Rain Rain Go Away

And never come back! So, we're making progress on 1/2 of our basement. Right now, the guys are down there working. Hopefully in another week (or 2) we will have our basement back again! We found these great guys who are so reasonably priced and they're doing great work. They're doing everything for us down there, including putting in carpet and CEILINGS! I never thought I'd get that excited about ceilings, but after living with the beams and pipes and wires for 2 years, it looks so different down there now! I cannot wait to get it done and finally have a playroom for Kyle. On the other side of the basement, not so good news. It poured last weekend - I think for 2 or 3 days straight. Saturday afternoon I went down to put some laundry in and saw a pool of water at the bottom of the stairs. After brief thoughts of just setting fire to the house, I got out the shop vacs and cleaned it up. Unfortunately, it was a constant flooding all day. The water was coming in from our 'well room'. I don't know what else to call it - it's just a mud room below our well. So we spent an exciting weekend trading off emptying the shop vacs and cleaning it up. Anyway, I'm hoping that it will be an easy fix as this room is right beside our sump pump. In my mind, they should be able to install a pipe to funnel the water from there right into the sump pump. We've got our guy coming tomorrow to look at it and do some grading work for us. With our luck, this simple fix will turn into another thousands of dollars project. At this point though, really what else is there to go wrong? We've had problems with and fixed what seems to be every square inch of this house, so we'll see what we're blessed with next!

Other than that, things are great. The grass is finally getting green. I had my teeth cleaned today and have no cavities. Kyle is still cracking us up. I asked him yesterday to guess who was at our house and he guessed GG, then 'Ma'. I guess he's still got Georgia on his mind! He finally guessed that it was Lazaro, our basement guy. The way he says his name is so funny - it's more like Waroro. He's repeating everything we say right now which Brad is having fun with - he was having him say corn dog, chili cheese dog, and turkey burger the other day. Too cute. I guess it means we really have to watch what we say now.

I'm usually a super (to the point of OCD) organized person. Before we had Kyle, I had alphabetized and made lists of our CDs and movies. Everything has a place and it stays there. Usually. With our house in a state of craziness though, it doesn't always happen lately. I took down all our Easter decorations a while ago, but we haven't gotten around to putting them away yet. So, Kyle likes to pull things out of the bins and play with them still. The picture below is of him this morning with the rabbit ears on. There's also a couple basement update pictures, and a picture from 'Thomas Day' at Toys R Us - which was crazy, but he had fun, so that's all that matters.

Fantastic Friday

We have been waiting for a day like today. It was 80 degrees and beautiful! Kyle and I spent the day playing outside. We had to hang around home because 'the man' (as Kyle calls him) was here working on the basement - woo hoo! We spent all morning outside playing with all the outdoor toys - the sandbox, water table, slide, we did it all. Kyle even got to have his first popsicle of the season! We took a short break to go get Kyle's haircut and he took a super long nap this afternoon. I guess the sun tired him out. It tired me out too, but I didn't nap because I was waiting for another guy to come over who was supposed to do some grading work for us. He didn't show up which was weird, so hopefully he'll make it here next week to get that fixed. We are making progress on the basement! I'm hoping in 2 weeks it'll be functional and full of toys again!! After Kyle woke up, we went back outside to play some more. Brad surprised us and came home early from work. We ate dinner outside and later took a walk to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream. It was a perfect day - I wish they were all like this!

22 months!

Kyle is 22 months old today! I can hardly believe it. He has changed so much even over the past month. He is just the cutest, and yes it may be bragging, but he's my son, so I'm allowed - the kid is so darned smart. He's started talking A TON these past few weeks. He's coming out with words I have no idea he knows - like coupon yesterday. Today it was bye bye Target (that's one of my favorites along with Snuggle - as in Snuggle Puppy). He can spell his own name which he loves to do, he knows his colors and most of his shapes. He just amazes me at how fast he picks things up.

We got home from Georgia on Friday and had a beautiful day here Saturday. Kyle got to play outside all morning - our neighbors Chris and Mara came over with their son Cole, who is about 6 months older than Kyle and the boys played together for a while. I'm glad we took advantage of the beautiful weather, because this morning we had snow again!!! Okay, so not a lot and it was mixed with rain, but still - snow on April 21?? UGH. I think we're back in the 40s. As if I didn't already, this weather makes me really miss Georgia! We're still waiting on our basement to get finished - hoping to start that very soon as I'm going out of my mind with the craziness in our house. We spent the morning at Just 4 Fun which was, well, fun. It was crazy packed - partly because of the weather but there was also a school group there. We still had a good time. Kyle has become Mr. Independent lately and decided today that he was going to do the big slide all by himself. The only problem is that he couldn't make it up the last step to the slide, so I would have to help him get up there, tell him to wait at the top, then run around to the bottom of the slide to catch him at the bottom. He waited every time though and he had a blast. The rest of our week is pretty uneventful, which works for me, as I'm still not totally unpacked and have lots to do around here!

Taken in GA as Kyle saw a train!

Our goofball at dinner tonight - he seriously scratched his head and left the fork up there by accident.

He found his Elmo Easter basket!

Cleaning up GG's yard

The playhouse at GG's

We made it!

Yay! We're in Georgia!! Kyle joined me for his sixth round trip flight on Thursday. He's becoming quite the traveller - we'll have to get him a frequent flier card. The flight was good - luckily a nice woman gave us her row so that Kyle and I had space to spread out. I thought (hoped) he would nap on the way down here, but no such luck. He amused himself with snacks, books and toys and we're so happy to be here! We've been keeping busy these last few days - lots of hanging out with aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma, GG. The weather is great so we can be outside a lot, which is a welcome change from the never ending Wisconsin winter! We saw the Easter Bunny the other day - Kyle got his picture taken with him, which he loved! We also got to ride on a train at the mall. Today we had a clean up the yard day at Grandma's house. Then this afternoon we went to Jamie and Devin's to celebrate Alesi's first birthday!! Kyle had a blast playing with the kids, riding the cars, and bouncing in the bounce house! Happy Birthday sweet girl!! It'd been awhile since we'd been to their house, so a funny thing happened when we got there. My mom, Kyle, my sister Beth, 2 of her kids, and I park and walk up to the house that has the balloons and tons of cars parked at it. We walk in and are greeted at the door by some people I'd never met before. They said, "Hi! Come on in. I'm Emily's mom, what's your name?" I assumed they were just random family or friends I hadn't met. Then I looked around and noticed that the dining room, which is in the back of Devin's house, was right beside us. I look around and recognize no one. Then I turn to my mom and tell her, "Um, we're at the wrong house." Embarrassed and laughing hysterically we left and then walked up the street to the correct house. Only in Georgia can we walk into a stranger's house and they don't think it's odd at all. In fact, they welcome us in! This place is great. Tomorrow is Easter and I'm so thankful to be able to celebrate down here with family. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!!


Riding in the coal car

Playing at the indoor playground

A horribly blurry but still cute picture of the picture with the Easter Bunny.

Little man riding in the airplane with his 'buckle' on.

2 in 1 day!

Wow, I'm back again so soon. I had so much to catch up on, I forgot to mention anything about today. Kyle and I went to a playdate at another MOMS club member's house - had a great time as usual. Then we picked up Brad and went out to lunch. I love that we're able to do that here - and Kyle loves it too. Brad also shared the news that he heard back from one of our possible basement contractors. For those that don't know - we have been dealing with a nightmare in our basement. We found out in September that there was water coming up through the concrete foundation - not tons but enough to cause a problem. So, since then, we've had to take everything out of there (which means our living room is currently a toy room), throw out all the stuff that got wet and ruined, and then we had a company come in, jackhammer out the old floor and pour a whole new floor for us. Now we're in the process of finishing the work. We need someone to come in and re-frame and drywall the bottom 18" of wall that had to be removed to pour the floor. Seems pretty simple to me, but geez these quotes are expensive. Hopefully we can find someone reasonable and get the work done SOON because I'm going out of my mind. So, if you know anyone looking for work, let me know!! The ironic thing is that the 'finished basement' is one of the reasons we bought this house over a couple others that had basements that needed work. Little did we know! Below are some pictures I took during the work before they poured the floor.
On another note, I was finally able to publish the hysterical video a couple posts below. Puts a smile on my face every time!

I'm Back!!

Yup, it's been 2 months since I last wrote on here. I'm making a promise to myself though to write more frequently. I'm not going to say anything crazy like I'll write every day or anything, but we'll see how it goes. So, what's been going on all this time? Well, we've had cold windy weather and lots of snow. We did have a beautiful day on St. Patrick's Day - Kyle, Brown Bear and I took a trip to the park and had lots of fun!

In March, Brad took his annual trip to Vegas with the boys. This year though, I got to fly out and join him (after the guys trip was over, but that's just fine with me). We had a great time - I got to go to the spa, we ate great dinners, saw great friends, went to an awesome show (Love), and did our share of gambling (and losing). Mom (who is now called Ma - as it sounds in mat for example) flew up to watch Kyle and they had a great time. Stephie and Chloe came up too which Kyle LOVED! He loves his Chloe oe especially and still asks about her. After Beth came to get them, he kept saying to me, Chloe - bye bye - Beth - I told Beth she was in trouble for taking her away! We had a great time having them here - even took a trip to the zoo!
Kyle is great. He's talking TONS right now - it's so fun to hear him talk. He's getting so big and he has a big personality to go with it too. He knows what he wants and he isn't afraid to tell you - usually what he wants are 'nacks' all day long. He pulls you into the pantry and it's 'up' so he can pick out what he wants. He loves being outside and we both can't wait until this weather warms up so we can play outside all day. Lately, he hasn't been too happy when we come home and have to go inside instead of to the park. Soon buddy, soon. He plays hard all day and has a great time. He does like to walk around in our shoes a bit - see the picture below. I think Brad would prefer him walking around in his shoes, but oh well. He's having fun.
When I shower every day, Kyle comes with and amuses himself while I get ready. I usually bring in a basket of toys for him - today he emptied it out and climbed inside to read a book. He's a goof but we love him tons! He definitely makes us laugh.

We got to see some good friends on Sunday night - had Lou Mal's pizza and hung out while Kyle and Jason and Jaime's little girl Eden played. They had a great time and so did we. Wish we lived closer so we could hang out more often. On Thursday, Kyle and I are heading to GA to visit my family, celebrate Easter and my Grandma's 89th birthday. I'm so thankful that we'll get to be there for that and see my family too - I miss them! And, Kyle will have a blast playing with all his cousins too. Can't wait for some warm weather down there!