The Gribbles: August 2008

Caroline 6 weeks old

Can't believer our little princess is 6 weeks old. We have been keeping busy. Swyer started back to pre-school last week on Tuesday and Thursday. He loves it! Caroline is starting to smile and coo. Jammie took the kids to their well checks yesterday. Sawyer is 40 lbs and 40 inches (95% for height and off the chart for weight). Doctor says he's height and weight is similar to an average 4 year old; but the doctor isn't concerned. Caroline is 12 lbs and 21 3/4 inches long (97% for weight and 67% for height, 80% for head circumferance). They are both growing and gaining fine! Caroline had her first 1 oz bottle on Aug 21st. She inhaled the breast milk so fast!!!!!!!!

Jammie and the kids headed to the cabin last weekend and had a blast. Sawyer rode the jet ski for the first time and went to the swim raft--Jammie was pushing him on a floating toy. We are headed back to the lake for Labor Day weekend. Have a good one:)

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Sawyer 3rd B-day Video Clips

Here are some live action video clips from the big day! Enjoy!

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Videos Caroline

Trying this new way to post videos. Let us know if you have a hard time viewing or if it is slower than what we use to do for video postings. We will try it out.....
there are 4 different videos so make sure you see them all.

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Sawyer 3rd B-day

Sawyer is 3! We had a birthday party on August 9th. His grandparents and aunts/uncles from NC and MI traveled to be with us! His friends from school (Kyle) and church (Chase and Seth) helped us celebrate as well. The theme for the party was the Wiggles. Mommy made him a 3-D Big Red Car cake! It was a hit. All the food was "wiggley" and everyone wore Wiggles colors. Fun was had by all. On his acutal birthday, his Papa made him french toast, he opened some presents and then we went to the studio to have his picture taken. In the afternoon, he contined to open gifts and then we went to the driving range (his GG and Papa gave him some jr clubs and a bag). We went to Wendy's ( Sawyers choice) and then to Chucke Cheese for games. Sawyer "won" silly face glasses with all his tickets. The day ended with A gaint chochlate chip cookie that his mommy made! SOME of the gifts he reveived were: a wiggles big red car, kids guitar, fisher price kids digital camera, Elmo back pack, Tarheels shirt, Little Einsteins figures and activity book, marble run game,Diego game, Little Einsteins DVDs, airplanes, trucks, a home rocket-boy pack..lighting McQueen puzzlel, stick-em ball paddle game...the list goes on. Needless to say...he had a great birthday "week".

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CAROLINE WEEKS 3 - 5 SLIDE SHOW

Can't believe that Caroline is over 1 month old. She is sleeping a lot still and eating tons. She is sleeping about 3 hrs at night at a time. Sometimes she wakes up to eat and stays awake longer than mommy would like! She is holding her head up by herself and will hold her head in the middle while on her belly for a few seconds. She is too precious! Here is a slide show with random pictures from the last several weeks..it is all a blurr!

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The Countertop Saga

A major component of our kitchen remodel was getting new countertops. We shopped around quite a bit and decided to go with laminate countertops instead of a Corian or a Granite material. Those other materials are very nice, but we realized we probably won't get the return on our investment in this house if we did. The laminate countertops are very nice and they come in a "high-definition" style that looks really nice.

We decided to use a local person rather than Lowe's or Home Depot. Initially, we had a good experience with the guy being very prompt and knowledgeable. He told us it would be a 3 day job to get the kitchen countertops done. We also arranged for him to replace a small countertop in our master bathroom. Still a 3 day job was promised. He even told us if we wanted to schedule the job as soon as we went to the hospital for Caroline's delivery, he could start the job and just about have it done by the time we got home. This is essentially what we did, scheduling the start of the job on Tuesday, the day after she was born. Keep in mind we had Mom, Dad, and Bethany staying at our house.

So, the guy we hired started the job on Tuesday night, telling us he'd be done by Thursday. We were going to come home on Wed, but figured we could suck it up for a day without having a working kitchen or a bathroom sink in our master bathroom. That would leave us with one working sink in the house.

Long story short, the job did not get completed until Wed of the following week. A 3 day job turned into an 8 day job!!!!!!!! It was a very frustrating process with lots of phone messages and uncertainties during this time. I applaud and apologize to my family and guests for getting through a week with 5 adults and two children in the house and only the guest bathroom sink working.

All in all, we were happy with the finished product. The countertops and the sink look great and we're really enjoying them.

In the week waiting for the countertops to get put in, I replaced the light fixtures in the kitchen to try and update things a little bit. Here are some before and after pics.

It was a long ordeal, but we're really happy with the new kitchen.

Still more stuff to do in the house, though!

Home Improvement

Stepping away from the obvious reason you've been tuning into the blog, I wanted to tell you about the home improvement projects I've been taking on. We were motivated to re-model our kitchen and complete some updates throughout the house this summer. We were hoping to get as much done as possible before Caroline was born and accomplished a lot of it. However, some of it was still going on right after she was born and is still ongoing.

The biggest focus was the kitchen. We decided we wanted to re-do the floor and the countertops, re-paint the walls, and replace the sink and light fixtures. We paid someone to do the countertops and sink and I did everything else. Here are pictures of the kitchen before the project as I was starting the first phase, the painting. You can see the old countertops, floor and the wall colors.

I painted the walls, doors and trim using two shades of brown.

After the walls were done, I put down a new floor. I used a vinyl product that comes in "planks" and has a stone look to it. I started on the Saturday before Caroline was born and worked all day. I needed to finish up a little bit on Sunday. Thankfully, she cooperated and waited until the floor was done and I could put the stove and refrigerator back in place.