Let it Snow

We've gotten more snow and boy is it cold outside.  Corey spent another day working on his amazing slide and has put it to good use.  The kids have had lots of fun on the slide, all except Noelle, who doesn't enjoy going down it at all, I think she even cried a little the last we made her go.  She'll thank us later, I'm sure. 

The sickness bug has also hit us this past week.  Danae, poor girl, just looks miserable with her cough, goopy eye and runny nose.  She's lost her "cookies" a few times from coughing so hard.  She's even battled a fever and has slept a bit this week.  I hope she gets feeling better soon. Fortunately Noelle has never been quite that sick (knock on wood) but has gotten the cough and has also had a fever the past few days.

Time lapse: several weeks later I'm trying to finish this post.  We've taken more video footage of the slide and Noelle has decided it's fun after all.  I think the temperature outside is a big factor, it's warmed up a little.

So I'm trying to become more internet/tech savvy and have tried to upload a video. We'll see if it works, if not I'll call my "backup" and see if he can help me out.  So hopefully there's much more to come...

The Last of 2012

That last couple of months in 2012 were filled with lots of family time--which is always fun.  We went to the children's museum one day with the cousins, played lots of games and visited.  One day while playing with the cousins, it was a beauttiful day the first part of November so I decided to take the kids outside.  We played several games, one being "Duck, Duck, Goose".  Noelle didn't seem to quite understand the game and just sat and watch the other kids run around.  Well, a couple of weeks later while getting her ready for bed she walks over to me with her arm raised like she was about to hit me.  She reaches up and hits my head and says something. I wasn't quite sure what she was doing until I heard her say "Goose".  Ah, the first few utterings were "Duck, Duck".  Oh so funny--I was quite surprised and shocked that she had remembered from a few weeks previous.  Now we often play the game although it's more like tag.

We also went and took some family photos at the Capitol Building. The large group turned out pretty good, I think, but our little family one not as good. Oh well, guess you take what you can get. Well, I'd share them with you but for some reason the link to add pictures is no longer responding...sometimes I wonder about this website. I'll add them when I can. Anyways, I digress. We had a fun Christmas and got a lot of snow. On New Year's Eve Corey built a big snow slide in the backyard and the kids had a good time with that. We also had a fun New Year's playing games and had quite the spread of goodies. Can't wait to do it again next year.

Before and After

It's been a busy month around here with project after project.  Here are just a few to show off our hard work. 

We were in much need of a dresser for the baby as I was gettting tired of stuffing all her clothes into one of our dresser drawers, plus she needed to move into her own room. So I began looking for a dresser/changing table.  After all of my shopping, I decided to go with a used dresser that I found online for $40. It was in pretty good condition overall but it did need a little touching up. The finish was worn off the front of the top and the top had definite wear marks.  Corey put the sander to work and removed the original fnish off the top of the dresser. I then jumped in after and stained it. I think it turned out pretty good and it only cost us an exra $5 in materials (sand paper & stain). I thought it turned out to be a pretty good bargain.

 (Sorry there is not a before pic)

On Saturday we tackled the front door.  As you can see, it was black, wouldn't come clean, and it just got way too hot in the sun.  So we went bold and daring and painted it...

 

Blue. We thought it was going to have a bit more grey to it, but it looks pretty blue. I haven't quite decided if I like it - but we'll give it a year.

Corey bought a paint gun so we decided we would use that to spray the door and frame. We took our time prepping the area so we wouldn't end up with blue stucco or brick. With all that prep and managing a couple of kiddos, it practically took us all day--but it's one more project checked off the list.

 

This last project took the longest of them all...way back in the spring as we were continuing working on painting the house (yes, since we've purchased the house we've put a fresh coat of paint on every wall, with the exception of one), I decided that I wanted to paint some stripes on the entryway walls.  I couldn't quite figure out how I wanted to do this; I was afraid it wouldn't look good. I pondered it for months, literally.  I think I had initially taped off the door frames and base boards back in April, and finally in Sept I decided just to do it, right or wrong....I reasoned that if it was awful I would just paint over it. 

 

 

I began the painstaking task of taping off the walls...first I started measuring and using the level, etc to make sure my lines were going to be just right.



Then I painted the stripes...  

 And topped it off with the little stripe at the top...hallelujah.  I was so relieved when this project was done and that I actually like the final result.

 



Almost 7 weeks ago...

We welcomed a new addition to our family.  She was born at 2:46 pm (if you want to be exact) after spending only 7 hours at the hospital. The first hour was checking in and waiting for the Dr to start the induction process.  Six hours of 'labor' isn't so bad I suppose, especially when you have wonderful modern medicine :o)  At any rate, Danae Ryanne weighed 6 lb 11 oz and was 19 in long with lots of thick dark hair.  When the Dr laid her on my stomach the first thing she said was "oh she just peed on you"....  What a sweet girl. Little did I know that was just a pre-cursor of things to come.  Need I say more?

Noelle has been such a loving big sister.  Her first meeting with Danae at the hospital was uneventful and she hardly gave her a second look. She has, however, decided that her little sister is pretty neat and often gets excited when she sees her & tries to give her hugs and kisses.  And much to our dismay she often likes to push her in the swing and as a result managed to dump Danae out on her head.  Fortunate for Noelle she did not land on her head as well & I luckily recovered from my heart attack.

The last couple of weeks Danae has really begun to fill out. I think she might be a little chunk too. At her 2 week appt she weight 7 lb 6 oz and I think she is now weighing over 10 lbs easy. For the most part she's a pretty easy baby and we just think she's adorable.

 (Taken the day she arrived home)

These pics she's 14 days

Picture on top was taken today & the pic on bottom taken yesterday