Almost Easter photos

This morning we were ready in time before church for some photos. Since we won't be dressing up for Easter I guess this is it! As always my favorite is the silly one!

1. great day at church

2. teacher inservice going so smoothly and worthwhile

3. my cute kids

COMPLETION

Do you know the first thing I did on my ALL DONE deck? Well after I swept it...

This!

This is the moment I've been waiting for all week!

To be able to sit on my deck and read.

I can't wait for Paul to get home tomorrow and see it in person. He has been gone since Tuesday morning and so much has changed!

The reason why some of the colors are different is because we salvaged what we could from the old deck.

I was proud of myself. This morning when I got back from our run the guys were starting to hang the gates. Well the gates were about a FOOT taller than the railing and it looked really dumb! I went out and asked if they had to be that tall for some reason, maybe code? No they were just that high. Okay I said I guess I'll get used to it. A few minutes later there is a knock on the slider and Scott admits that he doesn't like it either so he is going to the metal fabricator and have him cut it down so that it will be level. $60 dollars later I am so much happier! Money well spent!

The kids love it. They say it looks like a hotel deck. They are too funny!

It gets Lola's stamp of approval too. Although she wishes I'd take down the Lola (baby) gate and let her romp in the mud!

1. Progress

2. my lounge chair and I getting reacquainted

3. COMPLETION

Deck progress day 6

Home stretch! Can you feel the excitement?

The opening below will be a double gate that swings open.

Lola likes the new deck. She had to sniff everything!

They still have to pour the footer for the stairs and put in the new stairs.

Shout out

I want to give a shout out to Blog 2 Print! I just received my 2008 blog book in the mail and they did a great job! I saw that they were having a special and literally it took 5 minutes to “slurp” up all the entries for 2008. I actually love the fact that there are so few choices with the changes you can make. I started with another company last June and spent half a day changing font, sizes, pictures etc... At blog 2 print you can choose the front and back pictures of the book and you can delete any entries you choose. The one thing that kinda bugs me a bit, but not enough to go with someone else, is that sometimes you have a blog title on one page and the paragraph and pictures are on the following page. No biggie.

They are having a special until the end of March. It is 15% off. It was only $42 for a hard cover 91 page book. So I ordered 2009 too. I love the fact that it is DONE and I won’t have to do it again until 2011.

1. Visiting luncheon friends
2. the deck is almost done
3. the deck looks awesome

Replenish time

After a busy morning (running errands, primary meeting and grocery shopping)

I was tired

when I finally got home around 2.

All I really wanted to do was

plop my butt on the couch

and read.

And so I did!

So glad I did it too!

1. great friends to serve with in primary

2. getting my grocery shopping done (internal struggle today, but it won out in the end)

3. ice cream cone Paul brought me from Mc D's

Deck progress days 4&5

Day 4- Ya think it's big enough? We really got a feel for how big the deck is going to be on day 4. We decided to have them replace the existing floorboards of the old deck since they would need to be done in the next few years anyway. Might as well have them do it! Hey what's a little more money at this point? So excited for summer to come! Unfortunately Spring has just arrived.

The kids were running like crazy on the deck after the guys finished up for the day. Xander learned that it is NOT a good idea to run so fast on the deck (like Mom and dad told him). He fell through the gaps and smashed his chest and has a huge bruise on the inside of his arm. Lesson learned!

Day 5- The guys got a lot done today, but got cut off early due to the rain. So they covered up their saws and worked on cleaning up all the old boards and sawed off pieces. Bummer it is going to rain all day tomorrow! They should be done by the end of the week. These guys are working so hard. We are so grateful!

Those are the old stairs they will be replaced!

1. laundry almost done and mostly put away

2. pushing the limits on my new running route and not dying!

3. house vacummed

Waiting....

Xander decided that he wanted to use his allowance to buy a Lego go cart. Unfortunately they did not have it in stock at Toys r' us so we ordered it online. He was okay the first couple of days, but then the waiting was getting to be too much! I checked the order on Wednesday and it said on its way to final destination. Little did we know that meant from UPS to the USPS. So he waited very IMPATIENTLY on Wednesday for UPS. Which never came...

It finally arrived on Thursday from USPS. Paul and I were holding our breath as the mail lady drove up our driveway...Please let it be there...please....please...

It was! And it only took him 30 minutes to build! He said it was worth the wait.

Easy to say after the fact!