oh hey...remember us?

sorry for the lack of posts these days. turns out life can get busy quickly. and you lose track of time. and you forget to take pictures. and then when you do take pictures you say to yourself, "ill do a blog post tomorrow" and tomorrow becomes the next day...and then the next day turns into a week, a month...well you get the picture...



SOOOOO big

this is a very common facial expression these days

"bubble" is now in her vocabulary

hanging out on our new couch

another common facial expression....

loving those eyes...and the drool dripping from her chin...

loves to sneak into the pantry

swimming lessons

our little claire started swimming lessons. i was a bit worried because she does not like bath time anymore. at all. the first week da hubs took her swimming and i took some pictures. 

 

and i cant resist. heres a little picture of claire with her favorite necklace and bracelet.

so close!

so close! we are so close to being done with the bathroom. we just have to cut, paint and put up all the trim/baseboards. we have a solid surface counter with an integrated sink (no crevices!!!) a beautiful floor, towel racks, a shower with built in nooks, and a dual flush toilet. 

without further ado:

more bathroom progress

more bathroom pics.
slowly but surely this bathroom is coming together.

we painted the vanity & closet thing. the first color ended up with tint of an awkward green. um no. so we had to choose another color. its a darker brown with some gray undertones. (who is surprised?!)

did you see that surprise color in the vanity closet? hmmm. you may also recognize it as the same color as our tv stand. cuz why buy more paint when you have a great color sitting around right? right.

and pay attention. these are the last photos of our floor without tile :) 

and check out our new lights. love em. (mind you its not the best picture ever, it was cloudy when i took it but you get the gist right)

stay-cation

last weekend we had a mini stay-cation/family weekend. we went to the zoo, a splash pad and the childrens museum.

the zoo was fun. claire really enjoyed watching some penguins swim but i think her favorite part was pushing her stroller. this girl i tell ya. she loves to push her stroller and carts in the grocery store. man on man she just loves it! and let me tell you, shes pretty strong too, pushing the shopping carts with groceries in them. now we just gotta teach her to steer and watch where she goes. 

we thought she would enjoy the splash pad a bit more than she did but maybe it was because we were the only ones there? who knows. 

and the childrens museum. surprisingly there were more things for her to do than i thought. they had an entire room/exhibit for kids under 4 years old. she loved climbing the rope ladder, going down the slide and just climbing in general.

a girl after daddys heart...loving the outdoors & flowers...

a girl after mommy's heart...learning all about stethoscopes...

pop quiz

any guesses as to what this little one ate for supper?!?!?

sheetrock and tile

the hubs has done GREAT work on this bathroom remodel. he definitely put in lots of time researching how to remodel a bathroom and what supplies should be used. and then when it came to actually doing the demo and remodel he was again very focused and took his time to make sure it was done right. he knows his limits on what he feels comfortable doing and what should be done by someone else. 

when we last left off everything had been brought back to the studs. the next steps were to install a vent fan in the ceiling, put up new insulation, drywall and water proof the shower area (thus the red in the pictures)

he then started to tile the shower area. this was a bit more time consuming and not as fun as he originally thought. but he has made some great progress.

after the tiling of the shower area the hubs realized he wasnt 100% confident in tiling the floor so we are going to hire that done. but first more demo needed to be done. so he rented a jackhammer (i think) and got to work removing the "beautiful" blue tile floor. and found that the sub-floor under that was not in good shape so he replaced that.

and then i finally lent a hand. priming everything and then painting the ceiling. 

next up: waiting for the floor to be tiled, the new counter to come in in a few weeks. in the mean time we will start refinishing/painting the vanity and linen closet.

our backyard

the hubs has been very happy with the results of all his hard work last year putting in the rain gardens and doing some landscape work out back. we have had lots of growth and some pretty wildflowers growing this summer. check out some pictures:

pro pics

thanks to a great groupon offer we were able to do claires one year pictures at jcpennys. after some awkward faces at the beginning claire warmed up and we got some pretty good shots! :) she is definitely NOT a baby anymore! (when did that happen?!?!?!)

wisconsin fiesta!

during the first weekend of august we made the trek over to wisconsin to celebrate claires 1st birthday and miles 4th birthday. and what better way to celebrate than with a lil fiesta? 

as usual there was a lot of delicious food, lots of presents and lots of good time with family and friends. after the party there were some friends who stayed and played a few games of kubb. (i wont even go into what type of game it is or the object or the point cuz lets face it, i have no idea) 

*sorry for the lack of posts lately. this writer has been in a funk lately and busy with life and prepping for a lil remodel. and by prepping i really mean mentally because im not the one doing any of the work. more on that remodel to come.