Greenway

Last week E took a couple days off work, so Charlie and I headed over to her place since he loves her living room carpet (and oh yeah, so he could see his aunt too).

These pictures are just too cute so I couldn't pick just one. :o)

E sometimes walks Briley at a nearby Greenway, which is a 2 or 3 (or more?) mile loop around the McCabe golf course.  Part of it runs parallel to the train tracks.  I'd never been on it and was thrilled to get outside and moving after several days of rain.  We saw some walkers, runners, dog walkers, and bikers (and plenty of golfers) but it also kind of felt like we had it to ourselves.  Here are bunch of pictures from our lovely walk.

Pretty good protection from stray golf balls

 Thanks for a fun walk, E!

Bouncin'

Charlie is still LOVING his Exersaucer.  I don't know how we would survive without this thing!  We said that several months ago about his swing, but it now resides in the attic and Exersaucer is king.  Here he is a couple weeks ago:

And just the other day:

Giggles

Welcome to my Crib

Girlfriend?

Perhaps Charlie has a crush on an older woman?

Yesterday Chowning and her little girl Madelyn came to meet Charlie and we went for a walk so us mommies could catch up.  So nice (even though it was super hot) to see them, hope they come to visit from Atlanta again soon.

Bathroom Renovation

We're very happy with our plumber and think he did a great job on all the stuff that you don't see...but I wanted the stuff that we'd see and use everyday to look a little better too.  So we had a mini bathroom makeover!

As a reminder, we have a downstairs bathroom in the basement area but we really only use the bath on the main floor, so we really wanted it to be a little better than this:

 Old sink and old toilet.

 No storage space with this sink either.

 Ewwww

Poor old toilet kicked to the curb!

And voila!

We obviously had measurement restrictions, so I couldn't find a nice looking vanity that had drawers but at least we got a couple shelves to house toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc.

 And we got a new chair level commode.

 A lovely clean new faucet.

Ahhh, very nice.

Video of CQ Eating Peas

Please ignore my crazy baby talk. :o)

More Food for CQ

Charlie's new pediatrician advised us to introduce more veggies, so he's had some Peas lately.  Green beans and squash to follow next. Baby food is one messy event. Anyone have any tips for this? Special bibs? (forgot to use one for these pictures, big mistake) Bath right after? We did get this Graco high chair which has been great.


Look at this cutie all ready to eat!

Kitchen Complete

Setting up a house is a lot of work it turns out.  :)
Luckily we were able to hire some helpers (how in the world do people DIY kitchens?!) - the painters finished up yesterday afternoon so I can now show you our kitchen progress.  It's not completely done, but it's pretty darn close.




When we moved in back in July, we had a little L shaped counter top that actually prevented you from opening our new fridge all the way. 

 And you had to walk around the peninsula to access the drawers.

 So we decided to get rid of it.  Out it came.

Our thoughts were that we could just rotate it up against the wall, thus not losing any cabinet space, but also opening up the kitchen a little bit and making the fridge fully functional.

 We were hoping hard wood floors would be under there, too bad.

And with the cabinet rotated up against the wall, it made sense to have a new cabinet built to go above it, which would give us more storage space which we need.

The below floor picture was later patched up with a spare piece of linoleum, not perfect but better than this.

  Next was to get rid of the old counter top and sink.

A guy came from our granite place to whip up a template.  He used thin wood and a glue gun and had it done in no time.

 And a few days later he was back and installing it, along with a new under mount sink.

We also had an electrician come and do wiring for a new garbage disposal.  (the little hole to the top right of the sink is a push button for the disposal)

 And our plumber came to install our new faucet and get the garbage disposal working.

 And the painters finally came.  (Winnie!  You are not supposed to be on that table, bad kitty)

Our last task in here is to put in new cabinet and drawer pulls (we're one short, so we either need to find one or replace them all).  Finally getting there.

So really it was no big deal - just a carpenter, an electrician, a plumber, a granite installer, and a painter.  :-P  We hope to make many good meals in this kitchen and these improvements make the kitchen so much better.  I also have some before and after pictures of our bathroom which I'll show you soon. 

Have a fabulous holiday weekend!

**********

And a HUGE thank you to both my parents and Pat's parents for helping us make this project possible.  ($$$)