Happenings this week

I finished painting my desk. I love it more than I should. The finish is silky smooth and I'm so pleased how well it turned out.

This not so little visit decided to make a massive web across the stairway by our front door. It's an orb weaver spider, also known as a garden spider or a writing spider or lots of other names. From what I've heard from friends and the internet, this isn't even that big, at about the size of a walnut. Some can get as big as your hand. They're pretty gnarly looking spiders. Our friendly maintenance guy was nice enough to find this sucker a new home.

Genevieve learned how to open our pantry and has been pulling out stuff ever since. She particularly likes the open box of pasta. She keeps chowing down on the stuff and drooling up a storm since she doesn't have enough teeth to really chew the stuff. A baby lock has since been installed on the door for my sanity's sake. Spencer already knows how to open it, but he has a bit more restraint. :)

Spencer decided to teach Genevieve the fine art of toothbrushing this weekend. It may backfire on him as he hoards our extra toothbrushes and she now thinks they're hers.

Genevevieve got to wear a new dress to church yesterday and the cuteness nearly killed me. This girl rocks the color orange. She had the cutest little shoes and an orange bow to go with it for church. It made her look like she was a miniature 15-year old.

Spencer's not much for pictures these days, but I snagged this one last night. Notice the lock on the pantry in the background? He can't be bothered to stop long enough for a cute shot, let alone open his eyes for the one I got. Hahaha! Stripes and print for his outfit? He's totally rocking it.

Genevieve LOVES to read these days. Her favorite books are Dear Zoo and Five Little Monkeys

This is how she signals she's ready for more food. It's hilarious. Usually she just feeds herself, but we were at Panera and Bill tried to keep up with feeding her as she inhaled their mac and cheese.

All those things my parents did

The older my kids get and the fuller our life gets, the more I am amazed by how regular my parents were with all the things they did with us each day to build our faith and testimony. We had morning family prayer and evening family prayer and we ate dinner together and we had daily scripture reading. They drove us to seminary every morning as all seven of us went through high school and the accompanying early morning seminary. We went to all the primary activities and then youth activities when we got older. They just managed to make it all happen. I'm so amazed as we try to do the simple things with our tiny kids. Family home evening? How the heck do you fit that in? We did it every week growing up. That's a work in progress around here.

Bill and I jointly made a little thing last night to help us out with at least one thing. A friend from church had a bunch of these she was passing out, so we grabbed one and it turned out pretty cute. I painted the stars and put names and ribbons on them, but Bill did the rest: painted the board, drilled holes for the pins, put the vinyl on, etc. Now hopefully it will help us actually do FHE every week.

Brasstown Falls

Saturday night, after staining and painting all day, we decided we had to get the kids out of the house, so we found a waterfall with a super short approach hike, and headed out. It was probably 45 minutes away, but once we got there it was super short to hike out. We had such a fun time. Spencer loved it. The decent from the trail to the waterfall was super steep, so I ended up carrying/lowering him down that little part, which he thought was great. Once down he threw rocks to his heart's content, we took some great picture, we ate some celebratory cookies for having left our house that day, and then we went back.

The one thing I could do without down here in the summertime is all the bugs. Everything seems to be super sized or there are just an over abundance of them around. The forests are beautiful beyond description, but not nearly as inviting as out west because you know when you walk in the bug life is going to try to eat you alive. That sounds way more negative than it actually is. It just takes more preparation to have bug spray and a little more vigilance to not step in some random poisonous plant or nest or huge bug of some kind.

This trail we went on was totally infested with the hugest daddy longlegs I have ever seen. Their bodies were probably the size of a pea or bigger and their legs were probably four inches across when you were looking down on them. Needless to say I wished I was wearing closed toed shoes. :) They didn't want to be near us, but they were so numerous it was kind of inevitable. It was also apparently milliped mating season. They were totally coating the roots and branches everywhere. So aside from the crazy quantity of bugs, this was a great hike.

The finished desk

 We spent a huge part of this weekend painting and staining our new desk. Saturday was a lazy day since the kids woke up at 5:30 and decided that was a great time to get up. Both Bill and I felt like we'd been hit by a truck by the time we got them to sleep again. He tried to sleep a bit more with little success and I just got up and started painting. I figured I better capitalize on the time at least one child wouldn't be standing right next to the wet paint.

I have a love/hate relationship with finishing the pieces I build. They look so amazing in the raw wood, but I've had a lot of problems getting the finished look I want. The projects I've painted turned out great, but the ones I've stained just haven't been anything special. I've been reading up on lots of different finishes and I came upon water-based polyurethane. I've seen it before but didn't know anything about it or why I should pick it.

I guess oil-based polyurethane is the standard finish for most people because it is so hard and durable. It has a yellowish cast, so it changes the color of the stain, though that's usually a good thing, not bad as it gives a richer glow to the finished product. Water-based polyurethane is also really hard, but not quite as hard as oil-based. The big difference is it dries completely clear. I was intrigued by that. I looked at some of the varnishes and shellacs too, but this desk is a pretty high traffic area and I just didn't think I'd get the durability I wanted with those. So I annied up the $23 for a quart can and crossed my fingers. I did some research on best brands and went with Varathane Satin finish water-based polyurethane. I read it had much better results than the Minwax you see at the big box stores.

So yesterday was the day. I can't tell you how nervous I was. I'm really pleased with this desk because I designed it myself from a basic plan I liked. I wanted the finish to look as good as the bare wood. We decided on a white base and dark top using a vinegar/steel wool blend. That was an experiment too. The desktop is oak, so when I stained it I got a super dark, rich, beautiful color. It has some kind of strange patterns in it, which bugged me, so I actually ended up going to the effort of taking it off and reapplying. That is not for the faint hearted and probably took me a couple extra hours to do. When I did it the second time and there were still some strange patterns, I decided it must just be the wood/stain combination and I let it be. It looks great, but I would have always questioned if it could look better if I hadn't done that so I don't regret the extra effort.

Once the stain was done I painted the bottom. That went really well and three coats later it was done. Now time to do the polyurethane. I started going on it and was so incredibly pleased with the water-based formula. It is SO much easier to apply than oil. It is thinner so it goes on smoother and more easily than oil-based. It only takes two hours in between coats to dry as opposed to more like four or five, and I ended up doing four coats on the desktop and three over the white. The finished product is amazing. It's a satin finish, so not super shiny, which is just what we wanted. I'm giving it a couple days to dry all the way through like is recommended, but I'm so, so, so excited to finally have a piece of furniture I made that I love the finish on as well as the build.

She's 1!

I can't even believe how fast this year has gone by. I just spent a while going through my iPhoto picking out pictures to go in Genevieve's awesome 1st year album from her Aunt Megan. It was fun to look at all the pictures we have from the past year or two since we found out I was expecting. So much has happened. Bill graduated from college. We moved across the country with a nearly two year-old and four month-old. He started his PhD program. We've been hiking and camping and exploring our new home. We flew back across the country and then drove home with a now 11 month-old and 2.5 year old. We've made friends and fallen in love with South Carolina and just really had a fantastic year.

Through all of that Genevieve has grown and grown and grown and now she's walking and eating like a big kid and starting to talk and is just the most delightful little girl I could imagine. She's such a joy in our little family. Spencer doesn't know what to do without her. He's always saying how he loves her and he gets bothered when she's asleep and he wants to play. She returns the love.

She bonks her head against yours to show she loves you. She says yes, boo, baby, mommy, daddy, dog or some version of those words. She loves food and gets very bothered when she can't get it in her mouth fast enough. She shunned her lunch the other day and chowed down on my taco salad instead. She only has four teeth, but it doesn't stop her in the slightest from eating anything she wants.

She plays peekaboo and is delighting in her newfound ability to walk. I had to go bring her back to our pew probably four times today in church. She's mostly gotten over her fear of strangers and charms everyone now with her cute little smiles and red hair.

She loves her water bottle. It's a Camelbak kids one and she and Spencer both have one. She chugs that thing all day long.

Her stuffed dog is her dearest of possessions. She has recently decided it needs to be at her side pretty much at all times. If anyone, and I really mean anyone, gets near it, she glares at them and starts hyperventilating and half crying until they give it back. That includes me, Bill, Spencer, and anyone else.

She recently discovered dolls. She has a few floating around and just decided they're pretty great. We have a mesh hanging thing of all the stuffed animals in the toy room and she will pick ones down from it to play with. She'll give them hugs and kisses. It's so crazy to me the difference in personality between her and Spencer. I have no idea what is different from boys and girls, but they definitely have different interests. They both love books though. It makes me happy to see her in the toy room reading her books.

She fancies herself an artist, particularly when it comes to kitchen bowls. She grabs crayons from Spencer's art supplies, heads for the kitchen and colors in my mixing bowls. I just thank my stars it's not the wall. She likes to color on paper too, though she's only just getting a good enough grip to really draw much. We picked up an easel with a white board a few weeks ago and both she and Spencer just love it. I don't trust her with a dry erase marker yet, but she'll love it once she gets one.

She has a halo of red hair. It's getting longer and longer and she has opposing cowlicks on the crown of her head, so it just sticks straight up in the back. It has just a hint of curl, but nothing major yet. Spencer's hair is already starting to darken up and I think he'll end up dark like me, but I'm guessing she'll stay light. Her skin tone is totally that of a redhead.

And that's my Genevieve. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can love our kids. It's cliche, but I really can't imagine life without our little lady.

New Park

Our poor little city has gotten pummeled with rain this summer, and four of our five parks have flooded, causing significant damage. One of them happened to be up for replacement this year, which was super handy, but I can't imagine what the city is going to do to handle all the damage. It's not just the parks but bridges, roads, etc.

But back to the park. We tried out the new park this week and had a delightful time there with some friends. The kids love it. I was on the committee to pick the new park and I'm super pleased with the result.

She does this all the time. Just the last few days she's started actually taking a few steps instead of just standing. But she stands up nearly anywhere she is.

She was actually hanging, if only for a second.

Tunnels! This one goes uphill. It makes a great slide too. :)

Playing peekaboo with Daddy. So cute.

Look at that awesome sweaty hair! We were all soaked by the time we were done playing. Gotta love humidity.

Saturday morning we made an impromptu trip to Greenville to try out an awesome park there called Cleveland Park. The kids loved that one too. We had a great time. 

Spencer had a graham cracker in his hand the entire time.

Genevieve spent the first part of our morning chugging graham crackers hugging her dog. She was delighted.

Besides a few terrorizing attacks by pigeons, Spencer had a great time throwing rocks in the river. And by terrorizing I mean they were near him. But I can't blame him. They are much closer to his size than mine.

Genevieve has always loved this dog. It's what she goes to bed with. But in the last few days she's decided she can't go anywhere without it and she gets VERY bothered when anyone else has it. It's pretty adorable. 

Look, I was there! I don't actually get in too many pictures these days. 

Kid Obsessions

Spencer is a creature of habit, like most two year-olds. He loves his routine. He likes to read the same books, look at the same pictures, eat the same food, pick his own pajamas, have bath time exactly the same every night, etc, etc. For months and months now his favorite book and movie has been The Lorax. He's kind of past his love of reading the book all the time, though he does carry it and his other Dr. Seuss books around all over the house and totally freaks out if Genevieve so much as brushes by them, but he still loves the movie. I'm pretty sure we're going to dress him up as a Lorax for Halloween, and he'll be delighted.

Grandma Suzanne has experienced this obsession, and she totally made his day/life/world when we got to Utah last month and she presented him with his very own Lorax quilt that she had made. It is beyond adorable. He loves it. He sleeps on it every night. We have a video of him dancing on it when he got it. It's pretty much awesome. The first couple weeks after we got home he wouldn't let us put it anywhere but laid out on the floor so he could dance on it some more. So here it is. The quilt of quilts that made Spencer a happy child. :)

Yes that is a pink fleece blanket on his bed. It's Genevieve's, otherwise known as Spencer's. He loves blankets with fringe, so he snitched this months ago and considers it his. He says it's Genevieve's blanket, but he sleeps with it every single night.

Stop everything and make this cake

It's in your best interests to stop everything you're doing and go make this cake. It's heaven. And gluten free. That's not a big deal to me, but I am floored how amazing this is. It's made with quinoa. I had no idea how good that could be. So yes, do it. I promise your day will improve. :)

We built some things again!

I dearly love building furniture, but it's not always high on my budget priority list. I have a whole list of projects I plan to build, and for the last few months have been saving to build a bed frame and headboard. When Bill's bike got stolen, the kid climbed over our outdoor box and cracked it. Well, it was already cracked from our move, but he made it worse. It was a perfect opportunity to get to building a replacement. I took the chance to build a desk too, as mine was a Costco plastic table that my keyboard rattled on whenever I typed. It was so annoying. Anyway, last weekend Bill and I combined forces and built the two pieces.

I'm super proud of both because I designed both of them. The desk I got a plan off of Ana White's site, but then tweaked it quite a bit to fit our space. I love how it turned out. We accidentally got treated wood for the legs, so we have to wait a while to stain it, but otherwise it turned out just beautiful.

The box is on wheels so we can actually move the thing. It's beefy. Nothing is going to get in there. When Bill took apart the old box to get rid of it, a bunch of huge cockroaches crawled out from the bottom. Gross! That's certainly not going to happen with this one. Our power tools are safe in here!

 It doubles up as a super secure base to lock our bikes onto. Just installed that last night. Now our bikes will be safe and secure and definitely not a temptation to our weak-willed teenagers in the complex.

Now to start saving again for that bed. Although our kids are going to be so bummed when they can't come climbing all over the mattress laying on the floor in a few months. But watching Genevieve climb, I'm sure it won't be long before she gets up there anyway. The girl isn't even walking quite yet, but she stood in the center of our living room today and threw a ball back and forth with Bill. She amazes me. She's terrified to walk, but can stand unassisted and climbs on anything she can find. What fun!

Bill's Bike

Bill's bike got stolen a couple weeks ago off our porch. We were so bothered, especially since it was only a couple months old. Granted, it was partly our fault, as it wasn't locked up. We naively thought it was hard enough to even get on our porch that no one would take it. But alas, that wasn't the case. However, yesterday we found it! Apparently some unknown kid in our complex or one nearby thought he would just swipe it and then let a younger sibling ride it around in here. Not the best decision on their part, as it had some pretty distinguishing characteristics that we could identify. It looks like they had a lot of fun with it. The back tires are way worn and the grips too, but otherwise it seems not too worse for wear. We're just glad we don't have to replace it, and we immediately went out and got a beefy chain and lock and hook to lock it up while it's on our deck now. Thanks for not too painful a learning experience to remind us to not leave expensive things lying about tempting people.

Rockin' Good Garden

Our container garden has been fantastic this year. We've had the summer of all summers for rain. It rained 17 inches in July alone a friend told me the other day. We're at 57 inches for the year or some crazy number like that. 48 inches or so is average. While our friends' gardens have kind of floated away this year, ours just flourished. Since our porch is covered and we have just the right amount of direct sunlight, I don't think we could have gone wrong. It makes me feel like I'm an excellent gardener. Hee hee! I'm sure another year will prove me wrong on that front. But I feel all kinds of confident for the moment.

This box has five tomato plants in it plus a row of peppers on the back side, all of which are producing. It's probably way too full, but it's doing great! We've had so many tomatoes and they're still coming, as you can see. Our peppers are just starting to really come in and I can't wait for lots of good, hot food in the next month.

These two buckets of peppers have done great too. I didn't even cut holes in the bottoms for drainage. I'm telling you, we couldn't have a better growing year. I'll try to do a few more things right next time around. :)

Fun at the splash pad

When we were in Utah my sister and her daughter, who is only three months older than Genevieve, headed down to a splash pad in Provo. We had so much fun. She just sent me the pictures and I loved them and had to share. Spencer took quite a while to warm up to the water and Genevieve wanted nothing to do with it, but Shae loved it and wanted nothing more than to be sitting in the middle of the pad. Bill was nice enough to follow her in, as we hadn't really brought swim clothes ourselves. Now if only they would build a splash pad here. I'm pretty sure we'd be there several times a week. :)

Shae spent the entire time with water blasting her. :) 

Spence was more a stand-on-the-outskirts sort of kid. We've since gone swimming and I think he'd like it much better if we went again.

She was in heaven

Oh look, he was getting more into it. He was so mad by the end when it was time to go. You know they've had a good time if they're screaming bloody murder when you take them away, right? Ha! 

This is the best picture of the cousins we got. For how similar my sister and I look, our girls couldn't resemble each other less. Though in this picture you can see that their profiles are uncannily similar. We have big plans for these two. Summers spent together, anyone? Miss Shae will definitely be invited out to wherever we live when the girls are a bit older. I can't wait. I foresee college roommates. :)

Shae was mostly bothered that she wasn't in the water. Geez, Mom, just let me get back, okay?!

And this is where Genevieve was happy. Sitting in the shade drinking her water and stealing Spencer's too. I love this picture. What a cutie! I still can't believe I have such a pasty white daughter. I could just eat her up though!

Beach Day

We live next to a beach. Well, we live next to a lake which has a beach within a bike ride of our house. I wouldn't ride there as there is no shoulder, but I could. I had no idea it was that close until yesterday. People told us about it months ago, but it literally rained nearly every day the month of July and it just wasn't that warm yet in June. But yesterday was the day. We got there in about five minutes of leaving the house and I almost felt foolish for not going until now when I realized how awesome it was. We had a fantastic time. We've gone swimming at a friend's pool a couple of times this year, but the water has been really cold both times so the kids wouldn't have anything to do with it. This was totally different. Spencer beelined it for the water the instant he saw it. In fact, we had to walk along the water a ways to get to the actual sand, and he had a hard time focusing to walk because he kept drifting toward the water. :)

It was just a fantastic time. We brought our little video camera, but it had some troubles. Here's a couple videos that give a bit of an idea though.

I was so proud of Spencer. He gained courage the longer he was there, and by the end he was playing around using his water wings to float.

Funny story about that. I wanted to have him experience floating. The water has a very gradual decline, so he could walk out really far before it got too deep. I would sit far out and he would come running out to meet me repeating "Audrey!" over and over again. That's the name of the girl on The Lorax that he has a crush on.  He'd get to me and give me a huge hug. It was so fun.

Genevieve had a ball. She floated around in her little inner tube for ages and then had a grand old time once we set her on the beach. She found a shovel and was happy as could be even though she was literally falling asleep where she sat.

We will definitely be back. Spencer keeps watching the videos and asking to go back. Good times!

She walks!

Genevieve took her first steps the other night, just out of the blue while we were reading stories before bedtime. Thanks to the handy dandy phone we even have video evidence. She was so proud of herself.

She likes to dance too. What a cutie.