Lawn Care

One of the reasons we bought this house was for the backyard.  There's so many acres!  Or a third of one anyway.  So we hired a local boy to help Drew with the upkeep.

Have I mentioned that he loves lawnmowers?  I don't think there's any doubt that it was the highlight of his birthday.  

And he doesn't even know it makes bubbles!

All About the Birthdays

Here is a life lesson for you, internet: when you have two birthdays on back to back days, you eat a lot of cake that week.  This year, yea verily, the third of year of mine and CAG's joined up birthdays, was no exception.  In fact, we ate even more cake than last year.  But I am not one to complain about an abundance of cake.  Here's how we spent birthday week this year...

I woke up to this little fellow wearing one of my presents: 

It says "Enjoy Firefly" a la Coca Cola and you can see the whole design here.  Too bad the dumb company sent a mens XL shirt instead of a womens medium like Drewbles ordered.  We got a refund but they don't make it anymore :(  

At least it looks pretty cute on the small fry.  And let's be honest, it will come in handy the next time there's a bun in my oven.

That night we all went to get cupcakes from Cravings, and I resisted the urge to get like five.  Only one!  Be impressed.  

I got chocolate mousse something rather and yes, it was delicious.

Boo Boo got a dirt cup cake bite (and my shirt again). Drewbles got the white chocolate caramel.

After bedtime we left the littles with Drew's parents and went to get ice cream.  Nothing like cake and ice cream on one's birthday, right?

Story time: in my way back teenage years I read this trilogy called Scared to Death.  Think Fear Street but BETTER.  Sadly, my library only had the first and third books and I was never able to read the second one.  Until now!  Because Drew got them all for me!  I am really excited about this and I'm SURE they will be just as good as I remember...

...right?

Anyway, let's get to the really fun stuff with Mr. C's birthday the next day.  I shall tell it in pictures.

Dinosaur museum!

Presents!

(He LOVES this train.)

(Also loves this train whistle.  Still waiting for him to be impressed with his super hero gear.)

(Unpictured: the beloved lawnmower.  He loves it so much it deserves its own post.)

Treat!

(He immediately shoved the whole strawberry in his mouth, leaves and all.)

Pictures just because!

On Saturday we had a couple of his little friends over for a playdate party and had, yes, more cake.  

(You are not going to see this little party on Pinterest and I am TOTALLY OKAY with that.)

(Still loving his snow boots.)

(Baby wore her party dress.)

Last but not least, the next day I made MY birthday cake--a triple lemon chiffon cake from, where else, Sky High.  That book never lets me down.  Friends and family came to help us eat it and a good time was had by all.

 

Now we're back to a cake-less life, and I can't help but be a little bummed that all the birthdays in our house are over.  Mid-summer cake perhaps?  

One of the best presents was this art Drewbles made for me:

:D

Outside Over There

(Bonus points if you know the title reference.)

It's summer project season!  We made a list of outside projects to complete this summer and I am pleased to say that as of nearly two weeks ago, we finished them all.  Of course we've added a few new ones since but the major things are definitely done.  Let us examine!

The two biggest jobs we had planned were to restain the back steps and the play set.  It was a big job!  We sanded it all and stained them and they turned out great!  Also, while I did do a lot of both steps on the stairs, Drew did all the sanding on the play set and most of the staining.  He gets big high fives.

Before...

Sanded...

After!

It makes the backyard look so much more put together.  We also repainted the back railing, added a screen door and replaced the light cover.  The backyard featured two dead fruit trees (alas!).  They blended in during the winter but became eyesores again in the spring.  So Drewbles took a chainsaw to them and voila:

Much better.  Maybe next summer we will plant some new fruit trees.  One unpictured project was that we painted the mail box post using leftover spray paint from the front lights, and another is all the weeding we did in the beds bordering most of the house.  Again, Drew did a lot of it whilst I managed the munchkins, but I helped!  A little.  Anyway, we weeded the beds and put new mulch down. 

Overall the yard just looks neater.  Yes, it is still covered with dandelions, BUT we have made tons of progress.  We celebrated by buying a fire pit and when it occasionally stops raining we get to roast marshmallows.  (Seriously, this rain!  I love it.  But I want more marshmallows...)

Final project that was done first: I made a wreath for the front door.  It was very complicated.  

1) I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a grapevine wreath and two bunches of fake flowers 2) I cut the flowers apart and stuck them in the wreath 

3) I hotglued spots to keep everything in place 

4) I put it on the door.

Now to go back indoors for our next big project...the kitchen!

(Dun dun dunnnnnnnn!)

Two

The Poppy is two months old!  Let me answer the most pressing question first: NO, there is still no sign of cradle cap.  I am happy about this every single day.  I love her dark hair so much.  Lately it seems to be growing in lighter and she has these sparkly, light roots, but we'll see how it shakes out in the end.

Aside from this great accomplishment of no cradle cap, she continues to be a delightful, happy baby in her second month.  We are so lucky to have had such happy babies.  She is snuggly and cute, happy to observe the world and always ready to give a smile.  Seriously, she is so smiley and coo-y and it is so cute.  Cute cute cute.  Did I mention that she's cute?

Not her most active tummy time...

She's spent the last month getting bigger and LONGER.  At her check up yesterday she weighed 11.56 pounds (70%), her head measured 15.6 (69%) and she measured 25 inches long.  That's 100% for height!  And not that percentiles are the end all be all, but hey, how often does a baby hit 100% right on the nose?  

(Honestly I have no idea how often that happens.  Hey, maybe it happens all the time.)

After saying last month that she had settled into a pattern of waking up at 4 AM, she immediately worked to prove me wrong.  More often these days she wakes up around 2:30, but you never know for sure.  After the second time she wakes up--between 5-7, depending on the first wake up--she usually winds up sleeping next to me until 7:30.  This never happened with the Speck, but it works this time so I'm going with it.  Even though sometimes she flails around and hits me in the face (a lot).  

My morning view.

Speaking of the Speck, I think he loves her more than ever.  He's always ready to pop her binky back in or sit next to her.  Also squeal really loud in her face.  He loves to sit with her on the chair and has tried to pick her up a few times (emphasis on "tried").  Lately in the morning he comes up to her, squats down to her level and says "Hi, baby!"  

Matching expressions

This month we also had her blessing day, but that will get its own post because THE PICTURES.  Oh man.

Hey!  Speaking of pictures...

One of my favorites from this month.

Oh those kids.

What can I say?  I like that boy, and I like that girl.

I like it all!