Fun at the Kohl Children's Museum ~

When my friend Kellie was visiting a few weeks ago, we discovered the Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview, a town not too far away from where we live. (you can see more on that visit here) We took Micah there one afternoon and had so much fun, we got a membership so we could take Micah back without having to pay every time. This was one of the BEST investments we've made recently! I've been back to the museum with Micah twice since that first time, and we've had a ball every time!

At the beginning of the month, Micah and I met my friend Shana there with her son Michael, who is about 6 weeks younger than Micah. The boys loved exploring the exhibits and playing with the different things there...

The car room ~ vroom vroom!

We've always said Micah has music in his blood... here he is banging away on a drum in the music room ~

With buddy, Mikey, in the tree ~

On the digger ~

Playing in the "dirt" (FYI: my FAVORITE kind of dirt!) :)

And just this past weekend, Aaron and I took a break from our house projects to let Micah play and burn off some energy for a few hours.

In the pet vet room ~

Dr. Klingenmaier, I presume? ~

Pushing a button at the ball-popping exhibit ~

Blowing up tubes by pushing a lever down ~

Creating his own rhythm in the music room ~

Ahhh, the drums.... mommy's favorite! ;)

Water world!

As you can see, the water world room is one of Micah's favorites! He absolutely LOVES the water! By the time we literally dragged him out of there, Micah was soaked from the neck down! Good thing I brought a change of clothes! :)

We were only there for about an hour and a half, but it was completely worth it to let Micah run around for a bit. It's also amazing to me to see how much more interactive Micah is now... just a little over a month after our first visit to the museum. Our little guy is blossoming and growing up right before our eyes! :) And it's nice to be able to go for a short time like that, and not feel guilty for paying $8 a person. So to anyone in the Chicago area with young kids, I highly recommend checking out the Kohl Children's Museum! :)

Micah ON the bear...

Every month during Micah's first year of life, I took a picture of him with this giant bear we received as a shower gift before he was born. These pictures became increasingly more difficult to capture as Micah grew and became more mobile, but we still managed to get at least one decent shot every month. :) I would LOVE to be able to continue taking pictures of him with the bear as his second year progresses, however because he is SO active and nearly impossible to keep still, I think this year's pictures will be more of Micah ON the bear... rather than WITH the bear. :) Nevertheless, here are the first two pictures from Micah's second year of life... enjoy!

January 31, 2011 ~ 13 months old

February 28, 2011 ~ 14 months old

Projects!

Aaron and I had a goal to have our house ready to be put on the market by the end of February. However, before our house can be put on the market, there are several house projects that need to be completed. CALL IN THE REINFORCEMENTS! :)

We are so blessed to have family that is so willing to help! Aaron's parents came down for the weekend to help us get a few things checked off of our massive to do list, and we are so grateful!

Project #1 - kitchen. We decided to just put another coat of paint on the walls, rather than try to cover up all the places where we had had things on the walls, so taping, patching the holes, priming and painting took up a large part of Saturday. Thankfully, Micah took a great nap Saturday afternoon, which freed everyone up to help out. I did a lot of the taping, Aaron patched the holes and sanded the walls, and Debbie took over the painting. While all of that was going on, Bill was hard at work leveling out the cabinet doors that Aaron had made and hung a few months ago. They looked amazing before but now that they all close completely, the kitchen feels even more finished! Once the painting is finished, and dried, Aaron and his dad will hang crown molding up, which will pull everything together... not to mention have made the painting project that much easier, not having to worry about a perfect line of paint at the top of the walls! :)

Project #2 - touch ups. The living room walls had a few decorations hung on them, so we patched some more holes in that room and touched up those spots, and the master bathroom needed a few areas touched up as well. Both fairly easy projects, that can be accomplished pretty quickly. :)

Project #3 - powder room. After I accidentally flushed a mechanical pencil down the toilet in our powder room, Aaron needed to pull the toilet up to fix the plumbing problem that resulted from that. Unfortunately, when he pulled the toilet up, some of the tile came up with it. So... we re-tiled the downstairs bathroom and decided to give it a fresh coat of paint before putting the vanity back in place. It's not a large room, so putting another coat of paint on the walls wasn't too daunting a task.

Project #4 - "fixings". Ever since Christmas, we've had a bowl full of ornaments that have needed to be glued back together. (ah... the joys of a curious 1-year old!) So, a few glue purchases later, those were fixed and we moved on to other fixing projects. Included on this list was the desk drawer; which just needed a dab of super glue to keep the front of the drawer in place, the coffee table; which needed the legs and the trim on one side re-attached, the front door; which blew off of the closer part during one of our insanely windy days earlier this winter, re-hanging the curtain rod in the master bedroom; which is pretty self-explanatory, :) our dresser; which is completely missing the bottom of one drawer, and about to lose the bottom of another, and the entryway; which needs a new transition strip between the tile and carpet, as well as the trim to be put back in place. More projects that won't take long, but need to be done. :)

Project #5 - cleaning and organizing! - This is going to be my main contribution to our house projects list. :) As anyone who has tried to sell a house knows, the house needs to be pretty pristine in order to show well. So on my list of things to clean/organize is the pantry... we don't have a huge pantry, but it does manage to look cluttered rather quickly. I need to clean it out, get rid of the stuff that isn't good anymore, and re-organize it... and try to keep Micah out of the bottom few shelves so it stays organized! :) I need to scrub the kitchen counters... our next house will NOT have white counter tops! We need to clean the carpets, and dust the shelves around the house. The bathrooms need to be cleaned, and we need to clean out our garage... which will probably also include getting a small storage unit to keep a few things in so our garage doesn't look like it does right now when potential buyers come to look at our house. :)

I suppose when all the projects are lumped together in categories like that, the list doesn't seem so massive.... but believe me, it FEELS massive! But we are making progress. Actually, as of right now (two weeks after Aaron's parents were here helping) the only things that still need to be accomplished are touching up the master bathroom, finishing the entryway, packing, and cleaning. And once those things are done, the project of MAINTAINING our house begins. By "maintaining", I mean keeping it clean and ready to be shown at a moments notice... which I know will never happen, especially with "hurricane Micah" tearing around. :) So, pray for me... as I try to keep my sanity through all of this. And pray for our family, as we entrust the selling of our house and the purchase of a new one to the Lord. We know all of this will happen in His time, so pray for patience as we wait for that. :)

In conclusion, a BIG thank you to our parents who were of GREAT assistance a few weekends ago... and continue to be a tremendous source of help in various ways as we go through life... and here are a few pictures from our "work weekend" so you can see the progress we've made... as well as some of the progress we still need to make. :)

Taping in the kitchen ~

Leveling out the cabinet doors ~

Debbie painting the kitchen ~

The "workshop" (yes, that's an intended double-meaning there... "workshop" as in the place where boards were cut and other work was done, as well as "workshop" as in work definitely needs to be done here!) :)

Cleaning ~

Hanging crown molding ~ (NOT an easy task!! Thanks for all your hard work on this, everyone!)

Even Micah helped with the cleanup! :) Let's hope this continues into his teenage years! ;)

As you can see, the main focus of the work weekend was the kitchen. Since that weekend, Aaron and I have worked on the other projects that needed completing, but I don't have pictures of those. Don't worry though... I'll definitely post pictures of the finished product, once our to-do list is history! :) And seeing as how it's the last day of February and we're not completely done with our to-do list, our goal, sadly, was not met. However, we are "alarmingly close" (as my dad likes to say just before he pulls dinner off of the grill)... so stay tuned! :)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...and snow and snow!

I've heard stories about the great snowstorm of '67, and how there were drifts piled up as high as the rooftops in some places, but experiencing something somewhat close to it is quite incredible! We got hit with a massive snowstorm this week... so massive that UPS even shut down, and apparently that never happens! I think the final accumulation total was somewhere just over 20 inches... the 3rd biggest snowstorm the Chicago area has seen in its history!

Truth be told though, we enjoyed the snow... and the day off from work! :) We were thankful to be in a nice, warm house with my family, and not to have to worry about going anywhere anytime soon.

When my dad and Aaron headed outside to work on the driveway, Micah and I thought it'd be fun to go watch. Micah LOVES the snow! He definitely has "Yooper" blood in him! :) He threw an absolute fit when I tried to bring him inside... but because of his runny nose, staying outside indefinitely was not an option. The first time we went out, he wasn't too sure of the snow and wouldn't let me put him down. But every time after that, he was greatly enjoying himself and the cold, wet snow that was everywhere. :) I think the poor kid was frustrated because his "mittens" don't have thumb holes, so it's basically like having warm socks on your hands, which means picking up things is next to impossible. Micah tried to pick up some snow, with little success, but had no problem digging in the mounds that were piled up along the driveway. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures from playing outside... it's enough of a challenge to keep up with Micah without worrying about capturing every picture perfect moment on camera. :) But, I'll post what I do have and hope you enjoy them! We should have plenty more opportunities to play in the snow a bit more before it all melts.... which, with the amount that's out there, probably won't be until June! Hopefully I'll be able to get more pictures then!

It's EVERYWHERE!

Aaron's work truck... our Rav 4 is out there somewhere!

The wind even blew the snow in under the garage door!

Have you ever seen so much snow!?! :)

Let's go outside and play!

Not too sure about the snow at first, but content in mom's arms ~

My dad was having a bit of a hard time plowing the driveway, which is understandable considering the sheer volume of the snow! and Aaron had the idea to use his work truck to create a path to get started plowing from. It was a good idea in theory, but when they tried to implement this plan it pretty much backfired. He hadn't driven his truck 10 feet when it was stuck, and dad ended up having to pull him out with his Envoy. Oh well!

Heave ho!

Watching daddy and pops get the truck un-stuck

The second (and third and fourth...) time outside was much more successful... and fun!





"Helping"


Aaron, hard at work ;)
Actually, he had done his fair share of shoveling the driveway and was taking a much needed (and deserved!) break. I'm just thankful he didn't injure his back more, since he was in a good deal of pain the night before!

And that's the snowstorm of 2011 report from the northwest suburbs! :) I'm sure I'll have more pictures to post at some point, but I hope you've enjoyed our winter wonderland! (hopefully, from the comfort and warmth of your own home!)