The Reason for the Blog Break

For those of you who have not heard, Matt is running for Athens County Commissioner. We are working hard on his campaign. You can keep up with him at www.MattGaiser.com or www.facebook.com/Matt.Gaiser.

Blog Break

Sorry for the long blog break. We have been doing renovations at home and going a hundred miles per hour in every direction. We have been adding pictures to Facebook of the home renovations, but here are a few in case you have not seen them yet.

Step 1, adding a new floor to the breezeway between the house and the garage. This was done for a little while before anything else got done.

This is the picture that Matt posted on Facebook with the heading..."My wife left me alone for one night." Then he said, "Behind curtain #1......"

Step 2 - Tearing the closets out of both bedrooms to extend the hallway outside to the breezeway and eventually the garage that will someday be the master bedroom/bath/walk-in closet!!

View from the inside looking out to the garage. They also took the wall off the garage. One of the walls will be moved slightly into the garage to make room for an office.

View from the breezeway looking into the house. Once we got the siding off the house, Matt noticed that there was a lot of writing on the wood. He did a little research, and we found out that our home was a catalog home made by Aladdin and was called The Madison. We are still up in the air about the year it was built. Our tax card says 1935, but our research points toward the early 1950's. The Madison was sold from 1931-1950's. Our particular floor plan has some of the slight differences in the floor plan in the 1950's style house. We are still looking into it.

Here is the missing garage wall. Our friend Adam is standing next to the wall that is going to be moved.

Here is the breezeway and our house missing windows into our bedroom and the kids room.

This is our bedroom with our old closet doorway filled in. We have been able to put our bed back together so we can sleep in there.

We removed half of the wall into the garage to make the office a little bigger. Also, we put in a new exterior door.

Here is our new door which will be in the office. To the right of the door, the new closet for the kids room has been framed in.

More pictures to come later. We are at a standstill because we have not bought a shower yet for the new bathroom.

First Haircuts

Last weekend we went to Columbus to pick Alla up from the airport. As she was boarding her plane in Baltimore, the airline discovered a problem with the plane so they had to get off and wait for a new plane. She called me right away, but we were already on our way to the airport so I just kept coming. Since we had time to kill in Columbus, I headed to Once Upon A Child to do a little shopping. For those of you who don't know, Once Upon A Child is a great second-hand kids store with about anything you could ever want for your kids. We were looking for a raincoat for Micah and found one for $3.00.

As I was driving to the store, I saw a Cookie Cutters hair salon for kids. Micah needed his hair cut really bad. It was in his eyes and over his ears. I had been putting it off because I didn't want to loose his baby curls. Amelia had never had her hair cut before either, and it needed evened out. I pulled in to see if they could take us as walk-in appointments. They were really busy, but managed to squeeze us in.

I love places that are geared to kids. It makes being a mom so much easier. Amelia went first and I was able to put Micah in a play area that had a half wall so he could not get out, but I could still see him. Amelia got to watch Dora the Explorer while she had her hair cut and blow dried and got a sucker for being so good.

Micah was next. Here he is before his hair cut. He is definitely looking a little bit neglected.


We had to put him in a different seat so he could have a seat belt. I was worried because Micah does not sit still, but he was a perfect angel. He did try to push the stylist hands out of the way, but only because he could not see the TV.





I am glad I picked Cookie Cutters. The kids had fun and I was not stressed trying to corral one while the other was getting their hair cut.

Ring Around the Rosy

Amelia loves to play ring around the rosy and will play with anyone who will play with her. Her grandparents are especially accommodating (as grandparents tend to be). Her Nana and Papa Gaiser have found the trick to "we all fall down" without having so far to get up.

In the background of the second picture, you can see Micah's new trick. He can now climb on top of his toy box and then onto the couch. Last week we went to visit the Fishers and he pulled out their kitchen chair, climbed on it, then climbed on a desk and then climbed on the kitchen countertops, which is where I found him sitting after helping Amelia over the safety gate we had set up so Micah would not climb the steps. I was definitely freaked out, but he was happy and content. I wish had my camera with me to take a picture.

Playing in the Snow

As most of you are probably aware, Ohio has had a lot of snow over the past few weeks. Enough so that we have really not left the house much since the roads have been so bad. I have been wanting to get the kids out to play in the snow, but they both have had colds so we have been basically house bound. It has also been frigid cold outside too. Today, the sun came out and we had beautiful blue sky and the temperature was up over 30 degrees. I decided it was finally time to take the kids outside to play. They had a great time. Micah quickly gave up trying to walk and crawled around. Amelia and I made a tiny little snow man which she took apart and put back together. Micah ate snow and I helped Amelia make a snow angel. They didn't want to come inside when it was time. More snow is on the way. Maybe they will get another chance to play outside.



Amelia with her little snowman. She wanted to bring him inside. I tried to explain that he would melt, but I don't think she understood.

Micah soon gave up trying to walk and army crawled in the snow. Below is a picture of him tasting the snow.

Here is a picture of some deer that watched us play for a while. Amelia was yelling and waving at them, but they didn't seem scared. They eventually wandered away.

Daddy

"My father is my hero - the giant who protects me, the teacher who inspires me, and the guide who shows me the world. His my source of strength, motivation, and vision of the future."

I recently found a frame with the above inscription on it and thought immediately of this picture. How true it is that when we are little, we know our dads can conquer the world. Sure, Mommy can help me feel better, but everything else, only Daddy can do it right.

Micah Turns 1

I really don't have a lot of time to post, but I wanted to put up pictures of Micah for his birthday. We celebrated at our house a couple of weeks ago with a lot of family. Here are some shots we got taken at Wal-Mart of all places.

The story behind this little white outfit is that my dad had his picture taken in this same outfit when he was about a year old. My mom took CJ to get his picture taken in it when he was little and CJ and Michelle took Joshua when he was about a year old too. I love having special memories that can be passed down for generations. James will be the next to get his picture taken in this outfit. For more pictures, check out my facebook photos.