house tour - week 15

i walked through for a quick video before they stage the house tomorrow.  i am holding maddux for the first few (which is why it is a little unsteady - he was a-squirmin'). unfortunately, you will get to see me in my swimsuit in some of the mirrors (we had been to the pool first and were going back after lunch with daddy).  enjoy the tour! love.

standin' and cruisin'

i have started playing "1-2-3 ta-da!" with maddux (i have done this 'game' with the other two - if you don't remember it is where i hold them up and count down to letting go).  and he has amazing balance!  he can stand on his own for about 5 seconds so far and does a little better each day.  and he is not just standing on his own, but cruising, willingly letting go and sitting himself back down under his own control.  i am still thinking that he might be our earliest walker yet.  he doesn't seem to have mason's excellent sense of space and tends to bump his head/face more like madelyn did - only without as much blood.

there isn't a lot of 'steps' to his cruising, but he can move between our limited furnishings while upright.  he can also 'walk' with walking toys but likes to do this on his knees instead of his feet.

he is a busy, busy little boy and that makes for a busy, busy mommy!  love.


a round of applause

mason and maddux were clapping together while i was making dinner and i had to get some video.  of course maddux starting crying and they wouldn't do it any more, but the video shows how things tend to go.  love.

musical chairs

both boys have outgrown their car seats.  we have been back and forth about whether to move madelyn up to a traditional booster seat or to get mason a seat like madelyn's current one.  while madelyn more than qualifies for a booster seat, we decided to invest is a second 5-point harness seat for mason.  by the time maddux is ready to move up again, mason would not be old enough for a booster so it was the better (and safer) investment for the long term.  plus, madelyn can buckle and unbuckle on her own so it isn't that big of a deal for her to stay where she is until she outgrows it and it will convert to a booster if we wanted to let her use a regular seat belt before out growing it.

mason in his new 'big boy' seat

maddux in his first true 'car seat'.  we have gotten our money's worth out of  this one!

the boys both seem to like their new car seats.  mason really likes his and it was nice to get him something of his own instead of always getting madelyn's hand-me-down.

we had a fun day of swimming at the neighborhood pool while matt worked on some finish up work at the house (light bulbs, batteries for fan remotes and paint touch up).  we swam, went and had lunch with daddy at the house and back to the pool for a few more hours of 'swimming'. after lunch mason sat and watched madelyn, maddux and i in the big pool and i got to meet a few more neighbors.  we are really going to like living there!  love.

house - week 15

the parade of homes starts next weekend!  the sod goes in on tuesday and the cleaners were there today. matt spent the entire day hanging the mirrors we bought on our own, installing a few of our sound system speakers (they wanted to use them for the parade) and basically repainting the basement (there were a lot of places that needed to be sanded and painted).  here are just a few more pictures.

view from the corner.  i can't get over how perfectly smooth the landscaper got the yard.

another view of the front yard.  the crime is that it poured tonight and washed most of it away!

finally!  wood floors! we love them.

almost done.

we will be back tomorrow for matt to work and the kids and i to swim.  love.

siblings

picnic lunch at the 'new' neighborhood park/pool

love this brother picture

tried to have madelyn join in, but mason would not have it and this was the best one

he didn't want madelyn to get any pictures with maddux either

vbs

i had thought that madelyn was too young for the vacation bible school at our current church, but at the last minute i saw that it wasn't 5 as the youngest, but 3 - she could go!  i signed her up the week before and couldn't believe that it was offered for free.

the theme was 'big apple adventure' and it was all done up super cute with cabs, sky scrapers and 'central park'.  they even had 'street performers' in the 'park' - there was a sketch artist two days, an acoustic guitarist singing and a teenager with an electric guitar hooked to an amp.

the check-in/out process was kind of lengthy, but very secure which is most important.  it was a little upsetting for mason because he got to see how fun everything was (including the slide that madelyn got to go down every day to get to her classroom downstairs), but didn't get to stay.  i had all of these plans to do fun one-on-one stuff with him, but we ended up just going home or running errands most of the week.  we did go to the park one day and that was a lot of fun.  we also did some browsing at toy-r-us that he really loved!  he still points to (and says) toys-r-us every time we drive by - which is a lot since we have to pass it to get to our apartment most days.

madelyn was asked to memorize a bible verse every night and she did too!  i didn't think about getting a video until wednesday though and she had no interest in doing it on thursday and friday.

on friday, all of the parents got to come in for the last half hour of the closing session.  the kids were having so much fun!  they were trying to collect money for feed my hungry children and their goal was $1500.  i think the final total was around $2200!  not bad for money brought mainly in coins (i saw the collection bins).  the pastor of the losing 'team' got a cream pie in the face which made the kids go crazy! mason was so excited to get to join the big kids to dance and 'sing'. (mason is a very enthusiastic singer!  i love his little voice because he can't say all the words but he will sing along even on his first time hearing a song.) we have been able to watch on the monitors in the lobby but this was the first time that he was able to hear everything at full volume.

a very happy mason watching the last service

i am so glad that madelyn was able to have this experience.  hopefully, we will be able to do something like this next summer near our new house!  it also reminded me how much easier my days can be when madelyn is in school.  i love having her with me, but it gives some more productive time to have my big talker entertained for a few hours each day.  she even napped a little over the week! love.