We apologize for the several-week delay in new posts. Our internet connection wasn't what it could have been for a while, and then we moved, and we're just getting settled, although there are tons of boxes to unpack and huge piles of cardboard to recycle or trash, or whatever.
Although everyone's seen photos of our new house, we have taken a few more since we've moved in. We've made a few changes already, and have lots of things we'd like to do. We painted Gabriel's nursery - it was a team effort - and finally bought him a crib with his birthday money, and we hung a plane mobile. We still have to paint clouds on the ceiling, but that won't be hard to do once we get the paint.
Nick replaced the kitchen faucet and sprayer, and it looks awesome. The sprayer is pretty strong, but it sure gets the job done! Outside the breakfast area, we hung a birdfeeder, but it kept getting knocked down somehow when our backs were turned, so we eventually left it down and hung a heavier hummingbird feeder. Since then, our little hummingbird friend has been visiting every morning. This morning was the first time we got to see him actually eat from the feeder.
There are lots of birds, mostly of the jay family. The other day, one little sparrow tried to get into the family room. It kept knocking on the door, or so it sounded. We finally turned around to see what the commotion was, and it flew away.
We have begun stripping the wallpaper in the guest bathroom downstairs. We walked in the other day looking for Gabriel, who'd wandered off, and he was in there using the peeler! Of couse we grabbed the camera and took the photo above. He must have really paid attention to his mommy stripping wallpaper, because we sure didn't show him how to do it. It's really slow going, so we're going to rent a steamer from Home Depot tomorrow to see if that helps. We're going to take away the mauve and paint it a nice khaki color. We're going with sort of an early American palette - classic colors.
Patty's mom just got here today and will be here for a week. We're really excited and grateful that she came here so we can get some things done, and also just because we're happy she's here.
Yesterday, we went to World of Gymnastics, where Matt's aunt Yolanda and uncle Chris work. We went so that Gabriel could play on the trampolines and inflatables, but Mommy and Daddy ended up having all the fun. We jumped into foam pits, climbed rock walls, did flips on high bars and trampolines, and even used a pommel horse trainer. It was really, really fun.
We've put a bunch of our photos online, rather than take up space on this page. They can be found here. We've titled each one to give a clue as to where and when it took place. There are pictures of a variety of things, including our new car - a Jeep Liberty, and a couple rooms in our house that were recently changed.
The only other thing we didn't talk about was Chip's birthday party. We had a really great time, and it went really well. Thanks to our family, the house looked beautiful and as though we'd been here for a while, and thanks to the good folks at Publix, his cakes looked really cute and tasted delicious. He had yellow cake with vanilla frosting, and we had yellow cake with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting.
We feel like we're in paradise in this house. It's the perfect place for us, and we're already really happy here.
