A BIG work day!

Yesterday we finally had the big work day we had been planning for awhile.  Much more was accomplished than we had planned, so we were super blessed.  With many hands makes lots of work get done, so thank you to all who came out to the farm to help us out!

Rob and Caleb helped paint trim.



Chris and Joel ran the paint sprayer to get the ceilings all done.




I had lots of ladies helping in the basement box stuff up.  What troopers for facing the space!




Josh and Jamin were the muscles in moving heavy appliances and furniture out of the basement and from upstairs.




More basement helpers!



And we had lots of little helpers!

One project we weren't expecting to really get done was the chimney.  It's very old and has been falling down, so something needed done with it to seal it off and repair the damage.  Thank you Richard for heading this project up and making sure it got finished!



We had lots of painting helpers!  Helpers doing trim, edges, and rolling.  Thanks to Joel for taking charge of that department!





Our outside living area. 



All painted!  Look at that!  Thank you everyone for all the help!  We couldn't have accomplished so much without your servant hearts!



The finished chimney repair.  Thank you Jason and Richard for sticking around so late to complete it!  You guys are a blessing!

 We are truly blessed to have such wonderful brothers and sisters to help us get things done for the house to be finished.  Ladies brought food and drinks to go along with lunch, the men weren't hesitant to ask what else needed done and even some of the children helped pack and clean up things.  The upstairs isn't all painted yet, but we can work at that as we have time.  And now Jonathon's main priority is the flooring on the main level.  He is hoping to get that done within the next couple weeks. 

Again, if you have any ideas for getting cat smell out of a room, please pass it along.  Hoping that after yesterday having the windows open all day and another coat of strong odor sealer, the cat smell will be less, but we were still smelling it some and don't want to smell it at all.  Jonathon did take trim off and got that out, so that should help a great deal also.

Hoping soon to have before and after pictures of the rooms all finished. 

Priming and odor sealing

Time to get the drywall ready for paint.  Lots of priming went on during this day and odor sealing to lock in the cat smell.  If you've purchased a house where the previous owners had cats, you understand how important it is to get that smell out before new flooring is layed.  That seems to be a top priority right now for us, getting cat smell out.  Thanks, once again, to Phil for helping with the priming and sealing. 

We primed walls and floors and hopefully will soon have no more smell of the cat.  I think it still lingers some, so we continue to work at that before new carpet is put down, mostly in the one bedroom.  Any other suggestions out there for efficient and thorough animal deoderizers?

Ruffle Curtains

Well, after getting the mudroom at the farm all painted, I decided to make something especially cute for the window on the door.  I found a couple of towles at a garage sale to keep in their for guests, and had some other fabric from my mom sewing a new carseat cover for the baby seat that matched the towels, so I set out to make some curtains with material I had on hand.  It resulted in these adorable ruffle curtains that really add to the look of the room.

There you have it!  Took quite a bit of time, but after seeing the finished product, I'm glad I took the time.  So many cute ideas are out there of things you can do with ruffles.  Try them for yourself and see what projects you can come up with!

Let the mudding begin!

Many new things have happened at the farm.  Our good friends, the Brothers, came over a couple days and helped get dry wall all ready to paint.  What a huge help as Jonathon is not favorable towards mudding and the mud wasn't taking a real liking to him either. : )  Thank you Phil for expertise in the area!  



The stairway, with paneling pulled off and drywall mudded.




Living room, kitchen and dining room all open and the header getting mudded along with the rest of the walls and ceiling.



We also had a good friend, Sang, come and rip out carpet.  He had a very dirty job, so we are appreciative of his sacrifice and humor in his job.  Getting closer to painting!  

A Baby Celebration

Me and my girls.



Was so glad that my mom could join us!



I finally got around to getting blog posts done for the amazing evening that my sisters from church put together for me.  It was a lovely evening of blessing and honor that I so needed right now.  We have been busy with remodeling the Bovee homestead that I've put baby stuff to the side, until now.....  It's time now to start getting my mind and body ready for a new little one, and this Celebration was just what I needed to redirect myself into baby mode.



Thank you Casie and Celia for all of your hard work and love!



 Just love these girls!

 The setting was perfect!

The cupcakes were amazing!

 The gifts were a blessing!

"Praying for you to have a healthy baby and smooth delivery."

That is our prayer right now as we approach the 36 weeks mark.  At that time in our last pregnancy we ended up taking up residence in the hospital til Benaiah came along.  It is our heart's desire to have this new little blessing in our quiet, peaceful, welcoming arms here at home.  Please pray along with us that I would continue to feel good and that my body would stay healthy and properly function to be able to accomplish that desire.  We feel the Lord's favor thus far and have hope that He will bring us through this with joy and rejoicing in the end.    

If you would like to see more of the details of the Celebration, please check out CLB CeLeBrations' blog post for this event.  It was spectacular and you'll enjoy all the pictures that show what all the ladies did to honor me that evening.  I truly am a blessed lady! 

Some Farm, Some Cleaning, Some Family Fun

I haven't blogged for a little while and thought I should give you a glimpse of our family life around here.  Today after the papa got home from work, we headed to the farm with a load of skids to drop off and drywall to pick up to exchange for what he needed to have a work day on Sunday.  Hasn't been much progress made at the farm since the last post, but we are hoping that we can begin to wrap some things up there in the next few weeks.  We came home and did some work around here.  Cleaning up the yard and the steers barn, playing in the sprinkler and enjoying the lovely evening with our little family.    

 Diella worked at raking up all the leaves and left over hay from the winter that got dropped on the ground as they carried it to the barn.  She rakes a good bunch up to feed to the boy.  He loves that girl because he always knows she will give him some yummy treat. 

 Benaiah helps wherever and whenever he can.  Tonight he helped clean out the boy's water tub and fill it up.  He loves to "work" with papa. 

                                                                  Our little farm girl.

                     After the boys is taken care of, I guess Benaiah decided he needed watered too. : )

We do enjoy our little farm.  Trying to figure out how we will set things up once we move to the Bovee farm.  Will be getting more chickens over there and in the fall this boy will be butchered, and we are going to wait and see if we feel the need to get another for butchering in a year or so.  We've also talked about getting some dogs to raise, so we'll see where we end up with new adventures when we move. 

But no moving until after this baby comes.  All seems well.  The midwife was here last week and everything looks good.  Baby needs to get in the right position, but we have a little time for that yet.  Speaking of baby.....my brother and his wife had their 8th baby last Wednesday.  A little boy named Konrad who weighed 11 lbs. 4 oz.  He was born at home, the midwife didn't make it in time, so Joshua delivered him by himself......well, I would say Ellen did the most part of the delivering.  : )  She is amazing!

Well, that wraps our day and evening up.  Time to get the children cleaned up and into bed.  Tomorrow is massage day, so I need to get things around for work tomorrow.  Blessing the Lord for work for both me and Jonathon.  The Father has provided sufficiently for us lately and slows things down when we need to spend more time at the farm working.  He is so faithful to orchestrate all areas of our life. 

Where Did the Walls Go?

I wanted to get caught up on here with our projects at the farmhouse.  This weekend I made sure to get some pictures of the missing walls.  There is still much work to complete this area, but this is a big change and so far we are all loving it! 

 Don't you just love how open it all is?  We have an island that will go in the kitchen some where also, to add to the kitchen.  Not sure where we'll put it quite yet. 

After a morning of work and visiting with Jonathon's mom and husband a bit, we gave grandpa Dan, grandma Deborah and Aunt MaryAnn a tour of the house, then headed to Adams Lake to do some fishing.  It was a successful fishing trip catching blue gill, bass, war mouth, and sun fish.  This was the last catch of the night and Diella did it all by herself.  No help needed.  We didn't even know she had one on the line until she brought him in.  A bull sunfish and what a whopper he was!  All the children caught fish, the men did a little trolling and we all practiced patience when both boat motors stopped working as we were headed in for the night with full bladders needing a bathroom.  : )  Thankfully, the main motor was able to start after cooling off a bit and we high tailed it in and rushed to the restroom.  Memories! 

Walls Are Coming Down

This family has been busy, busy.  The remodeling is well underway with some major changes having been done.  We are so blessed with all the help we have had so far.  The biggest project that we almost have done is taking the walls out between the kitchen and living room and the small wall between the foyer and living room.  We wanted a more open/welcoming concept to the house, so we decided to take these walls out and here is our work of doing that.  We actually have more done than what this post shows, but sadly I forgot the camera at the last work day, which was the biggest one of taking out the wall and putting in the header.  Pictures of how that all looks now will have to wait til a future post.  Sorry.  

 This picture shows the walls between the foyer and living room and the wall with the fireplace is between the kitchen and living room.  Both walls came out.

 To the left is the foyer/living room wall and to the right is the closet with dark brown doors which we have removed to open up the closet as well. 

 Let the demolition begin!  The boys were sizing up the wall to see how much damage they could do.  Ready, GO!

 He's so entertaining!

 Phil Junior took the better route in using his foot.

 With the wall between the kitchen and living room being a support wall, we needed a professional to help us figure out what to properly do.  Steve Taylor came and lended not only a hand but all of his expertise in the area to help us get the job done correctly.  Thank you soooo much, Steve!

 Benaiah worked at getting nails out.  I think he mostly banged them in. 

Everybody helped!

Look at that!  The wall between the foyer and living room- Gone!  The wall between the kitchen and living room is waiting for more hands to help with placing supports on both sides of the wall and placing in the header before the supporting wall is removed.  There is also some duct work that needs moved, so Jonathon will be attempting that project here in the next week or so before drywall gets patched and mudded for painting.  That wall is now gone and the header in, and the house feels so open.  I will thoroughly enjoy being in the kitchen and being able to see who my guests are coming in the door.  Loving how it is all turning out so far! 

We've done much more cleaning out of rooms and painting.  Lots more painting to take place yet.  And the floors all need replaced.  Whew!  Lots left to do, but we're getting there, and we've got some time before this baby decides to come, so I think we are right on track thanks to all the helpers we've had.  Couldn't do it without any of them!!!

This momma is feeling the work though, so I'm learning that I have to do less work and more sitting.  I've been doing my share of boxing and wiping down walls, but it's beginning to wear on me.  So thankful for the ladies in my life that are willing to help me out with these areas.  And my girls have been good boxers too.  : )

Now that our vacations are all over with,  most of my posts from here until a baby is born will be about remodeling.  Although, we did schedule a boat ride with my parents for next Sunday, so they can see the changes we've made to the house and let Benaiah have a ride on the boat which he's been asking for for weeks now.  That little guy sure loves his Grandpa Dan.  So, until then, try to stay cool in this hot weather and enjoy your friends and family around you!  We sure are!