Spring Break

Spring Break!!! Woohoo!!! And now it's over....Ok so it's a bummer that it is over, but we have had such a great time this past week.

On Monday we went down to Salem to spend the day with our friends, the Eyestone.  We went to Pietro's Pizza, which is a pizza arcade and just hung out and spent time together.

On Tuesday we had our friends, the Salo's, over for the day.  The weather was beautiful and we spent a good chunk of the the day at the park.

On Wednesday Jeremy's spring break vacation started and we went bowling.  I am a terrible bowler, but we still all had fun.

On Thursday the weather was amazing again and we went to two different parks.  We took the opportunity to explore a park in nearby Tualatin and it didn't disappoint.  Merrick has been working on his pitching so all the different park days have been helpful in getting him some good practice.

On Friday we went with cousins to the Children's Museum.  We have spent a lot of time at the Children's Museum but it's been probably about a year since the last time we were there and the kids had renewed excitement for it.  It also helps that they had changed some things up and that cousins were there.  The kids were not ready to leave when it was time, but alas we needed to get Merrick to baseball practice.  That meant more park time for the girls, so leaving wasn't all bad.

On Saturday we spent the morning working around the house.  When the afternoon rolled around we were all anxious to get out and you will be shocked to hear that we ended up back at a park.

The thing about West Linn (and the surrounding area) is that we have no shortage of parks and as the weather improves there is no better way to spend the day than exploring one of them.  We had several great weather days this spring break where we did just that and when the weather wasn't so good we found plenty of other activities to keep us busy.  It's sad that spring break is over, but honestly I couldn't have asked for a better week.  Now it's time for a big push for 8.5ish weeks and it will be summer.  Ready. Set. Go.

Bathroom Remodel

The time has come for the big bathroom remodel reveal.  Truth be told we are not 100% done.  I have some calking and a tiny bit of touch up painting to do and we still have to put in new blinds but we are soooooo close.  Of course I forgot to take "before"  pictures so I pulled these off the old listing from when we bought the house. You can't see the hideous light fixtures and can barely see the sweet 70's flooring but you can at least get the idea.

Kid's bath

Master bath

And here is the after...
Kid's  bath

Master bath

I don't think the pictures do it justice so you will just have to trust me that it looks beautiful! And since the remodel was well in hand, Jeremy and Merrick took the opportunity to take a break and went to the Blazers game last night with some friends.  I am glad they were able to sneak in some fun.  They (especially Jeremy) earned it.

DIY Are We Doing This????

I don't think I have mentioned it yet but the over the last few weeks (longer probably) life has been all about our remodel of our two upstairs bathrooms.  We have planned on remodeling them ever since we moved in, but we lost momentum after our first round of projects and it got put on the back burner.  Recently though we finally have started to move forward.

All in all the remodel includes:
New floors
New counter tops
New back splash
New sinks
New mirrors
New faucets
New lights
New shower doors
New paint

Whew, that's a lot!  As we speak we are in the thick of it and it is difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  That being said, many of the big projects are behind us and I am hopeful that everything will be done by the end of the month.  I considered posting current status pictures today, but I think I will save them for a big reveal in the end.  I will at least show you how things look when we went to bed on Friday night (about the time I was wondering if we had made a huge mistake taking on this project).

And since I can't have a blog with just one picture, here are a couple of pictures of how we found Carrigan sleeping last week.  She is a funny girl.

Oh!!!! One more thing, last night was the first night ever that Elsie made it all night without nursing!  Let's hope there are a lot more nights like that to come.

Christmas in...March

This year for Christmas the two older kids got experiences as one of their gifts.  Carrigan got gymnastics lessons and Merrick got fencing lessons.  Since then, Carrigan has been on a waitlist for her class and Merrick has been too busy with basketball to add anything else.  At the end February that all changed.  Merrick had his last basketball game and all of the sudden his schedule opened up and we heard from the gymnastics place that they had a new class starting the first week of March and Carrigan was in.  Just like that, March is now all about our Christmas experiences.

Merrick's fencing classes started first.  Jeremy took him the first week and was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was.  Merrick is excited about learning the new terminology and practicing his new skills.  He even said he want to study and test to be a fencing judge. (In the pictures he is they one with the blue tennis shoes and neon green at the bottom of his pants.)

 Carrigan's class just started this week and she is already in love.  I was really impressed by how much they were able to work on in just one class.  They learned stretches, worked on back bends,  practiced starting positions and tried handstands.

Both kids are just signed up for a month trial for their classes since baseball and softball both start in just a few short weeks and I have a feeling that they will be sad when March comes to an end.  In the meantime they are having a blast and who knows that they future holds, we may pick them back up for good come summer.

Party Time

As promised last week, I am back this week with a report on Elsie's first birthday party.  The festivities started with a make your own pizza bar with just about every topping imaginable to choose from.  Elsie got her own little pizza with sausage and really enjoyed it.

After dinner it was time for birthday cake!  I had made a small cake for Elsie and a big cake cake for everyone else.  Elsie was really excited when she saw her cake.  When it came time to eat it, however, she was hesitant and not really sure how to begin.  She tried going in face first but that didn't really work. She mostly liked picking off the little sugar balls to eat.  Eventually, I tried to break the cake up for her hoping she would be more interested, but that didn't really make much of a difference.  In the end, Jeremy gave her a fork and she made more progress with that than anything else.

We ended to evening with presents.  Elsie was a spoiled girl.  She got a new car seat, clothes, shoes, books, stuffed animals, and hair bows.

It was such a fun night celebrating our big girl.  I still can't believe she is one!