The Rollman Empire

It actually began about a month ago but it was all exterior stuff until this week. For example, they had to demo the old screen porch, excavate a ton of dirt (literally it filled an ENTIRE dumpster), pour concrete footers and a new slab and frame what will be a new guestroom under the additional space in the kitchen. On Monday they demo-ed the entire old kitchen. It is down to the studs! And today they are working on the framing for the addition and new screen porch. Here are a few photos: Say goodbye to the fun and funky green kitchen because it is long gone... The 'far' windows in this photo are our bay windows and the 'close' window is the slider above where our sink used to be. As you can see the green kitchen is So.Long.Gone. As part of this project we are also re-doing the powder room which is "behind" the kitchen. It's the second set of exposed studs with the white and black pipes. In case you were wondering, we moved all the living room furniture...

And like all online giveaways to get more entries you have to blog about it and such so here it goes. As part of the kitchen remodel, we are re-doing our powder room and I think I want to stencil the back wall. The patterns I especially like from Royal Design Studio are the Endless Circle Lattice and the Moorish Trellis. I'd post examples but it won't let me copy that images. Sorry.

Most mommies posted their 'first day of school" pictures that Tuesday after they sent the little ones off to school. Some took a week to do it - no, not me. It took me a month. Sorry. And I didn't even really get good ones so we took pictures the second day of school too. Take one - Marie is showing off her school bag that I made her. I made one for JJ too. (Sad side note - while I dying the canvas pink, JJ threw my phone into the 5 gallon bucket of dye. That is my third blackberry in a row to succumb to a liquid death! Albeit, over a 5 year time period.) This the only somewhat decent picture of both of them together - too bad it is in the garage with the minivan in the background. Take two: The "second day of school" photo shoot was a little better. Now that they have been in school a month, I can confidently report they are both enjoying it. Apparently JJ says all the names of the kids in his class as he points to them. Marie is taking after-school music. Sh...

Our tomatoes did great as you can see. There are still lots of green tomatoes on the vine so I'm actually going to try to make fried green tomatoes soon. Our zucchini did well until I tried to move it and basically broke it at the bottom. We have one green bell pepper that is currently turning red (you can actually see it in the center of the photo). I can't wait to pick it - maybe in a day or two. The green onions never took off. And while our watermelon probably would have ripen, I messed that up too and it ended up rotting before it would have been ripe enough to eat. I'll do a few things differently next year but all and all, I'm happy with my crop this year and I'm excited to do it again.

At the beginning of August, back when it was blazing hot and fall had yet to make an appearance, we went to the Southeast Railway and Transportation Musuem in Duluth. The kids had a blast (that is, until heat and exhaustion sent Marie into a whiny tizzy.) It was also tractor day. This was also before JJ got his hair cut for the second time and he still had curls. You'll see in his first day of school pictures (to be posted later this week) just how short it is. It makes me wonder if his curls will come back if his hair gets long again. Then just a fun shot from yesterday: Shopping at Target and running errands with Mama is always fun with a lollipop. Lastly - The Alphabet Wall is finally finished and installed in the playroom:

We think JJ is as cute as can be. Here is a video of him doing two of his tricks - giving kisses with an exaggerated "moahhh" sound. And then saying "beep beep beep" as he touches Dan's nose. This is something I've done with him since he was about 10 months old and now he does it to us! He also says "beep beep" anytime he presses anything he considers a button. (This video was taken last night during our Friday Night Dance Party so please excuse the music in the background.) He is talking a bunch now. His additional words include: eye (as seen in the video) shoes cup cheese stick bowl juice Marie - which is sometimes sounds like "MmmEE" and others just "Eee" Ellie Sissy teeth turkey chicken moew book please - which sounds like "eazz" and is always accompanied with sign language yogurt cracker bye (also seen in the video)

I know, I know the title sounds weird but truly, this was the first, just-us-four, Family Vacation we have ever taken. Last week we went spent 5 days at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. We went there because we had free lodging! One of Dan's clients let us stay at his beautiful lake house (with access to his private dock, 2 jet skis, and a speed boat). It was such a wonderful getaway. The setting was very relaxing, the house had plenty of space, and there was lots of hangout, down-time. AND, there were whole house speakers with XM radio so we had several family dance parties. Here are the trip highlight photos: This was the sunset the first night we got there. Just the reward we needed after a 7 hour drive. The kids did great the whole way though. Dan and I both agreed it was the best sunset we have seen outside of Arizona or Mexico. We never took the boat out (it wasn't worth the effort, hassle and risk with two small, non-swimming kids and an expensive, borrowed boat) but...

A week ago at this time of night, Dan, JJ and I were waiting to be “released” from Children’s Hospital after he got 5 stitches. The evening was suppose to go as follows: 1. Feed JJ 2. Bathe Marie and JJ 3. Put JJ down to sleep 4. Marie, Dan and I eat dinner We got as far as #1, when in the process of getting JJ undressed for his bath, his head popped out of his shirt and crashed down into the tile edge of the bathtub surround. Ugh… one nice gash on the bridge of his nose and we were on the way to Children’s Hospital at 6:45. We got there at 7:00 and were quickly seen at triage (Mommy is still awak in this picture and JJ is looking apprehensively at the nurse), where they concurred that he needed stitches and put a numbing ointment on the gash and taped it into place. We were then sent back to an “ ortho ” waiting room (no sick germs) where JJ literally ran around in circles, climbed over all the arm chairs, and rearranged the furniture. Dan tried to get a few pictures of him...

GARDEN! Yep, that's right - a small plot of fourteen 12"x12" squares. Back for mother's day, Dan and I built it below our deck where it gets a TON of sun and sure enough, things are growing. We have already harvested 5 or so zucchinis (what's the proper way to make zucchini plural?) And two more that will be ready to eat tomorrow - see them below? Although, I messed up my planting of them. They were suppose to be 3 FEET apart, and I planted them 3 INCHES apart - Oops. Newbie mistake but really my garden is doing while despite this being my first attempt. (I think the credit belongs to following the directions for a specific soil mixture and composition from the book All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew .) I'll get it right next year, although I plan to try to grow them vertically with the technique discussed on this forum : I planted 3 types of tomatoes - cherry, atikson and roma (below): And, yesterday I discovered this on the vine: ...

Oh my goodness - my last post was in March! Yikes. I knew it was bad but I didn't think it was that bad. Argh. Well here are pictures from our 4th of July. At the last minute, we decided to go to the pool and we got there right as everyone was kicked out of the water because of thunder. We hung out for a little while and clearly it wasn't going to get any better. So we went home and filled up our kiddie pool. Perhaps not the best idea as it was still thundering but we were all suited up and the kids were so excited to go to the pool. They had fun. Since we didn't get to play in the pool very long, I said we could go in it on Tuesday. Marie was ready to go "swimming" at 8 am! I held her off until 9 am but barely. They had even more fun when it was actually sunny and we came in and packed a picnic lunch to bring outside too. It was a really nice way to start the week! And here are the kids in their traditional red, white and blue 4th of July outfits. You might no...

On Tuesday, Marie properly used the word "quarantine". Just to make sure she actually knew what it meant and wasn't just repeating a word she has heard, I asked her what it meant. She said "to block off." JJ loves to go outside. So we'll say " JJ , you need socks and shoes so we can go outside." And he'll go over to the shoe rack and bring us a pair of matching shoes and promptly sit down on the floor in front of us so we'll put them on. It is really cute. Sometime he'll just bring us his shoes and sit down in the hope we'll then take him outside. Here's a picture of Marie helping JJ up the stairs after playing outside (sans one shoe).

Happy Anniversary Dan! I love you even more now than I did then. You are such a wonderful daddy and my best friend. Thank you for the last nine years and I look forward to many more to come. ~ With all my Love, Laura

Marie turned three last Sunday (Jan. 30th). I'm a little behind, but I will get to why after a few photos. (And really this timing is much better than my norm when you consider that JJ's first birthday photos still aren't posted). So on Marie's actual birthday, we let her open presents throughout the day. At breakfast, this one was from Nana and Papa. I love her face in these two pictures - the excitement is palpable and you can read what she's thinking: "Oooh, what is it??" BOOKS! Books, Books and more Books! Then at community group we all sang to her and had Rice Krispie treats to celebrate. We almost let Marie's hair catch on fire. Ooops. Then this morning we had a DANCE PARTY to celebrate her birthday with friends. I heard one little boy had been telling everyone for 2 weeks that he was going to a Dance Party and had been practicing. It paid off - here is just a small snip of the kids' moves. Who Likes CAKE? Me! Me! I do! Me! We do! We ha...