Memorial Day Weekend - TONS of Progress!

This was quite the busy week!  The week included some fun (field day, dance class, play date) and a lot of doctor/dentist appointments.  The kids did a very good job behaving this week so I was very grateful. 

The big news of the week though is the progress on the patio.  We started this work back in October so it's been a long time coming. 

My parents came down to help us and it was wonderful!  My mom watched the kids while my dad helped us on the patio.

We started out with adding more base gravel material and lots of tamping.  It takes a long time to get the slope correct over the whole surface - and many passes with the compactor.

Once the slope was correct, we added a layer of sand before starting the installation of the patio pavers.  

We decided on a herringbone pattern in the center of the patio with a straight border to make it look a little fancier. 

Due to our pattern, we needed to cut several pavers.  This was a very loud and dusty operation!

The majority of the work this weekend was back breaking.  There was so much shoveling, pushing heavy wheelbarrows, lifting, moving, and placing large wall blocks and hundreds of patio pavers.  Each of us easily carried tons (literally) of material.  I think we'll all be sleeping well and be very sore tomorrow!

We were able to finish the lower patio and lower wall.  We still need to install the steps, upper wall, upper patio, and fire pit. 

At the beginning of last week the area looked like this:

And now it looks like this (with some added gravel to the upper level):

It's going to be slow going to complete the patio with no help with the kids but Samantha was enjoying the lower patio today so maybe she'll entertain herself by riding her bike in circles!

I'll end this post with a picture of our big sleepy baby.  After carrying all those pavers, blocks, and wheelbarrows of gravel, he seems light!

A Few Reasons Our Backs Are Hurting

Both Chris and I are having some struggles with our backs aching.  There are a few reasons for this...one is Samantha, two is Josh (more on this later), and three is shoveling a lot of dirt, gravel, and moving patio pavers. 

We worked on prepping the patio area this weekend.  We ended up having to add a lot of soil to the upper level and some more base gravel to the bottom level.  This activity alone will take up many more hours through the next week and weekend. 

We were able to move about 300+ patio pavers to the backyard as well.  This was some back breaking labor with all the bending and reaching.  The good news is that we moved about 1/4 pallet; the bad news is that we have about 5 full pallets left to move. In the end, however, we will end up with a fantastic patio and it will add value to the house.

The reason Josh is making our backs ache is that we have an enormous baby on our hands!  I took Josh to his one month appointment and he decided to start his own curve.  He was 23 3/4 inches and 14 lb 6 oz.  This puts him around the size of an average 4 month old...I really need to lay off the candy!

 

In other kid news, Samantha was accidentally bit by Tucker.  I left the room to finish getting lunch ready and Samantha decided to take that time to put all Tucker's toys on top of him.  He snapped at her and unfortunately made contact near her eye.  Besides some tears and a couple scrapes she is fine.  Hopefully she learned a lot more from this incident than from us repeatedly telling her to stop touching the dog (since that obviously hasn't worked). 

I think Samantha is really going to enjoy when Josh gets a little bigger.  Although with him being immobile, she has taken advantage of having a willing(?) participant in her play.  I think his blood pressure may be a little high due to the stress...

And in true toddler fashion, Samantha enjoys playing with her food.  Check out her nice zucchini mustache.

And speaking of zucchini, our garden is looking very good - we need some more straw but now our seeds are sprouting for the beans and soon for the squash.  The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are all doing well.  Hopefully this year we can keep on top of the weeds (an ounce of prevention...).

This coming week we will have some help and will hopefully make some good patio progress!

Mother's Day Gardening

The work we completed this week was all garden related.  We were finally able to get the garden in the ground.  Our plants were starting to get very large in the sunroom.  We planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, squash, and okra.  With any luck the groundhog and other critters will leave it alone this year!

Since it was a light work week, I'll leave with these pictures of Josh.  Samantha really enjoys sharing with her baby brother (and apparently he falls asleep in the same position often).

This upcoming week will be doing some preparations for installing the patio.

"Sheeps" are fun!

We had a pretty busy week.  Our big outings were a Mommy and Me dance class and the science center.  Samantha had a lot of fun at both but she was a little shy participating at the dance class.

Over the weekend, we just relaxed and ended up going to the sheep and wool festival on Sunday after church.  Samantha kept calling them "sheeps" and wouldn't stop no matter how many times we tried to correct her.   

Samantha has been trying to be nice to Josh - here she is showing him how to do a "puzzle."

Josh is a pretty good baby but he seems to be grumpy in the evenings...

Samantha is very independent and always wants to choose her clothes (and dress herself too).  I think we need to work on her style a little bit...

Our CSA type company gave Josh a present - his very own Friends and Farms onesie! 

Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to get some things accomplished - it's hard with two little ones though!

Waiting for the Frost to End

We had a wonderful weekend here.  On Saturday we spent some time at a friend's birthday party at the local state park.  Samantha had a great time with her friends on the bounce house, eating cake, and walking the trails (including throwing sand in the river). 

Following the party, we went to the opening of a new brewery in town.  It was very busy and the tasting room is great.  However, Chris' beers taste better than what we tasted.

On Sunday, Chris spent some quality time in the garden with the tiller.  Now we just need to wait for the last frost to get the plants in the ground.

Speaking of plants, our seedlings are doing quite well in the sunroom for now.  We hope that they will prosper this year because our vegetable loving toddler can't wait to eat fresh from the garden items!

Even the strawberry plants are doing well.  Hopefully this year we'll get to eat some in addition to Samantha (she was a little strawberry thief last year!).

Joshua is growing like a weed.  He's already about 11 1/2 pounds at 3 weeks old.  He is such a good baby - and he doesn't mind his sister's rough treatment (too much anyway!).

 We think he's a very adorable little boy but we are a little biased!

Chris' parents were here this week and Samantha had so much fun with them.  One of the things we did was go to a "Mighty Machines" event at a local day care center.  They got to see a police cruiser, ambulance, fire truck, bucket truck, and snow plow.  It was hard getting a good picture of the kids but it was fun.

We got to go to the science center.  It was fun but Samantha didn't want to nap afterwards so it was a rough day.  It was very nice to have the help on a day like that!

Here's a picture of the kids with Nana and Pap. 

Even though there's still some rough handling, Samantha really does love her brother!

This week is expected to be rainy most of the time so maybe we'll get more accomplished upstairs (if we're not too sleep deprived!).

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter (a little late)!  This will be a picture heavy post because we had a week full of egg hunts and photo shoots. 

Here are a few pictures from Josh's first week that I wasn't able to post before.  Samantha is getting better at being gentle with him but there is still some "aggressive loving" from time to time.

She really does love him and is so happy that he is here.  She's a big help singing to him when he cries and holding his hand during diaper changes.  

Since we've had the camera out taking pictures of the baby...

...Samantha has had to get in on the picture taking action.

 

Samantha got to go on five egg hunts this year - by the end she got very good at it!  Here are some pictures of the various hunts.

 

 

At one of the egg hunts, Samantha discovered the wonderful marshmallowy goodness of Peeps.  Since this discovery, we decided to start using that as potty training incentive (and I just bought a bunch on sale to keep us stocked).  Two days in and we're already through a sleeve and a half so it's working so far!

 Samantha was very excited about Easter this year.  She had a good time dying Easter eggs.

We ended up getting a decent after church picture - and Samantha didn't even make him cry!

She had fun finding and opening her basket.

We've had family visiting the last couple weeks and we're still getting used to having two kids (and the lack of sleep that comes with it!).  Chris is also still working on the upstairs so we're keeping quite busy around here!  Hopefully soon we'll be able to post some progress shots of the work we've accomplished.  We hope everyone had a great Easter!

Spring Has Sprung!

Spring has finally arrived here.  We have a lot of flowers and trees blooming.  Warmer days means that we can get outside to play and do some yard work.  Unfortunately this means that the upstairs renovation has been put on a temporary hold while we work outside before it gets too hot.

Over the weekend we were able to clean up the flower beds, organize/clean the sunroom and garage, transplant some tomatoes, etc. to bigger containers, start tilling the garden, and general yard cleanup.  There is still plenty to do but we did accomplish quite a bit.

Of course the other reason there was a lack of work around here was the arrival of Joshua.  He has been home for a week now and altogether is a pretty easy baby.  He won't sleep anywhere but next to me so I'm a little tired but overall feeling well. 

We were able to get out and about a couple times this week and had his newborn portraits taken at the house.  It will be a couple weeks before we get all the photos but here is one that was sent to us already.  We think he's very handsome!

Samantha has been great with him so far.  The worst I can say is that she "loves aggressively" since she constantly wants to be holding/touching/hugging/kissing him.  She has been a big help with getting diapers, holding his hand during changes, singing songs to him when he's crying, etc.  I think she's going to be a great big sister! 

We have a lot more photos from the week on our good camera but I'm too tired now to go get them.  Hopefully I'll post some more next week.