Moving Part 1: Paint

We just finished a two week long move. It was a very busy two weeks. When you are only moving down the street, it makes it easy, but it also makes it hard, because we were packing and transporting and unpacking all at the same time.

But we are done now and can’t wait to show off the new place (not that it really looks any different than our other one did).

The first thing we had to do was paint because the entire main level was covered in this:



I forgot to take an overall before picture of the main room, but I did get one of the bathroom.



Oh, it was awful. (On a side note, the toilets all had squishy seats, so those also had to be changed pretty much immediately.)

Our paint is beautiful. We were inspired by Modern Family and, well, are pretty much in love. Our kitchen is by far our favorite.



And I love this part of the stairs:



Now we are just working on getting all the pictures and drapes hung and the rooms tidied up so that we can give you really good pictures of where we live.

And I’ll actually do it this time. I know last time we gave a preview and said a full view was to come later and that that full view never came.

But that post will not be today because I’ll be busy…
Celebrating our BIRTHDAY!

Yay.

Sick Days

Last week Tennyson was running a fever, so we spent a couple days like this.

Watching Monsters, Inc.:

Watching Monsters, Inc.:

Watching Monsters, Inc.:

We took him into urgent care on Saturday because he was on his third day of fever. He was diagnosed with an ear and throat infection and given some antibiotics. Unfortunately, the first day the antibiotics chased the fever away, but not the pain. So instead of the calm, Monsters Inc. watching baby we had had, we got this:

 

But then the antibiotics chased away the pain as well.

So we took him to the mall for a “yay! you’re better!” outing. (I wanted to go to the park, but of course on the first day he was feeling better it rained all day.)

He got to ride on the cool cars they had.

He got to pick out a brand new Elmo toy.

And he got his very own meal at his favorite restaurant, Chipotle (sidenote: our kid is great. he’d rather have chipotle than mcdonald’s any day). We even let him play with the straw in our drink.

I missed my happy baby. I’m so glad to have him back. His smiles are the best.

Ribs and BBQing and the Fourth

My parent’s hometown hosts a Ribfest over the 4th of July weekend. It’s huge. They bring in all sorts of national award winning rib teams and host a competition and there are concerts and games and demonstrations and it makes for a real good time. We were very excited to be close enough this year to go.
We spent two wonderful nights shoving our faces full of the most delicious ribs and sandwiches we’d ever have, listening to live music, and seeing demonstrations.
 
Tennyson was our secret agent and watched closely for all the secret recipes.

So as soon as he can talk, we’re golden.
My mom and I went one night alone to see a concert because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay on Saturday night to see Styx because Tennyson wouldn’t last that long. So we went to Phil Vassar/David Nail on Friday night and it was awesome. The perfect night for an outdoor concert.
My mom and David Nail:

Me and Phil Vassar:

No one ended up seeing Styx anyway because, to make a very long story short, the park filled to the max and we got stuck on the wrong side. So Mike and I went to take Tennyson to bed (and three lucky people got to enter the park because we left) and my parents stayed to see the other band that was headlining that night.
On the 4th, we parked our chairs on the side of the road and watched the Ribfest fireworks from afar (to avoid the massive crowds). We also enjoyed ourselves some Andy’s ice cream which is a local establishment there that we absolutely love.
 
Tennyson took the occasional glance at the fireworks, but Monsters, Inc. won out most the time.

So what else did we do that weekend?
Since it was so hot, a visit to the pool was warranted.

Tennyson rode on his first school bus ever. And it was crazy.

We did a lot of grilling.

We had a nice little campfire.

We watched our usual allotment of Elmo.

We went to a ward picnic.

We played with the dogs. (Okay, we played with the little one and watched the big one from a safe distance.)

All the fun really wore us out.
 

14 Months Old

That’s right. Tennyson is now fourteen months old. And seeing as how our I’m Batman shirt still fits, we did a little photo shoot this afternoon. It was immediately post-nap so it turned out real nice.



A lot has changed this month.

Tennyson walks. Not just a couple steps, but walks. He can stand up from sitting on his own now, too.
He has become a creature of habit. He has learned tantrums. These two things together… well… it’s fun. You’d think he was being tortured to death if we were to not turn on Elmo’s World during lunch. True story. I swear he almost stopped breathing this afternoon.



He watches Monster’s, Inc. at least once a day it seems. (I’ve started noticing things that no person should ever notice. For instance, everything in the background looks like monsters. Even the remote controls. Also, things are priced as 4.299 and 9.195. I don’t know why but I like to think that it is birthdays of the kids of the Pixar peeps.) Every now and then Tennyson is even smart enough to figure out how to play the movie on our iTouch without our help. Although most the time he just messes up the settings.



His new favorite thing is to play upstairs in his room by himself. For a kid who always had to be in the same room as you were, this is a huge deal. It also keeps the other levels of our home much cleaner.

We now have 10 teeth. This month we had two molars come in at the same time. It wasn’t fun for any of us.


(look at all that hair!)

We got rid of all bottles this month. Cold turkey. One day we used them, the next day we didn’t. When he went a week without a bottle, we rewarded him with his very own Elmo straw cups, because even sippies are beneath him now.

He also fell in love with juice boxes and raisins. He still isn’t sure how he feels about chocolate milk.



Tennyson also terrorizes everyone at church. The chapel doors have these special powers that give little kids all sorts of excess energy. This last week we had a long discussion in Sunday School about how to love and accept little children who might be disruptive during sacrament meeting. I drove that lesson home by letting Tennyson run free around the classroom. I figured there was never a better time to let him do so. And (bonus!) he was so tired he just chilled on my lap during all of relief society and I got to listen to the lesson. I think he’ll be running free during Sunday School a lot more often.

what should have been balloonfest

Every year, Howell, MI has a great balloonfest where they bring in all sorts of hot air balloons and have a carnival and serve all sorts of fatty foods and it is a blast.

I have great memories of balloonfest. Balloons used to land in our front yard during the festival because our subdivision was right next to the end of the race, and hot air balloons are hard to aim. It was pretty much the coolest.

So, I took Mike and Tennyson along this year and we went to see the hot air balloons.

Before I go any further, let me just say that I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I’d see my son running around my old high school parking lot. Ever. I was certain that once I left Michigan for college, and once my family moved to Chicago, I’d have no reason to ever go back to Michigan. God must have had a good chuckle at that one.

Anyway.

We went to balloonfest. It was exactly like I remembered, but a totally different experience toting along a one year old instead of running around with all the teenagers.

Tennyson got to play his first carnival game.

He did well. He won a stuffed monkey. Doesn’t he look thrilled about it?

 

We walked around a lot and saw all the art stands and took in the atmosphere.

We even stopped for some quality festival food. Tennyson would have none of the hot dog, apparently they don’t make them right there, so he just stuck with his fruit loops. Have I mentioned yet that he’s learned to throw a tantrum? Yeah, his scream will burst both eardrums.

After our bellies were full, we went to wait for the hot air balloons to inflate and set off on their race (the one that ended in our backyard when I was younger).

Only they never inflated. There was too much wind. Well, I guess they did get one up after we left, but remember that ear piercing yell I just told you about? It’s ten times louder and much more frequent when he’s tired.

We did see a couple things in the sky before leaving.

Like kites.

And planes.

And skydivers.

And babies.

(and no, that is not photoshopped)

But we did not see hot air balloons.

Thusly, instead of pictures of hot air balloons, you get a ton of pictures of the cutest kid in the world (we had a lot of down time). Lucky you!