An exhausting 2 weeks!!!

First of all I need to say a huge thanks to Bear's dad and brothers for all the help they gave us while we were working on our future home! And of course another huge thanks to Bear's mom for keeping watch over Caitlyn and Allison so we could get the work done without little ones getting into everything...we couldn't have gotten anything done without your help!!! We had a very busy and exhausting 2 weeks while in Kansas recently. Bear's time left in the Army is dwindling down quickly, so we were anxious to get some work done on the house to get it ready for us to move in and to be better prepared for winter. We put in new windows throughout the whole upstairs which were very badly needed! The first room upstairs that is going to be remodeled is the room that Caitlyn picked for her own, so we got busy taking the drop ceiling down and removing all the plaster (a very VERY dirty job that I know my parents are elated to be finished with in their own home!) that had been damaged from heat from the old chimney. We removed all the carpet from the house except for the room where we took the plaster out, but it will be coming out shortly as well. Under the kitchen carpet was some old vinyl flooring that needed to come out so we could put down some new tile. That proved to be an exhausting job, but it turned out well! After several applications of adhesive remover, all the goo left behind the vinyl was finally gone and Bear got busy laying down a new sub-flooring. While he was doing that, I laid new tile on the back porch! Once Bear got his portion of the floor done and the skim coat applied, it was time for me to start laying tiles down! This is a rather large kitchen, so it took a few days to get done, but we finished it just in time for our appliances to arrive at the house! The downstairs will get carpeted in the very near future, and we can't wait to see how that will look! We still have some more wallpaper to remove so we can start painting, but we made a lot of progress in just 2 short weeks!

The front of the house with new windows!

Back of the house after windows installed
Lauren getting her first tractor ride with her daddy

The kitchen with appliances and tile laid down
Love the new floor!!!
Bear getting dirty taking plaster down


The living room minus wallpaper and carpet


The dumpster, nearly full to the brim at the end of our 2 weeks.

The entire 2 weeks wasn't devoted to work...we did play a little. We made it out to a couple county fair parades. The girls got so much candy it was crazy, but they were fun to watch. Most of the time, Allison wouldn't even run out to get candy...the people would drop handfuls in her lap!!! When Caitlyn saw Ty riding her horse in the Jackson county parade, she said she would like to do that some day...who knows! I learned how to operate our riding mower...pathetic, I know, but it was exciting for me as growing up we only had push mowers. Sorry no pics! Our calves are getting big and have been weaned off the bottle. And Maggie has been getting in trouble again, this time killing 2 chickens! Allison shocked us all by making the whole trip there and back home without any accidents!!! Just writing about all this makes me tired again!