business, basements, and babies

It's been a busy summer. More than once, I've sat down to throw together some sort of "here's my life update" blog, but was interrupted, or uninspired. Today, one week from my due date, I'm determined to  catch my blog up on what these last few months have looked like for us... if only to be able to look back in ten years and say, "Oh, right. That's what we did with all that time when we had only one child."

Business
Marty and I traveled to Estes Park, Colorado to shoot Rebecca and Nate's wedding in mid-June. It was the first time we were away together, alone, for five days straight... since our honeymoon, I think. I was actually pretty sick for most of the trip -- I just cleaned out my photography bag, and came up with lots of cough drop wrappers and empty sinus pill packets. Gross. Still, we had a wonderful, incredible trip. We kept saying to ourselves, "Why do we live in Illinois?!" Colorado has got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.

I was six months pregnant, and couldn't do too much of the "outdoorsy" stuff you're supposed to do in the mountains (you know -- hiking, horseback riding, rafting, camping). So instead, we took lots of pictures, and I drank a lot of (really good) coffee. Also, we didn't wake up at 6 a.m. with a 2-year-old for five days straight. That was really, really awesome.** 

**Not that I mind the 6 a.m. thing, Charlie. But breaks are nice :)

This was funny. We rented the cheapest car possible, and ended up with a Kia Soul.

Marty wanted to do the Party Rock hamster dance every time we got into it.

We had California license plates, and the most hilarious rental car plate number ever...

Basement

The last time I was pregnant, we (and a lot of wonderful, cheerful, incredible helpers) renovated a house. This time, we took on a slightly smaller project: our basement. We finished off a section of it, so the boys could have a place to watch TV and throw balls without worrying about breaking anything ;)

Marty did the majority of the work, night after night... after night, after night, after night.

I've mentioned this before: I'm so thankful I married an optimist.

(The kitchen floor, while we were drywalling.)

I don't have any good "after" shots yet, because we've still got a few things to finish up.

But here are two pictures we took, the night I finished carpeting the floor.

Not sure why an upcoming baby spurs on lots of over-the-top projects for a lot of people,

 but this one definitely almost killed us.

My almost-finished to-do list is now crumpled up and sitting at the bottom of a drawer.

I'm so thankful that (1) we've got a useable space in the basement,

(2) we were able to take this on in the first place

(whenever I got discouraged, I kept telling myself, we have a house. we have a HOUSE. we are so blessed.)

and (3) we're basically done with it.

If you have any boys, send them over to watch TV and throw balls around :)

Babies

Charlie has the funniest personality.

He's a tough cookie, and he's really hard to handle sometimes. But he's also a sweet, sweet, sweet little boy.

The other day, he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, you're so beautiful," totally out of the blue.

He had no idea what he was saying, but he knew it would make me happy.

It did :)

He's really into watching this dance recital DVD we got from my sister Alicen (who happens to be an incredible dancer). He dances around the living room and mimics the moves of the people on stage.

This is his "finger point" (notice, the dancers on the screen are all pointing to the sky, too).

He takes his dancing very seriously :)

Ah. This is the one time this summer that we went out to eat, just our little family.

It ended in a meltdown, but we had happy moments, too ;)

Charlie loves the semi-truck-sized shopping carts at Target.

We last about 20 minutes longer in the store when I push him around in one of these babies.

It's a little humiliating... but my shopping gets done. Check.

Charlie's been really into helping Daddy fix things.

One morning, I gave him his toolbox and said, "Fix something. I need to put on my makeup."

This was my first rookie mom mistake.

My second mistake was when I heard banging coming from the other room... and chose to ignore it for a few more seconds, in-between mascara swipes.

I walked into the other room a minute later to find this on the (freshly painted) wall:

I'm thinking of leaving the gouge-marks there permanently, a friendly memorial to my silly mistake.

Giving a 2-year-old boy a toolbox and telling him to "Go, fix something"?

Ridiculous, I tell you. RIDICULOUS.

So now, we're waiting for Baby Brother to make an appearance. Charlie was a week overdue... so I keep telling myself that it could, quite possibly, be another three weeks. In the meantime, I'll be taking a deep breath, thankful that this busy summer is coming to a quick close.

Life's about to switch gears. I'll keep you posted ;)