so you may be thinking we haven't updated because we're busy unpacking and whatnot. alas, that is not exactly the case. what you're looking at is our basement wall. well i guess it isn't "our" wall, seeing as how this wall caved in the night before we were supposed to close. less than 24 hrs, actually. soooooo, things are a little up in the air. we may be back to square one, in which case we'll rent for a year or so until we find the perfect house, or we may buy this one for an extremely reduced price.



Hannah is such a wonderful helper these days, when I have the patience to let her :-). she always helps me make the bed, but on a whim the other day, i sent her in there to do it herself. from the time we get up in the morning till 5 pm or so, we're basically just generating piles and piles of mess. then we run around in a whirlwind cleaning up before patrick comes home. hannah's first every bed making was part of this daily routine. she was SO proud of herself, i got teary eyed. also, i can send her into the living room by herself, tell her to pick up everything that doesn't belong there, and she normally gets most of it. not just her own stuff either, but the whole family's.

she's my little sous chef, for sure. pratt, and kansas in general, has so much to offer, but ethnic food isn't one of those things. so we made tzatziki this week. she especially loves the garlic press. if you've never heard a 2 1/2 yr old try to say tzatziki, you should put it on your bucket list. it's priceless. she loves to tell stories these days, and plays outside forever. she has three best "friends": ariel, tinkerbell, and snow white. where this came from i have no idea, since she has never seen a disney movie. she also loves to sing and dance and twirl. I'm just so proud of her, even though i get frustrated alot, she has such a sweet spirit. when we're at the grocery store, if we go by the bakery section, she always asks for cookies and i always say no and she just says "ok mommy." i've babysat kids who flip out if they don't get the right food on the right plate. the other day i pulled one of her kid plates out of the cupboard instead of a real one and she was so appreciative, she said "mommy i just love this special plate. thank you so much for giving it to me, that was so sweet." really, that's what she said. i don't want to forget these moments.

now charlie man, he's just taking off! at the moment, we have no space for things like the computer. so it gets moved around, and the cords are always all over the place being tripped over. (our wireless doesn't work well, and neither does the battery, so we're in the computer dark ages.) i know all our keys are going to be pulled off soon if i keep forgetting to shut it.

"what mommy? it's just oats." before i took this picture he was laying on his stomach swimming in it. and it was alllllll over the floor. which begs the question, where was i while this was taking place. i don't remember, actually. he just gets into everything so fast. so does hannah. and so does the dog. so i just run around after the 3 of them. we just have some open pantry shelves in the kitchen, and charlie just loves to pull himself up on them and knock the food onto the floor. but there's no other place to put it.

also loves the dishwasher, and the toilet. (no, we don't have one, this is Jan's. dishwasher, that is. we do have a toilet. we aren't that rural :-).

he had a few super fussy days so i took him in to see if he had an ear infection. of course, when we got there he was the happiest kid around. we did our 9 mos well check too, and he's doing great, which we knew. nearly 20 lbs. his feet are still funky (metatarsal adductus, for the record), but that will straighten out within a few months of walking, they say. there actually isn't a pediatrician here, just family doctors. we are going to the same one patrick went to when he was little. my first appt with a doctor is always somewhat of an interview, and he passed! of course, i should just be grateful he didn't throw me out on my homebirth birthing, private breast milk donating, non vaccinating, raw milk drinking butt.

so say what you will about how stupid it was to work on the house before we owned it, we'd probably do it the same way next time. we had our closing scheduled, and a few days before went in to start cleaning, painting, and doing other little things. and some not so little things. david and patrick worked SO hard. and it's getting hot here in south central kansas. des worked really hard as well: she babysat every single day. the grandparents volunteered as well, we are so grateful.

so you may not have noticed at first glance, but at the top of the picture, you can see what the floor looks like underneath the dirt. i honestly did not know the tile wasn't so brown. i just barely started excavating the house from underneath its filth. this is actually as far as i got on the bathroom floor.

there are no words!

who is this big girl? surely not mine.

hanging out at the pool, in his fancy baby floatie. Hannah's getting much braver this year, putting her head under water and blowing bubbles. She absolutely loves the waterslide, as well.

we're off in a few days for a whirlwind of a trip: wichita to boston for 2 nights, driving up 7 hrs to ottawa for my cousin's wedding, Canada Day, and a side trip to see where i spent most of my childhood. I lived in a suburb of Ottawa called Manotick for 7 yrs (i think), much longer than i've lived anywhere else put together. i don't really have roots, and i definitely don't have a home, so any opportunity i have to connect with my past is priceless. anyways, we stay in ottawa for 3 nights, then drive 4 hrs to a cottage with dad and bunny for 4 nights, then back here. all of this will be in extremely close quarters with lots of people, so we hope the kids sleep through the night somehow magically. drugs, anyone?