Lemmon Life

Buttercup and Peanut

2017-01-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

So, not that anyone reads this anymore (and who can blame them, as there’s been nothing to read for years now!), but thought I’d post something just cuz.

My mom was here when Buttercup was overdue with her baby, and she looked out the window one morning and asked, “What is that? Emily, I think there’s a baby cow out there!!” We had been anxiously awaiting the birth and then missed the whole thing! But I did get to watch baby Peanut stand up for the first time, and that was pretty magical.

Peanut kept trying to nurse and Buttercup was just not having it at first. She would move away every time Peanut got close. We were getting a little worried, honestly, and Buttercup’s poor udders were getting massive. Definitely took a few hours before instinct kicked in but within a day they were nursing like pros.

Sweet girl. Buttercup was a good protective momma right off the bat!

Peanut was born on July 17th, can’t believe she’s over 6 months already. I thought for sure we’d have sold her months ago, but we’re only just starting to get her ready to sell. It’s been fun having her around, but we just don’t have the room for 2 cows. I also need to get Buttercup AI’ed soon, I’m many months behind on that as well. Having cows has been a crazy, fun, hard, fulfilling experience so far. Sometimes I think I was crazy for thinking I could manage it, but here it is, almost a year after we first got Buttercup, and we’re all still alive! We are, of course, the town oddity – little kids love coming over just to see the cow, and people always ask with incredulousness how it’s going. And we have had a few mishaps – I’ve been dragged around the yard a couple of times, there was a grumpy pregnant period (she was pregnant, not me!) where I wondered if she was really the cow for us, and she’s even gotten out of the yard a few times involving crazy chases around the neighbors’ huge yards. I’ve learned a lot, and still feel like I’ve got a ton to learn. But overall, I don’t mind being the crazy cow lady!

Camping at Dash Point State Park

2014-10-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

Our camping trip in pictures, with captions that I will attempt to keep brief but will probably fail at keeping brief. Meaning there will be at least one long explanation, and probably more like 3. See, I can’t even keep this brief.

Kids picking blackberries while the adults set up camp.

Baby blue eyes.

My other baby blue eyes.

And my brown eyed boy, complete with blackberry face.

We pretty much always have chili and fritos for our first nights dinner when we’re camping. Lily does not approve.

The preferred activity. Uncle Josh, Uncle Jonathan, and Aunt Anna are way cooler than Mom and Dad. It was lots of fun to have them camping with us.

Two at a time!

Pretty girl. Before her haircut.

Cooking our peach cobbler in a borrowed dutch oven. It was good!

My cute chunk-a-lunk at the beach.

Handsome Uncle Josh. He’d only been home from his mission for about a week! I was glad that the kids weren’t shy around him.

Braving the seaweedy water.

I don’t think Michael got in the water until the very end. He really enjoyed playing in the sand.

Handsome husband with a cute baby. He’s a sweetheart. The beach isn’t really his thing, but he went anyway cuz he knows how much we were all looking forward to it. And he never even complained! He’s a saint.

Aww, working together.

Seesters!

Pretending they’re rowing a boat.

Cute baby.

He secretly loves it when I take his picture.

See?

Musick boys being Musick boys.

Of course we dug a big pit.

Back at camp, enjoying sweet potatoes.

Enjoying something a little sweeter than potatoes.

Look who came to visit! We love Becky. Elizabeth and Mike came too. It’s always nice to see them, and they got to meet Peter for the first time.

My mom came to visit too! All these visitors while we were camping, we felt so fancy.

Cuties.

One of the last pictures before we left. We had so much fun!. I really enjoyed spending the time with my siblings, and with Ben before he had to go back to work after paternity leave. I apparently didn’t get any pictures of it, but Jonathan brought a slackline and set that up, and that was really cool. I didn’t think I was that bad for a beginner, but Josh dominated. He got on for the first time, and was like a pro just a few attempts later. Of course Jonathan showed us both what’s what. It was lots of fun.

I’m definitely thinking we need to make it an annual thing to go camping with the whole big fam. Maybe next year we can do one with Ben’s side of things too! Yay for camping!

Bonus picture: Lily and Michael on a camel at the Point Defiance Zoo! Lots of fun!

Random Summer Shenanigans

2014-10-01T16:56:00.001-07:00

Well, it’s officially fall and I still have so much I want to share from the summer! I’m going to try to speed-blog (which I’ve never been good at, but I’ll try!) and get out a couple posts while it’s still (mostly) fresh in my mind.

From early early on in the summer, enjoying the kiddie pool we have in the backyard.

Adam liked the pool, but only if no one was splashing. Which meant he spent a lot of time pouting cuz the older kids wouldn’t stop jumping and splashing.

See? He has a fantastic pout.

Peter in his blessing outfit. I know Ben already blogged about that, but I didn’t have this picture on the computer then, and I wanted to put it on here. I just love this picture. So sweet.

Another cute Peter picture. 3 months old!

Ben and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on July 21st. Ben had the day off and we mostly just enjoyed spending lots of time with our cute family. We went to Red Lobster for lunch and went to a park that afternoon where Ben caught his first fish! I had bought him a fishing pole for Father’s Day, so he was pretty excited to finally catch something after trying for months.

My handsome man on our anniversary.

His first fish! Unfortunately not big enough to keep, but still fun to get something!

The kids trying their hands at it.

The next day we had a little camp-out in our backyard. Well, more of just a BBQ over the fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, too. I really love our little firepit. I had an idea to cement together a bunch of rocks that were just laying around into a cute little firepit, and Ben helped make the idea happen. Of course, one of the kids fell in it (when it was empty, thank goodness!) and broke off one side of it. Maybe one day we’ll fix it again. Still works well enough and for now we’ll just enjoy it lopsided.

This messy face makes me smile.

Look at that determination! Haha!

S’mores were, of course, everyone’s favorite part.

Uh-huh, yummmmm!

Peter just hanging outside with us, wishing he could have marshmallows!

Cool kids feeding the birds at the Woodland Park Zoo. We’ve been getting a yearly membership for the last few years, and we all really enjoy it.

Adam enjoying his first bites of solid food. He liked it! He was exactly 4 months old. Earliest I’ve started any of my kids on solids, but it felt right. He totally took to it and didn’t even have the tongue thrust reflex thing, which is good.

Happy boy!

Josh came home!! His plane got in early, so Ben dropped off the kids and me so we could rush in and hopefully catch him as he came out, but we ended up missing him anyway. Bummer! And then Ben wasn’t in the picture cuz he was parking the car. :/ But all the same, so nice to finally see Josh again! So weird that he hadn’t seen Adam since he was a baby, and now we have a whole new baby. It was nice for him to meet Peter.

Love this picture of Josh with the parents. The look so happy to have him home!

Ok, last thing and then I’ll wrap this up, and I’ll have to include our camping trip in a separate post. Adam has this thing that he picked up from the older kids. They’ve stopped doing it, but Adam won’t stop. He did it all summer, wherever we were. It’s super adorable, and definitely not appropriate, but too cute to stop. It’s where he sings “Shake your booty at everyone you see!” and it’s accompanied by exactly that. It’s way too cute. He’ll probably be super embarrassed in 10 years when he realizes this has been so publicly shared, but too bad!

So these pictures started out with that booty dance. And then it was just fun to dance outside on the wet porch. I’m not sure why he lost his pants in the process (usually the dance is performed with pants). Oh well! Too cute not to share!

I’ll leave you with a gorgeous picture of the sky from a pretty summer night. I love sunbeams!

It was actually even prettier in person. Couldn’t get the settings on my camera right. And it didn’t last very long, either. I’m glad I got to see it, it made me smile.

Michael’s 5th Birthday

2014-09-25T18:12:00.001-07:00

I started writing this all in one of the other posts I was writing and then thought, it really deserves it’s own post.

We celebrated Michael’s 5th birthday by going to the park and inviting just about every person Michael knows. Of course it was right before July 4th, so only a handful of people could make it. Which I anticipated and was perfectly ok with. It was really nice and low-key and I got an amazing compliment from one of the moms who said it was probably the most age-appropriate birthday party they’d been to, even for all her kids which ranged in age from 2-9. I thought that was awesome. I was aiming for easy for me, but still fun for all the kids, and I think we accomplished just that. The kids’ favorite activity was easily the piñata.

Definitely one of the best tasting cakes I’ve ever made, and probably the prettiest decorated too. I’m not known for my cake decorating abilities, but I was pretty pleased with how this one turned out. Michael was very specific in his requests: blue cake that was really tall (the dome for the cake stand wouldn’t even fit on top!) with a circle of sprinkles on top. Nailed it! Equally as important, it was super super yummy! Deep rich chocolate, so good. Of course, goofy girl that I am, I forgot forks! So people had to eat with their hands, which meant quite a few people opted for cupcakes instead. Oh well, more for me later!

And out comes the candy!

Love this picture, with all his friends enthusiastically singing and him so concentrated on his cake! Love my big Michael boy!

The morning of his birthday. Trying to get a sincere smile without him being silly is just not going to happen!

Ben took Michael out to breakfast on his birthday, per Lemmon family tradition, and he requested this giant cinnamon roll for his birthday “cake.”

And birthday dinner at Red Robin. Yup, spoiled 5 year old. You’re only 5 once!

And a couple pictures of the other kids, cuz they were there too! And they’re kind of cute.

Look at that girl’s dimples! She’s still got her bubbly face! And of course Adam wouldn’t look at the camera, he’s getting stubborn like that lately.

I love you Michael. You are a pretty fantastic 5 year old!

Disney Vacation (part 2)

2014-09-15T20:59:00.001-07:00

So I left you hanging after our day at the beach. The next day was Friday, and it was back to the Park for us, only California Adventures this time. I hadn’t been before, and we all thought it was awesome. My favorite part of the park was Cars Land (or Cars World, something like that). It was so fabulously designed, it felt exactly like you had stepped into the movie Cars! I loved it! The best ride there was Radiator Springs Racers. So fun! The kids loved it too, although if you asked them, they’d tell you Ariel’s Undersea Adventure was their favorite ride. They went on that at least 4 times.

Fun seeing the full-size Cars characters driving around.

The most requested ride.

Sweet Ferris Wheel. I loved how the buckets swung around the loops, but it scared Adam and Peter. They weren’t expecting it, and they both started crying when it happened the first time.

Adam before it started swinging.

And then he was terrified. Poor kid.

Sis and me.

Adam loved giving hugs to the characters we met.

Too cool for this waiting in line nonsense.

On the Cars ride. Lots of fun!

My handsome husband bought himself a hat to avoid getting a sunburn on top of his head. Actually, I think I’m the only one who didn’t get a Disneyland souvenir. Ha! Good thing I take lots of pictures!

Baby tongue! Such a cutie!

We bought these water spray bottles with little fans at Walmart to try to keep cool. You know, since we couldn’t eat ice cream for every meal. They were much used and appreciated.

My new favorite selfie.

More hugs and character meetings.

Strike a pose! Lily was very pleased when we let her buy these Minnie Mouse ears. Also, notice the pink bracelet she’s wearing? It has her name and our cell phone numbers on it. We bought one for each of the three older kids. We never lost anybody, but it was nice to have them, just in case. They wore them everywhere.

Stopping to watch the parade. Anna and I decided to go and get a FastPass for the rollar coaster since we wanted to go on it later, only we got all the way there (across the park) and realized that we didn’t have our tickets to get the Fastpass with. So I waited there and Anna ran all the way back to where Ben was waiting with the kids, and then ran back to me. And then we both hurried back so we wouldn’t miss the parade. Anna was fairly exhausted, but the rollar coaster sure was fun!

That was pretty much the end of our day in California Adventures. We went home after the parade, I drove to buy some dinner from Cheesecake Factory, and we chilled at our apartment the rest of the evening.

Saturday brought a trip to the San Diego Zoo. Ben and I had gone when we were in San Diego for our 4th anniversary, and we knew we wanted to go back with the kids. Everyone really enjoyed it. I think our favorite part was seeing the pandas, and feeding the giraffes. Feeding the giraffes was really cool! They have some seriously long tongues.

Such cool animals, and very fun to be so close and interact with them.

Baby panda!

Just a pretty picture. It was so sunny every day we were there. And yes, I know, we’re in California. Still, it was so nice!

Oh yeah, the koalas were pretty awesome too. Lots of fun to see animals that we don’t get to see in the Seattle Zoo.

Cool dude Adam.

The next day was Sunday. We drove to Chula Vista to visit Ben’s Aunt, Cousins, and Grandma Bailey. It was nice to spend Sunday relaxing with family, just hanging out. I didn’t get very many pictures, but Ben made sure we at least got a picture with his Grandma.

She was very happy to meet Peter. He looks a little concerned, lol!

Well, this is too long already, but I don’t feel like doing a third post on Disneyland, so you get more after all. Monday was our last day at Disneyland.

We got to meet Mickey! Yay! Ben and Michael missed meeting Mickey because they rushed off to do the Star Tours ride before it got really busy.

We also got to meet Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, and a few other characters at a breakfast meet and greet thing. There was a buffet breakfast and lots of characters just walking around. It was lots of fun.

The baby was quite popular with Chip and Dale, especially.

I think Lily was most pleased to meet Minnie.

Waiting in line for the Matterhorn. I’ve got such good looking boys.

Trying to get a picture of Peter in his cute onsie. It had Mickey Mouse on it and a cute little tie and Peter Pan collar. It was pretty adorable.

Adam waving and yelling “Hi!” to everybody in the parade. He really enjoyed the parade that day.

I just love this picture of Lily. Pretty girl, even the back of her.

Monday was great, in large part because Anna took the kids back to the apartment after the parade and let Ben and I have a date night at Disneyland! We had such a great time! It was probably our longest time being away from Peter, and apparently he cried for a good portion of the time we were gone. Poor baby, and poor Anna. But it was so sweet of Anna to watch the kids and let us have a night to ourselves. We really appreciated it!

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We went on it twice.

Our spot for watching the fireworks that night. It was very pretty and surprisingly cozy. I enjoyed just relaxing together.

It was a good night.

The next day, Tuesday, was our last day in California and the day we were traveling home. But we did have the morning and most of the afternoon before we had to head to the airport. So we were able to visit a science center/kids discovery place, and that was a great way to end the vacation. Lots of time just wandering around, knowing we didn’t have to be anywhere in particular until the evening. We spent a few hours at the Discovery Center, had lunch, went back for a bit and then ended the afternoon at a park letting the kids run around.

Attempting to pull a tablecloth out without disturbing the place setting. We pretty much all made this exact face!

I don’t know what’s going on with Peter here (at the restaurant we ate lunch at), but my sister looks really cute!

Best part of the park: This girl’s happy face after the kids gave her the Mickey Mouse balloon we knew we couldn’t take on the plane. She was overjoyed, it was so sweet.

This picture was actually taken on Wednesday at about 1 in the morning. Such a long long evening of traveling to get home. We all finally got into bed around 1:30 am. Happy to be home, but still a little sad to leave. It really was a wonderful vacation. A wonderful way to kick off the summer.

Goodbye Disneyland! We’ll miss you!

House Pics

2014-09-04T18:16:00.001-07:00

This post is for Mom and Dad Lemmon who have been very patiently waiting to see pictures of our recent remodel. The Washington rain took a toll on our house over the years, so we needed to reside the whole house. We hired a company to reside and paint. We chose a light brown with white trim, got rid of the shutters, and replaced the door and windows. Ben did the door and windows himself with some help from his brother Matthew. We like it! Definitely gives the whole house a fresh new look.

Old look. Still nice, but outdated.

And the big reveal…

Ta-da! Kind of hard to tell, but we also got new numbers and put them over the garage instead of next to do the door. We really like how everything turned out.

Now hopefully we can be done with house projects for a little while. (Haha, yeah right!)

Our Disney Vacation (part 1)

2014-07-28T15:34:00.001-07:00

About two years ago we told the kids that as soon as Michael was 5, we could take them to Disneyland. He turned 5 on July 7th, and the very next day we were on our way to California!

It was so fun to take them, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable for everyone if my sister hadn’t come with us. I’m so glad she could come! She was such a giant help with the kids, even taking all of them for about 5 1/2 hours one night so that Ben and I could have a date night alone at Disneyland. She was seriously amazing with them the whole trip. We’re lucky she is such a great aunt and was willing to come!

We left on Tuesday early early morning and got into Orange County around noon. We wasted no time and immediately set off to Downtown Disney. We weren’t going in the park until the next day, but wanted to give the kids a taste of Disney as soon as we could. Plus we couldn’t check into our apartment we were renting for another 4 hours anyway. We ate lunch at Rainforest Café and then spent the next couple hours walking around Downtown Disney. The kids enjoyed walking around and looking in some of the shops and getting excited for Disneyland the next day.

Hulk Smash!

The next day, Wednesday, we all headed off to Disneyland as soon as we could get out the door. Our apartment was literally across the street from the Disneyland Parking garage, so it was just a quick walk to the tram. It was really nice to be so close and not have to worry about parking every time we went.

Tickets passed out and ready to go in!

Lily is getting so grown-up! I had fun hanging out with her whenever it was just us. She surprised me by being ready and excited about some of the bigger rides, but she thought Tower of Terror was “way too scary!”

Ben and Michael’s favorite ride was Star Tours and Adam’s favorite was the Buzz Lightyear ride. Lily’s favorite was the Alice in Wonderland ride (so she says, although it was the It’s a Small World ride that she kept asking over and over to go on again – we said no) and my favorite was Space Mountain. I forgot to ask Anna what her favorite was, but I’m pretty sure I remember her saying that she really liked Pirates of the Caribbean.

We had at least one ice cream break every day. None of us were used to the heat, and ice cream is definitely the best way to cool off!

Peter did a lot of this:

Disneyland and California Adventure have a policy where if one adult needs to stay behind with kids too little to go on the ride, then they get a special pass to go through the fast pass lane after the rest of the group comes back. Plus they can take two other people with them. It was awesome, because either Ben or I or Anna could stay behind with Peter (or Adam and Peter, since Adam was still too small for a lot of the rides), and then whoever stayed behind could take the two older kids again. So by combining that policy with using the fast passes when we could, we all spent a lot less time waiting in lines then we otherwise would have. It was nice and worked well.

Exhausted little boy after a full day at Disneyland!

Around 3:00 that first day at Disneyland, I was nursing Peter while the rest of the group was on a ride, and I lost my phone. I set it down for a couple minutes and stupidly left where I was standing. I realized what I did pretty quickly, but when I went back to where I had lain it down, it was gone. Spent about an hour looking around for it, and then Ben found it by using the Find Your Phone feature that it apparently has. Someone had actually turned it into lost and found. It was super stressful to lose it, but I was so glad we were able to find it. But we decided to leave right after we found it just cuz we were all worn out and tired. As we were picking it up from lost and found, the parade started, so we stayed for that and left after it was done. We went back home, rested for a few hours and had dinner, then went back so we could catch the fireworks.

Some pictures from the parade:

And from the fireworks:

Sleepy boy – it was 10:00 by the time we headed back to the apartment, and he was out.

The next day we had kind of a slow start to the day and headed up to the beach right before lunch time. We had planned to spend a good half a day there, but we ended up leaving after just a few hours. It was fun, but Peter hated it and screamed the whole time he was awake. Wouldn’t nurse, wouldn’t take a bottle, and couldn’t fall asleep for a long time cuz it was too hot to be swaddled, but he really only falls asleep when he is swaddled. Hated the sun in his eyes, but hated the sunhat I brought for him, too. It was rough. That combined with Ben feeling sick after a few hours, and we decided it was better to go then try to force it to be fun, lol. The other kids did enjoy it though and were really happy we went. They had been really looking forward to it, so I was happy we could take them.

Haha, Adam makes me laugh! Such a poser.

It was a gorgeous beach, too bad we didn’t enjoy it more. I think we’re just not beach people. We like it in small doses!

Cute Peter back at home. Even though I dressed him in his swimsuit, he didn’t even get near the water. Maybe next time! By the way, Peter is getting so big! He’s my chubbiest baby yet, I love it!

Since this is already much too long, I’ll wrap it up for now. Part 2 coming soon!

Summer So Far

2014-07-19T16:47:00.001-07:00

Yay for summer!! School is out and I feel like we’ve already packed a lot of fun into our summer break, and we’ve only just started! We started off with a bang with Grandma and Grandpa Lemmon visiting. Unfortunately almost everyone got sick! We made the best of it and still really enjoyed seeing lots of family that we don’t get to see often.

Zoo fun:

We had Katie’s family, Dave’s family, Daniel’s crew, and of course Mom and Dad over on Sunday for Peter’s baby blessing. It was pretty nice to have so many people there. It was a bummer Matt and Kayla were sick and missed the blessing.

The gang!

Our fam.

We tried to get a picture of all the cousins there in cute tie-dye shirts Grandma Debbie brought for everyone. This is honestly the best picture I got. Maybe somebody else got a better one, but this is the most smiling kids in one picture that I managed to capture. Most of them looked more like this:

Yup, not a single one smiling. LOL! We tried so hard!

Despite what it looks like in the picture above, the kids all really enjoyed seeing each other and playing together all week/weekend. It was too bad that so many kids kept taking turns getting sick, but that’s life, right? It was really nice that we were able to get together.

Other notable events: Lily finishing kindergarten and Michael finishing preschool.

Soo cute and proud of himself. He had a blast with preschool. Made some good friends. I feel like I kind of missed out on a lot of it being pregnant and then having a newborn, but I know he was always excited to go and always had a great time.

On the left, Lily on the last day of school, and on the right, on the first day of school. She loved her teacher and had a great year. She was incredibly social. Whenever I’d ask her about school, the only thing she’d ever talk about was what she did with her friends. When I asked her what kind of things she learned or worked on that day, it was almost always, “I don’t remember.” Her best friend from school is Indie. She absolutely loves him and often during the year commented to me “I wish Indie was my brother!” I’m glad she found such a good friend, he’s a sweet boy.

Peter is pretty good at smiling now. He’s got an adorable dimple on one side of his face and often sticks our his tongue when he smiles. He’s almost giggling when somebody tickles him. He loves to be swaddled to sleep, and is kind of falling into a routine lately. Adam gave him a candied cashew once, and he looked at Adam like it was the best thing of his entire life. (It probably was! lol) Of course I fished it out of his mouth right away, but now he loves it when people give him little tastes of whatever we’re eating. I think introducing solids to him in a few months will go really smoothly.

Hmm, not a great collage, but I don’t feel like making a decent one right now, takes too long. Anyway, here’s my Peter boy at just about 2 months old. He’s pretty awesome. He has an adorable sad face, and an even better happy face. We’re pretty obsessed with him.

Well that definitely isn’t all of our summer, but I think California and Disneyland need their own post. But I’ll leave you with a picture of my sweet Adam boy, since he deserves a bit of the spotlight, too.

Melt my heart with those deep brown eyes.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

2014-05-22T14:48:00.001-07:00

Yes, we say that little rhyme way too often now that we have our very own little Peter boy.

I’m tired of not blogging. I miss having recollections of fun family times and activities written down with cute pictures documenting the growth of our growing family. For a solid 2 years after Adam was born, I kind of felt like I was flailing in deep water trying to keep up with life with three littles. And then I knew it was time to have a fourth, but even when I was a few months pregnant, I just kept thinking that it was going to be insane, how would I handle 4 kiddos when I was still figuring out how to be a mom to 3?

And yes, Peter is only 7 weeks old and that’s hardly enough time to figure out what life is going to be like, but so far, it really has been ok. I finally feel like I have a handle on this Mom thing. Took me long enough, and inevitably life is sure to change as soon as I think I have things figured out, but for now, I’m pretty darn happy with how things are.

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest, I better hurry and write something down about Peter’s birth before he wakes up and I have to nurse.

Peter was born on April 1st at 3:31 pm. He was 8lbs 10oz and 21 3/4 in long. There’s quite a back story that includes being diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 36 weeks (I’m still not convinced I actually had it, though), being told I’d have to be induced right on my due date (March 26) because of that, trying acupuncture for 2 weeks to get labor starting on it’s own (including electrotherapy!), being so incredibly frustrated with the diabetes diet and all the doctors thinking they know what’s best (sometimes, they just don’t know what’s best for your body, you do, and it’s ok to be firm about that!), being given another week to go into labor on my own since my “diabetes” was being controlled so well through diet, and then being induced anyway. It was such a hormonal roller-coaster for the 5 weeks leading up to his birth, and it was amazing how quickly the stress all went away once I actually held him in my arms.

Peter Alexander Lemmon – 20 minutes old. Can’t see it much here, but he was born with a surprising amount of hair for a Lemmon baby.

I just love this picture of Ben and I – that moment when we look at each other just full of joy over the life we just brought into this world.

Look at all that hair! He’s basically bald now, it’s almost all fallen out!

Proud Daddy!

Meeting baby brother for the first time. They were all immediately smitten.

And a couple of pictures from the hospital photographer. The photos were free to get taken, and we loved them enough we decided to purchase the rights to them. I really like how they turned out, the photographer (from Bella Baby) did great.

Oh, I just love this picture. The almost smile. That precious fuzzy shoulder. Adoring smiles on our faces. Our sweet Peter boy. We’re so glad he’s part of our family!

Summer Fun

2013-10-01T16:36:00.001-07:00

Alright, mostly this is so I can look back and remember what actually happened over the summer! It was a busy summer, the highlight being my trip to Europe and our family trip to Yellowstone and Colorado to visit Ben’s parents. I should probably break these into separate posts, so yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’m gonna do Yellowstone first (even though it was right in the middle) just cuz it’s what is on my mind right now.

We decided to go to Yellowstone last winter, probably, and tried to plan it for a late spring trip, but with Ben getting frustrated at work and looking for a new job right at that time, it never got planned and didn’t happen. So we put it off and finally planned it for August. We drove to Yellowstone and camped in the park for four nights. Three nights probably would have been sufficient! We got rained out the last afternoon we were there, with the rain continuing all night. Made for a soggy departure. But it was still such a memorable trip and so much fun. The kids talked about it for weeks afterwards.

Picture dump, with a few captions when I feel like it.

First time out of the car (minus potty breaks) Saturday afternoon to stretch our legs and see some little geysers!

Of course it wouldn’t be a Yellowstone post without a picture of Old Faithful!

Yum! This kid loves food!

At our camp spot. Ben and I always sleep on an air mattress. But I forgot the pump. So for the first two nights we were pretty uncomfortable, until my husband the hero bought us another pump from a convenience store. Yay!

Gorgeous Yellowstone lake. We were so bummed that it never worked out for us to go swimming in it. The day we had reserved for swimming was the day we got rained out!

Buffalo! Well, technically bison. Lots and lots of bison. This is what we saw the most of while we were there. It was so fun to just see them everywhere, walking right past your car, taking dust paths, and the little “red dogs” – the baby bison. They are pretty spectacular!

So many waterfalls! I don’t even remember which falls this was, I just remember that we had to climb down and then up so many stairs to get to it. It was one of the first (or the first, I think) waterfalls that we saw the first full day we were there.

Just a portion of the stairs!

One of Adam’s favorite activities while there – playing with bugs. Cutie.

Red dog! Lily loved seeing the baby bison.

Wish I could remember all the names of the waterfalls we saw. This one was either Upper or Lower Falls, I just can’t remember which. :/ Oh well. We saw this one the second full day. (We got there on a Saturday a little past lunch time, but in my head I always think of Sunday, the day we really started driving around the park, as the first day. Thus labeling it as our first “full” day there. Just helps me keep it straight in my head.)

Lunch time. We stopped at the same park for lunch two days in a row.

Haha, we didn’t actually get McDonalds while at Yellowstone. We saved a few of the containers and used them to pass snacks back to the kids while we were in the car. We spent so much time in the car driving from spot to spot within the park. The kids actually did really well. Lily and Michael really enjoyed keeping a lookout for animals, and when they got tired of that, they would play with little toys or read or color. Adam also enjoyed lots of books, although he wasn’t quite as content as the kids. They all got lots of snacks!

My perfect family. I sure love them.

Oops. Yup, that’s our van. It was pretty scary. Just a case of misjudging how much room we had. We were so glad it didn’t go all the way over. 3 hours, a tow-truck, and over $300 later, we were safely (and with no damage to the van!) on our way.

Yay for tow-trucks! The big crowd of people standing around all clapped when he pulled it up. Funny story, almost every single person to walk past our van in the time we were waiting for the tow-truck to get there took a picture of it! One lady even told us “Well the petrified tree we came to see was pretty lame, but my boys really enjoyed seeing your car!” Haha! (She was right, the petrified tree that was the reason for our stop was pretty lame. Not worth a scare and $300, that’s for sure!)

But the baby bear made up for it! We wouldn’t have seen this bear at all if we hadn’t gotten stuck. It was all by itself as far as anyone could tell, not a mamma bear in sight. Which made this mamma more than a little nervous! The little bear was probably 4-6 months old, not very big at all, and so cute. So not scared of any of the people standing around taking pictures of it. In fact, it kept coming closer and closer. At one point it was probably only 15 feet away. We decided to get back in our car then, cuz we didn’t want a hidden mamma bear deciding we were too close to her cub and getting mad. It was really cool though, such an awesome moment from the trip. One of my favorites, for sure.

Look how cute!!

The third and last full day we were there we went out for a bit in the morning, came back to roast some hot dogs over the fire, and got just dumped on. We all hid out in the van for a while waiting for the rain to stop, and when it finally did, there was a least an inch of water in our fire pit! We ended up putting our canopy over the fire pit with our camp chairs around it to finish lunch and spent most of the afternoon there. We were all tired of being in the car and needed a small break before leaving the next day to drive for 10 hours to Colorado. That was also the day we took a boat ride on Yellowstone Lake and learned a little bit of the history of the lake.

Playing with sparklers in a clear moment between rainstorms.

Kids in their jammies the last morning there. Such a fun trip! I’m pretty sure we’ll do it again in a few years, even being there for four days we still feel like we didn’t get to see everything we wanted to. I think one of my favorite things that I took away from it was just how beautiful and gorgeous God has made our earth and the creatures in it. I loved seeing all the animals in such a natural setting. And being able to just look out and see only nature – no big highways or buildings or people – was inspiring. And all the variety – the plains, the forests, the geysers and paintpots, river and lake, so many different animals. It was amazing. I highly recommend taking a trip there if you haven’t before. Or even if you have! We all really really loved it.

FHE

2013-04-21T18:14:00.001-07:00

We started doing FHE (Family Home Evening) when Lily was around 2 years old and Michael ~6 months. We wanted to keep our expectations low and keep things simple, in the hopes that we’d continue and not give up out of frustration. Somehow, we’ve kept going and barely missed any over the years. It helps that Lily and Michael LOVE family night. Not even exaggerating at all. Usually around Wednesday or Thursday one of them will start talking about how excited they are for Monday, and asking how many more days until family night. We still keep things super simple: opening prayer, each person gets to pick a song, 3-5 minute lesson, quick activity like playing tag, or hide and seek, and then the much anticipated family night treat – often nothing more than a few marshmallows, a piece of candy left over from the most recent holiday, or a handful of chocolate chips. (Yup, we go all out. ) Oftentimes our activity has nothing to do with the lesson. We just try to keep things engaging for the kids while still getting some gospel lessons into the night.

Lily has recently begun wanting to do the lesson herself. Her most recent lesson included a visual of different sized blankets laid on top of each other, from largest to smallest. She directs our attention to it and says, “Pretend this is like a really tall mountain. Can you see over it? (All of us respond no) Can you see through it? (No) But do you know who can? That’s right, Heavenly Father and Jesus can see to the other side. So when you can’t do something or see over something, you can pray and Heavenly Father and Jesus can help you. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

It was the sweetest thing, and just something she came up with all on her own. I loved it. She tried to recreate it a few weeks later when my parents and Anna were over, but she kept getting distracted by wanting to ask each person a new question and being in charge and in the spotlight. Funny girl.

For a different family home evening, we had a lesson about not littering and how we can give service by picking trash up, and for activity, we walked around our neighborhood picking up all the trash we could find along the sidewalks. The kids thought this was awesome, and have asked to do this for family night a few times since then. They also notice trash along the roads, or parking lots, etc, and always comment that “that’s sad, people shouldn’t litter.” It’s cute, and it’s nice to see when something you’ve tried to teach your kids has stuck.

Can’t have a blog post without at least a few pictures, so I’ll leave you with pictures of our donut-eating activity from a few months ago. One of the very few times our treat was more than old Halloween candy. The kids were really excited about this one.

Apparently I didn’t get any pictures of Michael or Adam enjoying their donuts, so you get these instead.

My happy boys. They make me grin. The end.

Snow

2013-02-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

A little over a month ago we got a light dusting of snow. Not much, and it mostly turned to ice even just in a few hours. But if your name is Lily or Michael, it was the best snow ever! I bundled all the kids up, armed myself with my camera, and everyone was blissfully happy for 45 minutes. It was Adam's first experience in the snow, and he loved it. Just sat there grabbing it and eating it the while time. And then we went inside and drank hot cocoa. It was a wonderful morning.

Christmas fun and other matters

2013-01-24T12:40:00.001-08:00

Hello to the ~~three~~ two of you who haven’t given up on my blog! Yay! (I’m counting on my Mom and Ben’s mom to still be holding out hope for a new post!) A few pictures from our holidays, in really no particular order whatsoever (be warned, this is mega long and picture heavy!):

Babies loving on other babies. Way too cute.

All of us Lemmons (and Grissens!) in Portland for Christmas. So much fun. (And if you’re reading this and I haven’t gotten your pictures to you yet, don’t worry, by the end of the month for sure! At least, I’ll send them out by then.)

Love this boy!

Thank-you Monica for taking our family pics!

I really LOVE this picture of Ben’s parents, don’t you?

During the cousins nativity. It was adorable.

My little wise man, angel, and shepherd. I love them.

The Christmas haul of ~25 people. Crazy! It took 3 1/2 hours to open everything!

Green and red pancakes Christmas morning, a beloved Lemmon family tradition. Other Lemmon Christmas traditions include pizza on Christmas Eve, and the famous Lemmon rolls and jello with Christmas dinner. I kind of love that our traditions all have to do with food. It definitely works for me!

It was love at first sight.

I love being an Aunt. I have the cutest nieces and nephews. Kenzie is such a little sweetheart.

“We found the perfect tree Mom!”

Nothing better than enjoying a candy cane after a long morning of tree picking!

Yum!

Trying really hard to get those last two candles! Haha!

The night we had a sleepover in front of the Christmas tree.

My mom does not look old enough to be a Grandma. Just saying.

Lily practicing her picture taking skills. Hi Grandma!

Happy birthday Adam!

The frosting was his favorite part.

Bath time!

Ok, I know this isn’t exactly anything to do with holidays, but he’s too cute not to share.

Random fall leaves photo shoot.

Adam was pretty over it by this point, if you can’t tell.

Lily was so excited to get this Belle dress for her birthday!

Lily’s requested birthday “cake” – lemon meringue pie. I approve.

A little peak for my friend Darci. She has the cutest little girl that I got to photograph a few weeks ago. Jane is so precious, I just love her!

Snow!

Yum!

Hahaha!

Michael Mommy Date

2012-10-07T18:14:00.001-07:00

Whenever Lily or Michael do a chore, read or write, or don’t get a time-out all day (that one hasn’t happened yet!) they earn a sticker on their sticker chart. Once their chart is full they get to pick a fun activity to do with one parent. Maybe two months or so ago, Michael filled up his sticker chart and for his date chose to go to the zoo with Mommy. It was so much fun for both of us! I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed myself. Michael and I haven’t spent a whole lot of one on one time together before this, and he’s a lot different when he’s not interacting with/reacting to Lily. I didn’t take a ton of pictures while we were at the zoo, but here are some of them.

Hello Mr. Penguin.

Look at this cool kid!

Love my little boy!

6 Years and Counting!

2012-07-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

I typically make Emily a card for our anniversary, but instead, I’m blogging it! I’ve been married to the love of my life for 6 whole years now. It all started out here:

1 year later she was already pregnant with Lily and life couldn’t get any better, or so I thought.

Then came Lily. She turned our life upside down in the most perfect way.

Just two years into our marriage, and we just kept falling more and more in love…still haven’t stopped.

Then came Michael. That kid can melt your heart in an instant with his perfect little inflections and expressions.

I can’t seem to find a 3rd anniversary picture, but I assure you. We were still smiling (though quite exhausted from a 3 week old, hence the lack of pictures)

By year 4 we were just spoiled rotten with like the perfect life ever. Look at that smile. I’m so glad our kids have Emily’s smile.

P.S. My Emily, I love your freckles…

Last year I celebrated 5 years with my beautiful bride. Adam was well on his way, we had a new house and well, could it get any better?

Then came Adam to prove that yes, it in fact can get better. That boy smiles like it’s his job.

Then fast-forward to now. This is us. Ben and Emily Lemmon. Married for 6 years. I can’t wait until I can fill this blog with 50 years of beautiful memories together. (Well, 44 years from now I doubt we’ll be using blogs, but you get the point ).

Sleep-training

2012-04-23T16:32:00.001-07:00

This little guy

has been making me lose sleep in a big way.

He looks so cute and innocent

and acts so tired!

But then he’s up, two hours after I put him down for bed. And then three hours after that. And then two hours after that. And again. And again.

Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that either.

So a few days ago I started sleep training. Like clockwork, he was up at 10:30 looking for a snack. I picked him up, soothed him without nursing him until he calmed down, and put him back down. And he screamed like I had poked him with a pin or something. Repeat about 12 times until he finally stays calm and falls back asleep. I did nurse him at 1:30 (another of his self-designated feeding times) because it had been 6 hours since I nursed him last. But then he was up again at 3. And at 4. And 5. And 6. Oh boy.

It’s gotten a little bit better each night. Last night he slept six hours straight without waking up, and then another 4. Which would have been awesome, had I been able to sleep the same amount of time. But nope. Last night I was woken twice by this guy:

Yes. Twice.

And once by her:

So I was still up about 5 times. Grrrr.

It has to get better, right?

At least they’re all really cute.

A few snapshots

2012-04-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Besides being really bad at blogging the last 6 months or so, I’ve also stopped taking pictures as regularly as I once was. But I do have a few favorite pictures from the last year or so that I really want to share. It’s quite the random assortment; hope you enjoy!

The poor baby acne stage… but I love his first smiles!!

I just love my sisters hair here.

Family Picture

2012-04-15T19:05:00.001-07:00

It’s been a few millennia since I posted, so I’m breaking out of my shell with a nice family picture. Excuse the sunburns – I’m still very happy with how this turned out. For the record, Lily initiated the hand-holding herself. Such a poser.

And I’ll top it off with a close-up of Adam. He’s really good at close-ups.

Adam Jacob Lemmon

2011-12-06T19:06:00.001-08:00

It’s amazing how you can be instantly in love with someone you just met. Adam Jacob Lemmon joined our family on November 23rd 2011, weighing in at 7 lbs. 9 oz. He is nothing but cute.

Looking into his eyes we already see the connection, the potential, and the love as he stares at us with those beautiful brown eyes.

Adam has made our family so much better and brighter. Lily and Michael can’t get enough of him and neither can we.

This is the start of something big. Something wonderful. Something miraculous.

Welcome to the world baby boy. We love you.

Beautiful Fall and Beautiful Kids

2011-11-24T19:11:00.001-08:00

Quick apology for being so bad at blogging lately! I’ll try to get better. Hopefully with Adam on the way I can be inspired again to take the time to do it. In any case, I just wanted to post a few pictures I took recently of my cute little kiddos. I love this time of year for taking fun pictures. It’s so easy to get the kids to play in beautifully colored leaves and have a smile on their faces the whole time.

I just love my kids!

My Little Ballerina

2011-09-18T20:21:00.001-07:00

Last week Lily went to her first ballet class! It was pretty close as to who was more excited, me or Lily. But I think Lily wins. Every day for over a week before she started, she would ask, “Is my ballet class open yet, can I start today?” Such a sweetie.

Of course, the actual class experience wasn’t quite what she thought it would be. She seemed to be doing fine, and I wasn’t supposed to be in the room anyway, so I dropped her off and went to the park across the street with Michael. But when we came back, she was sitting by herself while everyone else was dancing. I tried to coax her to get back out there for the last five minutes, but she was done. Her teacher said she had participated off and on, but had sat out quite a bit. When we got in the car, she finally opened up about the reason why she was uncomfortable. Her reason: her teacher was a boy.

So then we had a talk about how boys can be ballerinas too, and that since she wasn’t going to get a different teacher, she needed to learn to like the teacher she had because he really was nice and was happy to have her in his class. She also confessed that she thought all the little girls in her class were going to stare at her. I don’t know when she decided that she was that shy, but apparently she is, so we’ll see how next week goes. I think it’ll just take her another week or so to get used to it.

Since the parents aren’t allowed in the room, I don’t have any of her with her class. But I took pictures of Lily before we left, so here are those. By the way, I didn’t pose her at all. She came up with these all on her own.

I love my sweet little ballerina!

Recent Adventures

2011-07-27T22:03:00.001-07:00

Since it’s been a couple of years from the last time I posted (ok, feels like it, anyway), I thought a few of you out there might be interested in what we’ve been up to lately. I’m going to attempt to add an update on our life every week or so. I’m hoping saying it here will motivate me to follow through. I miss blogging. And picture taking. As I’m sure you noticed, I fell off the bandwagon on the picture a day thing. But I (mostly) managed it for over three months, and I am really proud of myself for that. It’s something I still enjoy looking back on and seeing those snippets of my days. I hope I start doing it again, not necessarily for anyone else, mostly just for me. But right now I don’t need another daily responsibility so it’s low on my priority list.

A n y w a y… about a month and a half ago, Ben decided to go fly an airplane. For his birthday last year I bought him a starter package to learn how to pilot a plane, and he just got around to using it. He had a really great time. Too bad it’s so expensive to take regular lessons. Anyone want to give us a few thousand dollars so Ben can keep taking lessons? He’ll give you a free flight!

It was a really gorgeous day to go flying, and the kids and I enjoyed staying in the little grassy area there. Once Ben got in the plane and took off though, we quickly lost track of him. Then the kids found this little guy, and were completely entertained for the rest of the time.

Either he was fresh from the cocoon, or not used to all the wind (it was really windy there), but whatever it was, this beautiful little butterfly stayed low to the ground, basically just in the grass, and barely tried to get away from us. We were able to catch him multiple times and just hold him for awhile to look at him. The kids loved it. They were very careful, which I thought was pretty impressive for a three year old and (at the time) almost two year old.

They were hoping the flowers would tempt him.

It worked!

Happy kiddos! And happy Ben too! He really enjoyed the lesson. He got to be in control most of the time, including the take-off, all the in-air turns, and the second landing also. He told me he especially loved all the beautiful views. Mt. Rainer was totally visible and picturesque and he enjoyed flying over the Sound as well. It was a really neat experience, one that I could see him pursuing in the future.

There you go, one recent adventure down, many more to come!

Most of you already know this but…

2011-06-02T14:06:00.001-07:00

I’m pregnant!! I’m 16 weeks along, and my due date is Nov. 17. I have an ultrasound scheduled for July 1st to find out the gender.

In all honesty I meant to blog about this a few weeks ago but, well, you might have noticed… I’ve been completely horrible at blogging lately. Wonder why?

The first trimester actually wasn’t that bad. Some nausea, but nothing unbearable. I think the most annoying thing was feeling icky, but being starving at the same time. But since nothing sounded appetizing at all, it would take me two hours sometimes just to figure out what to eat. Of course, I’d much rather have that problem than the morning sickness/all day sickness that a lot of people get, so I’m counting myself lucky. Now I’m just tired and have a headache most days… ahh, the joys of pregnancy!

At least with this pregnancy my cravings have been so much tamer. With my first two, I basically craved sweets All. The. Time. Kit Kats and Milky Ways were a serious craving. Jamba Juice too, which at least can be healthy(ish). But this time, it’s been very very different. As in, a lot of days I don’t even want anything sweet at all. Which is soooo unlike me, pregnant or not. About two weeks ago, I made a 10” cheesecake for no particular reason other than Ben was wanting cheesecake, and other than a normal size piece that first night, I pretty much didn’t touch it. And I generally LOVE cheesecake. So weird!! For the first 8-10 weeks, I actually craved lettuce and tomatoes! For one week it was a ham sandwich with cheese and mayonnaise and nothing else. As Lily would say, “That’s odd.”

Anyway, I finally finally got myself to blog about being pregant. Go me!

Me at 12 weeks. I’ve started showing way earlier than with my other pregnancies. I’m ok with this, except for trying to fit into my clothes! Ugh, I really don’t like maternity clothes… only 5 1/2 more months, right?!

Kitchen Remodel Reveal

2011-05-13T14:16:00.001-07:00

We are 97% complete with our kitchen remodel (we need to put a few pieces of trim work in) and since I’ve had just about everybody I know asking me to put pictures up, I decided not to make you all wait for that point. Without further ado, the finished kitchen!

What do you think? By the way, the big space by the floor length cupboard is where the fridge goes, but for now it’s sitting in our living room so we can paint the trim there first.

Here are a few before pictures for some reference.

View from where the window above the sink is now – this is a picture from the realtor when we first bought it, very much photo-shopped. The wall color was much more yellow and the cupboards not nearly that white. And the picture makes it look more spacious than it really was.

After:

Same view, or as close as I could get to it (taken through the window). As you can see, the wall where the stove was is gone and an island is in it’s place. And the fridge (that you see in the living room) will soon be across from the island.

Before:

Stove, tiny counters next to it, and fridge.

After:

No more tiny counters! Front view of the island. Check out my new oven! And all my drawer space! I’m still trying to figure out what to put in that left drawer.

Another before picture:

What you see was pretty much the extent of my usable counter space. It was meager.

Another angle of the same counter and sink. Yeah, I worked real hard to clean up for these before pictures.

After:

Now look at all that counter space! Not to mention the island too!

Before:

Just to show you the doorway that used to lead into the kitchen. The pocket door was one of the first things that we demolished, so it’s not in most of the other before pictures.

After:

Now there’s no pocket door and no walls closing me off from the rest of the house. I love how open and bright it is now. I feel so much more connected to everything/everybody else when I’m cooking now, rather than banished to the dark kitchen to slave away.

Closer view of the sink. I love that it sits right under the window. I didn’t want it there at first, but Ben convinced me and I’m so glad he did. So much more cheery washing dishes looking out at my backyard and garden! Also, we already loved our faucet, but we got a new, deeper sink, and let me tell you, a deep sink is a serious luxury. It’s awesome!

Before of the dining room:

I would like to point out again that the walls were NOT that color. That color would have been ok, but in reality, they were a drab yellow. (Another realtor picture, in case you didn’t notice. Just like to point out the obvious here.) Also notice the popcorn ceiling and minimal lighting.

After:

Now completely open to the kitchen, no more popcorn ceilings, and an abundance of light from the recessed lighting! And White! No more drab yellow! We painted not only the kitchen and dining room, but the living room, entry way and hallway as well. It makes a huge difference in the feel of the whole house, we both love it. One more thing I love about the whole thing is all the extra outlets. There were very few outlets before and it really limited where I could work in the kitchen with my KitchenAid and other kitchen gadgets, blender, etc. Now there’s one on either end of the island plus tons along the walls in the kitchen. Freedom to work and cook where I want to! Love it!

And check out all of the pretty cupboards! My dad did them for us, and I’m so so happy with how they all look and feel. So much more space and better organized and they’re not dingy and don’t smell old! Check out my Dad’s website if you want awesome closets, he’s the owner of the company, has years of experience, and they are the absolute best around: www.thecustomclosetcompany.com. I love you Dad!

So, a quick list of all the changes we made (“we” being used loosely here!):

Remove pocket door and wall separating kitchen and dining room
Remove all the popcorn on the ceilings in dining room, living room, hallway, stairs and entryway, and one bedroom
Move the sliding glass door to the dining room and put a window in the kitchen
Take out linoleum in kitchen and carpet in dining room
Take out all the existing cabinets
Move plumbing to the back of the kitchen so we could put the sink and dishwasher under the window
Re-wire almost everything and add extra electrical circuits
Added an extra 240v outlet for the stove (used the one we already had for my new oven)
Take out all existing lighting and put in recessed lights (16 of them, to be exact)
Re-drywall the entire kitchen
Put in new hardwood floors
Put in new cabinetry (thank-you so much Dad!!)
Put in new granite countertops
Paint kitchen, dining room, living room, stairs and entryway, including all the ceilings
Finish with bead board under the island and additional trim work elsewhere

I *think* that about covers it. It took us about 5 weeks to do the majority of the work. And I feel like I need to clarify. When I said “we” and “us” before, what I really meant was I was in charge of keeping the kids out of trouble, and my Grandpa Harry and Ben did all the work. Without my Grandpa, this would have been a much more difficult and long undertaking. Thank-you thank-you thank-you Grandpa!! And Ben, a public thank-you to you also for taking vacation time from work to work in our kitchen and for being so patient with all the little decisions and making sure everything looks perfect. I love you!

(Oh wait, I did help with the painting. Go me!)

One more time, just cuz I really can’t get enough of it:

I love love love (love love love love!) LOVE my new kitchen!

Construction Pics!

2011-04-06T21:59:00.001-07:00

Mid-demolition. For those not super familiar with our kitchen (lol, probably everyone) the wall originally extended a few feet to the right of that stud with the light switch on it. The fridge was nestled in the corner the two walls made, we had about a foot of counter space, then the stove, then another foot of counter space. On the far side, with all the open cabinets in this picture, the dishwasher was right up against the wall, then the sink, then another two feet of counter, then a funky triangular shaped floor to ceiling cabinet. And that was it. It was pretty small, limiting, and difficult to work in. And the area right in front of the sliding glass door you see in this pic was pretty much wasted space. Not big enough for a kitchen table, so it was just empty. Lame.

Nearing end of demolition. All the cabinets have been removed. So have the four(!!!) layers of some very outdated linoleum. This is the view towards the sliding glass door.

Tearing the carpet out of the dining room. Who wants carpet in a dining room?!?

Pretty much the end of demo. The carpet’s gone now and so are the studs.

Old light fixtures are gone, and now the door and window have switched places! Isn’t it lovely? The door in the dining room makes so much more sense for the way our space is set up. Everyone who’s ever came in has commented on how weird it was that it was in the kitchen. So I’m super glad it’s not anymore.

Lights! Whoo-hoo! Grandpa’s working in the plumbing in this pic. The sink is going to go under the window with the dishwasher to the left of the sink.

And this is what it looks like tonight! All the plumbing and electrical completed and signed off by inspectors, so the sub-flooring is back down, the drywall is up and in the process of being mudded. We (we being applied very loosely here) are still working on the casing for the door and window, but that’s not urgent. We need to finish mudding it all, then texture and paint by the end of the weekend. We have hardwoods going in on Monday, then cabinets and counters shortly after that.

It all feels like such a long process, but it’s actually coming together pretty nicely. I’m trying to reconcile myself to all the dust and dirt that inevitably makes it way everywhere, and even though there’s lots for me still to do at home (I still have to feed people, do laundry, etc), we’re trying to spend a fair amount of time outside the home too, so the kids don’t get into everything and I don’t go crazy trying to keep everything clean. Not that I’m even a neat freak or anything even close to that. Something about construction debris really gets me going though. But it’ll all be worth it when our kitchen is complete. Ben and I are really really excited about it. The kids are totally catching on to it too. I think Lily still thinks it’s going to be delivered one day. She keeps asking “Is our new kitchen here yet?” And Michael understands that Grandpa is working on the kitchen all day.

Speaking of Grandpa, both the kids love having him here. It’s so cute. They always want to go upstairs to say hi to him and watch him work. During meals both of them talk and laugh with him the whole time, and they are always trying to include him in all their conversations. Which is really cute to watch, because Grandpa is extremely hard of hearing, so he tries his best to respond appropriately to what they are excitedly telling him. But half the time I have to repeat very loudly for him what they just said. The best is when Lily remembers on her own to be extra loud and we all hear her loud and clear as she bellows up at him something totally silly like, “GRANDPA, I’M BEING A GOOSE!”

Lots of writing for just a few pics, all really to say that it’s going well, and I can’t wait till it’s finished. The end.