Spring Zoo Trip with Nana

Mom and I got out today to enjoy this absolutely gorgeous weather and took Sam to the zoo for this first time this year. We had a blast. Some of the flowers were out, but the tulips weren't quite ready, yet. We'll try to go again soon to see all of those . There were lots of families there, but it wasn't too crowded, and we even ran into some friends. One of Sam's favorite parts was eating the ice cream - just like his Mom and Nana! He was fascinated by the bug house...although he kept saying "I scared of the bugs!" and making a funny "scared" face.

Here he is laughing at Nana while we ate lunch:

Got to touch a snake in the reptile house!

Buddy the Gerbil

We have a temporary houseguest this weekend - Buddy the Gerbil! He's Sam's class pet and the kids can take turns taking him home every weekend. Sam is LOVING every moment of having Buddy here. He hangs out in his cage on our dining room table, safely out of reach of Chloe, who would gobble him up if she had the opportunity (she did once enter the house with a bird head in her mouth, beak poking out of her lips - gross). Anyway, Sam loves to just sit in a chair and watch Buddy and talk incessantly about him. "Buddy's hiding! Buddy's sweeping! (sleeping) Buddy's in the tunnel! Buddy's wunning in his wheel! Buddy's makin' a mess!" (Buddy likes to kick his bedding out of the cage.) Last night, Sam sat and looked at Buddy for about 45 minutes before getting down from the chair.

The Amazing Buddy

Endless Fun

Giving Buddy a hug goodnight before bedtime. Buddy even got a kiss. Well, Buddy's cage did anyway.

Pure Happiness

Buddy makes Sam this happy!

Catch-up Time!

Hello again! It's been a while since I posted anything here, so I tried to post pictures that covered anything remotely exciting that's happened to us in the last couple months. Which, to be honest, isn't much. We enjoyed the last months of winter, but HELLO spring!!! One thing we learned last month: do NOT go to the Newport Aquarium on President's Weekend when it's free kids weekend. Total mistake. Way too many people and their little ragamuffin kids! But we still managed to have a good time and Sam loved seeing the fish. Mostly anyway...he got a little bit scared of the little sharks when he thought they were going to swim through the glass:

We celebrated Sam's 2nd birthday 3 different times! Once, when his GGM and Great Aunt Beth were up to visit:

Then again the next day with Aunt Rachel and his cousin Jackson. Here they are showing off their Spiderman tattoos.

Hot Mamas!

Love the look.

We celebrated again at Neenee's house. Sam gave Neenee a big hug after opening his presents!

The birthday parties were fun, but Ben got an early birthday gift when he won the monthly drawing at Sam's daycare. We got a new HDTV! Ben was on cloud 9 that entire weekend.

And I finally got around to taking a belly picture! This was at about 21 weeks with baby no-name:

Another development, besides my giant stomach, is Sam's new passion: RUNNING. He particularly loves to run around our house wearing his bumblebee rainboots. This time, he put on his ski hat as an added touch. Ready, set, GO!!!

Snow...but no snow day? What's the point?

Nah, we had a great time in it, even if we didn't get the day off. I let the boys play by themselves on Saturday, and they spent over an hour shoveling snow, rolling around in the snow, and making a really impressive snowman:

You might have to search to find it. It was the same size as Ace.

Grrrrrrrrr

Sunday we took Sam sledding in my parents' backyard because they have some good Sam-sized hills. Sam is quite the thrill-seeker, so he loved every minute of it. I tried not to be offended when we'd ask him, "who do you want to sled with next?" and he always said "Papa Jay!" or "Daddy!" Check out some pictures of our rides!

Painting the Paper Plate and Other Developments

That's what Ben is doing in this picture: the ceremonial painting of the paper plate:

Very exciting.

Turns out installing the elfa stuff was as easy as they said it was. We heart elfa!!

Tada! The big finale.......

I'm so excited! I'm starting the (what's turning out to be slow) project of loading it up. This is full of big decisions like: do I put underwear across the top drawers and socks in the 2nd drawer? Or socks in the far left drawer and underwear in the 2 right drawers? How can I most efficiently fold my t-shirts to fit in the drawers? Which shoes get the honor of being in the slots on the sides of the shelves rather than the shoe rack I got? SO MUCH TO FIGURE OUT. It's just too bad I have to cover up the lovely decorative paper plate with clothing....

More pictures to come.

The Closet: Hazmat Suit Required

Phase 2 is complete: spackle and sand. Because we had to fix so much of the plaster, the sanding was quite a project. Ben dressed for the occasion:

He was fully protected! On to Phase 3: priming and painting!

Phase 1 of Project New Baby Preparation

We're starting a new home improvement project: gutting and re-doing my closet. It's a project we've wanted to do for a long time, but now that I have to consolidate 2 closets and one dresser into one closet, it's a complete necessity! I still don't know if it's possible! Anyway, stupid me forgot to take a "before" picture with all the stuff still in it - I had so much stuffed in this closet. I was finding receipts from 2006. I was a little worried about the wood mounted on all the walls, but Ben got it off without tearing off too many holes off the plaster.

See some of the other lovely hues this closet/room has been painted? We also found bright red paint under the curtain rods on the molding around the window.

This is the main wall before the wood was torn off. See the weird circular object under the 2nd row of wood? Whatever it is, it's taped to the wall and has probably been painted over about 70 times. Af first, we thought it was a paper plate, because that's what it looked like. But it sounds like metal. Who knows. And I don't really want to find out. That's the kind of stuff you get with a 106 year old house. And check out that lovely paint color and those HORRID curtains! That was what the entire bedroom looked like when I moved in. We just never bothered changing the closet.

Good riddance! Ben actually asked me if I wanted to keep these. Um, because I have lots of use for hideous pastel flower curtains?

So for now, everything that was in the closet is currently in our guest bedroom, soon to be our new master bedroom. We are picking up our new closet supplies from Container Store Monday. They helped us design the new closet. Part of it, at least. Until then, this is my closet.

Bonus points if you can find the nervous toy poodle. Poor Ace; he doesn't deal well with these kinds of things.