A Snowy Day

I looked out the window this morning and said, "Golfers like snow." MaMa started laughing and I'm not sure why. I went to the front door and looked out and said, "A snowy day." I did that every half hour all morning long and MaMa kept asking me if I wanted to go outside, and I said no, until I realized that I could push back nap time a little if we went and played in all that white stuff.

"Foot prints, MaMa, foot prints..."

I can see my own breath.

"Eat some MaMa, eat some!"

I was all about the foot prints in the snow!

Happy Halloween

I'm not real sure that I like this thing they call Halloween. It's scary. The candy is about the only perk. MaMa made me wear my Thomas costume. She told me they wouldn't give me any candy if I didn't wear it.


I do look pretty darn cute in it, though, don't I?


My friend Lily was all over this trick-or-treating thing. I wasn't sure that I wanted Dad to set me down, even long enough for MaMa to take our picture.

I hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween!

A New Way to Store Our Game Boards

MaMa saw this blog post a few weeks back and decied that this is how we're going to store our gameboards from now on. Pretty cool if you ask me.After she saw this idea, Grandma just happened to mention that she had a bunch of old picture frames that she was going to get rid of, so MaMa staked her claim on them. The good news...this one fit perfectly! The bad news...the other 4 games boards we have are odd dimensions. Not to worry, MaMa's not afraid of a little work. She's going to cut the frames to make them work.
See, MaMa says this is the best part. You store all of the game pieces on the back of the board and then hang it on the wall. All you have to do when you want to play is to take it off the wall and set it on a table. No more busted boxes taking up valuable storage space! We can't wait to pick up the hardware we need so we can hang this bad boy up.

Photo Opp with Baby Katie

These photos are about a month behind schedule. MaMa appologizes.

When we were in Colfax for harvest, Grandma wanted some photos of Cousin Katie and I. We contemplated driving to Spokane to have them taken by a "professional", but MaMa said, "Let me give it a whirl," she now has a new found respect for baby & toddler photographers. I was a handful and Katie kept tipping over. I guess that's what happens when your 6 months old.

I just couldn't keep myself from kissing all the gorgeous ladies in Grandma's backyard...

Precious Katie

I like reading to her, she's a good listener.

The reality of it...this was pretty typical of how our "photo shoot" went. I was not going to be told what to do, and when I started crying, Katie thought she needed to as well. MaMa says the best pictures were the ones that we weren't posting for.

Oh no! What Happened?

Yep, that's what I said when I woke up at 5 AM this morning after the Tylenol had worn off. MaMa reminded me of the little accident I had last night.

I tripped over a pair of shoes on the floor and it sent me flying into MaMa & DaDa's bed. Unfortunately I didn't hit the soft part. I hit the nice, solid wood side panel. We think my tooth just got pushed up into the gums, but my dentist wants me to go to a pediatric specialist to make sure everything is ok. I chipped my other front tooth about a year ago. Mom says I must be accident prone, whatever that means.

Yes, I just so happen to also have a runny nose. Like my crusties?

I got some ink!

In case you hadn't seen it yet, Joseph's Grainery - Grandpa, MaMa and I made it into the Whitman County Gazette:

Family Photos

My MaMa's friend Katie took some photos of me and MaMa & DaDa a couple weeks back and she just posted a sneak peak of them on her blog. Here are a couple of our favorites from the few that we've seen:

Yes, I like to throw rocks, in fact that's all I wanted to do...

Isn't "Beach Katie" (as I call her - she's not "Baby Katie" or "Auntie Katie", so I had to come up with another name for her) an amazing photographer? MaMa says she's a miracle worker because she's figured out a way for the camera to not add 10 pounds. :)

www.KatieBrase.com

Riverfront Park

Before we dropped DaDa off at the Spokane airport to fly home last week, we had some fun in Spokane's Riverfront Park.Here's DaDa and I on the bridge over looking the falls.
I loved all the toys in the park!
But this one was definitely the coolest. A wagon and a slide...too cool.
There were all sorts of geese and ducks. I was wishing MaMa hadn't forgot the bread in the car.

Priest Lake, Idaho

We just got back from DaDa's favorite place on Earth, Priest Lake. We had hot sunny days and lots of fun.My favorite activity was throwing rocks, whether it was on the trail or on the beach, Hunter was always watching me. He's my bud.

Grammy gave me a lift on our hike once I got too tired to walk and I was sick of the backpack.
We took a break from hiking to throw rocks.
They say that the dog is man's best friend. Hunter was definitely my best friend this week. I had lots of fun pulling his tail and hugging him. MaMa says he's a good dog for putting up with me.

Picnic at the Beach

We headed out to Point-N0-Point for a picnic dinner this evening, and of course, some splashing and fun on the beach!

There's the light house and there's all sorts of driftwood, so people build cool forts with it.

We had lots of fun, lots of smiles and laughs.

I thought it was pretty funny to say MaMa and then laugh, DaDa would laugh too.

SPLASH! This was a lot of fun!

The view was absolutely amazing! Mt. Rainer is beautiful, isn't it? We could see Mt. Baker when we looked to the North. It was an amazingly clear day.

I had my bread (actually 2 pieces of it) and I wasn't going to share, not even with Dad.

Grawmpa's Bowt

Grawmpa had his boat here this weekend and we had a blast exploring the Sound! Like my new life jacket? It was one of my birthday presents from DaDa and MaMa.

MaMa was having fun taking pictures....these pictures were taken while the boat was going fast.

We stopped in Kingston on a whim and caught a concert in the park and we all got ice cream n' cookie sandwhiches. yummy!

I was getting tired by the end of the ride, but didn't want to leave the Grawmpa's boat.

I'm Two!

My birthday was last week and I love fish...so things got a little fishy around here.

Look at my blue lips....I got too cold in the swimming pool.

Chlo-bug and I had a blast swimming in the pool.

Mr. Crab was all smiles too.

Happy Birthday to me!

Shower, Floors & Paint....Done!

Wow! It's been a busy week, but we got a lot done! The shower and floors are tiled and there's a fresh coat of paint on the walls. It feels like a whole new room.

We still have the counter tops, sinks and faucets to go and then eventually a nice shower door. Then we'll be ready to move on to the next bathroom...it'll seem like a piece of cake compared to this project!

Slow Start, Great Finish

Well, today didn't start off on the greatest note. Our circular saw had some issues and jammed up. Our friend, who was coming to help us, had forgotten about a previous engagement and wasn't able to come. We realized we bought the wrong size of pipe for the shower drain. I was almost in tears at noon with everything that was going wrong. We were supposed to make great progress today and now it wasn't going to happen. Thankfully we were able to return the saw for a new [and better] one, and we bought the right size of pipe while at home depot for the saw. We thought we were all ready to square off the "hole" and patch with plywood, so we thought we were going to get a lot of the "heavy lifting" done today. But the reality was that we had to pound in most of the nails, remove some of them that were close to where we'd be making the cut and we still had a few pieces of the top layer of plywood to remove, so we had plenty to do and got a lot done. By 8:30 PM we'd squared off the hole, removed all the stray staples and nails and cleaned up after ourselves. Here's what it looks like: Notice that we had to tear a bunch of the closet floor out too.

We went to put the shower pan in to mark where we needed to make the whole in the floor to rough in the drain for the shower, and guess what...it was about 1/4 of an inch too big. They only make shower pans in certain "standard" sizes and 60 inches was the one that the measurements told us we'd need. Not to worry, this is just a hurdle, and we think we've figured out how to take care of it. See the plywood under the backerboard on the right side of the picture...there is our 1/4 inch! Once we take a piece of it out, our shower pan should slide right in. Whoever did the previous bathroom remodel was plywood-happy, that's for sure.

We're inching closer and closer. What started out as a downer day, actually turned out OK.

Bye Bye Mold & Dry Rot!

We think we've successfully removed all of the moldy, rotten subfloor! What a relief to have that nasty stuff out of our house (although it's still sitting in our driveway). Obviously we took the toilet out too, it hasn't made it to the garage yet though. Next step, square off our lovely hole we've made so we can fit new plywood in and then I can begin tiling! Don't worry, some of the black that you see on the lowest level of the floor is just discoloration from the barrier that was beneath the lowest level of subfloor we tore out. It probably saved us from having to tear everything out down to the floor joists. Here's a photo of the highlight of my day...

Our new shower head arrived. I know that it was probably a little premature to install it, but I was just so excited and needed to have something, if only one thing complete. :)