Step By Step

There are some things I don't teach Rex how to do because it makes my life a little easier. Climbing down stairs was one of those things. With him believing he couldn't climb down stairs, he couldn't get out of the house because all 3 doors have steps and he couldn't go down to the basement. Last Wednesday, he went out the back door and down the steps to the backyard. Hmm. We grabbed him and brought him back in. He went to the garage door and went down those steps. Uh oh. We secured those two doors so he couldn't do that anymore (the third door was already secured). Then he got really brave and tried the basement stairs which are pretty steep. He did just fine. And it turns out, he loves being in the basement. We couldn't keep him out of there so we decided to go ahead and fix it up so he could play down there. Part of the basement is finished- finished in 1960s style and not my taste but it could work. I spent some time clearing out the finished part of the basement this winter and organizing our stuff down there so it only needed a little work to be ready for playtime. Rob replaced the overhead lights and some ceiling tiles and cleaned it up. We got some big rugs and moved some furniture down there and both boys have had a blast playing down there.





The biggest surprise of all is how much Rob and I like being down there. We thought it would feel like you are in a hole but it doesn't. With the paneling, good lighting and new rugs, it feels nice. It feels like we added on to the house or we are on vacation or something. There are still things to do as far as decorating and storage but it is usable and comfortable now. And since the only guest room is downstairs now, I don't feel bad at all about having people stay in the basement because now it is a nice place to be.

We had a nice Easter. I was really excited about the Easter baskets because I got some new ones for the boys. I wanted to get Rex one with his name embroidered on the liner for his first Easter but I thought I should wait to do that until his little brother/sister came along so they could have matching, or at least coordinating, baskets. Since I had been waiting a few years to do this, I did it right and got nice ones from Pottery Barn Kids. Here they are before Rex got to them.



Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the boys with their baskets because Rex took them all apart before I even got Wyatt out to see them and get any pictures taken. Oh well. I am just lucky I took this photo so at least I had something. We didn't do any egg hunts because it was cold and rainy for Easter weekend. I am not a fan of ham so I took another crack at making lechon asado which uses a fresh ham. I found a 17 pound bone-in fresh ham and cooked the whole thing. It was crazy- I've never cooked anything that big. I went ahead and copied the whole Versailles menu and did rice, black beans and fried plantains too. My plantains came out perfect. They were so delicious. We had some guests which were kind of a last-minute deal and I was a little nervous to feed them my Cuban Easter meal but they said they liked it. Rob and I thought it all came out really good. I wish I had some photos but between being cook and hostess, I didn't have a chance to be photographer too.

Rex has his first cold today. I guess we did good because he is almost 3 years old and he's never had a runny nose, cough, any of that before but our luck has run out. I noticed he sounded a little stuffed up and then I noticed his nose was running and now he even has a very tiny fever too. He doesn't seems to feel too bad but is definitely not running at 100%. I had a migraine yesterday, my first in about 2 years, so thank goodness these health issues are back-to-back and not overlapping. Hopefully we can keep Wyatt and Rob healthy and get everyone back to feeling good soon!

Nothing To Say

It has been very uneventful around here lately. We were going to go to a big festival thing that we went to last year but it was so cold and rainy that we decided to skip it. When I did the link to my post about last year's festival, I noticed a photo of Rob mowing for the first time. It just so happens that he mowed yesterday for the first time this year- AND for the first time with his new mower! Yay for the new mower! It is much taller so he doesn't have to hunch way down and it actually starts the first time you try to start it. This was the first year I didn't get a picture of him mowing the grass and he even had the new mower so I really blew it. It is very exciting stuff to mow your yard around here because it means you made it through another winter and you don't have to deal with snow for the next 6 months or so.

I got my haircut on Friday night and got a little time out for myself which was nice. I like the haircut too and if it wasn't still wet right now, I would take a picture and share. I don't have any pictures of anything to share this time so I'll be sure to start taking some photos right away. The only photos on my camera were from Rex's first number 2 in the potty and that is not something to share with the world. Potty training continues at a snail's pace. The boys are getting restless and I don't really have anything to say so I think this is it for now.

The Great Outdoors

It has been so warm and wonderful for the last week or so- it was 82 here today and in the 80s last weekend as well. We all have been having a great time outside but nobody more so than Rex. He loves to go to the park a few blocks away and go on the slide and jungle gym.





When we can't make it to the park, he likes to play around in the backyard too. He has a little golf set, tee ball set, soccer ball and various toys for the backyard. His favorite? Taking the golf "bag" for his clubs and pretending to vacuum with it. I'm trying to get him to butch it up a little but what woman wouldn't want a man who does the vacuuming? I guess it is good to be well-rounded.



He has this cool big wheels trike to ride on but he is having trouble getting the hang of it so Rob decided to show him how it is done.



Even though Wyatt can't do as much as his big brother just yet, he still likes to be outside and feel the wind blowing through his hair (what little of it there is!).



After a long cold winter, it is so nice to be outside again! I love playing with the boys outside and seeing all my flowers come out of the ground. Right now I have daffodils and hyacinth in bloom and the tulips aren't far behind. Rob will probably even have to mow the grass sometime this week. He got a new mower that he is pretty fired up to use- I'm surprised he hasn't been out there mowing yet just so he can use his new toy. Maybe he is just pacing himself because there will be plenty of time to use it in the next few months. It was a pretty low-key weekend for us. Rob worked on some stuff around the house and I took care of the boys. We're still working on the potty training and man is that a drag. I think I'd almost prefer to change diapers until he is old enough where I can just explain it to him, he gets it and we're done. And it's weird to tell someone how to pee when it is all very different from how you do it. There's a bit of a learning curve there for both of us. Anyhow, still plugging away at that. I realized today that if I can get Wyatt potty trained around the time he is 2, I only have like 1 more year of diapers to go. Woohoo for that!!

Table For 4

Our new table was delivered this week!



It is so nice. So is Wyatt's new Space Saver Highchair that we had to buy because our old full-size one no longer fit in the dining area. Now I need to find a new impermeable vinyl tablecloth so the boys don't destroy the new table. There are already sticky handprints all over the table where the two of them sit.

The new table and finding related accessories has been the big excitement for the week. We are on the hunt for a new garage door but not sure what to do. All I know is I really don't want the standard raised panel garage door that everyone uses these days. It looks fine on newer homes but I just think they look weird on old homes like ours because they don't go at all. I think something like this, in the Westfield design, would be great. Lots of decisions still to make but we are working on it.

Wyatt is getting better and better about eating. This week I've gotten him to eat some Cheerios, ground beef and rice. Baby food doesn't really seem to get him excited but he does okay eating bits of whatever we are eating. He also does a lot better if he can feed himself. I decided yesterday that I've had it with changing Rex's diapers and so we are now working on using the potty. He gets ADD though as soon as he gets in the bathroom (toilet paper! curtain! towel! sink!) so it's tough to get him to focus on the task at hand. He isn't telling me when he needs to go either so we just keep trying every hour or so. It's very time consuming which is tough with a baby in the house that needs a lot of attention too. We'll get there, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Best Birthday Ever

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 34. I'm not thrilled to be moving from "early 30s" to "mid 30s" but oh well. The day started off kind of crappy when Wyatt woke up at 1:45 a.m. with a nightmare. He's had a few of them now and they are awful. He doesn't wake up and he just keeps crying and screaming and then finally he will wake up and stop. Then I have to settle him down and get him back to sleep. I feel so bad for the little guy when it happens. I do everything I can to help him but it's one of those things I can't really fix. So he finally got back to sleep a little after 3:00 a.m. and then was up and ready to go at 7:00. The morning was full of the usual household business like cleaning floors, changing diapers and doing dishes. The day really picked up though when Rob came home early from work. He took over Daddy duty and gave me my present. Technically he gave me a flyer with a bunch of different Macs on it but that was so I could go pick out the one I wanted. Yippee!!!!! My iMac was 6 years old and out of date. I went out to do a little investigating and then we all went out after naptime and Rob bought this for me-



Hmm- I probably should have taken a picture of the actual computer and not the box because now it looks like I just got a big box. The new computer is so wonderful! It is big (27 inches!) and fast and has a webcam and the newer version of iPhoto works so much better and I'm sure I will find even more to love as I continue to get familiar with it. I already used google talk and skype to talk with my family and Nanette back in California. We had dinner (pizza was my choice) and I opened the rest of my gifts from my family. Lots of gift cards and it looks like I have a lot of shopping to do. Rob got me a little birthday cake too that we all shared. Rex, who sings "Birthday To You!" every time he sees a cake or box of cake mix, wouldn't sing to me but Rob did. Thanks honey. I didn't get a picture with the cake but here's one after pizza and before cake.



Despite an awful start to the day, I think it turned out to be my best birthday ever.

Wyatt's First Restaurant Experience

On Wednesday Rob left work a little early and we packed up the boys for a little trip to Des Moines to look for a new table to go in the kitchen. This trip was going to be during dinner time too so I packed up stuff for Wyatt and prepared for his first meal at a restaurant. I fed him lunch at the Jordan Creek mall food court last month on a trip to Des Moines but this was different. We opted for the Machine Shed restaurant since it is a big, noisy, family place. It went pretty good. Wyatt was excited and he likes to scream when he's excited so that was unfortunate. Other than that, Rex did awesome and we had a good meal. Wyatt did eat pretty good when he wasn't looking all around trying to soak up the new experience. We took some photos but didn't want to use a flash so they turned out a little blurry. Oops.





We visited a few places looking at tables and were finally successful at Homemakers. The table and chairs will be delivered next week- yay! Rob finished the painting in the kitchen so by next Wednesday, our kitchen is going to look awesome. We won't have to do any more projects in there for a very long time. There are still lots of projects to do other places though so there are lots of visits to Lowe's and Home Depot in our future. Here are Rex and Wyatt on a recent trip to Home Depot.



Rex loves riding in carts that look like cars- in addition to this one at Home Depot, the supermarkets around here have them too. They don't look like Joey Logano's car but they are still pretty cool.

We were taking a lot of walks and playing outside a bunch but that has ended. It was in the 50s and 60s for a while but now the temperature has dropped and the highs are only in the 30s and 40s. Yikes. It should be warmer by next weekend. Here we are enjoying the sunshine we had.




That's all the excitement that I can think of for us over the last 10 days or so. Wyatt ate a graham cracker, even fed it to himself, this week. That may not sound too exciting to you, but for that guy, there should be a parade in his honor for such an accomplishment. He is such a picky eater. I have no idea where he gets it. [For those of you who don't know me so well, he gets it from me. I only pretend not to know.] Today Rob is going to put the curtains back up in the kitchen and hang the new ones in Wyatt's room so I'll be posting photos of those two areas soon. It feels nice to have some parts of the house looking how I want them and how Rob wants them. I could dwell on all there still is to do but I think I'll just leave it at that and enjoy what we have accomplished so far.

Home Improvement

Rob has hated the kitchen paint color for a long time now and this past week, he decided he was going to do something about it. I liked the color but I have to admit, it was pretty dark.



First we were going to paint it green. A search began for the perfect green, not too minty and not too yellow-y either. As I finally got it narrowed down to two choices, Rob tells me he doesn't want green after all. He wants cream with white trim. So we had a big discussion about design choices in general and what our style is. We both complain a lot about our house not having any color but realized we love the Pottery Barn look which doesn't use a lot of color. A neutral look with a little hit of color here and there is what we like. Now that we had that figured out, it was time to pick the right cream and white color. Back to Lowe's and Ace for more paint sample cards. Finally, we decided to go with Valspar Churchill Hotel Vanilla which is what all our bedrooms are painted. On one hand, I felt like we were stuck and not branching out but on the other hand, I felt like we knew what we were getting and we are keeping a continuous look. The house I owned when I was single looked like a box of crayons, with every room a different color, and it did bother me a little that I didn't have a cohesive look. I'm trying to make it a point this time around to make sure the house looks like it has one personality instead of 20. We picked up the paint and supplies Friday night and Rob got to work on Saturday. I was taking care of the boys while Rob painted so I wasn't much help. Rob got all the taping and prep work and primer done Saturday and then got the color on the walls and ceiling yesterday. It is so bright and lovely in our kitchen now!



As you can see, there is still a little work to be done. The trim all got primed but still needs to be painted (we chose Valspar Swiss Coffee for that). It's really nice to have a kitchen I can work in again though- we ate out too much this weekend. In fact, Rob made it a point to wrap things up early enough last night so we could make our own dinner. We have a kitchen table issue that we are having a hard time resolving. Our little table we used to have can't fit the 4 of us so we have this temporary one set up for now while we try to find one we like and that will fit okay. I think a trip to Ikea may be in our future!

Rob had a little home improvement project last weekend too- he got a new toilet for the main bath and installed it. Not a very sexy project or my favorite way to spend money, but it sure is nice to have that done. I didn't take any pictures of that project because it's a toilet. It's shiny and white but I still didn't feel like I want to put a picture up of our new toilet. I did my own little home improvement project yesterday in Wyatt's room and put up the giraffe and tree wall decals I bought months ago. I was afraid they wouldn't stick to our walls- I had that problem with the ones in Rex's room. These were a different brand and seem to be doing fine. Wyatt is asleep now so I can't in there to take pictures of his room. I also bought curtains for our little rooster's room (he's been waking up so early lately!). I will try to get a picture once the curtains are hung and everything is looking good. Hopefully the curtains will help block out the light and he will start sleeping later. The time change seems to have helped with that too. Anyhow, that's what we have been doing lately. Now that it is warming up, I am sure there will be a lot more projects, indoors and outdoors, going on at our house.

The Curious George Room

When we took Rex out of the crib last summer and put him in his "big boy" bed, it was time to also do a new decorating theme in there. It didn't have much of one before so really it was just time to do some decorating. Rob and I were planning on doing a mountainy, lodgey kind of theme. As I was planning that out I realized that was more for us and what Rex would love is a Curious George room. I started looking for George things to decorate with and came up with nothing. Well, a few posters to choose from and a package of wall decals. No bedding though. Ok, that's not true. There was one set I could find but it was red gingham and not very cute and a little on the girly side. Pottery Barn Kids has some cute bedding now but nothing at the time I was looking. So I commissioned a Curious George quilt to be made by my mom. She found the fabrics and put it all together and it is awesome. I didn't even have to ask him to pose with George; he already had him in his hand.



Then I needed a rug. I thought it would be cool if I could find a rug that looked like a Twister mat. After some internet searching, I found one from Company Kids. The brown chair is not used much so I think we will relocate that when we get the family room done.



Finally, we needed some storage. There were a couple of bookshelves that the previous owners left behind in the basement so we brought one of those upstairs to put toys and books on. I have no idea where we kept all this stuff before. I think a lot of it was just piled on the dresser and the rest was out in our living room. It's also great if you want to cruise through and steal your big brother's toys.





We put up some of the decals around the room but found they didn't stay up too well on our bumpy walls. I put a bunch on the lampshade so he has a Curious George lamp which worked out good but it was a bummer that they don't stay on the walls very good. There were some yellow curtains up that were not very functional so we swapped those out for some red ones that matched and worked better. The alphabet poster finished it off and that is Rex's new Curious George room!

And here are a couple more fun photos from our little photo shoot this morning.

Slacker.

Wow- almost 4 weeks since I posted my last blog entry. I haven't been slacking though; it's just been crazy busy around here. I'll work my way back.

My parents returned to California after being at our house for a week. It was so good to see them and we had a good time. We played cards (the boys KILLED the girls- it was ugly), they watched the boys while Rob and I had a very nice dinner out and went to look at laptop computers, and we just had a good time playing with the boys and catching up. We didn't all go anywhere since the weather is still not the greatest and our car doesn't even hold 6 people anyhow. Rob smoked a turkey breast in the smoker and it came out so, so, so very good. We decided we should try and do a whole turkey for Thanksgiving. Here are Nana and Papa with the boys.



The weekend before they got here (almost 2 weeks ago) we took Wyatt on his first trip out of town and went shopping in Des Moines for a little while. I got some new running shoes and Rob got something- I can't remember what right now though. We met some friends for lunch and ate at the food court. I know that sounds kind of lame but we haven't taken Wyatt to a restaurant yet and I wasn't ready to attempt going out of town, shopping and a restaurant experience all at the same time. He did great though. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the trip but I didn't. Bad mommy. Here's a picture of Wyatt and Rex in their matching robot shirts instead.



We got our taxes done a few weeks ago and were happy to learn that we will be getting enough back (I think) to finish the family room project we started last fall. Rob redid the roof (with some help on the shingles), put up some new siding and replaced the six windows before the weather turned cold and snowy. He still needs to put up rain gutters and window trim but most of the exterior work and the things he had to do are finished. We are busy making decisions on what needs to happen to get the room finished. Heating and cooling and the access from the rest of the house are the hot-button issues. I wanted to enlarge the existing single door and have double french doors but since that wall used to be an exterior wall and is therefore a load-bearing wall, it's probably not worth the money and trouble to do that. Anyhow, lots of research to do and decisions to make before we get going again on it.

Wyatt is now 9.5 months old. He had a check-up with his doctor a few weeks ago and he's doing great. He's kind of skinny but I think that has to do with his refusal to eat solid foods until he was 8 months old. Now that he's eating good, it should go up. Rex is doing good too. He drives me crazy sometimes because he completely ignores what he is told to do but just when I've had it up to here with him, he does something so sweet or so funny and I remember what a great kid he is and that he is just two and being a pill goes along with being two. Except when he hit me in the face with a water bottle the other night- then I was just mad. I deserve the presents when he turns 3 I think for getting through the past year. Seriously, he's a good kid, just full of a lot of energy and it is time for spring to come so he can get outside again and get those wiggles out!

Both kids are melting down now so I better end this and get back to them. I haven't taken too many pictures lately but here is one more cute one I found from the past month.

High and Tight

Rex's hair is so crazy. He has a giant cowlick right in front and he wakes up most mornings with his hair just going every direction possible. I'd been thinking about cutting it really short for a while now and Rob and I decided it was time to do that. However, we had different opinions on how it should be done. Since neither of us has ever used clippers or cut anyone's hair, I thought Rex should go get his haircut at the place we usually take him to. Rob thought we should buy clippers and do it ourselves. Who won?





Rob won. It went... okay. It looked pretty good but Rex was not thrilled with having it done. We learned some things that will make it easier in the future too. I think he looks pretty cute and I love how the hair is not crazy anymore.

It is so cold today. The high is supposed to be 2 but I'm not sure if it even got there. It is supposed to be in the 30s and 40s for the weekend so things are looking better once we get through today. We haven't been doing much lately. Rob is a big Packers fan so we watched the Super Bowl and had some fun snacks on Sunday. Rex even got to eat his dinner in front of the tv, on the floor (like a picnic), and he thought that was pretty cool. He likes to watch football with his dad so it probably went down as one of the top 5 days so far of his life. Rob is teaching him to be a good Packers fan and he likes to yell at the tv, "Go Crackers!" instead of "Go Packers!" which is so funny.

Last weekend we tried out the smoker we got for Christmas. Technically, Rob got it for me, but it really is for all of us. This is what it looks like-



And this is our first attempt at cooking with it. We cooked a small pork roast and it came out pretty good. The little hole in the middle of it is from where the temperature probe goes.



I can't wait to try more meats and more recipes in it. IF Rob will let me take a crack at it. He kind of took over this time, which is fine, but I want to try some stuff too. I'm sure he'll let me. It is a good thing that we are both so fired up about using it. I can't wait to try some turkey in it- Yum! Maybe with the nicer weather we are supposed to have this weekend, we can try it out again.

I went to the dentist (boo!) and to get new glasses (yay!) yesterday. I am so excited about the glasses. My current pair have been rearranged by Rex a number of times now and sit so crooked on my face. I will have to be more careful with my new ones so that he can't get a chance at them or he will break those too.