Mary turns 12!

I cannot believe my Mary is a young woman now. I am so proud of her. She is sweet, and helpful, and overall is a model girl. What a blessing she is to our family. We are proud of you Mary! Our camera is missing at the moment, but I will post a picture of our 12-year-old Mary soon.

Life is not fair, but it's still good

On Saturday, I watched as Aaron rode his bike, at full-speed, into the back right side of our neighbor's Corvette. It was parked half way across the side walk, and I guess he didn't see it or expect it there. Life isn't fair: why couldn't it have been an old Volkswagon? They want the tiny scratches that you wouldn't even blink over on a different car fixed, and the side panel buffed and repainted. I am unhappily waiting in fear for the estimate, but...life is still good: Aaron wasn't hurt, even though both he and his bike flew about five feet and gave me a small heart attack. I was expecting a broken collarbone after watching as his whole body slammed into the car and then flew backwards but Aaron was fine, and he couldn't understand why I would "overreact" and make him come in from riding his bike for a few minutes and sit down. I asked him if he was sore today. He told me: "Not at all". He has been instructed to avoid hitting stationary objects in the future, especially sports cars.

Our New House

View into the kitchen.

Formal Living & Dining Room

Master Bathroom

View to the upstairs gameroom and bathroom (to the left up the stairs).

Stairs to the right go to three bedrooms and a jack and

jill bathroom for the girls

Kitchen

View from the front door

Em's Favorite Show

Em loves to watch Max and Ruby. Lately she has added a few other favorites including Calliou, but this is still her show of choice.

Below is a video of her playing chase the ball with Mary and Aaron with her singing the Calliou theme song at the end. Hope you enjoy the singing- we did. Sorry, it was an impromptu-post bath video, so she is only dressed in a diaper.

This is the video of her singing along with Max and Ruby as it comes on on tv taken right after the video above.

Em Helping with the Mowing

Here is Em honoring her Grandpa L. by joining him, her dad, her aunts, and her uncles, by riding a lawn mower.

A. refinishes the Table...Again!

We repainted and refinished the chairs and legs of the table last summer, but did not do the tabletop. It has been ugly for so long. A. sanded it all himself in about four hours. I paid him $15. for all of his hard work- a huge bargain if you ask me. Here is the finished product.

It's finally done

After about 30 hours of work, our tile floor is done. Here is the cementing of the tile. You can see the bucket of adhesive and the blue spacers.

All the tile is layed and cemented. Em is modeling for us by sitting atop of all the hard work I did.

Next, grouting...still has a glaze over the top.

The finished floor. I really like it. Hopefully someone else will too, and will pay us more for our house when we move sometime next year!