More Free Ice Cream!

I'm a fan of free stuff, especially when said free stuff is ice cream! This Saturday, March 1, Bruster's is having "PJ Weekend" - essentially if you show up in your PJs, you get a free waffle cone with a scoop of ice cream. You can SO count me in. Then again, I'll happily wear my pajamas anywhere. Am I the only person that was disappointed when they got to college and found out that people didn't wear pajamas to their 8 AM classes? Why on earth do people do full hair and makeup that early?

Frankie's Life Aquatic

Bathtime is fun time, or such is what Frankie would have you believe. Judge for yourselves.

The brushing of teeth is a finely-honed skill. We're still working on mastering it, but in the mean time, it sure is fun to chew on the toothbrush!

This is what happens when the splashing gets a bit out of control.

Wet.

Feast your eyes on this fine specimen!

Bridget is my little nugget of unconditional pug lovin'. If she had actual cheeks I would have to pinch them, she's just so stinkin' cute.

Unanswerable Questions

Why does my child adore Teletubbies? I mean, we're verging on an obsession. First thing in the morning 'baby, baby', later in the day 'baby, baby', last thing before bedtime 'baby, baby.' What is the power of that baby in the sun and why has it taken hold of my child?

Why is it, that a child will happily attend ward nursery up until his or her eighteen-month mark and after that all hell breaks loose?

Do you have any more questions that baffle the universe?

Sledgehammers and bricks and dust. Lots and Lots of dust.

Juston knocked down an entire chimney flue and fireplace. It took a couple of days and a couple of missionaries to get it down and get all of the bricks out of the house so that we can do the plumbing in the bathroom this week. There's lots of muscle lying on the floor there.

There was a fireplace behind that wall at one point. Now it's just a hole in the wall!


More bricks.


Frankie loves bricks.


Juston uses his mask to survive hundred year old brick dust and soot. He could also use it during a nuclear fallout.


Juston teaches Frankie how to clean up a worksite. (Frankie initiated this - he loves sweeping.)


Sweeping is very serious business!


Layers and layers of new dust from old bricks.

We also knocked out the circa 1980 brick fireplace that was plaguing the living room. Thanks, Elders! This area will soon house an antique 7 foot tall oak mantle, which will be much prettier.

And just for good measure, a photo of our new roof. It's almost complete!

Oh, the joys...

If it's not one thing, it's another. Frankie developed pink eye sometime on Sunday, so we're pretty much hanging at the house and trying to avoid any other children. I'm not sure how he caught it, but also not surprised.

The eyes on the face....they are pink!

Frankie gets creative and makes fork sculptures during lunch. Physics master, indeed! Eating with them is an entirely different story, but they are more fun this way.

If you wanna take a ride with Frankie....

Frankie's Got Talent

There's nothing more rockin' than some old wood from a construction site (our house) and the music of Taylor Swift, apparently. Frankie drums the floor for his fans!

You Warm My Heart

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone that we love!

Love Frankie & Bridget

Naughty

So, the other day I was in the other room, exercising ye olde elbow grease, and I noticed that it got very very quiet. Those of you with kids and dogs know that this is not necessarily a good thing unless it's nap time. I walked into my bedroom and found that Frankie had found the bag of - count 'em - 1,000 q-tips and dumped them onto the bedroom floor. Bridget was feasting on said q-tips at an alarming rate. See, Juston? This is what happens when I try to clean. The children undermine any attempt I make by creating a bigger mess in another room.

He makes it look like he's actually enjoying destroying all of my (decidedly little) hard work!

The consolation prize? At least he wasn't smearing mud (or worse, poop) around in my carpet.

And for what it's worth, the incriminating video of me singing Beyonce while playing Karaoke Revolution this weekend will *NOT* make onto this blog.

Superbowl Body Paint!

Since we're the adults and Frankie is the child, we can humiliate him without his consent. We had a 'very spiritual' Young Men's Super Bowl party on Sunday, and to add to the spiritual nature of the event, we decided that we needed to paint someone's chest. We pulled out the washable finger paints and made Frankie a small New York Giants fan (we like to cheer for the underdog.) Everyone else went to political rallies this week, we painted our kid. Behold:

We knew it wouldn't last long.

Yep. It got in the hair. There was some blue bathwater shortly after this event.

Progress in the Hizzouse!

This past weekend, Grandpa Ken and Jason came to help us frame up some walls in the house so that we could get a little jump start on the heavy duty renovations of the house. We've made some serious progress and we're now to the stage where we're having to hire people to do the work because it's more advanced than our skill level. Take a look! It's not much yet, but just you wait. This house is going to be awesome.

These walls represent the new location of the guest bathroom. The platform is for our clawfoot tub (we're currently shopping for one).

Jason framed in a closet for all of Frankie's stuff. The old closet space is being converted into part of the master bathroom.

Frankie is a 'fan' of his new room. Haha.

We found another fireplace framed into the wall. We're going to put sledgehammer to brick and remove it to add extra space to the master bathroom/closet. We figure we've already got four fireplaces; do we really need the fifth? Good luck with that one, Juston.

We knocked out a wall at the back. Our kitchen is going to be HUGE.

Jason found this perfectly preserved mouse carcass in the wall of the laundry room. I think we're going to put it in a shadow box frame and hang it in the gallery-style five foot wide hallway.

After all of that hard work, Grandpa took us to Ted's Montana Grill for Bison steaks! Rock on, meat lovers.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Frankie constantly asks for "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." He loves it, even in the most inopportune places. Today, he asked for it during a baby blessing. He asks for it in the bathtub. He asks for it at the store. Here's a video of him asking for it while sitting in the dog's crate. Once again, he goes into the crate on his own. Don't call CPS.