Just a BlinkProof Time Flies

Do-It-Yourself

We are deep in the midst of giving our main level a face lift.  Thanks to my father-in-law (fil) Phil our new flooring is installed! It is so much better than the previous dirty carpet. [That will be his new blog name, Fil Phil.] It is so fun to see plans spring into realities.

We are over time, over budget and overwhelmed. We’ll manage but I can tell that I have some heart work to do as I seem to be fumbling a bit with my patience and grace during this challenge.

Kids

Meanwhile, my little guy just turned 4! We had a doughnut breakfast around a patio table in the middle of the living room to celebrate. His Super Hero party will be coming when I can have a tool-free floor again.

Kitchen

This morning I botched a double batch of apple oatmeal cookies I was going to send to Texas. What? Who knew that 1 cup of baking soda is not the same as 1 tsp.? Yikes!

Yes, that is my refrigerator in the living room.  So technically this is a picture of my kitchiving room.

Decorating

I moved my dresser into the kids room and made a mock diaper station on the top. Nice move. No pictures yet because it’s “nap” time which really is more like WW 3 this afternoon. We are going on 45 minutes of battle…still no quietness from either of them. Geesh!

Things I want to do but it might be too late (too cold):

• Paint a rehab dresser and place it in my room.
• Re-purpose a office hutch topper into a toy storage unit for the new living room.
• Fix up a $5 (garage sale find) bookcase for all the littering kids books reproducing in my home!

Sneak peek at my dresser rehab.

Bin-a-Week is making a cameo in the background.

That’s us lately. Have a good weekend.

In January 2008 Peter and I joined a small group from First E-Free Church, Minneapolis. We meet about 2-3 times a month and share a babysitter to study God’s word and have fellowship time with other people from our church. This turned out to be a great way to grow in our faith, strengthen our marriage and bond with new friends. Jeremy and Becki Kobielish; Ted and Kimber Carter; Corey and Jessica Sanborn and Doug and Beth Brown.

Over the summer months we are taking a break from our meetings but we got together for a BBQ at the Carter’s house on June 29, 2008.

It just happened to be Molly’s Birthday so we brought cupcakes for dessert.

Molly took a break to flip through some books on a miniature sized easy chair.

Ryan absolutely loves watermelon. I think he ate about 5 or 6 pieces. He is just like his parents!

We had a great time letting the kids play around as we enjoyed the nice summer breeze from the screen porch. For more photos visit the Flickr set!

I find myself saying “It’s like we are on vacation” during times of unexpected enjoyment or new fun activity.

Tonight was such a night.

The four of us went to Culver’s for my birthday dinner at my request. After our meal together we stopped at Kelley Park in Apple Valley. The park has pretty fountains, walking paths and fun equipment. Ryan loved bouncing around on the bouncy play-turf ground covering and braved the fireman pole. Molly went down slide after slide. She taught herself to lean back to go faster and put her shoes down on the slide to go slower.

The weather was an ideal mixture of coolness from breeze and warmness from sun. I felt happy that such a simple birthday evening could be so satisfying.