Here are the pictures!

 Last week before it warmed up. Birthday present from Wake and Leslie, complete with sound effects and "bad guys."

Putting up the shed yesterday:

 2T shorts falling off:

 Got the climber put together:

 Flower beds cleaned out (somewhat) and bushes trimmed:

I didn't take a before picture yesterday, but just imagine all this brown and dead looking, and notice how you can't see the window behind the tree:

yesterday's result:

 raked up dead lantana:

 what we chopped off the tree in the flower bed. I don't like stuff blocking my windows. I found out from a neighbor (after we chopped the branches off) that tree is a saucer magnolia, which would have bloomed in the next month sometime. oops. I looked it up and it's supposed to grow to 20 ft tall, so if we didn't kill it we're going to move it to the backyard.

 already getting blooms on one bush:

Moved the swingset today... 

...so that we can see it from the porch



technical issues

Sorry no pictures, for some reason I haven't been able to upload any pictures this past week. Will try again later. Gavin had his 3 yr check up last week. He weighs 33 lbs and is 38.75 inches tall. This puts him around the 75th percentile for height and weight. It's been really nice and warm this week and we've been playing outside every afternoon. Gavin has been enjoying playing with the older kids down the street, but is having trouble learning not to run into the street after them. He just gets so excited when he sees them he can't help himself. It's funny how the little girls try to keep him in line and tell him what to do. He doesn't listen to them either. Luckily our house is on a cul de sac so traffic isn't much of an issue. Today was so warm we were in shorts. We got a lot of stuff on our outside to do list accomplished. We put Gavin's climber and Jake's shed together in the backyard, and got our bushes in the front trimmed and flowerbeds cleared out somewhat. It looks so much better.

Happy 3rd Birthday Gavin!

Might as well...

As a child of the 80's who hung out with a lot of boys, this picture kinda sums up the musical influences of my childhood:

I can vividly remember rocking out to "Jump" by Van Halen in the Williamsons' basement across the street from us when the song first came out. I was 5. Years later when I met Jake I saw it as a sign that the first time I rode in his car the cd he was playing was old school Van Halen. So you can imagine the grin on my face today when Gavin chose "Jump" to be his first song to sing along to on the radio. He likes the parts where Dave raises his voice. And of course the chorus. Gavin also rocked out to the song, raising both index fingers up and down to the beat and head banging. Time to throw him in a mosh pit.

P.S. especially for Tom-

while searching for the above picture I came across where someone had typed out the lyrics for Jump. They made me lol. (In case you don't know any better (sad for you) these are not the correct lyrics):

I get up, and nothing gets me down.

i like to jump. and then go round and round

And I know, just how it feels.

You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real


Oh can't you see me standing here,
I'm getting ready for a soccer scene I ain't the worst that you've seen.
Oh can't you see what I mean ?
Might as well jump. Jump !
Might as well jump.
Go ahead, jump. Jump !
Go ahead, jump.


Hey you ! Who said that ?
Baby how you been ?
You say you don't know, you won't know

until you begin.

Well can't you see me standing here,
I'm getting ready for a soccer scene

I ain't the worst that you've seen.

Oh can't you see what I mean ?
Might as well jump. Jump!
Go ahead, jump.
Might as well jump. Jump!
Go ahead, jump. Jump!