We'rrrre Baaaack!!

After a day of packing, rushing, good-byes, glares, trying to entertain a one year old within a 2 foot area, changing multiple diapers within that same area (one of which I didn't change in time and he ended up peeing out of and then I had the wet pants...), trying (unsuccessfully) to get a very tired babe to sleep...you guessed it in the same 2 foot area :), landing at the airport at 1:00 am with still a 2 1/2 hour drive home, we were quite glad to finally be home and go to bed at 4 am Thursday morning. We had a great time visiting with our friends and family on our trip to Washington. It went by fast, but was a great break from all house work. We were gone for 10 days, so to tell all that happened on our trip would take several posts, so I'll just touch on the highlights.

We stayed at Jacob's parent's house and all of Jacob's brothers were able to come visit too (he's one of six, 5 boys and 1 girl...Jacob is the oldest). That was a lot of fun, watching the brothers interact. Now that they're older and have their own identity and aren't ready to kill one another, they seem to really get along and can hang out and do things together. It was also fun to watch them with Caleb. I never would have pictured these guys being so excited about a baby, it just makes me smile seeing them as uncles. Which leads to another thing to talk about...Caleb had an extreme culture shock :) He's been use to our house hold of three people, quiet environment, and isn't really ever around a multitude of people. There were about 11 people staying at Jacob's parents, and there were always more people over during the evening. So...not a real quiet environment and definitely a multitude of people! He was extremely clingy and wouldn't hardly let anyone touch him for the first few days :( it was a bit frustrating. He got better as the week went on, although I don't think he ever really reached his real self. We kept telling everyone, at home he's so funny and smiley. I hope they all got to enjoy some time with him anyways.

While we were there, Caleb turned One! and all I kept thinking was 'we took you home from the hospital just a year ago'...seems to hard to believe that the time has flown by so quickly. What a fun year its been. A baby changed my life in more ways than I could possibly have imagined :) Since we were visiting, we got to celebrate his birthday with all our family! He had a book theme party {he loves his books!}, here's a few pics of the fun event:

Caleb's personal cake to devour

Caleb enjoying his cake :)

Yes, he stuck his face in it...

Present time!

Notice his shirt ;)

There's the babes: Caleb, Olivia and Jaxon

I certainly enjoyed my time there too! I've been in some desperate need of girl time, and I think I got my battery charged enough to last me a little while. I got to catch up and get to know my sister in-law {Adriane} a little bit better, and am so excited for our friendship to grow! My brother in-law's girlfriend {Jenna} was also able to come up and visit and hang out. Thanks to Jacob, the girls were able to go in town a few times to get Starbucks, pedicures, do a little shopping, sunbathe...it was glorious!

{Adriane, Me, Jenna}

Jacob's parents house is a 'hot spot' for socializing (they live 2 seconds away from the church, so after night church/practices/whatever, people go to their house to hang out), so we had several nights of game playing {I love games!!!}, laughing, movies and just overall fun times! Really missing some of those people... Caleb managed to fit in some socializing with his peeps too :) He got to see his cousin Jaxon (who is 2 months younger), Olivia (is 3 months older) a friend from church who is such a cutie, and a few other babes from church. It was so fun watching Olivia and Caleb together, she just wanted to hug him and talk to him...and he just couldn't get away fast enough, so she just ended up chasing him around and around. Hopefully next time they're together he'll be more into playing with other kids and won't be rude to the sweet girl ;)

The trip definitely gave us a big umph to get going on the downstairs. On our second day home mom and I painted the downstairs and the stairway (which was quite a sight...I had a brush taped to a broom stick and was balancing on the stairs, haha). Jacob's almost got the flooring done and has the next two days off to hopefully (by his timeline) finish the bathroom...we shall see. Here are some pictures of the downstairs construction:

view of the bathroom from the outside, it's a pocket door

the shower

the ground where the big hole was last update

the toilet will go where the silver circle is on the ground, it kind of has a privacy wall between it and the door to the bathroom {which is to the left of the picture}

Hopefully there will be more pictures to come {soon!} of the finished bathroom!

Adventures Await

We leave on a plane for Washington in 15 hours and are leaving the house for that plane in 12. Just thinking about that makes me a little ill. The excitement for the trip was taken over a few days ago by the overwhelming list of things to get done before we leave. I know as soon as we hit the road, at ummm....5 am, I'll be feeling much better and the excitement will return. One of the biggest things to work on was the downstairs, which remember our goal...to have it finished before we left. Yea, didn't make it. We did get a lot done, it's just not finished. Jacob just got finished texturing, so all the messy stuff is finished! Yay! Which is why we worked so hard this week so we could take down all the plastic (to keep the dust to a minimal) and clean up, so when we get back it'll be all the fun stuff (flooring, painting, hooking up the toilet/shower/vanity sink). I've been cleaning (like the deep/organizing type cleaning) the upstairs...I love coming home to a clean house. And the last few days trying to pack. Now lets just talk about that for a minute. Since Jacob's been working downstairs every second, I've been left to pack for the three of us (now I understand some of you have more children and may do all the packing for everyone all the time, but I'm use to getting help and not use to packing for a little one...so it's a bit stressful). And its also quite...interesting and challenging trying to pack with a little person who seeming to think he's 'helping' you. And every so often you find things in the other room that you thought you'd already packed...hmmm, how'd this get here? I just have to keep thinking, this time tomorrow we'll be in Washington with our family and beginning our much needed vacation...ahhh, just thinking about it makes me smile!

Pictures of the downstairs will come later. And of course of our trip!

Day Savers

what's helping me make it through the day:

thank you for all our early meetings

with a little of this

mmm...think I'll go have a cup

and of course wouldn't be breathing if it weren't for

...okay, maybe I'd just have a difficult time breathing

On these hot and humid days I'm thankful for

AC !!!!!!

and after some of this...

and a little of that

my ultimate day saver is

Nap Time!!!!

(sometimes for the both of us)

Celebrations, Construction and Crafts

This last weekend was a very special one for our family, Jacob and I celebrated our fifth anniversary and we celebrated Jacob as a Daddy for his first Father's Day! Jacob and I were talking about how it doesn't seem like we've been married for 5 years already! And how 5 years sounds like such a long time, yet it really hasn't been...if that makes any sense :) And can I just say, I love my husband and am so in love with him! What a great and wonderful man God has blessed me with. Its also so amazing seeing him as a Daddy and how much he loves and cares for Caleb. This weekend was enjoyable and relaxing {which doesn't happen that often lately...the relaxing part that is}. Since we had some days to celebrate, Jacob took off working on the downstairs so we could all spend time together. Speaking of the downstairs, the latest updates. Starting the end of May Jacob began finishing the downstairs {at least what we're planning on having finished in order to sell it...then the buyers can do the rest}. The biggest project in all that is putting in a bathroom. He's done an amazing job at figuring out what to do and coping with running into problems he hadn't anticipated. The bathroom is almost all plumbed, all the walls are up for the downstairs and most of the dry wall is up. We're aiming to have the downstairs done before we leaving in 2 weeks for our trip to Washington {Yay!!! Can't hardly wait to see family!}, cross our fingers that there's no complications!

The bathroom:

{we're farther than this now, but this was the latest picture}

Now what have I been doing {besides chasing this kid around everywhere, and saying no 100 times a day}, yep you guessed it? Crafts!!! {it was the only choice left from the title} I've fallen in love with Blogs and free tutorials!! Here are some of the projects:

The shirt dress, from MADE:

turn a men's dress shirt into a girl's summer dress

A little make-up bag:

This one is a combination of the 90 minute shirt and freezer paper stenciling:

The shirt is made from one of Jacob's, and the freezer stenciling is AMAZING and fun!!!

More freezer paper stenciling:

Some birthday things:

another 90 minute shirt. I put a 1 appliqué on each item and did the stenciling on the back of the onesie.

A birthday present for Caleb:

I have a few more things that aren't all the way done yet, or are a gift for someone {and they might see it before I give it to them} so I'll post those later. I'm loving making things, and its sooo much cheaper than buying stuff!! Now it's just finding the time to do them, and keeping track of all the neat ideas.

Real quick, an update on Caleb and then I better get going. He is definitely getting a mind of his own! Which is fun and frustrating at the same time. It's neat to watch as he processes through things and has his own little agenda of what he wants to do. BUT its not fun when he doesn't want to do what he needs to, like...get dressed, eat, get his face washed, not play with the electrical outlet. He's also developing an entertaining sense of humor. He walks around most of the time, crawls mostly just to get to something to help him stand up. He now knows 4 signs {milk, drink, dog, and food}, we're having fun working with those :) And he just got two more new teeth, for a total of 6.

I hope to have more to blog about in the upcoming weeks, with house renovations, our trip and a little boy turning One!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!!

We have tons of Caleb, but very few of us as a family. So when our friends Sean and Nicole offered to spend an afternoon taking some pics of us we said 'yes please'! Nicole was also the one who took Caleb's newborn pictures (which we Love!). It's something she's interested in and I hope something she continues to progress with because she does a good job. We had a fun time, although I was a bit sad because it'd be one of the last times we'd see them before they move. We have enjoyed their friendship greatly while in Columbia, and are so happy and excited for their move, we'll miss them a ton! Anyways, back to the pictures! I said we had a fun time, but this excludes Caleb. He was not happy about the heat. the grass. the squinting. and hearing us say 'Caleb look over here' 20 million times. That explains the lack of smiles on his part.

and here is a group shot :)

wow, I'm surprised it let me upload that many pictures!

More Home Improvements

Whew! It's been an exhausting last couple of weeks! The latest of the house projects was our bedroom, one I had been dreading since we moved in {and was possibly one of the toughest, although I may say that after each one}. It too had been wallpapered once upon a time {like everywhere else in our home} and someone didn't feel like removing it so...they painted over it, and so did the next, and the next, and the...you get the idea. We decided not to go this same route because, well, it looked terrible. Now let me tell you, although Jacob should really be the person, removing wallpaper that has been painted over is TOUGH! None of the little tricks work that are suppose to with removing wallpaper because the paint has to be chipped away. It took a few days to remove the paint and then the wallpaper glue. It was also really discouraging because you do all this work to make it look better, but it actually looked worse {with discolored walls underneath, and scratches and chips from removing paint}, which was fine because we'd fix all that, but still. Then we had to patch all the spots {and Jacob had to put in a new piece of drywall in a spot that had been ruined} and those who don't know, mudding. takes. days. Because you have to let each layer dry before you can do the next. The last stages went better: painting, putting in a new fan, new shades, moving the furniture back and staging. I had been dreading it because I knew how much work it'd be and that the whole house would be in chaos because the furniture from our room went in the hallway and living room {which makes things quite difficult with a little explorer}. Also on top of everything, my Allergies started up. I know it's a combination of things: moving everything causes dust to stir up, all the construction creates dust and what not, not being able to clean well due to the chaos in the house, and its just that time of year. And not trying to be a cry baby, but when I say allergies I don't mean the little snuffle here and there...I feel like I'm going to die! Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration. But people who do have bad allergies know exactly what I'm talking about, we get the whole works {runny/stuffy nose, itchy watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, sore throat}. BUT, the bedroom looks wonderful!! And now that we're a week past the construction I'm beginning to really enjoy it.

Before:

{yes, we forgot to take a before picture, again...and again the only one I could find was a lovely one of me. And you actually can't see the room very well, but it gives you the idea}

After: {in panoramic view}

Also in the last week, my mom flew up to Washington for a visit {she'll be gone 5 weeks}. Which is exciting to be on our own, but also difficult because she helps A. Lot. And with Caleb going everywhere, it makes it difficult for me to work on things while he's up. More about him: he's becoming such a little boy...which is exciting and fun to watch but at the same time I'm thinking "what happened to my baby". He's learning he can do things to make us laugh, and he's also laughing at himself a lot {when he falls down, when he toots or burps...hehe}. One of the biggest things lately is the walking, he loves to walk. And its not just when we're encouraging it, he'll pull himself up on something/anything and just walk somewhere, doesn't matter. Here's a recent picture of the boy:

I'll post some more pictures later. We got together with some friends {the same ones who took his newborn pictures} and they took some family pictures that I have to put on here :)

Well, I didn't intend on this being so long, but once I got going it just kept going...and there you have it, our latest news.