Summer Summary

It's hard to believe that summer went by and I did not post a single entry on this blog.. Time flies!! N and I spent lots of time outside, so I wasn't at my computer a whole lot. It's hard to be on the computer with a toddler around because any time I log on he wants to play games on his favorite kid websites. Therefore, I end up saving my computer usage for nap time and after the little one has gone to bed. This summer was exciting and this fall has been, too. I have posted several pictures to recap the past few months.






We got our front door painted red.







N and I passed the time by cleaning his outdoor toys with buckets of water, soap, and wash cloths. He loved it!

N also saw his first display of fireworks (or "fire spiders" as he called them) on the 4th of July, but the pictures did not turn out so good, darn it.








N's birthday! I can't believe he's another year older!








N and I ate as many lunches outside as we could. N calls them picnics. I brought his little table inside now that it's cooling off. We still eat at it quite often and N still calls them picnics even though we are eating indoors.







My sister came home for her final wedding gown fitting and her bachelorette party. Good times!!





















Unfortunately N came down with a terrible ear infection and was sick while my sister was here, so he had to stay home quite a bit. J and I tried to keep him occupied and as happy as possible by crafting with him. After twenty four long days, two rounds of antibiotics and three trips to the doctor he finnnnnallly kicked the ear infection!!!




N started a one day per week school at a local church in early September. These pictures were taken on his first day. It's funny because he insists on carrying his backpack to school every day. He does verrrry well at school. One of the best parts of the day (for me anyway) is seeing his face light up when he sees that I am there to pick him up. He always says "Mommy" with a big smile on his face and runs to me with his backpack on his back. Too cute!!




In late September my family went to The Netherlands for my sister's wedding. The trip was fantastic and the wedding was incredible. Congratulations again, Sis. You two are a wonderful couple and you were a stunning bride!!! My husband took the week off of work to stay home with my son while I was on the trip. Although I enjoyed my travels, I missed "my guys" immensely. D was good about emailing me daily updates and he took lots of pictures. They actually had a very active week. D even made a decorative cement block with their hand prints in it to commemorate the week.











































N is currently very interested in pretend play. He loves his kitchen. As I said above, I have our picnic table in our dining room which is located right by "N's kitchen." N "cooks" us pizzas, pancakes and noodles all the time. He is very good about serving me my diet coke with everyone meal!! Ha!!







N was Bob the Builder for Halloween, but I cannot find the pictures at the moment. I will post pictures when I find them.









This fall will be busy with household projects. D got a ton of stuff done outdoors while it was still warm outside. He built landscaping walls all around the house that will be ready to be filled with plants next spring. He closed in the underside of the deck and built a little shed under the deck to store our patio furniture, etc. He did a huge renovation of the creek in the back yard and was able to grow a pretty nice yard of grass... He is struggling to push the crab grass out of the yard, but it all looks great to me. Our big project this fall is finishing our basement. We've already got our belongings stored in various places of the house and D has framed in all that walls that can be framed in at this point. With some help from the professionals who built our house, we hope to have the basement finished by Christmas!

Take care,
C

Yard, Deck, Porch Posts

We have had unseasonably cool and rainy weather this year, therefore, we had to wait a while for the crew to come and level our yard (called the "final grade"). Fred, the guy who leveled our yard learned very quickly that the pile of clay laying in our yard (the dirt that was dug out of the ground to place our house on our lot) had sat long enough to get extremely hard. He tried several methods to get the dirt to break up and spread out. He even tried to convince his boss to rent a skidsteer (sp?) to do the job, but he couldn't talk his boss into it so he used the tractor he always uses, but the poor thing had to undergo a few repairs in the process. I didn't pay really close attention to how many days Fred was here, but it was long enough (on and off for two weeks) that I think N thought he was family or something. :) He was always excited to see Fred driving the tractor around our yard. He always waved at Fred as he worked and he still recognized the blue tractor when we see it around town. As soon as Fred got the yard leveled D went into full gear spreading out the see, fertilizer and hay to cover it up. It is really windy out here so D had to stake nets down over the hay in a few areas to keep it in place. The grass has come up much faster than I thought it would. I helped D with the project a little bit (when N wasn't awake). When I saw the grass starting to pop out of the ground I told D I felt like a proud Mama who had a million new little babies. (See before and after pictures below.)

Not only has D been planting grass, but he has also been working on our deck. (Pictured below). It has been so nice to have this space because it's an area where N and I can play outside while we wait for the yard to grow.

Our builder's carpenter (Dave) came over today and installed our porch column accents. They turned out really nice. I'm so glad we decided to have them added. We've seen a few houses in the area with column accents like these so we thought our builder would be able to buy them fairly easily and have them installed in no time. Well, after talking to our builder about it (and receiving one pair we didn't care for) we found out that this style has to be specially made. Once again, we learned that we have expensive taste...Our builder was persistent and found someone to make them for us and they turned out great.

CVS-ing

For those of you who have not heard of "CVS-ing" this post is not going to mean anything to you, so just disregard it. My Oop for everything in the picture below was$48. The original MSRP? $169! I was lucky and got a really nice and patient clerk who allowed me to do all six of my transactions in one visit.

Deck

After debating for a few weeks, D and I decided to hire someone to build the structure of our new deck for us. The crew who did it was able to squeeze us into their busy schedule and finished the project in four days! Yes, I said four days! It took D and I longer to deliberate than it took them to build the darn thing. D is laying the flooring (which is now done) and will install the railings and steps himself. Does anyone remember how long it took us to build the deck on our last house? It took the two of us (I was able to help out alot because N wasn't born, yet.) with help from family and friends thirteen weeks to build our last deck. And we did it during one of the hottest summers on record no less.

The final grade is also being done on our yard right now. The unseasonably cool weather, rain, and wind have caused us to have to wait for both our driveway and our yard longer than you'd typically have to wait. Now that the weather is starting to cooperate the trades are getting to work as fast as they can to get caught up with all the projects they have scheduled. Fred, the guy who is leveling our yard worked on Saturday from 8-4 and Sunday from 8-2. I saw him working at our neighbors Monday from early in the morning until the sun went down around 8pm that night. We will be glad to have the yard leveled out so we can start planting grass. But, for now, N and I are spending a lot of time "diggin" in the dirt with our "shobels and buckets."

N loves being outside! He enjoys playing with our new bubble machine. He refers to bubbles as bubbles or moons interchangeably. He like pushing his "shoppin cart" around the driveway. I have reorganized his closet and drawers to very clearly designate his play clothes from his nice clothes. We have quite a few play clothes at the moment because we spend so much time in the dirt. N loves the fresh air and sunshine. It makes him happy and it helps him to sleep well at night. However, he is back into the habit of waking up at the crack of dawn almost every morning. Urgh! I guess he doesn't want to miss one moment of daylight.

We went to our local fair again this year. They hosted their first ever 5K race on Saturday morning. D and I ran it. N rode in the stroller with Daddy. We had to wake N up early to get to the race on time. He was a little cranky about being woken up, but he perked up once we got to the race. D said it was fun running with him because he talked about all of the things he saw as they ran. He pointed out the "X-vators" (excavators) and back hoes, made engine sounds to encourage Daddy to keep going, and talked about the birds he heard chirping in the "twees" (trees). Trees are very fascinating to him right now. We don't have any on our property yet, so there have been a few times N has stopped at a "tee" and looked up into it with amazement. Too funny. After the race we attended the sausage and pancake breakfast at the fair. Anyone who ran in the race got to eat a complimentary breakfast. It was sooo delicious! N and I eat healthy wheat pancakes and turkey sausage almost every morning for breakfast. The pancakes at the fair were "leaded" as my dad would say - no wheat, only white pancakes and pork sausage instead of turkey. Delish!! That night we went back to the fair to eat dinner with friends. N went to his first ever petting zoo and loved it! He liked it so much we went in twice. When he started hugging the animals we decided to leave. That was a little too friendly for me.. All I could think about were the germs and dirtiness he was collecting from the animals. Thank goodness for antibacterial foaming hand sanitizer. We decided that N doesn't know the difference between real animals and stuffed animals.