Backyardigans

Our backyard! It is done!! It only took a year from start to finish, but it is completed! 

We were going to originally build a deck. Well, Ryan was going to. But eventually we decided concrete made more sense because of the large area we wanted to cover. 

Here is the finished product:

We are loving it. We have already had 4 BBQs with friends/family and we've only had it for 2 weeks. It's so nice not to have any more dirt anywhere. I conducted a short interview with Ryan. 

Q: how do you feel about it getting done?

A: Great. 

Q: What was your least favorite part?

A: digging the trenches for the sprinkler system. 

Q: what was your favorite part?

A: laying the sod. 

Q: if you could redo something what would it be?

A: to not dig those trenches so freaking deep. 

Well, my dear husband, you did a swell job with your first landscaping endeavor. May it be your last!

Maya and I very much enjoyed a BBQ! And yes, she is gnawing on a big chunk of beef. 

Maya - 7 Months

My baby is 7 months old! This past month went by ridiculously fast. I think she will remain 6-months permanently in my mind.

"I'm 7-months old! Y'all better recognize!"

She is still a tiny little baby, fitting into some 3-month clothes. You can tell that her "7" onesie is rather large on her. It's a size 6-12 month.

She has learned to shake her head "no". I'm sure she has pretty much no clue what she is communicating when she does it, but she does at it the right times fairly often, like when I'm trying to feed her. But other times she'll just be playing with her toys and shake her head a lot. This is her shaking her head.

She is now wanting everything. As you can tell by the pictures I tried to take, she was not in the mood to just LOOK at the camera. It had to be touched!!

She still loves being outside. And I love taking her there! I have started going for a run 3 times a week. She sits quietly in the jogger and always falls asleep.

She has started eating "real" food. She hasn't rejected anything she has tried yet, and I'm hoping that doesn't change anytime soon.

She can roll over both directions now. Almost 100% of the time she rolls on to her tummy to sleep now. And she's getting good at trying to get up on her knees.

She is SO wiggly!! She is constantly moving her arms or legs. I think she's starting her exercise regime early.

Moving those arms!

You know how people say that a picture taken from above is more flattering? Just in case you don't believe that, here is proof:

Looking forward to new adventures with my 7-month old!

4th of July

Hooray for the 4th of July! I love this holiday. It's so fun to get to celebrate something outside in the nice weather. And since Erie does their celebration on the 3rd, we got two days of fun! A few weeks prior I asked Ryan what we were going to do this year since we have Maya now. He said, quite matter of fact, "We are going to go watch fireworks." So that is what we did.

We invited Dave and Ashley and their family to come watch them with us, and we were excited that they were able to make it! We got to the golf course where they were shooting off the fireworks around 7:45 PM and then hung out and talked for the next couple of hours. Maya fell asleep in her carrier around 9 PM so she missed the fireworks, but that was okay.

The show was great. We enjoyed everything about that evening. Except for driving home. We were at a stand-still trying to get out of the neighborhood for half an hour!

Maya is learning how to fly.

The festivities

The boys played a little catch with the football

Letters

Holly and I had a fun craft day last week! We weren't quite sure what we wanted to do at first, and decided it had to be something to die for. And then Holly found these cute letters on Etsy and we had to make some! She chose to do "G & H" for her and Garrett's room, and I decided to do just a "K".

We went to Hobby Lobby and purchased our supplies. It's always fun to pick stuff out for a craft, especially when Ryan is there trying to persuade us to get mustache stickers to put on our letters.

Then we met up at my house and got to making our letters! I felt kind of bad because I was in-and-out a lot due to being a mother as well as having a conference call for work that afternoon. But since she had 3 letters and I only had 1, we still finished at the same time.

Aren't they so cute?

Maya participated by placing her little cereal puff on our drying board.

I look forward to our next craft-date!

Visitors: Birds and Humans

We were able to get some cool shots of the birds living on our porch. It was much more fun to have them in a spot where we could watch them! They are all grown up and gone now and we hope that they remember us fondly. We only wish that they had said good-bye.

Daddy Bird

Mommy and Daddy Bird

Baby Bird peeking out

Mommy and Daddy Bird were never too far

 

Baby Bird all grown up

We also had some human visitors! Papa and Sessie came for just a day because they picked up my cousin Jade and her friend Sarah in Wyoming. They stopped by for a few hours. It was so fun to see them all!

Splish Splash - Water Play!

One day I got really bored. I was sitting in the living room with Maya trying to think of something fun to do. Because, let's face it, 6 month olds are still not the best conversationalists. 

And then it hit me. Water play! What baby doesn't like water play? So I grabbed a few odds and ends from the kitchen and a couple stacking cups for her to play with.

The ladle was her favorite. She held it just as if she were trying to drink some sort of delicious broth. 

She realized she could turn the bowl to get to what she wanted. 

The star players.

It was such a fantastic way to fill some time!

A Baby and Birds

First off... just because she's cute:

And now, a story of birds!

We found a nest in the wreath on our door several weeks ago. We tried to use the door very sparingly to avoid bothering the mama and babies. One day I wanted to take pictures of Maya sitting on the chairs on our front porch. I went through the garage, but as I passed by the wreath the mama bird flew out, knocking one of the babies to the ground. I was so sad!! The little thing writhed around for a few minutes and then died. I felt like the worst person on the planet, and it totally ruined my day.

Then a couple of nights later Ryan and I heard something fall while we were in the back living room. I went to go see what it was and the noticed the wreath sitting on the porch. Oh no!! Of course I began to panic. What do we do?! Ryan stepped up to the plate and said he would build them a new home. I told him to hurry, and then called my sister so that I could get the womanly sympathy I needed. (Thanks, Holly!) Ryan came back inside with a little box constructed out of 2x4s. He hung it on the post of our porch, and then we had to figure out how to get the nest inside the box. Ryan got a big piece of cardboard, rubbed it on the grass ("It has to smell like nature!" he said), and then carefully scooped up the nest. One little bird had fallen out and was kind of scuffling on the cardboard. He was so cute and delicate! Ryan slowly "dumped" the nest (every time he said he was going to dump it in I said, "DUMP?!") into the box, which was sort of exciting because the little dude who had been scuffling was now stuck on one of the ledges. We managed to get him in there though. Then we went inside and hoped for the best. By now we were completely invested in this nest and wanted so badly for the baby birds to live! I prayed that night that the mama bird would find them. 

The next morning we woke up at 5:30 (thanks, Maya) and I went down to check on the nest. I could see movement, so at least I knew they had survived the night. Then Ryan had a thought: We had not put the wreath back up. The mama bird was probably so confused! He put the wreath back on the door and before he had a chance to close it, Mama Bird flew in and then turned and saw her new home. Yay!

I am happy to report that the baby birds are still alive and growing!