3 months old

Lincoln is 3 months old today! He has perfected gurgling and also likes to blow bubbles. He's generally very happy as long as someone is paying attention to him and willing to hold a conversation. :o) He can hold his head up quite well and can even maneuver himself around a bit by pushing off with his legs when lying down. I don't think it's a conscious effort, though.

We have discovered that Lincoln is a bit ticklish under the arms. He giggles almost every time his shirt/onesie is changed. He also seems to love being outside. It takes a very conscious effort to do that these days since I always have a hundred things to do inside the house.

Lincoln definitely went through his 3-month growth spurt. I'm very curious to get him weighed this week since I haven't in awhile. His once reliable 3-4 hour afternoon nap has been replaced by several 20-30 minute snoozes. That's not so great for getting any sort of unpacking or projects done around the house. But we love our little boy!

Cheney's surgery

Since Austin & I were both gone on Thursday & Friday last week, and since we moved away from our dog-sitting neighbors in Denver, we had some vet work done on Cheney that required boarding. He got his teeth cleaned, nails trimmed waaaay back and the lipoma (a.k.a. "fat ball") removed from his side. Everything went great, but Cheney is now sporting quite the hairdo. ;o)

10-year Class Reunion

The main reason I went back to Hull this past weekend (besides the desperate need to get away from the chaos of the house for awhile) was to attend my 10-year class reunion on Friday night. It's hard to believe it has been that long, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. We had a bonfire potluck at a classmate's pond. Nineteen of the 45 members of our graduating class were there with several others I knew wanted to attend but had scheduling conflicts. The food was great and I had a really good time catching up with a bunch of people I hadn't talked to in ages--some since the day we graduated. I'm REALLY glad I didn't make Austin come. He had a sales presentation in South Carolina that morning anyway. The kids were great for my parents and Lincoln went almost 5 hours for me since he isn't taking a bottle. A big shout-out to my cousin, Laura, for putting it all together!

R&R weekend

On Thursday afternoon my dad & I followed each other back to Hull for a long weekend of R&R. Emily rode with him and I had a sleeping Lincoln the whole way. While I spent a lot of time resting mentally and physically, Emily had all kinds of fun adventures. On Thursday night she went to Uncle Wade's (a.k.a. "Wave") family farm to see 3-day-old lab puppies and baby pigs.

On Friday morning Auntie Abbie & Uncle Wade took Emily to the pet store in Sheldon to pick out some fish for Abbie's 5th grade classroom. Emily had a blast looking at all the animals and took her job very seriously when it came to transporting the fish and introducing them to their new home. (Side note: It was a rather odd feeling sending Emily off with someone while I stayed behind with nothing in particular to do. Usually I'm the one dropping her off so I can run around like crazy getting something done. I guess that's what it's like to send your kids to school.)

After lunch I painted Emily's nails for the first time. She chose red for her toes and pink for her fingers. I think I need a little more practice (or shouldn't try to take a picture with my left hand while attempting to paint with my right hand with a stiff breeze blowing my hair in my face!).

My mom stayed home with the kids on Sunday morning so I could actually enjoy a church service. We then had a family dinner. Lincoln wore his new cow outfit especially for Grandpa Boote. They really bonded over the last week. I think it had something to do with all the hours Lincoln spent sleeping in Grandpa's arms. :o)

Grandpa Boote comes to visit

My dad (a.k.a. Grandpa Boote) was not able to make it to our house after Lincoln was born or when we started working on the Waverly house or moving weekend because of field & farm work. He had a few free days last week and made the trip. It was perfect timing because Austin was out of town for business.

I had plenty of projects waiting for my dad--including finishing his own guest room! He got a bed, hung the ceiling fan and put up the new blinds. Emily supervised. ;o) Dad also came in handy when we woke up after a 3 inch rain on Wednesday night and found water pooling in the basement. He was able to pull the plugs in the floor drain to let it drain away and help me move some boxes that had gotten wet. Good thing we caught it right away! He also helped finish up at the Denver house. I'm definitely glad to be done with that forever!

Sunday morning adventure

Remember when Emily fell off the couch on Tuesday and kept favoring her left shoulder? She slipped and fell on some wet tile again on Saturday morning. On Saturday night I noticed some yellowish-greenish bruising on top of her left shoulder. Both of Austin's parents correctly diagnosed the problem. So on Sunday morning instead of heading to church I packed up the kids and headed to Urgent Care in Cedar Falls. We spent a quality 2 hours there that included a nursing, two diaper changes for each kid, waiting for the X-ray tech to arrive and spending 20 minutes in the hallway during a severe storm warning. Thankfully, both kids were extremely well-behaved the whole time. Emily cried whenever any medical personnel touched her (including taking her temp and standing on the scale), but that was it. The X-ray revealed a clean break of Emily's left collarbone. It's lined up straight for healing, so we were sent home with a brace Emily has to wear for a month. Yeah--that sounds like fun. This is how Emily felt about it...

We've had a couple meltdowns already and I'm sure there are more to come. She takes it off and hides it, but then tells us where it is as soon as we ask. It has been found in the wastebasket, laundry basket and in a box of books. If anyone has any ideas of how to make her keep it on I'd love to hear them. We're going to stop by the doctor's office again this week to make sure it's on right.

Moving Day

Saturday was the big moving day. Besides Austin's parents we had some great friends work very hard to help us out on one of the hottest days of the summer. It took two loads in a rented trailer + a UHaul truck + the guys' pickups. We definitely acquired more stuff since our last move 5 1/2 years ago! Emily even participated by helping with some last minute packing. We made sure the box of her stuffed animals was clearly labeled. ;o)

By the time we went to bed we had the furniture in the living room and two bedrooms arranged and the bathroom semi-unpacked. Thank goodness the kitchen was already done! We celebrated by having our first popcorn meal on the couch while watching our new HDTV channels. After a very long day a shower and bed never felt so good!

Happy 30th Birthday, Austin!

Austin turned 30 on Friday. He celebrated, of course, by working hard at the house in Waverly. We ordered pizza at night and his mom made him a birthday strawberry pie.

Waverly House Renovation Highlights

So I had great intentions to document our progress daily. Ha ha! All week we have been crashing into bed sometime between midnight-1:00am with a hundred more things to do. Blogging seems to have lost its place on my priority list. ;o) So here is a brief recap of some of the highlights:

Day 3: Angie & Austin spent the whole morning cleaning up after the popcorn ceilings were scraped. Austin says it's the messiest job he's ever done. Glad it's over with! Lincoln had a cranky day and hardly slept all afternoon, so I spent half the day taking care of him. I officially gave up on the foyer wallpaper for now and returned the rented steamer. At the rate I'm going it's going to take until Christmas just to get the wallpaper off. :op Angie basically painted the entire guest room upstairs by herself. She even picked the wall color. It looks awesome! We did discover that there is not hardwood underneath the living room/dining room, so we're just going to clean the carpets for now and after we're done with the dog's and little kids' messes we'll replace it with something else.

Day 4: Angie went home and my other college roommate, Sarah, arrived. Sarah painted the inside of the master closet and helped take care of the kids. She helped finalize paint color choices so I could go purchase lots and lots of paint. She also vacuumed my whole Denver house when we got home at night while I finished the laundry. What a blessing! Austin's brother, Tyler, also lent his muscles for 2 days and washed down all the walls and ceilings with TSP, among other things.

Day 5: I ran errands in Waterloo in the morning and my mom (Grandma B) arrived at noon. It was a traumatic day for Emily b/c she fell off the couch in the morning while watching a video and I think she hurt something. However, we couldn't get her to tell us exactly what hurt or where. It's a hard concept for a toddler to grasp the first time. We still don't know. It might be a pulled muscle in her left side. It was quite a kadoo getting in and out of the car seat 4 times. Lots of tears and screaming. My mom took her to the Bremer County Fair a couple blocks away in the evening. Emily had a complete meltdown when we got home at night.

It was also a disappointing paint day. Each day seemed to increase the timeline multiplier by one. We're up to 4 times longer than we thought. At one point the entire house was professionally painted with a sprayer. Everything was painted the exact same peachy/pinky color (walls, trim, everything). The paint was some kind of high quality enamel/lacquer something or other that is almost impossible to paint over. With all the trim we're down to washing it with TSP, scuffing it with sandpaper, wiping off the dust, priming and at least two top coats of white. Yuck! The ceilings have been washed with TSP and require primer and at least one top coat of ceiling paint. Luckily, the walls seem to cover in one very thick coat of paint after being washed with TSP. We've continually revised our goals. We're down to just wanting to get the living room & master bedroom done and working around the rest.

Day 6: Finally some wall color! Austin put on the first wall color and it looks great! My friend, Julie U., came and packed up my entire kitchen for me. After hauling it to Waverly in two vehicles I spent the rest of the day and night unpacking and trying to organize it in Waverly. That's a HUGE thing to have settled ahead of time. We ate free hamburgers at the fair at night. Emily had another bad day and a huge meltdown at bath time. It took both me & my mom to hold her in the tub kicking and screaming. But after 2 days at the fair and only a sponge bath last night skipping a bath was not an option.

Day 7: Austin rented a Rug Doctor to clean the carpet in the living room/dining room this morning. Our wonderful friend Rod came to help finish painting the master bedroom and tore up the carpets. The hardwood floor underneath is absolutely gorgeous and in great condition. Only the edges are a little yucky as the paint sprayers got to them, but most of that will be covered by dressers. We also discovered the baseboards went all the way down to the wood floor underneath the carpet, so there is some touch-up trim painting to do. Our friends Allison M. & Kevin D. stopped by at night to help scrape/clean up glue & residue. Rod & Austin stayed late to get the plasma TV wired and hung up above the fireplace mantel. Priorities! ;o)

Day 8: Today was mostly a clean-up day in Waverly in preparation for moving. Austin's parents arrived to help in the morning. Austin's mom helped me pack up the rest of the loose stuff in the basement in Denver. We also moved all the fridge/freezer food in two trips. Austin & I finished packing up the rest of the house by midnight. Ready or not--here we come!

Waverly House Renovation Day 2

Today was a very full day. After a big breakfast we all eventually headed to Waverly. Austin & Rod spent the entire day scraping ceilings and finished the whole house except for the bathrooms, which will be gutted anyway at a future date. Angie & I alternated between taking care of kids, cleaning up after the guys and scraping wallpaper. We definitely decided it was worth it to rent a steamer from the hardware store. It's still going to take forever to get that crazy stuff off. We also took the kids to Wal-mart for the second of many expensive trips for paint and other random supplies. Since we knew we would be standing around pondering paint colors for awhile we made sure Lincoln was asleep and we strapped the portable DVD player to the inside of the shopping cart for Emily to watch Curious George. It worked great and we even got out of a trip to the pet department to look at the fish! ;o) Emily was ecstatic to be dropped of at the "castle park" with Angie for awhile afterwards. She's been talking about doing that for 2 days. Emily did great the whole day playing with her puzzles and watching videos in the "play area" we set up. After friends delivered pizza I took the kids home to go to bed and Angie stayed to paint the entire guest bedroom while Austin & Rod finished ceilings. We are so thankful for great friends to help!