Adam Jacob Lemmon

It’s amazing how you can be instantly in love with someone you just met.  Adam Jacob Lemmon joined our family on November 23rd 2011, weighing in at 7 lbs. 9 oz.  He is nothing but cute. 

Looking into his eyes we already see the connection, the potential, and the love as he stares at us with those beautiful brown eyes.

Adam has made our family so much better and brighter.  Lily and Michael can’t get enough of him and neither can we.

This is the start of something big.  Something wonderful.  Something miraculous.

 

 

Welcome to the world baby boy.  We love you.

Beautiful Fall and Beautiful Kids

Quick apology for being so bad at blogging lately! I’ll try to get better. Hopefully with Adam on the way I can be inspired again to take the time to do it. In any case, I just wanted to post a few pictures I took recently of my cute little kiddos. I love this time of year for taking fun pictures. It’s so easy to get the kids to play in beautifully colored leaves and have a smile on their faces the whole time.

I just love my kids!

My Little Ballerina

Last week Lily went to her first ballet class! It was pretty close as to who was more excited, me or Lily. But I think Lily wins. Every day for over a week before she started, she would ask, “Is my ballet class open yet, can I start today?” Such a sweetie.

Of course, the actual class experience wasn’t quite what she thought it would be. She seemed to be doing fine, and I wasn’t supposed to be in the room anyway, so I dropped her off and went to the park across the street with Michael. But when we came back, she was sitting by herself while everyone else was dancing. I tried to coax her to get back out there for the last five minutes, but she was done. Her teacher said she had participated off and on, but had sat out quite a bit. When we got in the car, she finally opened up about the reason why she was uncomfortable. Her reason: her teacher was a boy.

So then we had a talk about how boys can be ballerinas too, and that since she wasn’t going to get a different teacher, she needed to learn to like the teacher she had because he really was nice and was happy to have her in his class. She also confessed that she thought all the little girls in her class were going to stare at her. I don’t know when she decided that she was that shy, but apparently she is, so we’ll see how next week goes. I think it’ll just take her another week or so to get used to it.

Since the parents aren’t allowed in the room, I don’t have any of her with her class. But I took pictures of Lily before we left, so here are those. By the way, I didn’t pose her at all. She came up with these all on her own.

I love my sweet little ballerina!

Recent Adventures

Since it’s been a couple of years from the last time I posted (ok, feels like it, anyway), I thought a few of you out there might be interested in what we’ve been up to lately. I’m going to attempt to add an update on our life every week or so. I’m hoping saying it here will motivate me to follow through. I miss blogging. And picture taking. As I’m sure you noticed, I fell off the bandwagon on the picture a day thing. But I (mostly) managed it for over three months, and I am really proud of myself for that. It’s something I still enjoy looking back on and seeing those snippets of my days. I hope I start doing it again, not necessarily for anyone else, mostly just for me. But right now I don’t need another daily responsibility so it’s low on my priority list.

A n y w a y… about a month and a half ago, Ben decided to go fly an airplane. For his birthday last year I bought him a starter package to learn how to pilot a plane, and he just got around to using it. He had a really great time. Too bad it’s so expensive to take regular lessons. Anyone want to give us a few thousand dollars so Ben can keep taking lessons? He’ll give you a free flight!

It was a really gorgeous day to go flying, and the kids and I enjoyed staying in the little grassy area there. Once Ben got in the plane and took off though, we quickly lost track of him. Then the kids found this little guy, and were completely entertained for the rest of the time.

Either he was fresh from the cocoon, or not used to all the wind (it was really windy there), but whatever it was, this beautiful little butterfly stayed low to the ground, basically just in the grass, and barely tried to get away from us. We were able to catch him multiple times and just hold him for awhile to look at him. The kids loved it. They were very careful, which I thought was pretty impressive for a three year old and (at the time) almost two year old.

They were hoping the flowers would tempt him.

It worked!

Happy kiddos! And happy Ben too! He really enjoyed the lesson. He got to be in control most of the time, including the take-off, all the in-air turns, and the second landing also. He told me he especially loved all the beautiful views. Mt. Rainer was totally visible and picturesque and he enjoyed flying over the Sound as well. It was a really neat experience, one that I could see him pursuing in the future.

There you go, one recent adventure down, many more to come!

Most of you already know this but…

I’m pregnant!! I’m 16 weeks along, and my due date is Nov. 17. I have an ultrasound scheduled for July 1st to find out the gender.

In all honesty I meant to blog about this a few weeks ago but, well, you might have noticed… I’ve been completely horrible at blogging lately. Wonder why?

The first trimester actually wasn’t that bad. Some nausea, but nothing unbearable. I think the most annoying thing was feeling icky, but being starving at the same time. But since nothing sounded appetizing at all, it would take me two hours sometimes just to figure out what to eat. Of course, I’d much rather have that problem than the morning sickness/all day sickness that a lot of people get, so I’m counting myself lucky. Now I’m just tired and have a headache most days… ahh, the joys of pregnancy!

At least with this pregnancy my cravings have been so much tamer. With my first two, I basically craved sweets All. The. Time. Kit Kats and Milky Ways were a serious craving. Jamba Juice too, which at least can be healthy(ish). But this time, it’s been very very different. As in, a lot of days I don’t even want anything sweet at all. Which is soooo unlike me, pregnant or not. About two weeks ago, I made a 10” cheesecake for no particular reason other than Ben was wanting cheesecake, and other than a normal size piece that first night, I pretty much didn’t touch it. And I generally LOVE cheesecake. So weird!! For the first 8-10 weeks, I actually craved lettuce and tomatoes! For one week it was a ham sandwich with cheese and mayonnaise and nothing else. As Lily would say, “That’s odd.”

Anyway, I finally finally got myself to blog about being pregant. Go me!

Me at 12 weeks. I’ve started showing way earlier than with my other pregnancies. I’m ok with this, except for trying to fit into my clothes! Ugh, I really don’t like maternity clothes… only 5 1/2 more months, right?!

Kitchen Remodel Reveal

We are 97% complete with our kitchen remodel (we need to put a few pieces of trim work in) and since I’ve had just about everybody I know asking me to put pictures up, I decided not to make you all wait for that point. Without further ado, the finished kitchen!

What do you think? By the way, the big space by the floor length cupboard is where the fridge goes, but for now it’s sitting in our living room so we can paint the trim there first.

Here are a few before pictures for some reference.

View from where the window above the sink is now – this is a picture from the realtor when we first bought it, very much photo-shopped. The wall color was much more yellow and the cupboards not nearly that white. And the picture makes it look more spacious than it really was.

After:

Same view, or as close as I could get to it (taken through the window). As you can see, the wall where the stove was is gone and an island is in it’s place. And the fridge (that you see in the living room) will soon be across from the island.

Before:

Stove, tiny counters next to it, and fridge.

After:

No more tiny counters! Front view of the island. Check out my new oven! And all my drawer space! I’m still trying to figure out what to put in that left drawer.

Another before picture:

What you see was pretty much the extent of my usable counter space. It was meager.

Another angle of the same counter and sink. Yeah, I worked real hard to clean up for these before pictures.

After:

Now look at all that counter space! Not to mention the island too!

Before:

Just to show you the doorway that used to lead into the kitchen. The pocket door was one of the first things that we demolished, so it’s not in most of the other before pictures.

After:

Now there’s no pocket door and no walls closing me off from the rest of the house. I love how open and bright it is now. I feel so much more connected to everything/everybody else when I’m cooking now, rather than banished to the dark kitchen to slave away.

Closer view of the sink. I love that it sits right under the window. I didn’t want it there at first, but Ben convinced me and I’m so glad he did. So much more cheery washing dishes looking out at my backyard and garden! Also, we already loved our faucet, but we got a new, deeper sink, and let me tell you, a deep sink is a serious luxury. It’s awesome!

Before of the dining room:

I would like to point out again that the walls were NOT that color. That color would have been ok, but in reality, they were a drab yellow. (Another realtor picture, in case you didn’t notice. Just like to point out the obvious here.) Also notice the popcorn ceiling and minimal lighting.

After:

Now completely open to the kitchen, no more popcorn ceilings, and an abundance of light from the recessed lighting! And White! No more drab yellow! We painted not only the kitchen and dining room, but the living room, entry way and hallway as well. It makes a huge difference in the feel of the whole house, we both love it. One more thing I love about the whole thing is all the extra outlets. There were very few outlets before and it really limited where I could work in the kitchen with my KitchenAid and other kitchen gadgets, blender, etc. Now there’s one on either end of the island plus tons along the walls in the kitchen. Freedom to work and cook where I want to! Love it!

And check out all of the pretty cupboards! My dad did them for us, and I’m so so happy with how they all look and feel. So much more space and better organized and they’re not dingy and don’t smell old! Check out my Dad’s website if you want awesome closets, he’s the owner of the company, has years of experience, and they are the absolute best around: www.thecustomclosetcompany.com. I love you Dad!

So, a quick list of all the changes we made (“we” being used loosely here!):

• Remove pocket door and wall separating kitchen and dining room
• Remove all the popcorn on the ceilings in dining room, living room, hallway, stairs and entryway, and one bedroom
• Move the sliding glass door to the dining room and put a window in the kitchen
• Take out linoleum in kitchen and carpet in dining room
• Take out all the existing cabinets
• Move plumbing to the back of the kitchen so we could put the sink and dishwasher under the window
• Re-wire almost everything and add extra electrical circuits
• Added an extra 240v outlet for the stove (used the one we already had for my new oven)
• Take out all existing lighting and put in recessed lights (16 of them, to be exact)
• Re-drywall the entire kitchen
• Put in new hardwood floors
• Put in new cabinetry (thank-you so much Dad!!)
• Put in new granite countertops
• Paint kitchen, dining room, living room, stairs and entryway, including all the ceilings
• Finish with bead board under the island and additional trim work elsewhere

I *think* that about covers it. It took us about 5 weeks to do the majority of the work. And I feel like I need to clarify. When I said “we” and “us” before, what I really meant was I was in charge of keeping the kids out of trouble, and my Grandpa Harry and Ben did all the work. Without my Grandpa, this would have been a much more difficult and long undertaking. Thank-you thank-you thank-you Grandpa!! And Ben, a public thank-you to you also for taking vacation time from work to work in our kitchen and for being so patient with all the little decisions and making sure everything looks perfect. I love you!

(Oh wait, I did help with the painting. Go me!)

One more time, just cuz I really can’t get enough of it:

I love love love (love love love love!) LOVE my new kitchen!