It is Done!!!

When we got home from our Farm Vacation, the kids discovered that we got our carpet! We were so excited!!!! They ran in the room, dropped to the ground and started doing "carpet angels"!!! As you can see, we were really excited to get the carpet!!! Josh got all the furniture moved in while we were gone (and that cost him....he hurt his back pretty bad). We have started putting our room to good use already....see the toys all in there??? Here is the view from the living room to the new room. The curtains that are up are just up for privacy. We still have to get blinds, curtain rods, etc.

The kids' bedrooms look good too. We got all the toys out of their room and it looks so much better and less cluttered. I also have to get a picture of the new color in the boys' room! Another post....

Anyway, that is it!!! We are excited to use our room. We converted it last night from playroom to guest room. We put the futon down and got our double high air mattress out for my parents to sleep in. I think they liked having their own space. Dad did so good creating his guest room!!! I'll get pictures of that soon! :)

Farmin'

Last week the kids and I went to help in the garden with Mom and Dad at Grandma's house in Caswell. It was an all day adventure! The kids had fun riding their bikes on the dirt paths, through the fields and through the yard. They also had fun driving the tractor. Even our 7 year old Madison got some driving education from Papa. She did good after she almost threw everyone out of the trailor by lifting up on the clutch too fast. But come on, she is only 7. She'll get better!!! No one was hurt. Kind of reminds me of the times I almost killed my brothers on the tractor and trailor. Especially the time I pinned my older brother Keith under the trailor. Aaahhhh...good times. haha These are the brave souls that opted to ride in the trailor with Madison at the wheel. My kids and my brother Keith's kids.

Jamie is a natural driver. She gets lots of practice on our lawn mower. She really does a good job. Dad is a good teacher too.

We saw so much corn that we were just really sick of it by the end of the day. We worked as true farmers do - well, okay not quite they would be up at 5am. We worked 9:30-6:30 doing 40 quarts of corn. We really only did a tiny bit of the garden work compared to everyone else that has been working all summer watering, weeding (yuck!!!), watering, planting, watering, pulling, watering and canning. They really haven't been blessed with as much rain as we have here in Eastern NC. But it has provided enough to store some food. As Grandpa Aldridge would say, it's better than eating snowballs!!

The kids and I had a good time on our vacation. Some people go to the beach, amusement parks, water parks, etc. for vacation. We go to Farm!!! And it is was great!!!

Sizzling Summer, Savings and Staining

This summer has started with being consumed in home addition!! No one has been to my house for a whole week now to do work and that feels really weird!! It is nice settling down into a fun summer routine with the kids. Josh and I are still really busy doing things here and there and checking off our "to do list" but that is just home ownership, right?

Can I just tell you how much I love saving money? I do like to spend it too!

This past week we took a trip to Harris Teeter. We don't usually shop there because their prices are outrageous! However, they have GREAT sales and when you combine that with their double coupons (and triple coupons every now and then), you can save big time! The most exciting things this week were ...

Gillete Fusion Shaving Cream - normally just over $4. I got it for 50 cents!! On sale and then I used a coupon that they doubled!! Rock on!

The next cool thing was dental floss - regular $1.59. I got it FREE!

The other really exciting things were a lot of Lysol cleaning products - regular $4. I got them all for 70 cents each!!

I tell ya, I get so excited!!! My favorite websites are couponmom.com and pennypinchingdiva.com. There are more but those are my fav.

It's a good thing I can save on those items since our electric bill is CRAZY!!! I guess it is a sizzling summer when your bill is $334!! Hopefully now that all our extra company is gone with their power tools, it will simmer down!!!

We are having a fun summer. I am not sure who took this picture but I love sleeping kids!!! :)My girls with their best buds...the Miller girls. (All the kids are called Martin/Millers. When out in public, we just yell "Martin/Miller kids, let's go!!") The girls are together so much they could be sisters.

My cutie Blake at the beach!!

Madison and her cousin Lanie. Fun at the beach!!

Me and Mom...fun at the beach of course!!!

Okay...I still have painting to do in the house but I needed a little break from that. I decided to take this week to work on a fun project - besides saving money at the "market" - a Natalie word. :) I decided to refinish some furniture. It started with this little end table a friend gave to Josh. It was a little wobbly and the wrong color for our decor but we took it b/c it was free and decided to play with it a little. After tightening the screws and applying some Gorilla Glue - wow, that stuff works!!! I stained it a cherry color and now it makes a nice little addition to the end of our couch. We have been so long with no end tables or coffee table! I think it drives my mom crazy! :) We never wanted to take up space for the coffee table because that is always where the kids played. Now we will have to reconsider a coffee table since they will have another room to play in! yah!!! It's the little things....
That table was so much fun to do (exept for the immense sweating from working outside!!! ugghhh!). I think I like staining because you can see dramatic differences in a short amount of time and it isn't too difficult. Since I was having so much fun, I decided to refinish our table in the entry way. Josh put in cherry hardwood floor in the entryway a little over a year ago. This table has really been bugging me ever since because it just didn't fit quite right. Too light.

That is so much better! I can't wait to put the finishing coat on it and get it into place!!! It is amazing to me what a little stain can do!!! I am now looking at all the furniture in my house with big plans!!! :) Especially the kitchen table......I'll keep you posted!

Dad and Jason rolled out with all their trucks and trailors last week! I can't even believe the addition is done. Maybe it doesn't seem real because we still don't have carpet and therefore can't really use the space we created!!! Hopefully it will be in soon! Here is the outside...we are also still waiting for the gutters on the new section. The window is in the boys' room. It is new.

I think they did a great job. Other than the shrubs and the roof that will eventually fade to match the current one, you can't tell it is an addition, right?

If you look back in the blog from April when we "broke ground", you'll see just how far we have come. It's been an adventure, that's for sure!!!!