“Dat Funny?”–Part 17

June 6th

Boo started to run outside. I called her back, “You may not wear your brand new shoes outside to play. You have lots of play shoes.” S: “Where?” Me: (pointing) “You have black croc, pink crocs, AND purple crocs.” S: “But I don’t like the way those sound on the grass!”

June 7th

Boo: “Mommy? I don’t want to get married.” Me: “Why not?” Boo: “Because I want to marry Daddy and I can’t because you already did.” Me: “But you can find your own ‘Daddy’ and marry him.” Boo: “But I’m afraid I won’t FIND him!”

June 16th

Peanut found something chocolate behind the couch during VBS while Grandma was watching her. Grandma told us about it when we got back. “Well,” Boo told her with accusation in her voice, “You know Mommy and Daddy have snacks after we go to bed!”

June 17th

We were driving and T started doing the “car alarm cycle” sounds. Boo cuts in loudly, “BEE DO BEE DO BEE DO!” T stops and laughs, “Touché.”

July 2nd

There was a baseball tournament and we went up to watch since T was helping coach. The girls started working the concession stand with some of their friends. Boo asked me, “Can I have some chips?” Me: “Do you have any money?”  S: “No, but I’m a volunteer!” Me: “You still have to pay for food.”

July 4th

Boo: “Can we go shopping?” Me: “For what?” Boo: “For fireworks.” Me: “We can’t have fireworks at our house.” Boo: “Oh.” She pauses and looks like she’s thinking hard. “We don’t have them in our world?”

July 30th

We went swimming at the local pool with one of my (childless) friends. She was thinking the girls were so cute, and was helping Boo swim when Boo pointed, “See those bubbles? Those are my TOOT! Excuse me!”

“I larious!”–Part 3

September 6th

Daddy was playing with Peanut and started asking her questions. “What does the cow say?” A: “MOO!” T: “What does the pig say?” A: “OINK!” He went on for several minutes asking various animals. Then he finally said, “What does Peanut say?” A: “PANCAKES!”

September 27th

We had been really working on saying “Excuse me” after any bodily functions. Peanut let out a man-sized burp, but instead of saying excuse me she yelled out, “Goodness qway-cious!”

October 8th

I needed to take Cocoa out to go potty and was holding A so I just took her with me. We got outside. Cocoa sniffed around and then did her business. A started clapping, “Yay! She peed! Good girl Cocoa! You get nem-en-ems!”

October 27th

We had left the south that morning (after Auntie K’s wedding), and got off the plane to 45 degrees. When we walked outside Peanut gasped, “Oh my! Oh wow! It cold!”

November 5th

She had been going through a sink phase where any time I turned my back she went to “wash her hands” effectively soaking herself EVERY. TIME. She came into the kitchen, after I thought she’d been playing in her room, dripping wet. “Oh baby,” I sighed. “You’re all wet!” She replied, quite excited, “OH BABY! NEED NEW CLOTHES!”

November 7th

I was making pot pies and she saw me getting the Crisco out for the pie crust. She clapped her hands together, jumped up and down, and yelled, “COOKIES!!!”

Wordless Wednesday

Basement Fun

The girls were SO excited when the carpet guys were here. When they were finally done K and A (S was at Noni’s) ran downstairs. Bug came back up and asked if she could take some pictures with my phone and this is what I found later…

Some pictures just make you stop and say, “When did my baby grow up??” These did that for me. She looks so long and big playing in her old baby seat.

Ahh, there’s my baby face. :)

They were using the extra carpet as their “beds”.

Silly girls!

The basement has already provided hours of entertainment. Even when it was totally empty!

After the carpet guys were done we still had one more full Saturday of trim, touchups, and finishing work (neither T or my’s favorite part by far!). When we finally got done we set up Boo’s new “ball pit” and invited some friends over to check it out.

The kids had a great time!

We have since been setting up and organizing. T and the girls spent one evening putting together the weight bench I got him for Christmas. Then we spent another putting together the treadmill he got me for Christmas! Hopefully we can get in the routine of using them both and get fit!

We still have lots of plans for the space, but currently our exercise equipment and a cardboard castle are taking up all the room. :)

We’ll post more pictures when we get it all fixed up!

Basement Remodel!

I have never been accused of a “lack of vision” when it’s come to this house…obviously my “vision” has kept us busy remodeling for the past 5 years as my husband and in-laws can attest to! But for some reason I just could not ever imagine our basement as anything other than a disgusting, dirty, spider-filled, dark hole. A place to run down to as quickly as possible, grabbing what I needed and scampering back to the light.

T has been trying to get me to to remodel the basement for a while now and I just kept putting it off. It was something I didn’t even want to touch. Then the weather turned cold, and the kids didn’t want to play outside, and yet were bouncing off the walls INSIDE, and I caved. Right after Thanksgiving we started.

Apparently it was finished at one point, but due to a pipe breaking, and flooding, this was what we found when we moved in.

It served us usefully as a place to throw all our junk that we didn’t want clogging up the rest of the house.

There were some oddities. Like the window between the storage and main room.

And random windows that led to nowhere, as well as apparent abandoned attempts at digging out a fireplace (left below).

The first thing we did (after gutting the place) was put in an egress window. I can’t BELIEVE how much of a difference it made!

Dig. Dig. Dig.

We had lots of helpers!

The girls were always begging to help.

Grandpa taught K&S how to mud over the screw holes, and they actually did a really good job!

They went around the room, filling in all the holes they could reach.

Here is what you used to see when you walked down the stairs.

And now…

I LOVE IT! I can’t believe how transformed it is! It is now a space we WANT to be in!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

During

And after.

Before

And after.

I am SO SO happy with it! And it really didn’t take that long…just a little over two months thanks to Grandma and Grandpa’s help a couple of different weekends, and to Noni and Papa for taking the girls several weekends, and for four days straight so we could work non-stop during Christmas break. It was definitely a group effort. :)

Thank you so so much for all you did to make it happen Grandma, Grandpa, Noni, Papa, and most especially my wonderful husband who spent COUNTLESS hours in that nasty basement turning it into a wonderful space for our family! I love it!

First Bath

We’ve noticed lately that Cocoa has been a little stinky so after the girls got out of the bath the other night we decided to throw her in. She’s always trying to get in when they are in there, but I think she was a little surprised when she finally made it!

Peanut wanted to help, but had just gotten out so she was still naked and dripping wet. :)

Cocoa didn’t seem to have strong emotions either way about the bath. She just kind of stood there like, “What is happening here??”

She was pretty cold when she got out but we wrapped her up and put her in front of the heater. She looked like a drowned rat. :)

But she smells much better!

New Year’s

On New Year’s morning we got up and Noni made a wonderful breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

Then we got crafty and made ornaments.

The girls wanted to try out Noni’s new back massager. Daddy was happy to be the test subject.

Then he gave them a turn.

The girls helped Noni make lunch…pigs in a blanket.

Big helpers!

T and I packed up our things and headed to town. The girls got to spent THREE more nights with Noni and Papa so we had a nice little mini-vacation. We used most of the time to work on the basement but it was still really fun!

We spent most of Thursday (New Year’s day) shopping in town, running errands, and getting basement supplies. We got home around 6 and worked in the basement till about midnight. The next day we slept in (so nice!) and then worked on the basement all day until 4. Literally all day. We ate chips and Pepsi for lunch while working (real healthy! :P)

That night we headed to town for the annual party with some high school friends. We got there at 6:30 and left at 1:30AM! I haven’t stayed up till 2:30 (by the time we got home) since college! It was really fun to catch up though and we only see them once a year.

Saturday we slept in again and then…you guessed it…worked hard on the basement till about 8 when we finally collapsed. We ordered take out from the Mexican restaurant and sank into the couch for a couple of hours.

I’m not sure what all the girls did but they came home excited and talking and a mile a minute so I think they had a great time!

I do know that they made a gingerbread house!

I think they also went to Noni’s school one day. They love to play in her preschool room. She has lots of fun toys.

Here they are in their new jammies from Noni. Peanut wants to wear them all the time. She calls them “My bedtime snack jammies!”

What a nice refreshing long weekend! T and I really enjoyed the time together and made huge headway on the basement, and the girls had an awesome time! Thanks Noni and Papa!