Before/After - Guest Bedroom

There are two bedrooms downstairs.  Right now Brie and Leah (kind of...) share one (Leah sleeps in our room, but all her stuff is in the bedroom).  The second bedroom we have set up as a guest room; which we use a fair amount between Mike and Allyson and my parents. 

 BEFORE

AFTER

We put in new carpet, took down the jungle wallpaper boarder, new window treatments, and painted top to bottom!  This room as well needs a new window in the near future.

First Before/After - Girls bedroom

It is so fun for me to look back on the blog and see what all has changed in our lives; this really is like my online scrapbook.  I wish I could scrapbook much more than I do....but I'd have to either ship off my kids somewhere or hire a full time nanny!  No thanks, I'll just spend time making memories with my kiddos and throw pictures up on my blog :)

I decided to do a bunch of before and afters with our house!  Often times Alec and I get stuck looking at all the projects we still 'need' to do (they are wants, not needs) and forget to enjoy the projects we have completed!

In general this house was completely and utterly stuck in the '90s from top to bottom!  Nothing wrong with the 90s.....a lot of good things came from the 90s!  My mother-in-law and I were joking that this was a '90s museum, I should have charged a touring fee.....would have helped pay for some of the updates!  Many of the before and afters we still have things that need to be done, but we will get there over time!  And besides, if Alec doesn't have a project he would literally go insane.  I have completely resigned to the fact there will always be projects going on.

BEFORE

AFTER

New carpet, paint, new window treatments, and new decor!  Makes a huge difference!  We still need to replace the two windows in this room at some point, and soon, they are in pretty bad shape.  And as you can tell I didn't do anything in the bathroom....that will be a big project someday.  We don't hardly use that bathroom though, so not a lot of motivation to spend tons of money there!

Weekend in Holland

We did a fun weekend getaway in Holland!  It was SO.MUCH.FUN!  So so so good to get away from home and do something all together.  

We had a picnic lunch on the beach

Walked the pier 

Walked down to the general store and got an icecream cone!  And yes....I took her shirt off for her chocolate ice cream.  We were like the only ones there though, so it was ok :)

Brie of course loved having not one,  but TWO TVs in the hotel

 Spent some time at the pool (what is with Brie's face here?! haha)

 We spend a day in downtown Holland checking out the shops.  It worked out so perfect, both kids napped in the stroller while we went out for a nice lunch!

 It was such a nice little mini vacation!  We certainly are going to try and make it a yearly thing!

Garden

Year 2 of the garden madness is underway! 

Thankfully we kept fairly detailed notes from the previous year so knew exactly what we wanted to do (and not do!).  We made some changes:  some new varieties, eliminated some we did last year, rotated the crops, and planted on mounds this year. 

Alec said to me the other day, "I really like gardening"  I said back to him, "I really like that you like gardening!"  He definitely is the green thumb.  I am willing and able to help, but the brains behind it all is ALL him (no surprise there!).  

We started some seeds inside at the end of April.

 Tilling the garden so we can plant! I should also mention, this is a very old tiller that belonged to Alec's grandpa.  Alec completely rebuilt it and fixed it up.  At one point during the process every single part was disassembled and he cleaned it all up and had to put some new parts on.  It works great!

Mike and Allyson were in town for a weekend!  It worked out perfect that Mike could help us plant the garden, and Allyson helped watch the children!

Mole problems as always....Josie can't handle that they are tunneling on her turf.  We set traps and have caught a few this year already, they are so gross!
 

In go the beans!

The raised mounds are new this year.  We will see how we like it!

Brie didn't want to get her hands in the dirt at all or help with the seeds.  But she was willing to carry tomato cages and wear gardening gloves......  She knows to walk on the paths between the mounds too, and would yell at Josie when she wasn't walking in the right place. 

This picture was taken right after Alec knocked over the tray of transplants....right after he just got done scolding Brie for getting to close to them :)  Thankfully there wasn't many in there and most were ok.  

So if all goes well we should have:

• Corn
• Peas
• Green & yellow beans
• butternut squash
• muskmelon
• cherry tomatoes
• tomatoes
• basil
• cilantro
• parsley
• celery
• bell peppers
• cucumbers
• zucchini
• sunflowers
• rhubarb
• romaine lettuce 

Grandparent's 60th Anniversary Party

 My Grandpa and Grandma have been married for 60 years this June!  We did an anniversary party for them mid May.  They are such a blessing to us all and it was fun celebrating! 

My Aunt, mom, and I planned the party.  I always love planning a party, so it was fun! 

We are all getting together for a week long celebration June13-20; staying in cabins on Fremont Lake.  It is going to be a wonderful vacation, very excited!!  Love you Grandpa and Grandma!!!



(I had to include this picture below even though it is TERRIBLE, but really this is after multiple attempts and this was the best one we got......sad. )

Leah's first food

I randomly decided to try solid food with Leah one day; it was about a week after she turned 5 months.  She was being an absolute beast one day due to refusal and lack of sleep.  So I needed something to occupy her with!  I just mixed up some baby oatmeal with some pumped milk; it really was basically just slightly thickened breastmilk, so of course she loved the taste.  She actually did pretty well for her first time, I was surprised!  I thought maybe it would help her sleep longer.....no go though.  

I didn't start making it part of her routine until just before 6 months; I just did it randomly here and there.  She has been doing really well with it! I can't believe this little baby is old enough to do solid foods with already, she is growing up so fast!

Leah 6 Months

 Leah Joy is now 6 months old; happy half birthday baby girl!! 

Weight: 16lbs - 48th percentile
Height:  27in - 89th percentile  (I highly question the accuracy of this, I don't think she really grew 2.5in in a month....)

Leah is getting so old!  She definitely is done being a little baby and has moved to interactive, knows what is going on, older baby stage.  She is a such a content little girl; she will play on the floor nice or sit in her bouncy or exer-saucer for a long time.  She has master rolling over in both directions; the other day all the sudden I noticed she had rolled into the kitchen.  She was so proud of herself and very happy that she could see me!  Leah has also started to sit up on her own.  She doesn't last very long before she topples over, but is doing better and better with it.  I use the boppy pillow which helps a lot.  She will cry a little when you set her down at first, but you can distract her usually with some toys.  She loves to be held, and isn't usually picky about who is holding her.  I put her in the baby carrier and she is just happy as a clam to up against mama. 

Leah isn't the best sleeper.  She has a hard time going to sleep often times.  We were rocking her to sleep and then laying down after she fell asleep; but often times she would wake up after we laid her down and there was a lot of screaming involved and not a lot of going back to sleep.  So I started laying her down in her bed awake, but very tired.  She takes a plug and has a lovey, so I give her those things and cover her up with a blanket.  This has been working pretty well; sometimes you have to go in and re-plug her a few times before she drifts off.  Her naps have been horribly short recently; almost always less than an hour!  I am a little frustrated with this because she acts tired not long after a short nap.....oh well, hopefully it is a short phase!  At night she is still all over the place with her sleeping schedule.  Lately she has been taking a LATE nap (like 7pm-8pm), wakes up and eats, then goes to bed around 10pm.  She will usually sleep until about 5-6am then, eat, and go back down until 7/7:30am.  It isn't horrible, but it isn't great. Up until recently, she was getting up around 2am consistently; thankfully that seems to have phased out for now.  Still sleeping in the pack n play in our room...I keep thinking we should just try a night with her in the crib, but then chicken out.  

We do solid food consistently with her now, she gets it once a day in the evening around dinner time.  She is doing better and better with it, still a very messy eater!  You have to feed her the same bite over and over until it finally goes down the hatch.  So far she has had sweet potatoes, carrots, and avacado.  She really wasn't a huge fan of the avocado; but I think it was a little too thick for her and I didn't mix it with her baby cereal.  With the carrots and sweet potatoes I mixed them in with baby cereal to dilute the flavor a little.   The doctor said as soon as she improves a little more we can step it up to twice a day.  He says you can start solid foods anytime after 4mon; but overall he said he doesn't really care as long as the kid is growing and developing ok.  4mon just seems SO crazy early; they are still little babies then!!  With your first kid you are more excited to start the next step as they grow, I remember that with Brie.  Now with Leah though, I am ok with prolonging the stages....I don't want my baby to grow to fast :)

She loves riding in the stroller, which is good because she does it often!  Thankfully Brie still loves riding in the stroller too, makes for a heavy stroller to push with both of them though!  She also spends a lot of time in the bouncy seat outside in the shade.  I've tried her in the outdoor swing a few times; she had mixed feelings about it.  She acted surprised every time I would push her, but overall seemed to like it!  It is nice that we have a baby swing right on the deck, which is also in the shade most of the time. 

Each week brings new development for her; it is so fun to watch her learn new things and continue to master new skills.  Brie is such a good big sister to Leah, she loves to go get her stuff and try and make her happy when she is sad.  If Leah is crying Brie will say, "Can you pick her up?" 

 Here are a couple picture out-takes:  She started pulling her dress and trying to chew on it.  Then she discovered the sticker....it was downhill from there!  Her only mission was to peal the sticker off!