Strangeness, Silliness, and Pictures

Well all, I think this post is along the lines of needing to get in the habit of posting more often. As you can see, Savannah has her own ballerina outfit. We even found a princess wand to go with it. She loves it. She had a lot of fun the other day running around the house in it. The wand though, is sometimes used as a weapon. It seems that anything we hand her will be considered a weapon that can and will be used against us. Its okay though, she seems to understand more and more that things we hand her are not weapons. On that, it seems that most things we hand her also end up in her mouth. But she's starting to get over that. She's done pretty well on stoping bad habits on her own (for the most part).

On another front, my unit has formally announced the Cook Off / Bake Off. There are 4 categories. Meat, Casserol, Slow Cooker, and Dessert. I've got things for all but the slow cooker category. Although if you do cook a meat dish in a slow cooker (i.e. pulled pork) it will be entered in the meat category. I've got about 10 ideas for the dessert category (but are we suprised?). I've got to narrow that down to about 3. Hopefully, I'll be able to at least take the dessert category. And what are the prizes you ask? Well, the cook of the best dish in each category wins a day of special liberty (that's a day off when I choose for those who don't know) and the overall winner (the best from the final 4) gets to park in the XO's parking spot for 3 days. As you can see from the picture, Savannah is trying to select a baking pan for me to use. She's always trying to help out. As i've said before, I'll keep you posted on the contest. Recipes will be posted after everything is said and done.

Another thing we did was to install a swing on the front porch for Savannah. It was a bit tricky to figure out how we were going to do it, but Cait same up with a pretty good idea. I drilled a hole in 2 rafters and screwed a big eyelet screw into the holes, strung a chain between them and hooked the swing up to the chain. Pretty ingenious. Although I have figured out a way to help make the swing a bit more...stable. But I'm not to worried about it. Savannah loves it and it remains pretty cool through out the day. Everytime Savannah sees the swing she wants to..well...swing. Of course with the weather we've been having, whenever she goes outside the first two words out of her mouth are "hot" and "icky." Shortly after that, she's saying "inside" bringing swing-time to a close. Of course almost a soon as sh'e inside, she wants to go out back into the pool.

Here's another thing that we got for the little one. She now has more vehicles than Cait and I combined. It's kinda sad. We even re-arranged the living room so that her "new" car would have room to manevure. She loves her car. She'll put her sippy cup and a couple of possesions in the tray in back, climb in the car, wave good by and back up into some furnature. It's pretty funny. I suppose she thinks she's running away, but can't seem to get very far. She has fun though. It's just another tool for Hurricane Toddler to use while working on destroying the house. One more thing, I've made the 4th of July album available on Picasa. You can find that here. I've also created a Google profile found here. Well, I think that's it for this post. I leave you with this video from Improv Everywhere.

- Brent

I Haven't Been There For The Longest Time

Wow. Almost two months (give or take) since I've posted on here. Of course there were the postings on our travel blog here. That took up a week. But, I'm starting to get the blogging bug again and am going to start working on this blog again. So here it goes. As I sit here listening to a random mix on my iPod, I'm trying to look back on the past couple of months. A lot of things have happened. The major events are...is mainly our vacation to Idaho. Like the picture? I took that in Idaho. It's a wonderful state. We met family, took in the sights, relaxed, and Savannah got to meet her Great Grandparents. That was really the main reason for the trip. I'll post the link to my Picasa album with those pictures. They will only be available for a short time though. I need to add pictures to facebook. This trip made me realize the true need for a DSLR camera. I mean our camera is nice, but the pictures could be so much better! But I digress... We spent a week up in Idaho just having fun.

As I mentioned before, one of the highlights was Savannah meeting her Great Grandparents. I know my Grandfather was rally excited to meet her. Family members have been saying that every time someone comes over, he's showing them the book of pictures we sent. I know too that he has also wanted to have a girl. But they really enjoyed seeing her. Kyle also rode up from Salt Lake City to see her for the first time. Too bad that His motorcycle tire wasn't doing too well. He ended up spending the night in Filer, ID and taking a U-Haul back down the next day. But it all worked out in the end. Although Savannah still doesn't seem to trust him... Oh well. Hopefully she'll get to know him better over Christmas. Continuing on with our story.

The next big thing that happened is...we got a pool (as you can see)! Granted it's not an in-ground pool (those cost way too much), but we're pretty happy with it. It's 16' x 3'6" and holds about 4,000 gallons of water. It took a day to fill it up. The only down side to the inflatable pool that we have is that the ground needs to be perfectly level. No joke. If there is any tilt at all, the whole pool has the chance of...not working out... Plus, check the ground for rocks. It really stinks when the pool is full an you discover that there are a couple of rocks underneath. That and expect any grass under the pool to be dead. But for the most part, it's pretty fun! We've already had a party and Savannah loves it. I promise that although the picture is of the pool being filled, it is much bigger. Sadly we don't have any other pictures of the pool. But still, if you're in the neighborhood, stop on by and take a dunk!

Lets see, what else has happened? Oh, Cait and I built this headboard that you see on the right. It was pretty easy. Just a piece of fiberboard, some 2" foam, batting, fabric and decorative buttons hiding the nail holes. Not to shabby if I do say so myself. We're going for a luxury hotel feel (that is subject to change depending on what Cait says after reading this...) and I think we're getting there.

We also updated the lamps to some fancier ones that don't look like the Eiffel Tower and we found some nice tall (and blue!) candlestick holders. Of course we found the required tall candles to go with them. They look and smell pretty good. We're slowly transforming the bedroom into the relaxing retreat that we need. I'm looking forward for when its done. There's still quite a bit needed though. I know Cait still wants curtains, a sconce, and more art. We'll keep you informed of updates and such. But lets keep moving. We've still got some more stuff to cover!

Keeping with the whole "decorating" theme... On a recent trip to Jo-Ann Fabric to pick up the table for Savannah, we managed to find ourselves in a clearance section. Of course we had to stop and peruse. And we found some vinyl wall decals. Cait's creative brain went into overdrive and soon we had some decals to apply to the wall of Savannah's new craft area. I picked out the little purple guy. I'm proud of that. The stickers went up really quick and look really good. The table and chair were originally plain wood (unpainted) with some missing part. Thankfully I had some extra screws lying around and we were able to get it put together. Surprisingly, it took 6 cans of white matte spray paint to cover everything. While it took a little bit, we were able to get everything set up the day we bought it. Savannah was really surprised the next morning. Cait said that she wanted to eat breakfast at her new table and wouldn't sit in her high chair. Only a couple more things to go, I promise.

Bring on Uncle Kyle! Kyle was kind enough to buy Savannah a Dora tricycle. We've been wanting to get her a tricycle for some time, but one without lights and noise makers. Kyle managed to get her a tricycle...with all of the lights and sounds... I'm pretty sure that he is still laughing about it. Sadly, thought it's still too big for Savannah to reach the pedals even with the seat up as high as it will go. After lowering the seat, she can now "walk" her way around the house on her trike. She's still not to good with the steering part though. Kyle came down for a visit a couple weeks ago and (I would like to think) had a lot of fun. There was spending time with the family, playing video games, going to the beach, playing video games, and just having fun. I know Cait and I enjoyed having him visit and look forward to seeing him at Christmas (hint hint).

One thing that I do miss about Idaho, thought is Moxie Java. They need to become the next Starbucks. They make coffee, but it's wwwwaaaayyyyyy better than Starbucks. Each cup is lovingly made by people who care about you. I think. Either that or they care about your money... But that's just business. But, still, they need to expand beyond the Treasure Valley. And with that, this blog is complete. For our final image, I leave you with this.

-Brent

Mmmm...turtle soup.

Imagine coming home to help your wife out because she's not feeling well and almost hitting this. This snapping turtle was making his way down our driveway from the forest going to who knows where. That was pretty neat. Another thing that is neat is when your wife says "Honey, the paint is peeling off" while looking at our newly painted front door. That's a lot of fun. There are going to be a lot of pictures in this post. Most of the work...okay...ALL of the work we did was painting. And in order to appreciate the work, we need pictures!

On to the work done around the house. As I mentioned before, we painted the front door red. As you can see from the picture, there is a devilish handsome man in the process of transforming a plain, dull, ordinarily boring black door to a brilliant, beautiful, lustrous cranberry. Of course, the handsome man did have help from a wonderful lady who wasn't feeling to well. I should mention that the paint is an oil based paint made for front doors. That was some really sticky paint. It was nothing like painting with a latex based paint. Just some food for thought if anyone is planning on painting their front door or using an oil based paint. And the smell was really, really strong. Good thing it was the outside of the front door and we were able to close it once the edges had dried some. But in the end, the door looks great! Next slide.

The big project of the past week has been Savannah's room. For those of you who don't know what her room looked like, it was a fugly mintish color with PEPTO ® Pink accents peeking through. And let's not forget the fact that the previous owners let their kid(s) do the painting. I'm fine with kids helping painting, but the parents need to tape off the areas that shouldn't be painted. Things such as...electrical outlets, light switches, TV jacks...things like those. Grrrr... I really don't like the previous owners. Oh... I almost forgot to mention that there was also TV stand mounted to the wall. That was a pain to remove as well. I should mention that we're watching recorded "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and we just saw Xzibit start to pimp out a tractor. We'll have to see how that goes. As you can see from the picture above, Savannah's room has come a long way. But in order to get this nice blue color, we had to prime the whole room. That was a lot of white paint, and it was really hard to tell a difference after the primer had dried. I need to thank my mom for helping us with priming the room. Because of her, the room was completed a lot faster that Cait and I would have. Although you can't see it, the trim around the doors, the crown molding and the baseboards were all repainted with a nice semi-gloss white. It really stands out against the blue. Cait has done so much for Savannah's room. Although fairly indecisive about the colors to use (I think I helped to finalize those..) Cait came up with the concept of the room, she drew out the designs, brought them to life on the walls, and I am now in the process of helping add color to those designs (well, not right NOW. I'm typing up this blog...). I've been working on the vines while she paints the flowers and fuses the colors together to create a nice blend.

I need to stop watching this show while typing. I know have the urge to shop at CVS. They payed off a family's medical bills, provided a state of the art air filtration system, and started a fund for a heart transplant. Way to go them. And now X to the Z is driving a renovated tractor that looks brand new. I wish I had an unlimited budget to work on the house...

Back on track. This is the room after the primer. You can still see the mintish color through the thick white primer. *shudders* I wasn't too keen on the colors. Well, our show's over, Cait is falling asleep on me and I need to work in the morning. I'm off to bed y'all. Plans for the week include the removing of trees from our yard with power tools, some gardening and more work. See you next time!
- Brent