What's Up?

Both Jr. and I came down with some sort of summer flu/cold so that has been pretty consuming on my mind, but there is so much other great things happening. . .

Ed leveled and cleared our rocky weedy nasty back yard and installed sod for Jr. to have a lovely play area. I sure hope it lives. We still have a few yards of sod to install, but the start is amazing. Our tiered yard is SO handy sometimes and SO kid friendly. . . not. That is why sodding the lowest level was so imperative. Jr. needs a safe place to toddle around and play without us worrying about him falling off of 3 and a half foot retaining wall or even the 2 foot retaining wall. Ed also built a step to the second level, we already have a set of stairs from the lowest level to the third level, but everyone always would step up to the second level in a particular spot, so Mr. Crafty built some awesome, but sort of unconventional steps. Jr. has already mastered climbing them. Time will tell if they are truly the brilliant idea I think they are now!

**Gross rocky/weedy area in lower level near deck. NOT kid friendly.**
**Soft, beautiful, gentle sod.**
**The STEP!**

Ed also built me three very cool planter boxes over top of what used to be a weedy rocky nightmare. I planted raspberries on the end and in the boxes I planted tomatoes, basil, lavender, mint and rosemary. If nothing else it smells spectacular. In one box I just planted flowers, yellow, orange and red flowers. For the first time since we have bought this house, our yard is actually looking VERY NICE. It is amazing what you can do with a yard when you spend most of your evenings at home, and many weekends.

***See the shaggy potentilla bushes and the massive weedy/rocky area behind us. Ick.
***See the beautiful new planter boxes and the fragrant herb/tomato/flower garden with pavers between them.

That brings me to an interesting place, trying for the life of me to remember what in the hell I did with my time before my little turkey was born. I can tell you this, I certainly didn't spend two consecutive weekends in Helena during the summer. Nor did I find it darn near impossible to go to the movies with my friends. I am sure it will come as NO SURPRISE to all of you that post baby priorities change in a major way. I didn't want it to be this way, but as it turns out, it isn't so bad. I love my husband, I love my child and I love my Selma and now I get all of that every day. I feel like we are finally hitting our stride as a family, like we all have kind of figured out how all of this works and we are comfortable with our new place.

Well, I can't speak for Selma. Since Ed Jr. and Miles' death she is kind of a shell of her former self. Until you take her for a walk. HELLO! She is a wild cat on the prowl. I try to love her and be with her whenever I can, but she is kind of invisible these days. She either isn't around or just laying 4 feet away from me, instead of her usual 0 inches from me. Right now as I type I feel like I should be petting/playing with her, but Jr. is napping, Ed is biking and I need to capitalize on my free time. Okay, pet Selma with foot while type. Got it. Speaking of our beautiful gardens and Selma, she took it upon herself to dig into my lilly garden and make herself a nice cool bed. DAMN IT! I was just marveling on how my transplanted lilies were thriving in a dark dank hole between two bushes on the north side of the house and here comes SELMA. I guess that settles some debate Ed and I had about which dog was always digging in the flower gardens, although I still blame some of those on Miles. He would come in with dirt on his paws and nose. Labs!?!?!

One last tidbit and then I need to start cleaning our house - MIL and FIL are coming, so it isn't just a pick up our crap clean, it is a white glove at the Ritz clean, well, okay, more like a wipe everything down once and hope for the best clean because I have a shedding chocolate lab and baby.

Last night we left Jr. at his grandparents and went to a wedding for 5 HOURS! It was an incredible wedding between our new friends Erik and Sarah. I drank way too much beer and visited and visited with whatever stranger or friend happened by. I didn't have to chase a busy baby or worry about him breaking anything. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I did miss him, and text his Uncle Ian about 400 times to make sure he was okay, but it felt amazing to be able to enjoy myself without worrying about him. He did great, it was his Streganona's birthday party and she had ALL of her family there, Jr. was surrounded by happy family. Plus his cousin Faith was there to play with him. Last night I put him to sleep at his grandparents house and when we went to move him to come home he didn't even wake up at all AND slept in his crib until 5:00 AM. At 5 Ed went and got him and then he slept until about 7:30 with us. AHhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then it was my sleep in day, so I got to snooze until almost 9:30!

He must have partied pretty hard to be so tired. I know that I sure did!