What's Going On

Ya, I have no idea where the month has gone. But it's almost gone, and I'm not even sure what has kept us so busy. I actually had to go back through pictures to see what we have been up to the last few weeks. Sammy hit a pretty huge milestone. At least it is huge for him because it took so long. I know boys generally have a harder time with the whole night time potty training thing, but after trying every method we could think of with zero success we turned to google for ideas. And then we went to amazon and ordered an alarm that attaches to the underwear and makes noise/vibrates/flashes lights if it detects wetness. I was pretty skeptical after the first few nights because while it did wake him up (and scare the crud out of him) he was still wetting the pull-ups. But by the end of week two it was like a magic flip had been switched and he has not had a single accident. Amazing! And as a reward for conquering this task Thad took Sammy and Andi to Camelot for some fun. Which included bumper boats, go carts, and video games.

 Sammy also started Karate a few weeks ago, and while he's not totally in love with it, I love him in his little get up.

We've been finishing up little projects, and I managed to talk Thad into a mid sized one as well. I painted the front door, and the exterior shutters to match.  I love it, but now the eaves have to be done, and in case you forgot, there are two floors to this house and I have no idea how the top floor is getting done. At least the door looks pretty!

Also, this happend.

Yep, that's a dead pig. Dead wild boar to be exact, and now it's at the butcher getting packaged up to head to my freezer. Thad went hunting last week with a friend from work and now he's got the bug. Luckily I don't have any more room in the freezer, so he's probably going to have to wait a while before heading out again.

Peter is a terror these days. He started walking consistently a couple of weeks ago, and now nothing is safe. Even while he's watching baby einstein he's walking around the front room in circles knocking things off the shelves just because he can. It's a good thing he's cute!

Oh, but we are finally inching our way to being done with the bottle. He is the first one of my kids to put up a fight when I tried to take it away three months ago. But it was a huge fight, and after two weeks of a fussy cranky baby I finally gave it back to him and realized that he was cranky all that time because he was hungry. Hungry, but too stubborn to take the sippy.  I tried again this week, and while he doesn't love it, he's at least drinking out of it, so that's progress!

A Little Crazy

It's been a while since we have tackled any big projects around here, and apparently the house has been orderly way too long. So this long weekend was the perfect time for us to get all kinds of crazy and install the shutters Thad's dad has been working on for a couple months. Yes, his dad made these in his wood shop. He is super talented and handy. He was finally to the point where it was time to paint all the parts and pieces and assemble them, so he loaded up his trailer full of wood and for two days the backyard looked like this.

100's of louvers and all the frames had to be painted and hung to dry, so naturally we strung a maze of ropes up so they could crank these babies out. Here's where things got fun. Usually when Thad and his dad are working on a project my job is to keep the drinks coming and the kids out. This day however I was told I also needed to "lightly sand everything in between coats of paint" Say what? we are painting all of those twice!?!?! And what actually happened was that I sanded them before painting, as well as in between coats of paint, and had to screw in all the little hooks that allowed them to hang so nicely on the ropes. It felt like the sawdust was ingrained into my skin and I'd never be clean again.
But by the end of day two we had a couple of windows hung and all the work was definitely worth it. They are beautiful, and brighten up the house so much. I just love them, and these pictures do not do them justice, you'll need to come see them in person.

This one was a beast! Did you know that thing is one solid unit that gets put up all at once and nailed in while several people make sure it doesn't come crashing down?

 Only a couple windows left to install and all of the downstairs will have shutters. I think I almost broke Thad's brain when we started putting these in, because then I was seeing all kinds of new projects that would compliment the shutters. Like french doors where the sliding back door is. It would seriously just complete the look, but that's not really what he wanted to hear mid project ;)
It was also Thad's birthday this weekend, and the poor guy spent it working on shutters. But we did a few things to celebrate. Saturday night I managed to pull him away from shutters long enough to go out to dinner, which I think he later appreciated as a much needed break. And Sunday we had all the family over for dinner. Yep, in the middle of our madness with most of our windows bare we had 20 + people over.  This happened at work which I think was awesome, and a long time coming.

And Thad found these treats that he's pretty sure were made especially for his birthday. I mean, they are limited edition. It's like triple layer cream filling. Awesome.

And in non shutter, but house update related news, we got a big bookcase a couple of weeks ago that I love.  We realized when we moved in how small our furniture was and have been working on getting things that are a little more proportionate to our 10 ft ceilings.  There used to be a much smaller DVD cabinet there, and now all our dvd's are in those boxes on the lower shelves.

I'm still working on "styling" the shelves. Definitely not my strong suit. Tenille, you might need to come take care of this for me.