Getting Closer

We had a special treat at church yesterday. My brother and his wife and their little girl Marin came to church with us! In honor of the occasion, all of the cousins dressed alike. We took their picture after church, which started off rocky. Ellie really didn't want to take a picture at all and Emma had her silly smile on at first.

But we finally got cooperation.

Later that day, there was a shade structure-raising (like a barn raising) which lasted most of the afternoon. But they were successful and it looks great! The patio is going in this weekend!

In Progress

I'm posting some pictures as updates against my last blog.

My mom and I finished the curtains in the kitchen! Now on to the living room.

The boys started working on the posts for the shade structure today and we got the stone border put in for the patio. Getting closer!!





If you look closely on this next one, you can see a little guy in the doorway, just wishing he was big enough to help his daddy.

Starting New Projects

I am so blessed to be married to a do-it-yourself kind of guy. He takes on any project, big or small, and learns as much as he can about it to make it the best result possible. My family was never very good at that. We usually saved up our money and paid someone else to make it the best result possible (after we tried and messed it up).


But my husband lived out in the boonies for most of his life, where it was required to do it on your own or not do it at all. He has done lots of projects for us over the years - a new built-in medicine cabinet, tile backsplash in the kitchen, recessed can lights in the kitchen, cabinets in the garage, painting various rooms, changing our oil in the cars, installing a doorbell, installing surround sound wiring and speakers, etc, etc. Not to mention all of the projects he has done at his brothers' houses and his parents' houses.


So when he mentioned installing a patio, shade structure and outdoor kitchen in our backyard, I wasn't too surprised or worried. He knows what we like and wants it to look awesome also. The trick is that we want to get it done by JD's birthday (April 3) so we can have his family and mine out to celebrate JD's first birthday at our house.


The project has started off slowly. We had to get approval from the city and our homeowners association to even get going. Now Jon has our backyard marked out and we got a big supply of lumber yesterday for the shade structure. I'm starting to get excited as I picture what our new backyard will look like!



We are also fortunate because our neighbor that lives behind our house does landscaping and yard improvements for a living. So he is giving us great advice and help along the way. Guess we will keep our fingers crossed that the weather stays nice and we make some progress!!

Happy Time Change Recovery Day!

Don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about...who isn't feeling the effects of the lost hour on Sunday morning??

What a fun weekend! It started out with a good ol' fashioned girls sleepover with my sister-in-law Heather. Her husband was having a baby shower of sorts (the guy version) with his fire department and all the brothers on Friday night. Jon went, of course, as one of the brothers for the night. So she and I ordered up some Chinese food (neither of our husbands like to eat it) and we had lots of girl talk, while we played with JD. We had on a movie, but ended up chatting more than watching. Lots of fun! JD LOVES to play with his Aunt Heather, so he had a great time too.

On Saturday, my mom and I took JD to a baby shower and had fun watching JD flirt with all the ladies, flashing his cutest grin all over the place. On Saturday night, Jon and I went out to eat with JD and enjoyed catching up (since we hadn't seen each other in almost 24 hours).

We had a busy day on Sunday again, since we had Jon's family birthday lunch at our favorite lunch spot after church - Spring Creek Barbecue. Then we had to go over to set up for Heather's church baby shower, which I was helping to hostess. The shower was lots of fun since a lot of her family came into town and she had lots of gifts! But I never get tired of looking at cute baby girl clothes and pink stuff, so bring it on! And I don't think you can ever have enough pink when you have a baby girl.

Last night, we watched a funny British movie called "Hot Fuzz," which is a parody of police action movies. I'm not endorsing or anything, since it had plenty of silly gory parts and bad language, but it was kind of funny.

Back to "work" today, with Baby Boot Camp this morning and then working on curtains all afternoon. Someday, I will finish all of the curtains in my house, but I'm not holding my breath. We are getting close in the kitchen though. I will post pictures soon.

Eyes Wide Shut

We had a photo session with JD a few days ago to commemorate his 10 months of life. As many parents do, we have been taking monthly photos of JD throughout his first year so that we remember all of the fun changes that he has made.


This past photo shoot happened to be in the evening (most are in the mornings - best smile time) so we had to use a flash. JD decided during this photo shoot that the flash is really bright so he should shut his eyes before it goes off.



I have many more similar to this next one...



So getting his picture is now even more difficult because he is convinced that the camera causes blindness. I tried again today and here were the results...keep in mind that it was in the morning so no flash even went off.

Too Cold

I took JD out in our rare Dallas snow this morning. It was either too early for such cold temperatures or he just plain didn't like the cold snow, but he cried most of the time we were outside.

I told him that in a year he would be begging me to go outside to play in the snow, but he didn't seem to care.

What's Cooking

Well, we had another jam packed weekend. The highlight was Jon, Josh and Jordan cooking up a birthday feast for Jon on Sunday. To prepare, on Saturday, Jon built another table to put beside our table and increase the seating capacity by double.

We had fun getting the table ready and decorated. We created little menus to put on each placesetting.

The guys had a blast cooking up in the kitchen, restaurant style. I think the results were pretty tasty too!

We started with some shrimp skewers and homemade chips and salsa. Both really yummy!

Then we moved on to the first course - Roasted Pork Tacos with grilled corn salad. Delicious!

Next we had mini burgers, where we could pick the kind we wanted - Hickory style, Baja or Build-Your-Own with homemade french fries. Can't go wrong with that!!

Dessert was a choice of root beer floats or chocolate shakes, both with homemade ice cream. To die for!!

We had my sister and her husband, my brother and his wife, two of Jon's brothers and their wives and our friend Jordan and his wife Emily over for the dinner. Our conversations seemed to steer toward babies and related topics since two of the wives are pregnant, two have young babies and one has two children. Kind of funny! A couple of years ago, all we could talk about was the trips were going to take and the movies we had recently seen. Such a shift!