To be Three

It is so fun seeing Aiden understand more and more as he gets older. He talks so much more clearly and tries to understand what is going on all the time. He asks lots of questions.

The other day, Aiden and I spotted a worm outside that seemed to be trapped in the water spilled from the dog’s dish. He wiggled all around but couldn’t seem to get anywhere. Aiden and I talked about how earthworms live in the dirt most of the time. My mom mentioned that it was sad that by the time the worm escaped from the puddle, it would probably be warm and dry outside, and the worm might die before he made it back to the dirt. Aiden looked alarmed and said, “I want to save the worm!” He didn’t actually want to touch it, but he convinced Isaac to pick it up and carry it over to the dirt. Then he squatted next to it like this for TWENTY minutes as it wiggled into the dirt.

I was impressed that he would think of “saving” the worm and that he showed compassion for such a tiny creature. The following weekend, he told me that he wanted to watch a worm again, but we didn’t find any. Funny kid.

News

This is somewhat overdue, but we bought a house last month! We are renting out our condo and looking forward to having more space now. It’s a fixer-upper, with much of the house being original or just old. It’s a work in progress, and we haven’t moved in yet. Having Aiden there is a handful, so I often stay away with him.

So far, Isaac has torn off the vines that were covering the balcony. I took this picture after he tore them down. Otherwise, this is original. We are having a new garage door put in this week, and we just got a new front door since I’m pretty sure I could knock this one in without trying too hard.

Here you can see (through the door) the entry tile that we will be be replacing with a slate laminate. We tore out the doors, and Mom refinished the doorway. This is the original kitchen. Isaac tore up FOUR layers of old flooring… it literally added two vertical inches to the room. He tore out the cabinets because some were broken and in bad shape. He tore out the old appliances and bought new ones. He and our friend Jon tore down the unimportant wall to the left of the fridge and the dark beams running all around and across the ceiling. We took down the old light fixtures.

The paint in the kitchen was so dark, and the two different kinds of vinyl were dated, so I wasn’t sad to see any of it go. The house has a country kitchen where the kitchen area runs right into the family room, which is great, but I did not love the wood paneling covering the family room walls, the old AC unit, or the 5’ x 6’ window that was a sheet of glass and didn’t open. We said goodbye to it all.

Isaac and Dad replaced the giant window with two single-hung windows this weekend.

Chris, from our ward, helped us out a lot by fixing our electrical, then Mom and Isaac patched the walls. We went with a lighter, warmer wall color. Mom and Patrick textured the ceiling and walls, and Dad and Isaac joined in for painting.

We have been doing a lot on our own to cut costs, but we decided it was worth a little extra money to have someone else do the cabinets and countertops. They did most of the work in three days. It was amazing.

Now we just have to finish patching the back wall, do finish work around the new windows, texture, paint, and lay the wood laminate flooring we got for this room and the living room.

We have lots more on our list of things to do, but once this is done, we’ll get the master ready, and then we can move in and work on other things as we have time and money. All of the bedrooms have beautiful hardwood flooring that we are planning to uncover and refinish. We already bought paint for the whole house. We are replacing a few upstairs windows, and we need to do a lot of work on the bathrooms… One nice thing about moving into a fixer-upper is that we can fix it up in ways we like.

We have been SO lucky to have friends help us load all of our stuff into the living room and pile up lots of debris in the backyard. My parents are amazing to let us stay with them for so long and to help us do so much work on the house. Everyone has done so much for us, and we look forward to cooking them meals in our new kitchen soon!

Thanks, Uncle Sean!

This is probably a sad time to post these photos since both teams just lost yesterday, but we’re still Bay Area sports fans.
Uncle Sean picked up some sweet gear for Aiden from Spring Training and said Aiden would have to make a choice.

I don’t think he’s really chosen… but he does like to throw on the hat before he goes outside to play with the whiffle ball sometimes. I think he looks cute in both!