Easter 2012

  We had a great family Easter.  Easter is one of our favorite holidays.  

  Here we are dying Easter eggs.  

 

 

  Check out those hands!

 

  Hazel enjoyed opening her Easter present from Grandmommie.

 

 

Ta da!

    Of course, we had an Easter egg hunt, too.  Hazel had a bad experience with the Easter bunny at the mall.  When we told her that the Easter bunny had come in last night and lost a bunch of his Easter eggs, she was not at all sure that she wanted to get out of bed.  She told Mommy to help him find the eggs, then Daddy.  We then convinced her that her new bunny stuffed animal she'd gotten really attached to her had snuggled with her all night in bed and wasn't scary.  At that point, she was ok with the idea.

  

   Rockin' Elmo had this particular purple egg.

 

  Here's Hazel with her full Easter basket.

 

  The special golden egg was hidden under a lovey in her bed.

  The prize for the golden egg was a new baseball set.  Hazel's really been into baseball lately.  We played it at Grandmommie's house, and I think she's always remembered it from there.

 

  It is amazing how observant Hazel is.  She must have seen someone pound the "home plate" before taking a swing several months ago.  Now she won't hit the ball, nor let you hit the ball, unless you've pounded the ground first.

 

 

Nancy and I really get into Easter as well, even if Hazel isn't interested in the particular activity.

  Here are Nancy and I making "Risen Rolls."   They are crescent rolls filled with a buttered-and-sugared marshmallow.  The marshmallow represents Jesus Christ and the roll represents the tomb.  You bake it in the oven and the marshmallow disappears, just like the Resurrection.

 

Demo-licious

We had a water leak in the guest bathroom.  We also were not fans of the seashell wallpaper.  In order to solve our problems, we decided to demolish the guest bathroom.

First, a picture of what the bathroom looked like before we bought it:

The cleverly placed wastebasket to the left of the toilet is covering some wallpaper that had lost its adhesiveness.  That should have been a clue that there was water damage back there, but our home inspector didn't catch it.  We will be sure to research good inspectors next time.

I haven't been doing a great job with before and after pictures, so I decided to take a picture of the bench seat by the bathtub before I got too far into demolishing it.

 

If you look along the bottom right, the dark, discolored area was damp to the touch.  I thought we had an exterior water leak from the window or block.  We even had a general contractor who works for our homeowners' association come out.  He agreed.

 

This is what was lurking behind that waste basket.  I'd already cut out a section of drywall, but you can see the mold and water damage to the right of it.

 

Here it is after I removed the bench seat.

 

Our house is supported by metal beams rather than wooden two-by-fours.  Here are the rusted beams supporting the bench seat and the damp left bench seat wall.

See ya later bench seat!  After removing the toilet, I discovered the problem: the toilet flange and wax gasket that connect the toilet to the waste line were broken.  Every time you flushed the toilet, some of it would not go out, but would seep under the tile, bench seat, and vanity.  Gross. 

Here's the finished view of that wall.  The vanity, toilet, mirror, and bench seat are all gone.  The pink on the wall is insulation that I haven't finished removing yet.

 

The miracle of this whole project is that Justin was able to remove almost all of this while Hazel slept.  She never woke up, either at night or during her Saturday nap!

Now, the question is what to do with this space, particularly the bench seat area.  We're open to suggestions!

Grandee and Big Daddy's House

For President's Day Weekend, we went to Justin's Uncle Pete and Aunt Deena's house in Ocala.  We had so much fun.  We wanted to share some of the highlights that we caught on camera, though there were many more we missed.

Hazel engaged in some good ol' fashioned singing time with Aunt Deena, a/k/a Grandee.

Grandee also pulled out all of the stops for a tea party.  There was the tea hat, a scarf, ceramic or porcelain tea set filled with real white grape juice, a sugar cup with sugar, and a freshly polished silver spoon.  Hazel did a remarkable job pouring the juice into her cup and drinking it, and Aunt Deena and Uncle Pete did a remarkable job of not minding when it spilled all over the table.

Here is more dress-up in front of the mirror.

We stayed in their guest house, which was so nice.  Hazel enjoyed a nice swim in the oversize sink basin.

Aunt Deena had made bows and arrows for a Thanksgiving celebration.  We had a distance firing competition, and Hazel collected our arrows after every round.

We all played catch out back.  I need to get a new mitt, because that sure was fun.

The culmination of the tea party occurred the next day, when Hazel was allowed to invite her friend Aberdeen and one other doll to tea outside.  I don't know if you can see the mini-cheesecakes on the table, but they are there, too.

Things got a little bit out of control when Aberdeen had too much tea to drink.

Thanks for having us, Uncle Pete and Aunt Deena!  We can't wait to come see you again!

MLK Vacation to Grandmommie's

For Martin Luther King Weekend, Justin and Hazel flew to Grandmommie's house.  We had so much fun playing with Grandmommie.  Hazel got all of Justin's old matchbox cars and piled them on her crib, then climbed underneath so that she could play with the ones that had fallen down.

Grandmommie also helped Hazel get pretty with all of her necklaces!

We love you Grandmommie!

Go Red Team!

The other day, I came home and Nancy and Becky were both wearing red shirts with black pants.  I wanted to join the red team too, so I dressed likewise.  We had a pizza party to celebrate and watched our favorite show together, Once Upon a Time.

Becky, we miss you!

Hazel The Chef

Becky got Hazel a great chef outfit to go along with her new kitchen she got for her birthday.  Hazel really likes cooking.  She has even found that the apron makes a great dancing dress for twirling.

For Hazel's 2nd birthday party in Tamarac, we made pizza roll-ups.  Hazel's favorite part was spreading the cheese.

Here is the finished product, with a birthday cake decorated by Becky and Nancy.

Handy Manny: The A/C Edition

Justin has been working on some handy projects.  The whole family pitched in and spray painted the patio aluminum screen frames so that they look sharp and black, then Justin put in new screens.

We also had a lot of water damage in our air conditioning closet, so Justin tore out the old drywall and installed new drywall and baseboard.  We don't have a true "before" picture to show how ugly the old, delaminated and waterstained drywall was, but here's a picture after Justin had taken out the drywall:

Here's a picture of the finished product:

Now we have a gigantic, new air conditioner that fills the entire closet, so it was a great place for Justin to learn (no one will ever see the mistakes!).