Project - Finishing Touches

It might be our anniversary, but that's not going to stop us from finishing up a couple things from this past weekend's project.  

We decided on Monday, after we had finished everything else up, that we wanted to redo our mailbox.  This is the "Before" picture of that.

This is the "After".  Not terribly exciting, but hey, I've shared everything else we've done.  Might as well share this one too, right? ;-)

I also added a few decorative touches to our patio set.  I have a few more things I want to get to add to it, but we'll see if that happens soon or a few weeks down the road.  I think it brightens it up though!

Fourteen Years!

Fourteen years ago today, I married the best guy in the world!  I was a nervous wreck that morning, but once I got down the aisle and was standing across from him, I was just excited!  Excited to finally, after 5 1/2 yrs of dating, marry this man.  I have not regretted it once in all of these 14 yrs either.  He balances me.  Where I tend to jump into things, he brings thought and reason into it.  When I struggle with feelings of doubt or melancholy, he lifts me up and helps me see the positives.  We're definitely opposites, but it helps make our marriage work.  I love him for being an incredible husband and father and for always putting interests of others above his own.  I am one lucky gal!  Happy Anniversary, Pete.  I love you more than ever!

Project - Day Four

Well, our weekend is over, but our project is not.  We got a LOT done though and, for that, I am so thankful!  The rain stayed away again today and we were able to finish up a few things and start another one.

This is the "Before" picture of our patio area.  It had become overgrown and the sandbox wasn't used much anymore.

This is the "After".  We decided to create this faux patio area.  I was hoping we could use it and put furniture on it, but I don't think it's going to be level enough for that, unfortunately.

So, honestly, I'm not sure what to use this space for now.  Maybe my super-crafty besties, Michelle and Teresa, will have some ideas.. hint, hint.

For right now, the kids are enjoying using it as a space to play tag.  They thought it was a lot of fun and played on it for quite a while after we finished.

We finished the area where the kids pulled up the daisies yesterday.  We have daffodils and lilies under there now, so hopefully they will come up again in the spring.  We hope to add rocks all around the rest of the house, to build it up a bit more too.

Even though we were tired after 4 long days of work, Pete decided we might as well start the new mailbox area.  So, we dug up the grass, added pavers and poured the concrete around the new pole.  Hopefully, later in the week, I'll have more "Before" and "After" pics to share.  The fire pit that we wanted to build will have to come in the coming weeks.  The weather could only cooperate for so long and our bodies could only cooperate for so long!  Hope you liked seeing our progress. :-)  We're pretty proud of all the hard work we did!

Project - Day Three

We didn't get a lot done today, but there are still a few pictures to share.  We had church this morning, then we decided to use a gift certificate that the ZONE families and shepherds gave us as a gift and went out to lunch.  Then we stopped by the store and picked up our new trees!  Yay!  We didn't get home until nearly 2, but that's ok.  It was raining off and on all day.  We really wouldn't have gotten a whole lot done anyway.

I put the kids in charge of cutting down all the daisies to get this spot ready for replanting.  We got all of this area cleaned out, the dirt redone, and the daffodils and lilies from the other parts of the house replanted in this space.

But, the most important part was the planting of our new trees!  You may remember that back at the end of March, the kids lost their beloved social worker tragically to suicide.  When it happened, we spent several days talking about it (mostly just with Madie and Noah) and the decision was made that they would plant a tree in her honor.  We went shopping today for that tree and they picked out a pear tree.  We read that you need more than one pear tree to produce a lot of fruit, but we're still hoping with our one, we might still get a few here and there.  If not, they are still happy they got a tree that will remind them of her whenever they see it.  Pete got the hole started, then they all took turns digging up the dirt and putting it in the wheelbarrow.

They all worked together to get it planted into the ground.

And, now we have a little 5' tree in memory of Miss Brannon.  They were so excited to finally get to do this and I hope it will always make them think of her in a good way and not a sad one.

Pete decided to buy an oak tree too, so we planted that towards the north corner of our property.  As you can see, it's about 7' tall now.  Give it another 25 yrs and it may reach 75'!  But, for now, it's our little oak and we're excited to have the two new additions to our yard.  One more day before our long weekend is over and we have a lot left to do.  But, with thunderstorms in the forecast, I'll be happy to just finish up the rock at the back of the house!

Project - Day Two

You know how I mentioned how tired we were yesterday after all that work?  Yeah, well, with all that we did today?  We're like 10 times more exhausted than yesterday and we still have (God willing) two more days to go!  The rain held off until the very end of our day today, so we only worked in the rain for about 30 min.  I was so thankful!  Tomorrow and Monday might not be as cooperative.  We'll see.  Anyway, here are more pictures of our progress - Day 2.

This is the west side of the house and the part we got to today.  This is our "Before" picture.  As you can see, it's mostly crab grass there too, with a few more lilies thrown in - some daffodils too.  They all got dug up, along with the irises there at the end.

Instead, we now have a blueberry bush on the end to compliment our growing raspberry bush.  Hopefully it will grow really big too!  The clematis that we moved to this spot yesterday is looking much better after the shock it received (aka being dragged with a snow shovel to its new spot!) yesterday.  Hopefully it'll continue to vine up our trellis.  We worked on the entire west side and got nearly all of it done.

We removed the sandbox, which has been a faithful companion of our kids since Madie was just a wee 3 yr old.  I remember Noah sitting in it when Madie first got it and puking inside of it.  Ahh... the memories. :-)  We're now gifting it to a friend of ours whose 2 yr old will just LOVE it!  The crab continues to spread the love!

This is the area on the west side by our patio where the sandbox was.  We took it out and we dug up all of the irises by the patio.

This whole area is now empty.

We just got around to starting this when the rain came.  I'll show you "Before" and "After" pictures when we're able to finish this spot.  I can't wait to see how it turns out!!  So, on our to-do list, we still have this area to finish, the fire pit, tree planting, mailbox area and a small space on the north side of the patio left to complete.  I think it's fair to say we are tired and would rather NOT do anymore, but at the same time, we're eager to finish it.  And, with recital next weekend, there won't be much time for work next weekend at all, so hopefully the weather will cooperate and we'll be able to get most of our weekend project done by the time work and school roll around on Tuesday.  Wish us luck! :-) 

Memorial Weekend Project - Day 1

It seems like we've been doing a lot of smaller projects as of late.  Nothing major, other than painting or installing stuff.  But, this weekend, we are tackling a much needed re-do to our landscaping.  We did our landscaping 9 yrs ago and have done some minor upkeep over the years.  But, we were so tired of looking at our flower beds and seeing more crab grass than flowers, so we decided to bite the bullet and re-do it all.

Our 7 loads of rock came on Tuesday.  I had Tater get in the picture, so you could see how many rocks 7 loads is!  It's a WHOLE lot!  Pete took the day off, so we would have 4 days to work on it and thank goodness he did, because this is going to take us ALL of those 4 days, if not more.  Our plan is to dig up all the weeds and get rid of some of our flowers and the mulch that is there and add new heavy-duty weed barrier and rocks.  We are going to add a new mailbox and add rocks and maybe some plantings there.  We're going to plant a tree in our backyard in memory of Mrs. Brannon, the kids' social worker that passed away a couple months ago.  AND, if we actually are still able to fit it in, we want to build a firepit.  This is only day one, so we'll see if we're able to accomplish all of this by the end of Monday.  I'll be REALLY surprised if we do!  But, here we are, at the end of Day 1, and I have a few "Before" and "After" pictures for you.

This is the south side of our house.  That big bush is our raspberry bush and we have tons of irises along the rest of it.  This is the "Before".

This is the "After".  We pulled out an entire area of Irises, because the raspberry bush was crowding it and we want to let it have room to grow.  When we dug this all up and ripped up the weed barrier in this area we discovered a HUGE ant colony.  It stretched from the bush to nearly the end of the house.  We would pull up the barrier and find thousands upon thousands of ants and their eggs.  It was DISGUSTING!!  I love the look of a pretty garden, but I loathe gardening.  I hate bugs and dirt and all of it, so thankfully Pete was very good about letting me take breaks from it and keep my distance, at times, from the bugs that we uncovered.

This is a little farther down from the pictures above.  Same side of the house, though.  That big mass of stuff is literally just crab grass with a few lilies thrown in.  You couldn't even see the lilies anymore.  We dug up that entire area, since it too was getting crowded out and we were tired of the stupid crab grass growing everywhere.

This is what it looks like now.  Again, same side as before, just a different angle, so you can see how we spaced it out more and added all the rock.  That's as far as we got today.  Might not seem like a whole lot, but it was a full-day of work!  Pete also did some more small stuff around the front of the house, but this was the biggest part of our day.

As always, Tater was by our side and made sure to help us the whole time. :-)  He loved spending the whole day outside with us.  Just felt bad that there wasn't any shade for him.  Hopefully we'll get that tree up in the next couple of days, so he'll have some shade soon.

These irises were just in the one spot that we cleared out.  Pete took the entire lot of them up to our friends, James and Donna.  They're going to be working on their own landscaping project this weekend too!  They only live a couple blocks away, so it'll be fun to trade off some of our "produce". ;-)  So, here we are.  Day One is complete.  We are both a little sunburned, definitely both exhausted, and ready to wake up and tackle another full day of digging, planting, and rock-laying!  Last time we did this, we were still in our 20s.  Little bit harder to have the same amount of energy 10 yrs later when we're staring down our 40s! ;-)

Tech Rehearsal

Last night was Tech Rehearsal.  We've never had it on a weekday, so that was definitely different.  Madie didn't get home until 9pm.  I started developing my very first migraine right before we were to leave.  It sucked, because I was having blurry vision and having a hard time focusing, so the drive over was a little nerve-wracking.  But, we made it.  I quickly texted Pete though and told him I needed something to help with the pain.  He, thankfully, was able to leave work early and get me some meds and caffeine.  I was able to watch Madie's first performance and Livie's performance, before I gave up and went home.  Pete followed us to make sure I was ok, then headed back to be with Madie until it ended.  I've never missed a tech rehearsal, so I was really disappointed with that.  

Here is the photo I got to take of Madie's very performance.  Tech is where the kids come, dressed in their regular dance stuff, and practice their number a couple of times, until they get a feel for it on the stage.  They all did a great job!

This was Livie's.  Two of the girls were missing last night, so that's why the older girls stepped in.  They won't be on the stage during the performance though.  She did a great job too and I can't wait to see them do it in their costumes next week during dress rehearsals.  Hopefully I won't have to deal with any more headaches and can stay for the whole thing!

More Dance Prep

As you saw me post earlier this week, the dance recital is coming up soon.  That means dance pictures are in full swing for my girls.  On Saturday, Madie had her pictures taken.  Because she's in 3 different numbers, I let her pick out her favorite to get pictures of.

She got all of her costumes on Saturday, but I only got to see one on her before I had to leave.  She's since shown me the other two here at the house, but you all will have to wait to see those pictures after recital. :-)

This is her favorite!  Her ballet costume.  Isn't it pretty?!!  I don't even think it's the prettiest one either.  She has a purple one and a black and hot pink feathered one.  So fun!  She's so tiny that they had to safety pin the gloves, so they would stay up on her arms, but it's really so cute on her.  Tomorrow night begins tech rehearsals, so hopefully I will be able to post about that later in the week.  Can't wait for recital!!

Basketball Hoop

I don't know if most people would blog about something as insignificant as putting up a basketball hoop, but I'm not most people! :-)  I'm mostly blogging about it, because (a) it looks great! and (2) it took a lot of work! 

While Madie, Noah, and I were off watching Ironman 3, Pete was here with Livie digging a very large, 2' deep hole.  What a trooper!

Our neighbor Leroy works with concrete all the time and was very sweet to come over and help Pete smooth it out and make sure it was all the right consistency.  I helped mix the concrete, I'm happy to say.  It took 2 separate weekends to get those two steps done.  Mostly, because we've been so busy and our weekends have been full of many other things.

We had to let the concrete cure for several days, but today we finally finished it all up!  Pete worked on putting the whole thing together last night, with a little help from me (aka sorting all the parts and handing them to him as he worked).  It was hard to put together and Pete MAY have said a few choice things as he was building it, but at least it's done and looks terrific now!

Because our driveway is sloped, we have a problem with the ball rolling into the street, so I bought this net that goes across the end of the driveway and that's helped a lot.

The kids have been outside playing off and on all day today.  AND, I'm proud to say that Pete and I went into overtime during our free throw contest.  We were all tied up, but then Pete came back to beat me by 4. It's a lot of fun and hopefully will be used often.  The best part?  It can go up to 10' and down to 7 1/2', so we can adjust it for them.  Granted, I can't actually reach the handle when it's on anything other than the highest setting, but we'll just make sure Pete leaves it in the lowest position for us. :-)

The End

Last night and today was our last day with our 2s.  I don't think it's sunk in that it's over.  I'm always sad to see it end, because with 2s, they tend to forget you a little and that sweet relationship you build with them over the year is lost.  They might say Hi or wave shyly at you, but it's never the same.  Just have to count your blessings that you got to add a little to their lives when you could and take those sweet memories with you of the time you spent together.

Last night we met with our Thursday night class.  This class started off with just 4 kids and it wasn't until March that we got 2 more and then in April we got another 1!  Those three little ones that started late this year will join us again next year, so I'm really excited about that. :-)  We had the best time at one of our local parks.  This one didn't have any swings or slides, but they played with chalk and bubbles and a frisbee.  They chased a squirrel, played in the fountain, and climbed cannons too.  It was SO much fun!!  They all sat really sweetly for this picture.  How could I not love my job with such amazing students?!  And, because it's a parent/child class, I've had the joy of getting to know the parents as well and have formed great relationships with them all.

Last year we didn't get a chance to sing our goodbye song before we all went our separate ways, but this year we did.  I brought a big blanket and before we left to go back to the school, we all sat down, sang our special song, and got great, big hugs and lots of high fives from each of them.  What a joy for us!!

Today went a little differently.  We met in our classroom like we did last night, then we had everyone jump in their cars and drive to another local park where the 4s were playing.  We sat and had some drinks, before doing our goodbye song and getting all our goodbye hugs.  Our Thurs night class has always been full of sweet, quiet little ones.  This group is full of energetic, excited little ones that are always ready to tackle their day full-force!  Way too much fun!

Because of that boundless energy, our picture with them wasn't quite as smooth as the one we took the night before, but it's so perfect for them.  So cute and so funny and seriously the best way to end our time with them!  It is always hard to say goodbye, but just like our Thursday night class, we had 2 that had a late start, so they will join us next year too.  So, we'll have 5 returning, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them again in the fall.  I love each and every one of these amazing explorers and wish them the absolute best this summer and the coming years!

Gettin' Ready!

Recital time is right around the corner!  Yesterday we had pictures for Livie's dance class.  They get their costumes and get all dressed up in full make-up and hair.  This is Livie's FAVORITE part!!  She loves getting her make-up done and will stand in front of the mirror and make kissy faces.  It's hilarious!

Their costumes this year are really cute, though it's really itchy, she says.  I messed up her hair unfortunately. They said to put it up and make it curly like the photo.  Her hair is so long that they wanted me to pin it up, so it looked more like a bun, but all the other girls had theirs in ponies, so we'll make that change before the actual recital.

Is it wrong that I'm kind of excited to see how tall she is compared to the other girls?!  Never thought I'd have a tall daughter!

Livie knows the routine backwards and forwards, so she was getting ahead of herself.  Gotta have her slow down and stay in step.  At least she always had a big smile on her face!

Miss Patty told them all that they did a great job.  So cute to see all of them in their little costumes like that.  I LOVE recital year and can't wait to see my girls perform!

Madie's Letter

Madie was so excited to tell me this morning that she got her letter!!  She got her "M" and got two pins - one for cheerleading and one for Scholastic Bowl.  She couldn't wait to put it in her room and show it off.  I remember when I got my letter in high school.  I don't remember getting pins, but my letter jacket was one of the major milestones in high school.  Really happy that she gets to experience that on the Jr. High level.  I love how active she is in school too.  I was just like that and it's fun to see that she is too!

Mother's Day

 Well, our Mother's Day this year was a little on the chilly side (53 degees and windy), so we opted to postpone our annual Mother's Day hike at Starved Rock.  I actually have so much on my mind about what I need to get done in the next few days, that I don't know if I would've been able to disconnect from it enough to enjoy a hike today.  So, hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks we'll make up for it and head over there. :-)

I don't need a hike to remind me of my blessings.  From the time I was a little girl, I loved playing with dolls.  Absolutely loved it.  I would tear pages of models out of magazines and pretend they were my children.  I'd give them names and pretend that they were jet-setting around the world.  I would take Barbies and paper dolls, anything I could use to be my children.  I always played the "mommy".

When Pete and I were dating, I prayed nightly for the chance to fulfill my dream of marrying this amazing man I was dating and have the family I always dreamed of.  God gave me the desires of my heart and I got not only the best guy in the world, but three amazing, goofy, animated, exasperating, precious children - each so different from each other and each so much a part of both me and Pete.  So, even though Mother's Day is a nice day to get extra love from my kids, I never need reminding of how blessed and honored I am to be the mom to them.

One thing I do love is that they give me great presents!  They are old enough now to do more than sign a card that Pete has picked out.  They come up with their own ideas.  Livie painted me this picture.  It's a picture of Pete fishing and me watching him.  There's a fish and a dolphin jumping out of the water (guess she really liked the dolphin show at the zoo!).  Madie, Noah, and Livie all created a web video/card for me that they filmed using their Ipods.  It was hilarious and awesome!  I got more drawings from Livie and lots of hugs from all of them.  What a great day!

End Of The Year

It's that time again.  The end-of-the-year is upon us. .... or, more accurately, ME!  My class is done next week, so I'm making up their books.  I love doing this. :-)  I love seeing how much my students have grown and become more independent as the year has gone on.  It's so fun!

I haven't picked up all 140 pictures I need for the books yet, but I started at least assembling them.

You can see the marble art they made in class and how I cute out the number "2" to add to their book.  I do that, because it's our "2s" class!  Kinda fun.  I add a little page about what we love most about them, then add 4 pages of pictures, a "I'm a SHINING STAR" page with their picture and their handprints make up the last page.

This is the picture we put in the book.  This is Katie, my co-teacher.  She just got back from 10 days in FL, so she's tan and awesome.  I should've taken our photo BEFORE her trip!  Maybe then I wouldn't look like I've never seen the sun in my life, but what are you going to do, right? ;-)  It's been a great year and has gone by so quickly!  Next Thurs night and Fri are our last days with those sweet kids and their terrific parents.  It's going to be hard to say goodbye, just like it was last year, but at least I know we helped make those shy little 2s turn into the bright, independent, preschool-ready 3s that they are today!