Cute Picture of the Day

How on earth she went from baby face to toddler face to almost little kid face, I don't know...

Kids grow SO fast.

I tried to get her dressed in some grubby pants and jacket to go outside...the boots are easily washed off...and she loves the fact that she stays dry in them when she goes puddle jumping!

Roofin'!

We planned to get the roof done this spring, and boy, did it happen quickly!

We had a couple of bids done this winter (during the three leaks we fixed ourselves), and as SOON as I was off of school, I called one of the guys I had chosen and asked if the price was still good...

Well, being that we have a small house (so we didn't require much time), and they had a crew done early on another job, they offered to come today and get started...
At 8:30 a.m., we had a truck in the driveway with a trailer for the old roof.

By 10:30, most of it was torn off...

By lunch time they had put on the new decking...

By the 2:30 they were putting on the new comp...

And by this evening (they worked just past dark) they had ALL the new sheathing in the back.

We got 50-year guaranteed materials, including a new pond-liner quality roofing for the flat part.

Monday, they put on the new gutters.

As much as I've felt ambivilent about this house, I feel like I LOVE it now that I know I won't be calling my poor mom to come babysit while I go up on the roof and try to sludge some tar around while Brian's gone, so we can stop a leak for the short term.

Problem SOLVED!

Our Little Bean Pole...

Well, all of you who know our story of how hard it was getting our girl don't hear me complain much, if at all...

But DANG PEOPLE, CAN WE GET HER TO STOP GROWING 3 inches every 6 months?!?! PLEASE?

Here we are...spring is coming, and the pants I made her that were just above her ankles (originally meant to be capri-style pants) are just below her knees this spring.

If she hasn't worn them out this year, they'll be short-shorts next summer.

As you can see above, I have some pajama pants on the far left that are too short for her now (also taken in to 18" in the waist), some 3T pants and a pair of 4T leggings that I took in to 18" so she can wear them now, and some 5T pajama pants she can wear soon, if not now.

She's not even 2 1/2 yet!!! That's next week, sure, but REALLY? 5T anything at 2.5?

I jokingly call her my Glamazon...but dang, that's almost "too short" of a name for her.

Bean Pole.

To quote Shaun White: "Freaky Deaky".

Cute Zoo Pictures of The Day

I have two weeks of classes and finals left, so today, Brian dropped me off in downtown Portland to study at a different Starbucks than my usual, and he took Nora to the zoo.

We've discovered this is a fun thing to do that a) makes me feel like I'm doing something fresh and new in a new location and b) allows me to join them when I don't need a whole day to study, but rather a few hours.

PLUS, I can take the Max (light rail system in Portland) out to Wash Park and meet up with them without interrupting their fun.

So today, on the first day to crack more than 60* in 6 months in Portland on a Saturday, WE, and the REST of the city/region decided it was time to go to the zoo.

It was crazy packed. Nora was SO excited to see me arrive, and we walked around and played and found some cracks and crevices in the zoo (under a large cedar tree) that didn't have other people crawling all over it...


And we saw the elephants, and enjoyed a few other animals before heading home for the day...and a lucky picture or two on my camera, including this one and the one at the bottom, made today so fun.

And when I accidentally deleted them, I paid for a program that someone said would recuscitate my computer's disk, and sure enough, you CAN save deleted files. Here's another one: