A wordy update

I just haven't made time for updating the blog lately.  We've just been busy with...well, life!  And honestly, while Julia is the best baby and so easy, the transition to 3 has gradually made my "personal time" disappear...so blogging is often at the bottom of the never-ending to-do list.

We have been busy!  In August we had our house trim repainted...which ended up being a multi-week project.  After the paint was freshened, we decided it was time to tackle the deck...so early in September (I think?) we set aside a whole weekend to scrape, clean, and re-coat our deck with a special deck paint--basically to coat over and fill in cracks rather than replacing all the wood.  We're pretty pleased with the results,and I hope it lasts for years!  We would love to have a stained deck, but since the previous owner put paint on it (which we have tried several different times to remove), we have to deal with what we've got!

Before pictures (Scott starting the paint)

 Our favorite helper...

 After

The spindles took more time than we had planned, and it seriously took 8 hours Saturday and another 8 on Sunday.  Fortunately the weather was beautiful and the kids enjoyed playing outside (by themselves for the most part!)

Another weekend in September, we decided to go camping with some friends to Hardin Ridge (a new place for us).  Our friends the Rudes have twin boys who are Charlie's age, and we also went with friends of theirs, the Uppoles, who have twin 5 year old boys!  Quite a crazy bunch...alas we didn't capture many pictures but managed to get a picture of myself and Scott (a rare thing!)

I totally skipped Julia's 8 month post, and since she's 9 months now, I'm not going to bother :) but these were the pictures I was planning on using...Julia has been busy pulling up on things, eating dog food, crawling into the bathroom, pulling clean clothes out of the laundry bin, eating everything off the ground, and climbing stairs...she can master the step out of the playroom with ease, and has made it up 2 stairs before I stop her :)

Florida/Disney pictures to come...hopefully posted sometime before Christmas :)

Mulch!

While Scott was in China, I decided to have 3 yards of mulch delivered...and surprise him by having it done before he returned. Charlie had a blast "helping" me with the mulch, including climbing the pile and scooping into his little wagon.

He was rather disappointed when he came out from his nap on the 2nd day and the mulch pile was gone!

Last playroom picture

Charlie was THRILLED to see all of the "Big circles" on the last wall of his playroom (we bought sticker decals rather than trying to paint these!) The blue and green match the blue and green on the other walls...All in all, the playroom is a big hit.

Playroom

We've been wanting to "redo" the basement playroom since Charlie was born....for some reason it has no closet and just this weird space (under the stairs).We had a contractor build out a closet, and then Scott painted the whole room a few weekends ago and we got new carpet.
So nice to have extra storage space where we can hide everything!

Charlie pointing out the sun

and testing out the carpet...he layed right down on it (our old carpet was hard)

We used magnetic paint on part of the "nook" wall so we can do magnets! We also have decals on order from Lowes for the neutral colored walls.

The sun will get a clock in the center of it!

It's not completely done but it's so much better!!! Charlie spent most of the weekend in his new room :)

20 Months? Where does the time go...

Where does the time go...Charlie went for his 20 month check-up on Friday; probably the first appointment we've been to where he didn't have to get shots! (And he's done till Kindergarden!)

Super healthy as we already knew... 26 lbs (50th percentile) and just shy of 34 inches (75th percentile) so despite his blocky build he's still "light" for his heigh, ha. Charlie was a champ and only freaked a little when the doc looked in his ears.

Lately he's really started to string words together, often 2 or 3 at a time, and repeats everything we say (umm, everything...we're in the "watch what you say" phase). He LOVES the Christmas "yights" and runs out every morning to see the tree with a big "WOW!!!". He knows 7-8 shapes (including octagon??) and probably that many colors too. And he's still *bilingual* although he favors English more when speaking (but I could go the whole day talking in French to him and he would understand). Also when I speak in French he often repeats me, but in English.

We have a fun few weeks ahead of us, with Breakfast with Santa (through Scott's work) this Saturday, our Baker family Christmas the following weekend, and then Scott's parents coming in town for Christmas--the time is going to fly!

Oh, and Scott worked really hard on the basement playroom this weekend; we had a closet built last week and then Scott painted...Lowe's will come to install new carpet this week and it'll be move in ready! It'll be so nice to have a place to hide all the clutter :) Before and after pictures to come.