Another One in the Book!

It came today!! Yay! Of course, as excited as I am every time my books show up in the mail it never fails that I look through them and realize what I forgot and what mistakes I've made. Lincoln's book is no different, a few typos here and there and some forgotten pictures (or like a chunk of Christmas) buuut I still love it and hope Lincoln will like it as much as Nora likes hers these days. In other news, we've made it through another week and to the weekend, with high hopes of accomplishing a lot both inside and out. We'll see what kind of kid related cooperation we get while we attempt to warrior!

Ice Cream Adventure!

Photo Credit: Katie
We had a pretty awesome and very gorgeous adventure day today, and in addition to our frequent adventurer, Katie, we had a couple special guest stars! My cousin Laurie and Aunt Judy are here visiting in Florida too! We headed down to Disney today to meet up with them for some fun at the Boardwalk and Beach Club hotel. We greeted the Disney troopers as they got off the bus at the resort and headed to the "beach", then went to the Boardwalk where we hopped aboard a Surrey bike. I think we were all a bit leery but it ended up being a super fun half hour of peddling around. Nora & Lincoln got out of peddling thanks to short legs or something, but seemed to enjoy the ride, and the rest of us took on the couple hills like professionals, Laurie was a superb driver and Katie was, well she did alright with the bell once she learned how to use it. Hehe!! In short, we had a blast on the silly bike! After all of our hard, but very fun work we went to Beaches & Cream for ice cream, and lots of it! It was DELICIOUS! Once we finished gobbling tasty treats (and Lincoln's water was confiscated after multiple attempts to create his own swimming pool) we headed over to Magic Kingdom's transportation hub and took the monorail to Epcot - ya know, so we could see the park and check out the big ball! That's about the time that Lincoln was done with sitting and riding and ready to WALK! It was also pretty clear that the kiddos were on the verge of running out of good juice and one wrong move away from total meltdown, so home we headed, pulling in at the same time as Kyle. We were greeted at the door by a very excited Cort - who, as it turns out was not in his crate...which immediately erased some of the high of our great day. Before even stepping foot inside, I knew the house was a MESS! Sure enough, trash everywhere and then some, 2 hungry tired kids, 2 tired parents, it wasn't the best evening, I'll just leave it at that. We've since recovered; 1 in trouble Cortland is now locked in his kennel, 2 tired kids are fed and in bed and 2 tired parents are relaxing and almost ready to take on Friday and head to the weekend!

Well, Well

When we got home from picking Nora up from school today, we were greeted by Tim, the "well guy". He was already at work on the well and it didn't take Nora long to strike up a conversation. I mean, a hole in the ground, dirt, water, glue, a new person who was trying to concentrate on a task...needless to say, lunch was served outside on the driveway as to not pull her away from the entertainment (or Lincoln away from eating chalk). Thank heavens our new friend Tim was patient and actually pretty engaged in answering her gazillion questions and teaching her. With the well up and running he realized we weren't pulling enough water/minute to water as much as we'll need to so he churned out another one in about 45 minutes that put us right where we want to be to irrigate without having our city water bill go through the roof! As much as I tease about Nora being all up in the well digging, it was pretty interesting to watch the simpler than expected process, learn about how the wells work and also pretty awesome to see crystal clear water (that wasn't smelly or anything) being pumped up out of the ground right there in our front yard - twice! Not exactly sure what the next step on the yard project list is - we'll have to see what Mr. John decides. In other news, today was pretty jam packed - school drop off, story time, grocery run, school pick up, well digging supervision/lunch, swimming lessons, playtime, dinner, bed. PHEW! Tomorrow is an adventure day with one of our favorite adventurers!!

Stumped!

The beginning pieces of the yard process continue. Today was stump grinding day. I'm pretty sure in the couple hours he was here the "stump guy" ground down between 14-16 stumps from the back and front yard. There was one casualty...the grill cover. Whoops! Turns out when the grill cover blows across the yard and you can't find it, you should check on top of the tree stumps, because I swear I scanned the yard for it before he started and I didn't see it, figuring Kyle had beat me to picking it up, UNTIL I went out after he was done and found it all chewed up in a pile of mulch. Oh well...it was about due to be replaced anyway so we'll chalk it up to when it's time, it's time! I'm super excited for progress to continue! In other news, great morning this morning, the rest of the day both from report and experience, was a little rocky, but, we made it! Onward to humpday!!

Pap's Cupcake

Rarely does the playroom calendar get changed on or by the first of the month. And, when we were talking about upcoming birthdays in preparation to switch it from January to February the other day, I really couldn't figure out what Nora meant when she was repeatedly bringing up Pap's cupcake. I was pretty sure we were going to bake A cupcake...until it dawned on me...birthdays are marked by a cupcake! So, Pap now has his cupcake! Happy Birthday, Pap!!

Sliding Doors

Kyle's weekend project and 2.5 year dream has been completed! He finally has glass doors on the shower in our bathroom. There was a time when I considered his vision a pipe dream, but, here we are! We need to find a vanity we like as well as a few accessories, but we're well on our way to an updated, yet still somewhat retro bathroom. And Kyle is happy as a clam after testing out his now high end fancy shmancy shower! Kyle wasn't the only one who finished a project this weekend! After a few weeks of working on it, this afternoon I finally pushed the "order" button on Lincoln's first year book. I can't wait to get it (and find all the editing mistakes I made!) Next up the 2016 family year book...oye!

I Got a Rock - hopefully...

We went on a rock hunt today!! Haha, Lincoln makes it look far more exciting than it was. For him though - total adventure. Home Depot was Nora's favorite stop and I'm pretty sure that the puddles, broken rock bag/spilled rocks and the open space made it Lincoln's favorite too. After a few stops I think we've maybe successfully found the rocks we're going to use to build our backyard patio retaining wall. I seriously thought this would be a simple process - find a picture, get the rocks, build the wall. Boy was I wrong! BUT, at least there's hope that we've figured out what we're going to do. Numbers to punch, orders to make and schedules to coordinate and then ya know, literally TONS of rock to move and stack but at least we're at a starting point now!