Announcing Ascha Lynn


Ascha was born at 3:41 P.M. on June 23rd, 2008. Both mom and baby are doing well. Ascha had to stay in the hospital an extra day to recieve some antibiotics, but was released this morning with a clean bill of health. She weighed in at 9 pounds and was 21 inches long. She has stolen all of our hearts. Taylor would like to be nose to nose with her most of the time, and even though Aric keeps a little more distance, he is pleased with her also.








We got to come home from the hospital to our new home! Hooray to Jeremy for getting everything moved, and special thanks to Grandma Janet and Grandpa Lyn. Although we need to put some things away, the kitchen was totally assembled and unpacked, and everything is lovely.

Progress Report

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days. The boys and I all struggled with being sick for a number of days, so we stayed at the apartment and out of everyone's way. We are all better now and we've been to the house recently, so here are some new pictures:



Our kitchen is coming together beautifully. I love the flooring and I love how it goes with our cabinetry. I also love the countertops Jeremy scored - we were planning on going with something lighter than this, but he got a great deal and they match everything else really well.



Here is a pic of our two carpet choices. The frieze in the front is what we did throughout the carpeted areas, and the "moon rock gray" in the two rooms behind is the lower-grade carpet we decided to put in the kids' rooms for right now. We're not completely trusting that the basement will never leak again (although it certainly shouldn't after the work that's gone into keeping it dry), so we didn't want to waste nice carpeting should it ever have a moisture problem. The boys really liked the gray carpet and it didn't cost much for now, so if we should ever have to replace it, it won't be such a big deal.


This is our laminate floor choice. It should compliment the kitchen cabinets beautifully. Jeremy, being ever ambitious, decided to lay it on the diagonal, so it's become quite a large project. However, after working on it all day yesterday (this picture was taken two days ago), he's gotten all of the living room and most of the dining room laid. He's hoping to take it down the hallway today, and then all of our flooring (except trim pieces) will be in. It looks great!




The boys are pretty excited to be moving in!!! Actually, in this picture, they're pretty excited that Grandpa has let them play in the back of his truck. He came back out on Sunday and he and Grandma are being so incredibly helpful! There's no way we could be ready to move in without all their help and we are thankful!




And finally, here's one last tribute to the T-Ball season. Here are the "spectators" at Taylor's last game. Aric saw a picture of me on the computer and said, "Look, Mom. There's a picture of you when you didn't have Ascha in your tummy... You were skinny!" Hopefully this is about the last picture I'll have taken with Ascha in my tummy...we're one week away from her due date today. We hope she stays put until the 25th so we can get things squared away with the house, but part of me is definitely ready to have her out.

Bathroom Progress

Here's a picture of our master bathroom. The floor is very dirty and should clean up to be brighter, but you get the idea. These vanities were scored for about 1/3 retail price on Craigslist - they came brand new in the boxes with matching mirrors! We're pretty pleased with how this room is going to look!

The carpet was installed today, along with all of our lights (except the chandelier, which we haven't decided on yet). Hopefully I'll get pics of the carpet posted in the next few days. We're really moving along well! Jeremy has all the cabinets put together and in the kitchen now and his mom is taking up the first load of boxes from the apartment tonight! It's growing very close to moving time and we are all pretty excited.

In other news, Taylor had his last T-ball game yesterday. He

managed to perk up enough to play, and then he hit his coach's pitch every time he was up to bat! We're really proud of him and the great season he had. He was very good at looking alert and staying ready when fielding, which is no small task for a 5-year-old! Great Job, Taylor!

Flooring and the Flu

Our carpet installer is able to install carpet without the door jambs in place, so we are on track for a FRIDAY (as in, tomorrow!) carpet installation! It's very exciting! Jeremy has done all the tiling downstairs in the boys' bathroom and in the laundry room, and he also got the stairs rounded and prepped for carpet and applied "floor leveler" to the spaces in the subfloor and "levelquick" to the areas of cement that needed tlc after removing the old tile grout. Today he's getting our "FiberFloor" (resilient floor - like vinyl - for bathrooms and kitchen). Hopefully he will be able to lay the master bath portion that will butt up to the carpet today, and then we'll truly be as ready as possible for our carpet install. Jeremy's mom has been helping out with cleaning things so that we'll be starting fresh with clean subfloor under the carpet (THANK YOU, THANK YOU!).

I, as usual, haven't been doing much on the house except working on the logistics and phone calls. It's been rainy and chilly so the boys and I have had a quiet week of hanging out inside. Today is supposed to be nicer, and it's Taylor's last T-ball game, so we had been looking forward to getting out today. However, Taylor got a 24-hour stomach flu yesterday. He was fevered and couldn't even keep water down most of the day, but thankfully, after a good night's sleep following a good day's sleep, he's doing much better. He's eating and his fever is gone, but he still feels "wibbly wobbly" this morning. I doubt he'll have the energy for playing t-ball tonight, but we might go watch the game, since it is his last one. We're hoping that the rest of us don't get this bug!

Ascha's due in less than two weeks, which is both exciting and overwhelming to think about. Hopefully after this carpet goes in, Jeremy's mom and I will be able to move quite a bit of the smaller stuff in the minivan so that "moving day," whenever it occurs, won't be a big deal, even if Ascha is around.

Here are a few more pics of the house progress. We have some of our lighting in now and all of our outlets are working, which is nice. Here is the kitchen:





Here is our family room / play room / guest room. I really love this gray-blue color:




And here is our bedroom, which may or may not stay this color, and may or may not eventually get some accents in the same blue as the family room. It is a silvery gray which we chose for both the guest bath and our bedroom. One of the reasons Jeremy liked this gray was because it looked very silvery without looking purple at all... of course, that was on the paint chip. In the guest bath, which has no natural light, it is a perfect color and just what we expected. In our room, bathed in natural light, it is quite purple. I am sneakily happy about this, because all our color choices tend toward the masculine. (Gray and blue in the bedroom, for example). I really like those tones, but once in a while I fantasize about having a feminine color somewhere, and now I have that, at least for a little while. :-)

PS - I finally redid the video posts from a while ago - you can see Taylor's "wind-up" for batting and Aric's silly question in that May post now. :-)

It's a House!

Since I last posted, the walls have been mudded, taped, textured, and painted. What a difference! It truly feels like a house now. Unfortunately, pictures can't do it justice, but here they are anyway:



Yesterday, Jeremy and his friend Adriel got most of these wall cabinets installed in the kitchen (pics coming later), so things are flying right along.



We thought we'd be on track to get carpet in this Friday, but now we're not so sure. The current roadblock is that all the interior doors have to be in before the carpets. We were thinking that would go quickly because we have all the doors we need leftover from demolition. However, every single door we have is in a 2x6-sized jamb, but because we took off all those layers of plaster, our walls now require 2x4-sized jambs. We can either acquire all new doors or Jeremy can disassemble every door jamb, cut each piece down, and reassemble them. With our time crunch / baby race, we're not sure which option we'll choose. Jeremy had been hoping to tile today, but this door dilemma might change his plans.

Jeremy has been going at super-hero speeds, non-stop, since he came home from his last upriver trip on Thursday. (When I say "last," I not only mean the nearest previous trip, but also the "last" in the sense that he probably won't be taking anymore for quite a while. Last year's grain is pretty much gone, so there won't be many trips, and with Ascha nearing her debut appearance, Jeremy will be sticking close to home anyway.) On Friday, he had quite a bit of trouble with different frustrating roadblocks, and wasn't able to truly start painting in earnest until the afternoon. By 10 or 10:30 p.m., he had managed to primer the entire ceiling and all the walls, paint the ceiling, and cut in the edges of the kitchen with our chosen color! AMAZING! Then, Saturday, Jeremy and his mom painted the entire rest of the house. In the morning, he sprayed the downstairs walls white (we figure we'll get fancy down there later - for right now the boys don't care that they live in a white space). Then they painted the rest of the house by hand and got it all done. I am in awe of how quickly they went. Today, Jeremy's mom will do some touch-up painting and give the family room a final coat, and then we'll be done with that massive project. Jeremy's next big projects are tiling, figuring out the door dilemma, and putting together and installing the rest of the kitchen cabinets. We also have our insulating contractors completing the attic insulation today, the electrical contractor completing the electrical tomorrow, and the HVAC contractor completing whatever he has left on Wednesday. Then we'll be completely done with the contracted-out parts of the house, except for the carpet install. It's coming down to the wire, but we are excited and hopeful that we just might make it in before Ascha comes. My job is to somehow keep myself from going into labor at all costs! :-)

Last Saturday, my great friends from Oregon gave me a wonderful baby shower. The kids got to play with a lot of their old friends and had a pizza party, while I got a pedicure and manicure and really enjoyed the company of my friends whom I don't get to see very often. Here is a picture of Aric / batman taking a break from playing outside to help open Ascha's presents. I felt overwhelmingly blessed...thanks to everyone who took part in that fun day!




And here's a picture of our hard-working Taylor helping with the yard work. I wish I would've had my camera out a few minutes later when Dad piled Tay into the wheelbarrow and gave him a wild, bouncy, and very fun ride across the yard.


And here, by request, are goofy pictures the boys wanted posted. Aric tried out Grandma's shoes and Taylor made an interesting face to share with the world.



And here (hopefully) is a video of Taylor batting. We were totally unprepared and unpracticed, but when the coach pitched at the last game, Taylor was able to hit off of him two out of his three at-bats. Pretty fun stuff. You'll notice that mom got a little excited and stopped paying attention to videoing the first time he hit. :-)

Sheet Rock and a Fun Work Day

Here's the "finished" product - I'm standing in our dining room looking at our eating bar and back into our kitchen. It's so exciting to have all the walls up. Over the next week or two, we'll be having them mudded, taped, and textured. Then we'll paint, try to get the floors in and try to get moved in. We'll see whether we beat Ascha to our respective "finish lines." We've got 30 days from today until her due date. :-)



Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit and help us for a while. We are so thankful for all the help and we (gotta love that collective "WE" - I didn't do a whole lot, but everyone else worked hard) took advantage of a beautiful day yesterday to do quite a bit of outside work. The lawn got mowed, trees got trimmed, beds got weeded, and rocks got removed from the lawn. (The boys have decided they don't like picking rocks, but they did manage to get the job done. :-) Here's a picture of the boys with "Whiff," the grandparents' dog. They love her dearly and enjoyed playing with her and following her around throughout the day.




Here they are helping Grandpa tune up the lawnmower.




And here's Aric helping Grandma weed one of the front beds.

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have WALLS!!!

Sorry about the broken videos in the last post. I'll keep trying to get them up. Just wanted to show off our latest progress because it's so exciting...there are walls! I peeked in the house this a.m. and the drywallers were going to town. Here is our kitchen - materializing and taking shape! You can see our "cool" insulation, called a "blown-in blanket" system, in the left foreground, and the eating bar area sticking out with the kitchen behind.

May Update

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. There has been great progress on the house during the last month. We've gotten through the plumbing, HVAC, and insulation stages, and are excited to be moving on to sheetrock. Hopefully, by the end of next week all the walls will be up!!! That has been our goal for so long that it's hard not to think that's the finish line. We'll still have a few minor details, of course (paint, flooring, kitchen, and bathrooms to install :-), but all the major systems are pretty much brand new and in place. What a blessing!

Taylor's been doing great at Tball and really seems to be enjoying his season. After last night's game, he's down to only four left in the season. When I told him that, he said, "That's stinky!" He's not ready for his season to wind down. Here's a video of him "winding up" to bat. :-)



Aric is his usual chipper self. He walked up to Jeremy and I at the park the other day with this question:



Ascha is growing like crazy. With only 34 days left until her due date, she's about the weight of a honeydew melon and about 18 inches long.

Jeremy has been as busy as ever trying to juggle work on the tugs and work on the house and family time. He's doing a great job of balancing and I'm SO thankful for him. This week has been a big one with the insulation going in Monday and Tuesday and an inspection today and then the sheetrockers starting tomorrow. Jeremy was supposed to be on an upriver trip during all of this and I was not looking forward to all the driving around and managing and phone calling and "being in charge," because I just don't feel like I'm very competent lately. My brain simply doesn't work the way I want it to right now. Well, the tug Jeremy was on had a run-in with a submerged log that was 2 feet in diameter, and the tugboat engine was the definite loser, so the trip was cut short. While it is bad news for the tug company, I must admit I'm relieved my hubby's home to deal with overseeing all these projects. He's way better at this than I am, especially right now with my "pregnancy brain." :-)

And as for me and my "update" of sorts, things are just going along and I'm trying to keep up with everything. The only terribly noteworthy news item I can think of at the moment is that I got my first Washington ticket last weekend. I was headed to Taylor's Tball game and I really thought I was going the right speed, but I missed the first 25 sign coming into town. It was doubly frustrating because I wasn't even in a big hurry. There have, I admit, been a few times when I "deserved" a ticket because I was knowingly going faster than the posted speed limit (although I do try to follow the limit, especially when the boys are in the car). Of course, the time I get "caught," I actually believed I was going the speed limit. I ended up in tears with my sweet boys trying to comfort me ("Just take a deep breath, Mommy." :-). I had to try to be a good example of taking responsibility for my actions and it was a good teachable moment about not being able to use, "But I didn't know..." as an escape from consequences.

Challenges and Blessings (Again)

Aric has taken to asking Jeremy on a nightly basis, "So, Dad, what was your problem today?" We have had some "problems" with the house recently, but we've also made some progress. At the moment (and probably during most moments for the next 2 months), the quick passing of time is at the forefront of our minds.

It's hard to believe it's almost May! We were hoping to give notice at the beginning of the month and be out of our apartment by the end of May. That may still happen, but we're not sure. This week, the initial plumbing inspection passed (positive). However, the inspector didn't want to do a rough plumbing inspection on all the drain/waste plumbing - he just approved the plumbing that'll be covered by concrete so Jeremy can start covering it up and finish the framing (slightly negative). The plumber we had been working with thought it would be a drain/waste inspection (as did we), so he had filled the pipes up with water up to the rafters. Since that inspection won't be happening until Jeremy is completely done running the Pex lines for the supply plumbing, Jeremy drained that water. He discovered that instead of running into the sewer system as it should, it was just draining into the ground in our backyard (huge negative). Thankfully, even though the work was done prior to our having purchased the house, he was able to get the original contractor to come back out and fix their error within the week (positive, I think!). However, it was a setback in terms of Jeremy's use of time (negative). We also had lots of meetings with potential contractors bidding on upcoming projects (HVAC, insulation, and drywall), so it was a slower week than Jeremy had hoped. We have another setback yet to be resolved in the form of a damp basement wall. We had a french drain installed and all of our exterior basement walls waterproofed, so we're not sure what's going on there. Jeremy's talked to both the excavating/french drain people and the waterproofing people (more time spent not doing what he'd planned). Hopefully they'll be able to come figure out what's gone wrong sometime soon. Jeremy was hoping to have all the Pex run this week, but he was only able to get it about half done. I checked it out today (sans camera, unfortunately) and I'm amazed at the amount he has already done. It looks like an impressive amount of work to me! I'm so thankful he's got such a mechanical mind and can "bang out" projects like this so quickly. I think we're at a point where the glass can be viewed as half-empty or half-full. Even though there have been some set-backs, significant progress is being made. (Way to go, Jeremy!)

In terms of our timeline, Jeremy's upriver until Tuesday night. Then he'll work on finishing out the Pex and the little bit of framing he has left. Then, assuming we resolve the problem with our damp basement wall, we should be ready for the plumbing inspection and structural inspection. We have purchased a heat pump and will need to figure out whether Jeremy's gonna install the ducting or whether we'll contract that out. Once the ductwork is in, it'll just be a matter of insulation and sheetrock and getting the final inspections. Then we'll be to what we keep thinking of as "the easy part" -- the kitchen, the flooring, the painting, the lighting -- the "fun stuff"! We hope these last few steps can go quickly so we can get to the fun part quickly. If we didn't keep having these little hiccups, I'd think it was entirely possible for us to be in by the end of May. As things have been going lately, I'm not so sure. We'll see how far we get during the coming week. If we can wrap up plumbing/framing and get inspections, we'll be doing well. Then if we can figure out HVAC ducting, insulation, and sheetrock before the month is over, we'll be so close. Time will tell and we'll try to keep you all posted.

In other news, Ascha's due date is only 58 days away. She still seems to be doing great. She's very active and at the moment she's fond of stretching her entire 16-inch body out sideways - quite a strange feeling (and strange shaped abdomen!). I don't recall the boys doing a lot of sidways stretching like this - they were more fond of angling their foot into the corner of my ribcage. I'm sure Ascha will do more of that as she grows and has less room to maneuver, but for right now, it's kinda fun and interesting to watch this belly changing shape and moving around so much as she flips and stretches. The boys find it mildly amusing when they're in the right mood. Taylor is actually so excited to meet her and take care of her. He sweetly lays his head on my belly sometimes and talks to her until he feels her moving by his cheek - he said the other day that he heard her swishing around. Aric won't wait for her to move, but every once in a while, he'll catch a movement anyway and that usually makes him smile. He told me yesterday, "Mom, even though I don't like baby girls, I'll be very gentle with Baby Ascha." Nothing like that kind of statement to inspire confidence, huh? This morning at the TBall game, he was sure I ought to unbutton the bottom of my shirt and show off my belly. He didn't understand why that ought to be private and why other people might not want to see a big baby belly hanging out in public at a Tball game, of all places. :-)

Sunny Baseball Pics

Taylor had his turn as catcher. The kids really can't see much with the mask on so they mostly just stand around, and if someone tells them to get a ball they jerk their heads up, down, and all around and usually can't find it anyway. It's a pretty coveted position, though, because what could be cooler than this outfit?



Last post, I wrote about Taylor being tackled by another kid. This game, more and more kids decided to get in on the fun and generally, there was a pile-up on top of any successful fielder. Taylor is at the bottom of this pile, and I love that I captured the action for little number 4. This is pretty much how the kids on our team are approaching "fielding" at the moment. Taylor likes this sort of wrestling/football/baseball hybrid and tried to get in on as much action as possible - he ran after EVERY ball, even if he was by 3rd base and the ball was headed to right field! We had a talk about not doing that any more, and he's going to try to refrain from going out of "his area." Now we just have to figure out how to define "his area" and we might be ok. :-)



Last game, Taylor was the last batter. This time, he was first. He's got running the bases down pretty good. :-)

Taylor's First TBall Game

Last night Taylor had his first game. He did great and seemed to enjoy it ok, given the rain and muck. All three of us were pretty muddy afterwards, thanks mostly to Aric repeatedly trapsing through puddles and slime. Taylor was relatively clean (especially compared to his teammate who fell in the slime in front of the dugout. His entire front, from shoulders to shins, was brown. Poor kid! Taylor had one "fall" but thankfully it was out in the grass so he didn't get too mucky because of it.


[Check out that "ready position"! Maybe a little exaggerated, but so cute!]

He was playing in between the first and second basemen (we have a lot of players and not much outfield, so there are additional players between every standard position) and he fielded the ball. The second baseman (also the coach's son :-) said HE wanted to get the ball 'cuz he hadn't gotten to field it yet. With that brief explanation, he tackled Taylor and tried to wrestle the ball away from him (in all fairness, Taylor and a number of other kids tend to do this to each other in practice, so it was not entirely unexpected or without provocation. :-). The coach, who was right there, took his kid off Taylor and Taylor threw the ball in with a sheepish grin. I think he was pretty pleased that he had managed to hold onto the ball (maybe he's prepping for football in a few years).



Although his form was pretty rough, he did a pretty good job at actually hitting the ball, and since we were the last to arrive, he was the last batter. In tball, they don't keep score and innings go until everyone's had a chance to bat, so every time he batted, he got to run around all the bases at once. I think he enjoyed that.



In the first inning, he took his sweatshirt off to bat and field and wore it while waiting for his turn at bat. I found it amusing that he and the other kid whose dad is from Montana were both in T-shirts. Every other kid was layered warmly. After the first inning, I decided I'd join the "Romans" and had him put his sweatshirt on under his T-shirt. No reason to let my nearly 0% body fat boy get chilled to the bone, but it just doesn't come as naturally to me as to these "wimpy Westerners" (or more sane people, as the case may be. :-) The wet cold out here is so different from the dry Montana cold - even when the temps seem fairly reasonable, if there's any moisture in the air, it feels significantly colder than I think it should.

In other news, the drain plumbing is pretty much finished up. I took pictures, but they're pretty boring and you can't see much, so I decided you should just take my word for it. :-) Jeremy's been upriver, but when he gets back, he'll be running the supply lines and then we'll be quite close to sheetrocking time. We probably want to run our ductwork first, and of course we'll need to wait for inspections before we close things up. We'll also have to insulate all the walls before sheetrock, but really, that's not very much left to do. I'm excited about how close we are getting. We really look forward to moving in and stopping the commuting business we're doing right now. Jeremy commutes up there every day to work on the house when he's not upriver, and the boys and I have T-Ball practices or games twice a week, church on Sunday, and a Bible Study on Tuesday, so usually we're up there at least four times each week. It's about a half-hour drive each way, so it's not too terrible (I keep telling the boys as they whine about time in the car), but it'll be really nice to actually live there and have all of our community events so close! I'm very thankful for the connections that we are making and think that we will really enjoy the community once we settle in a bit.

A Great Long Weekend, Stairs, and Other House News

We had a wonderful few days with our friends. Jeremy had a lot of help with modifying the stairs (NOT his favorite project),



installing the last few windows,



and a few other miscellaneous projects. The boys and I had a wonderful time enjoying the company of our great friends. We played and played and played. We played at the parks, read, played games, went to IKEA and library storytime and Sunday School together, and generally had a great time. I think the highlight of our playtimes came during our last full day together. Our friends stayed with us for 3 nights and then at a hotel for 1 night with their younger two (the four biggest kids had a genuine sleepover at our place) and then all six of them stayed at the hotel for the last night. The hotel had a pool, so on our last day together, we took all six of the kids swimming in the afternoon. We had an amazing time. The pool was on the small side and was fairly shallow, so it was perfect for our situation. The hot tub was closed for maintenance, so we didn't have to worry about disrupting anyone's pursuit of more peaceful relaxation. We played and played and played. The 9-month-old (who hadn't napped much) ended up loving the water, and of course all the bigger kids enjoyed it, too. I spent a lot of time catching the kids as they jumped to me in the "deep end." After they were aided in "swimming" back to the steps, they would climb out and hurry back to the end of the line and wait for their turn to jump again. All the kids did great and got more and more brave throughout the afternoon. I was really impressed with Taylor's bravery. He puttered around floating on his back (important side note: lifejackets were worn! ;-) all by himself. Even though the kids both had swimming lessons last fall, the winter out of the water has taken a toll on whatever "skills" they may have acquired. Last time we went to the pool, they were both acting scared of the water and didn't seem to remember anything from their lessons, so I was encouraged to see that, at least in the security of his lifevest, Taylor was comfortable in the water.

It wasn't ALL work and no play for Jeremy, either. He and I got to go out on a date (what a novelty! :-). We went to Gustav's, a local German restaurant that we've always wanted to visit. We each got a sampler plate with six different items, so it was quite a culinary adventure. It was VERY nice to get out by ourselves for a little while - we are so thankful to our friends for keeping the rugrats for us. Jeremy and his friend also took Sunday afternoon off and went to Harbor Freight (a break from Home Depot, anyway :-) and then spent some time relaxing at Borders.

The whole visit was so refreshing for me - it's amazing what a difference it is to hang out IN PERSON with a dear friend rather than on the phone. :-) I also got to do a lot of cooking and baking (I know that sounds really weird, but in lieu of the nesting that I'm not able to do and the scrapbooking I ought to be doing (Aric's baby book has exactly 1 page completed), I'm fulfilling my nesting urge right now by cooking and baking, and it was great to have a large audience so I could bake a bit more than normal. I generally don't allow myself to make a full-sized dessert every day because I'm the one in my family who most loves dessert, so a cake a day isn't exactly beneficial. :-)





Here are the "big kids" hanging out the morning of their sleepover :-)


As far as the house project goes, Jeremy's doing a bit of the drain/waste plumbing and contracting some of it out to save some time. Hopefully, it'll be about done after our subcontractor does his part this weekend. Jeremy spent most of the day yesterday crawling around under the house replacing a smelly, partly clogged kitchen drain/waste pipe. It was not enjoyable in the least, but by the end of the day, he had it replaced with clean new pipes. Hopefully, he'll soon have that line of pipe tied into the washing machine drain pipe and then he'll be done with his portion of drain piping. Next week, if his supplies come in, he'll work on the supply-line plumbing, and I believe we'll be about ready for sheetrock once that job is completed. There are so many small "hiccups" inherent in this type of project that I don't really know a timeline for getting actual walls installed, but I'll try to keep you posted.

A few "miscellaneous projects":

Jeremy has finished furring out the basement walls.


He's also turned an attic access into a great big storage cabinet in our master bath. Eventually we'll have his & hers vanities on either side of this cabinet. It was a great idea (thanks, D!) and I'm thankful to have that added storage - it should be really nice!

It's Electric! ... and the Arrival of the Third Trimester



We are very happy to announce that the electrical rough-in was completed last week. As always, the next sentence begins, "Now, if we could just get the ______ done, we'd REALLY be making progress!" For this week, you can fill in the blank with "plumbing." Hopefully we can get that project wrapped up fairly soon. Then, we'll be about ready for inspections and, pending approval, for installing sheetrock. Once the walls look like walls, it'll feel a lot more like a house. We're looking forward to that day.



In other news, we're all doing well. This morning, at my 28-week OB appt., the boys got to help use the Doppler to listen to Ascha's heartbeat. Aric got to squeeze a big blob of goo onto the microphone, then Taylor got to put the mic to my belly. He immediately found the heartbeat and we all listened for a while. Then the midwife let each of the boys listen to their own heartbeats. It was a pretty cool morning. The pregnancy still seems to be going along quite well and Ascha is certainly an active little girl! I'm officially entering the third trimester this week. That means that although she's pretty big, she's still got enough room to "wind up" and put a lot of momentum behind her blows! :-)

Jeremy's upriver for a few days, which is always an adjustment when he's been around for a while. We're definitely missing him. He'll hopefully be home sometime around Thursday. When he arrives home, he'll have some extra help on the house for a few days, courtesy of our good friends from Idaho. They are coming for a visit and we are looking forward to having them around for about four full days! Jeremy and my friend's husband will probably be out at the house most of that time, but my dear friend and I will be playing up a storm. (Sorry guys - someone's got to watch the kiddos! :-) We're very thankful the weather report is looking up, because there will be six kids (ages 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and >1) running/crawling around and the apartment might get to feeling awful small. Hopefully we'll get to go on many fun outings, and even if it's rainy, we will have SO much fun with our great friends. It's been too long since we've gotten to play and we love their company!

My time since Jeremy left Saturday night has been mostly spent trying to prepare for company. I have a hard time making my brain function normally right now (I'm really mourning it's loss, and am looking forward to that time, about 1.5 years or so from now, when it will return. I am already missing it sorely!), so thinking through meals and laundry and cleaning takes a lot longer than it should. Whenever I start something, I immediately find myself sidetracked and don't realize until two or three days later that I never actually did the first thing I set out to do. Oh, well. I am my own comic relief most of the time right now.

The boys are doing good. Taylor is in T-Ball so we're commuting to Battle Ground every Wednesday night and Saturday morning for practice. The weather hasn't been particularly conducive to outdoor sports recently, but it's been fun when we actually get to play with the other kids. I'll have to remember my camera one of these days and document the cute little ballplayers.

Easter

I love springtime and the celebration of new life and the remembrance of THE new life we have in Christ! I'm so thankful to live in a place where we are able to openly celebrate Christ's resurrection. So often we take things like that for granted, but we are TRULY blessed to enjoy these freedoms and even more blessed to have the privilege of knowing and having relationship with our Creator. "Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness...Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." (excerpted from Psalm 150)

We had a lovely Resurrection Sunday morning together as a family. We got up and had the requisite egg hunt. The kids don't believe in the Easter Bunny (they saw a person dressed up in a costume and it was apparently quite unbelievable - they determined that he's just a mascot, so he's just pretend). However, they believe in his helpers. The night before Easter, Aric came up with the great idea to leave cookies and milk out for the Easter Bunny's helpers. Taylor thought that was a great idea, too, since we'd dropped the ball at Christmas time. (For the record, they think Santa is pretend, but they think his helpers are real. They are convinced those real helpers are elves who must like cookies and milk. :-) We, of course, never got around to putting out snacks for the Easter Bunny's helpers, so they helped themselves to a few of the boys' marshmallow peeps. The boys were quite happy with the evidence that the helpers had been there.

Anyway, Aric got up before anyone else on Easter morning and came downstairs to scope out the egg situation. A few minutes later, Taylor also took a survey of the situation. They both agreed the Easter Bunny's helpers didn't do a very good job of hiding eggs. They gave a good critique of what should have been done with the obvious eggs to make them more challenging (i.e. "This hat should be turned over so I can't see the egg at all. This is way too easy.").

I think next year, the Easter Bunny's male helper will have to hide the eggs, because the female helper is apparently not tricky enough. After breakfast, we went to an Easter service at our new church up in Battle Ground, which we are liking very much. Then we went to Sweet Tomatoes for a yummy brunch. I had been planning an Easter ham for dinner, but Jeremy got word that the afternoon and evening were going to be quite busy for the tug company. Almost as soon as we came home from lunch, he had to go to work and he was gone until it was nearly the boys' bedtime, so I'm really glad we decided to have a nice lunch together as a family before he left. It was a very pleasant day.

The day before Easter was a very full and fun day. We went to Big Al's bowling alley in Vancouver for an "egg hunt." Turns out they just throw a pile of eggs in the middle of a circle of kids and then say "Go!" and it's every kid for himself. The boys had fun and successfully wrangled a number of eggs, so it was fun anyway. After the egg hunt, we saw the "Easter Bunny mascot." The boys declined to have their picture taken with him, saying, "that's too silly." They did enjoy watching a balloon artist making "anything in the whole world" - Taylor even thought he could've made a world out of a balloon if only Taylor had thought to ask for one. They were both quite impressed and Aric has a new career track in mind. :-)

We went to the park for a few minutes to try to practice batting, but it was so windy that the ball wouldn't stay on the tee. We came home and took advantage of the very windy day by flying kites. Grandma & Grandpa had purchased little kites for each of the boys at the Kite Festival in Long Beach, WA last fall. Taylor & Aric ran around and pulled the kites behind them, having a great time until they were "all out of air."

We also spent some time coloring and stickering eggs the day before Easter. It was a very fun day.

In ongoing house news, the electrician starts his work today, so hopefully by the end of this week, we'll have electricity inside the house again. :-) We were hoping and planning to have all the plumbing done before we did the electrical, but that hasn't quite happened. Jeremy's plugging away and getting closer all the time, and the parts that aren't done yet shouldn't interfere with the electrical installation, so we'll just keep working on plumbing before, during, and after they do the electrical. Here is an exciting picture. I'm standing in our dining room looking at the kitchen area. The half wall is where our eating bar will be. Jeremy has all the windows in their final positions now. It's really shaping up, isn't it? You can see the pantry behind the kitchen area and the guest bathroom past the pantry, then the garage past all the framing. Having a "see-through house" makes it fairly easy to explain things. :-) We're also excited about our master bathroom. We acquired an oversized 6-foot soaking tub on Craisglist, and I can't wait to soak in a tub built for tall people. People often complain about being short, and I do like being on the tall side, but when it comes to bathing and finding pants that are long enough, short people definitely have it easier. :-)

I think that's all the news for now. Ascha's still doing great and the pregnancy is going fairly well. She'll be here in about 95 days, give or take, and we're hoping to get this house project done and be all moved in before she makes her entrance, so we've got a lot to do. I must say (yet again, but it's so true) that I'm SO thankful to have such a handy and hardworking husband!!!

Pre-Easter Fun and Plumbing Progress

Last Saturday we joined some friends in Newberg, OR for an Easter Egg Hunt. There were 13 little "hunters" wandering around, all under the age of 6. Taylor was the oldest and I think that might have had something to do with his achievement of finding the most eggs. Aric was tied for second, so they each got to take home an extra prize. It was a LOT of fun and they are so excited for more egg hunts this weekend.

Jeremy's been doing a lot of plumbing work recently. It's been slow going, as he's had to cut through a lot of concrete in order to access old lines and install new ones. We've been ambitious in our planning, moving pretty much every piece of plumbing in the house. Jeremy has been bravely tackling this huge project with high hopes for completing it quite quickly. Here's a picture of what will be our main floor bath. We've got a shower (so once we actually live in this house, we'll be happy to have overnight guests make the drive and stay awhile with us!), then to the right of that will be a toilet. About where I'm standing, the sink will be on the righthand wall. Right now it's all kinda undone while we wait for the plumbing to be inspected. Then Jeremy can finish out this section of floor, which he's had to build up from the level of the garage to match the rest of the main level.

Just outside this bathroom is a "mud room"/entryway from the garage where the kids (OK, OK - and the grownups, too) will be able to dump coats and muddy shoes without them being in the way. That floor is all built up and the wall separating it from the garage is built. (Yay, Jeremy!) It's hard to tell what you're looking at in this picture, but that shower is visible in the back corner and the wide opening just to the right of center is where our garage entrance will be. You can kinda make out (maybe, if you're creative :-) how we'll enter and have a mud room here, with the bathroom to our right. Then the hallway will open in front of us, extending past the family room (on the left) and kitchen (on the right) and dumping us into the formal living room / dining room area.

Here is a peek downstairs. Jeremy has spent many hours cutting that trench to the right of the picture (sorry it's a bit dark and hard to see down there). We are moving the bathroom into its own space from the tiny room where it used to be combined with the washer/dryer/water heater room. That means all the plumbing used to stop in the middle of the picture where you see that pipe sticking up. Jeremy's replacing it all and moving it all the way to the very back wall, where the kids' bathroom will be. It's been a long arduous process and he's not there yet, but he's doing good and keeps consistently moving forward on it. It's exhausting work for him, and I'm so thankful he's willing to do all of this to make the space nicer for our family. I'm also thankful he's such a quick, competent learner (the Home Depot plumbing book has been an invaluable resource).

A New Accomplishment, A Visit, A Roof


Taylor removed the training wheels from his bike last week. He still needs to gain a bit of confidence on starting himself, but he's an excellent little bike rider. He got to use Daddy's tools to remove the training wheels all by himself.


Then we went to the park, where Daddy & Grumpy helped him get going, then sprinted to try to keep up! :-)

Aric enjoyed spinning in circles at the park that day.


Obviously, Grumpy was out for a visit, and so was Grammy. They stayed for about a week and went back to MT on Sunday. We had a wonderful time while they were here! Grammy and I and the boys played a lot and Grumpy and Daddy worked on the house a lot and played a little.

Here we are at the Vista House. The boys hadn't ever gotten to go up on the balcony before, so it was an exciting visit for them.


While in the Columbia Gorge on a beautiful day, who could resist a hike? We walked down to the Bridal Veil Falls viewing platform, where my mom snapped this shot of Taylor looking like himself (no cheesy camera smile).


On another beautiful day, we walked up to an overlook near our apartment where you can see the River, the airport, and a nearby rock quarry. It's a favorite place for my boys with their love of heavy equipment. We could stand there all day watching the giant dump trucks and loaders. Of course, since the boys are "outdoorsmen," we have to be prepared and bring a backpack full of "supplies" (in this case, cupcakes and water bottles). You never know when you might get thirsty on the [very short] trail!


One more hike on one more beautiful day...this time, we even convinced Jeremy to take a breather from work on the house and come with us. We went to Lucia Falls (NE of Battle Ground) and walked around. It's an easy place to get to and there isn't much hiking to be done, but the guys all made their way farther than we've ever gone out onto the rock outcroppings in the middle of the East Fork of the Lewis River. It's a place where the salmon come to spawn, so we're gonna try to revisit it while they're running. It's really neat to be able to stand right over these pools and waterfalls and we hope to show the boys what a salmon run looks like sometime soon.







As you might be able to tell from this picture, Ascha's taking up more and more room in my belly all the time. We are now in the 24th week (out of 40 weeks of pregnancy), so we're nearly done with the second trimester. We are so thankful she seems to be growing healthy and strong, and we can't wait to meet her.


You might have noticed a weather trend in the above pictures -- gorgeous, sunny days. We were so blessed last week to have a dry warm spell. The forecast kept predicting showers, but they never really happened, and our roofer was able to reroof the entire house in dry weather. It was an unexpected blessing and we are so pleased to have a roof that doesn't leak! Here is a picture of the front of the house with the new roof and the gutters.


Here's another sampling of our progress on the inside of the house. This is a new wall we're placing between the formal living room (where I'm standing) and the dining room (where the sliding glass door is). We'll have an 8 foot opening on the lefthand side and a 5.5 foot opening on the righthand side, so it should still be very light and airy, but with a bit more distinction between the different living spaces.


Another exciting project Dad & Jeremy accomplished was the building of a new floor. This section of hallway didn't used to exist and it was all part of a converted garage which had become a sunken family room. The guys built up a new floor so it matches the level of the rest of the house, put in this little desk nook on the left side of the picture, and framed walls around the hallway. You can see the opening to my pantry in the right foreground, and the wider opening where Jeremy is standing is going to be one of the openings into our kitchen area.


Although there is still a long way to go, it's so exciting to see progress every single time I go to the house. I am so thankful for my handy husband and for all the help people are giving us with this project (THANKS, DAD!). Jeremy is upriver this week, and then he'll spend next week tying up some loose ends (two more windows to move, building up the floor in our new bathroom area to match the hallway floor, a bit of framing) and figuring out how to move plumbing in concrete, and then it'll hopefully be time for the electrician to come wire everything. Once that occurs, we'll be ready to insulate and sheetrock the walls. At that point, it will truly seem like a house again, and we're hopefully only a few weeks away!!! I think we'll try to get a bit more than that done before we leave our apartment and move in, but if we chose to, we could move in at that point, given a working bathroom. Unfortunately, our kitchen cabinets aren't going to arrive until April, so we probably won't move in until the end of April, or maybe even May, but still, that's not too far down the road.

A few other tidbits: ~Taylor is starting T-Ball this Saturday in Battle Ground. We're pretty excited about our first foray into "real" organized sports and hope this is a good learning experience and that he can make some new friends in our new town this way.
~We've met a number of our neighbors, and they all seem incredibly nice. We even have close neighbors with kids the same ages as ours, so we're feeling really blessed to have some "built-in" playmates.
~Aric's full of silly sayings, as usual. We drove down to Salem to visit some friends a few weeks ago, and on the way we passed a plant that burns garbage to generate electricity. There's a big red- and white-striped smokestack and the boys always notice it. Aric was excitedly pointing it out, so I thought I'd see what he remembered from our last trip. I asked what was burning in the smokestack, and he said "Garbage." Then I asked him what they turn the garbage into, and without missing a beat, he said "Marshmallows." I think it might have something to do with the whole concept of "Junk Food," but I'm sure thankful the "garbage" we eat is food grade. :-)