Thursday, January 20, 2011

Remodeling

As most of you know, we bought a "fixer upper" house.  When we decided to buy this house 2 1/2 years ago, I don't really think we knew what we were getting into!  :)  We have remodeled both bathrooms, painted every wall, painted the ceilings, repainted walls, installed windows and fans, remodeled the kitchen, plumbing, putting in outlets, put in hardwood floors...the list continues.  Now I say this as "we" but we all know that it is Danny the handy man that does this all and I am his apprentice!  I am completely blessed to have a handy husband!  Now the saga continues with remodeling the basement.  We had a dear friend come help with the framing and now we are putting up the dry wall.  The other projects have been huge but this one is like starting from scratch and doing it all.  It also is a little more difficult this time having a mobile toddler who would like to help at all times but we're doing ok.  The drywall is going up and it's nice to see the progress daily.  Once we get done we will have a nice entertainment room in the basement and playroom for Bryce which will be so nice to have toys confined in ONE area....instead of taking over the house!  :)
Not so sure about the snow


We also are enjoying the warm days followed by snow days in CO.  Bryce isn't too sure about snow and doesn't like to be cold so playing in the snow is not his favorite thing yet.  He is getting so big and it's crazy how much he is learning.  His new thing is putting toys on tables in a line.  His reach is just at the top of the dining table and his toys usually end up there.  He's so funny with his toddler antics and we are constantly smiling at what joy he brings us.  He still only talks in jibberish with a mama, dada, this, that, and ack thrown in but he always has a lot to say!
lining up the toys

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The holidays

Deavilles
Reading his Christmas story with Granny
We hope that everyone had a very blessed holiday this year!  We sure did!  We were able to see so many people this Christmas season as we had the Westermann crew up at our house on Christmas day and then the Deaville/Stafford crew up a few days later, only to end the holiday season with a trip to Missouri to see all the extended family!  This was our first big trip and Bryce's first flight.  I have to admit I was rather nervous about flying with Bryce and not being that family that has the screaming baby.  He did pretty well and we had nothing to be nervous about!  It was wonderful to see all of our family this Christmas and we are so blessed to have such great families.  Missouri was wonderful as we celebrated the wedding of Danny's cousin Kristin and Bryce was able to meet all his extended family. We got to share the weekend with Danny's sister Ashley who has two boys, one 3 and the other 5 weeks younger than Bryce.  Seeing Bryce and his cousins play together was priceless.  We were also able to catch up with some old friends the few days that we were in St. Louis and took Bryce to our old stomping grounds!  A piece of our hearts will always be in St. Louis!
We hope that you are finding 2011 a wonderful year!
Bryce's first wedding
Westermanns with Great Aunt Helen