Recent Happenings

I've got a lot for you today!

1.  Last Thursday I went to see my friend Kristen and meet her cute little boy Cullen.  I hadn't seem Kristen in several years, but we've known each other since we were little girls on summer swim team.

Cullen is 8 months old but about the same size as CQ.  They were so cute together!

 We were having such a great time visiting that I kind of lost track of time...

2.  But we made it to the airport and picked up Paul who had flown in for a long weekend.  Charlie had a lot of fun with his Grandpa. 

3.  Paul and Charlie hung out on Friday while I took Pat to get his second infusion.  The process of going to the hospital takes about 5 hours with blood work and meeting with his doctor.

But the actual infusion is about 3 hours.  This is a typical setup:  Pat in one chair and me in the other.

4.  That night I joined my sister, Mark, and Cousin Rachel for an 80s night to benefit the W.O. Smith school.  (they offer music lessons for 50 cents) 

There was a great band that played numbers like "Jessie's Girl" and a bunch more. 

5.  Saturday afternoon our friends Eugene and Kate came over.  Kate had made Russian food for us!  Yum!  Great to see them - and they got a puppy, so hopefully we'll go meet her soon.

6.  Splash time in the bath! 

Don't you touch the duckie. 

7.  Paul helped us tackle a couple house projects, like installing a new shower head and fixing our front porch light.  This has been out for a couple months now and after I had tried new bulbs with no luck, we needed a new fixture.   My parents stopped by yesterday afternoon with some baked brie and we went for a walk (and Dad's arrival meant I no longer had to help with the light, score)

Charlie really wanted to help the boys out there.  Too cute! 

We had a great weekend and Pat seems to be doing alright.  I know his treatment is supposed to be cumulative, but it really seemed like he felt better this weekend than he did after his first treatment.

Recent Happenings

1.  Pat and his Dad cleaned the gutters on Paul's last day here.

 Charlie and I looked out the back window during this process.

2. Charlie used a plate for the first time.  As he didn't want to leave it flat, you can imagine most of the food fell off. 

 But he managed to get some of it in his mouth.

He is LOVING his finger foods.

3.  Speaking of eating, Charlie had a guest at dinner the other night.  (Sophie the giraffe)

4.  We're starting to put on the winter layers.  Some days have been quite warm, but some chilly. 

5.  And most of all, Charlie's new favorite activity is standing/climbing (besides eating of course)

"Look, one handed"

At first he would climb up and be unable to get down unassisted, or without a bonk on the head, but he's figured it out for the most part now.

Really, he's trying to climb on everything (do you see Winnie'e eyes back there?) 

And lastly, Pat and I recently got the news that two dear sets of friends are expecting and we couldn't be happier!! I won't mention names yet in case they haven't been able to tell everyone yet.  But YAY!

Purse Project

We are so excited to host my In Laws in Nashville for Thanksgiving this year. Kate has never seen our house and the last time she was here was over 4 years ago for our wedding. It'll be great to get to show them a little more of our city and just enjoy family time. So the countdown has begun - two weeks until they arrive and I have plenty to do around the house. This is just motivation to get things looking good. :)

Being a woman, I have purses. I have many purses. They seemed to clutter up our bedroom (in addition to my shoes and clothes) but one thing at a time. I figured I could keep them visible (and thus letting me use them more often) if I hung them on the wall. I have a small closet so this was my solution. Charlie and I hit up Home Depot today and came home with a couple of these for about $10 a pop:

I got out Pat's drill and measuring tape and level and got to work.  I almost waited for Pat to get home so he could do it, but I figured I could tackle it on my own.

 It goes behind our bedroom door so it's not visible when the door is open.

 Testing it out. Yay!

And I put the second one directly below it since one clearly isn't enough. ;-)

And the door still opens fine.  Success!

Are you doing any projects this weekend?

New Shutters

We got a couple new shutters installed on Friday. We had a beach towel hanging up over the bathroom window for privacy, but I am sure happy that is gone now.  And we also now can have a little privacy in our living room.

Living Room Before:

I do love that it's a huge window and lets in lots of light, but since it is so big you could really see into our living room at night from the street, especially now that we have the new ceiling light.

And now, tada!  Still lets in lots of light and I can still enjoy watching people walk, run, or bike by and spot the mail man. :)

But we can shut it up at night and watch The Tudors without people thinking we are watching something else, if you know what I mean. 

Bathroom Before - sorry no picture of the beach towel:

And the new little bathroom shutter.  We just got the cafe height, which should do the trick.

I need to touch up the paint where the two little hooks had to be removed.

These shutters make us very happy...I was very pleased with the salesperson and the installer from Advantage Shutters.  It took about a month from the time we got them measured to the time they were installed and they were made right here in middle Tennessee.  Advantage has measurements for our dining room window, so we'll  hopefully have them do that window sometime in the future.  But for now I figured we could live with the curtain we have hanging.

We also think we selected a carpet for the downstairs play room on Friday night.  We are marking stuff off our list!  Hope everyone has enjoyed the weekend so far!