Moving Day & Mumford Concert

Moving day was finally here! Weeks and weeks of working to prepare the new house and at the same time pack up the old house. All while trying to keep things "normal" for these three kiddos. It has been a super busy time. And moving day was no different. 

We took a picture before sending the kids to school then the moving guys showed up. 

I had moved the majority of our stuff the week prior, the moving guys only had to load the big things. But we were paying them by the hour and they took their sweet time. It was painful to watch them move so slowly. What should have only took two hours, took them 4 hours.

I ended up having to leave and go to the new house to meet the appliance delivery truck. Appliance truck and moving truck both at our house at the same time.

New appliances!

And of course, my car battery had to die. Like I have time for this:

We desperately unloaded the moving truck and brought all our things from the other house. We pretty much only had time to throw everything wherever we could. The new house was already a disaster!

View of living room from above

And our 3 car garage was already completely full of stuff


But we didn't have any time to start unpacking. I had to pick kids up from school at 3:30 and then we headed down to Denver for a Mumford & Sons concert. It was a nice break from the stress of moving

Josie singing "I will wait for you"

The concert was awesome and we even got upgraded to a suite at the hotel. We all slept so well and it was a hard decision to leave and head back home to the mess that awaited us.

September Reno Diaries

Renovation really started picking up steam this month! Our plan is to move into the new house at the end of the month so we need to get as much done as possible by then. 

Demo is pretty much done and next most important thing is the flooring. All the hardwood for the new floors was delivered. It has to sit in the house for a while to acclimate

Meanwhile the kitchen is really taking shape. Hours and hours and hours have gone into planning out this island. You can see all the blue tape on the floors carefully mapping out the kitchen cabinets and the island table. There is no room for error.

Outside of renovations, life still goes on. The kids are both in swim team twice a week. It is so much fun to watch them!

Our weekends are spent with house stuff. Here are luke and the kids cleaning walls before painting

We also discovered a new brewery less than one mile from our house. It is super kid friendly and is my new favorite hang out place

Kitchen island after drywall

A view from the living room

View from the front door

Hardwood floors going in!

My neighbor helped me to outline Horsetooth mountain on Jack's bedroom wall. One day I will get around to painting it in.

There are so many decisions I have to make everyday with this renovation. And they are big decisions that cannot be changed. Like this decision to choose the hardwood flooring color. I only had a couple hours to think about it and pick the color I liked.

Flooring done!

Luke's mom came out for a quick visit and she took the kids shopping. It's always an adventure taking all three kids anywhere. Josie is a wild card and you never know what she's up to

 After I caught up with her and put her clothes back on, she was happy to carry out her stash from the store

While Grammie was here we were able to visit the kids at lunchtime

Hardwood floors after they were stained

The next week all the baseboards were delivered and had to be painted. Here is the station I set up in the garage

I have had no time to prepare lunches for the kids. Thankfully the school has a hot lunch program that we can use, but Lily decided to pack herself a lunch one day: two cookies and a probiotic package

For our date night this month Luke and I painted the ceilings

Every weekend we spent painting the walls. I think every wall in the entire house has been painted

Those high ceilings proved to be a pain in the @$$ to paint

This cannot be safe!

 The kitchen island has been painted. Supports for the table installed and recessed lighting is working.

After the floors, we got our new carpet! It is so nice!

I thought a month would be plenty of time to finish the majority of the renovations but it turns out it is not much time at all! We are hustling, but our move in date is quickly approaching. No way will we finish everything. The goal now is just to make the house livable. 

Josie's 2nd birthday

Our baby is two! What a fun-loving, sassy little girl she is! We were able to have a small family party while Grammie was visiting. My mom even picked up a little smash cake for Josie

Josie didn't know what a smash cake was, but Jack sure did. Darn brothers are so mean. 

But she didn't seem to mind the mess

After cake she moved on to chocolate bon bond

And Jack and Lily took turns with the cake

For Josie's present we got her a bounce house. It has been such a great way to keep the kids occupied while I am packing and cleaning. We transport it between both houses depending on where we are working that day. Here it is in the new house dining room:

And then in the backyard at the rental house. So much fun, I don't know why we didn't get one of these sooner. 

And here is a video of Josie doing her most favorite thing ever: dancing. And this is her new favorite song. She asks for it the minute she wakes up in the morning.

Labor Day Camping Trip

We continued the tradition of a Labor Day Camping trip despite the craziness of everything with the renovation. This year we went up to Glacier Basin campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a beautiful campground and we had two sites that held over 50 people.

We drove up Friday afternoon to set up our campsite, the kids were super excited. 

Friends started showing up throughout the evening and the kids had a blast playing together

 A favorite activity was building rock towers

On Saturday some of the group headed out to go fishing but since it was Labor Day weekend all the buses were full and they had to come back to the campground


So we ended up taking the fishing poles and hiking to a nearby lake

Attempting to cross this shallow creek with so many kids was quite the task!

Lots of fun around the campfire

 Yearly camping family photo

 Jack and is buddies

 Kids having fun!

After we packed up the campsite we went for another hike in the forest. The girls had fun posing for pictures

When we were in the campground it wasn't too busy, but as soon as we left the campground it felt like Disneyland. So many people everywhere! To get out of the park was bumper to bumper traffic

 We stopped in Estes Park to meet friends for dinner. Jack proceeded to spend his entire savings of lemonade stand money on quarter machines. He split all of his money between his friends and they proceeded to blow through it all on quarter machines and this claw machine. $30 of hard earned lemonade stand money was gone in less than 30 minutes... but they had a fun time spending it!