A LE UNIT BIRTHDAY WEEKEND

The Le Unit spent the weekend celebrating the fact that Mommy is yet another year older. The highlight of the two days was definitely when Mimi and Papa took the fam out to Texas de Brazil! Though the sweet ring Aunts Michelle, Tania and KJ chipped in for was a close runner-up. Anyway, as mentioned in previous posts (see categorie: Good Eats), the Le Unit absolutely loves the idea of eating a calf's worth of various meats on swords, especially with the meat-and-potato craving Leighton/Olive. Seriously, quit wondering about the ad in your in-flight magazine and check it out if you've never been.


Mimi and Papa are taking us to Texas de Brazil!


Plowing through a softball-sized serving of shrimp will make any 2-year old lazy.


Got your trowels ready? Its time to get to work on the cake! Seriously, going to Home Depot gets Fayte excited like she's going to Sea World. She must be pretty sheltered.


"I see your ring, and I'll raise you one cake!"

And here's how the transaction went down:

EASTER 2008

As promised, here's a big update for Easter. This year, we spent the weekend in beautiful Austin.


Outta the way! I'm headed to Austin! Fayte actually spent the whole week down there with Ba Noi. Riding with Bert is just one of the perks.


Hey Hey We're the Monkeys...


...always monkeying around!


Cousin Hadley fixes Fayte's busted wheel.


Future art director in the making


Fayte decides that eating eggs is a much better way to enjoy them.


Easter Sunday in Lakeway


The Lovely Le Ladies


The Easter Bunny pooped candy all over our yard in Dallas!


Fayte does curls with the massive haul.


NOOOOO Fayte! Looks like we'll be pulling weeds next weekend.

By the way, on our drive back home to Dallas, we made a stop and check out who's back from 1988:

IT'S MAC TONIGHT!!! The Le Unit holds him dear to our hearts for obvious reasons.

OLIVE/LEIGHTON JUST KEEPS GROWING

Olive/Leighton is 16 weeks old this week and is roughly the size of an avocado now and in the next three weeks, he/she will double in weight! Plus there's no mistaking it. This baby likes to kick! Perhaps Olive/Leighton is trying to keep up with Fayte's Beckham-esque soccer playing lately. We've been lavishing praise on her and after all, the baby can now hear from inside of the womb.



Speaking of Fayte, here's some random art of the two Le Ladies jogging up our street.

WEEKEND FUN WITH FAYTE

Just some random photos of Fayte from this weekend. We're looking forward to Easter weekend. Expect a big update!


Going for a jog down our new street.


Working on the bike.


All future Longhorns in the house SHAKE YOUR BOOTY!


Whistler's Mother watches TV.


Cousin Connor came to visit.

And here's some video of Fayte practicing Tai Chi at the park:

FAYTE-PROOFING THE FLOORS

UPDATE: Just wrapped up staining the floor. If you're interested, we can set up a Web cam and stream a live feed so that you can watch it dry. Any takers? No? Oh well.



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As we mentioned earlier this week, we were lucky enough to find beautiful hardwood floors underneath our carpet. Unfortunately it wasn't so beautiful in every spot, which was to be expected. Otherwise, why would the previous owner cover it up? With furniture still waiting to be moved in, and with the clock ticking on when we have to be out of our old apartment, we knew we had to get to work. Here's the room with the carpet. Not bad, but give it a few months with Fayte.



We were warned that sanding your own floors is something best left to a professional. We read so many horror stories from fellow do-it-yourselfers, mainly tales about gouging holes into floors and losing control of the floor sander that we began to have second thoughts. In the end, we decided to bite the bullet and do it ourselves. After all, we did find free wood floors. Paying someone to do them would seem counter-productive.


Digging for gold....er, precious wood.


Said blemishes and imperfections.


We wear these all the time in case of SARS. We just happened to be sanding today.



And here it is completely sanded within 3 hours! Trust us. If you can mow a lawn, then you can sand your own floors. You can't tell from the photo, but the wood looks beautiful in its natural unfinished color. However, the whole reason we're going with wood is to defend against Fayte and her little brother/sister. So, we are going to stain it a dark walnut color. Stay tuned.

OLIVE/LEIGHTON, BOOTY-SHAKIN' AT WEEK 15

We've reached week 15 in the pregnancy and the biggest news this week is that Fayte is now able to feel her little brother/sister kicking and squirming for the first time! We are very excited about that. The baby has been just as active as he/she was in the 9 week ultrasound. We've still got one more doctor's visit before the next ultrasound in which we'll find out the answer to the big question, but in the mean time, please vote in the poll to your right. There are clues that pertain to some old wives tales over there, but here's another: the baby's heart rate the last two visits has been very high. Anyway, your guess is as good as ours.

In case you weren't around during the beginnings of this new blog, here is our first photo of Olive/Leighton:



And for those of you who prefer to watch TV:



As always, you can view previous posts about Olive/Leighton by clicking on "Baby" under the categories to the right.

THE KITCHEN'S OFFICIALLY BEEN PIMPED

After two days of peeling through four layers of wallpaper, it took two more days of texturing and prepping the walls to be ready for paint. We were going to wait until the weekend to wrap up work on the kitchen, but after a second day of snow prompted early closings across the Metroplex, we found ourselves with the perfect excuse to finish the job. Check it out:



Here it was before:


So, what's next on the list? Well, after seeing what happened to the carpet in our last two apartments and the subsequent loss of deposit money (thanks a lot Fayte!), we have decided to install hardwood floors. After the various bills and expenses associated with buying a home, we were not very happy researching costs of such a venture. We thought, "Why can't we be like some of those lucky jerks on HGTV who decide to one day put in hardwood, only to find that when they pull up the carpet to begin the process that a beautiful hardwood floor already exists underneath?" That seems to happen A LOT on those shows. Man we hate those people....oh wait....what's this?

WE'VE BECOME ONE OF THOSE COUPLES

"Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time."

Yep, we're with you there Frank The Tank. We actually look forward to going to Home Depot on the weekends now, especially after discovering their monthly Kids Workshop. Every first Saturday, Home Depot holds a free class for the little ones in the morning. This week, while going to stock up on more paint supplies, we actually came across a workshop in which Fayte got to build her own Tony Stewart Home Depot Nascar vehicle! It was pretty neat. Next month, Fayte will get to get her hands dirty with a custom planter. The new baby's hoping it's a potato plant!


Check out the apron!


Evidence clearly indicating that Mommy was the one who put the wheel on backwards.


The finished product.


Fayte trades up to something a little more rugged.



Oh and speaking of building, it took two straight days (especially because we're down a Le due to the pregnancy) but we finally got the kitchen walls peeled and texturized! We're hoping to paint sometime this week if there's time. Otherwise we'll wait until this weekend. We got some snow today here in Dallas so if it stays frozen tomorrow morning, then we might have a chance!


Someone decided to hide out while the painting was going on.


Though Cousin Connor did show up to help us move.


Wait, that's not Connor!


There he is! Fayte practicing her Big Sis skills at the Messersmith's.