Laundry Room Floor

Remember when I mentioned that our water heater broke?  Since we had to move everything out of the way and clean up, we thought we would finally tackle the project of painting the laundry room floor.

When our water heater broke, we had to tear out some old and ugly carpet that we had been meaning to remove anyway.  Underneath we found several layers of peeling paint over raw cement.  We spent hours and hours scraping the paint off the floor and this is what it looked like right before we painted.

We decided to go with an epoxy garage floor coating.  The application process is so toxic that we had to spend the night at Gini and Eric's while it dried.  We told Grace it was a special sleepover and she loved it.  We were over there long enough for her to overcome her intense fear of dogs for a moment and pet their adorable American Eskimo.

And here is the after picture!  I love it!  It has little paint flecks in it that Jason had to sprinkle as he painted.  It was a lot of work but I think it was worth it!  

Onesie Peekaboo

Clara is saying "Gay!" as if to say "look at me big sister, I can peekaboo too!"

First Concert

Grace saw her first Symphony concert today!

It was a family concert so there were lots of other kids there.  She did a good job whispering and sitting in her seat.  The other kids around us where asking questions and Grace would turn around and inform them that it would be starting soon or whatever else they wanted to know.  They even had booster seats so that she could see!  

I had a stranger take our picture and Grace wasn't really into it, but I'm posting it anyway.

She really enjoyed watching Daddy and seeing where he works!  Daddy really enjoyed having her there too.  I think that Grace really did enjoy the music.  She seemed most bored when the conductor was talking in between pieces.  I had a piece of paper and a pencil and I drew circles for her to fill in when she was antsy.  She IS only two!  The anticipation may have been the best part.  At 8 am today she was begging to go to the concert!

9 Months Old!

Clara turned 9 months old 2 days ago!

She has nine teeth now, including one molar.  She has been in immense pain while it has been coming in.  She puts her hand in her mouth and winces in agony, and she doesn't nap for very long.  This has made it difficult to get things done in our house because she needs to be held constantly.  I recently googled "one handed recipes"! 

 She is still happy when we are able to distract her from her pain!  She loves being tossed in the air and games that involve running around the house, but those are quite exhausting.

She hasn't figured out how to crawl yet.  I thought she was so close because she rocks on her knees, but no forward motion yet!  She is dying to figure it out though, and I'm sure it will happen before too long.

Big sister never ceases to entertain!  Grace is really into nursery rhymes and songs right now, and she likes to sing to Clara.

Things have been a bit crazy here.  No I really mean it this time!  Jason is working a lot right now, I'm getting ready for the student recital, and then late last week our water heater exploded.  Our basement is now a mess, but more on that later.  Jason is in the middle of a basement clean up project now, and on top of that we tried to celebrate my birthday a little.  I think we may have to celebrate a little more when things calm down a bit!

Finally, a Snowman!

Grace and I were able to build a snowman today!

Grace received a book about Frosty the Snowman for Christmas, and ever since then she has been wanting to build a snowman.  You would think that would be easy here, but actually it is almost always too cold to have wet enough snow to pack.  I talked about it with some students today and some said they had NEVER built a snowman!  

We had lots of fun putting on the eyes, nose and other accessories that were made by a family friend.

I took for granted the wet snow we always had in my home town.  This snow was gone by the afternoon, but the snowman still sits in our yard for us to enjoy!

Our Valentines

They are so corny and we love them so!

Grace Sings the ABC's

Grace has been mastering some big girl things lately!  Potty training is going really well and she can also drink expertly from a cup!  She uses adult utensils and she stays in bed in the morning until her clock light turns green.  She loves to run into our room in the morning and announce that her light turned green!  She is turning into a little girl!  (a BIG girl, if you ask her!)