The Hendricks Family Experience

October 29, 2008

Sarah’s 10th birthday!

Filed under: Birthday,Kids — chris @ 11:58 pm

Hard to believe, but Sarah is turning 10. She’s into the double digits! She had a fun birthday. Mason organized a trunk-or-treat activity at church, and invited a bunch of her friends. They came dressed up, and a few went all out and decorated their car trunks accordingly. We like Mason’s selflessness with things like this (but you know, as parents, we wish it extended further sometimes – like working together on chores, or just getting along. Oh well, we take what we can get.)

Sarah also had a custom cake she designed with Mom. It had a Disney princess theme, and she got to pick everything out. She did pretty well in the presents department too – some clothes and books that she really wanted, and a new baby doll that actually eats, drinks, and fills its’ diaper! Gross! Also included was a cupcake machine that was also on the wish list. She has not offered to make me any cupcakes yet, but I will keep asking.

You can see the other pictures from her party by clicking here.

October 28, 2008

Picture day!

Filed under: Kids — chris @ 11:46 pm

Big cheese!   

 

 

 

This picture shows the biggest smile we got from Kate as we went to have her pictures taken (late 2nd birthday pictures). She smiled on command at home, but once we got to JC Penney’s she was not as excited. Luckily the girl taking the pictures had a fast finger so we had a couple turn out. She was actually pretty well behaved for a 2 year old, and even left the curlers in until Mom took them out.

Click here to see her other cute curler shots.

October 27, 2008

Hello world!

Filed under: General — chris @ 1:32 am

Sing it, Neil!

Hello again, hello.

We decided to move everything to WordPress because frankly, .Mac/MobileMe was just too flipping painful.  You’ll see our old entries appear here as we migrate them, and new ones coming up soon.  (Actually, the Plum Point post is new, but we backdated it because we never published it.  Take a look.)

October 14, 2008

Family campout at Plum Point

Filed under: Kids,Scouts — Steph @ 11:41 pm

We recently decided to have our boys join a community boy scout troop. The last two weeks have been very busy with meeting new people and getting involved with this new troop. We have met some really great people and the boys fit right in with the rest of the troop. They are very active and have a lot planned over the next few months. The boys will be getting ready to go on a 20 mile hike in November. It is great to find such an active scout troop. If you can imagine the boys actually run this troop with the help of some incredible leaders.

This last weekend they had their annual family camp out. So we went with the boys Friday night to Plum Point to go camping. Plum Point is a little park right off the Hudson River in New Windsor. It is supposed to be where the first trading post was in Orange County. We had a lot of fun even though we didn’t sleep well on the hard ground, with the trains rumbling by all night and gun shots (nearby hunters) ringing through the early morning air. Kate thought it was fun to sleep in her own sleeping bag even though she spins when she sleeps and ended up with me in my sleeping bag. It didn’t matter to me, I wasn’t sleeping anyway. On Saturday the boys set up stations to teach some incoming Webelos about their troop and Mason got to help build a monkey bridge. It took a good part of the day to build it but he got to be the 2nd scout across. It was pretty cool so we all took a turn and I think the girls probably did it three or four times. We were exhausted from chasing Kate so we did take the girls home for a bit so she could take a nap. We went back that afternoon for dinner and a bonfire. In the evening around the fire we got to experience a very loud and crazy camp fire program which all the kids really enjoyed. Kate fell asleep and it was getting cold, so after some quick marshmallow roasting we all went home, showered and crashed for the night.

Click here to view all of the photos from our campout!

October 5, 2008

Kitchen band-aid project

Filed under: House & Yard — chris @ 10:56 pm

 


Kitchen – Before
Kitchen – After

Dining area – Before
Dining area – After

It’s been a couple weeks since we posted. That’s because we’ve been occupied doing a quick makeover of the kitchen and surrounding areas. Our house hasn’t been updated since it was built. You can see this in the “Before” picture. Same linoleum and wallpaper as the house had in 1986, “rustic country” wood flooring that was splintery and nasty, and a doorway into the dining room that is not used. Also, there was no room for Steph’s buffet and hutch, where most of our dishes and the like are kept.

So we decided to do a number of quick things to make the kitchen and dining area nicer and a little more updated, but nothing too expensive or crazy, since we’re planning a full kitchen update in 3-5 years. So we figured that we would get the walls where we want them, put in a laminate floor, and do some painting. Pretty easy, right? Yeah, seems simple, but there was a little more to do than we thought.

Demolition was easy. Sheetrocking and prepping the sheetrock for paint was easy. Moving the wiring for the thermometer and phone was easy, but took time. Moving the central vac point was not too bad. Getting the laminate down seemed easy, but there were a couple of sections that were complicated, like the kitchen and laundry room. Apparently if you haven’t done this before, you should start in a nice square room. It took us a little time, but all of the linoleum is covered, the gross wood floor is gone, and the laminate is down. Some new mouldings and paint were added, and the kitchen is almost done. One wall is left to paint, and that’s due to the wood windows and trim that need to be refinished and painted.

Click here to view a full set of photos from both demolition and construction.

UPDATE: It’s done!  The kitchen and dining area are finished.  Some painting is left in the laundry room, but it can wait.

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