Pergola idea

We have been searching for pergola ideas for our patio and finally found one we really like! I love how the right side of this deck has a higher rail for privacy but the rest of the railing is normal size. We are most likely going to use red wood and use parafin to keep the natural red wood color. We loved having the white pergola but since we are using more earth tones when we paint the house we want to keep the natural earthy feel out on the patio as well. Wow - this is going to be one massive project!

Sunday in the park

I can't help it - I have that song "Saturday, in the park, I think it was the 4th of July" in my head all day today :) Cheesy, I know

We took a break from the construction zone and brought the girls to the park with mimi and papa today. We put them in the swings and took them on the slides - they were loving every minute of it! All smiles and laughing the whole time - so fun!

March Madness - Demolition!

Since much of our pergola was in tough shape - by tough shape I mean rotting wood that looks like it is about to collapse - we decided to tear down and rebuild this spring. James began taking the pergola apart by unscrewing and taking apart each individual board, then after a few minutes and a few boards were down, the REAL demolition began...
Once the chainsaw came out we had a few volunteers to come help us - thanks so much Papa and Bradley for helping James with demo!! It would have taken us way longer to do it alone, we are so appreciative of the helping hands!

It took most of the afternoon, but the pergola came down in one day. Mimi, Jolene and I stayed with the kids and had a good time catching up. Little Andrew was smiling already! Too bad I didn't have the camera out to catch the smiles - so adorable!

The back of our house looked like a barren wasteland - sawdust was EVERYWHERE and patio furniture all over our lawn - yikes! James handled the clean-up on Sunday and we are now ready to start getting ideas together for the new patio...

This picture isn't demo-related but it is such a great shot of Bradley and Joseph I just want to have it posted so I can look at it again :)

Easter Bonnets

We recieved Easter bonnets in the mail the other day from great-grammy in Butte MT. She knitted them just for the girls for Easter. They are so adorable I couldn't wait to put them on and take a picture - Thanks Great-Grammy!

And here is another random picture...the girls were being so cute that day :)

Happy Days

Meanwhile, back at the condo

We had the nanny for a few days, then we rotated through who stayed back in the condo with the kiddos... Skiing was a blast but having everyone together was great fun as well.

Here is Sophia doing her very best Elvis impersonation - her knee was twitching and everything!
This was too cute - James reading to Sophia

Isabella being a cutie pie

Silviya came over on Saturday while Greg and Eileen were skiing and helped us out so much! Mimi and I had our hands full with all 4 kids! Silviya read to Joseph while he was eating lunch.

Joseph loves Andrew so much - he was always wanting to show us his new baby brother!

Mimi gave Andrew his bottle, he was the best behaved out of all 4 kids, such a good boy
Here is proud daddy Bradley with Andrew

How adorable is this face!?

Joseph tried on some ski boots - He looks ready to ski to me!

Joseph was wispering to Sophia "I'm a big boy"

The cousins playing together

Daredevil James and Green Lightning strike again

James is getting so good it is really hard to believe he just started last year. Here is a picture from when they ventured over to the north peak and went on some scary steep blue runs over there - beautiful view! I got brave enough to ski 2 blue runs this weekend... Spring Dipper and the Bachelor. We had so much fun we are planning on going again this Sunday - woohoo!
Both Bradley and Papa said they had a hard time keeping up with Sir James as he raced down the North Peak runs...but Mimi said all three of them were acting like wild animals wooping and hollering and going over jumps! Sounds like they had a great time, but I am just happy to be doing a few of the easiest blue runs for now, don't think I'll be joining them over on that side of the mountain for awhile :)

Keystone here we come!

We had the time of our lives this weekend up at Keystone with Mimi, Papa, Bradley, Jolene, Joseph and Andrew and it looks like the good times are just beginning...Mimi and Papa decided to buy a beautiful 3 bedroom condo in keystone very near the moutain house base!!! It is in the Wild Irishman complex and has a swimming pool and a shuttle bus pick-up for the slopes just outside the front door! We are going to spend the summer helping them paint and remodel it, then we can let the good times roll - woohoo!!! We are so excited to spend the weekends skiing in the winter and riding bikes, swimming and enjoying the cool mountian air in the summer. The closing date is in early April so we hope to get up there and enjoy it at least once before ski season is over...we can post pictures then. The best part is that mimi and papa want us to join them up there as much as we can - it is going to be so much fun we cant wait!

Mama!!

Both girls have been saying dada for awhile now so as you can imagine I work with them quite often to get them saying mama... Finally yesterday Sophia said it!! And I have it on video tape :) I still haven't figured out how to post video but I wish I could - it was so cute! She has another tooth this week as well, for a grand total of 6 teeth.

We are super excited for our Stolz family ski vacation this weekend. We are leaving Thursday morning and can't wait to get up there on the slopes for FOUR days!! Woohoo!!! I have new ski boots as well, they feel so much better than the rentals I just can't wait to try them out! I'll post pictures when we get back, hopefully I will get braver and go on some blues this weekend :)

Pajama party

Sometimes the girls are the cutest when they are getting ready for bed or just waking up in the morning - PJ time! Here are some cute pictures...

Isabella waking up in the morning - she wakes up and plays with her "lovey" a little hippo blanket
We never cease to be amazed at the crazy positions we find Sophie in during the night when she is fast asleep - here is how I found her one morning

Sophie getting ready to crawl

"I don't know who did it, It wasn't me!"

Isabella playing with her little table

Time to baby-proof

Sophia has started crawling! It started last Tuesday, when she dropped a ball she was playing with and it rolled across the family room floor.... She looked up at me then did the army crawl over to get it and then brought it back! I could not believe my eyes! Since then she has gotten much faster and more efficient, and we have to be very careful where we leave her if we are leaving the room now :) She is getting up on her knees quite often and I think she will do the official baby crawl any day now. She also has got a few more teeth in the last few weeks, her top 2 finally broke through and a third one on the bottom. She is handling these teeth much better than her first two and we barely noticed she was teething this time, whew!

Isabella finally has her two front bottom teeth! We didn't notice the first one coming in but with the second one she has been pretty fussy, poor thing - we can tell she is in pain :( She did much better today so hopefully we are done with that for awhile now. She has been taking a few steps lately with us holding her hands and she is starting to turn around when she is on her tummy. Still not signs of crawling, but she will get there soon enough. James also saw her go from sitting to her tummy yesterday. They are getting so big so fast lately, it's crazy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW JAMES STOLZ!

We are so happy to welcome our nephew Andrew James Stolz into the world! He finally made his grand entrance almost one week after he was scheduled to on Friday, February 20th around 4:30 am... Happy Birthday Andrew! He is absolutely adorable and looks a lot like Joseph did when he was born. He weighed 8lb 6oz!
I am such a proud Auntie, and we were so lucky that he was awake almost the whole time we were there visiting :) I seriously can't describe how adorable he is. I also hear that he is a champion cryer with quite a set of lungs on him! Rumor also has it that he has already slept 9 hours (what!?! my girls never got the memo that babies should be doing this until they were at least 2 months old!)

I've seen him make this face alot - so precious!

I didn't take any pictures of Bradley and Jolene but they really looked amazing in the hospital - they were both so happy they were glowing! Such a beautiful family they have...

The girls and I went to visit them again today and we had a great time! It was so much fun to see Joseph and how much he loves "new baby" as he calls him, so cute.

Andrew has gotten so big in the last week

As always, Joseph LOVES to see SushiBewa...or is it Sofa and Belly, like Papa says :) In any case, they love to see him too and it is fun to watch them play together...

If you look close you can see how tightly Isabella is holding onto Josephs with her arms and her legs - it was pretty cute

We all made it to the park by Bradley and Jolene's house for a little while as well, I was pretty proud of us for making it with all of the kids - even though we got held up a few times to feed babies and change diapers.

Fun with Dada!

James has lots of bonding time with the girls since 3 days a week I am working and he is home alone with them from the time he gets home from work until the time they go to bed. I am continually amazed at easy he makes it look....when I know that it is no easy task getting them fed, bathed and put to bed all by yourself!

He figured out the most efficient way to carry them both up and down the stairs - and they love it!
Whenever I call him during babies dinner time I hear lots of giggling - they love their daddy and all of the crazy faces and things he does to make them laugh!

Dinner time with daddy may get messy but it is lots of fun!