March Update

We are happy that the weather is improving and Spring is near! Gabbie and I have enjoyed more outdoor strolls, and this weekend I bought some tomato seeds to grow indoors until we can get them in the garden. We have been able to help Brice more with his chores without taking 20 minutes to bundle up! Winter hibernation is fun up to a point.

Here are some pictures of the last few weeks around here:

For Valentine's Day Gabbie got a new toy for the shower. Somehow its okay when she dumps the water over her head, but not when her mother does it!

Celebrating Grandpa's birthday. I think Gabbie's starting to get the concept that other people have birthdays and get presents instead of just her.

Of course, the ongoing house project. We decided to open the stairway on the west side. It turned out much better than I thought it would. The room you see now will be the office as it was before, only without sharing it with Gabbie. Brice's computer has been packed up for over a month now; catching up on his bookwork when we get this all done will be interesting!

The mess...as much as I appreciate the progress, I'll be glad to be able to come home from work without having sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming to do to keep up. I keep thinking we are doing well enough to be utilizing the space by mid-summer, but when I repeat that estimation to anyone working on it they look at my like I am crazy. I forget its March already and soon they will all be in the field with less time to work on the house.

I felt great this weekend, so Gabbie and I got our cleaning shoes on and went to work. She loves to mop and dust. Not sure what got into us, but we worked all day Saturday. I hadn't cleaned the house that good since before Christmas. We even worked in the basement and did multiple loads of laundry-and the weather was perfect to hang it all outside and get that fresh Spring smell!

Before lunch Saturday I told Gabbie she needed to get dressed. She went and got her 2 piece swimsuit. I figured it didn't matter much; we were inside and she was mopping the floors (more playing in the water) anyway. Later I told her we needed to go outside and help Daddy, so she went and put on a light jacket and shoes.

We wore her out! She fell asleep by 7 p.m. watching the girls basketball championship. Thank goodness; the 2-3 nights before she'd been up nearly every hour crying. We figured it was an ear infection, but she seems better now.

Cleaned the house yesterday, time to do the yard today. We had the front door replaced last fall, but the old one had been sitting in our yard ever since. Here Brice is hauling it away.

Valentines flowers :-) Thought I better take a picture today before they all started to wilt. I was surprized when I got home on Valentine's Day by these. As busy as Brice has been working on the house, plus keeping up with his normal tasks, he managed to get me some flowers and a bird feeder. I haven't seen any birds at the feeder yet...hopefully soon!