Grass update

The neighbor (retired and in his late 70s) on our other side offered to let us use his mower after helpfully commenting, "I couldn't help but notice how long your grass is." If Parker can stay awake long enough this evening, hopefully we can get it done tonight. I'm guessing if we go much longer the same neighbor listed above might offer to do it for us with his riding lawn mower. Maybe we'll wait after all...

You know you're pathetic when...

...you wait for your neighbors to leave for their vacation so you can borrow their lawn mower. Our neighbors who just got married last weekend left today for a week long vacation (we called that a honeymoon but they are apparently taking their honeymoon later this summer...hmm). In exchange for Justin mowing their yard while they're gone they're letting us borrow their mower because ours is on the fritz and we haven't had it assessed yet. And we've patiently been waiting for them to leave. They were going to leave Friday night but put if off until this morning. In the meantime we have a small grassy jungle that we've almost lost Madeleine in growing in the front of our house. We've decided to tie string to her ankle in case she were to fall so we could rescue her from all of the grasshoppers that have taken residence in said jungle.

At the wedding


At home after the wedding playing in her new rain boots

The new favorite outside activity.

Besides not mowing the yard, we've been pretty busy negotiating the kids' new schedules. I guess they're not schedules if they are consistent but you know what I mean. Parker is FINALLY getting his 8th tooth which means his sleeping is all messed up. And with the solstice happening last weekend and finally getting early summer weather here (it was in the 50s and rainy for the outdoor wedding last weekend), Madeleine has decided she should get up at 7am, much to my distaste. Parker too hasn't been much for going back to sleep after his 6-7am feeding so I've ended up with two highly stimulated yet exhausted children the past week. We opted to try an earlier nap time for Madeleine today and thus far it's going well. She's been down for a little over 2 hours but I have no idea what that means our evening will look like. Does anyone else with kids out there have any stories about having 2-year olds who go back to having 2 naps a day? As soon as I feel like I have a handle on things they change.


Justin make a funny comment earlier today... He said that sometimes when people ask him how far apart our kids are he want to tell them 10 minutes because it seems like that's all the reprieve we get some days. As soon as one goes down the other is up. But when it is synchronized, it's a heavenly event!


I realized I never posted anything about Father's Day last weekend. Unlike she did for his birthday, Madeleine did not blow the surprise gift we gave Justin. He got a gift certificate to his favorite bike shop in town for him to use to buy new pedals and shoes for his road bike. Before then he had only one pair of pedals he had to switch back and forth between his mountain and road bikes. Although it was a gift for him, I gave it selfishly thinking that if he could spend less time prepping to ride and more time riding, he might get home sooner and I wouldn't have to hold the fort alone as long. :) There's always an ulterior motive with me! He's enjoyed the freedom his new pedals and shoes have given him. Plus, I was able to tell him about a 50% off sale on shoes the store was having so we enjoyed a good bargain too.

Little else has been happening here. I'm hoping to work on the yard a bit more as the mosquitoes begin to dissipate and post more things for sale on Craigslist. It's nice having a bit of pocket change every now and again. I'm hoping to catch Parker saying "mama" on video one of these days so keep your eyes out.

Legs or no legs

Parker is determined to move. Whether or not this movement falls under the umbrella term of "crawling," I don't know. It's more like a sniper crawl of sorts. What would you call it? His legs must have been tired from jumping in his jumperoo; otherwise, he'd usually also insert a push-up or two in his forward motion.

The noisy one

It's a good thing Madeleine's gotten used to her little brother because he can be quite vocal when he feels like it. This isn't the greatest example but it covers a good variety of his favorite expressions. And no, it's not the backlighting that's making his hair look so poofy; it's actually that poofy.

Evidence

Here are some of the projects we've worked on over the last month.

Our screen doors that Justin installed.

Did I just hear you ask what part of our house is painted red? We took two weekends and transformed the kitchen with 3 coats of "cherry chocolate" paint. Although I love yellow, it was the wrong color for that space. We're really happy with the results, even the red smudges that now decorate the lovely popcorn ceiling.

After the first coat of cherry chocolate we were afraid we'd have to buy 4 gallons of paint to keep it from looking raspberry. Fortunately we only had to buy two gallons.

Here's what it looks like now.

We lost a lot of sleep working on this but it turned out to be a lot of fun for us as a couple. We rocked out to classic rock and ate way too many Starbursts. It's always fun when a task like this turns into a really good time for us to connect.

I don't have any pictures of the berry bushes I've planted. They're not much to look at right now anyway. I also didn't take any pictures of the baby shower or Carol's visit. For the shower I was just too busy getting the food ready. As for our lovely visit from Carol and Soren, I think it's a testament to where we place our priorities when there isn't a picture to show from our visit. We preferred spending time with one another and didn't feel much of a need to document it. It was a true delight to have them here and I was tickled watching how well Soren interacted with Parker. Madeleine pretty much kept Soren at a mom's arm-length (i.e., "Mama, up!!!) but she was nevertheless happy watching them come up the basement stairs the two mornings they were here. We hope to visit with them again soon!

And while I've uploaded lots of new pictures to the Picasa site, here are a few obligatory ones of the kids.

List update

Baby shower: check
laundry: check
cleaning basement: pending

My biggest hurdle of the day is trying not to eat the triple layer chocolate cake I made for the baby shower. It's a sour cream cake with sour cream icing and while I so desperately want to eat a few bites I'm hesitant due to Parker's resulting gasiness which causes me to lose sleep. But there's so much chocolate!!! What is a girl to do? I'm hoping Carol likes it and gobbles all of it up for me. Carol and Jeremy officially announced on their blog last week that they're pregnant again so I'm thinking I can convince her to indulge since she's eating for two. Congrats you crazy Johnsons :) Can't wait to see Carol, Soren, and the growing peanut tomorrow!!!!

The list

Over the last three weeks we've:
installed screen doors (mainly Justin but I kept the kids entertained so I helped)
removed trim in the kitchen
repainted the kitchen
planted 9 berry bushes
dug up and transplanted a lilac bush/tree
began digging up a flower bed
broke and repaired the lawn mower
disposed of over 2 garbage bags worth of dandelions
and I attended a 4 session class called "Betty's for Beer" hosted by a local brewery

Over the next few weeks we'll:
host a baby shower (cooking and cleaning for me)
have Carol and Soren visiting for a few days (requires some desperately needed organization on my part; I've trashed the basement and Justin's thrilled their visit necessitates my attention to the disaster zone)
have a daddy-free weekend as he goes to a conference in NM
finish digging up said flower bed
order new windows
buy, stain, and hopefully install trim for kitchen
buy and plant bushes to block out annoying neighbors...

It's no wonder why people in their 50s and older want to live in a condo community. You spend the first 20-30 years of your family's existence working on your yard and house! Fortunately for us the novelty of it all hasn't worn off yet.

Better late than never

Yes, the Clines are still here and hopefully in a few days I'll post some pictures of why I haven't been updating the blog but I had a few minutes to upload this quick video of Parker doing one of his classic moves. The video is a few weeks old...he's actually crawling now. Funny how with kid #1 I would have kept you updated on every scootch and with kid #2 it's an afterthought: "oh yeah, Parker, he's crawling but he hasn't gotten into the dog food yet so it's not really that big of a deal." Ahhh...how life changes. More to come, I promise!