Noah..."The Cuteness"

 I know I'm biased, but this kid kills me with his cuteness on a daily basis!  After 5 kids, I think I finally started really embracing the toddler age, and just wanted to share a few of his adorable moments.  Like...

...falling asleep wherever he is....

...rockin' the tie...(He just loved it & would have slept with it on probably!)

First day with his new shoes...just couldn't stop touching them, even when he fell asleep!  A year ago, I couldn't get him to keep shoes on, and he wore these all day until I finally convinced him to take them off before bedtime!

Here are 2 videos (sorry the one is sideways...that's what I get for trying to video with a device different from my usual!) 

This is him displaying his hopscotch skills. 

 

The next is him at the Children's Museum.  An assistant saw him having so much fun with stuffed dinosaurs, she mentioned that they had a costume.  Here's how it transformed him...

Myhre family continues to grow!

 Here is an updated picture of the Myhre cousins and how much they've grown.  We realized how much they are growing up when, after we took this picture, noticed that it only took a minute to get the desired picture, and finally, with not a one of them asleep or crying!  (Timing can be attributed, but the fact that most of them are now school-aged, helps quite a bit.)  This is taken at our yearly trip to Lake Cocharan in SD.  Lots of fishing, tubing, swimming, playing and eating & most of all laughing and having a great time together!

 Growing up, I didn't have any sisters and didn't have a girl cousin to play with until I was 13 years old.  Now I have 6 beautiful sister-in-laws, 2 on my side and 4 on Jason's side.  Bridget is our most recent addition with her and Jason's youngest brother, Craig, getting hitched on June 20th.  This picture was taken with Jason's mom, Mary, at a cousin's wedding.  We realized we were all "color coordinated" and it would make a neat picture.  Mom brightens us up in the picture just as she does in life.  So blessed to have so many wonderful sisters in my life and I love every one of them and we all get along like we've spent a lifetime together.

Oh, and speaking of growing family...Teresa & Seth are expecting baby #4!  You can't really see her baby bump because of the black dress (and because she's tiny anyways!), but we know soon there will be a new little Myhre to hold.  Picture L-R:  Teresa, Bridget, Stephanie, Mary, Janice & me.

Reno 911

No, not the show...these are renovations to our home and even though they were not emergencies, they have been projects that had been put aside since we moved in 15 months ago.  Not only did we finally get the time to do them, the desire to tackle home improvement projects has emerged again.  The patio deck was one of the many things I noticed that needed attention when we bought the home, but it's one of those projects that requires the right conditions for it all to work smoothly and quickly.  Fortunately, the weather (and the kids) cooperated well and I was able to get this one tackled in a few days time.

  

 

 The next step will be to re-paint all of the posts...not really excited to dig into that!!

So this unfinished built-in is right in our front entryway, so there's no hiding this.  There were unfinished shelves and it had become the catch-all area for everything I needed handy, but didn't know where to put yet.  My goal was to build it into a bench/basket holding/coat hook hanging area, but as we started to take the shelves off, we realized that it was going to be more work to sand it all down and it really wasn't going to turn out like we wanted, (OK, how I wanted!)  

So after staring at the bare wall for a day, I re-vamped my plans and changed it into an area for my Dad's old buffet cabinet and shifted my organizational wall to the other side of the door, making for a better flow into the living room.  We haven't quite finished making the hanging shelf to put above the bench that we re-claimed from the school. 

Once again, this was a project that consumed more time that originally planned because when we took out the plywood, we discovered that it was glued to the sheetrock.  Well, anyone that knows what happens to sheetrock when you pull off things attached with glue, is that it usually means you have to replace it or patch it.  Luckily it was only on one wall and Jason was able to patch it beautifully so you could never tell what was there before.

Of course, when you uncover things, you find other things that need attention, and in this case, it was unfinished baseboard trim and flooring that didn't go close enough to the wall to be covered by average base trim.  More monkeying around with that, but Jason worked his magic and made it look great.

 

I love the new look and am excited to get the other shelf up before backpacks and coats start piling up as school starts.  Updates to come!