Painting Update

Yesterday afternoon, Lori came over to play with Elizabeth for a couple of hours so I could get some more painting done in the closets. Everything has one coat of paint and half of the closets have two. I painted until I ran out of paint, so it's back to The Home Depot I go! I think I'll need at least two more gallons, one just to finish all of the closets and the other to paint Elizabeth's room. I never thought I'd go through so much, three gallons used already! Since I'm out of white, I think I'll start in the guest bedroom with the wall color. That way maybe I can make one trip for more instead of going every time I run out of something. I don't have any pictures of the closets, yet, it's not that interesting!


I am posting some pictures of Elizabeth & Travis from the other day. We had just eaten and they were so full they just had to lay on the floor for a minute! There's also a picture of Elizabeth in her new dress Great Grandpa & Grandma Schigut gave her for her birthday. She wore it to church last Sunday and these pictures were taken at 7 a.m., so she wasn't really a happy camper about posing. This one is the only one where she wasn't crying and trying to leap off of the couch!

1 Year Well Child Appointment

Today was Elizabeth's one year check up. She weighs 19.12 pounds and is 28.5 inches long. She's in the 19th percentile for weight and in the 31st for height. A little less than average, but still good. It's not like Travis & I are big people anyway. The doctor said that she looks good and everything is normal. She received three shots today-Chicken pox, MMR & Hep A. She was not a happy camper, but shortly after it was over, she was okay.

Her next appointment is at 15 months in July! Hopefully, we won't have to see the doctor before then. We've just been so lucky that the biggest illness she's had has been one ear infection. I'm counting my blessings!

Gardening

Today, we spent close to nine hours in the garden! Elizabeth, my father-in-law & I finished planting everything except for two rows! Lots of work, but it feels good to be almost finished planting. We planted more corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, squash, cucumbers (slicing and pickling), turnips, Maxibelle beans (like a green bean), okra, black-eyed peas and crowder peas. Whew! I still have pumpkins to plant, but not until around the end of next month. My legs are sore!! I hope I can move in the morning.

Poor Elizabeth didn't get an afternoon nap and she was falling asleep in her high-chair as I was getting something for her supper. Sweet baby was so good today. A little fussy at times, but who wouldn't be when they're all cooped up in a play pen. Grandpa took her walking while I was planting and she's doing really well...she'll be walking in no time! She's also getting much braver at letting go of one hand while standing still and she'll take a few steps. I took some pictures, and I'll upload them later, but all I want to do right now is lay on the couch and watch TV for a few minutes before I crash for the night.

I hope you're all in the mood for fresh vegetables, because you never know, when I see you, I may have a bag for you to take home!

Rising River & Burning Brush

We didn't get tons of rain like some places North or West of us. We received roughly 9/10 of an inch. However, other places up the Guadalupe River received closer to 8" of rain. That means that the Guadalupe came over its banks by at least 8 feet! We drove around town and down some of the roads that Travis knew were in low-lying areas. We even drove through Riverside Park and took a couple of pictures.

They finally lifted our burn ban (even if it's most likely only for a couple of days or maybe weeks). There wasn't much wind this evening, so Travis took advantage of it and burned the three big brush piles we have in our back yard from all of the tree trimming. We still have a lot more to burn, but most of it is still lying around the back yard and has not been put into piles, yet. The fire was huge, but it burned quickly and within a few short hours, the fires were out and Travis was back inside. Elizabeth & I went outside to check it out for a little while before bath time.

Elizabeth loves helping me unload the dishwasher. It's just too bad she also loves sticking everything in her mouth. I guess for quality control! There are always a few things that get to go back in the dishwasher for round 2!

Right now, Elizabeth loves sitting on the couch with me. She'll crawl around everywhere on the cushions and stands up to look out of the window. We keep Llama the lamb on the couch and she just looked so cute playing with her that I had to take a picture. Yes, she is in her diaper. It's right before bath time, so she was cooling off from being outside.

*********************************************************

On another note, the cute little worm I thought was a caterpillar turns out to be an evil tomato eating worm. Travis's dad & I killed two of them while we were in the garden today. (Okay, he killed them. I almost accidentally touched one of them and got really grossed out. I'm not a big fan of bugs. Blick.) So, I hope this evil worm does not turn into a butterfly, but instead eats a poisonous plant and croaks. Sorry, but I have 200 tomato plants and I don't really want to lose them to a worm. We had to spray all of the tomatoes with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) to keep the worms off. Keep your fingers crossed that it works!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Our big girl turned 1!! (Yesterday...but last night, it was too late to post.) We started the day off with church and then a run to Target to get her present. Travis wanted to get her a xylophone and she loves it. I didn't even wrap it because before I could, she had gotten it out of the bag and was playing with it! At Target, I also needed a gallon of milk for her, and on the way to the grocery section, Travis saw these humongous boucing balls and said that we had to get her one! He isn't one for impulse buying, so the fact that he wanted to get it for her was a little funny. She loves that big thing! It's so cute watching her try to play with it on the living room floor, because mostly it rolls away from her before she can get ahold of it.

We set up a table for her cake. These are the pillar candle holders that were used on my cake table at the wedding that I just filled with legustrum sprigs and Texas Mountain Laurel branches. They turned out pretty for just using what was in our yard.

The ladybug cake for our little ladybug!

The ladybug is sitting in some grass among the flowers. They're either teeny tiny flowers, or I made a giant ladybug! The cake plate comes off of the base and you can wind the base up and it plays the Happy Birthday song as it spins around. It's really neat!

Her birthday loot. She also can't get enough of balloons! She'll laugh forever once you get her swating at them.

Singing happy birthday to our sweet girl.

Playing with Lori and the little ball that Uncle James gave her. It has all of the Disney ferries on it. He's very in tune with what his little God-daughter would like. (Haha! I do believe someone went shopping for him! Same with Uncle Matt...he got her some cute clothes and little tennis shoes, but I bet he hadn't even seen them, yet!!)

It's just not a party, though, if your refrigerator doesn't quit working! Travis & James pulled out the fridge and figured out what was wrong with it. Luckily, it was the "first" thing and not the "second". The "first" was a broken part that could be replaced fairly cheaply. The "second" was an expensive part which means buying a new refrigerator, because it cost almost as much as a new one!

Here's Mom, Travis's dad, Lori & Stephen playing with Elizabeth. Teaching her to climb up onto the coffee table. Thanks! :) Things I'll have to undo later!! Luckily, she can't quite do it by herself, so maybe she'll just forget about it...

Elizabeth had a really nice birthday party thanks to everyone who showed up and gave gifts! Now if I could only convince her to start walking!

And The Wall Came Crumbling Down!

Yes, yesterday Travis removed the rest of the planter box that was plaguing our entry way. Of course, Elizabeth supervised. It already looks so much bigger and better!

Here's the planter box before:

And after:

Elizabeth was watching Daddy to make sure he was doing a good job! When Travis was working, we had to put her in her walker to watch. She wanted to eat all of the bricks and was getting in the way when the hammer was going!

Since the ceilings in the bedrooms are finished, we were able to put the fan blades back up. We turned the fan blades over in all three rooms, because the side not being used looked much better. As always, Elizabeth wanted to help!

We also moved in our dressers to get our clothes out of boxes and off of the floor and a couch to sit on. I think Travis was getting tired of watching TV on the floor! I'm pretty sure Elizabeth is heading for a job in management because, there she was, making sure Daddy was using the vacuum cleaner right and getting all of the icky bugs!

Where did she go?

Aaaahhh! Help, I'm stuck.

Ooo, a zipper!

I've got pretty much everything ready for the party tomorrow. I iced her cake, but didn't want to post any pictures of it until tomorrow. Blick, just to think, a year ago today I was in labor and the doctor said that I would have a baby by morning. Just so you know, it wasn't morning...it was the next night!! I thought someone told me the memories of labor and delivery fade, I guess it takes longer than a year! :)

Almost 1

Elizabeth turns one on Sunday and we're planning a small family get-together for that afternoon. This week, I've been trying to get ready for the big day. Menu planning, grocery shopping, cleaning...the week has flown by and I at least feel like I'm making progress. I'll start on some of the food prep tonight. I don't want to be stuck in the kitchen while everyone else is partying!!

Besides getting ready for the party, life has been just plain busy...I know everyone's is. We haven't done much more painting since Travis has been out of town all week and I've been trying to keep up with everything. The garden looks good. I haven't taken many pictures lately, but we've put up strings on the tomatoes to keep them up off of the ground, we've been continually picking poppies so they don't blow over into the ground, we've got little potatoes forming (they're about the size of golf balls right now), greens are picked every few days, lettuce gets picked once a week or so, and what's left of the peas since the deer ate kept eating them need to be picked again, too. We have green beans 2-3" tall coming out of the ground, some of the okra has sprouted and more will be planted soon. We've also planted half a row or so of "Roma" beans. They're basically the same thing as a regular green bean, they're just flat. You cook them the same way. We've got 24 "hills" of different types of squash & zucchini planted and the seedlings are about 1" tall. Watermelon, cantelope, cucumber, and pumpkin all still need to be planted. I'm going to try to get to that this coming week.

Keeping up with the garden keeps me plenty busy and sometimes until late, so I've been a little sporatic with my posting. Now that I have a dedicated office set up, it'll be much easier to do better.

Yesterday, Elizabeth & I were outside walking to move the sprinkler on the pecan trees when we noticed this little guy:

I hope he turns into a beautiful butterfly. (I think it's a caterpillar...)


Today, I took out Elizabeth's infant car seat and put her new one in. I know they recommend 2 years facing backwards, but it's not a law and I feel bad that she's always looking at the seat when we're in the car. She's still too little to see out of the window, but she can at least see inside of the car and us now!

Time has flown! She's not quite walking, yet, but it won't be too much longer! She's such a little rat, but I wouldn't trade her! :)

A Second Coat

We're almost finished with the second coat of paint on all of the trim in the bedrooms! Thanks to Travis and his dad, we only have a little bit of trim to paint in the master bath. Tonight, Travis & I went around all of the bedrooms for what will hopefully be one last time filling holes and cracks that we missed or that just need to be re-done. We also caulked any of the baseboards that needed it; mostly in the closets because at first we didn't think we needed to do it in there. However, it looks tons better since we did. I'll be much happier with it now. Tomorrow, I'll finish the last of the trim and start painting the closets white.

Travis is also getting ready to put up our antenna pole. Hope it won't be too windy!

Elizabeth hasn't been doing just too many cute things. She does like to mimic daddy's noises, which is funny. She's not walking yet, I don't even know if she's getting close, but she's getting really heavy to carry around, so I hope walking is in her near future. I'll have to check her horoscope! :)

I hope everyone has a good week!

Catching Up...

More like trying to keep up! After our hurried move into the new house, it took us a week and a half to clean everything and get rid of the skunk smell. Since the skunk incident happened, we had to put re-painting the bedrooms on hold until everything was cleaned. I just started painting again last Friday. All of the trim in the bedrooms has one coat of paint and I just started the second coat last night. I think the second coat should go much faster. Then there's still the walls to paint, but that'll be nothing compared to all of the trim!!

Until the bedrooms are finished, we're all living in the living rooms. Lori & I set up Elizabeth's crib over spring break and Elizabeth was so excited to see it that she played inside of the "walls" while we screwed it all together. Funny. She must have been really excited, because once we had it all together and the mattress in, she wanted to get in and actually took a nap! I can't blame her...the play pen did look like it was getting a little cramped.

I've still got 'skunk washing' to do. Mainly sheets I'm not using, clothes we've outgrown, maternity clothes, and good-will stack. Oh, and our couch still smells. Travis has been gone a lot and I can't move it out by myself, so it's having to air out in the laundry room. This could take awhile.

We don't have internet here at the house either. I'm on Travis's work computer which is sometimes pretty darn slow because it's a Cingular wireless card that doesn't always get good service in the house. So I don't dare try to upload a picture! I do have lots of pictures, but will have to post them later. I stray from the subject. The internet guy came by Tuesday the 24th and said that we will need a really tall pole to get over all of the stinkin' trees to get a clear shot to the tower. I'm all for cutting down a tree, but Travis, mmm, not so much. But then again, as he says, I come from the land of no trees. So we suspended our service, which they don't normally do, and they will only do that for two weeks before they drop our service. If you think about it a second, that means that by this Tuesday, we need to have a pole up and ready for the guy to put the dish thingie up. Do you think that's happened. No, that's right.

I've also been working in the garden when I can. Recently, I've planted (with help!) the pepper transplants, and have seeded contender green beans, okra, zucchini, & squash. Travis & I planted some more corn and we've gotten a much better stand this time. There's too much bark in the mulch we brought in, so things aren't coming up as well as we'd like.

As I mentioned, Travis has been gone on a lot of day trips lately. It's starting to be his busy time with putting out studies and spraying weeds. It's never a good time to have a skunk spray under your house, but this skunk couldn't have picked a worse time! We're finally seeing some normalcy...mainly just because crazy busy is our normal!