Sorry I haven't blogged lately. We just find it very hard to leave our awesome new family room.

Birthday Boy and a Finished Basement

Happy 29th Birthday Collin (last saturday)!

And here they are. Finished family room pictures.

I LOVE it!

Things That Happened Last Week

I took this picture of myself. Collin thinks it's funny that I take pictures of myself. Does anyone else like to take pictures of themselves?My floors got dirty... again. Stupid Operation Basement. I was asked to tree-sit. Oso lost TWO WHOLE POUNDS!!! Way to go, buddy! Lucy doubled in size and became sort of friends with Marley and Oso.

And we got a whole lot of stuff done in the family room:

Once it's done I am going to sit down on the couch, turn the TV on, and fall asleep.

Operation Family Room

Most of the stuff that has been done in the family room Collin has either done himself or had his dad come help.(Thanks Gerrit!) This weekend, however, I actually proved to be quite useful. For instance, I tiled this: And held up the crown while he used the nail gun to nail it up.
I also helped put down some of the glue for the wood. Due to all the sanding our whole house was blanketed under a thick layer of dust. This is a picture of the kitchen table. No, that isn't a wood colored place mat. Check it out! You can see the little decorative cutouts! The floors were so bad that it took me hours to clean it all up. I attacked it in sections. You can see a line straight down the kitchen floor. The left side is what it is supposed to look like. I can't wait until this stinkin' family room is complete!

Before and After: My "Tina Fey" Glasses Edtion

Before

AfterThey are different, I promise. And in honor of National Grammar Day I leave you with a picture of what Collin lovingly calls my "Librarian Look." He gets it a lot...

According to SPOGG.org

Check it out at http://www.spogg.org/

UPDATE

To celebrate this most proper of holidays I found this website. I wish I could carry it around in my pocket. It lists common errors. For example: When to use accept vs. except.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

PS And yes, April, correct grammar ALL DAY LONG. Especially your kid's grammar. They'll love it.

PPS Did you know "PS" stands for "post script?" So this is a "post post script."

PPPS For those of you who think you've "caught me" using "and" at the beginning of a sentence it's not really a grammatical error. See this article:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/Default.aspx?article=ErrorsThatArent

Check back for more fun grammar stuff throughout the day! I'm off to make some dangling earrings that say "participle" on them.

Don't you just LOVE National Grammar Day?

More Before and After Pictures

While flipping through the October issue of Better Homes and Gardens I landed on this page (#177) and thought "My books need a home. I want that!" I immediately ripped the picture out and put it on the fridge (hence the wrinkles). Collin looked at it, said "We'll see" and that was that.

5 months later he got to a point where he could start building. This is a picture from Friday night.

And here is a pic from yesterday. It actually took more time to caulk them than it did to build them. I love them. My books are just ITCHING to move in (after we evict those power tools and diet cokes).

When he paints the rest of the basement woodwork he is going to paint this white as well. I am so excited to have my own little library! He did a great job.