Thankful Thursday because I seriously owe you....

I'm thankful for you sticking with me! And very thankful to God for working everything out!

So my week went by quickly. I've been trying to at least post once a week so to not leave you completely hanging (although I've successfully left you hanging...a ton) and then I realize it's been a week AND a day. Man! Just when I thought I was able to start catching up. And just so you know, there are dirty dishes filling up my sink, 4 loads of laundry to fold, toys to be picked up, a floor to be swept and a dresser to move before my parents and sister, Meghan, arrive but because I love you all so much I'm not doing any of that (for the moment) so I can post pictures. Frankly so I can post ANYTHING! You can thank me later....

So here's what I'm doing. You are going to get the full before and after effect of the bathroom as well as a few bonus pictures. As well as an update on our engineer/refinance/stupid-trench process. It's amazing news. Really an only my God kind of story.

I'll start there. After last week's frustrating news about having to dig a trench around our house as well as building a wall I was done. I wish I could say I was super strong and never wavering in my trust in God but that would be lying and I hate lying. The truth is I was mad, then sad, then confused, then questioning the whole situation, then praying, then realizing that God is in control, always has been, and He knew this would happen. Just cause I didn't know doesn't make it unfix-able. Make sense? So then I had peace. God was going to make all things work together for my good (no matter the outcome!). And He did.

Through a friend we met another engineer and on Monday he came out to our little abode to do his inspection. In the end he told us that we need to build 6 or 8 supports in key areas under the house out of concrete blocks (no cement necessary) and take pictures. That's it. Seriously. That's it. I asked him why his requirements were so different. He basically said he didn't think it was necessary. Hallelujah!

So hopefully sometime this weekend Mark and I will be under the house stacking cinder blocks and taking pictures. And hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks we will be done with refinancing!!! After 4 long months....Can I get an amen? Amen!

And here's the pictures of the newly finished bathroom (like we just finished last night kind of newly finished...) I won't waste your time, or mine, labeling the before and after. It's quite! obvious. And yes we did live in that bathroom for 9 years. Please don't ask me how. You do what you have to do ya know?








We went down to one sink (and couldn't care less -- I love the drawer space!) and removed the tub so we have just a walk-in shower. Love it! Feels like a grown up shower now!

Here's a picture out our back sliding glass door. I wanted to show you what the back railing looks like. Pete made it out of wire cables so we could keep the view. Love it!
Also here's a bit of what Kale has been up to (totally not school related - this is pure hobby). My brother and sis-in-law are divers and they have tons of diving magazines. I asked them if we could have their old ones and they happily gave us a ton! So Kale spent a couple days thumbing through them and cutting out shark pictures. Then he carefully glued them to blue and green paper (ya know the color of water) and then, with my help, we stuck them on his wall over his bed. He's in shark heaven! I know they're hard to see but you can at least see the great white's huge mouth on the top right. How he doesn't have nightmares I don't know but Jack does look at the wall and say "scary!"
And finally - for now - we went to a friend's house for lunch yesterday and when we got home we found this ton of fun set up in our front yard! Mark about peed his pants. Not even kidding. You think I just made a typo but I didn't. The kids were excited yes, but Mark....well he's wanted a trampoline since he was little. He was actually bummed that it was dark when he got home from work. But never fear. That's what headlamps and coats are for. Jumping on the tramp at night! Brrrr!
A super sweet family, whose kids are grown, blessed us with this wonderful treasure. How amazing is that?! Another reason to be thankful. Thankful for friends and their generosity. My kids have never had so much fun outside and for that I am beyond thankful. Now they have a place to jump off some energy!

Ok the laundry is calling - loudly - and I think I am close to overloading you. I mean a week with nothing to a super long post just won't do! So how about a kinda long post?

more catching up

It's been a long and, at times, emotional week.

To bring you up to speed, our remodel was completed (meaning the awesome worker men were done) on Friday. They finished up our back door and the trim and really did an amazing job on everything. We were very pleased with their work.

We had an engineer visit us on Friday morning to inspect our foundation for the loan. His news wasn't so thrilling. He told us that in order for us to get the loan we need to dig a 18inch deep by 6inch wide trench around the perimeter of our house, fill it in with cinder blocks and concrete, build a pony wall and add insulated foam. Seriously? It has nothing to do with the structure of our house. Our house has a permanent foundation and everything there is fine. The "wall" they are requiring is a frost wall. Something we were planning to do - although on a much easier scale - next summer. We're not sure why all the extra hoops to jump through. The lady we've been dealing with at the bank said we are "this close" to finishing this process. We just have to finish this and the money is ours.

Another reason it is frustrating is because apparently these rules were put in place back in 1995 - long before we bought this place. Unfortunately for us, both our mortgage company and our insurance company, did not understand what they were loaning us money for or insuring so they both did it incorrectly. They probably took each others words for it and both were wrong. We did nothing to deceive anyone and didn't even know it wasn't right. But here we are now, having to do things that should've been done before we ever would've gotten a loan 9 years ago. *sigh* And we are quickly running out of money and time.

Pete is heading back to CA to be with his family (understandably) so we are without our awesome worker man. And trying to find someone who can do this for the price we can afford before the ground freezes is a bit stressful. We might have another week or so at most. Snow is in the forecast this week. The urgency is that our appraisal (that we've already paid for) will not be good after 90 days so the whole process will have to be started over if the appraisal runs out. Grr! All the time, money, work and hoop jumping will have to be done all over again. Reeeealy don't want to go there. At. All.

So we are praying for favor with the engineer, the mortgage company and the contractor who will eventually do the work (although we don't know who that is yet - we are still on the hunt). If you think of it will you pray with us? I'd really like this all to be done. Like yesterday....

Saturday I went to a beautiful baby shower and Mark hung out with our good friend, Seth, who was in town. That night Mark and I had an intense prayer time. God had brought stuff out that we needed to deal with. It was really wonderful but emotionally exhausting.

Sunday was busy...and sad. I woke up to the news that our dear family friend - who has been battling stage 4 brain cancer for the last 5 months - had passed away. Not the news, at all, that we had been praying for.

Sunday was also my due date. I thought it would be just another day - and for the most part it was - but I could tell that I was a bit more emotional as I thought about the fact that had I not lost number 4 I would have had a brand new baby in my arms. Sad yes. But I knew without a doubt that God was comforting me that whole day. While there were tears there was still peace. In the midst of the stress and the emotion of the weekend I still felt His love for me and His grace poured over me. I was so thankful for that.

We had 2 more meetings at church that day. It's not the usual Sunday but everything happened at the same time. That's how it tends to be. Feast or famine.

This weekend brings more little projects in hopes of finishing up the work that Mark and I need to do and then I will post pictures. I can't wait to show you how the bathroom started out and ended up. It's amazing!

I know I still have much more to update but at this season in my life I can barely keep up with my day to day life :) It will happen though. I promise.

Alrighty then!

I have a couple minutes to sit down and breathe now that my house is picked up. The appraiser guy is supposed to be here any minute (or hour I suppose) to recheck our house. The last time he was here the windows were not finished so the mortgage company wanted him to come recheck and make sure the windows and trim and dining room floor were completed. OK? Well they are but the now the master bathroom is under construction and the new back door is sitting right next to the old one but it's not installed yet...Wonder if that will matter?

Speaking of the remodel (as you will usually find me doing these days since it somewhat consumes me at this time), we are done with the shower and they are installing the vanity as I speak - I mean type. Windows are almost completed (on the inside). There's a little drywall and painting to do but overall the windows are doing what they were meant to do. They are also working on our cable railing on our back deck. I prayed a couple weeks ago for nice weather so Pete could work and not have to be gone from his family any longer than necessary and I believe God has answered my prayer. It's like 62 degrees today! Very nice! I remember it snowing on Halloween before. Not this year thankyouverymuch. Woohoo!

So the awesome construction guys are busy beavers and very creative too I might add. Ya see when you update a modular home it isn't just take something out and install something else. Oh no. If only it was that simple. Nothing is made standard size in here. So plumbing, electricity and other things have to be custom worked. The vanity took an extra couple days because they had to rearrange the plumbing. Nothing short of frustrating for our very patient Pete I'm sure (although he hasn't complained one stinkin bit). Which is amazing since my children have walked away with no less than 2 plastic thingys that he's needed and they thought were either trash or new toys....*sigh* which meant another couple trips to Home Depot (our 2nd home for the last few weeks...I think they're starting to know us now....).

Anywho, I have realized that since the remodel I've neglected updating you on many other important happenings in our family. I am very sorry about that. I will get on that asap I promise.

Like the fact that we went to our awesome dentist's office to get cleanings and Kale is having his first 2 cavities/deep grooves filled on Thursday. And at this moment he's still counting down the days till he gets to go back to the dentist (not kidding he loves the dentist!). Hopefully he'll love the NO2 enough to still love the dentist after Thursday.

Also it's election day and by golly you can bet that I voted. I love the mail-in ballots! So much easier then dragging my children to any polling place, standing in line, then voting. Amen to whoever made that part of my life easier. So thankful that I have the right and privilege to vote. It also gives me the right to disagree with the way things are going and work to make a change. Love that (sorry if you disagree with my politics but I promise I won't go overboard - this time - in sharing my view with you)!

That's about all I have time for at this moment. My moment is up. Thank you for waiting (patiently?) for over a week for the latest Palmer news :)

Is it Monday yet? Oh yeah...it is.

What in the world happened to the weekend?!

We spent Friday morning running errands which included a mini-shopping spree of sorts (with our own money of course...which makes it a bit more painful...) to buy what we needed for our bathroom remodel. A vanity, a counter top, a mirror, tile for the shower, light fixtures, faucets, shower heads....Big stinkin' heavy cart to lug around, not to mention the 3 littles making lots of noise. So thankful that Home Depot isn't a quiet store. This was after we'd already drug them around Walmart. I know, we're a bit insane.

Friday night we had our small group over which is always fun. We talked, laughed, ate too many sweets and wondered why men who can't find mayo in the fridge and won't spend 10 seconds looking for it will wander for weeks in the wilderness to find an elk or a deer...(yes I put that on facebook so it will sound familiar to some of you).

Saturday we got up, ate breakfast and put on one of the best babysitters we have (totally confessing parenting sins right now) Diego. Yes, my children watched a few (okay a lot) of episodes of Diego while Mark and I tore up our bathroom. We pulled out the shower and tub, the vanity and the mirror. It was exhilarating! Getting rid of the old nasty in preparation for the new fabulousness was so therapeutic (and blogger does not recognize fabulousness - seriously? how can that not be a real word? Obviously they haven't envisioned my new bathroom!) I will post before and after pictures when I have the after ones to show but for now I will share with you what we found behind our bathroom mirror.It says Bill Hey macho man you dirty white boy. Nice huh? Ick Ick Ick! Glad to be fixing that!

Oh and then Kale, during his quiet time on Sunday I think, added his art...I think there's a dragon, 2 knights and a damsel in distress. I give him points for creativity but I said I hoped he got out all his desires to draw on walls cause if he ever did that to a painted wall?! Boy will he find some trouble. But for now it's comical.

After our day of work my sweet friend Kim invited us to their house for dinner. So nice to hang out with friends!

Sunday was church and mama's naptime! And then all of a sudden it's Monday. Wow....

Here are a few shots of our dining room/kitchen floor project we finished last weekend.

Here's one of the nasty subfloor - which was sadly better than the old carpet.The nasty kitchen floor.

The laminate wood floor going in. Seriously easy which is wonderful for folks like Mark and I. Ya know, people who don't really know how to remodel a house?

And here's a pic of our finished floor. Looks like wood floors doesn't it? Now I may have to paint my cupboards so they look more different than the floor...or not for a while since I love Mark too much to add one more fing.

Oh that's also our new dining room table. It pulls out to be an 8 person square table. Very cool! We got it from a family at church. They were going to take it to a consignment store and Mark saw it. The guy said make an offer. We did, then he changed his mind and said he wanted us to just have it! How fun is that? I'd been wanting a way to seat more people at the table but our old one only sat 6 with the leaf in. This is perfect! Yeah God!

I had a rough time getting motivated today because of the cloudy, rainy day we're having and then I was hit by the desire to make a quick trip (that's laughable in and of itself) to Bed Bath and Beyond for some window shades that were on sale - 50% off! Can't beat that! Of course we got caught in major rain and wind and I ran (sort of) to the car with a heavy bag of window shades dragging crying children with me who were mad at the weather and me for dragging them out in it. Lovely. Sorry no pictures of that to amuse you :)

I'll finish up this long post with a quick funny (at least funny-to-me-now) story.

Thursday evening Mark was at worship practice so it was me. Alone. With the 3 kids. I know I do it all the time but there are nights when it's super frightening. Anyway, we were eating dinner and talking and I had to correct one of them - honestly I can't remember the whole circumstance even if it was just the other night - I just remember what one of them said. Kale I think. He says "I forgive you mama".

What? What do I need forgiveness for? I had to discipline one of them and they feel the need to forgive me for it? Seriously? I would've laughed if it wasn't slightly irritating at the moment.

So that's all for now. Happy rainy, dreary-but-with-a-hint-of-sunshine (it is Colorado after all) Monday to ya'll!

Quick update with no pictures...yet

Wanted to let you know we're still here.

In the last week we....

*stained our new deck and railings
*winterized our garden
*cleaned up our yard
*went on a much needed date (although we both were ready to fall asleep during dinner)
*worked for 8 hours (or more) to lay our kitchen/dining room laminate wood floor (and came up just 4 planks short - pooo!)
*celebrated by taking the kids to Denny's (yes that's where we celebrated)
*went to church
*took staff pictures at the train
*watched the documentary Babies (adorable!)
*cleaned house
*went to book club and discussed insecurity
*bought new outside lights (awesome worker man Pete is making 2 light switches in the dining room to work outside for new lights in the backyard - woohoo!)
*had a meeting with our pastor (well I did...Mark was parenting)
*had lunch with friends
*went to a surprise birthday dinner
*homeschooled Kale
*met Kate's occupational therapist at the train to give her the cookies we made since Kate is now done with therapy....for now....

And right now awesome worker man Pete and he friend Rich are installing my brand new, able to open with one hand, beautiful white vinyl, clean windows and I couldn't be more thrilled! We also decided to redo our master bathroom since it's in desperate need, we have access to funds, and since we have awesome worker man Pete here. Yes one more fing.

Also, we got an email from the bank. The appraisal - remember that story? - went well. He did give us good numbers but the FHA people will not approve our refinance until our windows are completed and the appraiser comes back to check that they're done. Of course it's one more fing with them too....

So that's what we've been up to and why I really can't blog much at this time. I'm already delaying school with Kale this morning so I can at least type this up (I'm really getting much faster at typing....kids are a motivator to get it done quick!). Hopefully I can upload pictures in the next day or two of the new windows and lights and the dining room floor (although Mark posted a pic of the floor on facebook if we're friends there and you're interested - otherwise it'll be a bit).

Thanks for hanging in there with me guys!

The appraisal

Ok quick funny story here.

Monday - my total day of chaosness (yes that's a word, just try and tell me it isn't!). Our hardworking carpenter was putting in our sliding glass door, my dad came by for a quick, unexpected visit and the appraiser called and said he'd be by between 1 and 3 (and he was going to take pictures of the inside of my house!!!!). Whew.

Mark and I have been in the process of refinancing for 2 1/2 months now. Apparently everyone and their brother, sister, cousin and neighbor is refinancing right now due to the incredible low interest rate. Yea for them but super slow for us. It's been like trudging through 6 feet of snow with no shovel. For-EV-er! So when the appraisal guy called I had no choice but to say yes. I couldn't do anything to delay this more!

Long story short[ish] the guy comes at 3:01. Not quite between 1 and 3 but we could make this work. He introduces himself as Pete from the appraisal company (yes I'm aware that there are now 2 Petes in my house). I told him I was Jill from the Palmer house. I was definitely in an ornery mood.

I stopped him on my front step and said," I probably should've told you this on the phone but our house is undergoing major improvements. I know you have to appraise our house on how it is right now but really that's not fair. So do you need to come back in order for us to get a good appraisal?" I was seriously that upfront with him. I told him I wasn't bribing him but what can we do to make sure we get a good appraisal.

He laughed {I was laughing too just so you know}. He said he'd do the appraisal and then come back. Best he could do was submit it to the bank and it was their decision. I told him I had expected him to come 2 months ago when we started this process but couldn't wait any longer since winter was coming. He understood. So we went inside.

First room was our bedroom where Kale was taking his quiet time. I went in and couldn't find Kale. I yelled his name and he yells back from the bathroom. Once the guy realized Kale was in the john he turned around and went back out. Good thing cause Kale opened the door with no clothes on from the waist down. Apparently he forgot to aim right and got pee all over his pants. On top of that he had a man-poop (sorry if you don't like the visual but you have to know that the whole back of my house smelled HORRIBLE! )

I told Kale to get clothes on and went back out to talk to Pete - the appraisal Pete. Told him that we'd have to do the other part of the house first and let the back half air out. He laughed and told me he had a 5 year old and was always impressed with what came out of him. Whew! Thankful for sympathetic parents during embarrassing situations. (by the way, carpenter Pete was chuckling too as he heard this all going on while he was installing our door)

So we went through the rest of the house skipping Jack's room - cause he was asleep! Finally went back to my room and when I open the door I found Kale dancing in front of the mirror in his underwear. I told him to hurry up and put pants on and waiting - somewhat patiently - with the guy right outside the closed door.

After we gained access to the bedroom I realized the smell was not gone. So Pete plugged his nose and took a picture of our stinky bathroom. Nice. Good thing smell doesn't translate well on pictures!

I took him outside and he was so impressed with our playhouse that he took a picture of it for his son. I told him the blog where we found it :)

He finished up his tour and took a few more pictures and left. Overall he was a nice man. And understanding to say the least.

One More Fing!

Our kids and Mark have this thing they do each day as Mark leaves for work. I believe it started with Kate. Mark will walk around the table and kiss each of them goodbye while they're eating breakfast then head out the door. The kids will yell "one more fing!" (one more thing), run after him and kiss him one more time (or 2 or 3 or 4). Sometimes I'll have to break it up and let daddy go to work :) But it's stinkin' cute and I know that both Mark and the kids love it.

I say all that to say that our life in the past month or 2 has been one more fing after one more fing after one more fing. And it isn't bad, it's just one more fing. We are updating a ton of things in our house. Trying to use some of the equity we've acquired over the last 9 years to update and eventual enjoy, even more, our little house. New windows, new doors and new carpet were the initial projects. Big, in and of themselves. But like most projects they inevitably lead to one more fing.

For example. Getting new carpet meant tearing out the nasty carpet in the dining room and me not ever, ever wanting carpet in there again which means putting new floor in the dining room and kitchen. Happy day! We haven't done the new floor yet but here's a phone picture of the new carpet and how the dining room is now bare. Seriously I'm loving the subfloor infinitely better than the carpet. How sad is that?Carpet also lead to painting our bedroom. I realized it was the only room we hadn't painted yet and I was not going to paint with brand new carpet so my friend Jo and I cranked it out in a day. One more fing.....It's a crummy picture but we wanted fall colors. The wall there is a sweet potato color. The other 3 walls are an earthy green. I love it. Very warm and comfortable. The orange/yellow scared me at first but now I'm in love....

New windows and doors seemed simple enough but they, too, led to one more fing. Here's a photo of our unfinished window. The new ones came in this week but they haven't been installed yet. But our fabulous carpenter man, Pete, is preparing the windows. And while he was taking off the trim outside to prep the windows we realized just how bad the wood was so now Pete is putting new trim up outside as well...one more fing....Drywalling the window sills is leading to painting our bathroom and may still lead to one more fing although we're still discussing that one....

The windows also lead to wanting to put in a sliding glass door in the dining room. I didn't want to put brand new windows where I didn't want them right? So that led to this....one more fing...still not done and painted but it's in and it's amazing!

view during the day so you can see outside a bit

As you can see in that last photo, putting a door there led to one more fing....a deck. We had to extend our deck to the door so we didn't fall 3 feet when walking out our new door.You can see where the old deck ends and the new deck begins :) Pete is also having to put up railings on our deck - and in the front as well. We are going to have cables running underneath the rails so our view isn't destroyed. Those are coming in a week or so. Here's our front deck with the new rails.I think it makes it look so much more finished. I love it.

Here's our new front door. Thankfully that hasn't led to one more fing....yet....we got a window in the door to add a bit more light in that corner and I'm thrilled we did it. I love it. Super blurry picture but you get the idea.And THEN, since Pete is amazing, we asked him if he could install our microwave that we've had for a year and a half (I know I probably shouldn't admit that but really that's how long Mark and I have been trying to figure out how to install it ourselves which is obviously why we have Pete....our worker bee blessing!)He made it look like it's always been there. I'm in heaven. I now have a light over my stove. Who knew such little things could thrill a girl this much!?

Putting the new microwave in opened up a ton more counter space so I got ambitious and went to Home Depot and bought me some wood to build me a shelf. I was inspired, of course, but one of my favorite websites and this picture. Here's what I came up with.
Right now it's holding a ton of random things. Over time I will hopefully whittle it down but I'm still loving the fact that the vitamins and sugar bowl and hand sanitizer aren't cluttering my counter top. Just my new shelf :)

So there's the half million one more fings we've been doing lately which is why my posts are few and far between. Really when I started this blog almost 3 years ago I didn't see me going through such a slow season of blogging. I'm hoping to pick it up here when this gets completed by the end of the month or so.

Thanks for sticking with me. The kids are now hanging on my arms and making it difficult to type. I guess that's my clue that my time is done..

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Bathroom Color Reveal

Alright. To be honest it's a little tough to reveal the paint color. Everything else is so generic but paint color is personal. So here we go :)

We chose green. Specifically Happy Camper green. It's dark but cheerful. Bold but not over the top. I know that it will come together even more once we get in the floor and trim and vanity and toilet and tub surround....We're coming along but there's more to accomplish!

Mark put in new lighting. This is a view of where the vanity/sink will be. Note the awesome texture thanks to the Randols.

The tub. The sun was shining really bright in there while I was taking pics so I tried to avoid getting direct sunlight into the camera.

View of the bathroom door.

Again the vanity/sink area.

The toilet spot is missing since taking a picture of that area would have resulted in blinding sunlight. But when we get the flooring in I'll take more.

We are hoping to do the floor this weekend and once that's done we can crank a lot of stuff out. We can put in the toilet and the vanity and finish the trim. It will be a usable bathroom, hopefully, by next weekend. Whoohoo! We'll have to get the tub surround in as well but I can live without that for a bit if we can use the toilet and sink.

It's coming along and I can see the finish line. Which is probably why I wish I could put the floor in today....we will wait. But the end is in sight!

Silly Saturday

I have to start off by saying that Mark is fine. I thought his back was tweaked, and it may have been, but I think it was more of a muscle spasm. He took some Tylenol, rested and felt much better. He shoveled a bit last night even. So we are all good here at the Palmer house.

Yesterday our good friends, the Randols, braved the weather and the roads in their mammoth Suburban and came and helped us shovel our monster driveway and texture our bathroom walls. It was so awesome seeing other humans and having a blast with friends.

Ryan, Sommer and I shoveled while Mark watched kids - and rested his back. We were robots!

After lunch we started on the bathroom while the big kids played and played in the snow. They built forts for 3 hours! It was so great to have other kids to play with. And it was so great to have people help us texture the bathroom. We cranked it out pretty quick. Now we're able to paint, put up the trim, switch out the lights and get the floor going. We are well on our way to completion! Whoohoo!

Here are some updated bathroom pictures.

Our drywall project.

This is where the sink and vanity will go.

Sommer and I texturing the walls.

Ryan. He likes to make messes. :)

Ryan and Sommer stayed and played a while. It was great fun to laugh and talk.

This morning we were expecting to see more snow but thankfully....it wasn't snowing!! So instead we took pictures of the craziness. It looks a lot like it did a couple years ago. Tunnels of snow.

The chute that is called our road. A very narrow way with high walls of snow. It has not been plowed by a big plow in a couple days. This trail is thanks to neighbors with trucks and plows.

Our house. Buried.

These fence posts are roughly 3 feet high.

I posted a picture yesterday of this same view. This time the driveway is visible thanks to the Randols.

The narrow trail to our front door.

Then Mark and I decided to have a little fun with the snow. He climbed out in the middle to show how deep it is.

Too tempting. Must jump.

Too much fun. Must jump again.

So we're enjoying the snow now. I don't mind the snow if we can get places and if we don't have to shovel it. Today was the perfect day for that :)