Friday 31 May 2013

Baby Shower

Yesterday we actually got hot summer weather! I was beginning to wonder if summer was ever going to arrive, but it came in full force yesterday. Matt and I worked on the deck (and our suntans) until about 3:30, but by then it was just too hot to continue working. Our labors paid off though, and by the time we got done, we had the railing up all the way around. We just have to put the spindles in the railing now. Matt custom made the flower box that you see in the corner below. Wednesday was a rainy day, so we set up shop in the basement and worked on making one for each corner of that side of the deck. I can't wait to put flowers in them!






In the middle of working yesterday, when I was drenched in sweat and my hair a mess, I got a phone call from Leah telling me that somehow when they were passing out invitations they had "missed" me, and she and Mrs. Bamford and Sarah were hosting a baby shower in my honor that evening! Talk about surprised!! Usually I am a little suspicious about things, but everyone did a great job at keeping this a secret! Matt completely knew about it and had not so much as dropped one clue that there was a surprise shower being planned for us! He just stood there grinning and winking at me as I got the phone call from Leah. :-) I was grateful she gave me a little heads up so that I could get cleaned up from working.
The shower was so much fun, and everyone spoiled little Brett and I rotten. Mrs. Jan Bamford led the games, and she had very interesting ones. She passed around sealed,  unlabelled baby food jars and we had to name the baby food inside. It was much harder than it looked like it would be! Mashed, cooked baby food looks very much alike! :-) We then were given a page with clues and we had to name the body part of the baby that each clue described. Some of those were stumpers for this blonde brain. We also had an M&M guess where we had to guess how many M&M's were in the baby bottle she passed around. The last game was a list of old wives' tales predictions on whether the expectant mother was having a boy or girl. We had to fill in the blank with "boy" or "girl". Some of them were HILLARIOUS!!
"If the pregnant mother sleeps with her pillow facing north she is having a boy."
 "If her nose is wider now than before she got pregnant, she is having a boy."
How on earth did these people come up with these things!?!?!?
Matt's Mom led in a short devotional and went over a couple of names for the Lord that are so very helpful when you need help and guidance in raising children of your own ( or in any situation):El Shaddai, which encompasses aspects of both a father's strong, protective care and a mother's tender, loving care; Shepherd which shows the care and concern and work the Lord puts in to every one of us. With a God like this, we know we can turn to Him in any situation of life and He will be there ready and willing to help us. It was a great reminder to me, especially knowing that this little guy is entrusted to our keeping and he is an eternal being who needs to be taught about the Lord.
Pam decorated the most adorable cake for little Brett and I, and we snacked on cake, fruit, cheese and crackers. Here is a picture of Pam's handy work.



We were so generously showered with presents with everything from baby washes, lotions, and powder; to nail clippers, thermometer, and diaper cream; to baby wipes and diapers, burp cloths, a little quilt, and much, much more. One package of diapers even looks like the baby is wearing little blue jeans when he has them on. When I got done opening all of the gifts, I had things all around my chair so I couldn't move, and that was how Matt found me when he came to pick me up. :-)
Thank you so much to everyone who blessed us with gifts, and to the Bamfords for hosting the shower. I had such a wonderful time, and the gifts were so very helpful in getting ready for little Brett's arrival.


Here is baby and I with all of our presents after Daddy brought us home last night.

Thursday 30 May 2013

Memorial Day/ Matt's Birthday/Deck Building

Matt has this whole week off and we both have been enjoying every minute of it. It's the first vacation he has had in a year and a half!!
 Monday was Memorial Day as well as Matt's birthday, and our day was packed full of activity. We started out the day by enjoying a birthday breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and eggs that I cooked for him. Matt's friend Kenneth came down Sunday night and stayed the day Monday, so he was able to celebrate Matt's birthday with us. After breakfast, Dad and Mom McFarland and Charity arrived to help out with getting started on building the deck out back. The guys went right to work and I worked away at cleaning up from breakfast and visited with Mom, Charity, and April.
Around 9:30 the guys took a break from working on the deck, and we all went to Blue Hill to watch a Memorial Day parade that Jay was in. We met up with Rosanna and Gramp and Gram McFarland at the parade, and we ended up with the best spot to watch the little ceremony Jay participated in in the middle of the parade route. They paid tribute to all the soldiers who had died in active duty by floating a wreath down the river and a gun salute. Then they all stood at attention while the Last Post and the National Anthem was played by the local high school band, before continuing on with the parade. Here are some pictures Matt got of the ceremony.








A few more pictures from the parade.



After the parade, we headed back home and the guys spent the rest of the day working on the deck. It was beautiful day for working and they wanted to get as much done as possible in the beautiful weather. We womenfolk helped out where we could, making a couple of runs to town for supplies and passing hammers, nails, and screws as they were needed. Here is the progress they made in one day.





Around 5:00 the guys called it a day after all of the floor stringers were in place and a few decking boards were laid. We had invited Matt's family and Kenneth to stay for supper to celebrate Matt's birthday, so I fired up the grill, and the girls and Mom helped me get supper on. Jay and Rosanna arrived around 6:00 and we all sat down to a supper of hamburgers, hotdogs, steak, potato and macaroni salads, with raspberry cheesecake for dessert. I realized afterwards that I got so busy cooking and enjoying the meal that I forgot to take any pictures of the celebrations. You'll just have to trust me that there was a TON of food and we all were stuffed by the time we were done! By 9:00 everybody was ready to call it a night and Matt and I headed to bed tired, but so happy with all of the progress that had been made.

Friday 24 May 2013

Baby Room Prep Part 2

This past Tuesday Matt had some time to work a little more on our baby room. The next step that had to be done was doing some patch up work with crack fill. The people who had the house before us had put chair rail up in the baby's room, but had not done it properly and on top of that had just used glue to attach it to the wall. Of course when I pulled it off, it brought the paint and pieces of the drywall with it. There were also many little nail holes which I'm assuming were made when the previous owners hung pictures in the room that needed to be filled. Matt went right to work and in less than an hour, the first coat of mud was applied and it was left to dry.



I picked up some sandpaper today, so the room awaits my sanding down the rough spots before Matt can apply another coat of mud. Then it will be on to step 3...painting! :-)  

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Mothers Day Hanging Basket

Matt and little Brett completely surprised me and gave me a Mother's Day gift this year. I was not expecting to celebrate Mother's Day myself until our little boy is actually here to cuddle in our arms. But when I woke up Sunday morning, Matt presented me with a sweet card from little Brett and a gift certificate to Surry Gardens Nursery.
 I set aside some time today and went to see what I would find to use my certificate on. I kind of had in mind either buying a hanging basket of flowers already made up, or buying the flowers to put together a basket of my own. I also had seen a hanging basket at Home Depot spilling over with peach/salmon colored flowers that was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! I  wanted to see if I could find any flowers that might be close to that peach/salmon color.
 I enjoyed strolling through the greenhouses looking at all the beautiful flowers and plants     and came upon a cone shaped basket filled with a mixture of the exact color of flowers I was looking for. However I was not about to pay $40 for a hanging basket, so I resorted to plan B....replicate the basket with individual plants. After making several trips back and forth between greenhouses to compare the plants with what was in the basket, I was able to find everything I needed for a much more affordable price. They didn't have any cone-shaped baskets left, so I picked out my next favorite hanging pot and proceeded to the checkout. This is what I came home and planted.



I tried to get plants that weren't in full bloom yet, but looked healthy and had buds on them, so my pot isn't actually bursting with color yet. I'm hoping they will last through the summer better since I didn't get them in full bloom. Two little plants not in bloom yet will be a little white flower to add some contrast to the peach/salmon, and another plant not in bloom is a duplicate of the small peach/ salmon flower already in bloom.
This may get moved to our back deck when it gets built since we don't have a lot of room on our front porch as it is. We'll see when the time comes. For now I am so excited with how my hanging basket turned out and how cute it looks in the little stand we picked up for it at Home Depot. I have the sweetest husband and baby ever!!! I'm looking forward to enjoying my Mother's Day gift all summer. :-)

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Projects with My Man

This afternoon my sweet man devoted some time to helping me with some projects around the dooryard. He started out by mowing the lawn so that I wouldn't have to, and then helped me with a project I was completely at a loss how to do. Last Tuesday he took me to Home Depot and bought me decorative cement blocks to build up my flower garden around the stump on our front lawn. I spent the whole day last Wednesday trying to get the ground level enough so that my rows of blocks would be level, but had no clue what I was doing. By the end of the day I  was farther behind then when I started. This afternoon my man offered to help me with the project and show me how to set the blocks. He went right to work, and what I couldn't do in a whole day, he did in an afternoon!! I carried the blocks one by one to him as he needed them, and he leveled out the soil and set the blocks. In the end my little garden was completely surrounded with the blocks, and I was feeling like one spoiled girl. We love working on little projects around the house together, and enjoy spending the time with each other even more!!
Here are some pics of my man hard at work and the finished product of his labor. Thank you SO much, sweetheart, it turned out beautifully!!






Friday 10 May 2013

Piano Recital 2013

Every year my piano teacher holds a recital for her students to be able to demonstrate what they have learned throughout the year. She usually has to split it up into two nights to be able to fit all of her students in...one night would be too long. After months of practicing, last night was the night I was scheduled to play. After a busy day of running errands and going to appointments, I met Matt at the dealership and he took me to my recital. It is always so special to me when my man is able to escort me instead of having to go by myself!
The recital was held at a beautiful little place called Peaks Hill Lodge. It is a rustic place, tastefully decorated inside to fit the "rustic" feel.


Here is a panorama that Matt took to give you an idea of what it looks like.
I was scheduled to play 15th out of about 20 students that attended last night's recital, and played a piece called Flight of the Monarch written by Melody Bober. I fell in love with the piece as soon as I heard my teacher play it the first time, and even after having practiced it all these months and memorized it, I still love it. :-)


As you can see my music was well marked by the time I had it memorized and was ready to perform the piece. Mrs. Williams is very thorough in teaching and helping us memorize.


A picture Matt took of me playing from where he was sitting.
The Lord helped things to go very well, and I was able to forget all the people behind me and just enjoy playing my song.


Mrs. Williams and I after the recital.
Matt was incredibly sweet and bought me the dress I'm wearing especially for the occasion.  It made me feel beautiful which is not always easy to do with an ever increasing waistline. *wink* Thank you SO much, Babe!!
Matt's Dad, Mom, and sisters came to the recital too, and we all headed back home shortly after the recital was over, making a short stop for some ice cream before calling it a night. 

Monday 6 May 2013

Round Garden

My little round garden at the edge of our driveway has been a challenge to reclaim from the fern and blackberry brambles that had overtaken it before we got the house. Matt said that when he bought the place he didn't even know there was a garden there because it was so grown up. The last few days I have been working on cleaning out all the leaves and dead growth from the winter, and digging out the blackberries and fern that have popped up in abundance this spring. I was finally able to finish it this afternoon! My battle with the brambles and fern is far from over, but I am enjoying the beauty of my cleaned out garden while it lasts. :-)




Saturday 4 May 2013

A Good Job Done

As of yesterday morning we no longer have huge oak logs sitting on our lawn. The guys doing the milling arrived about 9:00 and finished milling the logs into boards. By 10:30 or so the job was done, and we had a stack of lumber sitting on our front lawn, along with a huge pile of sawdust.


This is what it looked like Thursday evening after the guys had left. They only had two logs to finish up the next day. Matt's Dad, Mom and the girls came over that night after supper and we loaded the truck up to get some of the lumber under cover in Dad's shop.


Altogether the guy doing the milling estimated we had about $1000 worth of lumber from our logs. He cut them into 8 foot lengths, but some of the boards are 14 inches wide! Matt said you probably wouldn't be able to buy them that wide. It turned out to be absolutely beautiful wood. It has a beautiful grain in it, and some of it even has a reddish tinge to it. I tried to capture some of it, but the picture doesn't really do it justice.


I started the task this morning of cleaning up the bark that was scattered around the lawn, and used a little of the sawdust to put around some of our bushes to keep the weeds down. I had what I could do to clean up the yard done by the time Mr. and Mrs. Jim arrived this afternoon to pick up the remaining sawdust and the log he had milled out. Dad, Mom, and Charity showed up not long after Mr. and Mrs. Jim arrived, and between the one ton truck Mr. Jim had borrowed and our truck we got the remaining lumber loaded to take to Dad's shop. 
Here is what it looked like this morning before I started cleaning up.




Tonight the lumber is all over at Dad's house and the mess is all cleaned up. Our lawn looks SO much better!! What a great project to have done! Thank you to Dad, Mom, and the girls for measuring and stacking this all tonight.


Thursday 2 May 2013

More House Projects

Today is the first cloudy day we have had in a week! The rest of the days have been warm and sunny. Although it is still quite warm today, I thought I'd take advantage of it being cloudy and try to get some inside things done. Also we have some guys milling out logs in our front yard today and I thought it would be better if I could stay out of their way while they worked. :-) I'll tell you more about that in a minute.
Monday evening one of Matt's coworkers brought his tractor (or his Tonka toy as he calls it) to our house to drill the holes for the sona tubes for our deck. We would have had to dig them all by hand if he had not been willing to do it for us, and when he started digging, we found out just how hard that would have been. There were a lot of roots crisscrossing each other that would have made for nasty hand digging. He also hit a rock in one hole, that he had no trouble with, but it would have been a big deal had we been digging by hand. Matt said he saved us at least two days worth of hard digging. In about 45 minutes all four holes we needed were dug, and the tractor was being loaded back onto the flatbed.


The auger he had on his tractor had no trouble breaking the sod or going the depth we needed him to drill. Matt just pointed a stake where he wanted the next hole drilled and the guy started drilling. It is SO exciting to have things underway for our new deck. We have talked about it for a year, but now it actually is starting to seem real!



Some of the holes have water in the bottom of them, but Matt knows how to deal with that when the time comes to pour the concrete. We are hoping to have them poured and hardened by the last week of May, because Matt has taken that whole week off work to build the deck.



The rest of our week so far has been taken up with getting some logs ready to be milled out. When Matt bought the house there was a huge oak tree in the middle of our front lawn that was leaning precariously toward the house. Not wanting it to fall on the house in a wind storm, he had it cut down, and the logs from it have been sitting on our lawn ever since. We have contacted a couple of mills, but they have either been too busy, or we would have to have the logs hauled a long distance. Last week a portable mill showed up at a property on the end of our road. Matt immediately started researching who owned it, and was able to get a name and phone number. The guy was willing to do the milling for us as long as we had the logs by our driveway in a row so that he would be able to get them on his mill. That is easier said than done because these logs were HUGE and we had no equipment to move them with. Not to be daunted, my man came up with a plan, and Tuesday afternoon he executed it.


All but one of the logs he was able to throw a chain around and tow with our truck, but one of them was just too big. All our truck would do is sit there and spin. Thankfully Mr. Jim came to my man's rescue since he had a log that needed milling out too, and between the two of them and the truck they were able to inch it along on makeshift skids to the spot it needed to be. A lot of muscle power and truck power went into the work, but finally all of the logs were in place.



As I write this post, the logs are currently being sawed into boards for us to use on whatever project strikes our fancy. :-)