Upper Level of House

These are the stairs that lead to the upper level. They are Brazillian Rosewood.

When you get to the top of the stairs, you can walk into the main laudry room. I had this cabinet built so I could have a basket for everyone's clothes. It is working well to have one basket for each person when folding clothes.

This is the master closet. Actually this is my side of the closet. The drawers and doors you see are for our bathroom stuff. the drawers to the left are for clothes.

here is Jeff's side of the closet. In the bottom corner is a dog made dog kennel.

Juno has decided that this is a safe place to lay when we are upstairs. She is laying on Jeff's clothes, but he doesn't mind. Weird dog!

Here is what you see when you walk into our bathroom from the closet. I actually just replaced the white bathmats the other day and they match the ceramic tile now.

Here is the rest of our bathroom and the door to the right is our shower. then the next doorway is the pocket doorway to our bedroom.

Coming in the bathroom from our bedroom

Our bedroom. We don't have much on the walls in there yet. We have a TV ordered because they ran out where we got the other one for the game room. It was before Christmas when we wanted that one and I have no idea when it will come in. When we get that, we will set up our room better. You can see Fluffy to the right. The cats were following me around the house when I was taking pictures.

the rest of our bedroom and another cat, Trouble

here is the boys' bathroom. One sink is to the right and the other sink is past this pocketdoor you see and to the right. They chose an underwater theme for their bathroom. I intend to put up a border in their bathroom, but I need help from one of my friend's when she has time.

here is the shower curtain and Tiger.

the 2 sinks

our map room railing. I still think it looks like a big playpen for a kid.

The maps on the wall with Jeff's steel hanging system

The trunk you see in the floor was Jeff's grandfather's from World War II.

Here is what you see when you look down from the railing. My messy desk and our fireplace.

here is the steel floor with the celestial shapes laser cut out of it. It looks so cool at night with the lights on below it. It really looks like stars in the sky. I tried to take photos of it, but I cannot do it. You will just have to come over in the dark and see it for yourself.

here is the little hallway that leads to Declan's room. You can sort of see the trim to the very left that leads to their bathroom. This closet to the right houses a furnace. We had to give it up to a furnace after the shell of the house was up.

There is a little bit of space to the side of the furnace when I decide what I need to put there.

More of the hallway with the bathroom. You can see the stairs the leads down on the right.

Here is a continuation of the stairs and the hallway to them. This is our bedroom to the right.

The railing for the stairs to the right, and this is Isaac's room and the corner closet. We added this one after we gave up the other one to the furnace. It is a small one, but it works. To the left is the map room area.

Here is the chalkboard paint in Isaac's room. We got chalk and had the kids start writing on it. You can see fluffy and trouble hanging with me again.

Declan has more squares of the chalkboard paint, but he cannot reach all of them. This winter we have been having is making it hard for our friend to work in his wood shop and keep it warm enough to work, so the beds are not quite done. He is almost with them, so hopefully the weather will cooperate with us.

lost 3rd tooth

Declan finally lost his 3rd tooth. This tooth has been loose since the 1st day of school for this school year. He doesn't like to wiggle them or pull them out for fear of it hurting. So he waits until they almost fall out on their own or with very little tugging. He is so funny!

Declan has glasses

Declan has been struggling seeing in school even after months of eye therapy we have been doing. It was time to get him even more help with glasses. He has bifocals right now which he may outgrow. He needs help with his eyes to focus and reduce eye strain close up and then help seeing far away. He is very happy with his glasses and loves being able to see easily.

I got new glasses recently because my old ones were so old, so we took pictures together with our glasses. Poor kid has Jeff and my genes and glasses were inevitable.

Super Bowl Sunday

We had two families over for Super Bowl to show them our house and because we are becoming really good friends with the 2 couples. The 7 kids had a great time outside. They went sledding down the hill out the back of our house.

They also had a good time on our ice rink in our front yard. 4 of the 7 kids do not play hockey, but they sure had fun with the 3 boys who do play hockey. It was a fun day with our friends and hope to do it again soon!

Callen, Nycole, Dalton, Declan, (front) Isaac, Mason, and Kendall.

Map Room

Jeff and I got his framed maps up in the map room. We have been calling this area the map room for a long time. He made the hanging deals out of steel and the maps are hanging from steel rods with little brackets. It looks pretty cool and I love his idea.

Yes, our steel floor is still taken over by trains, but they aren't in my way anymore.

You cannot see the maps very well no matter where I took the pictures and the curtains are closed. The glare was going to be there no matter what I tried.

There are lots of extra rods right now because some of them are waiting to go to the family room in the basement. He is still getting the hanging deals made right or or painted, I am not sure, for the family room. We are doing a collage of family photos from the rods down there. Someday......

Okay, I know you are not going to see any new pictures of the house this time. I am being picky about things being clean when I take pictures or I forget to take then when things are clean. I will get more on the blog, I promise. I do have plenty of pictures of the kids for you and I am totally caught up to Christmas now.

Game in Wahpeton

Declan's team went to Wahpeton for a scrimmage last Sunday. All the grandparents were able to go again and Declan was thrilled. Declan's team won 7-2. He is top left going for the puck in this photo.

Declan's favorite position right now is being center because you can do faceoffs. He is right by the ref.

We are so proud of him and how well he plays hockey. He absolutely loves the sport. All the pictures he draws are of hockey at school even.

You can see red number 17. They are warming up and he cannot stand to be still and wait. He either plays with a puck if he is by one or he skates in circles. He has been skating in circles forever waiting for coaches. I told him one day I am going to watch his whole practice and count how many times he skates in circles. He laughed at me. I should do it because it cracks me up.