Parker is 9 months old!

Parker is 9 months old (on Monday)!  (excuse the non-matching sign, our printer is not hooked up and it was not worth it to pull it up and mess with it so I just made one)
He had his 9 month appointment on Tuesday and he was 18 pounds, 2 ounces and 27 3/8 inches long.  He was healthy as can be and only had to get 1 shot.  He did pretty well with his shot and just fussed briefly right after he got the shot. 


Here is what Parker is up to:
-he crawls very proficiently
-he pulls himself up all the time
-he is starting to let go when he pulls himself up and is getting a little better at balancing
-he likes pretty much all foods and prefer to have pieces to feed himself
-he is figuring out sippy cups and especially likes it when he finds Oliver's water cup lying around
-he takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap and is ready for bed about 7:30
-he is still waking up to eat a few times a night- I'm hoping we can get this stopped fairly soon
-he is a very happy little boy
-he loves to play with Oliver even though Oliver regularly knocks him down
-he is always putting things in his mouth so we try to keep our floors pretty clean
-he is still a bit of a mama's boy and sometimes fusses when people take him if I'm around
-he loves to play with toys and has been having fun lately with stacking cups and blocks

In general, Parker is just a happy little boy.  He seems to have fun in all that he does, he loves to cuddle and loves to laugh. 

Happy 9 month birthday Parker!
We love you!!

Kitchen Update

Here are some flooring pictures from our kitchen and dining room.  We have most of the flooring in, we still need to do at the base of the steps, the closet in the dining room, and a small section in our living room.  Then we need to do all of the trim.  It looks so much better already.  I am really excited to have it all finished one day.  Eric has been in Tennessee this week so I haven't made too much progress.  We did have a person come on Wednesday to move our gas line and he put our stove in too.  Now we have a stove and a fridge in our kitchen- next appliance dishwasher- it can't come soon enough :)  Eric gets back tonight and I think this weekend we are hoping to finish up the flooring and do the trim and transition pieces in the dining room.  I think Eric is also hoping to get a coat of poly on the kitchen cabinets so that they will hopefully be able to be installed in the next few weeks.  As crazy as all of this has been, it really seems like we are making progress and every little bit makes a big difference. 
My mom came and stayed with us last week so that we were able to get a little more work done.  I was able to get the paint on the walls and ceilings done and we got the lighting hung, we still need to make a few adjustments to one of the lights (it is supposed to be a flushmount and it isn't quite flush).  The flooring was the big job done while she was here- it was great to have her here. 
Oliver was upset about our kitchen when we first started tearing it out and really wouldn't even go out in the kitchen even if we were holding him.  Last Friday, I put down the underlayment for the flooring, which made the entire floor blue, Oliver saw that and then said "Now the floor is blue, now it is safe and I can walk out here."  So from then on, he was much more excited about going in the kitchen.  The picture of him above is from the first time he was able to go in when we had some of the wood laminate down.

Kitchen Renovation!

The pictures above are of our kitchen before we started our renovation (other than the drop ceiling we tore out over a year ago)

This was Thursday evening

The above pictures were Friday evening with what got tore out that day.  Eric's parents and grandparents got to our house late Friday night to help us out.

On Saturday, they started the drywall work. We finished the tear-out and they got the new drywall hung on our ceiling. 

On Sunday, they got all of the drywall hung on the walls and got the first layer of mud(plus some of the second done).

On Monday, they got the rest of the mud up and did the sanding.  We also sprayed the walls with some texture.  It looks SO MUCH better already.  We are so thankful that Eric's parents and grandparents were able and willing to come out and stay with us and help us with the kitchen.  We definitely wouldn't have got that all done without them.

After they left on Monday, Eric and I put the first coat of primer on the walls and ceiling, some of the corners weren't quite dry from the mud so we didn't do those yet.

Eric has been working on removing tile on and off most afternoons.  Tonight he finished removing the tile!  I am going to put the second coat of primer on tonight.  Our next steps are the actual painting and installing new flooring!  We are very excited at all the progress our kitchen has made in 1 week!