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.

We'll be working at the new house all day tomorrow and all day Saturday. If anyone wants to drop by and see it and say hello, feel free!

New Hat!

Thanks, Grandma, Frankie loves his new hat; he wore it out to play!

I have a virus.

Therefore, we haven't done anything this week. I do have some pictures, and they're cute, but there are no bunny rabbits or monster slides or ponies or anything like that in them. They are photos of Frankie, chillin' out at our house. Let me tell you, it's hard to contain my excitement at being homebound for the past several days.

Who would've guessed that a dog's crate could be *this* much fun?

(And just so everyone's clear on this - I've never put Frankie in this crate on my own accord. He enters it and plays in it on a regular basis of his own free will. Just so no one calls CPS on me for caging a child.)

Coloring with crayons really means dumping crayons onto the floor and then putting them back in the box over and over and over again.

Here's a foray into pretending to do art with fingerpaints.

Blonde Redhead

So I decided to find out for myself if blondes really do have more fun.

Before:

After:

Balloon Ecstasy

We went to the open house for the College Park home yesterday afternoon, and since we got there at the very end, we asked the Realtor if she wouldn't mind giving Frankie one of the balloons from her 'Open House' signs. She decided to give us all of them, which put Frankie into balloon overload. He absolutely had to carry all four of them at all times, and he wouldn't let go. I had to spoon feed him his dinner because he had them in a kung-fu death grip, and we had to wrestle them from his hands in order to put him in his pajamas. Photographic proof:

Snow Day #2

It snowed again on Saturday. It started off at about 11 AM and finally stopped at around 7 PM. We stayed inside almost all day, but we did bundle up for a few pictures.

Doesn't Frankie look like Juston in this picture?

The one that got away.

The house we originally wanted to buy this second time around was a rehabber in Historic College Park. When we were looking at it, the home was bright blue, had a weird layout, and was in a serious need of some major updates. Unfortunately, while we were dragging our feet, an investor bought the home (it was listed at $140k) and flipped it. It's now back on the market for $399k, and it's in pristine condition. Have a look at it here. I'm anxious to attend the open house this weekend and see what kind of renovations can fetch that kind of price, especially in this stinky market. We're about ready to hire a contractor for our West End house, though, because we know we can't make it look like $399k on our skills and good looks alone!

Hell Freezes Over! Er, wait, make that Atlanta....

Today the unthinkable happened. It snowed for at least two hours, long enough for some of it to stick, but not long enough to create panic in the hearts of southerners and transplants who don't know how to drive on icy roads (myself included.) Now it's turning into rain and sleet, which is basically slush, but I did grab my camera and get a few shots this afternoon.

The view from my front stoop

That guy's roof isn't normally white.

My pink Florida-esque flamingos with some 'white stuff'. (Yes, I'm the kind of person that has a set in my front yard. It's the best landmark ever when trying to give people directions.)

Frankie gets cold and wet and loves every minute of it.

(Notice Frankie's 'super high speed' pants - he wore them to kid's gym today and was flying down the slide faster than any of the other kids.)

THE Sale

For those of you who know me, you know that I love Old Navy's 75% off sale. Basically, everything that's on the sales rack is another 50% off the sale price. It's happening right now, so if you want some really sweet deals, better get there fast (the sale started Friday)! There was still a lot of merchandise at the Camp Creek Old Navy and I will probably hit up another store tomorrow just to make sure I'm not missing anything!

Hawaii

You ask, I deliver. I will fix captions later.

Why haven't I seen these re-created at a roadshow before?

And yes, that kid is Carlton Banks from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

Happy New Year!

Well, here it is, New Year's Eve, and I'm lying on my parents' couch with a really nasty cold. The TV is on to keep me company and Frankie is asleep upstairs. What's a girl to do but update her blog? If anyone has any good cold remedies, let me know. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures from our visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Another reason we love Grandma...she takes us to Chuck-E-Cheese. You won't catch Mom or Dad doing that anytime soon!

Is it cruel to give your kid a green onion if your kid will eat anything?

Bridget's Christmas dress

I love my birthday girl! (She turned 3 on Christmas Eve.)

Frankie!

Frankie's newest cousin

Welcome, baby Audrey! We're so excited that you're here.

Pretty baby Audrey, only a few hours old. She weighs 6 lbs, 14 oz, a full pound bigger than her older sister was at birth; her length is 19 3/4 inches.

Audrey and Laura, the proud and hard-working mommy!

Auntie Becky

Auntie Mary (don't worry, these things do not make me baby hungry whatsoever.)