LaMarche family : David

I had a lot of fun working on making Dave's day special. He had a normal work day on his birthday, but we celebrated with family. He got his favorite fried-egg and toast breakfast, lunch was at Panera with my dad, myself, Vanessa and Eli, and he requested a menu for his birthday. Burgers on the grill with all the toppings, a cold rice salad, and cut up fresh fruit (strawberries, pineapple, and bananas). He didn't want a birthday cake, rather...he chose cream puffs with ice cream and caramel and chocolate sauces and port wine. It is hard to replicate a fond experience he has in California, visiting a little italian place for fresh cream puffs and port wine, but he said the recipes he chose and the execution of it all was delicious and was just as good!

Rachel, my dad, and my grandma Rowena joined us to celebrate. Rachel and I gifted Dave with a hammock to put in the hammock stand we have had in storage for a long time and a shirt that says, "Beards: They grow on you". Violet got him a toy from buck store, Calvin wanted to give him legos (we got them at Target on our way home from school - he chose a little 3-1 set that can be an airplane or two other things), Vanessa gave him a butterfinger candy bar, my grandma got him a nice shirt and a joke - a razor. She isn't a big fan of the beard, but she laughs about it. Dad gifted him some $ for a new flashlight.

I can't speak for him but he said the day was pretty fun and he made a facebook post about it (he's not a big facebook guy) and said this:

"Very blessed today. Thank you to my dear wife, Maria, my sweet kiddos, Mama Row, Daddy Jon, Rachel, and all my family and friends for making this a very special day. Delicious meals, great company, kind words, generous and thoughtful gifts, surrounded by loved ones. I'm more blessed than I deserve! I praise God for you all."

Dave and I got a little "vacation" from the kids this week. Although I wouldn't call it a relaxing, put-up-your-feet-up, sleep-in type of break. All four kids got the privilege of going to Grandpa and Grandma Hardinger's house in Mason City starting Tuesday night of Spring Break this week. Grandma Jo picked them up Tuesday evening and used our van to take them to Mason City. I hear she planned the week in advance, prepared meals ahead of time, rearranged things in the house so no little hands could destroy things, shopped for food prior to their visit, planned out activities, and was "on her A-game" handling the kids all week. My dad also didn't work Wednesday and Thursday to help out.

The reason they all went to MC was because Dave and I had a big surprise planned. We've been planning since the end of January for their room renovations. Since Eli is officially moved in with Calvin, it was time to finally get their rooms done. It's been "musical beds" for the last 8 years, not really knowing who was really sleeping in who's room - and whoever was the baby at the time got the guest room with the crib. It is comforting and settling to know we will have a girl’s room and a boy’s room – and 2 of each. I love how the Lord planned out our family this way. We feel so…balanced…haha.

Anyway. We asked our dear friend and expert designer Kim Erisman to jump on board helping us with this project. She enthusiastically agreed and we quickly got to work pinning ideas on two Pinterest boards organized – one for girls, one for boys. We had a little powwow meeting to discuss kid’s interests and needs for their rooms and she took off pinning ideas. Once we went a direction with décor and furniture, it was obvious that there wasn’t room for desks in the kid’s rooms so we decided to move them to the basement play area. This worked out seamlessly and the kids love the desks in the basement.

This allowed room for more play things and dedicated seating areas for reading. A week or two of planning went by and she had the whole arrangement of the rooms set and we started ordering things. Boxes and boxes began appearing on our front porch, and we made every effort to keep all these deliveries a surprise. It sure helped that many of them arrived when the older two were at school! Vanessa noticed boxes, but thankfully, she is distractable. J I stored many boxes in the basement, some in the garage.

Dave had to make a run to the Ikea store in Minneapolis to get the bulk of things we planned to put in their rooms. This required him to take the van emptied of all the seats so he had room to bring everything home. I used the car to transport the 4 kids for two days. That was interesting.
The boy’s room inspiration came from Calvin’s love for all things outer space. He’s been obsessed with the idea of rockets blasting to the moon, the order of planets, the idea that the planets circle around the sun, astronauts, etc…you name it, he loves it. He acts like he’s a rocket all the time, blasting off from things, whether it is running or jumping. This was an easy “theme” take off with.
The girl’s room didn’t have a theme, but Kim created a beautiful color scheme of bright pink, orange, yellow, white, and black. It is dazzling! She found a perfect duvet cover with all these colors that looked like clouds, rain drops, and the sun. We went with this scheme and took a hot pink to the walls, and balanced it out with white furniture, white curtains, a black rug with white dots, orange chairs, and white cloud corkboards on the wall.

Something else the Lord worked out was the use of our friend Tony’s pickup truck. Tony needed a car to take two other guys with him to Ohio for the week to serve at a homeless mission, so we decided to trade our car for his truck for the week. He has a little pick up truck with a front bench seat only.

The actual work week accomplishing all these things was grueling. We didn’t really have an accurate idea of how much work these rooms were going to be. In hindsight, of course, it was all absolutely worth it. We shopped for some things to build the boy’s climbing wall at Home Depot on Tuesday night after the kids left. It was the Lord’s working that it just so happened we had a vehicle capable enough to bring home three sheets of plywood. The little car we would have wouldn’t have worked. Tuesday evening It got too late to work much, so we did a little (Dave brushed the first coat of polyurethane on the plywood and Rachel helped me tape off some of the boy’s room for paint prep)…but the rest we picked up the next morning.

On Wednesday, I got to work painting. Dave disassembled the baby crib and worked out cutting wood pieces for the planets in the boy’s room and prepared the wood for the climbing wall. He had to run to the store and get one more piece of plywood because the room was a little longer than 12 feet. It took me all day to paint the two rooms. Each room got two coats of paint. Kim came over in the evening to help out and helped me move furniture to the basement, carry rugs upstairs (dead body rugs! So heavy!), assemble an intricate pink chandelier, and assembled the two orange swivel egg chairs.

Thursday morning we got up at 7:30, got ready for the day, and made a run to Tandem tire for a quick errand, had some coffee and a muffin at Cup of Joe while we waited for an hour. We got back to work at 9:30 am. Dave hung the pink chandelier. Then he worked on putting up the finished plywood for the climbing wall. It was an all day project – requiring little cutting here and there, and needing to run to the store and get some pieces to connect the last 13 inch piece because there was no stud in place to screw it to.   He got some metal connectors and had to bring the wood all the way back to the garage to connect them – the carpet was too soft. He used a sledge hammer to get the four connecters in place. He said he arms were rubber after that project. What he thought would take an hour took 7 hours!

Thursday I worked on assembling three shelving units and the girl’s bunk bed. Carrying the heavy boxes upstairs was no simple task either. My fingers were pretty shot from all the turning of the allen wrenches for hours. Thursday during the day I took a few hours to go help celebrate a friend’s 40^th birthday from 11 am-1pm. I picked up a cake on the way and met at McDonald’s in Evansdale. Since it was spring break we picked a place where kids could play. It was strange to be there among friends with kids and not have mine with me! Kim and I made a run to Joanne Fabrics after the little birthday party to choose the fabric for the ceiling décor in the girl’s room. She chose a really classy pretty black dot sheer fabric. When I got back I kept assembling. The bunk beds were finally together, shelves in place. Dave put mattresses on the bunks. It was starting to come together! Rachel, bless her heart, came over to help as well. While I was busy assembling furniture, she did some research and got to work arranging the climbing wall holds where they should be. Which ones work best in certain places, etc. She mapped out on paper and traced where they should go and taped the paper to the wall. She said, “Ok, by 10:30 I should go.” 10:30 came and went. She was done mapping the pieces and was itching to screw some into the wall. She put some on the wall and it became addictive, ha!   Midnight came, and I said, “you gotta go!” So she did one more hold and then went home.

Friday was a “wake up early and get busy day” as well! I finished screwing the climbing wall holds on and was done by 10 am. Then I started assembling the boy’s bunk beds. Dave and I had scheduled time to take Rachel and her assistant Michelle out to lunch earlier in the week, so we kept that commitment and met them for lunch at 11:45 at a restaurant downtown Waterloo called El Patron – and all enjoyed delicious Mexican food. The weather was beautiful, a sunny 50 degrees. I had to wear my flip flops. We got home at 1:30 pm and kept working.

Kim came by that afternoon and worked on painting the wood edges of the planets. She stuck the decals on. Max and Chloe hung out, Miss Chloe took a nap, Max played legos and some ipad games. Kids got tired. Kim left, and offered to come back later that evening. She came at 7:30 and stayed til 1 am! She was determined to see the final results. We put rugs in place, worked on planets, painted edges black, Dave cut the wood for the sun for the third time. He escaped a potential bad injury by avoiding a drill bit flying off his router. I got the bunks in boys room assembled. Looking great! Put beds and astronaut bedding on. So very super cool!

It was about 4:30 when I got a phone call from mom wondering how things were going. I did not see an end in sight for the day. I knew we needed more time. Rachel bravely and happily volunteered to keep the kids overnight so we could use the rest of the day to work. My dad was driving home from a dental meeting in Des Moines and offered to re-route his trip to Cedar Falls to help Rachel with the kids. I seriously have the best family ever! Will never take them for granted! Mom drove them to Rachel’s house about 8 pm – dad swung by our house to grab air mattresses, a portable crib, and sleeping bags for the kids. Rachel reports they were so ready for bed and slept well.
Dave explored the attic a few times to see what he needed to support the hanging elements in each room. The two hanging chairs especially needed good support for the boy’s room. A run to Menards and he was ready. Hung up play canopies in each room! Chairs were hung up!

I started mounting hardware on walls to hang curtains. This took me a long time. Not my strongest suit – drilling holes and putting anchors in the walls. I figured out my drill bit was too small after ruining several anchors.

Kim and I figured out girl’s ceiling black fabric project by measuring, finding center, cutting fabric, screwing in little hooks, I sewed fabric with machine (it nearly broke and Kim fixed it! I’ve never seen my bobbin holder pieces come apart), time just flew out the window as we worked, we got it hung up, and it looks absolutely fantastic.

We then applied growth chart decals to the wood pieces.

Midnight was right about when we started hanging planets and porthole decals. I think we finished at 1 am. Happy faces, sighs of relief, sore muscles and all, everything looked amazing.
I only loaded the dishwasher once the whole week. We ordered Chinese food one day and pizza the next. Weird!
So Rachel and my dad brought the kids over on Saturday morning. We picked 10:30. We both had to work frantically to clean up. There was garbage, cardboard, assembly instructions, and tools EVERYWHERE. I mean everywhere. The garage is still a disaster, but the upstairs got nicely cleaned up. We still had one more little project to do, and that was to hang the growth charts on the wall behind each door.

Dave finished screwing the last one in place at 10:28 am. The kids pulled up into the driveway at 10:32 am. Yeah. Nothing like cutting it close!

We greeted them in the garage and Violet and Calvin were grabbing at the door handles waiting to open the doors and run towards us while my dad was pulling the van into the garage. Calvin ran to me and gave me a big strong monster hug. Violet ran to daddy, did the same, and we switched. Vanessa emerged wanting a big hug too. She snuggled next to my neck and said, “I missed you!!” Eli came walking around towards me, stopped and stared for 10 seconds or so, then gave me a little closed mouth smile and walked towards me and I picked him up. He didn’t want me to put him down. Violet was anxious to show us a binder she made with pictures and captions of what she did at grandma’s house. Calvin walked into the house and immediately said, “I smell paint!!! Did you paint our rooms?” haa!!

My dad unloaded the van, we all got acquainted again and listened to stories of their adventures to the library, the gym, and their time with Grandma and Grandpa. Violet tried running to her room to put the leotard grandma had gotten for her but we had to restrain her from busting into the room early.
The excitement settled down and we decided it was time to show them their rooms. Dave told them we had a surprise for them and we headed upstairs. Rachel was ahead of us with my camera on video mode. Dave asked them all to close their eyes and we all walked in – and asked them to open their eyes. It was a mix of awe and excitement. Violet said, “whoa!! Where did you get all this stuff????” then they started jumping around and talking fast. Violet said the pink light looks like something in a castle. Calvin said “look! You can get lost in these chairs!” putting the cover over him. Vanessa had a big smile and just walked around. They then climbed into their beds, grinned, and just explored the room with awe. Calvin realized something big was about to happen as we were about to reveal the BOY’S room – and started jumping with excitement to see that space. We then showed the kids the boy’s room in the same fashion – eyes closed, then open. Same reactions – lots of excitement, bouncing around, awe, screaming. Eli walked right over to the hanging chairs and climbed right in, leaned his head on the side of the fabric chair, and smiled. He stayed there for a little while. So super cute. The realizations of what was all in the room unfolded slowly. Calvin then realized his bedding looked like he was an astronaut. He climbed under his sheets and sighed happily. The three older kids tried the climbing wall, hung in the chairs, went into the rocket canopy and blasted off to the moon. Dad was snapping photos, Rachel was videotaping, kids were going crazy. Adults resorted to the hallway between the rooms and the kids just went NUTS. In and out of each other’s rooms, trying the chairs, climbing the bunks, in the canopies, etc….it lasted a very long time. Dave and I felt very happy and satisfied knowing it was all done. Our muscles are still aching and our eyes are tired from not sleeping enough. But ibuprofen takes off the edge, and coffee helps us walk.

I can’t thank my family enough for helping. Mom and dad, your help with the kids was amazing. I know they all had a great time, and your efforts planning and getting ready for the week and taking care of them for 4 days was superb! Rachel, your help with the rooms late into the night and your efforts to care for them Friday night and Saturday morning was the ticket to finishing with a bang. Kim, your planning and designing expertise is unmatched. Your help executing was much appreciated and very necessary! You hit the nail on the head for every aspect of the kid’s rooms and we thank you very much for your help, there is no way we could have pulled this off without your help too.

Sooo…for photos! Here goes!