Happy Father's Day

It's been another busy week. Aside from my photography class, there were lots of good things going on this week. We had painters at our house this week, which means the garage is officially done, and we are very happy with it! We also found out Jackson will be changing day cares next week. We are excited about the change, but once again sad to be leaving the teachers behind. Hopefully this will be the last change until he goes off to school though.

Saturday was our busiest day this week. We managed to get our yard work done before it got too hot. Jackson had fun lounging around in his PJs with Bailey while Ross was working.

Then we took Bailey and Jackson to Bay Area Park for a picnic and some play time. Bailey had a blast in the dog park. Her favorite friend was this sweet little 10 week old puppy that loved playing in the fountain.

Jackson had a great time on the swings and rocking on the horse before enjoying his first real picnic at the park. Here are a few pictures of the fun.

Saturday evening our friends, Katie and Jason, had a house warming party in Katy, TX. We had a great time catching up with some friends we haven't seen recently, while Jackson had fun hanging out with his favorite sitter, Ms. Heather.

Ross' 2nd Father's Day was...just as difficult as the first. Last year we were adjusting to a brand new baby. This year, Jackson decided not to nap, which made for a long, fussy day. Overall, it was still great though. We had a good, manly breakfast this morning followed by church and a little house hunting since Jackson wouldn't sleep. Of course we rounded out the day like any other celebration with a dinner at Lupe Tortilla!

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!

Ready, Set, Go!

In the last two weeks Jackson has been on the go. Not only is he an expert crawler now, but he's pulling up on anything and everything. He also knows exactly what he's not supposed to get into, and goes straight for it! He's definitely keeping us on our toes. His favorite things to get into are the candles by the fire place (see pic below), the electronics by the TV, and of course, Bailey's dog bowls...they're twice the fun because they make noise when hitting the floor and have water to splash.

He's really starting to figure out toys too. He's great at opening and closing things, and he's started putting objects in things and pushing buttons to get a specific response. His train provides lots of entertainment with the seat that opens and closes, levers to push and pull, and being able to ride or push it. He has a blast with everything he does!

There are several more pics of Jackson playing and having fun today in the album.

This weekend had it's ups and downs. Yesterday was fun and relaxing for me and Jackson. While Ross spent the entire day rebuilding our patio cover, which looks great, Jackson and I went to the park with our friends Emma and Clara. Then Jackson and I hung out in the backyard with Ross. Jackson got a baby pool to play in, but it was a little too cold still to be in it. Instead, Jackson had fun leaning over the edge, splashing the water and putting things in the pool.

Today wasn't as relaxing...Jackson decided he didn't need a nap today, which was a first for us. He's refused naps at daycare before, but never at home...it made for a long day. I say that, but he was still very happy overall. All of the pics in this post were taken today, so you can tell he didn't struggle with it too much. It was just around the times he was supposed to be sleeping that were difficult.

Pneumonia!

Jackson has it. He was sent home from daycare on Thursday with a 102 fever. Thursday night it was 103 and Friday morning, 104! Tylenol helped to get it down a bit but I went ahead and took him to the doctor. We hadn't seen any other major symptoms and the doctor wasn't sure what the cause might be but she said that at his age, they want to find the cause for such a high fever.

So, 4 hours later, Jackson and I had been to the lab for them to take blood and the hospital for chest x-rays. They took blood from his arm using a tourniquet and needle like with adults. and the x-rays required a device that held him still and his arms above his head. Clearly, these where not pleasant experiences for either of us. Anyway, the x-rays showed pneumonia so we are now administering antibiotics and dealing with difficult eating and sleeping. Please, keep Jackson in your prayers and hopefully he will be better soon.

In other news, I finished the garage construction this morning and will be moving on to the patio cover and gates soon.

Garage Project

Everyone will be happy to know Jackson is drinking well again! Thursday he drank only from a sippy cup at home, but Friday he took the bottle again. He even did well at day care, and he's done well all weekend!

We spent the weekend redoing the siding on our garage with the help of a bunch of great friends. Thank you so much Andrew, Todd, Jeff, Eric, and Zack! Many thanks to the wives (and one fiance) who let their husbands help, kept me company, and helped watch the kiddos. It was a lot of work for two days, but the majority of the work is done.

The bottom of our garage was rotting away, so we decided to replace the siding with Hardie Plank. We originally planned on just paying someone to do it for us, but after receiving a quote for $8000, Ross decided he could take care of it.

It was a learning process for everyone invloved, but they did a great job. The first step was demolition. I think the guys had a little fun with this one. After a very short time, this is what our garage looked like.

The next step involved stapling roofing felt around the studs. This part was done very quickly.

Putting up the Hardie Plank proved to be a challenge, but one they successfully completed today. If you didn't know, you can't simply cut Hardie board with a saw, these guys had to score and break each piece. I think there are expensive tools out there to make this easier, but they didn't have one! By the end of the day Saturday, the guys had completed the Hardie Plank on one of the walls of the garage. Impressive progress for a single day! We did have one minor injury towards the end of the day, but luckily it didn't require a trip to the ER! Here are a few pictures from Saturday.

While Jackson and Quin took a nap, Bekah and I helped a little. Mostly with clean up though.

Jackson and Quin spent almost the entire day together playing, and at one point I think there were 6 little ones running around our living room. They seemed to have a blast for the most part.

Today Andrew and his son Nathan (almost 5) came back over and helped finish the job. Nathan helped me take care of Jackson. He was a great entertainer. He could really make Jackson laugh. Later in the day Rhea came over with more entertainers and more help! A family friend of theirs, Zack, helped finish off the Hardie Plank while Rhea and I took the kids to the park down the street. When we returned it was Elena's turn to make Jackson laugh. This time we managed to get a picture.

By the end of day two, this is what our garage looks like.

We have a little more work to do, but the hardest part is now done. We just need to put in a few final nails and put up the trim. Then we'll be on to the next project...our patio cover or fence!

Dream Boys

It's been a great weekend. I took off of work on Friday and left Jackson at day care so I could get some work done on the house. What I thought was going to take me all weekend, I managed to almost finish on Friday! I sanded and painted our bathroom cabinets, added knobs and pulls to the drawers and doors (with Ross' help), and finished planting new flowers in the yard. I was in such a good mood by the end of the day because I felt like I'd finally made some progress. I've been wanting to paint the bathroom cabinets for a couple of years now. I don't know what took me so long! When I finally stopped for a few minutes and checked my work email, I got some great news that a coworker got certified...this was an even bigger deal than normal because there was a painful process to go along with it.

Then a toy we'd ordered for Jackson arrived, and he absolutely loves it! It's a play n' ride train. Jackson started walking (cruising really) a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to find a toy he could push around to help him out. He's got all of the levers and buttons figured out, and he has a great time pushing it around. When he sits on it, his feet don't quite reach the ground yet, so we push him. If we stop, he rocks back and forth urging us to keep going!

We had our life group Friday night too, which was a blast. Ross and I decided we were being called to step down from leadership for a while a couple of months ago, and a new couple that recently moved to Texas decided to step up. I think it's going to be great!

Yesterday Jackson and I spent some time hanging out in the yard with Bailey while Ross gathered supplies to put new siding on our garage and rebuild our patio cover next weekend. It was such a beautiful day, and I couldn't resist taking some pics of Jackson playing with the grass and flowers. There are several more in the album.

Yesterday evening we made our way to Kingwood to catch up with a couple of my sorority sisters, their husbands, and their kiddos. I love these girls! We only see each other once or twice a year, but they will always hold a special place in my heart! Tammy and Kammy were both ahead of me at LA Tech, but I often felt closer to them than some of my pledge sisters. Their husbands and kiddos are great too! Here's a picture of the girls and the future Kay-Dee dream boys, Bryan, Jackson, and Mason.

In Hot Water

Ok, so we're not in trouble, but our pipes and guest bathroom are! A pipe in the attic from our hot water heater burst tonight and flooded the bathroom. Ross quickly saved the day. He managed to turn off the water and drain the hot water heater before too much water got in the bathroom. He is in the attic right now removing the insulation that got soaked so the ceiling can dry out. I guess we'll be calling a plumber in the morning and taking cold showers until it's fixed!

Aside from that we've had a great weekend. We spent most of it hanging out with friends and enjoying our time with Jackson. We've been procrastinating on our "to do" list, so we still haven't even put away our Christmas decorations!

New Fans

I spent the vast majority of the day today hanging 3 new fans. Elizabeth has hated our fans since we moved in and we've just been putting it off. After putting one up in Jackson's room a couple of weeks ago, we realized that it isn't that big of a deal. We got the 52" Harbor Breeze Tiempo in white (first picture) for the living room and our bedroom and the 42" Harbor Breeze Cheshire in white for the guest room (second picture), which is also what we put in the baby room. I've definitely come to the conclusion that, if you want to make a quick update to your home to sell or just so that it feels newer and you only have a few hundred dollars to spend, the best bang for the buck is paint, fans, light fixtures, and shower heads. These things are relatively inexpensive and make a huge impact.

Painting Jackson's Room

While Ross was in New Orleans last week, I spent my free time painting Jackson's room. It took the entire week to get it done because I only had a few hours here and there. My friend Natalie came over one day to help, and I was certainly grateful! I think it turned out pretty well. Now we're just waiting on furniture to arrive so it starts to look like a nursery. The crib and glider have both been ordered, and we're working on designs for the bookshelf and dresser.

Getting the stripe level was the hardest part of this painting job. I used a measuring tape, a level, and painters tape to get it as close to perfect as I could. Ross also found a tip online that helped prevent the paint from bleeding under the tape. I painted over the tape with the color that would be meeting that edge of the stripe to seal the tape. Then I painted the stripe and removed the tape. It didn't work perfectly because we have pretty rough texture on our walls, but it worked really well. Ross found the tip when I was halfway done with the room, and you could definitely tell a difference. Of course, I'm not sure you can tell now since I did touch ups by hand on all four walls...

Desk Improvements

After using the desk I built for nearly a year now, I finally got tired of some little issues and fixed them today. From day 1, we had trouble with wire routing. This is mainly because I forgot to leave room for wires when making the sliding shelves. At the time, I rigged a solution by cutting slots for the wires in the shelves but they didn't leave much room for error so we were constantly wiggling wires to make the shelves close fully. Today, I finally fixed the problem. I simply cut a larger notch (1.5" x 5") in the back of each shelf to leave room for the wires. This was done with a simple template I made and a flush trim bit on my router. The first picture below shows an old notch and the template and the second picture shows the results. I can already tell I'm going to be much happier.

Links to Projects Labels

I've been using the Blogger labels for a while now but since I'm moving my projects posts to this blog, I wanted to provide links to the labels on previous posts. That way, if you are looking for posts on a specific topic, you can click on the links below for the older posts.

• computer (9)
• construction (4)
• electrical (2)
• fabric (1)
• furniture (11)
• home improvement (16)
• paint (13)
• repair (3)
• stain (6)
• Taylored Truth (7)
• tile (2)
• woodworking (16)
• yard (2)