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Construction postings just aren't complete without a picture of the Port-a-Potty by the mailbox!

A Work in Progress

Here are some pictures of our new patio being stamped. Keven was really disappointed that he wasn't able to see how they did it so I took some pictures for him. It's a pretty neat process. First, they poured the concrete and smoothed it out. Then they sprinkled some powder over it to give it color. Finally, they used tiles to stamp the design on. They even made some animals with the leftover concrete. After two days, they come back and wash off the powder and put a sealer on it. We can't wait to see the finished product! Poor Keven has only seen the pictures because they had to cover it with plastic to protect it from today's rain!

Almost there!

Well, our construction project is nearing completion! I have been remiss in posting pictures, so I thought I should get these up before it's done. I left town for a few days on September 23, but before I left I was able to see our new door!! No more plywood - woohoo!!














When I got home from my trip, the sheet rock had been finished. With the new door in, I was finally able to get far enough back to take some pictures of the inside of the room.
















This week, the painter has been here working and this afternoon, our new patio was poured! We are so excited! I will post some pictures of the patio later (it won't be completely finished until Thursday or Friday when they come back to wash it and seal it).

No Rain = Progress

It finally stopped raining here and they've been able to make some progress on our new room. We get so sad if there are no trucks in front of our house at 7:00am. I'm not sure our neighbors feel the same though. Hopefully the noise doesn't wake them up. (Click here to see before pictures.)

On September 11, the exterior doors and windows were installed. We were really excited to be able to let Harley out in the backyard again, but then it rained for several days and the backyard turned into a big mud pit.














I tried to get a picture of the inside of the room, but I couldn't really get a good shot with the plywood up. Here's a shot of Keven and Kaitlin looking in the window :)














The past two days they've been busy putting up siding. It's exciting to see this project all coming together!














Hopefully tomorrow they will be able to put up sheet rock and get the doors in the kitchen installed. We're really ready for the plywood to be gone! Isn't it just lovely?

Finally!

Kaitlin finally went to sleep in her big girl bed tonight! And it only took a week and a half!

War Eagle

Tailgating is exhausting!

Construction - Part One

We decided to close in our back patio to make more space for baby boy Yost. I thought I'd post some pictures as the construction progresses. The weekend before construction started was so busy with family in town and Kaitlin's birthday party that we forgot to take any "before" pictures so I'm using some from Kaitlin's party. If you can imagine the top two pictures side by side, you can get an idea of what it looked like before.




















Day 1:















Day 2:
They put our door in the woods.














Now we have ply wood :(














They also cleared out the grass for our new patio.















Day 3:















Day 9:
After 9 business days, nothing much has changed. A couple little things have gotten done here and there, but construction has pretty much been at a stand still for the past week due to weather, standing water, and waiting on windows to come in. I have to admit I'm getting a little stir crazy. The plywood and darkness in my kitchen would be a lot easier to handle if I could see some progress outside. Hopefully work will get started again soon!

Other Highlights from August

Circus Day
The last day of summer at Kaitlin's school was circus day. They had a balloon man, made circus hats, got their faces painted and had popcorn and circus peanuts. Kaitlin must love to have her face painted because both times they've done it at school her teacher said she was very still the whole time and didn't touch it when it was done.


































Cake
We made a practice Elmo cake - I think Kaitlin liked it!

Supper Club
We have dinner monthly with 3 other couples. This month we were at Chaz's house; he and Kaitlin had a great time together!

First Day of School
Kaitlin moved up to the 2-year-old class this year! Here she is on the first day of school:

Big Girl Bed
We took the front rail off Kaitlin's bed because she has been trying to climb out (and because it was getting hard for me to get her in and out) She loves her big girl bed and will play on it, sit on it to read books, and put her babies in it...















...but she won't sleep in it!

Even with a rail!

Gettin' Fancy

I borrowed this idea from a friend. I thought maybe if I gave Kaitlin the full pedicure experience and made it fun, she might actually let me cut her toe nails. It worked, but I didn't anticipate her wanting to paint my toe nails as well:

Kaitlin's Birthday Weekend

We had lots of people in town for Kaitlin's birthday and we had lots of fun at her party. We pretty much celebrated the entire weekend because Kaitlin's attention span wasn't long enough to open all her presents at one time. So, she opened some at her party, some later that night and the rest on her actual birthday. We had a Sesame Street themed carnival party and it was lots of fun. The kids seemed to enjoy the games as well as exploring the "woods" in our backyard and feeding the fish in the pond. I made an Elmo birthday cake and we weren't sure if it would be enough for the kids and their parents so Keven made a train cake as well. All the kids wanted to eat the train cake which meant we had lots of the Elmo cake leftover for later :) I'm putting pictures from the entire weekend in one slideshow because I'm too lazy to separate out party pictures from the rest of the weekend!

Virginia

We took a trip to Virginia to visit the Kidd family in late July/early August. We had lots of fun visiting with family and even did some touristy things this time. Kaitlin loved playing with Grandma's turtle and we went to the indoor playground at the mall to play one night. We visited Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown and of course did some outlet shopping! And we couldn't drive all that way without going to the beach at least once. The highlight of our trip was meeting baby Robbie, my sisters little boy. Here are some pictures: