Voila!

The basement is almost complete. We played down there for the first time last night. The electrician is coming Thursday to complete the switches and canned lighting. The wet bar is put on hold for the moment. We figure the whole money train has to stop somewhere. Jake LOVES his new room. He runs around in circles screaming, "My room!" Since we are moving the guest room downstairs, we changed the upstair's bath into a monkey theme. We now have "Monkey" baths at night. Why monkies? Our child will only wear his monkey shirts to bed at night and refuses to take them off in the morning. The problem is, he only has two monkey shirts. Josh and I got tired of the battle and let him wear it out to dinner Sunday night. Thank goodness for us it got food all over it and is now in the laundry.

You'll have to look close. Our little monkey is on the bottom left. He blends in with his monkey shirt.

He looks so tall in this picture!

Daddy's Shadow

This boy can do it all. You show him something once and he's got it. In the long run, this will be a good thing, but for now, it's a little scary. Josh decided to edge the flower beds today. Jake couldn't resist helping. He even put some muscle into it. Between the two of them we will have the best lawn in town!

Bounce House...Haircut...Lawn Work

We decided to get Jake a bounce house for this birthday. He loves it so much that it is now in the dining room. It was too hot this weekend to bounce outside, so daddy brought it inside. Who needs dining room furniture when you can have a nice steak dinner sitting in a multi-colored bounce house?

Jake was also in desperate need of a haircut. He now has a big boy cut and loves to have gel put in it. I'm not sure I like how grown up he looks. You can see it below. Our backyard was seeded for the second time this week and we actually have some grass growing. I guess it's all thanks to Jake and his green thumb.

Earning His Keep

Jacob is known to help around the house. Today I stated that Wrigs needs a good brushing. The next thing I see is this...

I should probably try this with Wrigs. He actually sat and enjoyed it. Okay, maybe tolerated it.






He then moved on to scrubbing the floors. I must not be keeping up the house to his standards.

The Big T-W-O

It's hard to believe Jacob is two. The time has flown by and he has grown so much in the last few months. He's been my little buddy this summer and I have enjoyed our time together. For his birthday we started off with McDonald's. He loves their fruit n' yogurt parfaits and hashbrowns. I debated taking him to day care, but they threw a party for him and he got to sit on a helicopter. Better than anything I could have had for him in our front yard. The family came over last weekend and we all had a nice time together. We celebrated Jacob, Katie, and Carol's birthdays. Needless to say we all ate way too much.

The house is coming along. The basement should hopefully be finished in the next couple of weeks. Today I had the pleasure of buying a shower. Never thought that would excite me, but it did. Now we need to pick out paint colors and get the carpet ordered. Who knew carpet was so expensive??!!! I might need to start standing on the side of the 465 off ramp with a sign for monetary donations for my house.

He picked out these cookies himself. He was so proud of them.

With Miss Shelley, his teacher. We all LOVE her. She sends newsletters home and does a ton of neat projects. A woman after my own heart.

Being a ham on the front steps.

It's POTTY time!

Jacob stealing my coffee.

Jacob went pee pee in the potty today!!!! I decided to try it out today and it went great. Of course, we still used diapers and he didn't tell me every time he had to go, but it's a start. We made a huge deal out of it and went and bought pull ups and M & Ms as rewards for the future. Of course I didn't have any rewards at home when he went this morning, so I took him to the pantry and asked him what snack he wanted. He picked BBQ chips at 9:30. Whatever floats his boat. We'll continue to work on it and hopefully he will catch on and it's not just a phase. 

We've had a much better week after last week's prednisone episode. Jake is finally back to his fun loving self.  We had a blast at the park Monday and then had a class at the library today. I signed him up for summer reading and he gets prizes when 8 activities have been completed. Of course that means when Josh and I have completed 8 activities. :0) Jake is starting to string a few words together, two or three, to form sentences. He has also become a bit of a dare devil. He now gets on his riding toy, pushes off, puts his feet up and goes flying down the driveway since it's at an incline. We, of course, catch him before he enters the road. Yesterday, we added a new twist and set up the sprinkler. He then rode through it each time and screamed with delight. He was soaking wet. I am not exaggerating when I say the kid has gone through 6 outfits in the last two days. We have also spent a lot of our days watching the construction workers and their machines. I don't know the names of all of them, so we just call them dirt movers. :0)

Post potty snack. "Mom, I don't need a napkin. I have my shirt!"

We sat and watched this for about 1/2 hour. I know you are all jealous.

Jake's new obsession....water of any kind.

The Big Move

We have finally started to settle into our new house. It has been a crazy few weeks with school ending and moving. The house is SLOWLY coming along. I, of course, want everything in its spot and all of the boxes unpacked. I don't think that will be happening in the near future. We have decided to finish our basement. Work will start on the 14th and hopefully be finished the beginning of July. The kitchen has been tiled and looks great thanks to Chris. He plans on finishing the rest of the house in the near future.

  Jake has adjusted just fine. I was worried with all of the moving around he may struggle sleeping. We haven't had any problems. He did develop a rash this past week. The doctor says he's allergic to something in the new house. Who knows what it is. After being on Prednisone for a few days and a topical foam, he's back to normal. Our A/C unit went out on Tuesday and we just got it fixed yesterday evening. It was a hot few days and the heat intensified his rash. Needless to say, I was on the phone a few times with the HVAC people telling them how frustrating it was to be without air for so many days. The heat and a 2 year old on roids don't mix.

 Here are a couple of pictures of the house and of Jake with his new Sponge Bob fishing pole. He got so excited about fishing, he dumped all of the night crawlers into the pond instead of using the pole. Daddy went fishing for worms instead of fish this evening! At least he caught something, right?

Our new patio we had poured this week. Now we just need some grass and flowers in the backyard. The front looks a lot nicer since it has sod and bushes.

I do like my new kitchen. I'm really enjoying my gas stove.

Bumpa helped hang our new baskets today. They look great and add some much needed color. We found some chairs this evening and a little table. I got excited and took the pictures before I took the packaging off :0)