Remodeling....still

Well, for those of you who are wondering how the house selling is going...it's not. We have still had very few people looking at the house and the ones who do aren't interested. Dan is working like a madman on the back room (Bosley's room). The horrible wallpaper, border and paneling have all been removed (thanks to the help of his brothers-in-law) and he's started the painting, but Menards gave us two different colors of paint, so it will have to all be repainted. ugh. The carpet will be replaced on Monday and now we are considering putting in new windows as well. This is a much bigger project than what we were wanting to do, and I'm just praying it will pay off in the end. At this point, I have my doubts.
On a good note, Vince is doing fantastic. He was really sick for several days, but he's finally gotten back to himself. He has a new toy that he loves. The first day it was set up, I was feeding him his morning bottle on the couch in the living room and as soon as he was done, he climbed off my lap and got off the couch (by himself, for the most part; all I did was keep my hand on his back in case he fell backwards) and practically sprinted (in a crawl, of course) over to it. I felt terrible because I didn't have any batteries in it, so he was just banging on it with no sounds or lights. He didn't seem to mind. But that night I got the batteries in and he LOVED it. It sings in Spanish and English and he just dances and wiggles and giggles the whole time. I don't think he's touched any of his other toys all week. Except the farm magnet. That thing's like crack for him. Here's a picture of his new fav toy.



Hope you all have a great weekend.

New Ripley Photos

Wow, it's been a while.

Well, it's been a pretty hectic few weeks for us. The little man is doing some really exciting stuff these days: he is fully crawling, he is pulling himself up to standing at furniture, people, toys, pets, cabinets, drawers...well, you get the picture. He loves being at Jamie's house. It's fun to see him in a different environment from what we have at home. I love hearing about how he plays when I'm not around; it's like seeing another side of our little boy! Here is a recent mischief photo of Vince...he climbed in to the cage all on his own:







Dan's job is going really well. He is still loving what he does, which makes every one's life happier. On the weekends that Dan comes home, he is working on fixing up the back room of our house to make the place a bit more marketable.

I have been training a new employee, Debbie, at work. She seems to be catching on really well and she has experience in the industry, so it's nice not to have to start from scratch. It is also nice to have someone to bear the burden of my ever-growing list of things to do! For the last few months I have been feeling like I do a lot of things at once and not as well as I could, whereas now I'm already starting to feel like I can do just one or two things at a time and do them well!!! So that's exciting. The setup of my desk has rearranged to provide room for her, so we're trying to figure out how we can arrange things so that everything works ergonomically. Right now we're doing a lot of stretching and reaching and we're both seeing how uncomfortable that is. Either way, though, it's nice to have some relief!

We were excited to find out that Dan's sister Ezzy is having another girl; you can't go wrong with lots of PINK!!! Macaria hasn't decided yet whether she's going to make us all wait until August to find out the sex of her baby or whether she'll have mercy on us and tell us at the beginning of April. So far the trend is girls this year between Ezzy and the Hawkers! We'll see if the trend keeps going!

Here's another funny photo just to give you a chuckle:

Photos

Vince is having another very eventful month. He got his teeth, he's really trying to do an actual crawl, but usually reverts back to a low-crawl for the sake of speed. He's pulling himself up on people, toys, furniture...I think he would try to use Bosley as a prop if Bosley would hold still long enough!

Mommy and Daddy are doing well too, but just anxious to get moved. For a while Dan was coming home only every other weekend in the interest of saving gas money, but we've decided to go back to every weekend since we all miss each other too much to wait that long. You may know that we have turned off our cable tv, internet, and home phone, so if you want to reach us you'll have to call our cell phones. I am really enjoying not having cable! No, seriously! I have been so much more productive...and I have been getting so much more sleep!!!! I haven't been tired during the day since I had the cable turned off!

Anyway, here are some photos of the little man.

THEY'RE IN!!! You can't see them too well, but all four top teeth have come in! He's now got 6 in all!!

My big boy can pull himself up and stand on his own!!!

He loves squishing his face on the mesh.

Look, Ma!!! No hands!

A little playtime before going to sleep never hurt anyone!!