Porch Make-Over

Joel's parents came for a visit a couple weekends ago. Joel and his mom had a great time giving our porch a much-needed make-over! Thank you Linda for your hard work and for donating the treasures that you found:)

Here is what one side of the porch looked like. It always seemed to be over-taken with toys...

Now we have an awesome table to eat on! Joel and Linda found an old sewing machine base at a garage sale then picked up the round, tiled, top at a thrift store.....

I wanted to keep the chairs with the red cushions so Joel painted the metal brown and they look SO much better...

The other side of the porch had a random table and chairs just barely big enough to eat a meal on...

We left the green chair but added a new rug and trunk. The trunk contains all the toys but can be used for a footstool or add a tray and you have a place to set your drink....

Its the perfect time to use the porch! The weather has been beautiful and we've been trying to eat all of our meals out there.

Pets

Evan: I would like to have two pets.

Jen: I think having one cat is probably enough but IF you had another one what would it be?

Evan: I would go to a pet store and pick out a mouse.

Jen: A mouse?! Hmm...I'm not sure I'd like to have a mouse in the house.

Evan: Well then maybe I would pick out a rabbit.

Jen: That might be better, but rabbits can be pretty messy. Any other ideas?

Evan: How about a dog?

Jen: What if he chases Jack around the house and Jack doesn't like him?

Evan: hmmm....what CAN I pick out?

Jen: (really trying hard to not crush his dreams of owning another pet) Maybe a fish?

Evan: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Let's go pick out a fish....and we need a tank too. Can we go tomorrow?

Jen: Well we need to talk to your daddy first.

Now...How in the world am I getting out of this one!?

Meat Lab

Evan loves going to the University of Florida Meat Lab. He's buddy-buddy with one of the guys that works there and somehow ends up wearing a hard hat or getting a sticker on each visit. Yesterday I took the kids with me to buy some meat and before we could even get out of the car, Tommy came out with a hard hat especially for Evan to take home with him. Evan was very proud of it...

Evan's job is to pick out a basket to put all our meat in...

"Do we need ground beef?"

What a great morning!

Visit with Osorios

Last weekend Joel had a trustee meeting at FCC so the kids and I went down to Kissimmee with him. Evan always gets excited about staying in hotels and Lydia has sure seen her share of them in the past 4 months. This was a great opportunity to see our friends Tori, Ryan, Owen, and their new little guy, Miles. Miles is only 4 days younger than Lydia so this is the first chance we've had to get the new babies together.

Some pictures from our day...

Lydia - 4 1/2 Months

This was last week but thought I'd go ahead and post it since it has her stats too...

Lydia: 4 Months

Lydia is 4 months old!

This little girl is growing up so fast. She's SO sweet and content. Lydia has discovered that she loves the taste of her hands and tends to chew on them daily. She's also trying to grab toys and just generally pays more and more attention to her surroundings.

Evan loves her and even chose to keep her when someone asked him if he wanted to give her away. He loves to hug and kiss her, play with her hands and feet, and of course talk to her.

She is back to sleeping through the night after a 3 week phase of some sort, maybe a growth spurt? We are thankful for that and pray that she continues in that pattern. She's happy when she's awake, loves to nurse, and thinks her brother and her cat are hilarious.

The challenge right now? She won't take a bottle. I'm perfectly happy nursing her but it would be nice to have the option of a bottle if needed. We've tried lots of things but if anyone has something specific that worked for them I'd love to hear it!

We are enjoying our baby girl!

Books & Sleep

Well Miss Lydia, when I told you to sleep you listened. Thank you for sleeping 11 hours last night. Now lets work on that napping routine during the day!

Today Evan and I read 14 books in a row. When I say books, I don't mean short little baby board books, I mean BOOKS with real stories and characters. I love that he loves to read!

A couple more pictures to share...

My bathing cutie:

And all those books certainly give this boy an imagination...