4th of July weekend - thinking positively...

I was sooo looking forward to my long weekend.  Michael and I were all set to tackle our "new wall" project in Aislynn's room.  Prior to Aislynn arriving, termites decided they were going to have their fun in the walls.  We had treatment (twice) and now the termites are long gone.  But it was time for their high rise condos and shopping malls to go.  We stocked up on dry-wall supplies, moved everything out of Aislynn's room - and as Michael started pulling down the drywall... we quickly started realizing this was worse case scenario!  The termites had destroyed MUCH more than the drywall.  The 2x4's were totally shredded  - and the damage extended much higher than we thought.  This project is way above our skill level.  Now Aislynn's room is torn apart, we don't know what to do next.
I could easily freak out & stress about the $$$ this could cost, or the huge inconvenience & fact that we could seriously have to tear down the FRONT of our house and roof to make sure everything is fixed properly... but the fact is - none of that will help the situation.  So, we cleaned out Aislynn's room as best as we could (vacuuming everything out including the inside of the walls) we sealed everything up w/ extra tape and plastic - wiped the walls, baseboards & everything down.  I hate the fact that my baby's room is sub-par right now... But the truth is that the majority of the world lives in less acceptable conditions.  I'm going to put my baby to bed, thanking God for what we have - a roof over our heads, good food, health, clothing, vehicles - nice things & so much more.  Much more than most of the world has.  I'm going to pray this doesn't turn into a financial nightmare - but God has always provided and will get us through this as well.

So - in my mind, I imagined this great DIY weekend with the end result being a bedroom-makeover-adorable girls room... but it ended with our house being totally disheveled with a window into a deserted termiteville.   It's all good.

On a positive note, we ended up having a nice bbq with family on the 4th.  We splashed in the pool - enjoyed the PERFECT weather... and just relaxed

 Weeeee

(the water was clean, just looks green b/c it's saline & hasn't been shocked... whatever that means)

I had picked up a couple cheap bird feeders recently and finally put them outside last weekend.  There's one in the front hanging from a tree - and the one out back... well, I didn't get around to hanging it - so I just set it on our deck for now.  I'm excited b/c the birds are loving it!  I'm such a dork - I've been such a bird watcher just staring out the blinds at all the birds getting their snack on.  I saw male & female cardinals, I think a chickadee, and another little brown bird with a mo-hawk.  I need to learn my birds now.  The little brown mo-hawk bird was funny b/c it was all getting picky & digging through the seed till it found it's favorite.  Oh, and I must report that my little flowerbed is doing really well.  I haven't killed anything yet.  There's this tall pink flower that is attracting bees and butterflies (I might have to plant some more).  I watched this butterfly flirt with this flower all afternoon (again, my dork moment).  But, I'm really digging this nature thing we got going on... flowers, butterflies, birds (even baby birds coming soon)... (forget the termites though)

I'm thankful for this short week.  I just need to find out what we're going to do about the termites.  I want that to be over ASAP.  One last report about our little munchkin.  Have I mentioned that she is the cutest little thing ever? She's seriously the happiest baby in the world.  We went to the grocery store Monday, and she was just saying "hi" and waving to everyone.  There were a few employees standing at the end of an aisle, all staring & cooing at her.  Once she realized all eyes were on her, she gave her little 'courtesy smile' (an adorable smile w/ no teeth and extra dimples) and batted her eyes.  She said hi to everyone we passed by.  It's moments like those that just make my heart melt as a mom.

Aislynn was helping mommy organize her nail polish :)

One thing she's doing now is this new scruntch face thing.  It's like she scruntches her nose, pooches out her lips (kinda showing her front teeth) and does this little fast airy snort thing (like she's got something up her nose).  Sometimes she does it when she wants to be cute, and sometimes when she dislikes something.  I think it's adorable and sometimes do it back to her.  Okay - it's time for me to go to bed - will go to sleep with wonderful thoughts of my little girl.

 -Kim

Green thumb?

I don't have a green thumb, but I've always wanted to.  I love flowers and anything green - but somehow I manage to kill everything (sadly, from neglect).  Last weekend, during a trip to Home Depot - I flocked to the garden section... next thing I knew, we had all kinds of plants & flowers in our cart (Michael rolling his eyes at this point).  Oh, did I forget to mention we did the same thing 2 weekends prior (cart full of flowers) that died due to not being watered?  I know... SO this time I was determined to transform the front corner of our front yard/walkway.  The corner where the sidewalk meets our front walk way has been just bare-dirt for a year! (the grass got pushed out from the tree roots).  I even bought a little bird bath.  Our kind neighbor gave us some left over stone edgers, and we already had a ton of top soil.  So Saturday and most of Sunday, we soaked the ground, dug up the dirt, mixed in the potting soil, churned up the earth, edged out a little flower bed - and then planted away.  Below was the end result

I was so proud of ourselves.  I don't have a before picture, but imagine just a red, dry dirt patch.  I even put a flower bed at the bottom of our mailbox post, edged out, and filled with some marigolds & other flowers.  I know nothing about flowers - so I just bought the ones that need full sun b/c this area stays pretty bright.  I already had an area where I placed some potted plants, but I was glad we could finally do something with this corner!  The very next day, (Monday) Michael saw a robin splashing around in the bird bath! The next day, a squirrel (I don't blame the little guy for getting a drink on a hot day).  The flowers have been attracting butterflies and bees.  I'm not yet finished with this project.  I planted some seeds in the bare spots just to see if they will fill in a little.  Also - there's still an area to the right that doesn't have any grass now - so we bought some seed which will hopefully fill in those areas.  I'm going to mulch the flower bed a little (AND spray some insecticide to keep the stupid bugs away)... but - I'm beginning to think I can pull off this green-thumb thing.
I took a lunch break on Saturday and put my hat on Aislynn's head - she thought it was funny to wear my hat and to try & take it off - she's such a cute little stinker!

Another discovery last weekend... we have 2 hanging ferns on our front walkway.  I hadn't watered them in a couple weeks.  Watered the first one - watered the 2nd one and out flies a bird!  Scared me 1/2 to death, but I had to investigate.  Sure enough, there's a little tiny nest with 2 little eggs right inside the fern.  I could hear the bird yelling at me from a distance.  The bird is a Carolina Wren.  The boy & girl stay mated for life, and will stay in the same area and even re-nest in the same spot.  The dad even helps raise the babies just as much as the mom.  When we had our covered/screened deck - they made nests there every year.  But then last Fall we rebuilt an uncovered deck.  So I was happy to see that they chose our hanging fern to re-nest.  And now we get to enjoy baby birds again.  The bad news is that the fern will die b/c there's no way I'm going to water it w/ 2 little eggs cookin. 

(Not my photo)

As for the child - she is SUCH an active little girl.  We bought her a little bookshelf recently (pointless) b/c now all she wants to do is pull all the books off the shelf and throw them on the floor.  The trade-off is that she now has more of an interest in books.  We'll lay on the floor and read a book together until she's uninterested.  Did I also mention she's climbing everything?  She climbed up on the couch all by herself this week (gray hair sprouting). 

She climbed into a huggies box- I piled all her toys on top of her - she thought it was funny

Her hair is getting longer!

She also puts EVERYTHING up to her ear like it's a phone - books, my jewlery, remotes, spoons...

Today, she put a cookie up to her ear and actually said "Hayo?" (hello) She's such a pretender.  She's also gotten more coordinated with her hands.  She signed and said "more" the other night at dinner.  She does it all the time now.  I got the cutest video of it!  Speaking of video - I finally have the video icon on Blogger again!  So I'm going to post a couple recent cute videos of Aislynn.
Do we have a future plumber on our hands? (don't worry, she got a bath immediately after this pic! when i was running her bath water, she grabbed the plunger and walked off with it) :)

It's 4th of July weekend and the only plans we have are to re-do the drywall in Aislynn's room.  We had termites TWICE and it's finally time to repair the wall.  Poor baby has had plastic taped up covering the lumpy spots for 5 months!  After we're finished, we're going to spruce up her room a bit and put it all back together.  The next project will be our back porch. I have 2 flower boxes hanging on the rail (w/ dried up twigs sticking out of them) and one big potted plant, but we need some deck furniture & to make it feel more "homey" out there. I want to find a cheap BBQ that we can start using.

I hope everyone has an awesome 4th of July weekend.  I'm so thankful that God has placed me in a country where I'm FREE and can praise Him!  Thank you to all the soldiers who have fought for our independence.