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!).

Happy Anniversary!

Nancy and I celebrated the anniversary of our first date this week.  It was 4 years ago this week.  On our first date, we went to a park and had a picnic lunch of lunchables, then went shopping at Sam's Club to co-ordinate purchases for a church event we were planning, then watched a movie.  This year, Becky watched Hazel while we went to 3 Mountains Park near our house (they are mountains for S. Florida, at least).  We had lunchables and then went to Walmart to buy some things so we could do some service.

It was a great anniversary and I look forward to them every year forever!

Now:

Then:

Livin' Large

We are now living on a budget.  I know it seems like we would have been living on a budget the whole time Justin was in school, and we did, but it's never quite so real as when you receive bi-weekly paychecks versus large student loan lump sums.

Anyway, we've gotten creative about furnishing our house.  We saw this great cabinet down the road from our house that someone was throwing/giving away.  We tried to fit it into Becky's car, then our car, but to no avail.  Finally, after stepping on everything we own that rolls in search of something to roll it down the street, we finally decided to take Hazel's pull trailer for bike rides.  It worked!  And now we own a lovely new cabinet that we're going to use to put our TV on.

A quote from the president of our church, President Monson:

"If you are concerned about providing financially for a wife and family, may I assure you that there is no shame in a couple having to scrimp and save. It is generally during these challenging times that you will grow closer together as you learn to sacrifice and to make difficult decisions. Perhaps you are afraid of making the wrong choice. To this I say that you need to exercise faith. Find someone with whom you can be compatible. Realize that you will not be able to anticipate every challenge which may arise, but be assured that almost anything can be worked out if you are resourceful and if you are committed to making your marriage work."  Link: http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/priesthood-power?lang=eng

Nancy's Chicken Baby

Nancy really wanted a baby.  Even as a little kid.  Her family tells stories about her carrying around frozen chickens as "babies" that she'd play with.

That doesn't have anything to do much with these pictures, except that I'm going to talk about (1) chicken, and (2) babies.  I just think it's a cute story.

We've had running comparisons on our blog between Hazel and Justin and Nancy to see who she looks like at various times.  We gave Hazel her first chicken leg the other day, and immediately I remembered we had a picture of Nancy just like it.  So here's another "Who's that baby" comparison:

Nancy clearly got into chicken more than Hazel, but no matter what, such cute babies!

Cruisin'!

Justin's Mom and Dennis gave us a great graduation present: money for a 5 day cruise!  Justin's Dad also gave us graduation money that helped with the cruise. 

We sailed on the Carnival Fascination. We had such a nice, relaxing time. Justin never naps, but even he was a "nap leader" who started naps on the cruise.  We read books for pleasure, and saw fun shows on the boat, like a Latin dance routine and a comedy hour.  We also became "sophisticated" by watching an art auction and learning about some contemporary artists.

Here is a towel pig.  Every night we were treated to a towel animal in our room.  I think the pig was my favorite.

Key West was our favorite port of call.  We walked for about 4 hours.  We went to the Southernmost Point, visited a beach, saw "downtown," and walked by the cemetery.  Some of the gravestones were really humorous: 

• "X - Dig Here." ;
• "If you are reading this, you desperately need a hobby." ; 
• "I always wanted a small place in Key West"

We also stopped in Nassau, but didn't feel safe and were harried by the street vendors, so we didn't stay off the boat long.  One guy gave us "free" necklaces as a "welcome" present and attached them to our necks, then said he accepted donations, but I told him we had no cash (I intentionally left all valuables behind), so then he took off the necklace and said he'd hang on to them for us for when we came back.  Right.

Hobbies

This summer, we have had more free time than at any other time in our adult lives, especially Justin.  He had no studies and no work from the time he took the Bar on July 27 until his job starts on September 15.  That gave us the time to work on crafts and hobbies.  Here are some of the highlights:

1) Hazel's Caterpillar

Grandmom has sheets for Hazel's bed that we really liked. In particular, there was this caterpillar that caught our eye.  Whenever we have another kid, the kids will share a room, so we wanted a gender-neutral decoration that would work whether we had a boy or girl.  Caterpillars fit the bill for us.

Here was our inspiration:

And here is the finished product:

Nancy and her Mom painted the circles and the letters.  We chose colors based on the fabric you see at the bottom of the picture.  They also took that fabric and turned it into curtains for Hazel's room.  I wish I had pictures of the curtains in all of their glory (they are really good), but we've already packed them for our move.  We'll post pictures of it once we decorate our new house.

2) Kindle Cover


I got the greatest Father's Day present in history: an Amazon Kindle.  I loved that thing (I'll explain the past tense in a minute).  I could read all kinds of classics, and started my first pleasure reading since high school.

I was worried, though, that I would scratch to screen of my Kindle, so I found a pattern online to make a cover. I had to recall my Home Economics class from middle school, but with Mom's help, I was in business.

The finished product had an elastic band that held it together, and then tri-folded so that it could stand upright by itself or fold flat for reading.

Here's a link to the pattern.

Unfortunately, my Kindle cover, though awesome, was not enough to protect the Kindle when I drove off with the Kindle on my roof.  Hazel had a diaper disaster at church which involved poop and a diaper not being on her anymore, so I was distracted when I loaded my mostly naked baby back into her car seat for the drive home. See ya later Kindle.  I'm trying to scrap together money from online surveys and other online gimmicks to buy a new one (because that money seems like it's not really money since it's not coming from my job).

3) Couponing


Our friend Janelle taught us how to coupon this summer.  We're serious about it now.  Look out Ft. Lauderdale grocery stores when we get there!

Here is our first success.  We bought all 4 of these boxes of cereal for 98 cents.  Alright, true, no one likes Reese's Puffs, but we went on the last day of the sale, so our options were limited.  And now after eating 4 boxes, I can report I like it quite a bit.

4) New Bedroom Set

Another big project was refinishing a bedroom set we had.  This was Marcus's set as a kid (Nancy's dad).  All of it was rather brown and battered.  The set consists of a dresser, vanity, and a full-sized headboard and footboard.

This project took a few weeks and was a real team effort.  In fact, all of these projects were team efforts - we couldn't have done them without Mom and Dad's help.  Kathy and Marcus sanded down some of the pieces before we came for the summer.  We finished sanding them, then put a few coats of black paint and few coats of polyurethane.

As you can tell, it's really shiny.  A bit more than we wanted, really.  But we worried that the paint would feel "sticky" if it ever got wet, and we wanted something smooth.  We got it.  This thing is like a boat: it is so slick and water resistant.

Here's the vanity, without the mirror piece installed.

We also had to modify the full-sized headboard and footboard to fit our queen sized bed.  Justin got some 2x4's and cut them to fit our bed, and then attached the headboard and footboards to the new frame.  We'll post pictures of it all together once we move in.

5) Cedar Chest

This cedar chest came from some distant relative of Nancy's.  He passed away a long time ago, so this chest is pretty old.  It was covered with an ugly, chipped veneer.  Marcus and Justin struggled to remove it with power sanders, because the glue and veneer kept gumming up their sandpaper.  Eventually, we just took a planer to it and removed the wood layer by layer.

In order to avoid the hyper-shiny look of the bedroom set, but to still provide protection and a rich look, we used a matte finish polycrilic to finish it.

This is the back.

Here is the front.  One of the more difficult parts of the project was the small moulding trim around the lid.  I had to cut it to fit, and getting the angled cut was hard for me.  Then I had a problem using the nail gun to attach the trim to the lid without pushing the trim out of line or having a nail stick out into the air.  But I figured it out in the end.

Happy Birthday Grandmom!

Summer is a big time for birthdays in our family.  We went to Gulf Breeze around Justin's Grandmom's birthday.  Hazel would run back and forth from the couch and Grandmom and jump on Justin, or throw balls to Nancy.

For Grandmom's birthday present, we weeded the side bed outside the glass door.  Then we went to Lowe's and got some purple and yellow plants for her.  The man at Lowe's was so nice - he gave us half off everything after I said it was for my Grandmom's birthday.

Grandmom and Granddad share the same birthday.  So while we were there, we also brought new flowers for Granddad's grave.

Bahw! Ball!

It is no secret that Hazel loves balls.  She can almost say "Ball," but it always comes out more like "Bahw!  Baw!"

In July, we stayed with Aunt Terri at her beautiful new home in Estero while Justin took the Bar Exam.  A neighbor had this huge ball floating in his pool, and Hazel spied it from Aunt Terri's back yard.  So Aunt Terri went next door and asked if we could borrow it.  Hazel had the best time playing with that big ball.

Faceplant into the ball.  Hazel likes to kiss or blow up things that are like balloons.

This is a fun game that Nancy created.  Hazel got tickled pink whenever we'd roll the ball over her.

Here we are relaxing and playing - this was the night I got home from the Bar exam.  What an ordeal!  About 4000 people in the biggest room imaginable scrambling to get the right answers over 2 days.

Happy Birthday Nana!

We travelled to Tallahassee for Justin's mom's birthday (Nana). Hazel made her an abstract ink painting. It now hangs proudly on Nana's fridge.

While we were there, Nana also gave Hazel some computer training :)