The Never Ending Story (Part II)

Hi Everyone,
It has been almost 2 years since our last post and just over a year since Maia was born.  I am certainly not the writer in the family (compared to Jess), but I wanted to share some pictures of Maia and what we have recently done to the house.  Hope you enjoy!

Maia and her second trip to the Zoo....She was pretty excited. She was following the goats around in the petting zoo saying, "doggie, doggie".

She has decided to get serious and find her favorite book at the bottom of the basket.

Jess and I decided that Maia needed to start earning her keep around the house.  If you look closely in the back right you will notice a small portion of the dirt removed for the patio.  That is going to become our garden this summer. 

The rest of the photos are the progression of the patio that we finished off the back of the house.  Jess and I worked really hard digging and moving tons of dirt.  Bill and Kathie were very gracious for helping while they were visiting.  Thanks for the help!!

Gotta love roto tillers!

Here is Bill trying to figure out how to deal with the electrical wires we found buried in the dirt.  Yes, you read correctly.  I said electrical wires we found buried in the dirt!! The previous home builder was not the Bob Villa he thought he was.

Jess grading out some gravel

Barney and Maia Supervising

Very happy that this truck fit through the back fence

We decided that it would be fun to rent concrete stamps and make the patio look like slate.  Much more affordable by the way. 

This is after the dark grey stain we used

Hopefully it won't be two years before our next post (and until the patio is completely finished). Hope everyone is doing well. 

What did the fast tomato say to the slow tomato?

KETCHUP!

Wow, a lot has happened since our last post... so let's catch up! Maia is now 5 weeks old! Here is the last picture of me pregnant... 40 weeks.

Now to Maia, she's growing like crazy! She's grown from her birth weight of 7 lbs 4 ozs to about 10 lbs and from 20 in. to about 23 in. It's weird to actually get used to sleeping only 2-3 hours at a time, but still never feel caught up. It's so rewarding, that the waking up in the middle of the night isn't as bad as I expected. And how would you feel waking up to this?

This is also how a lot of her pictures are...very serious! We do have some play time though...

Maia also loves bath time...which makes her dad happy since he is somewhat of a fish out of water himself. Please notice the excellent mohawk!

Now to end the post... this is the normal picture found in the house these days. Tired mom with tired baby!

And really tired baby!

The Never Ending Story (a.k.a. details of our home renovations)

I'm only partially kidding (and giving Mike a hard time) by the title of this post. The renovations have been taking a while, but we did decide to take on quite a bit of work and we both work full time (and then some). Also, now that the renovations have a looming deadline (~5 mos.) it also makes it seem like it will never get done in time! With my work schedule I'm very little help with things. I'm also getting bigger...here I am at 16 weeks.

So the list of things that we are currently working on includes, but is not limited to: tiling the kitchen backsplash, choosing paint for the kitchen cabinets and baby's room, repairing water damage from a leaking chimney (covering hole in wall), "moving" a staircase to a different side of the wall (or moving a wall, either way, putting up a new wall and staircase). Mike made a video diary of the initial wall removal, but we don't have any pictures. We do however have pictures of the new staircase going up (with some lovely shots of our friend Ryan who has been helping with construction).

Mike and Ryan realized that they wouldn't just be putting the wall up on the other side of the staircase, but that they would have to remove and reconstruct the staircase entirely due to some sketchy construction. so here are the new stringers going up.

And currently, here is what we're looking at:


We had big plans early on and definitely had to change some plans due to schematics of the rooms. But currently Mike is in the process of finishing the dry wall and all we need are the treads and risers for the stairs and we'll be all set! All of this is definitely easier said than done. We welcome any visitors who might be interested in volunteering some elbow grease (i.e. future Grandparents of new Nashville Baby)!

First Post

We figured we should make an effort to let everyone know how things are going. So here goes...

Mike just got back from Atlanta from an exciting two day adventure in sealed air...not so much an adventure, but an actual certification class from Cryovac/Sealed Air at their packforum facility used to teach professionals how to use their product. So i'm not sure exactly what Mike is certified in now, but he sure did learn a lot about microwaves. Essentially, he had the opportunity to test his products for consumer use and made sure he knew how to develop them....well, so that they were great even though they were microwaved.

The past weekend for the 4th was a bust for me, I worked all weekend for one of the slowest weeks of the year...so many cookouts that no one likes to come to the restaurant. But Mike's boss had a cookout that he got to attend for most of the day on Saturday since they needed him to help cook. The highlight from the entire experience was not so much the fireworks, but the 200 lb. pig that was smoked overnight. Here is a picture of Mike being Mike and pulling apart the pig before the party.

This post is definitely our test run, so be patient while we get used to coming up with stuff to tell you....more to come.