Happy Birthday Finley!

How quickly the last year has flown!!! In fact, it's flown by so fast it has taken me 3 weeks to post your "First Year in Review"!

July 19, 2008--you entered the world. You gave us a bit of a scare with your purplish color but you quickly proved that you were perfect in every way.


Your big sister loved to "snuggle" with you. And you smiled through it all (well most of it).


There was a trip to MN to visit friends and family.


You grew out of lots of things very quickly! (including bathtubs)


There was lots of "love".


And lots of dreams!


You were a willing participant in all of our weird antics, whether it was dress up or your parents eating you!





Sometimes you got fed up.


And sometimes you gave up.


You are showing us the world according to Fin.


But here and there you need a little help.


Happy Birthday Finley Maxine!


I hope you are having as good a time as we are!

The Good Life

i realize that
to move forward with the blog
i have to stop trying to catch up
and just sit
down
and write something

astounding.


anyway
there are something like 200 pictures on our camera.
they seem to document the last cold morning of spring
and the glorious mess of heat
and sticky
sunblock
melted
ice
cream
sweat
and
watermelon
mayhem
that is
summer

i will post a fraction of them

and hope they entertain...




Summer is here...




















Here are 3 photos Maya took
definitely a series...

A Fairy tale...

once upon a time there was a pair of princesses
who went for a walk
to the park
it was summer
one pushed the other
it was glorious

they laughed
and smiled
and played on the swings

they had new shoes

glory.





next up
the last day i remember
wearing a
coat on a
trip to the park
or being concerned
about the warmth of
either daughter

check out
Finley's
delicate fingers
holding on
to the
swing

and the
elegant curve of
her profile

you can tell
i love it
there are about a billion photos of it

check out
Maya
Her beautiful look of intense concentration
she is so playful
and so serious
so dynamic

i threw in a shot of
doctor director
because it is such a great shot of her
she looks amazing
and
you can see where
Maya & Fin
get that beautiful look of
intense concentration


one saturday morning
we stopped to watch a train
i was trying to guess
which one of these two girls
was gonna hop it first...

we all agreed...
trains are pretty cool.
























we've made a little progress on the deck

and we got
a pool

we are hoping the pool will be enough of a distraction
that we can make a
lot more progress on the deck...

Deck Update (again)

So we did more work on the deck this weekend. We had lots of help--the Vrtii (Bobby and Christy), the Reeveseseses (Bob, Natalie, Leo & Amelia) and finally Terrence. This process is taking forever and is stealing any semblance of my sanity.

Bob attacked the nasty, yucky bush.


Bobby, Christy and Danny finished moving the sod.


Leo and Maya got all gussied up.


Fin and Amelia "lounged".


And there was A LOT of drilling (into concrete).




Progress was made...but every step takes about six steps and 3 hours!!!

Fast forward to tonight. Danny and I decide that we are going to try and get the ledger board up ourselves. We get all the bolts in, expand the pre-drilled holes where we needed a bit of space and checked to see how level we were.

Lookee There!


Maya watched.


Then she dare-deviled.


Then Maya got up close and personal.


Fin watched "patiently" from the patio door.


As you can see...we got the ledger board up. All was going well until one of the bolts snapped. Clearly we have angered the gods with our deck building. Next step? I have no idea.

Deck Update / Documentation

Before / The Usual

Whew! So we got those first few boards pulled but then lost momentum due to parenting.

We, of course, had high hopes for the weekend. On Friday Danny and I spent some time at Jerry's getting prices and shopping lists. Fast forward to Saturday morning. I take the girls to Bounce while Danny stays home to work at demo'ing the deck. We get home to find about 3 boards and 1/2 the frame left. Danny was a rockstar and rewarded himself by sharing a popsicle with Maya!





We quickly realized that needed a truck (and soon). We had lots of debris and wood scraps filled with nails to get rid of before we could let Maya out to play. We also realized that we needed help. Danny called John and Elaine who jumped in their cars and headed down here to help. By the end of the day the truck was loaded with the old deck and ready to go to the recycle pile. It took a high-five from Fin as a final incentive!



Sunday morning the Thomases bring donuts and we go over our plans over breakfast. Danny and I run off to dispose of the old deck and get a yard and a half of gravel to level out the ground under the deck. Let me say that it was a lot of rock to shovel, load and dump!


We needed to get the truck back by 5:30 so we had to kick it up a notch and run off to Jerry's to get our supplies.
8 deck blocks
2 2x6x8
13 2x6x12
42 2x4x8
42 2x4x12
18 joist hangers
60lb bag of concrete
10lb of stainless steel screws
some flashing
a few lag bolts
and some Starbursts

Picking, loading and unloading the lumber was fun. (Read the sarcasm.) It feels great to know that we have the supplies at our house now we just have to find the time and energy! :)


We have a lot of work to "start"...but we'll get there (eventually).

Adventures in...

Decks!

We did it. Tonight we cleared off the deck and started pulling up boards...step one of operation deck rebuild! Timeline? Plan? Perhaps....ay, ay, ay!

Tonight we got about 1/4 of the boards. Hopefully we will do a bit more tearing out tomorrow and Friday night and then get a truck to go to the dump, get some fill (rock or dirt or something), and then a lumber run. Then, of course, at some point we will have to build the new one. We are thinking it will be 10 foot or 12 foot lengths so there will be minimal cutting which will be awesome.

Ugh...a necessity with Fin moving and grooving...but a bit overwhelming!

Goodnight Maya...

Tonight, during a very tempestuous bedtime extravaganza the following exchange was heard:

M: What's the anniverse?
D: Do you mean universe?
M: Yeah, universe.
D: Everything really.
M: Everything in the house?
D: Everything there is, everywhere.
M: Can I have my llama?
D: No
(insert Maya's sniffling and whining)
D: OK, fine. Who told you about the universe?
M: My llama.
D: What's your llama's name? Dahli?
M: No, Dahla but she tells me about the universe.

London Posts

I posted the first London blog (Days 0 & 1). I am going to post-date these entries so that they are chronological. Check the April sidebar on the right to check for any posts you haven't read.

Sorry these are slow in coming. It has taken a while to get the girls transitioned back 8 hours and Danny had a tech weekend this weekend. Hopefully things will slow down a little bit!