Birthday again

Lucy's birthday was pretty low key. Her party with friends is coming in a couple of weeks.

We don't do too much for birthdays, but a few
streamers and balloons do the trick.

Pretty fired up about tinkertoys

Cake!

She had cake EVERYWHERE.

So happy to be 5

Race time

The morning of Lucy's birthday we headed to my school to run in a race that raises money for skin cancer in honor of a teacher who used to work at my school and eventually succumbed to the disease. There was a 3.14 mile race (pi because she was a math teacher) and a 1 mile walk/run for kids. All four of us did the 1 mile race. A special thank you to Steve who basically carried Caroline for 8 tenths of a mile.

Ready to run

Insane children

Happy Birthday, Part II

I thought it would be fun to look at Lucy over the years:

0 years:

Approximately 3 minutes old

1 year old:

2 years old:

3 years old:

4 years old:

5 years old:

Happy Birthday, Lucy Goose!

Today is Lucy's 5th birthday, and it's hard to believe that it was 5 years ago today that we met her. I remember calling into the hospital to see if they had room for us. I was being induced, and was a little freaked out (several people had been nice enough to tell me how horrible being induced is). In fact, the poor nurse seemed genuinely confused when we got to the hospital room and I started to cry. As it turns out, I had nothing to cry about. Being induced was not really that different from going on your own time (which I did do with Caroline).

Either way, induced or not, we got to come home with our sweet baby Lucy aka Lucy Goose, Goose, The Noodle, and a whole host of other names.

Happy birthday, Goose!

Tea Party

Caroline's awesome teachers sent out these pictures of Caroline and a few of her friends having a tea party and playing with magnets:

Her day looks much more fun than mine was!

Captain Huggy Face to the Rescue!

This weekend has been productive but I wouldn't say it has been Lucy and Caroline's favorite. We have gotten a lot of work done outside, and our yard is finally starting to look presentable.

Friday night we had a fun playdate at another family's house, and Saturday was full of Lucy playing soccer, Steve taking the girls to go watch a boys lacrosse game, and lots of time spent outside.

This box and rake kept them busy for a long time.

Unfortunately, these two have had a TOUGH Sunday. There have been a lot of arguments and a lot of tears. We have decided to come inside and watch some Word Girl in hopes that a little down time on the couch will cure the grumpy attitude of all four Sodens. It seems to be working so far:

How could watching Captain Huggy Face make you sad?

Another weekend, another dumpster

Another weekend and another filled dumpster:

A HUGE thank you goes to Cookie and Grumps for all of their help this weekend. They got here extra early on Saturday morning to see Lucy play soccer, and then Cookie took the girls while the three of us attacked the yard.

We started by ripping out a gross wooden ramp on the side of our house. It was fairly big and was the main entrance we used to get into the house. Aside from being ugly, the ramp was actually incredibly slippery when wet. We tore it down with the hopes that the brick walkway that led up to it actually continued underneath the ramp. As it turns out, we were correct:

Note: this would be a great time to have a "before" shot of the ramp. As usual, I am not on top of things.

We are now in need of a couple of stairs to get into the house. As Steve and I have said many times since buying this house, completing one job just creates another.


Another project that we finished early in the week was our family room. You may remember from another post that the room had a great fireplace and built in bookcases but was painted an unfortunate shade of purple with horrific brown window treatments.

So we took everything off of the shelves and painted it a very boring (but much more palatable) shade of beige. We are very pleased with the results.

Overall, we are loving home ownership though it is certainly proving more costly than renting. We have rented some fantastic places, but there is something special about having a place that is truly yours and that you can change to suit your tastes (if, for example, you don't want your walls to be purple).

It's beginning to look like spring

We spent a fair amount of time in the yard this weekend. We planted grass seed, fertilized the lawn, weeded some gardens, ripped down a wooden ramp (see our next post), and planted some flowers. It was not fun exactly, but it is the kind of work that is very satisfying.

The grass looks like trash, but the garden beds are weed free!

Is there a way to make a downspout pretty? This one is gross.

This bed took a LOT of weeding and we put rocks around the
perimeter. There are many bulbs planted by the previous owner
and so it has been fun to watch what pops up.