Happy Birthday Grandpa Ken!!

We are thinking of Dad/Grandpa Ken on his special day, Wednesday, April 30, as he turns 62. We hope you are having a fun-filled day. I am going to take a good guess as to where you will be celebrating your birthday (Black River Falls......Turtle Lake...????) I'm sure we will find out soon enough. Our family is looking forward to Dad/Grandpa Ken retiring this year at the end of June. The boys are hoping to spend more time with their grandpa once he is enjoying the relaxing life of retirement! I hope you enjoy some special pictures that we found of Dad/Grandpa Ken.

Grandpa Ken and Grandma Deb are helping Carter paint and carve his pumpkins for Halloween. October 2006. Dad is at home, making a path through the snow with his snow blower. I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore (I hope!!!)

As Uncle Jamie would know, Grandpa Ken would never miss a wrestling tournament of Carter's. Coach Klimek shares with Carter all of Uncle Jamie's old wrestling moves. This is last year's Durand tournament.

Here he is again at the wrestling tournament in Mondovi, last year, to cheer Carter on.

Again at this year's Durand wrestling tournament. I was happy to see that Dad's beard was gone the last time I saw him. I thought he was looking a little "grizzly". What do you think??

Dad makes a great Grandpa........he loves to be with the grandkids! Here he is with baby Bradley just after he was born.

Thanks, Dad, for your willingness to always help out. You have always been there for me......us, no matter if it was day or night. We are very happy you have decided to retire.

We love you Dad and Grandpa Ken!

New Project...

Carter and I started on a new project in the dining room and kitchen. It was a project that I was planning to start once school was done, but I got an "itch" to get started on it earlier. Our plans are to tear off the wallpaper and paint the dining room and kitchen. I was curious to see how the wallpaper would come off and what exactly was underneith the wallpaper, so I started in a small corner to see what it was going to be like.

Well, the small corner ended up being an entire wall as it was coming off quite well. Carter and I got a little excited as it was pulling off and just kept on pulling. Once I started working on getting the glue off the wall, I realized that this wallpaper was put on sheet rock and not on a texturized wall. I soon found out that it was also put on before the trim, light fixtures, and cupboards. My simple project of painting is going to entail a little bit more......

Our plans are to texturize the walls with either texturized paint or the cement spray, and then paint over that. (Thanks, Shana, for the information about the texturized paint). It should be an interesting project, so I will keep you posted. Here are the walls without the wallpaper......

A little bit left to go around the California window and behind the refrigerator. The wallpaper behind the refrigerator has been a challenge to get off.

Hopefully it won't be too long that I can show you pictures of our painted walls, but I think most of the work will probably take place over the summer months (unless I can fit in some work on the weekends!) I'm anxious to get it started!!! Have a good week everyone!

Bradley's ER visit...

What a beautiful day Saturday turned out to be. Chad and the boys were outside all day starting at about 9:30 in the morning. When I got home from our Women's Worship group at church in the afternoon, the boys had everything pulled out of the shed and garage, doing some spring cleaning. I found Carter down the hill by the spring, climbing in the trees. Bradley was busy helping Dad get everything out of the garage to do some cleaning. We enjoyed the afternoon on a walk and playing in the sandbox and on the playset.
Just when I thought that this was the perfect day, Bradley had a fall from the monkey bars on our playset and split his chin. It happened so quickly, I am still trying to make sense of it all. The boys and I were in the sand box and I ran into the house to get the boys' new pails & shovels.....this took less than 5 minutes. When I was going back outside, I could hear Bradley crying and Chad was carrying him over to me. I'm sure many of you can relate to this scenario........as I see Bradley & Chad coming toward me, they were full of blood, and Chad's words to me were...."I think he will need stitches". We left for the ER and the doctor sealed up his cut with the glue method. It took four of us to hold him down while the doctor sealed it up.

Bradley is quite sore today and having a hard time eating as his cheek, chin, and mouth are swollen. We are very thankful that it wasn't worse than this. I certainly learned a good lesson on Saturday, that Bradley is a go-getter and he needs a lot of supervision!!

Our poor little guy is feeling under the weather today as his jaw hurts and he has the croup! Chad stayed home with him this morning as Carter and I went to Sunday school and church. To Carter's disapointment, we had to reschedule our roller skating plans in Menomonie until next weekend. Bradley took a good 3 hour nap this afternoon and seems to be on the brighter side. I will be staying home with him tomorrow, and hopefully the swelling will go down and he will be ready to go back to daycare.

Have a good week everyone!!