A Visit from the Sugas

Today we had some guests to the Hotel Brockman. The Sugas (Laura, Marc and Aiden) swung thru on their road trip to visit. We did a nice little lunch and had some time to visit. I'd been telling Kenley all week that her little Southern Gentleman from GA was coming to visit and the lil' guy didn't disappoint. He was adorable! I'm so glad I finally got to meet him.

After some play time and lunch, we decided to chat outside. (Man I'm looking a little big.. )

Laura and I matched both sporting purple shirts for the day.

Aiden and Kenley hit it off and managed to occasionally share and play together. Kenley isn't used to sharing her own toys at home so it was nice to have another little one around.
I also practiced my juggling skills trying to balance 2 kiddos around the big belly.

All was well until Kenley tried to give Aiden a kiss and he wanted nothing to do with that.

We also tried to round up the munchkins for a mommy and me pic but neither wanted to cooperate (and I didn't pick the best location).

All in all it was a very nice afternoon. The Sugas left right before Kenley's naptime so they could get on the road and continue the journey south to the St Louis area to visit Laura's parents for a bit (with a brief 5 min stop in Springfield for some passport stamp according to Laura.) THANKS FOR STOPPING BY LAURA!!

Shout out to the Amish!! Holla!

Okay so when I decided to use the same nursery set for this baby that we had for Kenley (because I really do love it and I wanted to save some dough since we bought Kenley new bedding and many other things for the new house) I also decided that I wanted to do the nursery a little different to make it feel new. Part of that included hanging up the quilt this time on the wall. For Kenley we used it on the floor for her to play on but I wanted to showcase it this time around. However, the problem was, I needed to figure out how to hang it. I either had to sew a sleeve on the back so I could do a hidden rod or I had to buy rings with clips and hang it from a drapery rod. Both required more holes in the wall that I really wanted to do and more work. Plus I really didn't want to see the curtain rod. So I GOOGLED away on the internet looking for an alternative and found a site with "Amish ideas" for solving problems like this.... the answer....VELCRO ;o) Ingenious! We already use the velcro picture hangers around the new house so it should work perfectly. They suggested pinning the velcro but I decided to sew it on and voila....you have a hung quilt with no holes in the wall and little to no work...

Thank you AMISH ;o) Hee Hee Hee!!

Long weekend of fun

I started my weekend early (see previous post). After a busy Friday, the rest of the weekend was free and open to enjoy. Clay's mom and dad were here for the weekend and we decided to have my folks over for lunch on Saturday too.

So we fired up the grill in its new home on the patio built-in.

 I told Clay it makes the BIG grill we just got look so small but it's nice to have that little area and now Clay can leave it out and connected until we bring it in for the winter.
We had a nice lunch of burgers, pasta salad, chips &dip and brownies and enjoyed each other's company for the afternoon.
On Sunday, we decided to take Grandma and Grandpa B to the zoo. It was a lot cooler weather and it was very enjoyable. The animals were active and Kenley enjoyed most of them.... Of course, she still isn't too fond of this gal...

Kenley  even refused to watch her swim at all as soon as she (the sea lion) got out of the water and barked her hello.  Kenley did still enjoy the otter swimming back and forth and really seemed to take an interest in a lot more of the animals this time. It really helped that they were so active with the cooler weather.
Kenley got a big kick out of the goat at the petting zoo coming out to give me a big ole' kiss too...

but I think her favorite thing from this trip to the zoo was definitely the TURTLES... She asked to go back and see them several times and she really liked the BIG turtle.

All in all it was a wonderful morning at the zoo and we topped it off with a yummy lunch from Boo Boo's Dawghouse ;o)
Today (Monday) was a low key day. I had wanted to go to the parade but we decided against it. The chillier weather would have frozen my poor father-in-law so we relaxed and played around the house. The guys did a few small things from my "honey-do" list (more on that in a later post) and Kenley and Grandma B colored a great deal. Grandma and Grandpa headed home shortly after lunch and Kenley went down for her nap. The afternoon and evening have passed much too quickly and now it's time for me to head off to bed so I can face another day at work tomorrow. Hope everyone else had a wonderful LONG weekend as well. More to come from this end soon!

Kenley's 1st haircut

 I ended up taking Friday off. I mean what's better than a 3 day weekend? A 4 day weekend!!!
 I had a dr's appt early and decided I would try to take Kenley in for her 1st haircut. I was nervous as I didn't know what to expect and I didn't want her to lose her curls.

Here we are waiting...

We had a bit of a dance party while we waited too but I'm still frustrated with the picture issue on Blogger so I'm not going to share those right now.

When Brittney was ready we went back and decided to try the booster like a big girl, but Kenley was a little apprehensive so we quickly went to plan B where she would sit on my lap.

Here we are in the middle of the action. Kenley did an AWESOME job. She sat nicely and at the goldfish and just listened as Brittney chatted away and told her what a BIG GIRL she was being. At one point there was a little boy getting his hair cut next to us (you can see his dad in this picture) and he (the boy) was just screaming and crying. He refused to let his parents sit and just transferred back and forth from one to the other. I was so proud Kenley was doing so well, but I also felt bad for that little guy.

Here we are finished and posing for a picture with Brittney. We even gave her a hug and a high five so Kenley must have approved of the job done ;o)

 And most importantly... we still have CURLS!!! This is one happy momma!

Now I just have to figure out when she will go back next and how to brush her hair when it's done. I've been doing piggies all summer that I'm not sure how to act with it down.

30 weeks

Just got back from my 30 week appt and it was super short and fast. Weight checked in at 197.2lbs and 110/52 for my rockin' blood pressure. I'm measuring 29-30 weeks (not ahead like I did with Kenley) and the baby's heartbeat was racing again (thanks to the morning donuts..mmmm...do-nuts...). The heartbeat was back in the upper 150s.  Nothing really new to report. Dr. is aiming to get me to 36 or 37 weeks and has instructed me to go to the hospital as quickly as possible since I seemed to labor relatively quickly for my first. Only thing really discussed this time was this HEAT we seem to be getting and I've been given orders to hibernate indoors in the cool air as much as possible and drink more than enough water. We do have a few plans outside this weekend but I'll take it as easy as possible. Made my 32 and 34 week appts and set to keep on trucking forward. Seems weird to say that in less than 10 weeks (unless I go over) we will have Baby Brockman 2.0 ;o) Can't wait to meet him/her!!!!

The Wall: Part 2

After the retaining wall was finished we got the pricing back from the landscaper and it came significantly under what the "bid" had been that we added to the mortgage at closing so we had a bit of a credit. I decided we should spend it and get more professional work done since Clay and I aren't very experienced in the landscaping field. Therefore we decided to do the wall around the patio, specifically for the grill and wind control.We had a few discussions about what we wanted and how Clay and I pictured it and the landscaper got to work. He started last week I think but finished today. (We had some delay getting the gas line in for the grill but all is well.)

Here are the finished pictures (see below) and I couldn't be happier. I think it looks wonderful and strangely enough it actually makes the patio seem bigger. Clay said it feels like an "outdoor room." We are going to have the landscaper also do his magic in between the two walls so that will be all planted and done. We will be getting our sod very soon and then it will look like a yard and not a big dust pit. The rest of the landscaping will wait until the spring but this will be a great start to enjoy this fall.

Oh the "cut-out" area on the one end is where Clay's grill goes. We have to wait a day or two to put it out there so the pavers can settle but it will fit just perfectly. You can see the gas line in the one picture. Now just have to go get the grill cover and we are all set.