Her Baby Blues

I never dreamed I'd have a blonde hair, blue-eyed child. With dark hair and dark eyes being the dominant gene, I just assumed I'd win the DNA battle. I couldn't have been more wrong!

Yes...I'm going to brag about my baby's beautiful eyes. I'm her Mom, so I'm entitled to do that on occasion, right? :) I got this great picture of her, so now I'm going to share it and use it as an excuse to blog about her eyes! Everywhere we go, people always comment on her blue eyes. She got them from her Daddy, but hers are an even deeper blue than Dave's.

I think every set of eyes are unique and beautiful in their own way...but there's something about Andra's eyes that make my heart skip a beat. Maybe it's just because they're hers. Maybe it's because they reflect the man I love. Maybe it's because they're the most beautiful surprise I've ever seen.

Pirate Party!

Andra went to her boyfriend's birthday party this weekend. :) Katy is my friend and former college roomie. Her little boy, Tate, turned 1 year-old on Sunday. He had a pirate themed party, which was a hoot! Here's Andra going for a ride in Tate's Radio Flyer wagon. Tate's Grandpa took them for a spin around their giant yard. Andra was impressed with Tate's wheels!

This is Tate after diving into his chocolate cake! I LOVE watching one year-olds attacking their first birthday cake! Tate's grandpa literally hosed him down afterwards! If only we could all celebrate with such wreckless abandon! You gotta click on this picture so you can see him full size!

It's really hard for me to believe that Tate's one. Several of my girlfriends/my big sister were pregnant the same time I was, and Tate's birthday starts a series of first birthdays. It's hard to believe our little babies are one year old!

And finally, Andra posing as a pirate! A grumpy one from the looks of it. :)

Mini Makeover

Thank you, Mr. President, for paying for our little mini home makeover. We've fulfilled our duty as Americans and spent every last penny of our economic stimulus check. That was pretty cool...getting free money in the mail! (Dave reminds me it's not "free" because we pay taxes every day of our lives).

Yes, we should have done something really wise with that check, like put it in savings or in Andra's college fund...BUT...there's two major projects in our home we've been putting off for a LONG time.

Project 1. Un-doing Pudge's handiwork in our laundry room. About a year ago, we decided to let Pudge out of his crate on occasion when we'd leave the house, and just leave him in the laundry room instead. Bad idea. We came home to this giant hole in our laundry room linoleum (see below). We never liked the floor to begin with (it was there when we moved in), so Pudge decided he'd help us replace it a little sooner than we had planned. So here's our laundry room before....

And here's our laundry room after! Not bad, huh? We re-painted it a nice blue (I've always wanted a blue room!), had new linoleum put down, and Dave changed our light fixture.
 

But here's my favorite new feature. Check out our hook rack!! It really is the little things that make all the difference. Before, my purse, Andra's diaper bag, keys, etc. would always just be piled somewhere taking up space (usually on top of the washer/dryer). Now we have a handy place to hang everything! I love it!!! Eliminating clutter is very important to me. :) 
 

Project 2.  "W" paid for our entire family room to be carpeted. Halelujah!!!!!! Previously, it was linoleum "wood", which was pretty, but not very user friendly. The furniture would slide around on the linoleum every single time you sat down. And...with a baby, you spend a LOT of time on the floor. Sitting and rolling around on linoleum gets very old, very fast.. And now that Andra's crawling, she gets bruises on her knees from our hard floor. :(   So, at long last, we got carpet in our living room...and let me tell ya, it's SO much more comfortable now to hang out on the floor with Andra. 

So, thank you Mr. President, for the home makeover. I'd like to makeover my backyard now...can we have another check please? And lets double it this time. :)

Lake Day

Since we've only got Crystal for the summer, we're trying to soak up as much time as possible with her. She's back from her honeymoon now, so we all got together for a day at her family's lake cottage. Crystal and Shannon and I spent many lazy summer days at the cottage throughout our high school and college years (sigh...those beautiful days before the responsibilities of jobs and bills!), so it's always a little nostalgic going back there because of all the great memories. (I can ski thanks to Crystal!)

It was great getting to spend time with the girls (and we let the boys join us too). Andra seemed to have fun on her first trip to the lake too. She liked just floating in her new intertube and hanging out with her buddy Mady. All those swim lessons have paid off!

Just the girls also went out on the speed boat to ski and kneeboard, which we had to skip last summer since Shannon and I were both in our third trimesters! I was a little worried about skiing because it had been a couple years. But a couple face plants, water wedgies and giggle fits later (all which Shannon and Crystal got a good laugh out of)...I finally managed to get my sorry self back up on skiis and had lots of fun! We love you Crystal, and we love your lakehouse! :)

Run, Daddy, RUN!

Personally, I think Dave has lost his marbles. He's signed up to run the Disney Marathon in January. That's a full marathon, folks. As in 26.2 miles. We've heard if you're going to do a marathon, Disney is the one to do. It weaves through all the different parks and is supposed to have a really fun atmosphere.

So this is the view Andra and I get from our front window as Dave heads out on a run (I wasn't very fast with my camera!). If you look to the far right of the photo, you'll see him scooting along. He's crazy. But I'm very excited to have an excuse for a little warm weather vacation in January (at the expense of Dave's joints)!

I'm proud of him for even having the guts to sign up. I've done two half marathons, but a full one doesn't sound very appealing to me. The difference is, Dave says he truly ENJOYS running. It's fun for him. (bizarre, huh?) To me, running is penance for the extra calories I consume. :)

When Dave first signed up, he told me not to tell anyone, just in case he changed his mind. But I'm letting the secret out now so you can all encourage him when you see him. (plus, I think we've told most of the family already anyway!) Oh, and remind him he's crazy.

A fun 4th!

Shew...it's been a busy weekend! Andra's had a pretty eventful first 4th of July. No fireworks (I figure they'll terrify her at this point), but still lots of fun.

Dave was off for the holiday, so we took Andra on her first trip to the Children's Museum. They have a great exhibit that's perfect for toddlers, so we were anxious for her to try it out. There's one "obstacle course" area that's got padded everything--walls, floors, toys--if only our house were padded! Since she's crawling, she had fun climbing around on everything and showing us her latest trick: pulling herself to standing all by herself! yikes! It makes me nervous, but she seems pretty proud of herself. The second picture makes me laugh...it's the view we get a lot: Andra's crash landings! See her blurry feet? That's her falling. :) She's fine...love the everywhere padding!


Saturday we biked the Monon (thanks to our new SUV, newly equipped with a hitch and bike rack!!). The bike ride was 16 miles total! It was a blast. Andra rode in her bike trailer the whole time and seemed to have fun too. My rump's a little sore from the bike seat...guess I could use some extra padding too! I'm sure we'll bike that route again because we had a great time!

Sunday was our day to relax, but we managed to hit the pool as well. It's hot, free (gotta love the Y membership!), and Andra enjoys it--so we go whenever we can!

Here's a few pics from the weekend. She's more difficult to take photos of now. She used to just sit there, but now that she's on the move, she's always crawling toward me trying to snatch the camera!

"Gimme that camera, Mom!"