Demolition

Since we have the dumpster anyway from replacing the garage roof we decided to go ahead and tear out two rooms upstairs that we'd like to remodel. One will be Abby's room when Astronaut arrives and the other is our room.

It's been a huge mess but we have just about all the plaster knocked down, and we're getting close cleaning it all up. We still need to take down the lath, and potentially remove the carpet. Since Wednesday is our last day with the dumpster we've been working several hours a night to finish up.

We uncovered some water damage in the ceiling of Abby's new room that clearly had been covered very recently. At least the previous owners were the type of people who did things right. We also discovered, perhaps not surprisingly, that our exterior walls are completely un-insulated. Maybe now we can start to make a little dent in those winter heating bills.

Tickle Tickle!

Abby loves to be tickled, and recently she's decided that her stuffed animals like it too.

A Fun Week

Abby got to see all of her grandparents this past week, so she had lots of fun with all the extra attention. My parents spent a week in Springfield for their vacation and stopped by our house on their way back home. They brought Abby a souvenier - Pig-a-Boo! - a farmyard peek-a-boo book that she LOVES. Every page has a different animal hiding under a flap that you lift up and say "neigh-a-boo" or "baa-a-boo" or whatever that animal's noise is, plus it's a touch and feel book, so she has lots of fun touching all the different animals. We probably spend at least 20 minutes every morning reading it, and she comes back to it throughout the day. It's her new favorite!

We also took a picnic lunch to Allerton Park. I think Dad has more pictures of it, but I didn't take too many so here's what we have. Mom met some people up in the gazebo in the Fu Dog Garden (where we got married!) who told her a ghost story associated with that garden. Apparently Robert Allerton had been married twice, and when his second wife found out that she was number two, she went up to the top of the gazebo and threw herself off. Now her ghost haunts the gazebo. I don't think she showed up in any of our wedding pictures, but we'll have to go back and check.





On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Adam and his dad tore off, repaired, and replaced the roof on our garage. It ended up being a lot more work than they had originally thought, since there were 4 or 5 layers of shingles and some termite damage that had to be repaired, but by noon on Sunday they were completely finished! Of course, there was still a lot of clean up to do. So many shingles!



We also took some pictures of Abby standing next to Joshua Giraffe. We had a little bit of trouble, since one of her favorite things to do with Joshua is push him down and yell "Boom!" You can see me trying to keep her from pushing him over long enough to get a picture.

One Big Step

Abby has had a lot of fun lately walking in and out of our porch. It's harder than in sounds, that step over the door is pretty big.

Lucy's Trip to the Vet

Poor little Lucy. We took her to the vet for her yearly checkup this week, and they told us that she had an ear infection in each ear. Apparently for a dog, they get rid of that by just scraping it out, so they got her all drugged up on doggie morphine and scraped out her ears for us. It was pretty sad - she was so out of it for the rest of the day. At one point, Adam tested her with "Do you want to go for a walk?" and she perked up for maybe a second, and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she went back to sleep. The worst part is that for 10 days, twice a day we have to clean and apply ointment to her ears, which she absolutley hates. Adam and I both have some battle scars from sitting on her and trying to keep her down to put the medicine in her ears. That medicine will be done in a few days, but she also got a lifetime prescription for Benedryl. Apparently the reason she was biting herself so much was because she had allergies. So it's always a battle to get her to take the pill, but it seems to be working out for her.

Abby's new favorite game is giving her stuffed animals a drink from a water bottle. We probably play that for a couple of hours each day. She's also started "singing" alot. We got her "Moo, Baa, La La La" from the library, so now she'll go around the house singing "La la la!" all the time. She's definitley in a "testing boundaries" phase right now. One of her favorite places to go is into the pantry, since she knows that she's not supposed to go in there. I keep following her in there and having to put everything back on the shelves that she's taken off. The other day I couldn't find my olive oil for the longest time - while I was putting everything back, she had snuck that out and hidden it between the side of the couch and the wall. Adam installed a little magnet on the door yesterday that will hopefully keep her out for a while. She won't be too happy about it, but it should save me a headache or two!

We went to the doctor on Friday for this month's prenatal checkup. Everything's looking good for now. There was a student in with the doctor who did the heartbeat Doppler, and pretty much as soon as he heard it he shut it off so we didn't get to hear it very long, but it all looks good. Next month is the big sonogram - boy or girl? We'll find out soon!

A Few Cute Videos

I thought I'd post a few cute videos of Abby. Recently, Abby has started giving all of her stuffed animals drinks of water. There's also a cute video of her giggling.

July 4th 2009

It's been a while since we made an update. We've been busy trying to clean up the tree and the large section of the yard it damaged. By my estimation we around 70 feet of logs stacked 4 feet high. We're almost done but there's still a large section of trunk left and a ton of leaves.


Anyway, we're visiting my parents this weekend. Friday we went to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. Abby had a great time, although she enjoyed seeing all the people about as much as she enjoyed seeing all of the animals. We put several pictures up in album in the pictures section, we all had a great time.