Ready, Set, Play!

We decided to get Jackson a play set for his 2nd birthday. It's been sitting in our garage for a little while as we've been redoing the backyard. The playset has been part of the master plan for the yard though, and it's finally done! Over the last three weekends, Ross and a couple of good friends, Eric and Todd, have assembled the play set.

The first weekend, Eric and Todd came over with their drills in hand and spent most of the day in the swelltering heat piecing together the play house portion of the set. It was so hot they eventually got smart and set up a tent and a box fan to provide a little relief. They came to a pretty abrupt stop when we when decided to head to Shreveport because Ross' dad, John, had gone into the hospital, which you can read more about here. Eric and Todd were awesome! While we quickly started gathering our things to leave, they helped clean up the yard so everything was in place before we left.

When we returned home from Shreveport later that week, Ross was able to get the swing set portion of the play set up with minor help from me. Knowing Jackson's love of swinging, this was an important milestone!

Today, Ross put the finishing touches on the play set which included the ladder to the second story, the rock wall, and most importantly, the slide! When Jackson woke up from his nap today, everything was ready to go, and he was one excited little boy! Here are a few pics of him checking everything out today. There are more pics in the album.

Backyard...Done!

The latest kid news is at the end...

After over a month of working on the weekends, our backyard is done! At least mostly...we have one more plant to get, but they didn't have any of it this weekend. I know I posted some pics from last weekend, but I thought I'd put the before and after shots here. Every time we complete a project like this our house feels more like OUR home. It's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. As I said last week, we moved 7 yards of dirt to create these flower beds, which required renting a sod cutter to remove the grass before that. We planted a grand total of 162 plants over the last two weekends alone! It's been a lot of long hours in the HOT sun to get it done, but I love the finished product. I imagine it will look wonderful once everything begins to fill in...assuming we can keep it alive! Of course, I'm not sure we would have been able to get it done so quickly had we not had help with the kiddos from my mom and dad. Thanks to you both!

From the patio...

Before...

In work...

The finished product...

From the side of the yard...

Before...

In work...

The finished product...

There are more close up pictures that show the plants better in the album. If you don't care about plants, you can just skip to the next paragraph. The back fence is lined with hibiscus, varigated ginger, and pitosporum with a row of ixora and plumbego in front of them. Then there is a border of caladiums and lantana along the edge. The side beds have indian hawthorne and agapanthus, and under the loquat tree there is another ixora and hibiscus along with a few bottlebrush. The bed by the house has bottlebrush and pentas with a huge iris that's in bloom. The plant we're currently missing there is the scavola, which will go around the iris. Under the orange tree we have some dwarf philodendron and green ginger.

The next project will be putting together Jackson's swing set. Hopefully, we can get that done soon and enjoy our new backyard! I only got one kiddo picture this weekend, which was of Audrey and Pop becuase their outfits coordinated so well. :-)

In addition to the yard work this weekend we also got to have a little fun. We spent some time with our friends. We had a nice dinner out with the Fullilove family Friday night, and got together with several of the families in our life group to hang out and do some grilling tonight. My dad also stayed with the kiddos Saturday night so Ross and I could go on a "date". We went to get ice cream and then went to the grocery store...does that count? Whether it does or not, we had a good time...we're exhausted, but pretty content.

Jackson and Audrey have both had pretty eventful weeks. In the last post, I mentioned that Audrey had rolled from back to front once. Well, now she's a pro. She flips over all the time now. She also likes to rock onto her knees and scoot backwards already. I have a feeling she's going to be an early crawler...not sure if I'm ready for that!

Jackson finished his swim lessons this week, and I was a super proud mom when he climed out on the side of the pool all by himself the last day! A new sudden interest of Jackson's has become the movie Cars. He's addicted to the movie, it's case, any related toys, and anything with a picture of the cars in the movie. I can't decide whether to encourage this or let it pass...only time will tell.

Catching Up...

Since we last posted Jackson has gotten to play at a carnival and be a lion in a circus at his school, as well as starting swimming lessons, Audrey has started trying to sit up and roll from her back to her stomach (ok...this has only happened once so far), and Ross and I have been busy working in the yard.

The carnival was lots of fun. They had a little ferris wheel, a carousel, and a train. Jackson wasn't so sure about the ferris wheel, but he loved riding the horses and train along with eating snow cones! Here are a few pics, but there are lots more of the fun in the album

The next week Jackson's school put on a circus for all of the parents. It was a blast! Each class was a different animal or act. They had everything from strong men and clowns to tigers and trainers to lions. Jackson was one of the lions. His teachers made felt tails and ribbon manes and painted their faces. They were adorable. I didn't get any good pictures at the circus itself, but here is picture of Jackson at home after the show, and there are more in the album.

Last week Jackson started swimming lessons at a local indoor pool. The first day was awful. Jackson was in the terrible two's mode. He wanted to do everything by himself and didn't want Mommy to hold him. Since he didn't have floaties, that wasn't exactly an option, so we struggled our way through the first lesson. Day two was a dramatic change. I think he was less tired and better prepared for what to expect because he laughed and smiled through the whole lesson. He kicked and jumped and dove and rode his bike (treading water) and did big arms upon request. His favorite parts have been doing the hokey pokey and getting his towel at the end. Somehow we were unknowingly smart in letting Jackson pick out a towel when we were in Florida. This has become HIS towel. It has prevented many meltdowns when transitioning from a water activity to something else. The lessons are four days a week for two weeks, and we're now into week two. He's doing great! Now if we only could finish this yard work so we have some free time on the weekends to take him to the pool again!

So what yard work are we doing? We are pulling out almost all of the existing plants, expanding flower beds, and planting new plants including a tree! These are some before pictures.

All but 4 plants and the existing trees were removed. Maas nursery planted a Summer Maple tree for us and delivered 7 yards of dirt last Friday, which we then moved one wagonful at a time into the yard...that's a lot of shoveling, trips, and spreading of dirt. These are some "in work" pictures. We've actually started putting some flowers in the beds, but I don't have any pictures of them yet. It looks really good though!

Audrey is growing and changing fast. She is now on formula and doing great. She's almost 15 pounds and was at the 66th percentile at her 4 month appointment. She can almost sit on her own. Every day she seems to get stronger and be able to do more. She's a very observant baby. If there's something going on around her, she's likely to watch and study it. She seems to have really good hand-eye coordination. We put together her jumperoo this weekend, and to my amazement, she's already figured out each of the toys on it! This has also shown us what the future holds with Jackson and Audrey "sharing" toys...something for us to work on. Jackson is still adorably sweet with her. Even when getting upset about the toys on the jumperoo, he's usually just wanting to show her how to play with it.

We've had a busy but productive couple of weeks. We hope to finish the yard soon and get Jackson's swing set put together so we can all start having some fun back there!

Change of Plans

Our plans quickly changed this weekend when we got over 5.3 inches of rain on Saturday! Ross was planning to work on our patio cover, and we were all planning to go to a pool party. With our street looking like this, we decided none of that was in the cards for this weekend. After all, you can normally see the curb and sidewalks!

We spent all day Saturday trapped inside, so we decided to do something fun today. We went to the Children's Museum! Jackson had a blast. They recently opened their new toddler area, and Jackson loved it! Unlike our house where he's told "no-no" fairly often, everything here was fair game. They had everything from little doors to open and close to slides and balls and blocks and cars both little and big! There are more pics in the album, but here are few favorites from the day.

Dream Boys

It's been a great weekend. I took off of work on Friday and left Jackson at day care so I could get some work done on the house. What I thought was going to take me all weekend, I managed to almost finish on Friday! I sanded and painted our bathroom cabinets, added knobs and pulls to the drawers and doors (with Ross' help), and finished planting new flowers in the yard. I was in such a good mood by the end of the day because I felt like I'd finally made some progress. I've been wanting to paint the bathroom cabinets for a couple of years now. I don't know what took me so long! When I finally stopped for a few minutes and checked my work email, I got some great news that a coworker got certified...this was an even bigger deal than normal because there was a painful process to go along with it.

Then a toy we'd ordered for Jackson arrived, and he absolutely loves it! It's a play n' ride train. Jackson started walking (cruising really) a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to find a toy he could push around to help him out. He's got all of the levers and buttons figured out, and he has a great time pushing it around. When he sits on it, his feet don't quite reach the ground yet, so we push him. If we stop, he rocks back and forth urging us to keep going!

We had our life group Friday night too, which was a blast. Ross and I decided we were being called to step down from leadership for a while a couple of months ago, and a new couple that recently moved to Texas decided to step up. I think it's going to be great!

Yesterday Jackson and I spent some time hanging out in the yard with Bailey while Ross gathered supplies to put new siding on our garage and rebuild our patio cover next weekend. It was such a beautiful day, and I couldn't resist taking some pics of Jackson playing with the grass and flowers. There are several more in the album.

Yesterday evening we made our way to Kingwood to catch up with a couple of my sorority sisters, their husbands, and their kiddos. I love these girls! We only see each other once or twice a year, but they will always hold a special place in my heart! Tammy and Kammy were both ahead of me at LA Tech, but I often felt closer to them than some of my pledge sisters. Their husbands and kiddos are great too! Here's a picture of the girls and the future Kay-Dee dream boys, Bryan, Jackson, and Mason.

The Hat

It was a rough week for Jackson, but I won't complain because I got to spend more time than usual with him. Although, I'd prefer him to be well all the time! Jackson started acting really grumpy and not sleeping well last weekend. Then on Monday, we got a call from the day care saying he was running a fever. When I picked him up it was apparent that every kid in the class was sick, and Jackson was just getting started. Aside from the fever, which ranged from 101 to 103, he seemed pretty normal until Wednesday.

Wednesday was Safety and Total Health day at work, which starts off with breakfast for everyone. I'd signed up to bring a not-so-healthy breakfast casserole, so I decided to drop the food off and take Jackson to the doctor since he was still running a fever but really showed no other symptoms of being sick. Well...when we dropped off the food, Jackson got sick all over the backseat of my car and then passed out. I'd forgotten to bring a change of clothes with us, so we went back home and let Jackson sleep. He literally slept ALL day. We did end up getting a doctors appointment that afternoon, but they didn't know what specifically was causing the fever.

After a lot of rest Jackson's fever finally broke, and he's been slowly returning to his happy, easy-going personality.

We spent most of the day yesterday working in the yard, and Jackson spent some of the time hanging out on a blanket enjoying the beautiful day.

We discovered we don't have any brimmed hats that fit Jackson, so he had to make do with sunscreen and my Cowboys hat cinched as tight as it would go. He didn't seem to mind it despite the bill being as big as his head!

Catching Up

So we're a little behind on our posting as far as the events in our lives are concerned. This has been a busy week for the Taylor family. Last weekend our friends Heath, Barbara, and their son, Carter, came to visit. We had a great time! It was a short visit, but filled with quality time. Whenever we go to Louisiana we always spend time with our families, so we don't get much time to spend with friends. We didn't really do much. We just spent the time visiting and catching up, and of course doing a little shopping. :-)

Jackson got an exersaucer last weekend, and he has been loving it. I can't believe how many parts they come in! I guess this is probably just the beginning of many, many hours we will spend putting together toys for Jackson. Even Carter put in some time helping us put all of the pieces together.

Columbus day was a holiday for those of us that work for the government, so Ross and I took advantage of the extra day and started working on our front yard, which was in desperate need of some attention. Since Jackson came along, it's been left untouched with the exception of the occasional mowing that the summer necessitates. Ross spent several back-breaking hours extending flower beds and putting in edging. In the process he took out a good chunk of a root from the tree in our front yard, so we're hoping it doesn't die or fall on our house! We finished the majority of the planting work yesterday. We still have a few more flowers to plant and some mulch to put down, but it's looking a lot better! We have some plans to extend our front porch/patio as well, but that will have to wait until after Ross gets back from Hawaii.

I spent most of my evenings this week preparing for 2 baby showers. The first one for Jennifer and Eric was today, and the second one for Christie will be next Sunday. I had a lot of fun putting together these "sweet thing" favors and making a diaper cake for the shower today.

This will be Jennifer and Eric's second baby, so they mostly got diapers and clothes, which was perfect. Their first kid was a boy, and they are expecting a baby girl, so some fun girly clothes were a must. You can tell Dad and big brother, Scott, are excited about them...

Of course, we can't have a summary post like this without at least one picture of Jackson, so here's a picture of Pam holding our sweet little boy. He had his 4 month checkup this week, and is continuing to grow at about the same rate. He's a little above the 50th percentile in height now, and he's still in the 25th percentile in weight and head circumference. The doctor said we could start him on solids whenever we're ready. It may not be long, but I'm not ready just yet!

We've posted pics from the shower today and our visit with the Tims in the album, so be sure to check them out!

Back Yard Makeover

I just carried about 15 bags and probably 500 pounds of yard trash down to the curb for pick up tomorrow! Last weekend, E and I talked with Jim Maas, the owner of Maas Nursery, and he helped us sketch out a new design for our backyard. The rest of the weekend was spent digging up grass, installing steel edging, cleaning out plants, and spreading new dirt. Today, we bought about 80 new plants that we will be putting in this weekend. It's backbreaking work but hopefully it will look nice.

Busy Thanksgiving, continued

In the previous post, I neglected to mention a couple of other noteworthy events of our Thanksgiving week. While we skipped shopping on Friday, we were not idle. In fact, we helped to move my mom's parents into a new place, so we helped pack, transfer stuff, and unpack. It's a little smaller place than where they were, so we had to be creative with the furniture but the staff seem really nice and I think it will be good for them, particularly once my grandmother gets used to the change.

Friday night, we celebrated my birthday with my parents. We had some great (as always) seafood gumbo and a nice time to visit. My birthday isn't until December 19 so we were a little suspicious when they said they wanted to celebrate early so they could give me my gift. I figured they were excited about what they were giving me and E and I are excited about it as well. I got a Nikon D40 Digital SLR camera. E carries her Canon SD800 IS with her all the time for those spontaneous moments, but we've been wanting a really nice camera for events, scenery, and, of course, the baby.

Lastly, during this whole time, I've been dealing with tree issues in our back yard. We had a limb fall into a neighbors yard, fortunately not doing any real damage but it led us to decide to get the trees trimmed including another branch that stuck into our neighbors' yard. In addition, we had our Magnolia removed which we've been planning to do anyway to put in a smaller tree.

Links to Projects Labels

I've been using the Blogger labels for a while now but since I'm moving my projects posts to this blog, I wanted to provide links to the labels on previous posts. That way, if you are looking for posts on a specific topic, you can click on the links below for the older posts.

• computer (9)
• construction (4)
• electrical (2)
• fabric (1)
• furniture (11)
• home improvement (16)
• paint (13)
• repair (3)
• stain (6)
• Taylored Truth (7)
• tile (2)
• woodworking (16)
• yard (2)