roman's buddy

last weekend, we went to hannibal, MO with part of the wenger family -- i think the final count that I heard was 42 people, which I think is about 2/3 of the whole gang. it was a good weekend - went way too fast but it was fun to see everyone and do some catching up! roman and our nephew, raefe, both ended up being a little under-the-weather pretty much as soon as we got there, but they were troopers and hung in there - weren't quite themselves but i think they enjoyed themselves at random times!

since we've been back, roman has talked about raefe quite a bit -- at least once a day, he sees someone, either another child or a picture, and says "raefe! raefe!" we bought an inflatable pool and roman was sure that the little boy on the box was raefe... luckily, we get to see raefe next weekend, for his 2nd birthday! so roman can spend some more time with the real raefe! :)

New Floors!

over memorial day weekend, jake took on the task of ripping out the carpet in our front room and the linoleum in our kitchen and putting in hard wood flooring. his right-hand man for the project was brother rick, and also had some help from charlie and derek. roman and i were (politely!) asked to be out of the house for the weekend, so we went to wayland and had a fun time there! jake and rick started their work on thursday afternoon and would randomly text pictures to me with short captions... things like "progress" or "slow going but good"... and then one time, "sorry babe. i put a staple in my finger" which of course included a picture. thankfully it was a minor injury. here are some pics of the progress...

half-way done with the front room -- notice the nasty "high-traffic" area in the middle of the room. eww! gross!some of the tools the boys used...

almost done with the front room... yeah!a nice shot of the kitchen all done. (there aren't more pics of the kitchen in stages... the guys were in a groove and getting it done, not taking pics!!)

roman is liking the new floor. here he is, enjoying the new floor and also a cookie that gma susan sent back with us!

not meaning to brag, but i think the guys did an amazing job on the floors and love how they look! (and i hear that they'll be nicer/easier to keep clean, too! yeah!) very proud of jake and his crew! :)

me mow

sorry for the long time away from posting... no good excuse, just enjoying spending time together and enjoying life! :) not sure if it's because we're his parents, but we are amazed at how much/fast roman is growing -- being a little parrot and repeating what we say and reminding us that he has a little mind of his own at times. :]

our neighbor larry brought over a little mower for roman to use, which he does. whenever jake goes out to mow, roman says "me mow" and follows jake outside to the shed. when he pushes it, the mower tends to drive "down" which is a bit frustrating to roman, so he usually mows backward (aka pulls the mower)... as long as he's going at a pace similar to jake, he's happy.