Getting ready in the mornings

Nakie boy banging a cup in the tub


Drew decided he didn't want any green letters or numbers in the bathtub this morning.

A video of Drew - I was trying to get him to explain why he threw out the green letters & numbers, but he was too busy banging his cup.

Drewski the hairstylist

Happy Drew with blow dryer in hand

Corry's turn with the blow dryer. It looks like she gets pretty close to burning Drew's head which is the reason I cut off the video, but he ended up just squealing, laughing & running away. All's well that ends well.

More destruction....so far only the furniture has been moved out of the dining room. I believe Jimmy is going to rip out the carpet & pad this afternoon.

Study All Done! (mostly)

Okay, so its not ALL done, Jimmy has to snap the transition piece in and rehang the French doors, and I have to go through the mound of junk that is piled on the dining room table to determine what needs to be kept & what needs to be tossed, but for the most part the study is complete. Below are pictures of the final product.....also a few pictures of the new living room furniture (please disregard the old red couch that is still in the living room. One day we will find a new home for it. I'm pretty sure a donation place that Jack & Connie recommended will take it, its just a matter of us making the call.

Grandma Chebs is sick so Deachi & I split up the day today & the guys are splitting up tomorrow. Hopefully none of the kids will end up sick, but I doubt that we'll be lucky enough to dodge that bullet.

I'm not sure when we're going to attack the dining room floors. Olech & Lindsay move into their new house this weekend, so I have a feeling a lot of time is going to be spent over there helping them. I'm a little hesitant to tear up the place until we know we'll have time to devote to laying the floors.

I don't think I have any really good kiddo stories, so I'll just post a few pictures I took of them this morning while I was home with all 4! Hope everyone's having a good week -


Love Seat (Meghan) & Sofa

New chair & chair Mom re-did for us last year.
The study
Another view of the study
Corry wanted to take a picture with Calyn, but Calyn wasn't really interested
Drew & Calyn playing with a bay toy I got out for Max
Max playing with the busy ball popper
Nudie Drew taking a picture with Calyn, who again, was not interested in posing for a photo-op.

Tyler's birthday party & the Study pics

Today we finished the floors in the study. We just have to put the second piece of trim on the baseboards, caulk, fill nail holes & paint. I think the floors turned out really well.

This afternoon the kids had a birthday party at the Little Gym & had a blast there as usual.

A funny Corry story from Saturday - apparently Friday afternoon Jimmy was yelling at someone who wasn't driving up to his standards & Corry asked him why he was talking like that. He told her "that woman isn't driving very smart." So on Saturday we were heading to gymnastics class & I was driving. The woman in front of me was driving in two lanes REALLY slow, so I said "come on - pick a lane." Corry asked me "is that woman not driving very smart?"

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the afternoon & also a couple of the study.

Big boy Max standing up at the parallel bars....kinda has a worried look on his face though!
Here's a happier big boy Max standing up at the bars.

Drew having fun bouncing on the Air Track

Calyn relaxing in the circular matt

Corry giving a HUGE cheese for the camera

Here's one angle of the floors - as you can see, all the junk from the study is still accumulating in the dining room & those are Drew's roller skates in the entrance to the room - he already gave them a whirl on the new floors.

Another angle of the new floors

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I'm exhausted!

Devin's birthday party & project pics

Tonight we celebrated Devin's 20th birthday party at Jimmy's sister Lindsay's house. We had pizza, wings, cake, ice cream, & banana pudding which was very yummy. Unfortunately my tummy decided to start acting up and we had to leave before any of the other 3 Dautrich family members were ready to leave. My tummy seems to have calmed down a bit now. We'll see what happens in the morning.

Here are some pictures from this evening & also of our on-going home improvement project.

Drew working a puzzle at Aunt Lindsay's house - his most favorite thing to do these days!

Drew & the birthday boy, Devin

Corry & the birthday boy, Devin - what a cute pair!

Corry working puzzles with Grandma Connie

And here are the home improvement picutres - Friday night we got part 1 of all the new baseboards installed. We will put another trim piece on after the floors are in. We still have to fill nail holes, caulk, & paint, so I'm sure it will be at least another week before the study is finished. Oh well - that's life when you have as many things going on as we do!

New baseboards

A few rows of the new flooring

Jimmy posing with his handywork.

Up tomorrow - more flooring & Tyler's 4th birthday party at The Little Gym. More pics to come.....

Destruction, New furniture, & Randy's bday

Today our new furniture was delivered! Yea! I haven't taken many pictures yet because we haven't arranged it yet, and we still have the old stuff in the living room. Maybe tomorrow we'll be able to arrange the living room. Tonight we celebrated Lindsay's brother's 15th birthday at Bucca Di Beppo, so we didn't have much time to do anything with the new stuff.

One funny Drew story - while Lindsay was telling me a story about a weirdo that came into her store the other day Drew took the opportunity to load up my shirt sleave with his spaghetti & marinara sauce. I'm not sure what he was thinking, & I can't believe I didn't notice until after his entire plate of food was piled on my arm. What a punk.

Here are some pictures from our evening:

Corry modeling on the new sofa

Here's where the contents of the study are right now. Doesn't our dining room look lovely? We haven't gotten back to our flooring project since I had bunko last night & we had Randy's birthday tonight. Hopefully we can make some progress tomorrow. I don't like living like this!

Corry & Susan, Lindsay's mom.

Corry & Calyn eating spaghetti "Lady & the Tramp" style. Aren't they too cute?

Corry sharing some alfredo with Uncle Olech

Randy opening up some gifts

Me and the special baby boys in my life.

Max sucking on a lemon

Busy Weekend

We had a really busy weekend with our flooring project, the kids first gymnastics performance & a date night Saturday night. Corry and Drew had so much fun at their performance Saturday morning. Corry was living up being the center of attention. It made me so proud - she proving not to be as shy as her mommy after all (thank goodness)! Drew was Drew - hamming it up the whole time and having a blast running around like a maniac. He is starting to follow along in the group activities more though. He is still the youngest in is class, so we have to cut him a little slack.

Of course the flooring project is moving way slower than we had anticipated. When we pulled up the carpet we discovered that we do not have a smooth surface slab - its more like a gravel road. Not good if you want to install wood or laminate - it must be smooth. So, Friday night I pulled up all the tack board. Saturday morning I put another coat of paint on the walls (I didn't realize what a horrific job I had done until all the furniture was out of the room). Saturday afternoon Jimmy spent researching the best way to overcome an uneven slab. This morning I finished scraping up all the glued down carpet pad & vacuumed out the study. Then we applied a sealer to the concrete. After it dried we put a leveler down which made a nice smooth surface. Then I applied thinset to the areas that didn't get covered by the leveler, and Jimmy tried to even up some other low spots in the room. Up next - Jimmy will install the new baseboards (we ditched the builder installed ones). Hopefully by next weekend we'll be able to put down the floors in the study. Then we just have 3 more rooms & stairs to go. Maybe we'll be finished by June. Oh well. At least we know what lies ahead now. Our new furniture will be delivered on Tuesday. I can't wait to ditch the old stuff.

Did I mention that its not much fun pouring & smoothing liquid things on a concrete floor & then trying to keep a 2 year old little guy from running through it over & over? That seems to add to the length of the project some.

Anyway - here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend. If you haven't already, check out The Payne Blog http://thepaynes1125.blogspot.com/ to see a really cute video montage Deachi did of the gymnastics show.

An action shot of Drew jumping off the bar to Daddy

Corry doing a little dancing on this dome thing.


Corry showing off her medal after her gymnastics performance.

Drew & Meghan in the study (yes that is dust in the air - not a blurry picture)

Corry with her "two big pigs" She very rarely lets me put her hair in two pigs anymore, and its my favorite way for her to wear her hair. This was actually her idea!
As soon as Drew saw Jimmy shaving this morning he wanted to have some shaving cream too. I'm sure Jimmy will be thrilled that I've put this one on here, but its just too cute not to.

More pictures to come as our project continues. I'm sure I'll also have more stories to share of the challenges of doing home improvement with a 3 & 2 year old in the house!

Flooring project & cute videos

We're going to be starting our flooring project in the next couple of days. First room up is the study. Jimmy bought materials yesterday, so of course the kids had to climb on top of the boxes & hang out for awhile. Here are some pictures & videos. One of the videos is Drew watching his new favorite movie, "Mamma Mia."

Corry & Drew showing off the new flooring - they are wider 5 inch planks.

Corry & Drew on top of the boxes

Drew watching MammaMia this morning

Corry and Drew demonstarting their alphabet singing abilities, one a little better than the other :)

Video from Junior Jammers

I finally got a chance to look at my video footage from Junior Jammers. I didn't get anything too spectacular, but this one was kind of cute. I forgot to mention in my previous post that when I was putting the carseats for Max & Calyn in the car this morning Corry said "We're going to need a guy who can drive this car." Then she asked "Does Grandma Chebs know how to drive?" I told her that she can drive, and then she asked me "Did you teach Grandma Chebs how to drive?" I told her that I thought it was Grandpa Bob that taught Grandma Chebs how to drive. She's such a thinker.

Oh - and please excuse Corry's massive panty lines. She didn't want to go pantiless with her leotard & tights, so that's why she looks the way she does. I'll try to do a more convincing job next week.

Junior Jammers

Corry & Calyn had their first dance class this morning. I snuck away for an early lunch to watch them. They were too cute in their little leotards & tights. I didn't really get any great pictures (odd angles), but here are a few.

Max getting ready to watch the girls dance
Drew playing with the train set at the museum (that's where the classes are)

Corry & Calyn getting instructions from the teacher

Calyn being a silly goose.

A face lift for the Dautrich home!

Yesterday it was my turn to have a melt down - I told Jimmy I'm sick of living like white trash - stained, faded, ripped furniture, and nasty dirty carpet. When we first moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago the plan was to ditch the carpet asap & replace with wood or laminate. We had laminate in our old house & I adored it. Then kids came along & all those things got put on the back burner.

I've wanted new furniture for a long time - but it didn't really make sense to get anything new when we have dogs that think they belong on the furniture 24-7 & kids that spill & make messes. But I told Jimmy I'm not interested in buying expensive fancy furniture - I'm fine with buying something more economical, I'm just ready for a change.

So, VERY unlike us, we went to a relatively new furniture store here, found something we both liked (which NEVER happens) and bought it. I can't believe we were so impulsive! Our new furniture will be delivered in a week! Yea! We bought a love seat, sofa, & chair, it is a chocolate colored suede & goes perfectly with the chair Mom upohlstered for us & the curtains she made for us. I've already asked her to make us some throw pillows with the coordinating fabric because I'm not crazy about the ones that come with the furniture.

We also have chosen some "wood" laminate flooring that I think we will purchase very soon as well. Our plan is to pull up all the carpet downstairs & do the stairs as well. We will leave the carpet upstairs except for the landing area at the top of the stairs.

I'll post some pictures of our new furniture & of our flooring project once we start it!

Couple of funny kid stories from this weekend - Jimmy & Matt took the kids to eat Mexican Food at Mama Junaita's yesterday - I asked Corry where she went for lunch and she told me "Mama One Fajitas" too cute :) Drew was a MAJOR flirt today at the furniture store. Our sales lady asked him what his name was and he told her "Mickey Mouse." What a character.....

Well, that's what's new with us from the weekend! Does anyone know anybody who needs shabby ripped up, stained furniture? If so, I have the PERFECT, FREE, SOLUTION--hehe!


Picture of the new couch:

Friday evening pictures

We had nice weather last night so we played out in the backyard with the kiddos. Here are a few pictures of them enjoying the swingset. Its in the 50s today - not horrible, but still colder than I like.

Our chocolate chip faced little cookie monster.

Corry with her best friend Milo.
Drew and max holding hands while swinging

Cute little round headed Mr. Max.

All 4 kids swinging together