Toddle Along Tuesday: Changes

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is about changes.  As my last post noted, Brian and I have now been married for five years and even detailed some of the changes.  Let's expand on that a bit.

	2007		2012
Dwelling	We lived in a somewhat scary 2 bedroom apartment that had one heat source and allowed month-to-month rental.  Getting ready to move to West Lafayette, IN for Brian to attend grad school at Purdue.		We live in the same town again, but now in a beautiful 4 bedroom house on a great street with awesome neighbors and a huge maple tree to shade us in the summer.
Job	Unemployed.  Had just finished my time at St. Olaf and was licensed to teach English in grades 6-12.		Self-employed.  After a couple jobs working as an administrative assistant in two different educational service agencies, I decided it was time to save money by staying home and becoming county certified to provide daycare.
Caretaking	Had a brand new kitten (well, 2 months old) who was adorable and funny and snuggly.  Although she did kill my betta.  Then I was mad at her.		Still have that cat.  And another.  And some more fish.  Oh yeah, and two half-wild little boys.  I would say fully-wild, but one does use the toilet.
Hobbies	Not a lot.  I did cross-stitching, I walked.  I had just finished wedding planning.  I would go road biking with Brian every now and then.		Indoor: knitting, crocheting, sewing, cooking, photography.  And volleyball during the school year.  Outdoor: running, toting boys behind a bike, hanging out at playgrounds, pulling a wagon around the neighborhood.
Interests	Ummm…my cat?		All things natural living/parenting: cloth diapers, breastfeeding, gardening, composting, healthy cooking
Happiness	I had just gotten married, so that was awesome.		My life is pretty awesome.  I play with my boys every day and try to make the world exciting and educational for them.  I have a great home near family, real seasons, some luxuries, and a house full of giggles and love.

5th Anniversary

Yesterday marked five years since Brian and I got married.  I actually didn't touch my computer the entire day, so I'm posting today.  It was a very busy day - garage sale in the morning, then we went out on the boat with my aunt/uncle who were visiting town, my dad, and a couple siblings.  Plus the boys, of course.  Then we had dinner at my parents', put the boys to bed, and went out for our anniversary dessert at the Deep Water.
I can't believe it was five years ago that we had our wedding, but I also can't believe how much has been packed into those five years.  We moved from Wisconsin to Indiana and back again.  Brian got a master's degree, and his professional engineering license.  We've had two fantastic little guys added to our family.  Two cats.  Many fish have come (and gone)....

2007:

To now (or February-ish....gosh we need to do some new family pictures...):

Toddle Along Tuesday: My Mama

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is about My Mom.

Where do I start when discussing my mom?  We are very different people in many ways, but we have some strange similarities too (like our tendency to make up something ridiculous, but similar sounding, when we didn't hear what someone said).
My mama has had nine babies, which alone qualifies her as crazy.  ;)  It also kind of makes her a super mom.
Oh, and she's homeschooled a gaggle of them, including me from 2nd-8th grade.

She was also a single mom for several years, which means she's a very strong and brave woman.
She's silly, kind, giving, loving, and always willing to do anything I need her to.  There's never a time that she isn't willing to take on my two insane little wild monsters even if it's just because they're driving me crazy.  And boy do they loooove their Nana!  (I'm sure the chocolate she always has stashed doesn't hurt either.)
My mama was there for both of my labors/the births of the boys.  The woman loves childbirth and it's nice to have someone with so much expertise around when you're going through something as intense as natural labor and delivery.

Here she is talking with newborn Everett

And with newborn Callum

What else?  My mama has also in recent years gone back to school and received her RN.

I don't think there are many people as selfless as my mom.  And she's everything a grandma is supposed to be.   She oohs and aahs over everything the boys do, she plays with them, cares for them, spoils them, and sends them home when she has to.  I wouldn't trade my mama for anyone in the world.

Love you mama!

15 Months Old

Our little baby big boy is now 15 months old, and had his check-up and shots to prove it.

Our Cally bug measured in at 25 pounds and 32.5" (apparently they measured wrong last time and he hasn't grown much, height-wise).  So he's around the 75th for weight and 90th for height.  Sounds about right.  :)
Poor little boy had to get three shots today.  He's on an alternative schedule as discussed here, and this is the first time he's had to get three shots in a visit.  In three months, he'll finish out HepB and start HepA, and we might decide to do the Varicella then too.  Otherwise, he'll get varicella at 2 years along with another HepA.
He did really well with the shots though.  He turned BRIGHT red and sucked in his breath.  I nuzzled him until he breathed again and not 30 seconds later, he was totally fine.  Such a trooper.

Other than some seasonal allergies/eczema, this boy is the picture of health.  He's excelling at all the ASQ markers, except fine motor skills, but he's still doing well in that area too.  And really, look at his dad.  He still has poor fine motor skills.  Love you, Bri!  :)
Gross motor, however?  Yeahhhh.  See figures 1-3 below:

Climbing at El Dorado last night

Ya know, just riding a donkey.  He's going to be a pro at this.  Already holds on, keeps his balance, and loves it.

Riding the trike with our neighbor girl

Climbing in a tractor wheel.  Boys...

He's saying around 18 unprompted words now and copies many more.  The most recent words he enjoys are cheerios, poopoo, and out!

And of course, he's still adorable as always.

Kitchen Floor

When we moved into our house, there were several projects to do: build a garage, fence the backyard, replace blue toilet and tub upstairs, and fix the kitchen floor.  We've made our way through that list in the past three years and the most recent project was the kitchen floor.
Upon moving in, the floor looked like this:

Fake parquet vinyl tiles.  Lovely, right?  And with a portable dishwasher, the tiles got destroyed in some areas. It really needed fixing.  After some contemplation, we decided that a floating laminate flooring would be best to avoid any extra trouble with lower layers, cost efficiency, and ease of use.  So, we picked out a laminate flooring that resembles the maple floors in the dining room and entry way.
Here's the progress.

Night one:

Night two:

Night three:

And night four (it was actually five nights, but Brian had a work meeting one evening, so we had a day off):

Now we need to decide if we're going to attempt to polyurethane the whole thing or not, replace the trim, doors, and quarter-round, and install the reducer panels.  PHEW!  But doesn't it look soooo much better?