Randoms of the past few weeks

Getting caught up on the blog has been a bit of a challenge lately! I feel like there is so much to blog about, and then posting all the pregnancy posts has just made me further behind, but this little randoms blog post should catch me up to now! 

These are just a few things we have been doing since we have been back and getting a more steady, back to normal life, kind of stuff. 

Not a crazy whole lot has happened, just our day to day, livin' the good life. 

We have been taking advantage of our local museum and all its fun things. We like it when daddy gets to come with us! 

June makes her own bed every morning. Honestly, she's pretty awful at it. But one day she made her bed so good!! It was all pretty straight, her pillows made it on the bed properly and all her little stuffed animals. I was so proud of her. I think it took her a solid 30 minutes to do it on her own, but when she came and got me, she was so proud of herself and asked me to take a picture of her on the bed. She's the coolest. 

Snuggles with daddy 

Owen loves the front yard. So we spend a good deal of our mornings out front, before the blistering sun takes over. 

He LOVES planes! And it's pretty exciting stuff every time a plane goes over our house. He always raises his hands in the air and shouts "PANE" (plane, obviously)  

Range has not been liking this heat and has become a lot more sleepy during the day. He was cuddled up so tight against the couch one day, that I had to go and lay by him. I mean who wouldn't want to cuddle with that little ball of fur. 

I love this soft little picture of June. It just is so innocent in her face, and it melts my heart to the core. 

We swim a lot. We have been in the pool most days just trying to stay cool. But even now it's getting too high into the 100's that the pool is just not cutting it. Thankfully it seems to be tapering off and we can get back to being outside a little bit more often. And when I mean tapering off, I mean like 95. 

It wouldn't be a Costco run unless you get a hot dog!

Thankfully our sandbox stays shaded 90% of the day. So the kids can stay out there as long as they want! 

June sleeping anywhere other than her bed, and at night is rare, so I love capturing it. I think I have this exact same photo a bunch of times, but no matter what, I will always keep on taking pictures of her sleeping in our bed. (Until she is older, and it gets creepy) 

Owen has my heart wrapped around his little finger. He is just killing me with the sweetness. Oh, don't get me wrong, he also plays the evil side, really really well. But I will take it, if it means I get the sweet heart too! 

We were taking pictures after bath because he was sitting there waving to himself and he thought it was so funny! 

We probably did this for 10 minutes. He was laughing so hard I couldn't stop him! 

Doing puzzles one morning before starting our day 

When I was taking pictures for our baby announcement, I promised the kids we would play at the park after we were done. Even though it was beyond hot. They didn't seem to mind. 

It's been a while since we have played at the park, simply because it's just too hot. They were loving it, though they both had sweat dripping down their faces by the end of the morning. This was at around 10am. 

Later that day, Dan got some fantastic news at work, so we decided to make him a little celebration treat. We made mini chocolate cream pies. One of his favorites! June was super excited as well! 

Range just chilling on the chair while we played in the play room one day. He is such a good puppy and puts up with the kiddos chasing him, and attempting to play fetch with him. He does love how many treats he gets from them though!

We got a fun finger painting kit one month in our Citrus Lane box, and the kids have been loving it! It has lately been our go to activity for board busting. 

The kids were out back playing one day and they were both so sweaty. I made them come in and take a break with some cartoons and popsicles just to cool off. 

June came down with a little bug. It wasn't too bad, but enough that she was super cuddly and even napped a couple times. 

It had been a long while, with all of our travels, that we have had a proper date night. So it was fun to finally get out. We went and hit at the batting cages. Dan was way better than I was. My first go around I was terrified, so I hardly hit any, but Dan was hitting them like a pro. It was really fun to do. We then had dinner, and shopped Lowes for paint and carpet. I know that sounds lame, but without kids, it was amazing! We could actually look! 

I snapped this picture, because this little boys dad was in the batting cage and Dan and him were just chatting away. Dan has such a good soul! It was pretty cute. This boy was pretty excited that this random dude was listening to him talk about his baseball team. Haha 

So there it is! I am all caught up! Woot woot! We are doing good, keeping low key, and enjoying the simplicity of our days. It's good my friends, maybe not all the time, and maybe there are days where I feel pulling out my hair would be better than keeping up with it all, but in general terms, in the long run of things... It really is all good. 

Felt kinda awesome today

Ok, so I have to tell you, that today I am sorta feeling pretty awesome today.  First off, yesterday we started painting our bedroom, from a super dark color to a light color. It took forever to paint over since we had to really cover the dark. 

Today, I really wanted it to be a surprise for when Dan got home and finished the touch ups of paint, and completely get our bedroom back together. Our bed was in the middle of the room, right up against our dresser, and just stuff, crap, paint things, screws, covers for all the outlets... so on and so forth scattered from the hall way to the far end of our bathroom. 

I put it all back together myself! I took it slow, I know I'm 16 weeks pregnant. I was smart about it, but I moved our entire room around, finished painting and everything back into its place. 

I could not for the life of me get the right kind of screwdriver bit in the electric drill, and since I wanted it to be a surprise for Dan, I couldn't text him and ask him how to get it out, so  I hand drilled everything into the walls. The hardest part was the curtains. My hand was screaming in pain, but I was bound and determined to get it all done. And I did, and I feel super awesome about it. 

Second of all I had a great day with the kids. They were super awesome about letting me clean up our bedroom, wanting to "help" and just playing and trashing our living room. Plus eating Lucky Charms for breakfast. 

A bunch of moms got together today and played in the church gym with riding toys, and we fed the kids lunch. It was great to mingle and let the kids run rapid. Plus not being in this horrible heat! June and Owen had fun, and I had fun chit chatting with other moms

After naps/quiet time I finished cleaning our room, (like vacuuming since I can't do it while Owen is sleeping)

We then finger painted, stamped, colored and all the things you can possibly think of with paper, to our hearts content, and just played. While I made dinner, the kids played in the sandbox.

Finished the night with a great Relief Society activity, came home and wrapped up a few items of business around the house, and now I am sitting in the comfort of my bed, my beautiful children sound asleep, and listening to my insanely handsome husband laugh at something he's reading. 

Right now, I'm just feeling good. I feel motivated, energized, and just generally happy. 

I liked today. 

These Two

My Heart has been pretty much exploding out of my chest with the cuteness between June and Owen. Right here and now is where I state how incredibly grateful I am for siblings and the true bond they have, even at such a young age.

I always wondered when the day would be that June and Owen would actually start playing together, and these last few weeks have seem to be the trigger. They have been playing non stop together. Don't get me wrong they fight all the time too, like siblings do, but they also play so incredibly well together! There are days where I can actually get things done around the house because these two are playing so well together and are happy, that I get a few free minutes! It's glorious and I am loving watching their relationship. 

One night, Dan and I just laid on June's bed watching and listening to them play, and we were rolling with laughter. They were so funny together and how they acted towards each other. It was such a good night. Even if it was way past their bed time we couldn't seem to split the duo up! 

Owen follows June everywhere, and most of the time, June seems to be just as happy to have him tag along! Built in play mate!! Did I mention how much stuff I've been able to get done lately?! 

Oh, don't worry, they are in some other room creating a whole new whirlwind of mess... but they are happy, and more than be annoyed that we have another room to clean up at nights end, it puts just a big ol' smile on my face! It's just good people. It's just so good. 

June teaching Owen the alphabet 

Just in case your are wondering, Dan and I are sampling paint in our room right now, so that "I love us" you see in this picture, is purely because we were having fun with paint. You should see the other walls. 

They were on a voyage together. June was mad because I wanted a picture. 

Story time in our library, we walked in late. June wanted to still go sit up front so I let her. Not two seconds later Owen was in tow. I was a bit worried with them being far away from me like that, but they sat their so content watching and listening. It was pretty darn adorable. 

June gets bored during quiet time without Owen, so the moment he makes a peep she usually rushes to his door to get him. 

One morning June came out of her room dressed like a princess. Owen saw her, went back to her room and brought me the other dress. He sat on my lap and was just antsy to get it on. They wore them all morning long. P.S. They are holding hands and I didn't even tell them to do that!

When it's really quiet I'll go peek in on them. I never know what I'm walking into. They both were so content reading books on the floor. 

And reading books on mom and dads bed

Plus June now has someone constantly around to push in the wagon. She does get frustrated when Owen is pushing her because he goes too slow, but one of these days he's going to get the strength to take her for a ride, I'm sure. 

 I love these little babes of mine more than it can be said. Things  are so content and good right now. When that happens it means it's time to add some crazy to the house and that is where baby #3 enters it's place. 

The Wall

When we first bought our home, three years ago, we knew that our retaining wall was slowly falling down. During the inspection, our guy told us that it was sturdy and would last a little while longer. Since that was our only problem with the house, we obviously moved forward. 

Not sure if you know this or not, but Texas was hit incredibly hard with snow, ice and A TON of rain. I think I blogged about it a while ago... 

So with all that moisture and ice pounding the retaining wall, this year it finally crumbled and was about to collapse. We couldn't have that so close to our pool, we didn't want our neighbors yard falling over, and most importantly we didn't want one of the rail ties to fall on someone!! HOW AWFUL! We talked with the owner of our neighbors house, who just rents it out, and we discussed splitting the cost 50/50. I am so glad we did. It was a small fortune just for one half! And I'm not just talking about a few grand here... Plus the guy, his name is Frank, has actually been wanting us to go in on it with him now ever since we bought the house. It worked out. 

Back in April we got the wheels turning and had a couple guys come give us a bid. We liked the price and signed the contract. Well Frank signed the contract, because the wall has a 10 year warranty and we probably won't be in this house that long, so it made sense to have him be the signer and we just wrote the checks. 

The Before. I cried over losing this tree. It was so pretty and it gave us loads of shade in our backyard. Sadly all our trees were along the retaining wall, so we lost every single one of them. There was just no way of working around them. 

I was NOT sad to lose these trees. They dropped little needles all over the backyard and it was impossible to keep that back corner clean. Though they did add greenery to the back. 

               

These were in the front yard blocking Junes window from our neighbors home. That red line in the trees was where they were cutting. Sad to see these go as well. 

It was really bad. As you can see all the cement blocking had fallen and the rail ties had shifted so much! It definitely needed to be fixed.

It was so rainy that the project got postponed but then one day they came and cut down the trees. 

So sad and so weird!

Then it just rained and rained for two solid months. The project got further postponed and we were wondering if it would ever get done! It was very frustrating. 

They finally came and started tearing down the wall the week we left for Colorado. We didn't know what we would be coming home to. Of course it continued to rain on and off, so the "Two week" project ended up taking three months!! 

The workers got all the ties down, and then a HUGE wind and rain storm hit Dallas, just completely destroying the side of our house. Of course it did! There was no retaining wall!! 

LOOK AT THIS MESS! 

The dirt fell so far over that the foundation of our neighbors house was showing. 

It took them another week just to clean up the mess and let all the mud dry. It was never ending. And because of all the dirt that fell they had to re-adjust the wall, so the front, that they had already started on, had to be taken down and pushed back another foot or so. 

When we left for Canada, we finally saw progress. They were cementing and getting the stone laid. We were hoping to come home to have it all cleaned up. No. 

We at least were on the home stretch when we returned. They had the fence being put back up and started smoothing out the dirt in the back yard. It was still pretty messy back there though. 

While all of this was going on, our pool just got destroyed. So much stuff got thrown in there. Our poor pool guy did his very best to keep it clean! He was awesome and so patient with the mess for months. 

They FINALLY finished the wall. It was really nice to just be done with it all. And have our yard to ourselves again. 

Since they completely destroyed our grass in the front yard where they were working, along with the back, We decided to take the opportunity to lay new sod down and gain more useable space for the kids. 

Dan had a weekend when we were in Idaho and took care of it all! He sodded the whole entire side of the house all by himself. In the Texas heat! 

The fence blocking the front of our house to the back couldn't be saved, so we would have to build another one, and quickly for liable purposes. If someone, or a child wondered into our backyard and fell in our pool, it would be our fault. So a fence had to go up as soon as possible. 

SO MUCH SODDING! I was worried about him doing all that work in such hot sun, so I kept calling him like every hour making sure he didn't die of heat exhaustion. 

He didn't die, and it looks great. There actually used to be a cement pad back there, but the workers had covered it up with so much dirt, we hated it, and used it as the opportunity to cover it up. 

The finally view in the back. We are very happy with how it turned out. I mean our backyard is now just a cement jungle, but we have plans for landscaping later this fall or next spring. It's just too hot right now to plant things. 

After much discussion, and Dan getting convinced by his buddies, we actually decided to build a fence on our own. It was only like 15ft across... how hard could it be?! 

It actually went really really smoothly. We (Dan) first dug out the remaining of the fence that was left behind. Then we had to dig two 2ft holes for posts to be cemented in. One night after the kids went down for bed. Dan and I went out and dug one 2ft hole and then we were really close to finishing the second one, but it just got too dark. The next morning, I quickly went out and finished digging out the hole. Easy peasy. Kind of. 

When Dan got home from work Friday afternoon, we placed and measured the poles. Then cemented them in. It took a while to try so we called it a day and enjoyed our Friday, which we haven't had a weekend together in a long time! 

Saturday morning the kids helped us out by waking up SUPER early, which meant we could put a positive spin on it and use the early wake up call as an excuse to go beat the heat and  work outside. The kids came out and played, while we built a fence. Dan and I both had our handy electric screw drivers and we went to work. Dan was super manly and sexy using his power saw and being all handy. A real working man, I've got. 

Saturday we finished putting up the fence, and we were super please with how it turned out. We actually measured everything right and it worked out splendidly! 

Monday night, once Dan was home from work, we put the kids down and stained the deck. It was really fun building it, and I was happy, I got to take part in it. Dan, mister protective, was super cautious of what I could do, being pregnant... He's just so awesome. 

The final product! We totally built a fence people. I know it's small, but it's super awesome and we are super proud of our little fence project! We feel like we could do anything now! 

Three months! Three! When it should have taken two weeks, the project is finally done! It's really nice knowing our retaining wall is secure and we won't have to worry about it in this house, hopefully ever! We are so glad it's done and we are really happy to have gained more space in our backyard and have more grass! We hope to get the kids some fun stuff back there! Once it's not deathly hot outside!!