Good Day Sunshine

After a quick trip to see our newborn niece, (see below) we hightailed it back to Seattle in hopes of catching the last few hours of Sunday sunshine and 70 degree weather. Before leaving Portland, our parents loaded up the car with all sorts of gardening supplies. We are now proud owners of weed eater, lawnmower, rake, and a variety of gardening tools and potted plants.

ET got his weekly dose of exercise with the push mower - the lawn is 5 inches tall no longer! We also got to use our awesome new gardening goodies given to us by Max's parents! http://littlegreenegrape.blogspot.com/ Our new shovel came in very handy when removing an ailing Hydrangea plant. It has been replaced with a beautiful new rose bush!

The yard still needs a LOT of work. We'll post more pictures of the roses, tulips and all the beautiful new colors that began popping up this week!

First Things First

Another delay has occurred in the remodel process. I have to say that Ella Lydia was a perfectly good excuse to put down the paint brushes and rush to Portland. She arrived on Friday, April 17th.
See more pictures at http://jmansonsquared.blogspot.com/

In Good Company

Some of our favorite house guests stayed over last week. They were just in time for the unveiling of the Guest Bedroom Makeover. It's still a work in progress - but it's come a long way since DAY 1.BEFORE

AFTER

While Mom & Dad had a night out to themselves - we hosted a pizza making party for Bailey and Finnegan! We went for a hike to Trader Joe's for our favorite pizza dough, bought some toppings, came home and made a mess! With flour and pizza sauce everywhere who needs to paint!?

Bad Neighborhood

Really, it's the furthest thing from a bad neighborhood. But when we moved into our house, it came armed with an alarm system straight out of the 1970's. Large, yellowed, plastic boxes adorned every window sill and door frame.

These days, if you have an alarm system, the keypad might be the size of a dollar bill. When our retro alarm system was installed, keypads were the size of a shoe box. The weekend we started painting the house I asked ET if we could rip out the ugly old plastic boxes. Mostly because I was being lazy and didn't want to tape around all of them. He actually hesitated -briefly - until I assured him that the alarm company that installed this system probably went out of business a decade ago. He started like any smart man would, and unplugged the power from the source - just in case. He ripped off the cover and went all MacGyver on the box. It seriously looks like they modeled these things after time bombs. I mean, what is all that stuff? Needless to say, there's now a big hole in the wall - where we'll be patching and painting. There are a few more boxes to remove - but the fun part is over.On a side note: This will be our first weekend at home since we moved in a month ago. We have a 3 page to-do list! What fun.