A Family Project: Laying Tile

I've been feeling a loss of what to put up on this blog since Jan. I'm sorry if you've given up on following it and I understand. It's meant to share a little bit about our family. So, I'll see if I can continue to do just that. How about some stories, projects, pictures, facts, etc... Hopefully, it will be enjoyable for all.

Laying Tile:

I have meant to post about Jared's idea for laying tile in our main living area for some time now. We did get this finished in time for Nathan's arrival at Thanksgiving time but I never posted the photo's about the process it took for all of us to pitch and help getting this tiling project done.
In actuality, it was a challenging ordeal to tile our floor but we lived through it! I've been getting used to the tile again and it is looking nice still. In the end, I can say now I think I'm enjoying the result.
But tiling is no joke! It is hard work. I kept telling my children when they became tired of helping: "This is why you need to stay in school, go to college and graduate, so that you don't have to do this type of a job all the time." (Unless you want to, I suppose.) Overall, my children were all amazing helpers and even better than me. Do I want to admit that? ;)
Now, I do realize that some people may really love this type of job. I have nothing against them at all - more power and brute strength to you. For me, I really struggled sticking with it and I found myself frustrated. The not-so-nice truth about myself is that I was giving in to periods of laziness. I found out with tiling, you can't do that. You have to stick with it until it's over or it just becomes a lot harder. Digging and scraping up a mistake was not so great.
Jared also had an amazing idea to create a mosaic. It's a true north, celestial theme. He came up with the design and all of us in one way or another contributed in finishing it. It's funny because I found it interesting to figure out how the pieces would fit together to create the mosaic. Quite like doing a puzzle.
Each year for New Year's Eve my mom would put a puzzle together & if we wanted to stay up and watch the big crystal ball drop in NYC, which I always wanted to, then we could help her with the puzzle. We put together some big and interesting ones over the years as I grew up.
The amazing thing about this project is that we worked together as a family and we finished it in time for Nathan! Now, that's a great feeling. Accomplishment!

Hope you like the photo's of the final mosaic from three different angles and one close-up: