The Real Reason You All Read This Blog...

is for Sophia...! We know! So amid our hectic summer lives, I've been snapping updated pics!

For those waiting on the DisneyWorld post...It's coming! I know we've been home almost a week, but I've been catching up on my Sophia Time and laundry, and dishes and all the other things that go along with being a mom! So it's a work in progress, but it's coming!

Her newest adventure is playing Hide and Go Seek. Here she is hiding behind the office chair.

She even rolls it to another place, still staying behind it so we "can't see her!" So cute!
I especially love when she peeks at us, and still doesn't think we can see her.

Her newest hiding place is out in the sunroom. She moves the wrapping paper containers and hides behind them, then moves them so they almost cover her completely. She did this for the first time Monday and I honestly didn't see her or hear her for almost a minute...a little panic.


"Momma, where are you?" is what she says to us! Like we're the ones hiding! So funny!
It cracks us up when we're looking for her we'll ask eachther, "Daddy, have you seen Sophia? Is she in here?" and Sophia will answer, "Nooo!"

Sophia with artwork she created on Father's Day morning. She asked for the "mawkaws" and pointed at my stamping tools, so I pulled open the clear drawer with the WASHABLE markers, and let her have a go at it! She ended up with an orange spot on her PJ's and on her chin, but I didn't think that was so bad!

We've been trying to spend the mornings outside since we're now in the 100' weather. Thank you first day of summer! So here are a few of our outdoor adventures now that the backyard is in a "useable" state! :) (Thanks for all your hard work this spring babe!)

Picnic Lunch

She's so sweet. Seriously. She shares EVERYTHING!

And some water fun!

Love her smile! And those golden locks are getting lighter and lighter every day!

Splish Splash

Things Are A'Hoppin' Around Here

Weekends? We don't have those these days. The days formerly known as weekends have become better known as yard-days to us. And as tiring as it is to go-go-go all seven days of the week, it feels SO good to see progress being made.

When we bought our house we had a vision, and though that vision has changed some, it's starting to come around. It's just taking a lot more elbow grease than we ever thought we had. In fact, we've enlisted the help of our family more often than we expected to. And for that we are SO grateful. There is no way with Little-Miss-Runs-A-Lot that we'd be able to get anything done without the extra hands to help pitch in! :)

So below you will see the progress that is being made...

THE FRONT YARD

We finally got the boxes in the front cleared out and leveled, ready for planting!




So we took a shopping break one morning to go load up the car with EVERY available inch filled with plants, dirt & bark! (the car was literally so full Sophia looked like she was riding in a Rain Forest!)

Plants in the front. They look so little!

Complete!

And Now...
THE BACK YARD

Taking out the bushes around the pond; What an undertaking! These things were matted in and tangled so bad...

Starting to frame out where the cement would be poured.

The Grandpa's Hard at work.
(Thank you both Grandpa's for all your work!)

Matthew supervising the Grandpas!
He is a perfectionist, you know!?!

Cutting boards on the most exciting Christmas gift a homeowner could get!

The pad for the shed, done!

Funny little corner (someday Sophia's toy storage area), done!


The sidewalk out to the shed pad, done!

A Special Thanks to Papa for all of his cement expertise! :) I know that Matthew will forever be grateful for the time and finishing that you put into the cement!

Leftover cement dumped into the pond...sorry to say there were a few left over fish. :( Matthew likes to say they gave them an Italian Mob Burial!

The back cement areas with curbing installed

The pond is gone...no going back now! It's amazing to me, even after a week, that there used to be a pond there, and now we have a mud puddle waiting to be seeded for grass...It seems so BIG!

And...all of these big projects just wouldn't be complete without some kind of injury in the making! On the day of the big cement work, I saw my phone lighting up with a phone call just after walking my kiddos to the cafeteria for lunch. When I saw that it was Matthew, I wondered what he could be calling about at 11:30 in the morning. Call it the "Mother's Intuition" that kicked in, but I had a feeling something was up.

And I was right. He tells me, "I'm on my way to urgent care." The first thing I am thinking is that he cut his finger off with the new chop saw he was so excited to finally use; Not because I think he's a clutz or doesn't know what he's doing, but I just know how it can get when you're preoccupied with a dozen other elements in a big project like this...But thankfully it was MUCH less scary than that. But my stomach still turned a little when he told me "I stepped on a nail." Yuck. (Aunt Char, Uncle Jim, Devin, Dan & Erin will remember the little stint I had one summer when I stepped on a nail at their place!) So, being that it had been 10+ years since he'd had a tetanus shot, that's where he was headed. So, the following are pictures of the "culprit" and the injury (Note our mini-Vanna White modeling the injury on the foot!)






So a few days of dealing with a sore arm from the shot, and an urgent care bill to follow, all is well!

***Many, Many Thanks to both of our Dads, Josh, Papa & Both of our Moms for helping in the yard, and helping with Sophia so we could both be in the yard! We really appreciate all your help!***

Sophia's Silly Side

Our Little Love-Bug

Monday of Spring Break we were up before the sun...and on the road before the sun...heading down to Sacramento for Sophia's ear-tube surgery. (Long version will be posted later) Everything went PERFECT and now we have been experiencing a whole new girl. A MUCH happier girl at that! :) So here are some pics that capture just how sweet & silly our little girlie is these days!

One Saturday morning Sophia and I had gotten up early and had breakfast together. (as we usually do together, as Saturday's are Matthew's sleep-in day, Sunday mine). We were playing up front and she was being her usual silly, playful self. I took her into her room to get dressed, only to hear Matthew waking up. Upon walking into our room, SOphia went right for our mirrored closet door. She stood there and made the "kissy face!" I was cracking up! Where in the world did she come up with this? So I grabbed the camera and told her to make a kiss again, and here's what we got! Smooches!



Her hair is growing at a rapid rate! Thank goodness because I was a little worried it might never grow at all, and we'd end up with a baby mullet! But I picked her up from daycare the week before spring break and our little cutie had these, not one, but two! Pigtails!




Excuse my morning look! Sophia woke up just as I was getting home from the gym this morning, so we had some early (5:30am) cuddles and watched some Handy Manny. Her favorite show! (And yes....she is drinking milk here! FINALLY!!!! We thought that day might never come!)




All dressed up! We went shopping a few weeks ago, and at the request of Daddy, Sophia got a few new summer dresses. This particular morning she even asked to wear the cute hair flower I made her!



And her newest trick: Undressing herself at nap time! :) Although we've avoided the diaper disappearance (knock on wood!) it was still a shock to find her naked when we went in to get her that afternoon! Don't mind the nervous look, we were laughing hysterically, and I'm sure she was wondering why we were laughing at her!

***Updates from Spring Break will be here shortly...or rather, in a while...we had so much happen around the house (the yard, really) that it will take a while for us to post...but we will***

And we might be kinda biased, but you know some of these pictures are just too cute NOT to comment on! :) Don't be strangers out there!

Spring is Here (part 2)

Here are some pictures of our little Sophia Girl. The little munchkin was too interested in that bunny to smile for any of the pictures! Figures...But we just LOVE how they do capture her interest in all things new. If only there was some way to freeze the curiosity of a child...it's amazing to watch! Enjoy!

Spring is here

Not only are our allergies letting us know, but the jungle formerly known as our backyard is screaming at us as well...

Oh home ownership...It's a love/hate relationship. The upside is that our monthly payment is going to something that is ours. Something that is (hopefully) going to turn around and gain equity. Something that we can make our own. The downside is the yard work. When we were house shopping, having a big yard was something that was important to us. Okay, maybe more important to me because yard work has never been something I loathed. Until it became a priority. So, we got a house we loved, with a backyard that would take more time than we could EVER imagine.

Let's premise this. We've lived in our house for over two years and the yard is no where near where we envisioned it. Partly because EVERY year we put the yard project on hold while we waited out the dreadful layoffs. And when the school district finally announced that the jobs were safe, mid-July, it was boiling hot outside, and there was NO WAY we could have made new plants survive, much less ourselves. So, yard work has been put on the back burner. Until this year! YAY! The visions that we had in the beginning are finally starting to take shape.

So, below you will find some pics of our progress, but you won't fully be able to appreciate them without seeing what our yard looked like on day 1. So here's a little preview of the old yard:

Garden Beds

What seemed like a fantastic find upon our house hunting days, turned out to be a mess. One season of enjoying the tomatoes, squash, peppers & strawberries left behind by the previous owners turned out to be a big project for us. The garden beds that housed these delicious crops were quite literally being held together by the dirt in them. So we crumpled them up, and began the deconstruction of what is known as the "back-back yard" around here!

The Pond

I admit this is one major feature of the back yard that I reaped the most benefits from. But, Matthew will not be sorry to see it go. What looks like a beautiful, well cared for pond ended up being a major inconvenience, and now with our little munchkin running around, a major safety hazard. Between several broken pumps, a weekend up to my thighs in icy cold water scooping scum out of the water, dead koi in the pump, hundreds of frogs/toads in the yard, and often in the house, and now the fear of Sophia falling in, we've decided this beauty is a gonner.

The Shed
It's huge! It holds everything we need for the backyard. The patio table & chairs fit in it for the winter. AND it's infested with rats. SERIOUSLY. This winter wrecked major havoc on the shed as rodents took over. :( So you can imagine the joy Matthew felt as he opened the shed doors this spring to find it a total disaster. Don't worry, we disinfected every inch of the patio furniture, and we're proud to say...the shed is already gone! (Destruction pictures below!)

One of the many "entrances"
No joke, this is a wooden shed on dirt...no cement foundation. What were these people thinking?

And Some Progress...

This is the Back-Back Yard now. No more garden beds. (And although that looks like grass, I assure you it's not. The weeds were as tall as Sophia, if not taller.)

The Tall Weeds

Draining the Pond
Not to worry about the fish...We rescued (most) of them and took them to the river. No lie. I didn't have the heart to flush them. And Sophia LOVED them! So funny!



Sophia admiring the goldfish



Our Blue-Eyed Cutie helping out too!

She LOVES being outside, and even tells me on the way home from daycare "ouuuusiiiide"
So stinking cute!



Matthew and Whit starting the shed destruction

And in case you're wondering if I do any of the work here...I do, and here's some proof of my work...(I'm just usually the one behind the camera!)

The front is all ready for 'tilling, fixing a few minor sprinkler issues and planting! I thought that day might never get here, but it's close!

So, as you can imagine, if we do not already have plans set in stone we've dedicated the next 2,000 weekends to finishing the yard. Family and friends, we know you'll wait for us to be social again. Someday! :)