Emaline & Piper's First Trip to Grant's Farm!

On Saturday, the 22nd, we met my sister, her husband and Kaya at Grant's Farm for an impromptu family outing. Joshua had worked the night before and we needed to get out of the house to let daddy sleep for a little bit. So...packed up the girls and headed southward around 10:00am. What time did we get into the park? 11:40am. Yes, it took us about 25-30 minutes to get there and then another hour and 10 minutes to actually get on a tram and get into the gates of the farm. Crazy I know, but it was a fundraiser weekend and a absolutely beautiful day, I think one of the 10 best we've had this year. After we finally got inside, Stephani got the girls the little Fun Passes they offer that get you two bottles of milk to feed the goats, a ride on the carousel and a snow cone. Good deal for $5 and in the parking lot they were giving out free hot dogs and drink vouchers for kids under 10! Score. One hot dog for Em and one for Mommy (Piper isn't ready for tubed meat yet, but I still got one for her). I think the girls had a great time getting attacked by goats--Kaya being knocked down and Emaline getting her hair eaten. Ouch! :-) They also saw parrots, camels, an eagle and some famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses. A lot of fun, but now I know an all day affair! Excited for our next trip.

Basement Remodel: Part IV

The drywall has been hung and mudded and is looking great! It really doesn't look that different from the last pictures, but it only took 4 days for all the taping and mudding (thanks Todd!)...and there is dust everywhere! Ugh. I don't know how we are going to get this place cleaned up. Well, now that we are ready to paint, Josh went and bought a giant bucket of paint for the ceiling and did most of it in one night. I was very impressed. Its amazing what this man gets done when we are all sleeping! In the coming weeks we will get supplies like wainscoting and trim and try to figure out what colors I want to paint with. Although, I do have to get our family room done first. At the same time was getting all the drywall finished off, he decided to take down the paneling in our family room and lo & behold there was some decent drywall under there. So Todd went ahead and finished that off for us as well...the problem is I have to paint the whole room again. Now wondering what I want to paint it! We shall see in the next couple weeks :-)

The first two pictures here are of the basement:


These two pics are the family room:

Grandma Little

My husband's grandmother passed away last week and I thought I would take the time to say what a wonderful woman she was to him, probably more than she'll ever know. He loved her very much and I wish that we would have had more time with her as a family. Hopefully she can rest peacefully now...

More Pool Time

We've spent quite a bit of time in the pool this summer, but never got any family time together. Josh had to take some time off (too much comp time accumulated) so I also took a week off from work and we spent some much needed family time together and got some stuff done on the basement. On the Friday of our week off, we went to my parents house to take advantage of the great weather and meet my friends Carrie and Robyn for a little sun time. We ended up getting this fun little family pic while we were in the water. Piper's hat and sunglasses crack me up! She is so happy and natural in the water, which is exactly how Emaline was as well. So we might have another little fish in the making! Hopefully, we'll get to enjoy a couple more days like this as summer winds down.

Basement: Part III

Josh and Jaime have made great strides in getting our basement finished. After all the framing was completed, new windows put in and insulation laid, the drywall was delivered (by a giant truck!) and now we have it put up ! It is great to really see the rooms come together now and visualize what I will have to work with when all the "construction" is finished and I have my way in decorating. The boys have cleaned it up really well too, so there isn't as much dust as I thought there was going to be...yet. We have a guy coming to mud the drywall next week and get it all smoothed out and ready to be painted soon. I can't wait for this whole project to be done, but looks like we've extended it a bit. We've decided to try and put a bathroom in down here. At least rough in what we can while still not finished and then complete it later. This means Josh has to dig a trench in the concrete from our drain stack to where the toilet is going to be...so we'll see what happens there! Hopefully it will go smoother than I expect, but I would really like to have a bathroom down there because it will makes things so much easier. Especially if we spend as much time as I think we will down there. Here are more pics of the drywall up!

Emaline Swimming!

Emaline has officially become a swimmer. I can't believe it. We really got her going at the end of last summer and I was afraid not being able to have the pool all year long that it might set her back, but nope...there was no stopping her! So this year we switched her over to swimmies/floaties so that she could get a feel for floating around on her own and she really like the independence. I did buy her one of those swimming vests, but she absolutely hated it, so the swimmies were the next step for us. Then, just randomly a couple days before the 4th she told me, "mom, I don't need my floaties, I've got magic fish goggles that will help me swim". So I put on her goggles for her and sat on the step with her in the pool, next thing I know she's jumping off and kicking her legs and moving! She had gotten really good at holding her breath, but it scared me too, so I made her hold on to me for a little while and the next day she was showing Pepere like she was an old pro. Now, no more floaties, no more holding on to Mom....*sniff sniff*, my baby is growing up! So here is one of her first push offs. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I do.

Jumpy Jumpy Piper!

Piper's First Solids!

Piper got her first taste of solids last week and I think we will have no problem feeding this child. She took to the cereal, not quite as quickly as Emaline, but well enough to want more in her little belly! We've since moved on to veggies and fruits and she loves almost everything we spoon into her mouth. She was a little hesitant about peaches, but has since realized they were tasty enough and eats just fine! She cracks me up. Now if I can only get her to stop spitting and blowing bubbles while she eats....

Fourth of July 2009

This year for Fourth of July my parents decided to have a pool party since this year was the first full summer with the new pool installed. It was also nice to have some family in town this year! The week before the 4th my aunt and cousin came to visit us for a few days and we basically hung out and relaxed with each other. We did make a trip to The Science Center to see A Dinosaur Named Sue, which Emaline really liked! She liked digging for fossils the best. Then the week of the 4th, my sister and her daughter came to stay with us for a week. It was so great to see everyone and have them meet Piper in the flesh. We swam, ate and relaxed over and over again! The day of the party we all jumped in the pool...although it was pretty gloomy and it did rain on us a little bit. I hope that everyone that came over still had a good time! After everyone left, we snacked on some leftovers and decided to go see the fireworks display at Chesterfield Mall. I think its funny when kids get so excited to see something, they build it all up and when they do see it they aren't that impressed with it. Well, that happened with Emaline and we got to see about 3/4 of the show when we decided it would be best to get the kids home and to bed. It was a very long day...with no naps! Thankfully, no one was too cranky and passed out when we got home. Josh had to work yet again, so no fun fireworks for him...maybe next year!

Father's Day 2009

I always say, better late than never...so I'm catching up with my blog today! We spent a nice and quiet Father's Day at my parents' house barbecuing and swimming. Have you noticed a summer trend here?? Earlier in the morning Emaline and I made Daddy some lovely breakfast in bed while Piper looked on from her seat. Then Em gave Dad his presents of new binoculars for his duty bag and "Left 4 Dead" for the Xbox. I was a bad Mommy and didn't even get one picture of the girls in bed with Dad that morning :-( Well, we got cleaned up and headed over to Nana & Pepere's house to have some good eats! We swam and watched Pepere open his gifts too. Thankfully Josh was off to celebrate being the father of two! Unfortunately, Josh's Dad was on the road, so we will be celebrating all birthdays and Father's Day come next Saturday when his family can all get together. Can't wait to see him home for a little bit :-)