Basement Waterproofing

See all that water?? It was high time we got this show on the road to finish the basement and this was the first thing we had to check off our list. We found a recommended and very reasonable waterproofing company to come in and get the deed done. It took about 10 (working) days total and so far, we are pleased with the results. Although, the jackhammering was something to sit through! Usually, me and the girls went for walks to the park or over to Nana & Pepere's house so that we didn't have to listen to the constant banging. That was the only rough part to the whole process. First they cut a trench around half of the basement perimeter and pumped all the water out, roughly a thousand gallons was the guess! Then they filled in with the drainage tile/hose and then filled in with gravel and finally sealed back up again with concrete. Then they repeated with the other side and put in a sump pump in the northwest corner of the basement. I'm very happy to get the area cleaned up and remodeled! Hopefully it won't take forever...

Madisyn's 10th Birthday!

The past Saturday we also went to my niece Madisyn's 10th birthday party. Milestone birthdays all around! It was great to finally see Chad and Angie's house, since I was yet to get out there, and they have made great strides with the place, kudos to them! It was nice to see most of Josh's family and have Emaline play with all her cousins she doesn't see too often. They even had a pinata in the garage! It had to be in the garage cause in case you didn't read in the post before, the weather was rainy and cold. I can't wait for consistently warm and pleasant weather! We enjoyed cold cuts, fruit and an awesome ice cream cake! Can you tell I love dessert, probably a little bad for me... Me and Emaline got Maddie a cute new summer outfit and an iTunes gift card. The big gift her mom and dad got her was a new bike! I hope she had a great day, cause we enjoyed sharing it with her. I think all the aunts were excited to see Piper too ;-) Thanks for the party!!

Nana and Kaya's Birthdays

Last weekend we celebrated Nana & Kaya's Birthdays. First with Kaya's birthday party on Saturday at her house where lots of kids ran around and got crazy! Tabasco was one of the highlights of the day. It was unfortunate that it was only 39 degrees outside and rainy! It's spring for crying out loud! Well, we did what we could and had a great time playing with all the kids and enjoying some lovely Mexican food that Steph and Nana made. Emaline even got to make cupcakes and decorate them the day before for the festivities. I can't believe Kaya is a year old already, how time flies. Emaline was very excited, she loves parties and even got a cool Backyardigan Look & Find book and heart sunglasses in her goodie bag! Here are some more pictures of the day:

The following day we celebrated Nana's birthday at Maggiano's in Brentwood. Of course it was very delicious and I enjoyed going out to a "real" restaurant for a change. Now that Piper is six weeks old, I have no qualms about taking her anywhere! We sat upstairs and had a little corner area all to ourselves and that was great with three kids! Emaline surprised us all and ate a giant plate of spaghetti and meatballs and only got a little sauce on her sleeve. She is getting better at eating and trying new things again. I think she might be hungry after refusing to eat anything of substance over the last six months :-) We all had very large portions and had to bring something home...I enjoyed my favorite, veal and mushroom ravioli and tried a bittersweet chocolate pudding pie that was WAY to rich for me. Other dishes we had around the table were Braised Beef Cannelloni, Gnocchi, more Spaghetti & Meatballs & Fettuccine Alfredo...mmmmm tasty!

Josh is Demolition Man

The basement overhaul has officially begun! Josh has taken great joy in trashing our basement and getting all the nasty fake wood paneling and such out of there. He has hired someone to help him refinish everything and they have gotten right into it. Literally, the day Jamie (our contractor) came over to look at the space, they talked for about an hour and jumped right in. So, the basement has been almost completely gutted out. I mean, we are tearing out walls and starting from scratch. Hopefully we can add a bathroom and a finished laundry room down there, which would be absolutely awesome. I know at least there will be a play room/family room area for the kids, an office for Josh and a little workspace for my "crafty" things. It will be soooo nice to have that area livable, but not so sure what we are going to do for storage now...guess we better get rid of some stuff. Here is the first installment of pictures, I'll have more soon since the giant, and I mean giant, trash container got her today. Monday, the waterproofing men are coming to start their part. Stay tuned...

Piper's Room

I never posted any pictures of the bedding my Mom made for Piper's room and unfortunately, this is the only picture I have right now, but thought I should put it up. Josh also got the shelves up on the wall and all that is left is to make curtains and put up the window hardware. I bought these really cute black and white polka dot finials from PB Teen that are going to look great. It is quite hard to capture all the colors of the room in one picture, so if you really, REALLY want to see it...you'll have to come over. I also took some pretty funny pictures of the girls in the bed and its amazing how little Piper looks. I'm sure I'll post more about it when the room is totally and completely finished...like 2 months from now ;-) No biggie really, since Piper is still in our room and probably will be for a little while.

Piper at Home & St. Pat's Day

Officially, Piper is a month old tomorrow and I can hardly believe that we have all been home and together for that long! She seems to be growing by the minute and getting more and more alert every day. Piper is very strong and has been holding her head up high since the day we brought her home and she even tried to roll over last week on the couch! Emaline is getting better and better at being a big sister and throws Piper's name into random conversation now. She still hasn't wanted to hold her yet, but she does help Mommy out all the time. It has been wonderful to spend time with my girls and get a feel for being a family of four. I think we've transitioned very well and the more interactive Piper gets, the better. We play games, color, play play-doh and take LOTS of walks now that the weather is warming up. I think after I go back to work, Emaline is going to say, "why aren't we going to the park today Mom?".


When Piper was crying, Emaline thought to give her this debit card to cheer her up :-) It worked!

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day this week and in true Irish fashion, we went to Chevy's Mexican restaurant. Me and the girls (I love saying that!) met Nana, Pepere, Aunt Kayleigh, Aunt Stephy and Kaya for lunch and had a very enjoyable afternoon. The restaurant was empty and that was great for us having 3 kids at the table! Family outings are definitely going to get a little more hectic! Anyways, here are some pictures from the last couple weeks:

Piper Jane Little

After much anticipation and waiting...Miss Piper Jane has made it successfully into this world! I think it also took lots of threatening to get her out by induction. So...when I went for my 39 week check-up (Tues., the 17th) my doctor and I thought it might be a good idea to get a scheduled date on the books to induce because she thought I really didn't need to go past 40 weeks. So I was a little bummed because yet again, I wouldn't know the "surprise" of labor. With Emaline, I thought my water broke, but that wasn't the case and they just induced me when I was at the hospital. Funny though, after telling my mom, my ideal day for her to come would be on Friday the 20th because Josh was off, my dad was coming home from a business trip and Josh's dad was coming home (so we thought :-)). Sure enough, at 5am on Friday morning I got up to go to the bathroom and stood up and felt a mini gush of water. I immediately thought I peed my pants (known for that) but didn't like it when it happened a second time. I called my doctor's office, just to make sure they would want me to go in and they did, so I was at Mo Bap by 6am with my mom--Josh was coming off the night shift. After being evaluated for an hour and a half, the on-call doctor determined that I didn't completely break my water, but I was 3-4cm dilated so she recommended to my doctor that I stick around and get some help. Finally at 9:30am, they admitted me to a labor and delivery room and started a Pitocin drip. I hadn't felt any major contractions and just stuck around 3cm until my doctor showed up at around 1pm to make sure my water was broken (cause I had another "spill" all over the floor, nice, huh?). She then proceeded to completely rupture the bag (they think I had a slow leak) and then contractions actually started to come on. After that it didn't take long to move to 5-6cm, when they gave me the epidural ( I think it was around 5pm??). Then I was at a 7cm at 7pm and she was born at 7:55pm. She was a little stubborn coming out though and had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck twice, tightly as I understand and I had to stop in the middle of my last push so the doctor could cut the cord before she came out. Thankfully, there wasn't any lasting impression of this on her and she "pinked" right up with a little O2 to help her out. It was a fantastic day. I loved every minute of it...well maybe not the epidural part, that freaks me out a little. :-) She weighed 7lbs 10oz and 21.5 inches long. She was only 2oz. off Emaline's weigh in, it's funny--Piper is like Emaline's twin 2.5yrs later (almost)! Well...here are some pics from the delivery day. Enjoy! I'm sure there will be more to come.

Dylan's Birthday!

Our friend Dylan had his 2nd birthday party this past Sunday on the 8th and we fortunately, all got to go as a family! Emaline was super excited to go to another party, she is a party animal! As per usual though, I was lazy yet again and didn't get out the 'ol camera to take some much needed pictures.  I really have been a serious slacker. So these are a couple that I took from Jacki's collection.  She did a great job hosting and it was fun to see all our friends and have Emaline get to play with all the kids.  The plan was to go to Bounce U in Chesterfield afterwards, but Em had such an exciting time at The Haarmann's she fell asleep on the way home and I was feeling a little uncomfortable.  (p.s., sorry to Ryan and Suzanne for freaking them out a little at Target ;-))!  

Thanks for everything Jacki and Scott! Hope Dylan enjoyed all his goodies and his fun day! 

Meg, Suzanne and Me hanging out on the couch.

Diaper Keg: Baby 2.0

We decided to keep the tradition alive of extorting lots of diapers for our unborn child from all our friends with Baby 2.0. It was something that we kind of just threw together considering we weren't going to have any type of shower/party for the second child. We really don't need anything new since it is another girl. So we are already prepared, right? Well, we hope so. It was great just to have an excuse to get all our friends together and we appreciate every single one them that came to celebrate and drink some beer, in exchange for diapers ;-) This year though, wasn't as crazy as was the one for Emaline. Obviously, we are a little older and a little wiser this time around. We ended up getting a smaller (pony) keg and it was exactly the right amount of beer to go round. I yet again, was running around gabbing and trying to talk with everyone instead of taking pictures, so needless to say, there aren't many shots of the fun that was had. I really have been lazy these past few weeks. I think it might have something to do with this child in utero...

Thanks to my family for putting together everything and taking care of all the incidentals. You guys are the greatest!


Here are pictures of our loot:

Super Bowl 2009

We had a low key Super Bowl this year and went to my sister's house in the 'ville. She graciously hosted a kid/family friendly shindig, complete with dogs running a-muck. I unfortunately was too lazy (yet again) to take pictures with my own camera, so I stole some from my sister's gallery. Thankfully, Josh didn't have to work, so we all got to spend some quality time together. Obviously you can tell that I wasn't that into the game, although we were rooting for Arizona. I love the underdog! Too bad they couldn't hold onto it in the end :-(, but we had some good eats and a White Castle fix too. Good times.