Our Weekend

After going to the funeral of a sweet 94 year old friend of ours on Saturday morning, I got hit with a bad cold.  Our babysitter got it too!  I feel so bad for her.  Our weekend looked a lot like this picture above- mismatched PJ's, juice with straws, and lots of tissues for me.  Mom's should not be aloud to get sick!

As for the funeral though, it was lovely.  I know that can sound weird, but it really was.  She'd lived a long, full, happy life and I'm sure she had a sweet reunion with her loved ones that had passed before her.  The thing I love about funerals like these is that it really makes you take a look at your life and take inventory on the legacy you are creating for your family.  Keith and I both felt that way on Saturday and I'm grateful for moments that remind us to be the best we can be for ourselves and for those we love.

Washing cars and houses

Grant and Brett love helping Keith wash the cars.  It's so nice to have a driveway now so that we can wash them at our own house.  It also makes for a great way to cool off on a Saturday afternoon.

Our neighborhood was having a bulk trash pick up day and someone put out a play house that their kids had grown out of and they were giving it away.  Keith came home and told me that he found it and he was so excited.  I will admit that I was very skeptical.  I was imagining a neon colored, broken and dirty, ugly playhouse.  I am happy to say that I was wrong and Keith was right.  :)

He brought it home and put it on the side of the house where the boys wouldn't be able to see it.  Then we had them come out to check out their surprise.  It was very dirty however, so we put that house on the driveway and went to work washing it, just like a car.  

And doesn't it look great?  The working doorbell is a hit, as is the hummer monster truck that came with it.  They play in here every day.  Yesterday I gave them some water and sponge paint brushes and they "painted" their house.  Thanks Keith for having an eye out for our kids!

Inside his lunch box

Grant's preschool schedule this year has been a dream.  Last year he had to be on the bus at 7:30AM!  It sure got us up and going in the morning, but we are happy that he's in the afternoon class now.  It's especially nice that it's during Brett's nap time.  :)  It's also during lunch time so I get to pack a little lunch for Grant.  Grant is easy to please.  He loves PB&J and could eat it everyday.  And he does.  He has snack at school too so usually his sandwich is gone but his carrots are hit or miss.  Isn't his lunch box cute?  He wanted a green lunch box.  And the fact that it's also a dinosaur is pretty awesome!

Fireplace: before and almost done

Before:  It's sure hard to believe that it looked like this for so long.  I guess it used to be cool.  We had the same mauve tile around one of our fireplaces growing up.  It went with the mauve carpet.  :)

Almost Done: The granite got set on Saturday.  We just need to go pick out the tiles to go immediately around the fireplace opening and then we'll set the mantel permanently and my brother said he'd help us do the tile at the same time.  I'm so grateful that he's so handy and that he has all the tools and know-how that we'd need to do the job.

A beard and a baby

We went for our ultrasound yesterday and found out the gender of our little baby.  We are thrilled to be having a baby either way, but secretly we were hoping for a girl.  So Keith decided that he was going to do something different this week so that maybe it'd be a girl.  He grew out his beard.  And it worked!  Hahahaha!  We are happy to say that we are expecting a baby girl in January!  Thanks Keith, I'm sure the beard helped.  Ha ha ha!

Projects Galore

Things have been pretty busy around hear over the past couple weeks.  We kept going back and forth on places to take a week long vacation to before school started and we just weren't coming up with a plan.  We also knew that we had some projects that we really wanted to get done ASAP and Keith is usually really busy with work.  So I brought up the idea of just staying home and doing some fun things together as a family and working really hard on a couple projects.  Really, it started with just getting the backyard done.  Keith worked so hard to shovel and move all of the rock that filled half of our yard.  It was a ton of work.  Our eight year old nephew helped a little, and Grant did a couple shovel-fulls with his plastic beach shovel, but Keith did the rest.  He worked his tail off and got super dirty.  I'm so proud of him.  Tomorrow  morning a crew is coming in to improve our existing sprinkler system and extend it over to this other half of the yard that will be home to some new grass and a putting course.

 Grant & Brett had fun splashing around in the shade while Keith slaved away in the sun!

Just in case the backyard wasn't enough to do, we decided to redo our fireplace!!!!!!!  I was surprised when Keith mentioned doing this, but I'm sooooooooooo beyond excited.  I've been looking at fireplace mantels online for a long time.  We narrowed down some of the ideas and then when we both agreed on one my brother came to do his magic.  (Remember, he's the one who installed our family room cabinets.)

After ripping off the old pop-out surround thing from the fireplace, he set up shop on the back patio and got to the fun part.

He really has put a lot of his talent into this mantel.  My dad came over today and helped paint the final product.  Before I was born my dad was a professional painter.  He's knows what he's doing and I think he had fun helping with this little project.  They both signed the back of it so if anyone ever rips it out (they would be crazy!) they'll know who built it and painted it.  Tomorrow the hearth will be set in place and then soon after our granite friend will come place a pretty piece of granite on top of that.  Then the mantel will be set in place.  Then it will be done!  I'm so excited!  I feel so lucky to have such an awesome thing being made for our home.  And I'm thrilled to have a mantel for Christmas!!!!

Meanwhile, Keith and all the boys had a trailer full of pavers arrive that needed to be unloaded.  They all (even little Brett) worked for over an hour unloading the pavers and stacking them on the ground.

I thought my little guys would get tired or bored after 15 minutes, but they loved it and worked hard till the last paver was out.

Brett was in charge of the small pavers.  He really got into the grunting and making a hard-working face while lifting.

So now the rock is gone and the fireplace is almost done.  We had a guy come fix the drywall around the fireplace and in a few other spots in the house.  I've spent today sanding the drywall and cleaning up all of the dust from that.  Tonight the primer and then the paint will go on the wall around the fireplace so that it's ready for tomorrow.  

Whew, all of this makes me tired!  And I'm mostly supervising!

First day of school

He's off!  I have a feeling he's going to do great in his last year of preschool.  He has the same teacher as last year and she's fabulous.  I trimmed up the sides of his hair this morning and trimmed his nails.  He was all clean and dressed and excited to make his little sandwich to take for lunch in his new dinosaur lunch box.  I can't wait to hear all about his day!

A quick picture

I'm a busy Momma today and don't have time to sort through all the 4th of July pictures I was going to post today, so I chose another picture that I thought everyone would enjoy the most.  Sorry if it's blurry.

This little dumpling will be arriving in the middle of January.  We should be finding out the gender in a few weeks.  We're so excited!  And we're excited that I'm not nauseous anymore.  The past few months have been tough around here.  And Grant is excited to see my tummy get big.  He asks me almost every day if my tummy is big yet.