Other happenings.

We've been up to some stuff lately. I've even taken some pictures. But I've been lazy and it's taken me awhile to upload them.

Abram came over last week and we went to Fernbank, aka the 'dinosaur museum.'



We went on a 'nature hike' at the Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, which is only about three miles away from our house. We were the only people there, and we hiked to a creek that had a couple of tires in it. Apparently there is a waterfall in there, but we only got about halfway up that trail before Frankie was ready to turn around and go home. Next time. Luckily it's nice and shady, so it shouldn't be too hot in the summer, but it's the mosquitos that are gonna get ya.




Since preschool is out, we were able to go to kid's gym one time before they shut down for the summer. It was Harper's first time, and she had a nice nap in the mei tai.



The renovation is producing lots and lots of animals! Meet Bandit, the dog that has adopted the house as his new place of residence.


We found a couple of kittens in the sheetrock. Estimated age is four or five weeks old.


We found a new home for them with a woman who had nine other cats - IN HER CAR. She had just picked up a load of cats from a shelter that were due for euthanasia, and two of them were mommy cats that were still producing milk. One of the mommas adopted our kittens right away. They will be taken care of and prepped for adoption. I'm actually pretty impressed that it worked out so well for them.


Kitty in the city.

Pictures of my kids eating.

The title pretty much says it all. Yes, our life has gotten *this* exciting. Is this post the embodiment of all that is wrong with 'mommy blogs'? Does anyone else really care that my kids eat? Okay, maybe Grandma cares, but honestly, I'm not that big of a narcissist that I think anyone else would care. But here I am, posting these pictures anyway. I think it's more guilt about having not posted anything in almost two weeks that is driving me to document the most mundane of daily activities. Without further justification, here are the photographs:


In true 'second child' fashion, we let Harper feed herself. I've got other things to do besides try to feed a seven-month-old baby. I present her with two spoons full of baby mush and she takes turns with them; I refill the one that is not currently in her hands. It results in bigger messes, but we're preparing her early to be an independent woman.

School's out...

...and mom's a-cryin'. Well, not yet - give me a couple of weeks, though. Last Thursday was Frankie's last day of preschool for the year and we all went to his teacher's house for a picnic. She has an awesome backyard will a HUGE garden and lots of...

CHICKENS!


(P.S. That's not Frankie; he wouldn't let me take his picture with them thar birds.)

I spent a good deal of time picking Ms. Dera's brain about 'urban chickens' as we're considering it ourselves, once we move the ramp. With that being said - half-pipe for sale! Cheap! In fact, if you can haul it away, it's yours!

Someone else placed a 'baby doll' next to Harper for snuggles and she was happy to oblige, even though her real goal was to see how much of its head would fit into her mouth.


A very tired group of Cardinal I's with their teachers. We will miss you all! (And I will miss you, dear school days, more than anyone.)


And I guess I should post-script this by saying that I survived last semester of the three classes. Now I have a whole whopping week to prep for summer term!

Going mushy in the brain. It's starting to leak out of my ears, I tell you! At least I'm on the downside of the 450 or so essays I've had to grade and moving on to the 'math part' of my job (big fan of Microsoft Excel, thank you for doing the simple calculations for me and saving me hours of time.) Back to your regularly scheduled blog soon.

My Beast.

She's six months old. I can't believe it. When did she get so big? Tear.

Let it be noted that she was not a fan of mushed up avocado; she gagged a lot and made some pretty amazing faces. Not exactly the way I'd choose to celebrate my half-birthday either.


Welcome to solids! Let the deluge of 'eating infant' pictures begin. Oh wait! Here's more now!


(It's watermelon this time. She was interested for about a minute and then just wanted to eat the feeder's handle.)

Hat Fancy

Our awesome neighbors the McBees had a Kentucky Derby party yesterday, so of course, we had to have hats. I told Frankie we were going to a 'hat party,' and he really got into it. I found some ugly fake flowers in my 'stuff' (aka the crap under my house) and decided that we needed to use them to adorn our rather plain and boring hats. Frankie *insisted* that he have all three white flowers on his hat and he did not take his hat off for the entire almost four hours that we were at the party. Never mind that no other kid there was wearing a hat, much less one covered in fake foliage. It looked especially classy when he was pushing around a digger and collecting mud.


Harper's hat was a bit more subdued. (This one is "posed by Frankie", aka holding hands.)




Sadly, our horses did not win the high-stakes $1 betting. I guess we just aren't cut out for a life of gambling.

Amicawhat?

Juston's parents came out to spend the week with us last week. I absentmindedly didn't take any pictures, except when we took them to Amicalola Falls on Friday. You'll recall that we went there with Frankie in the cast. There are pros and cons to having your child in a body cast when you're at a waterfall. For one, he's less likely to run off and try to climb the fence that is supposed to keep people from falling 786 feet to a watery grave. But I digress.

Little waterfalls all along the footpath.

And thar it is!

Frankie was not impressed by this baby water snake. For all of the talk we get out of him, he's surprisingly disgusted by worms, bugs, snakes, and salamanders.

Not sure what this face is supposed to mean.

Lots more stairs.

Picture of a picture.

Lookout below!

The obligatory bad self-portrait.

Dead wood.

After taking the little 'hike' to the waterfall and back, we stopped at the playground by the visitor's center for a little swinging. Harper was definitely a fan.

Jumpy Jump Jump

Yep. Grandma got us a trampoline. Jumpy jump jump fun!

The BUMSMACKER! This kid may end up a pro wrestler yet.



All of your Mormon friends are supposed to have trampolines. I guess we're trying to keep up with the Larsens. *snort*-

Buy my old diapers! :)

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/bab/1711890818.html

I did not teach him this.

But Harper sure thinks its funny.



(Peter, we're going to get you back for this. Probably with "I Sit Down When I Pee." Watch out, Dries.)

Once more, with feeling.

I'm trying again...

Skinny butt sits in the Bumbo and eats a popsicle; highs in the 80s every day this week have prompted the eating of frozen treats.


Harper in the high chair; I had to pull it out of storage because I was tired of eating with her on my lap, being all grabby. Haven't gone to solids yet as I'm trying to avoid the, uh, more involved poops, but we're heading that direction as Harper can't keep her hands out of my food.


Frankie started swimming lessons at the Y last week. Here's to being a little more drown-proof!


Last week we had a double birthday celebration/babysitting with Abe & Jay, who are now 4 and 6. This ice cream and Wall-E moment was preceded by a raucous Michael Jackson dance-a-thon in the kitchen.


We went to the 'dinosaur museum' for about 45 minutes on Monday. Frankie's chief obsession there is the fishing ponds in the kids discovery rooms. If I'd let him, we'd be there weekly for hours of fishing fun. *yawn*


So when mom gets bored while son is fishing, she stages an impromptu photo shoot with the baby. I took a ton of pictures, but this one makes the blog because it appears as though I only have one chin. I love optical illusions.

My computer hates me. Blogger hates me. You'll have to wait more to see the pictures I've lovingly selected. Sorry, mom.

Wormies

A spring break serenade for you.

More Remodelation

We're still remodeling our house, bit by bit. When we moved in a year and a half ago, we still had several 'mostly cosmetic' projects that we assumed we'd take care of once we got settled. Now I'm pretty sure that we'll be finished remodeling on the day we move out. Our big project for this year was refinishing the living room fireplace mantel and fitting it for gas logs. This is a very expensive project, mostly due to the antique tile that we decided to use. However, it looks fantastic. :)

This does *not* look fantastic. This beauty was what we originally had defacing the wall of our living room.

We installed the mantel on the wall when we moved in...and that's as far as we got. Here's a shot of the new fire box going in, brick by old brick (the bricks were salvaged from another chimney flue that we ripped out of the house. There were originally five fireplaces in this house; the fifth one had been sheetrocked into a wall and would've been in Frankie's room.)

Tubs of antique tile. We decided to go with a green, purple, and gold color scheme.

A general idea of the mosaic pattern before installation.

The surround installed and the tile affixed. It's starting to look pretty good!

The final step was sanding, applying putty, and staining/finishing the mantel. The final *final* step will happen in the fall when we insert some gas logs as we had a line run for them. Unfortunately they aren't a hot item in the spring and summer, so we'll pick up a set in the fall.

Lest you think we're more talented than we are, we hired out a restoration company to do this for us as if we'd left it up to us, this fireplace would probably not be nearly this pretty today.