Friday, February 22, 2008

New floors

Well, we just went through two weeks of insanity to get new floors throughout most of the house. A gal I know said she thought getting new floors was worse than moving...I think she may be right.

The whole project began when a slow leak from our dishwasher created a huge hump in the kitchen linoleum. We weren't too upset since we wanted to replace the floors, but we had no idea what we were in for. Upstairs we put in engineered hardwood (less expensive than "real" hardwood) in the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway. We put new carpet on the stairs, wood on the stair landing, wood inside the garage door downstairs and new carpet in the playroom downstairs. The house was rented out for about 7-8 years before it was sold to us, so the carpets were fairly gross. We did not replace the carpet in any bedrooms. We ran out of money. :-) I will include some downstairs pictures in a few days when we've put things back together more.

New hallway (upstairs, leading to bedrooms)

New dining room

Old dining room (no one with young children wants carpet in their dining room, especially since it's our only eating area)

New living room

Old living room (pre-moving in)

New kitchen floors

More new kitchen floors

Old kitchen floors

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Swimming

Cambria received a gift certificate for a month of swim lessons for Christmas. She's learned a lot during the last month, and is now using less flotation devices, kicking her legs and moving her arms. However, she still won't stick that face in the water much.

Below is a video:

Roller skating

I took the girls to a skating rink on Tuesday morning. They have skating for preschool and school-age kids on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. It was a blast. Avery skated for about 15 minutes, but Cambria did the full hour. She absolutely loved it!

Pre-skating

She's taking to the roller skates very quickly.


Video: A race to the finish line.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A Family Day

Sunday, after an insane 2 weeks for Jeff's work and our household, we took an afternoon for our family. Our outing led us to the Seattle park, Golden Gardens, which is on the Puget Sound, overlooking the Olympic Mountains. The Olympics are not always out, but it was an amazingly clear day. On our drive home later that afternoon we could see the Olympics in the West, the Cascades in the East, Seattle along I-5 and Mt. Rainier in the South. It was AMAZING!

We topped off our day outing with fish and chips for me, Dick's burgers for Jeff and ice cream for all. :-)

Avery has a new obsession with sunglasses (maybe because the sun has been out this week).

Jeff expressing the freedom he felt during our Sunday afternoon outing.

A fun time swinging with Daddy.

Playing on the beach.

Mommy and her girls.

Jeff & I (too bad my eyes were closed).

Riding bikes around the paths (Avery is learning to peddle).

Hair cut

Both girls recently had their bangs cut at a hair salon. The picture below was them pretending to have their own hair shop (note the "cape" around Avery's shoulders).


Swim lessons

Cambria has been taking swim lessons the last few weeks (a Christmas present from Aunt Heather & Uncle Will). Even Avery has been learning how to swim without even entering the pool. Below, they were pretending that our bed was the pool.



Monday, January 28, 2008

Another morning of light snow

This morning we had a light snow covering the yard. The girls went out to play and created this pathetic snowman (see between them in the below picture). Schools were closed and swim lessons were cancelled so we just hung out at home. The snow/ice melted by noon, but the weather people are predicting 2-4 inches overnight. It would be awesome to get more than 1/2 inch. :-)

Our pathetic snowman


Playing with Daddy


New princess boots for our next trip to Snoqualmie Pass


Sisters!

choo choo

The girls made a choo choo train with the chairs. This "game" kept Cambria very busy as she was moving the chairs ("train") around the room.

Buried under stuffed animals

The girls buried themselves under dolls and stuffed animals. Do you think we have enough stuffed animals/dolls in this house?

Cambria


Avery


Both girls

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Baby #3

We had a 20-week sonogram this morning. I'm thrilled to announce that we have a healthy baby girl on the way! It's going to be a house of girls for Jeff, and I'm confident that he can handle it. Thanks for your prayers so far. Keep praying that I don't go crazy in the remaining 20 weeks of the pregnancy! :-)

A few quotes...

Cambria: "Mommy, when will it be 2007 again?"
Me: "Never again. The years get bigger each year."
Cambria: "I miss 2007. I wish it would come back."

An upset Avery: "Sister (aka Cambria) said, 'No Ma'am."

Monday, January 21, 2008