::fixer of the gate::

I love it when my parents come to visit. It's so nice to spend some time with them and my dad always fixes as much of my broken stuff as he can fit in to his trip.
I had been saving our front gate for his expertise for quite a while.
I guess it's been rotting a bit on the inside, so it's been sagging and rubbing on the ground. The sagging effected the latch too, so it was really tough to open and close. And if it got left open because it was too tough to close, the wind would smash it into the gatepost and then it was impossible to open because the latch was buried in the wood. Anyway, you get the picture. I had friends standing outside and honking because they couldn't get in. My own brother thought I had locked him out when he came to visit and injured himself trying to climb the adobe wall.

It was about time for a repair!

So of course dad fixed it. And I took a few pictures of him because I couldn't resist. And it was just a good opportunity to document how he always takes good care of me.
And you're going to get to see all the photos because I like pretty much all the ones I took.



What do you think? Are these photos posed or candid?

And of course, wherever my family is to be found there is a surplus of cameras and camera-poeple. Look for the counterpart of this photo to show up here some time soon I'm sure!
(Mom was on her way to pick up Max from school for me so that I could take a little nap. Best nicest thing ever!!)


We lifted the gate back up and reinstalled it. The dang thing was so heavy.
Then while dad was on an adventure club bike ride with Max I located all the painting stuff and the right color of paint and painted/repainted the whole thing.
A finished project--amazing!! And now my life is seriously easier than it was before. I can go in and out of my front gate while carrying babyseats and such and actually close and open that gate. YAY!
So thanks dad, you're the best fixer dad ever.

These are pretty much the only pictures I took while my parents were here. We were busy running places and working a little and taking care of kids. Oh yeah and a little yummy eating out and some fun shopping. I didn't have much time for photos. So you'll have to go here if you want to see more. I like to see my house and kids through my mom's perspective, it's pretty fun. And she takes such great portraits!

So there you go. Happy green gate and happy me.

:sssssssssurprise::

Can you see it?

How about now?
(Rachel R. you may just want to stop reading now.)

This is a special friend that Max spied this afternoon. He was just looking out the window I guess, randomly and he spied this little snake. It amazes me really because the snake is brown just like everything else outside. Max was pretty delighted to find him, and I was delighted that my dad was here to tell us that he's a harmless gopher snake. Phew.

It was really pretty nifty that he had climbed all the way up the fountain grill work. (The "fountain" that we've never actually run water in yet. We inherited it with the house.)

Also cool was to watch his little muscular body as he crawled up the wall.


Gopher snakes can come around here whenever they want as long as the eat mice and stuff. And I hope that they tell all the scary snakes to stay away. We'll see.
This one is pretty cute--for a snake.

::new carpet::

In August we were up in Taos for the weekend and sadly we had a mini flood from the swamp cooler tubing. It flooded the garage and also Sandy's room. It really wasn't too bad except that it made the carpet stink. It was so wet. Who knows how long everything was so soggy.
Anyway, Kris had to rip up half the carpet right there and then when we got home because it was so stinky. It was time for new carpet.

This is not a bad thing in a lot of ways. I really hated the carpet that was in there. It was ugly and had some bald and ripped up spots. I just wasn't quite ready to replace it just yet. And of course Max's and Sand's rooms match, so we had to redo both.

I'm so happy we did it now though. The rooms look so much better and cozier now.

(Max and Emily working with Max's electronics set in the nice empty room.)
We picked a nice shaggy beach colored carpet and it turned out perfect.

The baby was very skeptical of it at first though. He didn't want any parts of his body to touch it and if I laid him down on it he would get quite upset.
He warned up to it pretty quickly though--luckily, since it's not going anywhere!



So there you go. Not big news but news nonetheless. And now you've seen some of the pictures that have been haunting my desktop for days, waiting to be posted.
And if you want to come and feel our nice shaggy carpet with your feet anytime soon, you're welcome to.

::finally::

This is old news for us--from early May in fact. But not too much of old news for the rest of you because you haven't been to our house yet!
The baby finally has his own room. At our last house--our rental here--he had a corner of our room. His little drawer unit was in there, and his teency Moses basket. And his clothes hung in our closet. It was temporary because we knew we would be moving sometime soon. And plus, he was such a bad dang sleeper that I needed him really close to maximize the short periods of time I got to sleep.
So all that aside, now he has a real room. All his (for now.) And it's cute. Not too fancy or anything, but cute because it's his.
He has built in bookshelves right inside the door. Max is a little envious that he gets all those books, but I think it's a good thing since we need to share anyway.

Then he's just got some mismatched furniture in there and a lovely crib that I got on a deep sale from Pottery Barn. It's really nice, maybe one of the nicer pieces of furniture we own right now. It makes the room I think, along with the cute little mobile from IKEA.

Lucky Sand has lots of toys--most of them used to belong to Max, but he does have a few of his own. The little giraffe with the rings around his neck is a relic from Max's babyhood.

The very best thing in the room though, is the little snort that sleeps in it.
He's adorable, and he's been doing great on his naps since the new room. They've definitely improved. And now, with Kris's help we're getting him to sleep through most (ok maybe more like a lot than most) nights. At least from about 10 to 5:30. And at this point any decent sleep at night is something we're grateful for. And he's sleeping in his own bed, which is good because the moses basket just doesn't accommodate his big boyness anymore.

So there you go, cute baby in a room all his own.

::before & after & a bonus::

When the day finally came and we got to take possession of our new house we were very excited, and really really hoping that the prior owner was actually done and moved out--especially considering the fact that we had been to the house not too long before and there had still been lots and lots of stuff everywhere.

Anyway, we came in and happily, her stuff was all gone and the house was empty and ready for us.
But sadly we ran across this on one of the walls:

Yes, not only had somebody drilled huge holes into the wall to hang something bizarre, but they had also painted around it. Who does that? Seriously, did they hire SpongeBob or somebody to do the painting?!
Needless to say we were annoyed. That's not the kind of thing you can just overlook--and combined with the fact that she had taken a big TV mount down in the bedroom and the wall looked like a land mine had gone off inside it--we were pretty unhappy.

So luckily, later that week Kris went to Home Depot to get some supplies and serendipitously they were presenting a little wall repairing class and he got to sit in and learn a ton. So he fixed the wall--almost overfixed it in his excitement, but not quite.
Then I got brave and found the paint that matched the wall in the garage. I figured even if the paint had aged or faded, it couldn't look worse than that weird Cheshire Cat shape there on the wall.
So I painted it. Two coats. And it turned out perfect.

We were/are very proud of ourselves. It's so nice to see something repaired so darn well! Now on to all the other cracks, scrapes, holes and scratches in house. All the woodwork on the doors need help. The lady had a dog at some point and that dang dog scratched the dickens out of every doorframe and doorjam in the house. I'm going to have to experiment and see what can be done.

And the bonus?
Goofy pictures of a sweet silly and goofy boy. He was watching Kris put in towel & toilet paper holders, since somehow the guest bathroom had none.


And there ya go.

::sand cam: the new house::

From the little man's perspective.


Good thing we have some interesting ceilings out here, since Mr Sandy gets to look at them an awful lot.


And as a special bonus, the man himself, reaching for the camera as I tried to get the world from his perspective.

He's so cute.

::in celebration::

In celebration of starting to move stuff into our new house tomorrow, here are a few pictures. This isn't an exhaustive tour--more like some highlights. The first ones are from when I first saw the house in November (3 days before the baby was born.)
The front

I can't wait to see the front with leaves on the trees!
Kitchen/dining area


Bookshelves in the kitchen? Yes please!
The bathroom by the kid rooms

The master with it's built in cabinets

View of backyard from the big deck

Those of you that live in places that actually have grass may be unimpressed by this, but let me tell you, out here this is a GREAT yard. And it might just get astroturfed at some point. Just wait and see.
A view of the living room from one angle

Looking from the interior courtyard towards the kitchen/dining room windows


And now a few from the other day. The owner was sort of almost moved out. It was nice to see the place without all her furniture and stuff. We could see better how we'll be able to make it our own!
Living room again, but from a different angle and much less furniture.

Carpet!

Sandy rolled over when we put him down on the carpet. He really liked it. I think it's going to be a wonderful place for him to learn to crawl.
And finally (for now) the front little yard/courtyard/whatever on our way out.

We love the indoor/outdoor living this house is going to enable us to do.
Now who wants to come and visit????

::exciting::

We've been working on buying a house. It's a great house and has lots of the things we're looking for in a place to stay in for longer than a year--fenced yard, some space for kids to play--a great space for eating dinner outside--carpet in the living room--lots of space--storage, etc.
We're really excited about it and it looks like because of strange unexpected factors we'll probably be moving in sooner than expected (assuming all goes well with the closing). We're supposed to be closing April 1st and we should be able to start moving in on the 16th. Luckily it's only a couple of miles away, so moving should be easy.

Wish me luck I can finish up getting the mortgage with no (additional) snafus!

::around the house::

I've been meaning to do this post forever--just a few more glimpses of the house and stuff.
But it's been such a crazy life the last couple of weeks. We're working hard and enjoying it. I don't know if Max is enjoying his hours at work with us, but we're at least glad we're all together! And all the ladies at work are so nice to Max. We've come up with a little system. He does some workbook pages and then he can play his games and stuff. Holding out on the fun stuff until after he's done his work has made the fun stuff a little more attractive I think.

Anyway, around the house:

Here's my bookshelf--organized by color. I think it turned out really fun, though not quite as sophisticated as I've seen others (online) do. It does make my eyes happy to look at it though.

This picture is a couple of weeks old. Max in "his" bathtub. It's nice to have a tub where he can keep his toys without Kris and I tripping on them every time we need to shower.

Here's another older one. Max on the back porch. Well it's not really the back porch I guess. It runs along the side of the house and connects to the garden down where Max is.

This is the sun room/workout room at the very end of the hall. It's nice because it has french doors that open out to a little cement patio and then the desert.
BUT we haven't gotten to use it yet. Things have just been too crazy. Hopefully soon. I know the treadmill has been calling my name.

The view from the windows in Max's room. Pretty green for the desert, don't you think?

Here's a little peek at the guest room and the hideousest curtains ever. Kris is snoozing in there right now because when the movers put our bed together they did a terrible job and it's all squeaky and feels like it's going to fall apart. So we're going to repair it this afternoon.

The cool sink in the hall/guest bathroom. Come visit!

The mirror that goes along with it.

My mom's star fits into the decor well, don't you think? There used to be kind of a nasty bunch of dried chilis hanging from this hook, but luckily the previous renters came back for their mail and also took their chilis. Yay! I like the star much much better.

My sister Charlotte gave me this cute little key rack quite a long time ago. I love it and I show you the picture of it now because it's just so appropriate for our house. Because as I was going around this afternoon taking photos I suddenly heard this weird scrabbling sound. I looked up at the kitchen window and what did I see?

The window was open a crack (ours open sideways here) and this lizard was hanging out between the window and the screen. What a crazy lizard.

So there you go. Maybe I'll blog again before next week--we'll see!