Creation

Isn't spring just the perfect time to enjoy the creations?

This last week, Kannon had Tues. thru Fri. off - again. It's like little layoffs every few weeks. Kind of stressful. He's back to work this week and also started teaching another welding class, so that will help. While he was home we had some sickness in the house. Ben was first with a fever, etc. (last post). Sarah was like that on Monday and Kannon took over on Tuesday - so it's probably good he didn't have work. He slept most of the day and felt better on Weds. Well enough to spend the day welding in Reno. When he got home he said he was thinking about working on the bathroom. I said sure.

In the meantime I did the regular stuff and tried not to be too irritated that he was feeling unwell. I don't do so well when he's sick. Gratefully it's been awhile. My dad was hardly ever sick and when he was he didn't complain and usually still worked. So, I guess I feel like every male should be like that. Kannon was the oldest and was a little babied, I think, as far as illness goes. Since we've been married I've had to learn patience - lots of it!

So, I got creative, and after a trip to the dollar store I took two of these:

And created this:



And this:

They are for my pay-it-forward deal. They will contain something cool, too. So, Margaret and Angie - be on the lookout!

Like I said, Kannon got the remodel bug - or maybe we could call it the creation bug. He took our bathroom that looked like this: (the exposed wall is from 3 years ago when we walled off the door to the bedroom).

And this:

And created a mess! Not really. But, we ended up running out of time and money and haven't got it finished yet. We still need to buy the backerboard and then we can tile the bath area. I'll be really happy when it's all done, because right now we are a bath only house - no showers. Plus, in all the work, somewhere along the way we ended up with worse drainage problems than ever. We used to have issues when the water would drain from the washer. It would back up a little into the kitchen sink. Now, it backs up in both kitchen sinks, the bathroom sink and the tub! Plus, none of them are draining well. Ugh! It seems pretty ironic that my husband, the "plumber" - aka pipefitter/welder - doesn't know how to fix this problem yet. He's trying hard, though. And in his defense, he really isn't a "plumber". He does new construction mostly -pipefitting and a lot of welding.

This is the space for the new tub - which isn't really new. It came from a remodel job Kannon did a few years ago and has been sitting on our deck since then! But, at least it's not blue.

The faucet for the blue tub was on the left side against the wall. The faucet for the white tub is on the right, therefore we had to build a pony wall and move the piping for the plumbing. This is Kannon's feet as he moved into the crawl hole to get under the house. In his job, this is the one thing he hates above all others. He's never been under our house until now - 4 years. It was a tight fit. I had to boost his legs in for him. This is at my eye level from our little cellar.

And Ben and I sat on the bathroom floor handing Kannon whatever he needed to get the job underneath done. He ended up having to go in twice. Too bad that's not the end of it - still have to do something about the drainage issue.

Here's the aftermath of the first bath in the new tub. Since then we've added shower curtains to cover the green sheet rock so that it doesn't get wet. My first bath was cool. Literally. Kannon had turned the hot water heater off when he'd had to turn the water off. He forgot to turn it back on, so my bath was luke-warm. It was a fast one and last night I borrowed a shower after the kids were in bed. Thanks Julie!

General Conference weekend went pretty good. Other than me having some issues with everyone. This was the first session. Sarah must not have been feeling great, cause she was asleep by 9:30. I think Kannon enjoyed holding her. Ben kept busy marking a chart of topics he heard spoken in conference. The mess is from our 72-hour food packs. We try to rotate them every October conference but missed it last year. So, Kannon wanted to eat only our kits for the 2 days of conference. By Saturday night I wanted real food. We were quickly reminded that this is "real food" for an emergency - but not for everyday eating. If anyone is interested I can do a post of our kits. They fit into a gallon-sized bag.

Sunday afternoon - Ben and Kannon played with the

Jenga blocks. . . . .

while Sarah and I took a much-needed nap.

And now we're back to life as we know it. I'm trying to stay calm and firm with the kids. Sarah ended up spending from 11-3 in her room yesterday because she wouldn't pick up the jellybeans she knocked on the floor when she got mad.

And Ben's been in a lot of trouble lately for his disrespect, pride, not taking responsibility, hitting - you name it, he's done it. Today has been pretty good, so far. Sarah only had to stay in her room for 30 minutes before she was ready to apologize to Ben for hitting him. Much better than the 4 hours yesterday. And I ended up doing some video of Ben during FHE last night. After watching it today, he's been more responsive to my reminders of his attitude. Hopefully that will work for awhile! Plus, he's got a birthday coming up and maybe our threats of no gifts will spur some behavior changes as well. And that's a reminder to all you family - remember how important a birthday is to a child. Anything you can do to make it memorable would be great. April 15 - next Wednesday!