August Goings-Ons

So with the move and the loss of my camera battery charger, several photos got lost in the shuffle. This is like a retrospective of the month, whether you asked for it or not! We'll work our way through birthdays and back to more normal fare (aka pictures of Frankie.) And thanks, Juston, for picking up a new battery charger last week when you stormed through Microcenter and spent much money. That store is dangerous and all-consuming, so I appreciate your ability to peel yourself away from other geeky computer stuff to benefit the two or so readers of this blog (hi mom!)

Frankie and Juston both had birthdays the first weekend of August. Juston turned 30 on moving day (yes, being a grownup is totally lame) and Frankie turned 2 the day after. We had a very small party on Frankie's birthday; thanks to the move, we weren't really in the position to have over forty people like we did last year. But the party did involve presents, ice cream cake, and putting party hats on not-so-happy pugs (we were also dog-sitting, so we had two), making it a success.

Juston's actual birthday: we spent the morning moving everything in Atlanta heat and humidity (seriously, moving in August isn't the best idea, but we had no choice.) That afternoon, we sat amongst the boxes and opened the few meager gifts.

So I didn't get him any toys this year...but hey, he did get some fun stuff along with the boring usual stuff like shorts.





Frankie's birthday + party

My birthday boys! Aren't they cute? :)



Hooray for cake and not having enough candles in one box to really do Juston's birthday justice!



Cake...delicious and shirtless.



Party hat time!



Grandma Chrys and Grandpa Ken got Frankie this little vintage-looking phone.



Because I take little videos on my camera (love the Powershot) and I show them to Frankster on the tiny LCD screen, Frankie thinks that babies live in my camera. He now reaches for it every time I pull the thing out. Must watch those babies!

Exhibit A:

(Note the shiny basketball outfit (thanks, Grandma.) He will tell you all day about the basketball on his shirt - the kid is obsessed.)



Exhibit B:



Since we have twice the square footage in the new house, along with rooms and rooms of hardwood floors, Frankie's taken to zooming about the place on his little truck. A lady once told me that kitchen islands are like tiny racetracks for kids and Frankie has confirmed this statement to be true. Here is a rare photo of him having a rest.



When my mom and dad were in town, we went to the Cyclorama. I blogged about it awhile back - it was really cool and if you're into Civil War history or just really huge paintings, I would highly recommend it. There's also a full-size train engine and a bunch of Civil War memorabilia on display. Needless to say, Frankie was 100% enamored with the train, although those pictures are trash. Instead, here he is with a cannon.



Nothing says family togetherness like a war relic.



Well, you made it! Next month....probably not as many pictures!

Vacuuming and streaking (but not at the same time.)

So this past Friday night we decided to go all out....and we ended up at Best Buy. We had a good reason- "Dexter" season 2 came out last week and since we don't have Showtime, we had to buy ourselves a DVD set. While we were there, I made the mistake of wandering over to the appliances and noticed that they had the pedestal drawers for our front-loading washer and dryers marked down to $30 each (regularly approximately $200 each.) Apparently someone bought the floor models and didn't want the pedestals, so Best Buy was just trying to get rid of them. Score! Of course, the process of buying them was a bit lengthy because for some reason it takes forever to buy anything appliance related, so Juston entertained Frankie with every kid's dream....a miniature Dyson.

It really was his size...too bad it cost like $400, we could've put him to work on the floors!

And just because....no explanation needed.

Backsplash of the future

Here's a not-so-lovely photograph of one sheet of our kitchen's future backsplash. It's 1"x3" custom glass tile that came all the way from New York in a fifty-pound box. The pattern is random and each sheet is slightly different. I love it and it's going to go great with the countertops, cabinets, appliances, heck, even my paint color! Now we just have to get around to installing it....

I Need Domestic Advice!

What's the very best way to care for refinished hardwood floors? The floors in this house aren't as tough as the floors in my old house and I'm trying without success to find the best regimen for cleaning while preserving them. Help!

Do you sense a theme here?

Juston, sleeping with Bridget. Pug lovin'.


And again.


This time with Miss Piggy - not the same as the photo above.

Bin it, baby!

You're never too young to recycle.

Us being old.

On Thursday night, we left our house at the late hour of 10 PM to go and see a band. Yes, adventurous us. (My mom was in town so we left her at the house with a sleeping pnut. Thanks, mom!) We went to the Variety Playhouse to see Omaha band The Faint, and let me tell you, the place was more packed than it was for Siouxsie Sioux 4 years ago or Ladytron 2 years ago or any of the other few shows I've seen there. We were tired (we're old and all) so we found a spot we were very happy with on the back row of seats. You see, this venue has a bunch of standing room in the front and then some theater-style chairs in the back and at this point, we're done being in the front. We did stand up and dance, and being in the back, we didn't have to get close to any of the sweaty kids with black hair and too many tattoos. The band was great and had the most amazing lighting use I've ever seen. The pictures aren't great, but I'm sure you can find something on YouTube if you're interested in learning more.

It was dark in there.

The lighting looks good, can't really see the band, but hey, nice lighting!

The bathroom is complete!

Today Juston took some time out of his napping schedule (I had to wake him up at like 5 PM) to finally install the closets and mirrors in the master bath. The morning was monopolized by my parents, who are visiting from Dallas and who we took to a tourist attraction - the Cyclorama, the world's largest oil painting (approximately 48 feet tall and like 350 feet wide and viewed in the round as a 3-D diorama!), which depicts the battle of Atlanta from the Civil War. It was pretty amazing and pictures of that, such as us with cannons, will come later. I went to Home Depot after the history painting and came home to a sleeping kid and spouse. Anyway, Juston and my dad took a saw and a hammer and nails to the bathroom and finished with this:

Mirrors above the vanity:

A full-length mirror opposite the shower:

My Dad, being handy and wearing that danged orange shirt again (actually right here he's just checking things out):

Oh glorious closet system! When one lives in an old house that doesn't have room for those new-fangled walk-in closets, one must utilize available space. Clothes stacked in piles all over the bedroom wasn't working, so we decided that this was the way to go.

Yet another view, so you can fully appreciate that our clothes actually fit:

Mistah Frankieman

So here it is, another day, and I still can't find that camera charger - it was sucked into the 'we're moving' black hole. Maybe someday it will surface and I can post pictures again. Until then, I'm at the mercy of Juston and he updated me with a couple of new ones today.

All up in my grill.

This bathtub is amazing. I mean, I can lie down in it and it's pretty much perfect (it's just over five feet long.) The water also stays warm because it's made of cast iron, good and solid like they used to make 'em. Frankie gives it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

In other news, Juston's busy at work, I'm busy trying to get my class all set up for the beginning of the semester next week, and Frankie is busy terrorizing things and not taking naps. The moving in is slow going, mostly because I can't be bothered to unpack (trust me, I can find much more fun things to do if I try hard enough.) We love all of the space, though, and Frankie especially loves riding his cars around at high speeds. I don't so much love the cleaning, but I haven't really gotten into a routine yet and I think it will get easier once everything is put away and in its place. And when we get to that point, I think it'll be time for a party!

It may be awhile...

Once I find my camera battery charger, I'll post some pictures of the damage.

iPhone Frenzy!

I've been swamped - so I haven't uploaded anything from my camera - but Juston added a few pictures to my cache and I thought I would share them with you.

When you give a kid a cupcake...
Frankie celebrates cousin Ethen's birthday with some face in the cake action! It was a couple of days before we moved in, so we were resigned to the floor.

This is our custom shower door in the master bath, and yes, I know that the room is green. It turned out a smidge brighter than expected

Frankie and Ethen doing what they do best - play basketball!

Woohoo for 2!

Happy birthday, Frankie! We love our little peanut!

30, eh?

Happy Birthday Juston! We love you and your mad moving muscles!

Packing drives me crazy.

Literally. I think I packed my keys in a box last night because I couldn't find them anywhere this morning. After several nights of very little sleep, at least 30 minutes of storming through the house tearing everything up, the gas man calling and yelling at me because I wasn't here to let him in (you have to go in the house to turn on the gas???), followed by a little breakdown, Juston called in to stay home from work today and now I'm just sitting at the new house next to Frankie while he watches Sesame Street. Still no keys, though.