Thaddeus

Thaddeus got a haircut last night. I didn't video it because it took us both to do it. I used the clippers for the first time and he cried and cried and yelled, "Owww, Owww" in this slow very painful voice. It made me glad we didn't have neighbors on any walls, they'd have thought we were torturing him! So, the videos are cute ones of him and pay attention to the hair, the first is before, the second is after. I'll post a before picture as well since the video is from behind.

Thaddeus facts:

1. He can't 'talk' yet but has about 20 words or more and is starting to say sentences. Like in the video he says "me me more" (Please more) or yesterday he asked "me me more apple" Most are words the layman wouldn't understand, just his parents and Grace.

2. He loves peaches and beans and rice.

3. He is very independent lately and won't even let you sit him in his car seat. He has to crawl in and out of the van on his own!

4. He hits Grace a lot. We're working on it.

5. His dad is his favorite person, hands down.

6. He loves nursery as long as he has a car in each hand and he will spend all his free time on the opposite end of the room as everyone else with his cars. When we moved we changed wards and he now has one friend. Another boy who also needs one car in each hand. They like each other because they both have all the cars they can hold so there isn't any stealing!

7. He has a car in each hand even when he isn't in nursery. We've had to put our feet down though with him having them at the dinner table. Too many cars 4 wheeling in his food!

8. He plays pretend with Grace. He gets tired of it more quickly than she does but I have seen him even pretending by himself.

9. He is very quiet in public. Public being defined as anywhere there is someone in addition to his family. My friend's husband watches the kids sometimes so we can go walking and one morning he told his wife (after watching Thaddeus) that he didn't make one noise the whole time he was there, not a jabber or a cry.

10. His new favorite word is "What" and if you say "Thaddeus" he says "What" you say "I love you" he says, "Aaawwh" (Grant started saying that to Grace when she could first talk and he still does, and Thaddeus can play along as well)

Pictures of the House!

This is the front of the house. Obviously :) We have dug out dandelions by the hundreds, literally and under the left bedroom window is a flower bed that we pulled all the grass out of. There are some really pretty tulips all over the front, gone now of course. The two small trees are dogwood trees. Go here to see what they should look like, they are gorgeous! Anyway, they both need some TLC as only one bloomed this year and only a few flowers instead of the whole tree like they should.

This is the backyard. No one has been in this house for over a year so the next project for when we come into a lot of money :) is to re sod the back yard. If we don't come into a lot of money, we will just seed it. Here is where we tore out most of the dandelions. It was a dandelion garden really! I should have taken before pictures for you!

The kids playing in the sprinkler. We would really love to put a hot tub over that brown patch :)

This is our bedroom. We painted it a pale sea/mint green. We had brown carpet we pulled out and there are wood floors in our bedroom. We have done so much to this house. We always dreamed of buying a fixer-upper but boy am I tired! We have spent the last 3 weekends painting. Every Saturday and a little on Friday. We dug out all the dandelions and other various weeds. We need to finish painting the basement so it doesn't smell like smoke. We've torn up 2 carpets and all the hardware underneath. We Scrubbed the house top to bottom before we even moved in. Grant cleaned out the gutters, gross! The leaves were beginning to compost inside the drains on the side of the house! Grant has fixed plumbing and electrical. We have weeded all the flower beds and garden spots, roto-tilled them and cleaned out the rocks from them and planted a garden. The list goes on but Grant mentioned yesterday, "Now that we are done painting (the bedrooms anyway, we still have to paint the living/dining rooms but not until later) we can actually spend our weekends doing regular house chores." Yep, our house is fairly un-kempt because we spend all our time on these projects. Our house smells better upstairs though and for that my sinuses are grateful!! We haven't even hung pictures on the walls yet :) But, all these projects have been very fun and Grant and I have learned a lot about eachother through the process. Projects are good for marriage I've decided :) It is just amazing how much time owning your own home takes!!!!!! (Someone should have warned me :))

More Pictures

This is the kids room. We painted it a light baby blue, calming, so they'll fall asleep faster! There used to be an icky brown carpet and we pulled it up to reveal this beautiful wood. I don't advocate pulling out carpet, you have to get all the staples out and the carpet tack all around the room, I ruined my hammer doing it!!

The Dining room. It was already pink and maroon. If Grant was a little richer, we would have already painted it as this is his least favorite room!

The Living room. We want to paint it a neutral but it isn't a priority right now. The bedrooms smelled like someone had smoked a lot in them so they were a priority. Ps. Kilz smells worse than anything!!

Kitchen. One long rectangle with no countertops on the other side of the kitchen, just two cupboards suspended in the air :) That is our next project. Grant's dad is coming soon and he is going to help Grant move some outlets and we are going to move the cupboards and the fridge and then find some cheap/free cabinets and a countertop to make due until we can redo the whole thing.

This is the opposite wall. You can barely see the cupboards around the fridge at the top. For now I just have some food storage buckets and brooms etc in the space where the fridge will eventually be.

More Pictures

Storage Room/Whatever we dont' know what to do with room :) (this is the 3rd bedroom downstairs without an egress window)

Laundry room downstairs. We are still in the process of fixing some plumbing!

Our huge basement room. One long rectangle. The kids run and run and run!

Our shop. Nice eh? If only we had actual things like tools or atv's or something to fill it up :)

Our house

Well, we are all moved in and pictures will come soon, we finally got the internet again so hopefully we can keep a little more updated :) We already have a garden planted, we painted the bedrooms and ripped out carpet in ours to uncover some very nice hardwood floors! We scrubbed and srubbed before we even moved and Grant has cleaned out gutters, mowed, weeded, roto-tilled and all the other wonderful outside things that the man is in charge of when he owns his own house :) We had a crazy experience trying to get our 32 inch couch through some 31 inch doorways :) and the kids are loving a back yard that doesn't require us to get completely dressed and walk to a park to play in!! (and mom is loving the fact that they aren't covered in driveway soot everytime we go into the house! it is mud now but mud seems cleaner than driveway soot, does it to you?) Anyway, we'll get the pictures soon.