Master Bedrooom

 So, after lots of work and discussion with my sister-in-law over what is best and what is needed...Here are the results of the master bedroom.  There are still a couple of touch ups that need to be done, like doors on the closet, and add some pillows for color... but all in all this room is done.  I love it, and when Rick came in and saw it he asked if we were rich. :)                                                                                

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Master Bath Before

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How competitive are the Stafford/Legas mix?

A little bit of background information...
Rick and I started dating while attending UAA in Anchorage. Rick played basketball, and I played volleyball. After about 4 months of dating we were engaged to be married in another 4 months. The 4 months following were filled with advice from our experienced married friends. One I remember the most was "Marriage is not a competition". I've laughed at that one many times in the past 15 years. I remember people being worried that two extremely competitive people were going to try to make a go at eternity together, but I think they were most of all concerned about how crazy our kids would be.
Rick has played sports since the time he was little, and has always had a very strong desire to win. This attribute has pushed him forward to some amazing successes in his life, but has also caused him many frustrations when he has occasionally lost a competition. One of my personal favorites was when we were newlywed. Rick taught me how to play chess. We lived in a little 1 room apartment in Germany, had no computer, and only had 3 black and white channels on our 12in t.v. So we tried to keep entertained with games. Rick killed me in chess every time, but I personally think I'm a much quicker learner than he gave me credit for at the time. So after taking my licks in chess for days, I finally won one. (Please keep in mind this is how I remember things happening) Rick was not happy about losing, and said something to the effect of, "Oh, I played so bad, that was a stupid move on my part. Not that last one, but two moves back." Effectively robbing me of winning with my unmatched cunning prowess. So of course we had a rematch, because the incorrect outcome had occurred. Now, we know what happens next because I remember it so well. Of course we had a battle of the brains, and because this is my favorite story, I came off conqueror yet again!!!! Much to my delight. Although I don't remember gloating at the time, I was pretty excited. My declaration of "Check Mate" was followed by one of Rick's shining moments of his competitive spirit. I'm not sure of the words that came from him, but I am sure that the chess board took flight off of the table and the pieces followed scattering around the room. We have not played chess since.
I have a different desire to win. It is just as strong (maybe), but different. When I was a kid my brother Tad invented the "beat game". While on family trips we were rewarded for good behavior over a period of time. We usually got Twinkies. Tad would scarf his down as quickly as possible, and I was usually still fumbling around with the wrapper by the time he was done. Then with his twinkly squinty eye and in his convincing way he would say "Maren, I bet I can beat you in the 'Beat Game'." OH YEAH! The challenge was on! So the way the 'Beat Game' worked was both people would try to eat their Twinkie the fastest. You might think that Tad had already won, since he had scarfed his down long before mine was open, but you'd be wrong. I was much more clever than to lose a game before it had even started. So knowing I would dominate this game I would split MY Twinkie (and give him the bigger half just to secure the competitive advantage). Ready, Set, Go! I would shove my "third" of a Twinkie in my mouth and throw my hands up in the air in victory!!!! Yes!!!! I was undefeated in the 'Beat Game', how silly could someone be to even think they could compete!? Tad would say, "Darn, you won again." and act really disappointed. Adam caught wind of the game, and then they fought to have a chance at competing with "The Master"!! I am still reigning undisputed champ.
So in short you could say Rick and I are competitive, to a fault. Those are just a couple of examples in our long history of competitive exploits. ( or should I say competitive expletives?)
Back to the present.....
We now have 7 amazing kids. They love to play games.... but don't like to lose. They are not yet to the extent of their father's disdain of losing, but they are quickly surpassing their mom's level of gloating and trash talk. It is entertaining at times, and often times a little much. I could give a run down of each kid and what they have done, but that would take forever. So we will leave it at Abe dunking on his little friends proclaiming "In Your Face!" and swatting them "Get that outta here!" At 6 it is pretty funny to watch. Luckily, his friend Charlie is tough skinned and just keeps taking it back at him.
The most recent example I have though, is of Hy. My sweet 3 year old. The dude gets after it, and we are trying to get him to not pout when things aren't going his way. But just like the rest of us, he enjoys a win. And, like his mom, he enjoys letting others know he is winning. Case in point, two days ago I took Hy shopping with me. We went to a store that had the shopping carts/cars for him to ride in and stay entertained. Another mom was packing up her car/cart with 3 little ones and entering the store at the same time we were. Hy leaned out of his car when we passed them and said,"See ya, Looo-zaas!" I heard him say it a couple more times before it dawned on me what he was saying and doing (refer back to 'beat game'...I'm a quick one!). I told him to talk nice, that we don't call people "losers", and that he should knock it off. He did. Until we passed another unfortunate kid whose mother was checking nutritional labels instead of paying attention to what really mattered.... Winning the grocery cart race! "Looo-ZAA!" Hy would next be found doing 10 push-ups in the deli section of the store. The trash talking ended there for that trip, but when I told the story to the rest of the family later, they all found it quite entertaining, so I doubt we've nipped that one in the bud.
So in conclusion, any of you who would like to compete with us in any type of 'Beat Game' ....
BRING IT ON!!!! LOOO-ZAAAS!

Danja's Room!!!!!

So these are the original pictures of Danja's room. We changed some walls and stairs downstairs, so that resulted in this room being changed around. We had to change the direction of the door and the closet. I give credit to Rick for that idea. I wouldn't have figured that one out on my own.
Then along came Aunt Tonja and her sister Cari (and her daughters).... they came up with a master plan, and I got to try to make it happen. Here is the result of their scheming, my building, and two days of a joint effort to get it all put together. Danja loved it.





My mom is still working on the bedding, which is also really cute stuff. So I might have to update these eventually.

Love you Dani-girl.

All the Wonderful Help!!!

Back in December we had a "paint party" to try to get things done in time to move in. We had a ton of help for our big paint party, unfortunately I didn't bring out my camera until late, and most people had gone home after working all day for us. We had over 35 people come spend time helping us out. It was awesome!!!! Most of the rooms were finished, all but some details. It was amazing to see how many people took time to come work with us. The whole house renovation process has been one that made me very grateful for my blessings. I am so thankful to be here close to family, and amongst so many kind people. Things still need work at our house, but day by day we are getting closer to the appearance of a finished product. We are years away from actually being done. I'm hoping to get some good after shots up soon. But to do that I would have to CLEAN!!!! Now that the weather is starting to get nicer we are going to have to start working on the yard.... that is almost scarier than the house was.

Finding the Happy

So we moved into our wonderful new house the day before Christmas, and continued to move in for a week or two. New year's eve we had Rick's family over for the holidays and decided that would be a great time for all of the kids to get sick. We had two kids quarantined in the master bathroom for a day or two, while Eli got sick in the front room on the new couch and carpet, Abe on the other couch in the family room, and Hyrum got sick in Danja's bed on her new comforter. It was quite amazing. Needless to say, we scared off our house guests. I don't blame them one bit. It was a great couple of weeks!
After everyone healthy-ed up we tried to get back to a somewhat normal routine. We fixed the heater in the house so we didn't freeze every day. We were running out of firewood at a rapid rate. JD Beck (my friend's dad) came over again and helped us out by redoing the stairs for us. He had already put the kitchen in for us. So things keep getting done little by little when we have the money for it.
It is a little stressful, and I have been a little ornery. I vented recently to my sis-in-law about all kinds of stuff that was bothering me, and realized later that most of what was making me feel so crusty was my own fault. I needed to "Happy up". So I have started to try harder to see the good and fun things that my family does, instead of the obvious annoying things. So right now I am a happy person in training.
We have an ipod dock in the kitchen now, so we can boogy all over the house. It makes a big difference in our house. Amazing what a little bit of music can do! There is still a point of sensory overload, when we need things to quiet down and kick kids outside. Luckily the weather has been nice enough for that. I love dancing with my kiddos!

The kids are all getting so big, and more and more fun each day. Till is 3 1/2 months old now. he is really good at smiling, and is starting to laugh a little when he gets tickled. Rick wanted me to cut his hair, it was sad to me, but he sure looks handsome now. I put up some pictures of Till before and after his haircut. The other one is of him in a "cocoon" that one of Rick's player's moms made for him. So cute, I loved it!
Hy is a handful, a handful of that gooey slime stuff. It is really interesting and fun to play with, but then when you want to put it down you can't. Hy is what Rick calls an attention hog. He gets right up in your face and smiles really big and asks for you to play or do something fun for him. It is near impossible to say "no". All of our kids have spent time during their lives sleeping on the floor in our room. They want to be close to us, but we want to be able to sleep, so they aren't allowed in our bed, but the floor is ok. Eventually they move back to a bed because the floor isn't very comfortable. Hyrum is the first kid we have had to kick out early. He talked our ears off! By the time he went to sleep, Rick was asleep too. I didn't get my chance to talk him to sleep like I usually do. So part of finding my happy side again was to kick Hy out of my room so I could talk to Rick again.
Abe is my mighty little man. He is a pretty soft spoken little guy that needs and craves more attention than he gets. We are working to get him the time he needs. He is a great little reader, and really gets after it in sports. He finally lost some teeth, and is feeling quite big now that the tooth fairy has also come to visit him.
Radi and Eli get squished into one person a lot. Not only do they look alike, they do the same sports, have the same teacher, same daily schedule, read the same books and wear the same clothes. So sometimes it is hard to separate them in my mind as to their personal needs and wants. It is something I'm trying harder to focus on lately.
Danja is getting tall and beautiful. She is a great helper, and an amazing helper when she wants to be. She has been paying a little more attention lately to how she looks, and she is sure a cute one. With minimal help from mom, she sure does a good job.
Ricky is 5'7" now. I can feel a big growth spurt coming on this next year. He is a nice boy and has grown up a lot in the past couple of months. He still does stuff that makes Rick and I shake our heads (or scream), but he is figuring it all out slowly.
Rick is extremely busy. But lately he has made every effort to help out when I need it. It has been wonderful. I'm probably not showing enough appreciation to equal the effort he is putting in. I'm so happy that I married a guy that is willing to change when it is needed, and work towards the goal of raising these kids to be as amazing as possible with me.
As for me, I'm plugging away at the house. I've tried to do something off the check list every day. Today's check is to earn some more money towards finishing the kids bedrooms. So this week I get to substitute teach at the Jr. High.
49 days of school left til summer break. The weather is great. I'm excited to get out with my kids and start having more adventures with them. That is the plan atleast. I've got to go. Class is starting.