We have done so much to the house in the past few weeks! It's been almost all outside, which is great, because the outside still kind of looked like an abandoned home. Dad came and painted Alex' new room and power-washed the back of our house and the fence, which looks so much better now. We had some painters come and paint the front of the house after that. THAT was an interesting experience because of all of the back-and-forth communication about it, and I had to keep going back and double-checking their work. However, when it was finally done, it looked SO MUCH BETTER! Previously the columns had been all chipped away and someone had attempted to paint the siding with disastrous results because they the right paint wasn't used, and overall it just looked horrible. So THAT was taken care of. Then mom and Earl were around because mom had some training, so Earl and I (I refer to "we" loosely because he did the huge majority of work and I made blts...) did the landscaping part. We built a retaining wall the first day and filled it with dirt, good dirt, hostas, a maple, and mulch. IT LOOKS SO GREAT!!! I feel like our neighbors don't have to be ashamed of us anymore. :) Jason and I are going to take care of the right side of the steps and build a small portion of wall there, too, and probably put a maple in there as well. Before it was mostly a barren area with a chaotic lump of a few plants, and now it has patriot and June hostas and a sharp's pygmy maple in it. We're also going to put a cross to the right of the maple, although it's not in the pictures. The next day we went to the backyard. I took care of working on some of the trimwork that surrounded our sliding glass doors. (Earl, I filled it with more wood filler and painted over it, hooray! I might do one more coat - already done two after the Kilz - but it looks so much better.) He created a drainage system for us because we've had some flooding problems in the back. We now have a defined area around our ac unit that is filled with sand and covered in rocks to help with the water, and we have the same rocks under our gate, another area that was a mini-lake. He dug a trench bordering one side of our gate and laid black piping that attached to our gutter and talked to our neighbor because his run-off goes directly into our yard. So far, so good. While it hasn't rained, we have a problem with our hose faucet back there,. Previously the area would have started to flood after I tried to fill up her pool because of the leaking, but this time around it just produced wet rocks. Hooray! Okay, so I'm a little excited abut my new house... lol.
In kid news, Alexis has decided that she wants to stay up until about 10:00. This is not good news, and I'm going to blame Babu and Bibi. Okay, maybe not, but for two days after she saw them, she didn't want to go to bed at all. Alexis also keeps mixing up their names and has it set in her mind that Babu is Bibi and Bibi is Babu. It's pretty adorable and funny. When Earl and Alex and I went to Home Depot to get stuff, she basically refused to let him out of her sight, and each morning when he was here, and for the two mornings after that, she would ask for them when she first got up. She was asleep last night a little after 8:30 I think, so hopefully she's getting over this stage. We shall see.
I went to the doctor again yesterday and all is fine. She thinks that they weighed me inaccurately last time around, because if we trusted the records, I would have lost six pounds or so, which doesn't make sense. Two weeks ago I weighed 147, and this week I wehged 141. She thinks it was just a mistake, especially considering that the previous weight would have meant I gained about tenpounds in a month, which is a lot. So my weight is good, Micah's heartbeat is incredibly strong and steady and healthy, and she said I have the blood pressure of an athlete! (I thought that part was particularly funny.) She also answered some questions about when I call to go to the hospital and traveling and a few other small things. One significant issue is that we're trying to get my surgical records from our hospital in Nicaragua. Withouth them, a c-section is automatically done because the outside of an incision doesn't necessarily tell you what the inside of an incision was like, so they can't take any chances on a vaginal birth. We'd like to try it the normal way, but we have to have a records to even have a chance at that. We'll see what happens.
On a revision note (I'm adding this later), Alexis ate cheerios in milk this morning for breakfast. Disgusting, but she liked them, and it's yet another thing I'm going to blame on Earl. ;) Also, she randomly just started saying happy and sad and acting each one out. It was unbelievably cool!
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