Our New Mantel

This is our very original fireplace. White brick with a simple mantel.

Here's Patrick's "character find". Dirty brick from floor to ceiling.
Here's the fireplace in progress.
Freshly bricked fireplace.
Our brand new mantel!!


For anyone who has ever been to our house, you know our fireplace has always been a work in progress. When we moved in we had just a mantel and some white painted brick around the fireplace area...that was all, it was plastered above. Then as a part of renovations Patrick knocked down the walls in the living room to dry-wall and put in new electrical. Well, when he knocked down the wall that the fireplace was on, the fireplace as we knew it crumbled to the floor revealing this floor to ceiling brick fireplace which Patrick proudly called a "character find". I was not so excited about it. But overtime (you can follow the transformation top to bottom) he re-bricked the fireplace and just a few weekends ago built a mantel in just a few hours!! I am so impressed with his skills and am now loving the fireplace I once thought was just an eye-sore.

Uh-Oh

Yet another night I was making dinner and Henry was playing....very contentedly. After a few minutes I realized that he was being really quiet. Overly quiet. So I came into the living room to check on things and here's what I found. (along with a very happy Henry-he loves the vacuum and was thrilled that this mess necessitated the need to bring it out!) (FYI...just in case it's hard to tell, he had taken dirt out of our plant and strewn it about the office floor and into the living room.)

Finally, I'm updating!

Henry has been really into making messes of multiples lately. I bought some clementines at the grocery store thinking he would love them as a snack. He wasn't crazy about eating them, but he still found something to do with them. I was making dinner in the kitchen while he busied himself sorting and pouring oranges.

Having Snow Much Fun

We got a few inches of snow over the weekend and took Henry out to play in it on Sunday afternoon. He actually had a lot of fun in it this time around and loved helping Patrick shovel the driveway. (Although we couldn't actually find his little shovel so he used his rake!) We also got super lucky and got to see 2 snow plows go right past our house! That definitely made Henry's day.

Some Christmas Pictures...

Henry opening a new bath toy at our Christmas at home
Henry's new vacuum from Grandma Joyce which he loves to push all around the house!
Henry and Gabe pushing their shopping carts at Grandma Joyce's Gabe with his Elmo karaoke!
Grandma and her boys
Henry in his bathrobe Grandma Sandi made for him!
Henry on Christmas
Henry's new train table
My precious nephew!
Grandpa Tim, Uncle Cory and Henry

Grandma Sandi and her grandboys look at her guinea pigs

Christmas!

I'm a bit late with these updates! I finally uploaded our Christmas pictures and got them organized today. We had a great Christmas with our families. We are so blessed to have the wonderful families that we have. We had Christmas first with Patrick's mom and dad the Friday before Christmas. Then we had our family Christmas on Saturday and we gave Henry his train set and train table. He wasn't very expressive at first, but he quickly grew to love it! On Christmas Eve we went to Rockford and spent the day with my Dad, Sandi and Cory and then went to my aunt's house for the Hogan Christmas Eve celebration. We spent Christmas Day with my Mom and Dan, Sara and Gabe. It sounds busy, but it actually seemed very laid back and relaxed. We feel so fortunate to have the family that we do. It was fun to watch Henry and Gabe share their Christmas together, too. Gabe is such a sweet, loving little doll!

It was so much fun to watch Henry open his gifts...he started to get the hang of tearing the paper off once he realized that good things are always inside! His favorite things are still trucks, cars and tractors. Although he got lots of new books that he's been loving to read, and a basketball hoop-to expand his horizons-from Dan, Sara and Gabe that he loves to play with. He thinks you can push everything though and today he tipped the hoop down and started to push it across the floor. We have to remind him that not everything has wheels or is meant to be "driven".

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe it's 2007. We had an uneventful New Year's Eve. Henry has been sick with a virus/ear infection since Friday. The virus has given him a high fever and cough for the past few days so it's hard for him to sleep. We cancelled our New Year's plans and babysitter (Patrick's parents) and opted to stay home with Henry and watch movies once he went to bed. I do have to say, we rented "Step Up" and I loved it. Patrick acted like he didn't love it, but I know he was into it! Henry woke up around 11 with a high fever and stayed up to ring in the New Year with Patrick...I had already fallen asleep!

Happy 2007...May you be blessed in the New Year!

Just Hanging Out With Henry

Where's Waldo? Can you spot Henry in his new fave hiding spot?
Daddy getting some rare Henry cuddles.
This picture is from our visit to see Santa at SF on Saturday. Henry was terrified of the whole experience and definitely wouldn't sit on Santa's lap or let Mrs.Claus hold him. The pictures that they took of us are of me holding Henry standing next to Santa with Henry looking away from Santa and shaking his head NO! Those should turn out cute :-)

These pictures are from our weekend. We were mostly snowed in..so we just had some fun around the house. Henry played with hangers (probably very unsafe...we supervised!) and hid behind some holiday decorations. We also went to see Santa. Those pictures to come..SF mails them to us.

Like Father, Like Son...

Here's a few pictures of Patrick and Henry hanging out at the Discovery Museum last weekend. We took Henry to play there on Saturday after we got his picture taken with Santa at State Farm. He had lots more fun at the museum than he had visiting Santa!

Snow Day!!

Helping Daddy make snowballs
Frustrated because he's stuck
Trudging through the snow
Ready to go outside

We had our first big storm/snow of the year starting yesterday and going through the night into this afternoon. I'm definitely more of a summer girl, but the best part about the winter is a surprise snow day! I love it when you think you'll have to go to work and then it surprisingly gets cancelled. Both Patrick and I both ended up being off today. Yes, State Farm was closed today...a big shocker.

Henry was fascinated by the snow this morning when he looked outside. He kept going to the window and pointing outside. When it warmed up a bit, we bundled him up and took him outside to play. He didn't know what to think at first and didn't love it too much. He still wanted to push his trucks around and when they got stuck easily, he got frustrated. I think he'll warm up to it though...he didn't want to come inside, so I think he started to like it more towards the end.

The Saga Of The Tree

Ok, so the post below is the story of how our Christmas tree came into being. Or at least how it became ours. Well, normally the story is the same from there for all...the tree comes home, gets decorated and shines bright with Christmas spirit. Not so much with ours.

I should first explain the way that the trees from this particular tree farm are expected to stand. The workers drill a massive hole into the bottom of the stump and then the tree is placed on a giant spike and stands up this way. It's not put into a usual tree stand with screws to hold it. Ok, so we got our giant (meaning bushy) tree home and Patrick put it on the spike and brought it into the house on the stand. We cut it open and very National Lampoon's style it poofed out and became much larger than we expected. They always look smaller when surrounded by other, larger trees. Anyway, it was up and decorated with lights and ornaments on Friday. Henry touched it once, made a face and then didn't bother it anymore which really surprised me!

Fast forward to Sunday night at 12:30, we were all sleeping when Patrick and I heard a huge, glass-shattering, bang/crash. Patrick immediately ran down the stairs and once I heard that he wasn't fighting off a burglar, I followed. Our Christmas tree had tipped OVER! And it was laying on the floor along with several broken ornaments, some lights, and lots and lots of water. We cleaned it up and put it on the porch, lights and all!

Monday night Patrick discovered that the hole drilled was crooked and the tree had probably been subtly leaning for 2 days. He decided to saw off enough of the bottom to make the stump narrow enough to fit into a normal tree stand. Well, after he sawed and stood the tree up in the stand, I was taller than it! It was less than 5 feet tall! It was so sad, but I decided to just decorate it and live with it this Christmas and realized maybe I was having too much pride in our tree. However, once it came back into the house it still wouldn't stand. It just kept tipping over. After a swift kick, Patrick took it back outside where we planted our miniature tree in a big planter we had mums in during the Fall. It also blew over once outside (yes, again), but once Patrick tied it to the porch it has been fine. We decorated it with Christmas lights and decided to put an artificial tree in our house this year. Apparently the other tree just wasn't meant to be!

Going On A Tree Hunt...

Last Friday we went to the Christmas tree farm (where Patrick worked during the winter in high school) in search of the perfect Christmas tree. It was a warm, sunny, beautiful day. At only 9:30 it was already 60 degrees! Henry had a lot of fun, mostly running around and weaving in and out of rows of trees. We really had to keep up with him or he could have gotten lost! Because it was so warm, the usually frozen ground was super muddy. By the time we cut our tree down and were heading back to the car Henry's pants and jacket were covered in mud. Both had to be taken off before we left for home, so he rode home in his shirt and diaper! It was all worth it though when we found our perfect tree (more to come on the tree...). Even the workers at the farm commented on what a big tree it was...we were very excited and proud of our find!