HELLO FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!

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Monday, April 27, 2009

My sweet baby girl.

I get a lot of pictures of Eli because he's old enough to cooperate with me when I'm taking pictures, and even sometimes requests pictures. Hannah, on the other hand, won't even look at me when I'm trying to take her picture, let alone smile. So finally, here are some of my sweet baby girl.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

What's this about?

I love Hannah's look in this one. =)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Easter!

Kevin's family (mom, dad, nannie, sister and husband) came to celebrate Easter with us and stay for the weekend , and we really had a wonderful time! It was a houseful, but I love it that way! I LOVE hosting so I just enjoyed it all and didn't get stressed at all! They arrived Saturday afternoon while the kids were napping, and so we were a little anxious for them to get up and see the family so we could do the egg hunt while it was still so nice out! Once Eli woke up enough and got used to the family being there he had a great time! Even Hannah understood what the egg hunt was all about. =)

Then Sunday was church, snacks at home following, 4:00 Easter dinner, and then angel food cake.

Our new dining room worked out GREAT having that additional space!

And all in all we had a great weekend!
I was a little bummed we didn't get a family photo. Hannah went down for her nap before Kevin was done getting dressed in the morning. And then after church I was busy getting lunch ready, everyone quickly changed into play clothes, and the moment was gone. Oh well!

Mini-golden birthday!

14 months on the 14th, so I guess this is Hannah's miniature golden birthday until she turns 14 YEARS! But please don't let that come too soon!

This month's accomplishments:
* The biggest thing is that she's walking now! From room to room she's tottering all over the house!
* She gives high fives and kisses (sometimes).
* All the time she's saying "Uck!" like she's maybe saying "look!"
* Teeth #6 and #7 came in. She now has the top 4 and bottom 3.
* Still naps in the morning and afternoon and sleeps all through the night. Lately we've been hearing her cry a couple times in the night and then go back to sleep. Might be because of teeth coming in?
* She no longer sits in church with us at all. She's fully reached the stage where's constantly on the move!
* Bath times are fun again!
* She sometimes does the sign for "more".
* She's very much a little mimic now, but not for the things that are useful. =)
* She found her belly button and pokes on it all the time!
* She's just starting to learn how to stand up from the floor (without having to pull up on something).

Monday, April 13, 2009

New dining room

This room is sooo not done yet, BUT we at least have the SPACE established now! Before we basically had two miscellaneous rooms off of the kitchen (a pantry, and a laundry room) that we wanted to combine into one purposeful room: a dining room. So we knocked out the wall in between (keeping the pantry shelves for storage but losing the built-in cabinet)

BEFORE pics, the pantry roomleft side of laundry roomright side of laundry room (I want to use birthday money to find a frame for that mirror and place it above our piano)
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once we got down to the studs, it appeared that this wall indeed is not a supporting wall, so down it all came!
mid-project, obviously
the floor was really rugged where the wall previously was, so we brought up the big area rug we had used in the basement in CT to cover as much of the room as possible. Since we really have no big plans for this rug and it might be awhile 'til we actually finish off this room, we went ahead and cut slits in the rug to fit around the radiator on the left. Kevin did an excellent job! Oh and we took the pantry door off too now. There were doors everywhere in this house, so I think that's door #4 that we've taken down to open things up around here! I also dug out gold curtains I had made for our bedroom in Virginia that I can modify to cover the shelves for now.so now we have access to the dining room directly from the kitchen (see arrows), and I LOVE that!Now that our room is bigger now we actually had plenty of space to set up a card table there too for when Kevin's family was here this past weekend. It was pretty impossible to fit 9 people all around one table, but this new space worked out great!

Pumpkin butter and spicy cayenne.

kitchen before, ceiling fan and allUsing some birthday money, I painted the kitchen last week! I tried my hand at texture painting with the yellow (color pumpkin butter). You just slap it on with a brush doing random strokes. It's take quite a bit of time (the coat wall alone took an hour, but it was also my first wall and after that it did get much faster) but little paint since you're not completely covering the wall. In the end I really like how it turned out. It's pretty subtle but does make a difference. The "red" wall is just smooth. (it's really an orangish-red color, depending on the light throughout the day) I still have a lot of touch-up spots to do where the tape didn't come off too well and where it just needs a little more paint to cover fully, but for the most part it's done! Now I really can't wait to get new flooring (just a nice neutral color to help tone down color from walls) , but for now that's going to have to wait. And for the pictures (as you're rotating left around the kitchen)...This view gives you a glimpse of our "new" dining room access. That's coming in the next post so stay tuned!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Weekend visit

Last weekend my brother and new sister-in-law, Paul and Holly, came for a short visit from Colorado. They arrived mid-day Saturday and left Sunday right after church and lunch. Short visit, but sweet! We very much enjoyed their company and appreciate their effort to drive all the way out to see us! Some photos from the weekend...
Cute story: we wanted to sit at the table and chat for a little bit after dinner on Saturday night, and Eli was done and ready to get down. So we had him take his bowl to the kitchen, like usual. Then his plate... and my bowl... and my plate... and the butter to the fridge... the bread in the cupboard... the cups in the sink... and everyone's bowls, etc Until little Eli got the whole table cleared off, all by himself! When we finally got off our lazy butts, I went to the kitchen to see everything all lined up at the edge of the counter. It was very cute! Eli did such a good job!