Before and After

Ok, last post for the evening and we'll finally be caught up! Lance did an awful lot of work on the house over the summer, but perhaps what we are most proud of so far are the doors. When we moved in, the only interior doors that were finished and hung were the bathroom and furnace room doors. All the exterior doors were still unpainted. It took Lance several weeks to prime, paint, and hang all the interior doors, but the exterior doors were a nightmare. Since of course, they were already framed and hung, we had to take them off the hinges and then put tape and plastic over the whole house. We were actually without doors on the house for about a week. We were very blessed that no one broke in!

I didn't get pictures of all the doors (I'm sure it would bore you anyway), which we painted dark green on the outside and a lighter green color for the inside, but here is the best of them all.

Before:
After:

Ooooh! Aahhhh! It really is a great improvement and I am very thankful for and proud of my sweet husband who has worked so hard to make our house a home.

In other news, Lance told me a few weeks ago that the time had come to cut Andy's hair. I have been putting it off. There is just something about that fluffy, curly baby hair that is just so sweet I couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew he would look so much older without it! However, Andy has started to carry my headbands around as toys and when he manages to put them on his head I realized how long his hair had really gotten and I gave Lance the green light.

Before:

...during...

After:

The day after we cut it we realized that we had left the top too long, so it was back to the bathtub with our little boy for an extra trim. I didn't take another "after" picture, so this snapshot will have to do:

Andy has figured out how to push around the stepstool to get to what he wants (although he has an amazingly long reach even without it). Here he is turning off the digital box, which hooked up to the TV so we could watch General Conference, for the millionth time during the Sunday Afternoon session (I'm afraid I didn't catch too much of Conference this year).

With a new haircut and some new clothes (thanks to his most recent growth spurt), our baby is really starting to look like a big boy! I can't believe his first birthday is almost here. Sometimes I miss the inert little bundle that would nap in my arms, but it has been an amazing journey so far to see him grow into the wonderful, wiggly little--or big-- boy that he is now.

Picture Palooza

Mom gave me a "hint" that I need to post some more recent pictures of Andy. In the hopes of cheering and speeding up her recovery, here are some from the State Fair and a photo session from a few Sundays ago when Lance brought out the camera and got a little picture happy.

Goodbye, Summer

Well, now that it is actually starting to get a little chilly and the fall holidays are quickly approaching, I guess it is time to post our summer pictures. The following pictures are from a couple parades we went to, our visit to Grandma and Grampa Fife in California, the Annual Rees Family Lagoon Day, and various other summery activities. Enjoy.