Nick's 6th Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated Nick's 6th birthday and he had his first official kid party at Chuck E Cheese. I think he had fun from the limited time I saw him. He invited two of his friends from school, Luke and Charlie, and Zac came too. It was fun to watch him interact with the kids outside from the school setting. It is hard to think of Nick as a 6 year old and how far we have come in six years.

Nick's birth six years ago was a moment in our lives that was crazy. We did a lot in just a few months with our wedding, moving into a new house, and then changing to a family of three to four. It is amazing to think we are now a family of six and still living in the same house ;-o

I will forever remember waking up in the morning to contractions and being scared because my mom was up North. I called her at my Grandpa's house, only to have her tell me what was she suppose to do three hours away and that I should be calling the hospital. Later on I found out that my Grandpa tripped over a chair getting to the phone, I guess I forgot it was 5 o'clock in the morning. As if my stress level wasn't high enough, I called St. John's to find out they were full and that I would have to go to St. Joe's. More nervous now, I woke Chris up and Jasmine (hard to believe that she was only 5 then).

Gals...never let your husband take their time when you are in labor. Chris, more girlie than me, had to shower so he didn't stink and groom himself as I waited in hard labor by then. Poor Jasmine had Cheez Its for breakfast and was rushed away in my truck. Wow I forgot about that until now that I we had to take my tiny Maroon truck, because Chris didn't have gas in his truck. Again gals remember to gas up your vehicles if you think you might be going into labor.

We never gave it much thought that I might have to go to another hospital and that directions might be a good thing. Chris drove like a mad man giving no thought to traffic laws or road directions and finally got us to the hospital. We didn't know how to get into the hospital, and he had to call his mom for directions. It looked dead inside so I told him to get me to the emergency entrance. There was no one in sight and I remember Chris running inside and grabbing a wheel chair only to have a security guard tell him that he needed to move the truck and couldn't park there, totally oblivious that I was doubled over in labor pains.

A nurse finally showed up and whisked me away to maternity with Jasmine running behind. I was afraid that Chris wouldn't show up in time because the nurses told me that the baby was coming and the doctor barely got there too. So seven minutes after arriving at the hospital, Nicholas Rocco Carvelli was born. It was extremely hurried but we got to the hospital and Nick was healthy. I just remember Julie walking into the room and commenting that Nick was already born.

Nick's birth only made the other kids to follow easier and less stressful and now six years later he isn't my baby anymore :-(

One Step Forward, Five Thousand Steps Backwards

I don't even know the words to describe how this week has been. I can't even imagine what Chris feels after all that he has been through. We were both excited Monday afternoon after we got the install date for the counter tops for 10/8 and that the appliances were coming Wednesday 9/30. Things were/are coming along at a pretty good pace. Johnny Mac was down here trimming out some of the upstairs rooms, so now when the washer and dryer shows up the laundry room is all ready.



Then all of it came to a stand still. Time was burning a hole in Chris's pants literally...now we have a hole in the ceiling of the finished ceiling of the first floor. Chris decided to air test his water lines only to find out that he had a leak some where. Guess and Check and two holes later the leak was found and fixed, but the sheet rock is gone.

Despite the holes, some progress has been made in the painting area of the house. Thanks again to Tim's help the hallway is painted...pawtucket peach!!! It is peachy. Jayna's room is coming around and her focus wall is finally finished aside from her purple closet.

Nick's focus wall is finished also and now I just have to paint the rest of the rooms.

We are coming to the end of this project but it seems to be so far away still. From the pictures it looks great but walking the long hallway and seeing all the walls that still need to be painted is CRAZY!!! Once this place gets down it will be wonderful to live in the space but I think we need a vacation to get away from this place first.

The kitchen is giving Chris gray hair. I don't think he likes the putzie work that comes along with putting cabinets together, but it looks great.

In the next week and a half, the kitchen will get finished and the walls will get all painted so hopefully we are only waiting on the carpet people, electrician and tinner. Then next month is going to be a whirl wind of activity.

Appliances

When was the last time you got excited about appliances? This coming Wednesday is the day I do my happy dance. Warner Stellion, courtesy of Bob, is delivery my cook top, dishwasher, double oven, washer, driver and exhaust hood. I am overjoyed to have them in my possession and once they get hooked up I will be over the moon with excitement. You could say my Christmas is coming early and hopefully in two weeks my counter tops will be installed so my kitchen will be almost complete. Yeah!!!

That means I have to get in gear and paint again. I have Jayna's room painted and tape removed, Nick's blue wall painted and waiting for the other three walls to be painted, two bathrooms and laundry room finished, and our room finished so that means I only have Jasmine's room and Tony's room to finish that hasn't been touched and Nick's too. Oh I also forgot the hallway and ceiling upstairs and then the first floor walls and bathroom too. Wows er there are a few walls to finish.

Now that the weather is getting colder the fire has been light under our butts to get this addition done. The tile is all finished to I guess the carpet is next and hopefully trim too. Finishing touches are coming quick. Home stretch here we come.

Getting There.

It feels like the addition is consuming our lives. I spent the beautiful Labor Day Weekend painting rooms upstairs in the addition and it doesn't even feel like I got anything done but here are a few pictures of what we are doing. The first set of pictures are the girls' rooms. Jayna's room gets the wonderful look of lime green on three of the walls and her focus wall is a checker board with the other colors of her room...light pink, dark pink and orange. All of these colors can be found on her bed spread and her pillow covers. Right now it looks a little bright, but once the lighter pink dresser, white chair and book shelf get into her room it will help tone down the color. Oh I forgot to mention her closet is purple too.

Jasmine is excited for her room too but right now only part of her design is on the walls so the blue tape is the only thing showing on her walls but she too will have a brighter room with 5 colors floating through her room.

Nick and Tony will have calmer walls but not by much. Nick loves the color blue so I am going to bring two shades of blue into his room with a portrait design. The lighter blue is going inside the picture frame and the darker blue will be the rest of that wall. The other three walls will be a gray to bring in the garage/construction theme that I am doing and his closet will be red to help bring in his bed colors too. Tony on the other hand I haven't had the chance to give much thought. I was looking forward to doing some type of sports theme on his wall...baseball diamond on the wall with a 3D bat in the corner, but unfortunately I don't think Tony is going to be my sports boy. So I am thinking of doing a Monster Truck room.

On the other hand, our room is the tamest by far with a lovely brown on the walls to match our bedspread and that is about it, but by the look of the picture it is taking on more of a tawny color.

Painting is going slow as I wait for the hundreds of colors to dry, I took the peacefulness of only having three kids and Jasmine back in school to organize the 177 boxes of kitchen cabinets that we got last week into cabinet piles so hopefully Chris will get the motivation to put them together. At least Chris got a chance to enjoy his one and only paid holiday weekend and now it is back to the grind stone.

Tile

Sunday was a day well spent. It was a gorgeous out and hopefully we captured it with a few pictures of family. The kids were as well behaved as expected and I am expecting a typical family picture with ornery kids and exasperated parents. Unfortunately the photos shoot was shorter than desired because Jasmine had another exciting afternoon of softball. Her fall ball season is well underway and Jasmine is learning more with every game. Sunday games are usually double headers and Jasmine has taken to playing short stop and second base. This particular Sunday, Jasmine's team was short players and had to play with eight players but they were okay.

As I was enjoying an excellent fall like day at the end of August, Chris was slaving away on the addition. Being the Jack of all trades, Chris tiled his way through two rooms. They look beautifully and the paint is complimented by the tile and looks better than expected. The first picture is of my laundry room and the second is the boys bathroom which will be eventually green.

Chris is hoping to have the second bathroom tiled this week and the cabinets in the kitchen set and awaiting counter tops before Labor Day weekend. I just hope I can keep up with the grueling pace he is setting. What a slave driver he is!!!

Only Tony!!!

Just wanted to share with all of you how creative our Tony boy is...he wants to walk but doesn't want to stop playing.

It would take one of our kids to take the dump truck and turn it into the walker, but Tony was determined to take those steps. For the past week, Tony has been taking his little walks on our cement slab outside the garage with his truck. The space is small but that didn't stop Tony. Every time he ran into an obstacle, Tony would just pick up his truck and move it in another direction and continue on. He loved this way of walking but this hasn't translated into any more steps inside the house. His only fault is that he wants to hill climb the sand pile, but that darn dump truck gets stuck no matter how hard he pushes.

You can see it in his eyes and his face that he wants to cruise but his little feet won't listen to him. So for now he is settling with walking his dump truck.

Check!!!

Check, another task is off our list of to do's. Last Saturday, Chris, Tim and Joel put in hours of pumping insulation into the attic of our addition. This meant another trip to Menards and another trailer load of materials coming to the house.

Take a close look at the trailer and you can see that it barely fit into the garage and the silver truck was loaded down with two blowers. There were just as many tow straps to secure this load as there might have been if they were hauling two tons of metal. Looks can be deceiving since the 125 bags of insulation probably weighed less than what was in the truck bed.

Nothing goes as smooth as we hope it would and this job would be no exception. With the intuition to get the two blowers, Chris had hoped to finish the job quicker but a few hours had to be spent de-clogging the hoses and fixing the machines too. I think having 100 feet of hose couldn't have helped the issue either. They got it done and the job was finished around 10:00 at night. Cleaning up took a bit longer and I am grateful for the dumpster because otherwise where would we have put it all. About half of the kids sandbox ended up in the dumpster too but the kids haven't noticed.

The addition is noticeable cooler now in the days since the attic got finished so now we just have to wait on the sheet rockers to get finished so we can get moving again on this long drawn out project.