May oh my

May never fails to be the busiest month of the year.  It's hard to get back into blogging, and so easy to keep putting it off!

This month has been filled with wonderful little achievements.  Wally has started to feed himself with a spoon and fork.  It started with constant flinging and dropping, but each week he gets a little more food in his mouth.  It never fails though that he'll get an itch on his ear and try to scratch it with the yogurt-filled spoon. He's getting very bossy about his food - he'll grab the spoon out of my hand and not eat unless he is feeding himself.  Which results in many a meal like below:

Wally's also becoming quite the climber.  He's always loved sitting up on the window bench, but now he's figured out how to shimmy his way up there without help. He's very proud of himself when he can do this.

And he sits up there systematically checking the latches and handles.  This is one of the cutest little faces.  I just love it!

Here's a cute one I put into black and white.  It was nice to get a little catch light in his eyes.

Wally loves to play with anything that's expensive and not really intended for use by toddlers.  Hence my $120 resonater bell set.

May 12, the day before "the big day" - a perfect collision of Mother's Day and my birthday.  It was a wonderful day, the weather was beautiful and everyone was in a good mood.  Especially me when Brian said the magic words: Restaurant, my treat.  Yay!  We went to Sunsets in Wayzata and sat on the patio.  I had the tortellini with peas and proscuitto.  Brian had the Walleye.  Wally had a sampling of everything.

After Sunsets, we put Wally into the stroller and walked around downtown Wayzata.  There is a really cute old depot train station with a park behind it, so we hung out there for a while.  Wally was really trying hard to get down to the water.  He kept running straight for the reeds.

Wally visits parks

This summer I have a feeling we'll be doing lots of playdates outside at parks and such.  This week Wally's been getting lots of park time - first on Monday with Mariel, Kath, Mame and I and then walks on Tuesday with Mame.  We followed it up with 2 park playdates on Thursday, one with some of Wally's ECFE friends in Mound and another with Colin and Kacy.  It was a very fun day.  Needless to say, he was quite ready for bed at 6:15 that evening!

Backyard Remodel Stage 2: Bobcat and Sprinklers

The first stage of the backyard remodel has been very smooth and exciting to watch.  Chad, "the landscape guy," started around the east side of the backyard near the large trees and garbage area.  He installed edging and fabric around the trees to create a really cute curving pathway of grass.  The hope is that at some point this summer we will be able to build stairs into the retaining wall for house guests to use in the wintertime.

It's been a really cool transformation from backyard embarassment to tidy and beautiful!  Here is Brian and Chad shoveling gravel to install the pavers at the base of the stairs.

Bobcat at work!  Notice the white line where the landscape edging was put in, which Chad and I had to redraw several times before the shape looked natural.  Now there is plenty of space for a future sunny garden area!  I already put up the abalisk that Sandi and Kevin gave us as our wedding gift and I've been growing morning glories indoors that will grow up around it!

Pavers installed, yay! The bobcat raised up that area around the steps a good 6 inches, so I had to dig up all the plants in that center garden and transplant them once the dirt was leveled out.

Striking a pose for the camera!

Putting the landscape fabric and mulch down

Here is the sprinkler installation.  That process was actually really quick - there were about 5 guys here for maybe 3 hours one morning, and they put the whole thing together!  

Here we are 2 1/2 weeks after the sprinkler system and hydroseed were installed.  The grass is growing!!  Slowly, but surely!

Last pic, I promise.  This is my indoor seed growing operation.  It's the most basic way to do it - just a bunch of jiffy pots sitting on a few folding card tables by the patio window.  Wally has only gotten to about 2 pots of jalepenos, which I consider a huge success.  I've been growing peppers, tomatos, zinnias, morning glory, salvia, rosemary, basil, and a few other flowers.  We shall see what makes it outdoors!

Backyard Remodel Stage 1: Before

Since purchasing our home in July of 2008, Brian has engineered some pretty awesome remodeling projects.  Our first, and by far largest, was the addition of the garage, residing the house, and turning the old "garage" into a storage shed.  Oh yes, along with paving the driveway.  Next came the downstairs room into an updated TV/play room, which is a wonderful space.  Then we had some not-so-easily seen but much needed things done like spraying extra insullation into the attic and a recent radon mitigation.  I had never even heard of radon before Brian pointed it out - at first I thought it was a prank.

This winter, as we talked about all the projects that the house really needs (and that list is quite long) I won out with my bid for a backyard remodel.  Brian had already started getting quotes from contractors last fall, so he got back on that horse in February to get some contractors put together.

At first it looked like this would be a June project because there are weight limit road restrictions on Three Points which would prohibit those big bobcats and trucks from getting out here, but with the crazy warm weather we had in March the restrictions were lifted 6 weeks early.  So, things got started and have been rolling along at a good clip!

Here are a few "before" pics of the back yard.

We got some help from Fred and Kath a few weekends back and took a Saturday to clean up all the leaves and debrees in the back yard that we didn't get to in the fall.  It's not easy to see, but the ground in the back yard was very uneven and pocked with little divets.  You had to watch your step or risk twisting an ankle!

In the pic below, although you can't see it, right where Brian is standing were the remains of the old driveway.  It was class 5 gravel.  So that whole area from Brian down to the house and across to the shed (to the left of the pic) was pretty much crappy gravel with a few weeds and daylilies forging life from the sand.

 Wally was helping me secure my idea that we really need some kind of hedge between our back yard and the Mazurek's side yard.  Wally loves to step over the little strip of perennials and run down Joe and Julie's driveway.  The pic below is from the street, where they are preparing to put in some landscape edging to carve out some nice mulched areas around the trees.

 This next pic just makes me happy to see.  Notice the unsightly wood pallet that was a bottom stair (not the weatherd paint job on the deck....that's not changing anytime soon).  I hated these pallets at the bottom of the steps.  This one in particular occasionally tipped if you stepped on just the wrong spot.  It was embarassing for me to have my piano students use this every winter to get into the house!  This pallet is now gone forever!  Yes!

 Check back soon for the action shots of the yard being torn apart and put back together!

Easter with the John Family

Easter: Part 2 of 2

We spent the early afternoon of Easter Sunday at Mame and Ray's place.  Mame made us a really nice lunch with just about everything you could imagine.  The ham was excellent, and my favorite (as always) are the scalloped potatoes.  She even had an angel food cake and 2 pies for dessert.

We got a few cute family shots, which I completely over edited.  But since I'm running out of time, this is what I'll post!

Wally was a little crabby because he really wanted to run in the hallways instead of hang out in the living room, so it was hard to get a smile.  The chair ride with Grandpa Fred helped.

Easter with the Rock Family

Easter Sunday: Part 1 of 2

Now isn't this the cutest group of little men you've ever seen?  I think so at least!  Wally, Colin, and Ryder are growing up and we had the perfect 3 seconds where they all sat still.  Raenay and Grant's back yard is so interesting that I didn't think we'd be able to do it.  Sheer mommy will. This is why I love the "continuous shoot" action on my camera.

I had to include this one even though it's a little blurry because this is such a funny little face.

 Dad and Raenay smiling for the camera!

I took a few family shots for Andy and Kacy.  Now that thier family is growing (due August!) we need to document the stages when we can :)  

 Here's a few more cute pics from the day.  I just thought I'd throw them in for fun!

Visit to Lake Elmo

Last weekend Brian was attending the Minnebar Tech Conference in Mpls, so Wally and I had the whole day Saturday to hang out.  We decided to head over to Lake Elmo and visit my dad and Mary, and it was a wonderful day. Kacy and Andy joined us, and Colin and Wally gave a thorough "kid-testing" to the new house.  They inspected everything from the dishwasher to stairways to bedrooms.  No square inch was unturned.  Here is a cute pic of Colin with one of Marys kitchen wooden spoons.

Those spoons made wonderful golf clubs, and Wally had a blast batting those tennis balls around the dining area.

 Dad spent a good chunk of the day chasing Wally up and down the stairs.  They played a game of peek-a-boo (a current Wally favorite) between the lower and upper staircases.

 We'll be back soon for another visit!