My kind of breakfast

I had to share this with you. It just looked so good. After putting Michael down for his morning nap I decided I wanted french toast instead of taking my routine nap. Doesn't it look o so yummy! Yes that is whip cream on top & guess what? There's a big pile of butter underneath!

O by the way it was delicious!

I feel accomplished

What I've managed to get done today:

• grocery shopping for dinner
  
• cleared counters in Kitchen
  
• washed dishes in sink
  
• put away the clean dishes in dishwasher that have been sitting there for 2 days now!- Wow that's bad!
  
• vacuumed the living room, twice -I gotta try to get rid of these darn carpet fuzzies!
  
• two loads of laundry- still waiting to be folded- but I will get it done!
  
• started dinner using this recipe, thanks Jan for informing us all about the group!
  
  Best of all Michael was sleeping through 90% of this. I'm loving two and a half hour naps! So I've taken advantaged of that to be productive today. Hooray for me! I've been lagging lately and I'm not sure why. I haven't cooked or cleaned in almost a week! Although we did cook together for Memorial Day, so I guess that counts and I did dust our TV stand on Tuesday. Maybe all this work today will even out my laziness from this week, or should I do more? Hmm some dessert would be good tonight as I watch the season finale of this~

{Lost}

Pool Time

Here are a few pictures of Michael's first experience at the pool. He finally got the chance to wear his $1 Gap swim trunks! We went to the pool on post, best of all it was free!

It took some time for him to warm up to liking it. He did pretty good once he got used to it.




The perfect dessert to a hot summer day at the pool.

He did it

This isn't a very good quality video but I captured Michael crawling a few seconds yesterday. I missed recording the very first time he did it but I managed to catch this one. Of course I kept recording his every move after so I could catch him doing it. Just ignore what Laura says in the background. :)

Yesterday was Memorial Day & Laura had a really neat thing happen to her read about it here.

By request ...

Here you go Mom~some Michael for ya. Here he is getting around ~ getting closer to crawling. I'm sure he'll have it down in just a few weeks or less- he's gettting it down fast.

Joe discovered the other day that Michael likes to knock things over already. He not only uses his hands but other parts of his body as you'll see. You'll also see in the background more DVD's out of place by Michael. :) He's getting good at getting up on his knees but only can stay up on them when he goes backward.

Thank you tax rebate!

Here is a picture of the deck before it was stained.














Here it is stained- it's not a huge difference but we wanted it to still be natural looking. We love it. Good job hun.

Here is our cute patio set! We love it! Now we just need a nice cool breeze on a nice evening with a tall glass of lemonade! Thanks tax rebate!














I think it's about time to tackle the weeds! You can't tell but about two months ago I pulled about half of the ones along the back of the fence- on the left. They have grown back as you can see. Our weeds look more green than our grass! Our poor puny grass, it's trying to grow so hard. We just don't have enough rain right now.

Hmm this looks like it could be fun
















Maybe I can learn to pull myself up to a standing position
















Or just nose dive into the DVD's
















I got some!
















Let's go back for more

















This IS fun!
Hi Mom!


















*I think it's about time to build that new entertainment center Joe.

It's done & I'm home!

So Joe managed to get the deck finished a few days before I came home. Now we just need to stain it. He'll be either putting a step all the way across the front or figuring out something to cover up the blocks. I think it looks great and it will be so nice to get the grill out of the garage & on the deck. Plus now we have somewhere to either stand or sit outside. Next is purchasing a patio set. We've already picked out the one we like we just need to go get it.

It was fun to be home and spend time with family and friends. Melinda & Jeromy & kids stopped by at the reception. I was also able to go visit them and see the improvements they've made on the house. It was fun to catch up with Melinda & just hang out with her. Little Carter Buddy has so much hair! He was as cute as can be, especially when he'd flash his huge smile! Lydia was as sweet as always. Miss you guys! Can't wait to come visit again sometime.

I was also able to catch up with friends from school and work. I'm glad I stayed as long as I did so that I had time to visit with everyone. I enjoyed my visit home to see my family as well. I know Michael enjoyed seeing all of them again, and they in return.

Joe promises...

This is the beginning of a deck if you can't tell. And Joe promises to have it done by the time we get back from WA next Thursday.














Joe is having to bury part of the supports to get them level due to the fact that our lawn has to have a slope for drainage.














I'll leave you with pictures of Michael from Olive Garden that Laura took- before the screaming began. You can tell he's taking it all in.

Bye for now, I'll be posting about my trip when I get back but I'll keep reading yours to keep up.

Soup, Salad, Breadsticks & 2 Screaming Kids!

Today Laura and I thought we'd spoil ourselves and go out to lunch at Olive Garden for soup, salad and breadsticks. It's only appropriate that we went out to eat together on her Wedding Anniversary- while her husband is gone for 6 months. I had suggested that we could get it to go but Laura insisted that we eat in so we'd get all the endless supply of breadsticks we want. So we did. It was delicious. Yummy soft garlic-buttery breadsticks with Alfredo dipping sauce and delicious crisp salad plus tasty soup. If you've never tried the dipping sauce for the breadsticks, you're missing out! They actually offer a free sample! It's a must! The only problem was our screaming company (our kids). Michael has gone through a screaming phase before but this one is worse. It's much louder and deeper. I couldn't believe he was screaming as much as he was! Laura told me not to worry- everyone wasn't even hearing him over Hayden. He's about to turn 2 in a couple months and has definitely started his terrible two's. Lately I've been hearing Hayden described as being a beast! Well we did leave with spilled water, crumbs, bread, Alfredo dipping sauce & much more all over the table and floor. I'm sure everyone was clapping as soon as we left the building- glad to get rid of the screaming boys & their crazy moms- thinking they could enjoy a nice lunch out.

2 1/2 Down... much more to go

Kitchen before paint & our things:














After:














Master Bath Before:





























After :



















Here is our 1/2 finished project. We're going to put up a chair railing in our living room. We've only got the paint done so far. Keep in mind that we still haven't hung up anything on our walls yet so these rooms are not completed, just painted.














Joe will be painting Michael's room while we're gone. I'll have to organize it after it's painted but I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished room.

We still haven't picked a paint color for our bedroom or our 2 other bathrooms. We'll get to it in time. Any suggestions? Our bedroom furniture is a pretty dark wood and a cream colored duvet cover. Our sheets are currently a light blue but can always be changed. We have no idea what color to do our half bath, it's currently all white. We were able to get so much done this weekend because Joe didn't have to go into work on Friday or Monday so we had a busy 4 day weekend!

A sneak peak of things to come...

I am like a star...

shining brightly...

Outgrown

Michael has finally outgrown his infant car seat. We weren't quite sure what the limit was on our since we bought it used. I looked online & the most similar ones were between 20-22lbs. He is 20lbs so we decide it was time & bought a convertible car seat. I had a hard time picking one out that I liked & that was affordable. I made a decision and bought it. I brought it home and thought that it had no cup holder. I did end up finding out that what I thought was a "snack holder" opened up to be a cup holder. So I decided I'd go ahead and keep it & not spend $40 more on a different one. Man I can't believe how expensive a car seat can get! Some are as much as $300! Talk about luxury car seats! I liked this one because it was nice to only use one hand to undo the top snap. I also liked that the part to loosen or tighten was easier to adjust than most. Here is sweet Michael taking his first ride in his new car seat.