Tuesday, July 31, 2012

House Update - July

Our house is finally making progress.  The walls have gone up and it's beginning to take shape.  It's so exciting to see each room beginning to appear.  I went by this week and found standing water in the shower and the bathtub.  Guess they were testing out the drains.

The window at the bottom left is our dining room and the window above that is a bedroom.  The three windows on the top right are our game room and of the course the garage is below that.  I get a dining room!  I'm so excited about that because at our previous home if we maxed out the seating at the kitchen table people had to sit on the fireplace in our living room.  But with our new house we will have seating in the dining room (when we get a table), at our kitchen island, and at our kitchen table.  We could invite the Duggars over!  Well, maybe not.


And... we have shingles on our roof!  Check out the bay windows that will be in master bedroom at the bottom left!  There will be space for a sitting area.  So many times in our old house Korey would walk around to his side of the bed and catch a pants pocket on one of our dresser knobs.  It was thattight of a space!

Korey said they have also delivered the brick and the interior sheetrock is going up soon.  Stay tuned!



Thursday, July 26, 2012

Hunter's 2nd Birthday - Tractor "Pool" Party

The morning of Hunter's birthday he woke up early, as in before the sun came up, so we put him in bed with us.  I tried to take a quick picture of him sleeping before I woke him up.  As soon as he heard the camera click he sat straight up in bed so I did the duck and cover next to the bed so he wouldn't see me.

Our boy isn't much of a breakfast eater or a dessert eater but I wanted to do something fun so I bought donuts and we stuck two candles in one.
When we woke him up and he saw what Korey had he said, "Candles!"
We managed to get him to take one bite before he refused the rest.
Then we had a little mini-morning birthday party before I left for work.  We let him open a couple of presents.  This is the card that Korey drew for him.  (The wrapping paper came from Target.)
After I got home from work we took him to Gatti's Pizza.  We debated taking him to Chuck E Cheese but didn't know if he was still too small.  My family joined us and then we opened my sister's present which was the Trucks book.  He's also wearing a tractor shirt that she found for him - perfect for our tractor theme!
After we got home we opened more presents and Hunter ate his birthday cookie which was a homemade chocolate chip cookie that I made.  This is the only dessert he'll eat!
Hunter and I posing by the fireplace.
He's actually eating my cookie!

Here he is all grown up!
Then we had his birthday party that weekend.  We did a tractor theme since he loves tractors!  And bulldozers and concrete trucks.  We did a pool party since we were at my parent's and I had my dad park his John Deere out back to be part of the decorations.  Thus, the "Tractor Pool" party.  Easy entertainment and decorations included with our venue!

 Here's my dad and baby Levi.

Sitting on the back porch watching the kids play.
For a pre-lunch snack we had "Chicken Feed" which was served in brown paper sacks.  It consisted of Bugles, Chex Mix, Goldfish, and M&Ms.
This was our drink table.  The tractor was one of Hunter's birthday gifts.  That is actually green poster board from the Dollar Store sitting on top of the card table.  I couldn't find plastic table cloths in the right green color so I made do with this.  The cups are green Solo cups from Target and the straws are from a box of multicolored straws and I picked out the green and yellow ones.  They are stashed in a clear plastic cup with a green handkerchief that was a $1 from Hobby Lobby.  We served lemonade and water in clear containers which I guess I didn't include in my pictures.
This is the tractor invitation that Korey drew for me.  We didn't have time to mail it but had to send it via email.  (Selling your house and moving took all of our time!)


Here is Hunter perched on the tractor.  I had the straw hat in the closet and you can't see them in the picture but I got two hay/straw bales from the local feed store and we parked them in front with a poster sign that said "Photo Booth."
We set up a little pool for the small kids to play in. 

The big kids played in the big pool.

This was our food table before it was set with the food.  The green and yellow plates were from Hobby Lobby and the green cloth napkins were from HL in the bandana section.  The yellow tablecloth is plastic from Target.


Watermelon was a necessity on this super hot day!
We had BBQ pork sliders which are hiding under this lid.
I made macaroni and cheese with tractor wheel pasta.
I made "hay stacks" to put on the cake so we set out the leftovers on the food table.
This was Hunter's cake.  We did this "super easy" by just making a chocolate sheet cake.  Since we knew he wouldn't eat it we didn't want to go to too much trouble for it.  I made the cake the night before and then Korey decorated it that morning.  Decorations include rice krispy treats, m&ms, and tractor toys from Walmart.
Here is Hunter and Brynlee posing on the tractor.
A closeup of some of the cake decorations.
Happy 2nd Birthday Hunter!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Hunter is Two!

It's hard to believe it but my baby is actually 2 today!  How time flies.  I can definitely say that this age is very fun (despite the random bouts of crankiness).  Korey and I both agree.

Hunter is a little chatterbox now.  He is saying four word sentences now and if you give him something for a snack like strawberries he says, "Thank you strawberries."

His newest passion is basketball.  Every day he wants to play.  So last night after work I joined in an after-dinner game.  I scored the most 3 pointers!  And no we aren't playing on a full size court but we use one of those toddler-sized basketball goals.

We woke him up this morning with a donut and two candles in it.  He saw the candles and said, "candles" and smiled really big.  He took a small bite of the donut and he was done.  He is just not into breakfast or sweets at all.  Pictures to come!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Basketball Drills

Korey emailed this to me today.  Our boy loves to play basketball!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Nighttime Sweetness

Every night before he goes to bed Hunter drinks milk.  There is no doing without it according to him.  On this particular night we were hanging out in our bed and he was just so cute I had to grab my camera.  We'll ignore the bandaid on the chin where he slipped and fell getting out of the bathtub.  :(



This little man knows how to pray now!  It's so exciting for us to hear him say, "Hi God."  He'll tell God thank you for the concrete truck, the bulldozer, and our concrete slab.  Gotta love that!

Sweet milk!


Father's Day 2012 & 23 Months

The movie "Cars" came on one night so I taped it.  On Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church I found these two engrossed in it.

Our little man is now into anything with wheels.  Tractors, cars, his tricycle.  Shopping for his birthday this year is going to be super easy.

He looks like he's making a monkey face!  He has become so much easier to communicate with in the last couple of months.  He is now saying 3 and sometimes 4 word sentences and understanding what he's saying to us has gotten easier.  Happy 23 Months!



Happy Father's Day to an awesome husband and dad!