It's Been a While

Sorry it has been a little while since I have updated anything on the house or the family. First off, I want to tell the whole world how proud I am of Colton. We had our second parent teacher conference last night and I quote the first words out of his teacher's mouth, "I just love having your son in my class. He is such a wonderful boy, and he is always happy and nice and kind." As I said on our other blog, nothing makes me more happy and more proud than to hear how happy our boy and how kind our boy is. That is one the greatest things a parent could ever hear. For the garbage Colton has had to go through and hear, I am so glad and thank God for such a wonderful and smart boy. They told us that he is making really goo strides and learning well. Of course he has his 6 year old moments when he can't focus, but he is getting better. I am so proud of him. He is also doing well in karate and hopefully soon, we can get him into some piano lessons. I also registered him for baseball (machine pitch) the other day. I am again going to coach his team and plan on having another undefeated season!

The house is "almost" done. We finally have CARPET!!!! I grew up on carpet and have missed it since we moved into our house, but it is back and it is Awesome. It has really made our basement. We don't have worry anymore about what that old carpet had in it. It also creates more space for Colton and I to wrestle. We love it. There is a lot of clean up still to be done but here is what part of looks like:

I should be receiving the door knobs today! We are really down to the finishing touches. It feels good to almost be done with our major projects. Maybe next week we will sell it start over? Ha - don't count on it. I am working on putting up a lot more pictures in an online gallery, so once I do, I will let you all know. Pictures of Abigail's room are posted on forourlittleone.blogspot.com.

I've Created a Disaster

So, at least I can say I have tried. I still haven't quit, but the bar top is not going very smoothly. I tried putting a top coat of concrete to make it look nice and it ended up cracking all over the place. I have since removed it and put it on hold until after the carpet is installed. I figured I will wait until the base layer has fully cured, then I will try again. I have a couple more ideas and if all else fails, I will tile it. We get our carpet this Friday (Feb 29th). I can't wait to have something down there that I actually feel comfortable laying on. It will be nice. I will then just have to cover the carpet with a good layer of plastic when I try to re-coat the concrete. I have a good feeling that it will work this time. We will see.

Concrete...

So, it has been a lot harder than I thought. Of course in Peter's world, everything is easy and everything fits together perfectly. Well, the concrete didn't turn out bad, but at the same time I can't say it was what I imagined. The top came out good; it was the sides that did not turn out. You can see in the pictures below that it turned out "honeycombed." I then went back to Lowe's and got a "top finishing" concrete to fill in all the gaps. I think it will be nice in the end. In true Peter fashion I just jump in head first and hope there is water in the pool. If there isn't then I will just repair the damages later (I married a nurse on purpose, a beautiful nurse at that). I had some good help for the initial laying of the crete, although he sat around most of the time complaining about an ingrown hair on his arm, WIMP! The pictures below so the progress of our work.

Click on the Photos to make them bigger

Paint Done. Concrete Form Done.

So all the carpet is out of the basement and the walls are painted. If you have never used a airless paint sprayer, really ask people how to do it before you do. First off, the first one I rented broke down. I had to take it back and get their other one. Then as I was painting, all I could see was white. I had no idea how thick the paint was going on so I just continued to spray. Well most of the paint was alright, but some of the paint ran because I was spraying it so thick. It really turned out nice and since it is only the basement, I wasn't so picky. What I am more excited about is the concrete bar top that I am doing. I have it all framed out and this next weekend I will be pouring the concrete. Below is a picture of me after I was done painting and a picture of my concrete forms. The family is doing really good. Colton is doing well in school. He told us the other day that he got to put his name on the board because he was reading so well! Heather and I are so proud of him. He loves taking pictures so below is some of his photography. Spiderman is blurry because he is "so fast." Colton is also in Karate. He has been enjoying it, but right now we are trying to get over that hump of "it's getting hard so I want to quit." I think it will be so good for him in the long run. We are also trying to get him into some piano lessons, but so far I have been unsuccessful to find the right teacher for him. Emotions and craziness is high around the house right now, so once things calm down a little bit, he will begin piano lessons.

(You can Click on the Photos to make them bigger)

(Trust me I am not that dumb. This is a Joke)

DEMO is Back!!!

Since there is another precious one on the way, "she" needs a place to rest "her" sweet little head (we still don't know what the sex of the baby is, but it will be a girl so...) This means the computer moves out and the baby furniture will be moving in. The computer is so precious but it still needs a place, which is the basement. We have not done anything with our basement since we moved in...until now! The demolition of basement has begun. All we are doing with the basement is painting, redoing the bar top, and carpeting. The previous people had carpeted down there, but they had also left it up to their dogs to destroy it. You can see below what I am talking about:

The first two photo's are "before pictures. All of the stuff will be removed. The last picture is of the pee stained carpet that I have removed.

Meanwhile the family is doing great. We had a big cold spell here for a while, but it is warming up. The boy had a great time with the huge icecles that formed:

Back into It!

So the holidays are finally over. We had an absolutely awesome Holiday season. There is no doubt that Colton was a good boy this year because he got just about everything he wanted. I say just about because he was still able to think of some toys that he wanted. It was also good to hear him say things like, "Happy Birthday Jesus," and be able to have conversations about why we really celebrate Christmas. I think Colton plans on being a good boy this year because he has already started making his list. Heather and I also had a great season as we got to spend a lot of time with each other. The getting bigger prego Heather (that is the baby is getting bigger, not Heather) is doing well the pregnancy other than the general aches and pains here and there. For those of you that don't know, I have started a blog for our little:
forourlittleone.blogspot.com
You can visit this site to get any updates as to how our baby is doing.

CHRISTmas

I can't believe how it came and went. Colton, of course, had "the best Christmas Ever." While we were opening presents on Christmas morning there was a time where he was litterally shaking. His eyes were going a million miles a second. He could hardly talk because he could focus on just one thing. Here are some Pictures Recapping our blessed Holiday:

This last photo was taken at Zoo lights. The girls, Colton and JJ got ride while I stood around to take this picture. JJ is hard to see but he is in the back of the train on the right hand side. You can click on the photos to see it bigger.

As I Promised

For those of you that are the unprivileged and don't get to see Heather on a day-to-day basis, here is a glimpse of our little joy in the making.

On Friday the 21st we will be going to see our baby through ultrasound. We are so excited. The suspense continues to build as we are not going to find out what the sex of our baby is. We were talking tonight about a game plan revolving around decorating our babies room. Since we are not going to find out and Heather is sees all these cute decorations for only boys and only girls, I think we are going to do a hurry up and decorate when the baby comes, or maybe we can decorate while we are up at 2:30 in the morning. However, the pregnancy is going really well and we are enjoying it greatly. Colton loves talking to the baby and saying hi to her/him daily. Heather is the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen. Isn't she just the cutes thing ever?!?!

Older but Good

So still trying to catch everyone up since I have not been good with blogging so here is what we did around hollowing. I don't have any pictures of Colton in his Spiderman costume, but he did love it, and again we had a blast running around trick or treating. Here is the pumpkin we carved:

One huge accomplishment that we have overcome in the last month is Colton has learned how to tie his own shoes.

Other than that nothing really big has been going on. Of course we are all Really excited for Christmas to come. The most beautiful wife in the entire world is doing great with her newly formed baby bump. I will do my best to get a picture of that next on here. To end enjoy these pictures of Colton and I "raking" our leaves (oh yeah, Ace helped too!)!

Do we have the record yet?

So I know we have not posted is ALMOST a year, but what can say, it has been a busy year. Just to be captain obvious, I don't think it is going to slow down any time soon. Baby Jenson is on the way (Due May7th) and once again the house needs an overhaul. I shouldn't the house, but just a couple of the rooms. Baby Jenson needs her/his room, so I am in the process of refinishing the basement. The computers will move out of the baby's room and into the basement. Since Heather did such a good job picking out the paint in that room, it will remain the same. I will do my best to start blogging again so all you Colorado Aliens will be kept up to date as to what is going on. Stay tuned!

The Date is Set!!!

August 12, 2007, I will be uniting with the most wonderful, beautiful, caring, loving, smart creation that God has ever made. We will be doing this at the Boettcher Mansion, which is located in Golden, CO on top of Lookout Mountain. Here is the link to their home page:
http://jeffco.us/boettcher/index.htm

Of course there will be more updates to come, but I think the biggest decision is out of the way. I will also be doing some research on some hotels and am going to see if I can get some deals, so I will try and keep all you out of towners updated.

Christmas Break

Since the house is finally in working order and does not need our immediate attention, over the holidays there was minimal work on the house, but we did fill our time with lots of playing. Super heroes was the game of choice, which consists of Colton telling us what super hero we are and where we need to go to save the city. There was also a lot of play where I was the bad guy, which consisted of Colton beating me up, tying my up, and in the end Colton saving the world. Colton now has just about every Superman toy ever made. You would think that having so many Supermans that he would not be able to play with them all, but Colton is very talented and manages to make sure that no Superman is left out. Over this winter break Colton and I had the privileged to experience skiing. Colton made me so proud. The first part of the day, was a little slow going, but once he figured out the basics, the only frustrating part to Colton was when I touched him. He picked up skiing better than anyone else that was trying that day. The were two older people that by the end of the day had taken off their skis and were walking down the mountain. Colton, on the other hand, was skiing all the way to the bottom without falling. Some quotes from Colton, "This is the best day ever," "This is so much fun," "Quit touching me," "I can't wait to go skiing again," and the quote that I will cherish forever, "You are such a great Dad." If you have ever spent more than 10 seconds with Colton, you will truly know who Superman really is. Colton is still asking to go skiing again, so shortly we will be venturing out again to experience it some more. Here are some pictures from our trip:

Christmas is coming

This past weekend I spent finishing up some loose ends on the house. I finished painting all of the base boards in the kitchen, which allows me to say that the kitchen is finished. Everything we had planned on doing to the kitchen is done. Also this weekend, we bought a Christmas tree, put it up, and decorated it. Our house is finally feeling like a house. Here are some pictures of our living room:















As always there is a little touch to do here and there around the house, but we extremely close to being finished. I am loving it, because now with not having to work on the house all of time, Colton and I get to play all night.
I have been getting a lot of request lately for just a family picture, so for all of you that don't get to see us a lot:

I am so eager to have a house warming party, but Heather keeps setting me straight with everything else that is going on right now, so we will be putting the party off until the new year comes around. This will give us time to actually decorate, hang up some window coverings, and any other odds and ends that need to be done. So I will try and keep you updated with what is going on.

Bigger than the House

So, most of you know the news already, but in case you have not, maybe the following picture can explain it:

If you need an explaination, that is Heather left hand.

I asked Heather to marry me on Saturday night and she said "Of Course!"

We are all very excited (including Colton, who did give me the OK). We will keep you all informed on the necessary information as we plan the big day.

In order to butter her up and make sure this weekend was going to go as well as I had planned I did manage to finish off the kitchen (minus some trim painting). Here is a picture of our kitchen:

We are getting close to being done with our house. With the kitchen being done, the light at the end of the tunnel is really getting bright. Hopefully we can plan an open house in the next few weeks so all of you can see our work. We will let you know.

House at a stand still

There hasn't really been very much work done on the house lately. I have been pretty tired from working on it for the past month and a half, but I am getting my energy back up and this weekend will be a busy and good one. I have plans to finish the kitchen and help Gregg remodel the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom needs to be done so Lauren and Travis can then move in. All that needs to be done in the kitchen is some texturing of the new walls and painting. Here is a picture of the kitchen at night with recessed lights I put in dimmed:

I believe soon I will have to go to blogging about what sort of mischievous activities Colton and I get into because I won't have the house to work on. I have to give a lot of credit to SuperColt for being so good during all of this remodel. Being so young he probably doesn't fully understand what we are doing, but he has been so good through out this process. I can only imagine what goes through a 5 year olds head when he sees an open can of paint.

Kitchen is Close

The kitchen is close to being done. We have selected a paint, which was actually a long process of buying one painting a wall, not liking it, and repeating these steps 4 times. Finally my office mate gave me the idea to go onto Behr's website and look at some complimentary colors of our living room. I did this and that is the color we selected. Now this weekend I will be able to install our countertops and then actually have a kitchen sink. I am also working on puttin in some recessed lighting above our breakfast bar. It is really coming together. I will be sure to post some more pictures of our finished kitchen after this weekend.

The Cabinets Are In

So I have been getting hounded to post some pictures of how the tile turned out. Well to say the least it turned out really good. Not that I am ever looking to do that large of a job again, I had fun learning how to do it, and now I really have a sense of accomplishment.

Another sense of accomplishment came with hanging the cabinets. Mike and Anne came to help for a Saturday and were able to hang all of the cabinets and our microwave. Here is a couple of the final pictures we took:











I have since been ablet to put in our bottom wall, hook up our oven, and get our countertops ordered. We will be picking out our paint really soon and painting our kitchen. The kitchen is getting close to being done. Our next projects is painting the kitchen, finishing the walls, and working on the office. I will try and keep you posted.

Tiling is Complete, A's finally Sweep

This weekend was a very fulfilling weekend. The Oakland A's actually managed to get past the first round of the playoffs, and not only that, but they swept the Twinkies. Sorry to all of you in Minnesota, but it just wasn't your year and the A's are better. Also, I actually managed to finish the tile on our house. Now that I look back it was fun to learn how to do it, but I don't know if I ever want to do that big of a job again. The total floor space that I covered is about 300 square feet. It took me 19.6153846 boxes of tile (13, 13"X13" tiles per box) and two 25 pound bags of grout to complete the job. I thank Colton's grandparents (Kathy and Wayne) for the use of their tiling tools (mostly the wet saw). I also thank all the other people that having given me tid-bits of information or directed me towards people that could give me that information. I grouted in two chunks. One chunk I did on Friday afternoon by myself; I had to get this section done, we could hang the cabinets on Saturday. The other chunk I did Sunday afternoon with Heather. If anyone is going to lay tile, do it with two people. It went so much quicker and it was so much easier with Heather helping, besides, I got to look at something beautiful the entire time she was helping. I do still have to seal the grout, but that is not a very hard job.
Saturday was probably one of the most exciting days we have had. Mike and Anne came up to help me hang the cabinets. I can not believe the deference it made. Mike was such a good help and it seriously looks like something you see out of a kitchen magazine. The best part about the whole thing is that we no longer have to go out to the garage to get the milk; we now have kitchen appliances IN the kitchen. It is even weird to think that we can go and buy dishes, put them in our cabinets, put food on or in them that was cooked with our oven, and then clean them in our dishwasher. We should have our countertops to eat this food on in about two weeks.
My next project is to finish sealing the grout and then move my focus back up stairs to our office. Our office needs the carpet removed and the walls painted and it should be in pretty good shape. I don't know if Heather is seeing it yet, but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know many girls that could go through all of this, but Heather is one of them. She has been so patient and helpful with all of the design I can not thank her enough. She is truly wonderful.

God Testing Our Patience

If you ever want God to test your patients try ripping out your entire kitchen, laying down a tile floor, planning a 5 year olds birthday party, then throwing the party, and on top of all that, selecting and picking up your appliances. Oh, and you thought that is all it takes for God to test your patients, well then, why don't you add flooding your basement and having to take back your refrigerator because when the guys that loaded it, loaded it wrong and scrathed the face of it. That is about the gist of our weekend.
Although our weekend got a little stressful, Colton's birthday party was a blast. It turned out great, and I believe he has just about every Superman thing possible (that is until we go to Target again and find the new line of Superman toys). Colton also really enjoyed party, here are some pictures of the kids trying to knock down the penata:

Colton's party was a success and everyone had a good time. Thank you to everyone that contributed (Mom for the cakes, Sue for her house, and Heather for having the best 5 year old there is). Colton also thanks everyone for his gifts; he doesn't go to sleep until they are all in his room right next to his bed.

For the house, I did not get as far on the kitchen as I thought. There is more to think about than anyone could ever imagine (unless you have tiled before). I did not know there was so much planning envolved, but I am glad I took my time because when it is done, it will be awesome. I do have a deadline of this coming weekend (October 7th) to finish the tile because I have Mike coming over to help with hanging the cabinets.