  We are so extremely grateful for all their hard work and elbow grease, as the hallway was not an easy project.

When we bought the house, the hallway trim was a dark brown and the walls were an off-white.  I didn't mind at first, but with some wear and tear, every single mark showed on the trim.  We were long overdue to paint it and decided to do the trim white and the walls a pale beige to lighten up the hallway.

I absolutely love how the walls and trim turned out!  It's unbelievable what a fresh coat, or coats, of paint can do to change the entire look a room.  Or in this case, hallway!

My mom even gave the front door a fresh coat of white paint and with a new rug, our entrance looks as good as it can get!

Next up was our master bathroom.  The paint was peeling in spots and had mold growing in other spots.  We don't get the greatest ventilation in that bathroom, so I'm sure that didn't help.  But, the people who lived here before us and fixed up the bathroom must not have used the right kind of paint.  I decided to totally change up the paint color and look of the bathroom while we worked on the project.

The most recent picture I could find was one I took while playing with my new fisheye lens and clearly we needed to pick up the bathroom a bit.  Don't mind Sean's clothes on the floor.  I love the bathroom with the tiles and the countertop, but we needed a change.

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but we went from a pale green to a pale blue paint.  I wanted the "lake" look, but without being overdone.  I found a great piece of art for the wall from Hobby Lobby, mounted a shelf we used to have in the kitchen, and got some Michigan pictures framed.  It's simple and clean, while capturing our "lake life".

And in the spirit of changing up the decor in bathrooms, I made a few minor purchases to completely change the boy's bathroom.  A new shower curtain, bath rug, and some wall art!  We went from trucks and cars to Disney!

And our new 2016 kid's bathroom...

Our next two projects need to be refinishing the hardwood floors on the main floor and redoing the computer room/den.  There's a lot of mixed-matched furniture in there now and I'd like to go with one set of furniture for a cleaner look.  The floors we've been dragging our heels on since we know the boys are very rough on them (dropping things, throwing toys...gah!!!, dragging things across them).  We've been waiting until they can be gentler on the floors.  Not sure if that's anytime soon...

But, for now, we're thrilled with the changes and we're enjoying our updated rooms and hallway!

Mid-March updates

Greetings from our new breakfast bar!

After a month long project cutting a hole into the wall, putting up trim, getting a counter top installed, bar stools ordered from Target's website, and some patching up, I'm so excited that it's almost done!  I could have waited until we did paint touch ups, caulk, and some decor around the sides to "reveal" it, but what fun would that be?!  We'll put the finishing touches on it during spring break.

As mentioned in a previous post, we were desperately seeking additional lighting in the kitchen and a more "open" floor plan.  I hated cooking dinner in the kitchen not able to see the rest of the family while the kids were in the living room playing.  Or that I couldn't see the driveway or walkway to our front door from the kitchen.  Thanks to Bailey, we definitely knew when someone was coming up to the house, but still...I wanted to be able to see for myself.  Thus, we embarked on a month long project to cut a portion of the wall out.  Since it's a support wall we couldn't knock the entire thing down, so we improvised.  And I'm loving how it turned out!

I'm looking forward to our first breakfast at the bar on Saturday morning!

In other news, Sean has been a busy bee at school and at swim class.  After returning from mid-winter break his class celebrated the 100th day of school, Dr. Seuss' birthday, and reading month complete with "mystery readers" and bringing books home from school to read.  He's officially registered for kindergarten next fall and once again, I am so happy with the progress he's made this year in Young 5's.  Best decision ever!

He was nominated for "Green Student of the Month" by his teacher in January and had his picture up on a bulletin board at school for the whole month.  ::Insert my proud mommy smile::  And apparently, he draws pictures for me when he misses me at school!  Oh my goodness, he is such a love bug!  Now that the weather is warming up I've been able to watch him play on the playground at school right before pick-up.  I love that he doesn't realize I'm there and just does his thing.  Watching him interact with friends, run circles with the trucks, and not have a care in the world does amazing things to my heart!

He's been working his butt off in level 5 at swim and never ceases to amaze me!  His front stroke is getting so much stronger, but he dominates on his back.  Chicken, star, rocket!  He absolutely detests the side stroke and it's caused a few tears over the past two weeks, but he'll get there.  Scuba Steve is encouraging and positive - that's all he needs!

Evan, my little bug, has been keeping us on our toes.  This kid has quite the personality.  Stubborn as all get-out, but he can turn the charm on when he needs to.  And I soak in those charming moments when they come around.  I will absolutely miss when he grows out of some of his current phrases.  Like calling McDonalds, "Old McDonalds" or when he asks me to sing "A rock-a-my baby" to him.

I swear he can survive off of milk, fruit, and breakfast foods.

He's doing well in preschool, going to Spanish one day a week and music one day a week.  While I'd love to say that he's coming home trying out some Spanish, I'm lucky if he tells me "Hola" or talks to me about "chocolate".  I guess my $9 a week towards Spanish has taught him two very important words.  But, I can't complain, he's my musical guy...always singing, always wanting to play instruments like the piano, the drums, or a guitar.  I can't wait to get him in some music lessons.

He, too, is rocking swimming in level 4.  He's got quite a ways to go in level 4, but he can swim about 15 feet on his own with help.  His kicks are amazing, but trying to coordinate arms and legs is quite the task at 3.5 years old!  He cracks his teacher up and I love watching him smile as he jumps in.

The boys have had some fun events on the weekends over the past month.  Between celebrating Scott's birthday with the extended family and cousins to their annual "guys' night out" at Monster Trucks, I know they've been having a blast with family!

And as the weather has been warming up, we've really enjoyed being able to go outside and get some fresh air!  Bike rides, trips to the park in the neighborhood, playing on the play structure in the backyard, cleaning out the garage, and going to the Nature Center to learn about maple syrup, we're ready and willing to welcome in Spring!

Even spring cleaning...

We are ready for St. Patrick's Day this week!  Sean and Scott worked on a leprechaun trap.  I'm not really sure what is supposed to "happen" with this trap, but we're ready...

Spring break is only a week and a half away with Easter right around the corner.  I feel totally unprepared for Easter since it's so early this year.  Their baskets are about done, but that's all I've thought about.  I don't know if they'll see the Easter bunny this year or if we'll do a marshmallow drop or the Bunnyville at the zoo, but we'll definitely enjoy Easter together with our families and a week and a half off of school together.

And I'm okay with that.  The Easter bunnies at the mall kind of creep me out...