Thursday, January 22, 2009

Our New Basement!

Our basement is finally finished! In a little under 3 months, we have been totally transformed. We had a completely unfinished basement (except for a small bathroom) and now we have tons of great new space. We have almost doubled our square footage. I have tried to take some before and after pictures from similar locations. First, our floorplan.Next, the family room and staircase. Notice how icky the stairs were before. What a change!
Bedroom and office:
It is kind of hard to get a good picture, but the walls are the same color as the living room. See floor plan for room layout.

We are so excited to be done and I can't wait to get decorating. Maybe we need some furniture first! We'll show more when we have gotten some things in our rooms.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Welcome Back Blogger

I finally figured out how to get pictures onto Ted's laptop! (OK-Ted really figured it out.) I am going to just give a sampling of what we have been up to lately.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Christmas with the Joneses was fun as usual. I actually did some crafty things to decorate our house.

I painted the sign, and the stockings were hand-stitched. My mom helped me with the pattern and stitched one of them for me, but I did much of it. Thanks for the help and fun ideas, Mom!
Then we needed the ever-popular Santa Claus shot. I thought Nolan would love him.There's always next year!

We were very blessed with thoughtful gifts. Nolan enjoyed opening everything, and we are looking forward to a finished basement so we can actually make use of all the new items.

A first for me this year was Christmas away from my family. I have spent every Christmas in northern Minnesota with my parents and siblings. This year was finally a year to be with Ted's family. I missed everyone in Minnesota (and Colorado!), but we Ted's mom wanted to take everyone on a special Christmas trip....FLORIDA!!! We were able to spend a week (poor Ted only got 4 days, but someone's gotta pay the bills) in sunny, warm Vero Beach. We had a great time with aunts, grandparents, and the ocean. The day before we left, Nolan suffered (or was it mom that really did the suffering?) his first walking-related injury. He was playing in a closet (I was there with him, but probably not a great idea) and was heading out. The door had a metal piece sticking out from it and Nolan tripped and landed on the metal with his little eye.His little eye got all swollen and it looked like he was going to have a huge shiner. I underestimated the healing power of children. 5 days later, barely a mark where the scab used to be. No shiner ever. Whew! That was a close call.

We are grateful to be safe, home and settling into our routine again. Today is the first day that Nolan and I are alone in almost 2 weeks. I'm loving it! Here are some random pictures of random fun things.In other Jones family news...our basement is nearing completion! It is being painted as I type. It was measured for the carpet this morning. We are almost done. Our living space will be almost doubled. Of course, if you double 850 square feet, you still don't have too much, but we'll take it. I can't wait to post the transformation.