7-19-10 My Maternity take 1

Today I had a lot of fun going out with a couple of my friends. We went to George George Memorial Park in Clinton Township and they took pictures of me in all my belly glory. I was 33 weeks and even though it was hot, I had a blast. Its very different to be in front of the camera rather than behind it. It was very weird not to be able to go home, download images from my card and start editing. I love that part. But I did eventually get my hands on the files and did some edits, they took great images!

This first set is from my friend Lori, her photography blog is here.

This next set was taken by my friend Rachel, you can see her photography blog here.

7-16-10 Grand Rapids Vaca

Every summer for the past 4 years we have visited one of our favorite Aunt and Uncles down in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids has so many different places and fun things to do and doing it with family makes it that much better. The first year Tony and I went, I was pregnant with Caleb then he started going with us and this year I'm pregnant with our second little boy.

We started out the weekend taking Caleb to the Grand Rapids Childrens Museum. If you are ever in the area you should definitely check it out. It was so great and he LOVED it!! The special exhibit was Curious George, he loved sitting by the monkey!

His little cousin went too.

Next we took Caleb out to my Uncles Bowling Alley. Caleb was able to bowl a full 10 frames this year. Maybe next year he'll be able to roll the ball down the alley more by himself. He really liked the arcade too.

We also went to their family cottage on Gun Lake. It was a lot of fun and Caleb enjoyed the boat rides!

7-11-10 Garden Update

I haven't posted an update since the original planting post. The garden is going great. We got a lot of big zuccinis and a lot of cucumbers, as well as green beans, brocoli, and lots of tomatoes. All of our lettuce was harvested earlier in June.

Cucumbers and Zuccini

Tomatoes, Green Beans, Broccoli, as well as cantelope and watermelon in the back

Our Herb Garden: Dill, Parsley, Rosemary, Oregano and Onions

7-11-10

In July we took Caleb to a local inland beach, it was his first time swimming in beach water and he had a blast. He really liked the sand, getting dirty then running into the water and swimming.

It was a beautiful day out and so much fun.

I also took a 32 week belly picture: boy am I getting big!!

6-15-10

I just looked and I haven't updated this blog since May, to say that I've been busy is an understatement. Being pregnant, having a toddler, working and having hobbies is well very busy. So I'm going to try my best to play a little catch up!

In June, I got a new lens for my camera. I love it, and had some fun doing a little macro stuff. I also got Caleb to pose for me, after all he is my inspiration and the cutest thing I've ever taken a photo of. I love him so much!!

Of course I took some fun ones of little treasures I found in my backyard too.

DIY Outside Project

Ok so here's one project that I did not initiate. Tony decided he wanted to take on this huge task and took 2 days off of work to get it done. The weather in Michigan has been crazy rainy this spring, so when beautiful days were forecasted for this week he jumped on the opportunity.

He decided he wanted to add a hardscape to our backyard, for a couple reasons.

1. We love doing our gardens but mowing around them well isn't fun, we decided to add a second (smaller) box this year so he wanted to put the hardscapes around them.
2. Caleb has a very big, very heavy play house, it was on grass and that was just killing the grass and impossible to mow inside of the house. So we wanted to put some hardscape under it.
3. Less lawn to mow - I mean isn't that a good reason in itself!!

We don't claim to know anything about landscapes, maybe we did it wrong - who knows, but I think he did a pretty great job!!

On to the pictures!!

Here are a couple before shots of the area:

Tasks Completed: Built smaller raised garden bed, and got up the guts to do project.





After Day 1:

Tasks Completed:
~ Pulled up all the sod using a rented sod cutter
~ Repositioned old raised Garden Bed and positioned new garden bed
~ Mapped out area for play house
~ Pulled a bunch of weeds





After Day 2:

Tasks Completed:
~ Laid down weed barrier
~ Put in flagstone and pea gravel
~ Filled in play area with Rubber Mulch
~ Moved a TON of pea gravel around to various locations













Tony couldn't have done this without the help of his friend Shane or his Mom, so thank you for the help!! I can say I didn't do much for this DIY project and yeah I'm not complaining!!

Tasks still needing to be done:

~Fill in garden beds with the good soil/compost and stuff
~Plant my yummy veggie plants and herbs!

Some of my 2 favorite people...

I didn't post yesterday but I do want to say Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there. I hope you got to spend some great time with your families yesterday and got a little relaxation time too. I love when I have a nice afternoon to go to the park and enjoy a walk with Tony and Caleb. Caleb really loves to be outside and to explore so that's what we did. And all the while, I took a couple pictures of them. I love looking at these and seeing Tony interracting with Caleb. Enjoy!

Thanks for looking!

Laundry Room Renovation Complete!!

So last Friday I began cleaning out the laundry room, see I had already set the stage by doing all our laundry previously in the week. Well Tony wasn't entirely aware of my master plan, well that is until he saw a bunch of stuff piling up in the garage. He was great though and played along, helping me with the heavy stuff and the difficult stuff. By Saturday everything was cleared out of there. I had already picked the paint color, Crystalline by Valspar at Lowes, so I picked up a gallon of that and started the painting. Then Sunday we shopped for the shelving (which I also already had picked out) plus my DIY countertop materials (Tony was skeptical). Anyway it has all finally come together. On to the pictures!




Here's midway through, it was before the counter was done and before I got the final accessories in place. I did finally decide on the darker blue/brown rug instead of the lighter one.

And here's the end result, I LOVE the decal I found on Etsy!

So here's the breakdown of costs:

Paint: $30

Counter: $88.78

Shelving: $200.33

Accessories: $109.81

TOTAL COST: $428.92

Other things I wanted to do but didn't because of cost.

- Put in a new laundry tub with cabinet

- Redo floor

- New light fixture