The Fourth

For the 4th of July this year we were invited to our friends' house for a big potluck dinner and fireworks after.

And the people who brought enchiladas to the 4th of July potluck?  Yeah, that would be us.  

The enchiladas were a hit, but something else we brought was a bigger hit:

Our water rocket launcher.

We made it for Seth's birthday party, but Jon insisted we needed to 'test it out' at the party.

Guess what?  It works. 

I don't know who was more excited: the kids or their fathers...

All the kids watching the launches

 Seth loved the rockets, too, but for a much different reason:

...when the rocket was about to launch, all the kids would jump out of the playhouse and go try to catch it.  Which is when Seth would proceed to close the door...

...and the trapdoor, thus effectively locking all the other kids out and getting the place to himself.

He was pleased as punch with himself.

Doing poppers with Daddy

Somehow we ended up as the sparkler distribution center.

Good thing we had tons of sparklers left from last year...

Seth gets his sparkler

Not sure how he feels about it.

Catherine's first 4th of July

Doing some poppers at home since we opted out of real fireworks.

Daddy & Princess

(in her adorable outfit from Aunt Lori.  I might just be in love with those shorts.)

Did You Know...

...that if you look up 'Sinaloa, Mexico' on Wikipedia, the first thing that pops up is the Sinaloa Cartel?  I'm sure it must be thrilling to find out that your mission contains one of the biggest drug cartels in Mexico, right, Timmy?

Yep.  He looks thrilled.

So does Rebekah.

Timmy reports to the MTC on Wednesday, the day after Seth's birthday.  Which means when he gets home, Seth will be five.  CRAZY. 

It will be weird to not have Timmy at home when we visit.  Who will let Seth jump on his face at 7:30 am?  Who will fetch us ice cream or water when we're too lazy to get off the couch?  Who will get offended when we make fun of his hair?  And, most importantly, what is Mom Blood going to do without her favorite son for two years?  

Timmy, you're going to be an awesome missionary.  I promise I will try to get your brother to write to you, but the odds are not in my favor.  Good thing you have legions and legions of girls who will be loading you up with cookies and letters.  We will miss you very much, but Seth is very excited to see pictures of you as a missionary.  See you in two years, Elder (when you can finally join the awesome 'Blood Family Members Who Speak Spanish' Club)!

(By the way, Timmy assures us that the cartel members leave the missionaries alone because they are 'Jesus people'.  They also occasionally as the missionaries to pray for them.  Wonder what the Church's policy is on praying for drug cartels...)

For Timmy

How awesome was the rocket launcher we made for Seth's party?  So awesome that one of the dads in attendance went home and made one that night.  Did I mention the party ended at 5:30 pm?  I told Jon he's going to get put into Scouts because of that launcher...

We'll bust it out for your 'Return With Honor' party in two years, okay, Timmy?  

Bathroom: REDONE

 When we bought our house, the upstairs bathroom was the part we liked the least.  I say 'upstairs bathroom' because we have only one--it opens into our bedroom and into the hallway.
So it's both master bath and everyone else's bath.

Here's what we had:

You walk in the door from the hallway.  

To your left is a stall shower, complete with mold and leaks into the wall.

To your right is a linen closet.

Up ahead to the left is a soaking tub.

Directly in front of you is the toilet, with a single vanity to the right of it.

And that's it's.  

So here it was, in all it's glory:

 Shower to the left, tub to right.

View from hallway door.

Lovely, isn't it?  I call it 'Almond Hell'.

We hired a friend from the ward to come in and basically gut it.  We were hoping to get a double vanity in and move the toilet to where the shower was, but it turns out it's a royal pain to move toilets. 

So, instead, we put another vanity where the shower was.

And now...the pictures!

(forgive me--it's really hard to get a good shot when the room is only 8 by 8)

And here's what we have now:

You walk in the door from the hallway.

On your left is Jon's vanity.

On your right is the linen closet.

A little further up on the left is the tub/shower combo 

(complete with hotel shower rod and microfiber shower curtain liner!)

Directly in front of you is the toilet.

My vanity is just to the right of the toilet

(and right next to the door into our room).

Love, love, love.

Kevin, you're amazing. Thank you so much!

Bathroom Preview

It's official--bathroom pictures will be up today or tomorrow.  But until then, here's a preview of some of the hard work that went into it:

"You're seriously letting me do this?"

"Okay, I think I'm ready..."

"Once again...seriously?"

"Okay, here I go!"

"I think I've got it figured out!"

Getting the high spots

"I LOVE painting!!!!"

Happy Birthday, Marah Fish!

Marah's too busy to show up for a party on her birthday, so we had to celebrate early.

Catherine was happy to have her aunt back home, even if it was for just a few hours.

Birthday dinner:

Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Burritos with Tomatillo Ranch Sauce and Sangria!

Birthday 'cake':

cupcakes with lemon/lime icing and raspberry filling 

Oh, and some nice Mormon alcohol.  ;)

 Can't fit 21 candles on there, so she got one.

But it was a beautiful, purple flower candle.

Seth enjoys a cupcake. 

Seth & Marah at Broom's Bloom Dairy

Catherine is excited to try some ice cream.

Here goes...

And the verdict is...mixed.

Marah and her gifts.
And niece & nephew.

Catherine admires Marah's ring.

Seth is practicing for his birthday by opening all of Marah's gifts.

Marah modeling her gifts.
Oue favorite were the fake nails, which Mom can't even remember why she sent.

Happy Birthday, Marah Fish! 

We love you!

Catherine Montage

Dear Mom Blood,

With a little cooperation from your adorable grandkids, I will have the bathroom pictures up this weekend.  Until then, here's a montage of your little namesake.

Love, Megan

Four Months

Why didn't anyone warn me that time goes even faster with the second one?  This is just crazy.

(adorable ruffle swimsuit from Aunt Lori!)

At four months old, the Princess is:

*12 lbs, 13 oz.  And exactly two feet tall.  Which puts her in about the 30th percentile for everything.  

And makes her exactly 5 pounds lighter than her brother at this age.  Five pounds.

*Grabbing at things. And then crying because she doesn't like things that close to her face.

*We've progressed from laughing to squealing when she's really excited.

*Still swaddled because her first reaction when she's tired is to try to claw her eyes out.  

Hoping to get over that soon.  

*Finally wearing 3 month clothing, but still in size 1 diapers (Target brand--they're bigger)

*Sleep training!  Can't really say if it's working or not--her sleep schedule has been all over the place.

For example: less than a week ago I was up twice a night with her.  And today she's been asleep for 

a full twelve hours without eating and shows no signs of waking up.  

Could be the combo of drugs/shots from yesterday, but I'm hoping for a new trend!

*Drooling.  Like crazy.

*Still not going to bed until 10:30 or 11 (although the past two nights it was before 9:30, so whatever).

*Will consistently take a good morning nap an hour after she wakes up.  The rest of the day is still totally erractic.

But DO NOT mess with that first nap, especially on Mondays.  You WILL pay for it the next few days.

*Still hates her carseat.

*Her daddy is her favorite.  If he's around, she will follow his movements regardless of what else is going on.  

Seth is second favorite, and I'm basically only interesting if there's no one else around.

*Tummy time: she still won't roll over, but she will push with her legs and can move pretty quickly when she's motivated.

Yesterday she moved about a foot in three minutes because she really wanted to get my waterbottle.

*Her hair is most definitely growing.  And it's still brown.  What do I have to do to get a redhead?!

There for a week or two her first post-wake-up action would be to reach up and touch her hair.  

Like she was checking to see if it was getting any longer.

*She is still just the happiest, sweetest little bug.  Even during sleep training: when we would go in to rescue her after her hour of not-sleeping, she would just grin at us and wiggle her whole body with happiness.  

How can you resist that?

The doctor was impressed with her standing ability (she has that in common with her big brother) and said she's doing perfectly.  Definitely not ready for solid food yet, but I'm fine with that!  

And me, at four months?  Still shedding like crazy: it's a miracle I'm not bald.  I'm officially below my pre-pregnancy weight, but hopefully it won't get as low as it did with Seth since Catherine is obviously not eating as much as he did.  I finally feel like I can make it through the day without a nap, which means I'm feeling good enough to exercise again.  Jillian Michaels is currently kicking my butt.  Thank you, 30 Day Shred (just graduated to Level 2--I'm so proud of myself!).  Life is crazy!  

Summer Kick-off

I have several friends who have complained that I'm quarantining myself in my house.  This post is to prove that I do, in fact, leave the house.  Sometimes.  Like twice a month.  What do you do when your baby sleeps from 9 to noon and your son sleeps from 1 to 3?  Yep.  You never leave.

But when some friends invited us to a local beach, I couldn't resist.  Catherine made us pay dearly for messing with her naps (she was a monster for 2 or 3 days, the punk), but it might just have been worth it.  It was SO nice to get to chat with some friends who I don't get to see often.  My favorite part was watching Catherine Washburn quite skillfully hold both my Catherine and her little Josiah.  I felt guilty about leaving her with two little ones, but I'm pretty sure she was in heaven!

As usual, Seth spent 95% of the time in the sand.  

Helping Felix build a sand castle.

Or hindering him.  Not sure.

Me & the Princess.  I love this little bug.

She loves the heat about as much as her mother does.

Which is not at all.

The best part?  No sunburns on any kids, and only a slight one on me.  That is quite an accomplishment for pasty-whites like us!

This is not a bathroom post...

...so those of you anxiously awaiting pictures of our bathroom remodel will just have to keep awaiting anxiously. Don't worry--I'm working on it.  All I have left to do is prime, paint, and hang some hardware.  And maybe get Lenae to come decorate it.

This is a birthday post.  Meaning it's a post about what we did for our birthdays.  Which was basically nothing.  Honestly, the entire month of May was just a big blur.  I didn't even have time to think about our birthdays until they were already here.

Jon got his smoothie (his dessert of choice this year), and I got a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake from Marah.  She drove all the way to Towson to get one from the Cheesecake Factory!  And it was divine, even at 560+ calories a serving...

So now Jon is 29 and I'm 26.  We still haven't had a chance to go out for our birthday dinner or to buy ourselves a birthday gift (an external hard drive that DOESN'T make horrible, horrible grinding sounds when we turn it on).  But I'm okay with that.  After the craziness of May, I prefer to just be at home together.

Sorry for the lack of pictures--obviously there wasn't much to photograph!  So to appease you, I'll throw our Memorial Day pictures in here, too.  And let me just say how nice it is to have a national holiday right by your birthday every year.  Good planning, Mom & Dad (and Mom & Dad Blood)!

We started off the day at the ward Memorial Day breakfast, which is always fun, even if it is already 90+ degrees at 9 am.  Luckily I was in charge of a game involving a pool of water and some marbles, so I stayed fairly cool.  Of course, I managed to leave all the marbles I borrowed sitting in the grass when I left.  After much searching, I found out they ended up in the garbage.  Guess who gets to buy new marbles.

After naps and lunch, we headed to Kilgore Falls (Falling Branch, whatever).  And I left my camera in the car.  Seth had a great time--he made it within a few feet of touching the falls before he panicked.  I was impressed.  Catherine basically slept the entire time.

Afterwards, because apparently we didn't get enough water at the falls, we headed to our neighborhood pool.  This time I did bring the camera!

Seth, not cooperating for the camera.  As usual.

Marah and her friend, Kellie enjoying the kiddie pool.

Jon & the kiddos 

Princess enjoying the water.  

And now for some totally unrelated pictures that were on my camera:

Like father...

...like son:

Seth gets his photogenicness (photogenuity?) from his dad.  

And no, I have no idea why Seth is just in his whitey-tighties.  Or why I took a picture of him.

Strawberries from our garden!  At their peak we were getting this many every day!  Then it got too hot... 

Seth, tattooed:

This came in handy yesterday when he asked our neighbor about her tattoo.  

Hopefully he thinks hers will just wash off, too...

And, of course, the Princess, modeling her (adorable) swimsuit:

We make cute kids.