Moving along... we've got tile, cabinets, and doors!

Last week flew by! There was loads going on at our house with the remodel and we pretty much lived in our car. The tile saw started going around 7:15am on several days... so we ended up at parks by 8am. Good thing the weather was gorgeous!

On Monday they put the shower walls in, on Tuesday they did the tub and floor, and on Wednesday they did the grout. The picture above is before the grout. I didn't get a chance to sneak a finished picture before they covered the floors and started putting the cabinets in.

I am so excited about my long counters. Right now doing my hair on my pedestal sink in the downstairs bathroom is killing me. My straightener and hair dryer are constantly falling. Can't wait till the countertops, knobs/pulls, mirrors, and fixtures arrive for this bathroom.

Here's the view from outside the bathroom. Right side are the doors to our walk in closets. Kevin's door in the first one. Mine is the one at the end on the right, after the vanity. The toilet room is in the back on the left.

They still need to add the slab on the tub, my shower wall stone accent piece, fixtures, and the tub!... plus shower glass, etc. The tile colors we went with are very neutral. I hated the tile before they put the grout on and loved it once the grout was on. Phew! And it will probably look completely different once they add the slab/decorative wall piece/glass doors. 

View from the other side of the bathroom

I really love how the shower floor turned out... such a weird thing to notice! 

They also installed my linen cupboard in the hall. It is deeper than my old cupboard and is going to be so useful! They still need to add the moulding and baseboards, etc.

And these are our exciting doors! The frames don't have trim on them yet and they need to re-build the wall still, but it is exciting to finally not just have a big hole in our wall (see photo underneath for a reminder of what this used to be a few weeks ago). They also need to paint everything so that the doors are actually white.

Now

A few weeks ago

They also rebuilt the stucco on the outside of our house this week and framed the new windows and then just brought a lot of stuff in. These are the drawers that will go in our closets! Kevin's favorite part about all the drawers is that you can't slam them. They have soft-close drawer glides.

So, that's our remodel progress (for the few of you reading/scanning pictures)!!

Nothing much else interesting in the master bedroom or Ryan's room. They'll bring our plantation shutters over eventually and they need to do trim, carpet, paint, and other final things... but all of that will be quick. The bathroom and closets are the main spots that have work left.

Hooray!

Take Your Kid to Work Day at Google!

Get prepared for a photo overload!! Kevin went above and beyond documenting all the fun he had with Andrew at Take Your Kid to Work Day last week! Catie can't wait till she can go next year!

On Wednesday Andrew got to take the Google shuttle down to Mtn View with Kevin for Pre-K Day at Google! It went from 9:30/10-1:30 and they had so much fun! Then they took the shuttle back home together.

Baking soda/balloon science

Kaleidoscope making

Coloring

Lunch at Charleys

Hanging out with dad to see what YouTubers actually do

Just chillin in a donut...

Obviously they made sure to show the kids all the important things that their parents do everyday at Google ;)

On Friday Andrew & Kevin drove down to San Bruno to go to YouTube's very own special Take Your Kid to Work Day that lasted ALL DAY!

Andrew got an actual YouTube badge... with his picture. He was in heaven.

They asked all the kids what their parents did at YouTube every day and then had it on a video. Eat ice cream, play games, etc. were some of the things they said. Andrew said, "He works and gets money for us to keep our house." Ha!

Photo booth

Decorating his new YouTube water bottle

Training for the AZ Spring Training Trip next year with the guys

Testing out the nap pods

In serious 7th heaven by the giant astronaut

Cool dude getting ready for his music video debut

Practicing for their music video debut 

(I'll share the video once I have it)

Coloring with chalk 

Bubble guy

Lots of dessert

Bubble boy!

Cookie making

Kevin's masterpiece

Doing yoga with the friend he made

Kids even came home with their own special kid sized yoga mats

They ended the day watching Wreck-It Ralph and then drove home. Lucky ducks!

Can they make a "Take your spouse to work day"? I want to go!!

I can't find a post from last year, but this was the one from the year before. Love Google!

Little tub dancer

Turn your screen sideways and then check out Mr.Chubbs rocking out in the tub. I need some sort of soundtrack to go with this.

Helping Hands FHE, Star Wars, and the Weekend

Andrew and Kevin went and helped out at our stake Helping Hands service project on Saturday morning while Catie & I caught up on chores and crafts and Ryan took a record-long nap. 

Andrew got a donut, played with bugs, picked up pinecones, and helped beautify a local high school... so he thought doing service was pretty rad. 

He asked if we could do another service project right away, so we decided to make that the focus of our FHE this week.

Helping Hands FHE 

(I'm trying to document the FHEs that are actually successful... there are so many that aren't)

Last week a friend told me about how their family does FHE and I loved their idea! She said each child gets a month to be a in charge. One week they do a formal lesson, one week they go out to dinner, one week they do an activity, and one week they do a family service project. The child of the month gets to plan each week and then a new kid is in charge the next month. We decided that this month we were going to start embedding some more service into our family activities and FHE.

Scripture: We started off our lesson reading Mosiah 2:17 and talking about service very briefly and how serving others is a way that we can show love to God.  

For our activity each person got a turn to get their hand traced onto our Buskirk Helping Hands poster and then they got to pick the service project they wanted to spearhead. We brainstormed a few ideas and it was fun to see what everyone came up with as "their" project.

I figure now we have five months of service projects planned if we choose to do one per month. Andrew wants to start tomorrow though... so we might need some more activities.

FHE only works at our house if it is quick and we are moving a lot. We played Freeze Dance after we'd done our service project planning. When the music stopped each time I asked each person a question about service- "How can you serve Catie?" (give her hugs) "How did Nephi serve?" (got us the brass plates) "What is one way that Jesus served others?" (healed them, blessed them) etc. 

The night ended in chaos and kids chucking tinker toys at one another while they tried playing duck duck goose and we skyped with my parents. Shockingly I hadn't planned a good treat... so we'll need to do a better job with that next week! 

Star Wars

Andrew is obsessed. I totally went into the Lego store on our date night on Saturday so that Andrew could get the newest Lego club magazine. The thing is now quite worn... he pores over the pages trying to decide what he wants to earn money for next... and keeps asking to do more chores. :)

I bought him some Star Wars books last week, including the chapter books and some simple phonics book versions. Kevin and Andrew have been reading the chapter book each night and little dude loves it. To help squelch his constant requests for new Legos, we started an Amazon Wish List for him today. Surprisingly, he is just as excited about searching for toys on the Lego website and then adding Lego toys to his Wish list as he was when he actually got to buy something at the Lego store.

Messes

Our house is a disaster lately. This is one corner of our living space. We basically live all day in the family room... it also serves as a changing room for me and bedroom for Ryan... and playroom. We aren't home much, so the space also doesn't get cleaned up nearly enough! When we are home and the workers are there Catie gets nervous if I leave her in part of the house by herself... so instead of trucking everyone to my room, I change in the family room. Going to the bathroom also poses a problem because if I leave everyone in the family room, there is no guarantee that I won't have a visitor... who then leaves the door open for the workers to see in... and if I take everyone in with me... then I still have the same problem... because kids will just randomly leave the bathroom. Keeps me on my toes.

Cabinets arrived today for our linen closet and our bedroom closets... so now the front room is a disaster too. Trying to keep Catie from climbing all over and inside these cabinets was quite a feat.

And here's the mess that came in from just being in the car today. You never know when the weather will change... so we had to prepare for all situations with loads of snacks, treats, and wardrobe changes.

Weekend

This weekend my fabulous friend Molly came into town. We made the trek across the Bay to go visit with her and some other friends. Kevin managed to snap a few photos of the crazies.
 

We also went to a preschool auction this weekend and won two of the items we bid on- hurray! One was two passes to Gilroy Gardens... so I'm already counting down the days till we get to use that one.

The guys ended the weekend with a Father/Son trip to Mt. Diablo to see a meteor shower... while I stayed home and ate ice cream. The meteor shower was a bust because the Moon was too bright... but the guys still had fun stargazing and hanging out together.  

 All in all... good weekend and the week is looking great too.