Friendly Fire

As I look back on 2011 one of the things that sticks out to me is how our boys have really began to become close friends. Cash and Pierce have always had each other and always got along, but now in this past year we've seen all three of these little guys figure out how they fit in together. They all play together now and you can see how Cash and Pierce look up to their big brother.

They've also recently started a new game. Every night right before bed turns into all out Wrestlemania around the house. So far Beau is able to hold off his two little brothers, but I keep telling Beau that he needs to be extra nice to his brothers because it's not going to be too long until their tag team will be victorious.

Away in a Cave

We had one splurge during our trip to the Holy Land last February. While in Bethlehem, we met up with a guy named Odeh, who joined the Church while in England, but is a lifelong resident of Bethlehem. Odeh owns an Olive Wood store in Bethlehem and showed us some of the most impressive hand-carved nativity sets that we saw anywhere during our trip. There seemed like no better place to get a nativity set than Bethlehem (I'm guessing he too realized this) so we couldn’t turn it down.

We were drawn to this particular set because of the hollowed out wood trunk that makes up the manger. We learned that trees are very scarce in Israel (all that are there have been planted) so the default wooden manger that we think of where Christ would have been born would have actually been a cave much like this one below. To this day, many residents of Bethlehem keep their animals in cave mangers under or near their homes. Just one of the tidbits we learned on our trip.

Donde Esta El Bano?

After three months of work, we now finally have our bathroom back. We've found that it's not the actual room being remodeled that causes the problems - it's the impact that room has on the rest of the house that gets really old. So while it's very nice to have the kid's bathroom back, it's even nicer to have our dining room (where all the tile, tools, and new fixtures were being stored) back.

I'm not very good at before and after pictures - we end up ripping things out before we get the shot. So here is a post-demo shot and then some finished shots. A leaking toilet started this project, and we found that the floor was about an inch and a half higher on one side than the other. This first shot shows how we got started by shimming the floor.

From this...

To this!

Marta's favorite part of the remodel

I had to chisel through brick to put this puppy in.

This was the last room in the house to be gutted and remodeled. I'm not sure what I'll do with my time now... I guess it's now time to move to the basement.