Haircuts

I gave the boys haircuts this past weekend.  Haircuts on two little kids - 30 minutes total.  I don't know how I do it.  hehe.  But that's about as long as they'll sit there for me.  And they both turned out pretty good.  It was Nathan's first official haircut.

Here are some before pictures.  Caleb loves smothering Nathan with hugs. 

love that frowny face

Here they are after haircuts.  So cute!  They look so grown-up!

Home - before and after

Wow.  What an amazing 6 years it has been to be in our lovely little townhouse.  It was our first home.  Where we spent the majority of our young married years.  Where we brought both babies home from the hospital.  Many friends have spent time here.  Much joy and many blessings.  I'm sad to say goodbye.

We put a lot of love (and money) into it.  I thought I would share some of the before and after pictures.  I can't believe the stuff we did.  We basically updated every room and made it livable!  Ok, this is a lot of pictures, but I wanted to document everything we did.  :)

kitchen before

kitchen after!
new floors, backsplash, counter, paint, appliances, cabinets, floor plan modification, recessed lighting, moved washing machine to utility closet, crown molding, banquet eating area

back door before

back door after!

french doors and "mud closet"

half bath before

half bath after!
paint, crown molding, floors, light fixture

 living room before (the only picture we had)

living room after!

paint, floors, fire place, built-ins, window seat, recessed lighting, ceiling fan, tv mount

stairs before

stairs after!

floors, hand rail, shelf at bottom, paint

upstairs hall before

upstairs hall after!

paint, crown molding, carpet, decor (which I'm still missing a couple pictures from my frames)

other hall view before

other hall view after!

took doors off cabinets

our bedroom before

our bedroom after!

carpet, paint, ceiling fan, crown molding

other view of bedroom before

other view of bedroom after!

mounted tv to wall, created a little sitting area/baby rocking area

our bathroom before (eek! the wallpaper!)

our bathroom after!

new paint, crown molding, light fixture, shelving, granite sink, faucet, mirror, cabinet hardware

guest room/baby room before

guest room/baby room after!

paint, carpet, crown molding, chair rail, ceiling fan

other view of room before

other view of room after!

guest bath before

guest bath after!

new paint, tile, crown molding, light fixture, granite sink, faucet, mirror, cabinet hardware

back patio before

back patio after!

removed tree, new pavers

other view of patio before

other view of patio after!

Whew!  That was a lot of work!  But we enjoyed making our house a home.  Hopefully our next place will be filled with just as many wonderful memories as we watch our kids grow up and enjoy life.  Can't wait!

Look-alike?

Almost every time people see the boys, they comment on how they look so much alike.  I tend to notice how different they are...but I'm their mom and I see them every day.  I found a picture of Caleb at the same age as Nathan is now.  What do you think?  Definitely look like brothers, huh?  I think it's the big brown eyes and the button nose.

And as I recall, I gave Caleb his first haircut shortly after taking that picture.  I'm planning on doing the same for Nathan.  :)

Just because they make me smile

On a side note...I think I need to cut Nathan's hair.  It's getting pretty fluffy.  He was mistaken for a girl yesterday.

This and that

Here is a little bit of this and that of what we've been up to lately.

Caleb playing with a big floor puzzle from Grammy.

Nathan wearing his first baseball cap (a hand-me-down from Caleb).  He's showing the classic Nathan smirk.

My cute boys all in their polos.  Couldn't get everyone to smile.  But they're all looking at the camera.  I'll take what I can get.

Nathan playing with a toy at his 9-month check-up. 

We had some remodeling work done on the bathroom attached to Caleb's room.  Since they were working in there, I had to have him nap in my room with Nathan.  I had never tried that before.  I slept on the bed with him, and Nathan slept in the pack-n-play next to us.  It actually worked, and both boys took a good nap.  As you can see, he made himself comfortable on his half of the bed.

A friend sent us these cute towel for the boys.
Another classic Nathan smirk. 

Caleb has been helping me unload the dishwasher lately.  He loves to help, and he loves putting things away.  Then he wanted to play with the silverware sorter.

A closer look.  I love how he posed the guys climbing on the side.  It's so cute to hear him talk to them and see his imagination at work.

Both boys sitting at the table doing puzzles.

Nathan is getting finally mobile!  In the last month he started crawling, and is getting around pretty quickly now.  He loves standing and walking with help.  Now that he's getting around easier, he's encroaching on Caleb's personal space.  Caleb isn't too excited about Nathan grabbing his stuff off the table that he worked so hard to put exactly where he wanted.  We're working on that.  It's a balance between teaching Caleb to share and be flexible, and also not letting Nathan just ruin all of Caleb's play (even if unintentional).

Nathan has started clapping and waving.  He also lifts his hands over his head when I say "so big!"  And it seems like he does the sign for "all done" when he's finished eating...but I'm not totally sure yet.

Caleb is in the phase of saying "whatcha doin'?"  We hear it probably 200 times a day.  One day he said, "Mom, whatcha doin'?" and I said back, "whatcha doin'?"  And he said, "No!  What are YOU doing?" and pointed his finger at me.

He's also into rhyming words.  So he'll say stuff like, "plates gates" or "old cold" or "nope gope"...yeah, sometimes they are made-up words.

Speaking of made-up words, Caleb also likes to add nonsense words to the end of his sentences.  So he'll say something like, "Caleb have milk please dobedobedo?"  Or "Thank you, mommy jabbadabbadebe."  I usually encourage his silliness and repeat back his words, and he thinks it's hilarious.  We'll go back and forth talking in this silly language.  He's totally got my silly sense of humor.

I'm really surprised Caleb picks up on people's names so well.  We watched a show on PBS called Sid the Science Kid.  And one day - after only seeing it a few times - said, "Mom, what's Gerald doin?"  And then "Ella (Gabriella, I think) going down the slide."  One day we were playing up at church, and Caleb pointed to a kid and said, "That's Robert."  So I asked the little boy, and sure enough, his name was Robert.  I had never seen him before.  But a few Sundays later, I picked Caleb up from church, and Robert was in his class.

In the car the other day, Caleb reached over to Nathan and said, "Fist bump, Nathan!" and he was trying to show him how to do it.

There are tons more stories.  They make me laugh about something new everyday.  I have to keep a mental list so I can tell it all to David when he gets home.  These boys bring us so much joy!