Lovable Stinker

I just came down the stairs from putting Jack to bed and found this in my path. He is snuggled up on the clean towels waiting to be carried up.

Household toys

What do you do when you're 2, and you want to play with the laundry basket that is sitting in the family room filled with neatly folded towels? Answer: Just dump it out on the kitchen floor! It's OK, Mommy won't mind, and hey, while you're at it, invite the dog to walk all over it and lay down and take a nap on the clean dish towels.

Am I the only one?

I can't be the only one whose heart sinks sometimes when that cry on the baby monitor signals the end of naptime. It means the chaos starts up again and doesn't end until bedtime. Sigh.

Miss Crabbypants

This is how Brooke looks right now (screaming of course) and it sort of sums up how most days start around here! Don't you love her morning hair?

My little trouble maker

I knew in my heart it was a crazy insane thing to do getting a puppy, but he's cute isn't he? Introducing Leo - age 14 weeks. He chewed up my faux crocs last night and I'm ripped furious about it!

My current project

I have been working on our patio. It really needs to be ripped out and replaced, along with the rest of our back yard, but since that's not in the budget this year or probably even next, I am looking for inexpensive fixes I can do myself. The aggregate concrete had these awful rotten wood dividers that would grow weeds all year long. I got the bug in my bonnet to pry them out and replace them so yesterday, while Angela (our babysitter) was here, I got to work. Man, it was hard work but I got them all out!



I chopped up the weedy old wood and put it in the yard waste bin. Phew. Then, I started the process of power washing the filthy concrete. You can see on the left the panel that is done and on the right the two that are NOT done yet. I need some caustic chemicals to break up the moss that is growing on there before I attempt to finish. Then, when it's all done, I will replace the wood with new pressure-treated wood and sand. But right now the channels are filled with water that has nowhere to drain. So hopefully one of these days the sun will come out and dry it up (not today, apparently - mother nature thinks it's still winter in Seattle!)

Here goes nothing

I have been delaying getting started with this blog because I've been waiting for some free time (yeah right!) to do it nicely and make it pretty. Some of you out there (you know who you are, Tiburon ;-) give me a complex! I've concluded that's never going to happen, and frankly I was so tickled and surprised to find 3 comments on my test post (I never told anyone about my blog!) so here goes nothing!

Yay, at 11 months I was starting to wonder, but Jack started crawling last night - here is some video:




He is so proud of himself. He's also pulling up and standing a lot, I think he is not totally sure there's much point in crawling - he is considering just walking one of these days!

More recent pics for those of you who haven't seen him in a while...




I promise to blog more. They may be brief, but there will be posts!