The Blanchard Family: August 2012

"Who hears these words of mine & puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, & the winds blew & beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine & does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, & the winds blew & beat against that house, & it fell with a great crash."

Matthew 7:24-27

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Random Summer Pictures

As I was going through pictures to update the blog, I found some from just several random events that happened this summer, so some of these are from June, some July, and some August. Here are some of the random things from this summer!

Spring 2012- We started gutting our basement bathroom! We remodeled our main floor bathroom when we moved in the house, and it has been our only bathroom, however; we decided it would be nice to have a second one. There was a bathroom in the basement when we moved into our house, but it was so gross and nasty that we have never used it. So, we decided to gut it and completely remodel it! I can't wait until it's done and we have two bathrooms to use! We are also re-doing the "family room" area of the basement, so we will have another living space, it will be so nice when it's done! Here are some pictures of our progress so far!

Hole in the floor....we had to move the drain for the shower, which meant putting a nice hole in our basement floor....but it's all fixed now!

Insulation done and plastic going up!

Shower is in! We won't have a tub, but that's okay since we have one upstairs.

We actually now have the inside all sheet-rocked too, but I don't have any pictures of that yet. :)

6/24- We went swimming! We didn't get a pass for the water park this summer, it is something I have been thinking about, but we just didn't do it this summer...maybe next year! Anyways, the people that live next door to my parent's have an in-ground pool in their back yard. They moved in several years after we did and had two kids, one was my brother's age, and one was a few years younger. Both are now grown and in college, so not around as much. We saw the mom at Sturgis Falls, and she invited us to come swim whenever we wanted! The pool is all one depth, and it's about 4 ft, so the kids can't touch, but we still have had fun swimming over there this summer. Here are some pictures from the first time we went!

We haven't really taken the kids swimming a lot. Norah loved floating in the lady bug float, and did that for quite a while. Kyler had one of those puddle jumper floats on, and we were trying to get him to "swim" in it....but he didn't really like that idea, he just wanted to sit on the float the whole time. I think we need to get Kyler into some swimming lessons, and get him more familiar with the water! He's just not very daring about things like that, especially when he can't touch the bottom.

Norah and Mommy!

Kyler on his "rafty thing" (as he liked to call it)

Kyler and Daddy!

6/25- We ate lunch with Henry and Geneva! It was Geneva's birthday at the end of June, so we decided to take them out to lunch, along with my parent's, one day at My Verona...right before it closed. :) Anyways, we had a great time and enjoyed making Geneva feel special for her birthday! These two hold such a dear place in my heart, as they are like another set of Grandparents to me, because, as I have said before, Geneva babysat me since I was about 6 weeks old.

Norah with Geneva and Henry

Both kids with Henry and Geneva

7/26- We replaced our sidewalk! Last summer one of our chunks of sidewalk was "marked" by the city, meaning it had to be replaced. It had to be done by August 1st of this year. So, one Sunday afternoon in July (when it was about 100 degrees out) :) Erik took a sledge hammer to the old chunk of sidewalk and broke it up. Since we only had one piece, we just decided to do it ourselves, rather than hire someone to do it. After he got out the old chunk, he went to Menards and bought some cement mix for sidewalks. My uncle had a hand cement mixer, so I went out and picked that up one morning, so that Erik could easily mix the concrete instead of doing it in buckets. Then one evening, Erik and Kyler mixed up all the cement and filled in the big hole, aka, the sidewalk! :) And waalaa! We have a new chunk of sidewalk!

Uncle Nick showing Erik how to run the mixer

Starting to fill in the hole....

Kyler helping Daddy :)

My little man :)

8/11- 50th Wedding Anniversary! My aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August. Their daughters threw a surprise celebration at Montage for them. They had told them that it was just going to be a family dinner and then invited the rest of us to come, so when they showed up, there were a lot more people there than just their family! It was a fun night celebrating a very special occasion!

Walking in to the "surprise"! :)

Greeting everyone

Cousin Deb with Kyler :)

Norah with Grandpa and Ben

Cousin Kristin thanking everyone for coming

Norah is 18 Months Old!

Norah turned 18 months old on August 5th! I know everyone says this, but I really can't believe we are now closer to Norah's 2nd birthday than her 1st. One of her big things this past month has been her vocabulary, it really exploded this past month. I think she tries to say almost any word you ask her to say. Some of her words are "help me", Ky-Ky (for Kyler), mommy, daddy, Max (my parent's dog), cheese, mama (for her pacifier), banana, apple, "umm" (for yes), drink, apple juice, bee bee (for belly button), baby, eye, and nose. Those are just some that come to me off the top of my head. :) She says new words every day and talks so much more than Kyler ever did at this age.

Norah still has 12 teeth, all four front ones-top and bottom-and her four molars. We are still waiting on her four eye teeth, and I think they are starting to work their way up because of all the drool she has been having. Norah is doing well with taking one nap a day now, she usually sleeps for about 2-2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. Norah's hair is also getting quite long. I don't want to cut it yet-even her bangs, I want to let them grow. But that means we have to do something to it all the time, otherwise it's in her eyes and she ends up tipping her head up to try to look through it, or pushing it out of her eyes all the time. You can see how long it is in one of the pictures below. At her 18 month appointment, Norah weighed 21 lbs 4 oz, and was 32" long.

Norah is continuing to develop quite the personality. She can be a little stinker, and is often called that by Erik or myself. :) She loves to be doing whatever Kyler is doing, and I often catch her watching him to see what she should be doing. Norah loves to play outside, although it has been too hot to be out some days this summer, that is still one of her favorite places to be. Norah really likes to push her babies around the house in their strollers. She also enjoys sitting in the one stroller and buckling herself in-yes she still loves to buckle everything. Since she likes to sit in her babies' stroller, I'm not sure how much longer it is going to last as the fabric is starting to rip. Another favorite thing for Norah to do right now is to take all the clothes off her babies....I'm not sure why she enjoys doing this, but I guess she likes her babies better with no clothes. :)

Here are some pictures of the last month of Norah:

18 Months Old!

Little bit of drool :)

Hanging with Uncle Ben

Loving the sweet corn!

Checking out the outside!

I had to get a picture of this....since Norah isn't tall enough to see out the window, she wraps her toes around the baseboard and uses that as a step as she hangs on to the handle on the window. :)

Loves to push her babies around the house!

Norah also loves to sit in the stroller herself and buckle herself in. :)

Baby Calli came to visit!!

Driving the boat :)

Throughly enjoying her cake :)

Monday, August 27, 2012

4th of July at the Lake

Whew! I need to catch up on some blogging!

We spent the week of July 4th up at my parent's cabin in Minnesota! We always LOVE spending time up there, and with the kids being a little bit older-especially Kyler-we couldn't wait to head up and have fun at the lake!

We left on Sunday, July 1st, after church. The timing was great as the kids napped just shortly into the trip, and then we stopped only one time for dinner and that was it. The kids did great in the car-thanks to the DVD player and Bob the Builder DVDs, and we arrived about 8:30. Monday was a beautiful day, and we waisted no time heading to the beach. We cleaned off the paddle boat and took that for a ride, and enjoyed time playing in the sand and water. Tuesday my brother, Ben, arrived in the morning. He was supposed to come late Monday night, but hit a rain storm and pulled over to spend the night in a hotel and came the rest of the way Tuesday morning. Tuesday was another great day, and we spent lots of time on the beach and in the water. Wednesday was the 4th of July, so we headed to the neighbor's house for breakfast at the pot in the morning. I always look forward to this as there is so much yummy food and we cook our eggs and bacon over an open kettle fire. After breakfast we came home and hung out on the beach to watch for the boat parade. It was another great day and we had a fun time celebrating the 4th of July! Thursday was more of the same, warm sunny weather, lots of time at the beach, playing in the water, and going for boat rides. Thursday evening we had our first group of visitors arrive-Erik's family! Erik's mom, dad, and sister came on Thursday and stayed through Sunday. Friday was the only rainy day we had, it was rainy in the morning, but then cleared off late afternoon/evening. Also on Friday, some more guests arrived! My aunt and uncle, Nick and Marilyn came up, as well as one of my cousins and her kids, Kristin, Jack, and Ava. They came over for dinner when they got here, and then headed over to the neighbor's house, where they were staying. Saturday was a big day-my mom's birthday party! My mom turned 60 on July 11th, and she decided to have a birthday party at the lake the weekend before-since that's when everyone could be there. We spent Saturday morning getting ready for the party, cleaning, vacuuming, getting food ready, etc. Then the guests arrived about 5:00 for dinner, cake, and silly presents. There was a great turnout, and so many people came over to help my mom celebrate her big day. It was a really nice party. Sunday morning we said good-bye to Erik's family and my brother, as they had to get home and go to work on Monday. We spent the rest of the day Sunday playing at the beach and enjoying the water and another beautiful day. Monday we enjoyed our last day at the cabin, we took one more boat ride, water skied one last time, and had a fun final day. Tuesday we packed up and headed home.....it was sad to leave but we had a wonderful time. The weather was beautiful, the lake was warm, and it was a great week hanging out with friends and family and celebrating my mom's birthday! We can't wait to go back!!

A couple things I want to remember about each kid from this summer:

Norah-

She wasn't as adventurous as I had originally thought about going in the water. She was willing to walk in some, and liked it, but it took a little convincing. She would walk in up to her waist and that was it. She did however, love to ride on the tube and would float out in the lake for a while, even with me. And, if Kyler was doing something she wanted to be doing it too. Norah hated wearing her life jacket. She did like riding in the boat, but did NOT want to put on her life jacket, we had to just put in on her and go.

Kyler-

Did not really want to get wet at all. Also, at the beginning of the week, we would be out on the beach and he would see a boat WAY far away, and he would take off running up the beach toward the cabin, like the boat was going to come and get him or something. He did get better with this toward the end of the week. Kyler did walk in the water a little, but it took a lot of convincing. Kyler LOVED riding in the boat, and he always wanted to be up front in the boat. He had no problem wearing his life jacket and would probably ride in the boat all day if we let him. Kyler road the tube behind the fishing boat!! The tube is HUGE, and he rode with me, but this was a great first step for someone who didn't want to get in the water that much.... :)

Here are some pictures from our trip!