photos!

My friend Meredith took some pictures of the kids while we were in Washington, and I wanted to post a few of them. I think they are so cute! But then, I am sort of biased...

Washington

The kids and I went to Washington for a week and a half to see my parents. It was a great trip, I very much enjoyed it. It is also good to be home with my hubby again. I think he missed us. :) Emily came running to him when she saw him in the airport and I swear I saw tears in his eyes. Kimmie broke into the biggest grin ever when she saw him, and even Calvin dropped everything and started yelling, "Daddy, dada-dada-daddy!!" and gave him a huge hug. So did I, by the way.

Anyway, I did enjoy seeing my parents and the ocean and believe it or not, the rain (which there was plenty of, and snow too!). In this case pictures definitely speak louder than words, so... here's a bunch.

Dancing with grandma

Participating in the little girls class--for a little while anyway

A video of dancing with Grandma. They loved the one on one time, but the whole class together was a little more than they could handle. I don't think they are used to that much chaos... 8 4-5 year olds in tap shoes on a wood floor. Though it actually went really well. I am a little worried about Em in kindergarten, she doesn't like loud noise at all. I guess we'll see.

At the ocean: Grandma, Kimmie and Grandpa

Calvin found a shell!

Me and the kids (it was windy, bright, and a little cold)

Calvin and I playing in the water

Kimmie was having fun digging her shoes into the mud

Grandpa and Emily watching a flock of birds on the water

Calvin had fun just tromping around on the wet sand. He looked like a little old man out on a walk. :)

Emily stayed pretty close to Grandpa the whole time. She wasn't feeling good and Grandpa was only too glad to hold her. Thanks for taking some time off to come with us, Dad!

Much to Mom's chagrin, we had a little get-together (NOT a party) to celebrate her birthday. Doesn't she look thrilled to be the center of attention? ;) Love ya Mom. The black forest cheesecake was yummy, too.

Can you hear Calvin saying, "See Coby doggie?" Grandpa earned Calvin's affection by being willing to take Calvin to see the dog whenever he asked. It worked so well that at the airport Calvin went to Grandpa and waved good-bye to me!!

Kimmie plays hide and seek

Calvin, Em and Grandpa watching the dog. You can just see the top of Coby's head at the bottom of the window. He loved watching the dog, but refused to go within three feet of him, even through the window. He prefers to love dogs from afar. He got jumped on and licked once by a dog, and that ended that.

This one is after we got home. I thought it was funny because this is where Calvin settled himself in after I told him it was time for bed.

Sidenote: I saw this blog background and thought it was perfect. I have three little monkeys who love to jump on beds, the youngest of which is the biggest monkey of all! Fitting that it's also his favorite animal.

house update

So here's the progress on the house:

John and I are both frustrated with how slow it is going, but John really is putting a lot of time in and working hard, with the Butler work crew pitching in when they can (thanks a billion guys!!). It's just slow-going right now. So far, he's ripped out the nasty calcified-pet-urine-stained subflooring in the family room and replaced it with new plywood (just a couple of large spots, not the whole floor), sealed it with primer, and painted it quite a few times. They've scraped all the old popcorn off of the ceiling, patched it in places upstairs, and as of this weekend have sprayed the new texture on the upstairs. There's a couple spots to go over again, but over all I am thrilled with it. It looks so so SO much better!! Next up, the downstairs. And then the painting begins.

I believe I have decided to paint the kitchen cabinets white. I just think they will look a lot better. I am going to try to go for a french countryside effect, or at least that's what I call it in my head. A sophisticated cottage style, with white beadboard-ish cabinets, bronze or wrought-iron hardware, and hopefully someday a dark wood floor. With plum and sage accents and beige walls. Hopefully some darker brown accents in a backsplash as well, if I can figure that out. Anyway, that's the idea right now. I am a bit worried about having white cabinets and a white countertop (though the counter has a wood border to separate it a bit) since we're not going to be replacing it for a while, but hopefully it will look all right it the meantime. Someday I'm hoping it will be a light brown marble look. We'll see.

So... pictures!

Before picture: Nasty floor

Middle picture: hole in the floor

After picture: painted floor (we haven't decided what to put there yet)

Before picture: scraping the popcorn (go Richard!)

Evil popcorn, say goodbye!

Middle picture: the drywall exposed

Middle picture dos: spraying the texture (go John!!)

After picture (sort of, it's not painted yet): the finished texture--you can sort of see it...

Tulips!! I'm so excited to have tulips! John says there's a lilac too...

One of my favorite parts of the yard: the giant willow tree in the back corner (if you can see the red shed in the background, that is the yard of the big noisy evil dogs--one's a doberman. We will be putting in a higher fence.)

In like a lamb...

I can't believe it's March. No, I'll rephrase that: I can't believe it's March and we are still not moved into a house of our own. What the heck were we thinking in buying a house that we'd have to spend a month+ fixing up?!? Oh yeah, we got a good deal... d: Meanwhile, John is trying to spend evenings over at the house ripping out disgusting subflooring and putting in new stuff, continuing the popcorn battle, and hopefully having the family room ready to move all our stuff out of storage and into that room on Saturday (yeah, that's the one that currently has holes in the floor and views down to the basement). I'd like to be up helping, but hauling three kids up there just incapacitates someone so they are watched over, so I may as well stay home with them. Meanwhile, Calvin has a cold that developed into croup and after a couple of days nervously watching him I took him into the doctor and got some meds. He's breathing much better, though still has a cold, which I have now caught. Probably because he hasn't let me out of his sight for a week. Meanwhile, we're enjoying 75 degree weather and the kids spent all day yesterday outside... hallelujah. Weird to be worried about sunburns in March.

Here are some random pics of the kids, just for kicks:

The girls at the lake in Feb.

This one really was taken in January, we've had a weird winter.