what did you do over the weekend?

I'll start with a picture of Kate, but this post isn't about the kids. It's more about what I've been up to lately to provide a good home for them! I can't post though without at least one picture of my girl. Last weekend I started a small bathroom project of replacing the floor and sink. I've done this stuff before, so I thought it would be no big deal. As you can see from the picture below, it ended up being a big deal! I found lots of water damage, ended up calling my dad for help, and we did a complete demolition of the bathroom. In this picture, we've removed the bathtub (with another guy, Jeremy) and all the rotten drywall and all the wet insulation and we're letting everything dry out. We also removed all the remaining tile that was left. The bathroom was empty, all the way down to the floorboards.

This is where the bathtub used to be. It was a little freaky to get to this point (okay, a lot freaky), but we continued one step at a time and started to slowly reconstruct the bathroom.

First, we added back in a new bathtub and then put in the new subfloor and floor. That's pictured in the photo below.

Next, we added back in insulation and began to put up boards for a solid, smooth surface for the tub surround.

After that, I began to work on the edges of where the new tub surround will go, by using drywall mud to smooth the surface.

I also rebuilt all the areas of drywall that we had destroyed, particularly in the corner below the mirror.

Here's a close-up of the bathtub, and this is how we've been using it during this week while I work toward adding a new tub surround.

Finally, here's a picture from tonight. I'm almost done with all the drywall mudding and sanding, so tonight I started priming the walls to see how it would look. It's exciting to be almost done!

Here's a picture of the other end of the bathtub, which is also almost finished. The only major thing left is the tub surround . . . and I'm getting professional help for that part!

It was a pretty crazy weekend, but we've got a functional bathroom again in terms of a bathtub and toilet, and we'll be back to full capacity this weekend. Why is that a big deal? We have one bathroom! Talk about working under pressure! I'm glad though to have everything replaced and when we try to sell our house, we can advertise a bathroom completely remodeled in 2010.

incredible toughness

These first two pictures don't involve Drew and Kate, which was great for Jana and I! We've managed to get out a couple times this winter with just the two of us, and we've particularly enjoyed getting away to snowshoe. We got snowshoes for Christmas, so we don't have to rent anymore and any woods is ours to explore! There aren't many activities that my knee can handle well, but snowshoeing seems to be one it tolerates. We can trek 6-8 miles through heavy snow and I've been fine. That makes snowshoeing one of my favorite activities.

Moving on to more important and exciting things, like pictures of Drew and Kate, here's a picture of Kate straight out of the bath. She continues to get more and more hair, which looks crazy and wild after the bath, but then settles right down as soon as it dries (she gets that from Jana).

Kate loves to ham it up after the bath and I think we're at the tail end of sticking our tongues out at each other. She turns up the cuteness close to bedtime and especially lately, she's been talking more and more in the evening (in sentences and paragraphs!).

Kate continues to love her "pony" from daycare. Our daycare provider likes to do the little girls' hair for them, and Kate loves getting her hair done. She sits very still for it and loves the feel of someone working with her hair. How do I know? So far I've done most of her hairstyling! I'm still learning how to get a nice, tight ponytail (it will probably help when Kate gets more hair to work with).

One evening Drew was having fun pushing Kate around in his dump truck, and I capture the two of them in an action photo. Notice Kate is wearing her boots, which continue to be a favorite. We can tell she's the baby of the family because Drew never got away with wearing his boots in the house!

Kate's quite adventurous. Drew was and remains highly coordinated, but quite careful about what he does. Kate on the other hand, is not as cautious or as coordinated, which has led to incredible toughness :) She can take a licking and keep on ticking. Kate keeps us on our toes!

An extra special day: two "ponies!" What is she doing under that chair? Well, I don't know where she gets this, but just like Drew, Kate loves to clean. She grabbed a washcloth, got down on the floor, and started crawling all over rubbing the floor down. We're not really encouraging her to do this, but I would say we're discouraging it either!!

I think I've mentioned it before, but this is a frequent scene in our living room. It's so much fun to watch them read, especially if it's out loud and both at the same time.

One night we were playing a running game and I captured photos of the kids in action. The first is of Drew running toward me.

The second is Kate having a great time playing along. I think I was balancing the camera with getting tackled by each of them. It was no small feat to capture the photos moments before being impacted by a small child :)

This first video is not much fun to see, but mainly is on here for the audio. Kate has been chattering away in her room lately, and we wanted a video that captured some of the words. I'll translate some of this at some point because she doesn't articulate all that clearly yet on some of her words. Here's a couple of the phrases she uses: "Right here." "Here." "Yay!" "Climb, climb." "I did it!" "Yay Kate!"

This second video shows off Kate's famouse "cheese" smile. You can see her doing it over and over again waiting for me to take a picture. I had fun watching her explore how to use her facial muscles as Drew chimed in the background with his older brother comments.