Home Renovations......

Our home built in 1966 is now under construction as I call it. There are so many things that need to be done, so we got a loan to take care of it!! We have first started getting bids for labor only to do some of this work, but the only thing we decided to pay someone to do was the bathroom remodel for the kids bath and the master bath!! They started the work on Wednesday 5/26/10 and completed both bathrooms last night 5/27/2010 around 9pm. They installed a shower line in the kids bathroom and installed the bathtub and then put ceramic tile on the walls!! It looks so much better in there now as we have had a torn up bathroom for over 4 years now!! The kids had their first bath this morning in the new bathtub and they were so excited!!

Here are some before and after pictures of the kids bathroom. We lived with only a working toilet for over 4 years in just this one bathroom!


After the guys were done with the install. I took this picture before I put anything back in the bathroom, but there is a cute kids shower curtain that goes with it too!!

The master bathroom just needed some new ceramic tile on the bathtub walls and we decided to put the ceramic tile on the floor as well. The floor had some nasty vinyl tiles on it and it looks much better now with the ceramic tile. Now I just have to put the bathroom's back together and clean up my bedroom and we will have this one project done!!

Here is the before of our master bathroom. I am embarrassed to even show this picture, it was gross!!

The vinyl sticky tiles that were on the floor before.
Here is one view after the job was done. Notice the shelves in the corner. He did that with the tile!!

And the new floors!! Much better!!

And another view of the shower!! I love the way it looks!!!

The next project will hopefully be completed Sunday if everything goes well. This is the garage siding project. We recently found out from one of the contractor's that we had termite damage so we had that treated on 5/20/10 and now Larry is just trying to fix a few boards that got damage almost to the top of the roof. Luckily for us this is a detached garage made out of solid wood so that is why we had damage, but to our knowledge there was no sign of termites on the actual house itself. All I can say is "What a mess"!!! Termites are not my friend and they better stay away from now on!!!! My wonderful father-in-law will be over Sunday to help Larry take on this project and my father-in-law has volunteered my mother-in-law to help get a patching of our living room ceiling completed... I thought it was funny when my husband said they were volunteering each other to come work at our house with us!!! Of course the kids may not let the grandparents do much work since they want to spend time with them too and have there attention!! We shall see how this goes though!!!

Here is a before shot of what the garage looks like now. It is wood siding now and that is why the termites loved it so much!!

Here is what it looks like with no wood siding!

In the next few weeks we will also be putting a new roof on the house. My husband has decided that we are not going to pay the contractor's there ridiculous amount for labor and that he was just going to feed some of his fireman buddies for there help, but I am not sure if they know this yet!! One of his fireman buddies had a construction business on the side from his fire dept. job, so he said he would help Larry with the roof, but he will need more than just one person to help so that we can get it done within a day or two at max!! We will see how this project goes. We have purchased all of our roofing material from a guy that posted his business on Craigslist and have saved about half the cost of what a contractor would have charged us for the material!! We also have to re-do all the fascia work around the house that meets up to the roof so that is also something that Larry will be working on the next few weeks before he does the roof!!

We also learned this week from AT&T that only our kitchen had grounded outlets and the rest of the house when tested by Larry is not grounded so we have an electrician coming out Saturday to look at what he needs and then should be able to fix it on Tuesday next week. So this is another cost that we were not expecting, but in my eyes we need to do it #1 for our safety, but it needs to be done so if we sale the house there won't be any issue's at closing or for someone else that buys this house!! I don't plan on staying at this home forever so it needs to be fixed up for the future!! Maybe in a few years we will sell, but only God knows our future, so we will see what happens!!

We have a few more small things to get done inside the house still, but those shouldn't take very long to get done. We (I) have to paint Kayla's room and decorate for our little princess!! She can't continue on in a beige color room in my eyes, so we are going to give her a little girls room!! We have been taking different pictures of flowers, butteries, dragonflies and so on to frame for her room and we are so excited to start frame shopping for those pictures we have printed for her room!! It will look so good once it is finally done!!

We do also need new windows for the house, but I have to research for the best price since we will need so many windows. I am not sure what the plans are right now for that, but it will be in the near future!!

So things are finally coming together on our house and once we are done, I hope it will be a long time before we have to do anything else to this house. We have actually outgrown this house and we need more space for everyone, so I am praying and hoping that in the next few years we can sell this house and buy a bigger one. For now we will just be thankful for what we have and enjoy our family!!

I will post the after pictures of the garage when it is completed and then I will also be doing before and after pictures of the roof as well!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!!

Been a long time.....

Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. It seems like life has just past me by with everything that is going on.

Christmas was ok this last year, although the kids were both sick again! :( I hate that they get sick over the holiday's. Kayla was much worst Christmas day and it almost seemed like she had pneumonia again, like the year before when we spent Christmas week in the hospital. We did have a great new year and we ended up in January taking Kayla to a Pulmonary doctor and she was put on some new medication that she will take pretty much all year long to prevent her fragile lungs from getting so sick again. We have been back and forth between doctors with ear infections and her Asthma breathing issues since December and this last ear infection(ear drum rupture) I requested ear tubes so that surgery is scheduled for June 4th. She is doing great now that she is on all this medication and has only had a few mild colds, but no major asthma related breathing issues. She is loving her pre-school and can now spell her name when you ask her. She is still practicing her name writing when tracing, so hopefully she will be able to write her name on paper without tracing before too long!! She has grown up so fast this last year and I might add that she would make a great teacher as she loves to help the other kids with puzzles and other stuff at school, but she is also very bossy!! She is very independent like her mommy and likes to do things for herself which mommy has a very hard time with because we are so much alike and if it isn't done to my liking then I have to fix things and she doesn't like that and will let you know it too!! She is growing into a beautiful little girl, but loves to get dirty and play rough!! Not a very girly girl at all. Although she is starting to like to wear dresses more, but they come off to easy and that is creating a problem at school when she wants to take her dress off. She likes to do that at home and not wear any clothes(well only her panties). She takes after her father on that one, I must add!! Other than that she is doing great and just growing too fast.

Cooper is enjoying school as well and he is all boy as well!! He loves to rough house with daddy and Kayla. He is doing good in pre-school as well and can't quite spell his name out loud just yet. He has the COO part down, but that PER is not easy for him. We are practicing though. He does pretty good at tracing his name and has even wrote his name out without having to trace the letters so it won't be too long that he can do it all by himself. He loves to draw and color pictures and he gets into it as well. He doesn't want to be bothered when he is deep into his art!! He loves to play outside, but lately this weather has been getting to his allergies, so he was put on singulair as a preventative for him to not get so bad! Other than that he is doing really good health wise and doesn't seem to get as many ear infections as his sister. Being twins they usually get sick together, so even though it is tough to deal with 2 kids sick at the same time, it usually doesn't drag out over weeks with them getting sick one after another! Cooper talks about getting to go fishing with his daddy sometimes and he wants to catch a shark!! I think it is too cute that he gets as excited about fishing as his daddy does!! Now he wants to catch a redfish with daddy. One day they will have to go fishing and stay out until he catches that redfish!! He would be so excited!! He is more sensitive then Kayla and he gets his feelings hurt more when he gets disciplined more than her. It hurts me when I have to get on to him because he has always been such a sweet natured child and now with the terrible 3's (Yes, worse than 2's) he tries to push the limit on what he does and then the talking back stuff when he doesn't like us telling him not to do something. He is growing up so fast as well and it seems like he has gone through another growing spurt lately and shot up in height.

They both are still around 30 pounds each, but they are so active all day long that they just work off what they eat. They never sit still and it is hard to get them to sit still long enough to even watch any TV. They love Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse clubhouse, but still wont watch a full episode. I do love that my kids are so active and not couch potatoes!!

This past weekend we were out at Strawberry festival and the kids got to do Mutton Bustin. They were so excited to get to ride a sheep for the first time and they even got little trophies afterwards. Cooper was the first one to go and then Kayla went and she cried I think only because she got a mouth full of sand and it made her made. Daddy was down there with them and he said she held on tight and got dragged a little bit so that is why all the sand got in her mouth.

Larry and I are doing good. Larry has been doing cookoff's with some of his fireman buddies so that is keeping him busy on the weekends when they do that. He is still staying busy with his main job with Houston Fire Dept. and then he works at 2 college's as a side job with the Fire Academy class'. I am still working with my Allstate Agent trying to sale insurance. It is getting difficult now days to find insurance and it is more difficult for us agents to tell the customers that we can't provide them with insurance that they need to have or to provide them with high dollar premiums for these policies that we can offer. I still love my job though and wouldn't trade it for the world. My boss has been so wonderful to me and my family and I won't ever have to worry about a thing while he is my boss!!! I have also joined the YMCA and have been taking a Spin class 2 nights a week and boy is that a tough thing to do!! I feel for those biker's that do marathon's and stuff!! I don't know how they do it, but the class is getting better the more I go!! The other reason I joined the Y is because they offer swim lesson's to the kids during the summer, so my kids will both be in a class by July!! I will feel much better around water after they take the swim lessons!!

Right now we are dealing with our house repairs that need tending too and the #1 fix is our roof. We have purchased all the roofing material and we are just waiting on one more estimate from a roofer that is coming out tomorrow. We did learn that we have termites on the garage which luckily is detached from the house so we are not worried about damage to the main house, but we still have to have the problem taken care of so I got terminix out yesterday, wrote the check and they are treating the termites this afternoon which should take care of our problem for a while!! Now the fun of trying to fix the damage that they have caused to some of our wood on the garage!! We will also finally be able to complete the bathroom remodel that we started like 4 years ago on the guest/kids bathroom so I am excited to finally get that done. I will also be re doing the ceramic tile in our master bathroom and will put ceramic tile down on those floors, so once the 1st bathroom is complete, then we will do the master bath. That way we always have one working bathroom in the house while the other is being done!! I am so excited to get all these repairs done and behind us and not have to hopefully worry about anything for a while. Oh the joys of being a homeowner though!!

Anyway, I think that I should probably end this post now and I will try my best to keep up with things from now on!! I will also try to post some pictures later after I get home since all my recent pictures are on that computer and I am at work right now. As you can tell not working too hard though!! Sorry for such a long one, but it has been a while as you can tell!!!

The kids and Santa Claus!!

We took the kids to meet Santa Claus last night and they were so excited about getting to meet him!! They wanted to tell santa what they wanted for Christmas and Kayla even gave him a BIG hug when it was their turn to see him. They did so great for the picture too. Last year they cried since they didn't know this stranger, but now they talk about him and they did wonderful!! We had to wait in the mall for 2 hours just to get the picture done, but it was so worth it to see the kids faces when they actually got close to him!!! Kayla was a little upset that she didn't get her Cinderella like she asked for, but she also doesn't understand the whole Santa Claus thing yet, so we had to explain that Santa will bring presents to our house on Christmas Eve for her to open on Christmas day!! Anyway I think it went well considering how long we had to wait with two 3 year olds! They did really good!!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas this year!!!! It is only 2 weeks away!!!

Christmas tree decorating 2009

Every year the day after Thanksgiving we always go and pick out our christmas tree and decorate it. This year was much more fun than the last since the kids are older and were excited about picking out our tree. They told us which one they liked at the store and then we got home and by looking at these pictures you can see they were excited about putting it up and hanging ornaments. Enjoy these pictures and memories we have made together as a family.


Here is Larry taking the net off that they wrapped the tree with at the store. The kids watching from below was too cute!!
Larry putting lights on the tree and the kids followed him around the tree! Cute!!

Helping mommy decorate the tree with all our ornaments. They were so excited to get to help.

Finished the tree and they were inspecting all the ornaments that we hung!

I couldn't get them to actually look at the camera, but maybe one of these days I can sneak a picture of them together in front of the tree!

Now we just can't wait to see what Santa will bring us this year!! Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We sure did and we have so much to be Thankful for in our lives! We had lots of yummy food and great fellowship together as a family. Larry had to work at the firestation, but we got to spend a couple of hours at the station with him, so that was good we got to see him. Here are a few pictures from our day. Enjoy



Dickens family group picture. We were missing some family that couldn't make it, but we wanted a group photo for memories.

Davis Family picture minus Larry since he had to work.

Daddy showing the kids the water hose on the fire truck. They loved that!

Daddy and his babies!!

Thanksgiving Feast at Pre-school 2009

Thursday 11/19/2009 the kids had their Thanksgiving feast at school and parents were invited to come if they wanted so since daddy has to work on Thanksgiving this year we decided to go see them. Here are some pictures that I took of them during lunch.

They all had little leaves with their names and what they are thankful for.

Here is there teacher Ms. Lorrie. The kids really like her!

The tables were so cute and all decorated!

All the kids eating!

Here are a few pictures of their classroom.

11/23/2009 when I picked the kids up from school they had little turkeys that they made out of toilet paper rolls and they got to color on them. They were so cute!! Of course the kids did not want to look at the camera together so I could get a picture of them together.

The kids are really loving their school and have so many new friends!!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! We have so much to be thankful for in our lives!!

First day of school!!

Today Kayla and Cooper started pre-school. They are going to a christian school that uses the "A Becka" curriculum. They will have bible time twice daily which I really like!!

I was most concern with how the kids would go in and how they would act when I left and surprisingly they both did great and didn't shed any tears, neither did mommy!! They walked in and said hi to their teacher Ms. Lori and both put their back packs down. Cooper went to sit at the table and a cute little blonde headed girl came up to him and said "do you want to play with me" and Cooper just said yes and stood up, but then he looked at me and came over and gave me a kiss and told me bye!! He was the one that I thought I would have a melt down with, but he did great! The little girl told him it was play time and they went to play with toys. Kayla just stood by me and after Cooper told me bye, she looks at me and says " don't leave mommy" with her little eyes. I just assured her it would be fun and ok for mommy to leave and told her to not cry because she said she wouldn't and that she would be a big girl!! She gave me a hug and kiss and went with Ms. Lori and I left. There were no tears which made me very happy!!

I know they will have a great time at this school and will enjoy getting to interact with all their new friends!! This is a big change for them as they have been either at the baby sitters house or at our house on mommy's day off, so now they will be in this school environment and will have activities and playground time and learning new things to help them develop and they will have structure which is what they need more of right now!!

I am so excited to go pick them up to hear about all they did today!!

As I am typing this, I just got a call from the school nurse and she told me that Kayla was playing on the play ground and got a bump on her head. She was not sure what she hit, but Kayla was not crying and they had some ice on it, so she just wanted to inform me of what happened. Kayla is my accident child, so I am sure that this will not be my only phone call from the school on her!!

Well that is it for now!! I will update to let everyone know how they are doing in school!!


Also, we want to say a big Happy Birthday to uncle Chris!!! He turned 24 today!!!! We love you Uncle Chris!! Hope you had a great day!!!!!