Soon and Very Soon

We are on the end of a very busy Spring and quickly moving into a very busy summer. I am ready to move on, however. A few things we can check off the list:

• we are SO SO close to being done with the remodel with just a bit of touch up paint to to.
• The basement is back in working order, just needs a bit of reorganization.
• Brian will be driving home tonight from his third trip to western Nebraska in the last 6 weeks and fourth overnight trip he's had during this time.
• The kids were in a friend's wedding two weeks ago, as cute as can be.
• VBS week was last week and fun and exhausting at the same time.

A few things coming up:

• Preparing for the baby. I can honestly say I haven't done a thing. Washed clothes, carseat covers, even considered a hospital bag... anything. I need to get moving on this! Brian being around again will be a big help in this direction.
• Painting and decorating for Jonah's room. He's moving into our guest room (which will become a Husker room) and the baby will be in Jonah's room.
• Brian's sister Ali and her husband Nick will be coming to visit after the 4th of July. So excited to have them here and hang out.
• Shortly thereafter, hopefully, having this baby! I'm physically feeling ready, but in now way do I feel prepared on the homefront. I can use these last 3 weeks. Thankfully my kids are not early arrivers thus far.

Another thing checked off the list a few weeks ago, Brian's golf marathon. It's a biggy for him and takes a lot of preparation, so we're glad to have it done. The kids and I always come to hang out for part of the day and they had a blast. This was Jonah's 5th golf marathon. Funny to think about.

This year Abby got to take a few swings too.

These two love each other. Even if they fight at times...

Jonah going for the long putt.
I don't think daddy minds these days either...

The kids loved looking out over the front of the cart.

But Abby had to stand on Daddy's foot (which was also pushing the gas pedal) to do this. You can guess what happened. We all got out of the cart to go golf and Abby decided to get back in by herself. Of course, the second she goes to stand and look over the edge she had a run away cart. I saw this, started screaming for Brian and attempting to run. She got about 30 yards with Brian only half way there before she got off the pedal. That's my crazy girl! We can laugh about it now, but if there had been water, a tree, or a hill nearby I don't think we'd find it so funny. The first of many scares our curious girl will give us through the years I'm sure.

And a few pictures of the wedding they were in of Brian's admin assistant and their frequent babysitter Ashley. They walked down the aisle like champs. It was a beautiful wedding. Congratulations Josh and Ashley!

I love this picture of Abby. No nap and she's still going strong at 7:3.

Pictures of the kitchen are on the way. If you are wondering why they haven't been posted yet, please see above. Can't wait for things to slow down a bit soon! And I can't believe I'm saying that knowing a newborn is on the way, but at least we will be HOME and settled as a family for a while.

Year One Down the Tubes

Jonah has his first year of school under his belt. Two weeks ago Jonah had his final ice cream social and goodbye with all of his friends. He really did love preschool and is excited to do it again next year again. I cannot believe a year from now he'll be doing kindergarten roundup! We'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

I will have a little of all the toppings, please. Jonah is our sweets eater to the core. And he usually has record speed.
Ending where they began, here they are on their carpet for one last time.

I love the chaos in this picture. He made lots of new friends and hopefully will have teachers just as wonderful next year.

The next day the family joined me for one of my routine Dr. appointments. They are every two weeks now! I can't believe I'm getting that close. I certainly don't feel that prepared. :)

The Dr. had the kids help measure my tummy and find the heartbeat with the doppler. They thought it was the coolest thing ever and it was fun to have them so excited and able to interact with their new brother. In a side note, I think this picture is what Abby will look like come high school. She looks so old to me!

Only 7 more weeks to go, which I count as 6 more weekends and all of which are basically filled, so this baby will be here before we know it! One of these days I need to start getting things ready for him... I can't wait to meet and hold my newborn, all-curled-up little guy!

The First "Official" Dinner

The rest of the new cabinets are in! Which means that as of this Monday we also have an oven! I am beyond excited. Today we finished up putting all of our boxed kitchen stuff away in the new cabinets and finally have a fully functioning kitchen. Tonight, to celebrate, we had a special steak dinner. We still have no backsplash, knobs and handles on our cabinets, and plenty of touch up to do. Until that gets done, I won't have the official "after" pics of the kitchen, but here's a teaser for the meantime. We love it and are so happy with how it's turning out!

Nothing celebrates a new, nearly complete kitchen like steak and zucchini.

And I have been won over on convection ovens. Each and every one of these cookies cooked evenly on top and bottom. Brian says they're the best I've ever made, but I haven't made cookies in a long while and it's a new recipe. :) Not sure he's the best judge.
Enjoying our meal. You can see the new cabinet additions and our double oven in the background. No promises on better pictures until the backsplash is in and it's cleaned up, but that should be about a week away. Which probably actually means two or three at the pace remodeling seems to go. But I don't care, because I can bake again!!

Farming in the City

A few weeks ago Jonah had a field trip with his preschool to the Boys Town farm. I grew up so close to Boys Town and yet had never been to the farm and had no idea you could go for free whenever you want! I've put that in my mommy file of things to do on lazy summer days as we had so much fun petting and feeding all the animals and their babies.

Here's Jonah ready to go farming.

Farmer Mike gave us the tour and here he is holding a kid for the preschoolers to pet. Jonah was a little timid to pet at first, but once he warmed up he was petting everything in sight. Abby, however, was all talk and no game and was interested in the idea of petting, but when it came time she wouldn't pull the trigger. So funny to have a girly girl.
She looks cute as a farmer though, doesn't she?

They had a little pen where the kids would chase down and toddler (?) chickens. This is Jonah working up the nerve for about 10 seconds to hold the chick long enough for a picture. :)

And, we learned a little piece of trivia from Farmer Mike. Chickens with white ears lay white eggs and chickens with red ears lay brown eggs.

Watching the pigs run around.

Curious Abs.

Jonah got a little slimy feeding the cows...

And they're favorite part of the tour by far, feeding the goats. Abby actually had the nerve to join in on this one and they even discovered their own way of calling the goats over.

It was a fun day and nice break from the house chaos. So glad that Spring has finally arrived!

Planting Day!

What a beautiful day to garden! It also happened to be the right timing to plant the rest of our garden. First though, we got to harvest our broccoli. Can't wait to eat it! Not a ton, but enough for a dinner side dish and hopefully we'll get some more out of the plants.

We planted 4 romas, 2 zucchini, 1 oregano, 1 basil, and 1, hopefully soon to be 2, bell peppers. I'm hoping to make and freeze a lot of pasta sauce this summer as we very much enjoyed it last summer and fall. Hopefully it will last a little longer this year. Our spinach, carrots, onions and strawberries are all thriving.
This year we let the kids plant their own little flower garden under two of our trees with their choice of impatients. They enjoy having their own space and it's quite the improvement from the plain dirt that we had there last summer. Really wish it got enough sun to grow pumpkins, but oh well. We'll keep the trees.

I have a cousin who farms corn (if you read our blog, you might remember the corn picking post from last summer) and he also sells critter corn at local stores. Through another cousin of ours, who happens to be one of the workers on our renovation (following me?), he passed along this DELUXE squirrel feeder and a bucket of corn. We have endless squirrels that climb along the top of our fence and now they have a place to snack. The kids are too excited to see them eat.

Nothing to speak of going on inside the kitchen, but we have word that we will get the rest of the cabinets at the end of next week, so hopefully next weekend we will be baking and just putting in finishing touches and backsplash!

Quick Update

We have a kitchen table to eat at!!! And a gas cooktop, microwave, sink, dishwasher, and refrigerator all hooked up. All we are missing at the moment is the double ovens, but there is an end in sight. We have confirmed that the rest of our cabinets should be coming in towards the end of next week, so that will be amazing. For the time being, we have a functioning kitchen and that makes for a happy mom.

Our first meal at the kitchen table in our new kitchen. Daddy couldn't be here, but it was still monumental either way.

It's messy and there's still construction stuff all over, but we'll still take it!

Our double oven, patiently waiting to be installed, sits in our living room.

And we have a ceiling fan in our living room now. It is amazing how much of a difference it makes to the look of the room and we actually have some light in there now.

And in case you hadn't noticed, our floor is in! It's a bit busy, but we really love it. It sort of ties all of our wood finishes together and we love the feel of it.

And if you are in the market for a sink, we love ours. And the faucet too for that matter.

So that's where we're at! Getting closer, but still not there yet. We have a lot of trim work to do, cabinets to install still, and backsplash to put in. Not to mention window coverings... still looking for a good deal on roman shades. Any suggestions? Can't wait to get this done, but glad to finally have some progress.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

The eggs have hatched! As we were having our usual dinner picnic outside we noticed a few extra mouths at the table. The mama bird was feeding the babies worms when we first noticed, but we spooked her and she left some hungry birds. Sorry guys! How precious are they though! The kids are so excited to see them.

Our hungry babes. As I mentioned, this is our usual place of dining these days. Either outside or on a picnic blanket inside. I think the kids will be sad when we once again have a
"real" dinner table.

Now, for a tour of our current kitchen. Dinner prep.
Microwaving in the garage.

Dish washing.

This guy has been sitting on our porch the past few days and Brian and I had no idea where it had come from. My dad stopped by today and enlightened us to the fact that this is the trimmers' (the guys installing our cabinets the past couple of days) lucky monkey. Apparently it makes its way to all the job sites for good luck. The workers that have been coming in and out of our home as they please the last few weeks have been.... interesting. :)

Now for our future kitchen! The left is the pantry and on the right is where the fridge will be.

So excited! More upper cabinets are still to be hung. And you can't get a great look at the paint color, but it looks great. I am really happy with it, which is good since Brian spend about 20 hours the last week painting. :)

The appliances, some of which will make their debut hopefully this Friday.

Our current fridge, which I usually have to climb over a few things to access.

I have to admit that I am running out of steam on this project, but I know that it will pay off and be beautiful. We really don't have that much longer! My dad has promised me a working kitchen sink, dishwasher, and stove by Friday, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And countertops tomorrow! Can't wait to be able to put stuff away again and start to get our lives back in order!!