Carter Stats

Carter had his 5-year Dr.'s appointment and he is incredibly healthy as we suspected.  His vision and hearing were tested and those seem to be perfect.  In fact the nurse acted astonished that Carter knew his letters (not astonished that he could see them across the room on the chart, but astonished because he knew his alphabet).  The Dr. also commented that he has nice teeth.

Stats:
Weight:  34.6 lbs. (9th%)
Height:  40 inches (6th%)

As the nurse said, he is a peanut.  We're trying to bulk up on calories as he has decreased a bit percentage wise on weight but stayed pretty even in height.  But all in all, he's a healthy 5 year old who is very excited to start school tomorrow!  Stay tuned for first day of school pictures!!

Lego's, Lego's, and More Lego's!

As I noted in a previous entry, Carter received a ton of Lego's for his birthday.  He has since put all of the sets together, by himself for the most part, and he has been playing with them non-stop.  He wanted to take pictures of his new creations.

Mack and Lightening from "Cars."

Sponge Bob Square Pants and his Pineapple Under the Sea.

Semi and Helicopter (also turns into a boat and pickup truck, also already been put together).

Star Wars Ship.

Alien Spaceship, complete with a farmer that can be beamed up into the ship.

We're running out of table room!

FIVE!

Carter turned 5 at the end of August and we were lucky enough to celebrate his birthday with numerous family parties and fun adventures.

The Friday of his birthday weekend we hung out at Uncle Josh's house with Josh, Kristin, Ema (Grandma Webb), Uncle Mark, Tracy, Grandpa Mike, Uncle Kenny, and Aunt Carol.  We had ice cream cake and tons of presents.  We also got to see Josh's new puppy, Bull, a 6 week old pit bull.  The kids had a fantastic time.

Saturday Uncle Bob, Aunt Lee, Elsa, and Claire arrived to spend the weekend with us.  As usual, the kids started playing together the second they arrived and didn't let up until the second they left. 

We spent a lazy Saturday around the house, playing the wii and playing outside when it wasn't raining.

Sunday we headed to Michigan Adventure.  Grandpa and Grandma Jernstadt and Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin also joined us.  We had quite the crowd to herd around the park!  The kids had a blast (and the grown-ups too) and they were incredibly good all day without naps and with constant running around.

Here are some pictures of the kids (big and little) enjoying the rides.

In another year Carter will probably be a perfect height to get on a few more rides.  But they had tons of rides to choose from regardless. 

On Monday we celebrated with cake and more presents for Carter and Elsa.  Carter's gift mainly revolved around Lego's, I think he got a total of 5 more big sets, but he also got a cool Cars Monopoly game, and a Razor Scooter as well.    He has been enjoying all of the presents immensely.

On Monday evening the grownups went to see Lyle Lovett in concert at Frederick Meijer Gardens. It was a great concert and a wonderful end to a fantastic weekend!  We already miss everyone!

More Outdoor Projects

I thought I would mention some of our other outdoor projects.  I've been trying to be diligent at taking "before" and "after" pictures because I hope to put together a whole album of our house projects someday.  I was going through some old pictures and even though I've been very close to these projects, it still amazes me at the changes we've done so far.  We have a long, long way to go however, so we're not brushing off our hands and relaxing with a cocktail just yet.  But here are some recent projects.  (Quick note that when I say "we" with these projects, I must admit that Dave does about 90% of the work on these things, he is truly amazing when it comes to totally renovating something.  Dave, your work ethic and talent in this area is amazing).

The Barn: 
Now, to be fair, we've been working on the barn from about day 1.  So some of these changes are not as recent as others.  As you can see below, it was very run down when we bought the house (inside and out).  I'm sure our neighbors will gladly say that it's come a long way.  Also take note that there was not one speck of grass in our backyard when we moved in.  Last fall we scraped and painted it as well as a lot of inside structural help.  We poured a cement floor (it was literally a dirt floor with stalls for horses when we began) and Dave's been slowly making the inside his work shop.  This summer Dave has been putting in windows as you will see below.

When we first moved in:

Can't imagine why we'd want to make any changes!

Say goodbye to the horse stencils.

And here are some pictures of the recent window installation.  He wanted me to wait to post these pictures because he still has one more middle window to install.  But if I waited to post about any of these things until they were completely done, I'd be waiting about 20 years.

We have windows!  (and weeds...like I said, work in process for all of these things).

Front Walk (or lack there-of for a bit):
We had a landscape architect come to our house about a year and a half ago and give us a total layout of what we should put where for the entire perimeter of our house.  One of the areas we needed to totally renovate is our front walk area.  This spring and summer we started to do a few of those changes.  For one, we completely moved the front walk out about 12 feet.  Someday this new walk will be brick, but for now it will remain stone.  When we moved the walk, we had to change the landscaping along the front of the house as well as the steps to our front door.  I think there were a few months where you couldn't reach our front at all.  Good thing our house is situated such that we don't really use it much (if at all). 

Here you can see how the walk looked when we bought the house.  Very close to the front of the house and curvy. No landscaping.

Ripping up the old walk and laying out the new one.
 

Putting in the sprinkling.

Ready for sod.

Putting in the new steps.

A functional front door!

Island Landscaping:

We have also been working on the landscaping for our driveway island.  Planting lots of bushes and ground cover as well as adding about 5 yards of rocks.  I thought shoveling mulch was hard until we tackled these rocks. 

Creating the mound on the island:

Outlining the different areas.

And now!

We're taking a minor break but we have lots more to tackle this fall and winter!