Snow days

We've gotten over a foot of snow in the past two weeks. It's been fun for all of us to play in the snow on our new property. We went sledding in the backyard when we got about 2 or 3 inches. Then, the next weekend, we got a whole foot of snow. Travis cleared out a little space in the backyard so that Samson could go "shishe" (as Travis calls it). It turned into a platform of snow that both Sheinah and Samson were light enough to walk on. Check out the pictures and video.

Sheinah and Samson check out the snow-ledge (yes, that entire area is our backyard).

Sheinah tries to pull Samson in the sled

Where oh where is my hairbrush?

So this may be considered by some to be not-so-appropriate for the blog environment. We, however, found it so incredibly funny that we just couldn't wait until our annual DVD production to share this with our friends. Sheinah has developed a fondness for brushing our hair. On this day, she decided to brush all of her daddy's hair. Enjoy!

We've actually been trying to upload this video for three weeks, but it was too large. We bought a super-cool video software program at a Black Friday sale and now we can upload an edited version. Our annual Bumgardner family moving is going to ROCK this year!

Sheinah's new hairstyle

Melissa has the honor of doing Sheinah's hair every morning. She's been wearing "pigtails" for awhile now, but we didn't realize how much she liked it until yesterday morning. When Melissa tried to put just one pony tail in her hair and tuck it under (like Lori taught her), Sheinah got all upset and kept asking for "nother one" so Melissa obliged. Then, Sheinah said she wanted one in the back so she could have "free" (as in three) pony tails. Again, despite how interesting it looked, Melissa obliged. Today, Melissa was able to talk her into just two pony tails: one on top and one in the back.

The "Fall Inn"

We got a nice little snow storm today. It wasn't all that big of a deal, except for the roads got really slick...and we have evidence to prove it! While driving home from work early to get a jump start on cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, Melissa got to experience the ice first hand. She was driving slow because the roads were bad and made almost home without any events....until she tried to turn on our street. She hit a patch of ice and realized she wasn't going to be able to stop. The decision was to either go straight or sideways into the ditch :) By the grace of God and some seriously good driving, she put it nicely in the ditch right between a pole and a sign. She was unharmed and so was the van!

Check out the pictures:
















And here's a video (using the new blogger video uploader):

New styles for the Bums

Travis bought a new shaving kit (complete with a nose trimmer that he is way too fond of). The first night he had it, he just couldn't wait to us it to trim his goatee. Apparently, this is a much harder task than anyone anticipated. He thought it would be a good idea to do this in the shower to make clean-up easier. However, he didn't want to get in the shower so he figured he would just lean in over the edge so he could use the built-in mirror in the shower head. Not 1 minute later, Melissa hear's the infamous "oh no" that accompanies all of Travis' adventures. He had managed to take a nice sized chunk out of the corner of his mustache (near his nose). The next step was to trim the other side to match, resulting in a lovely "vato" look. Then he decided to just shave the mustache completely to see if he could get away with the chin-only goatee...he could not :) The final step was complete removal of all the facial hair...a look Melissa hadn't seen in five years and Sheinah had never seen. Somehow, we forgot to get a picture of that final step.

Not to be outdone by Travis' new hair-free look, Melissa decided to freshen her look with a trendy new haircut. Yes, the front is SUPPOSED to be longer than the back. It's taken a little bit of getting used to, but it is definitely easier to take care of.

Finally, when we were taking pictures of Melissa's new 'do, Sheinah wanted a little piece of the action as well. Pigtails are a new look for her also, mostly because she just recently learned to sit still long enough for Melissa to put them in. Check out how long her hair is getting!

First snow storm

Well, we made it all the way to November before we had our first real snow storm. This was the first year that Sheinah could really talk and understand what she was seeing. When she saw that it was snowing outside, all she wanted was to go out an play in it. She kept saying "snow coming down" and looking up to the sky to see where it came from. The land we live on is simply beautiful in the snow. Of course, we forgot to get pictures of the land before the snow started melting). However, we did grab a shot of Sheinah in her snow gear before she went outside to throw snow balls at the dog.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

Notice: the following story is very, very funny. We highly recommend that you empty your bladder before viewing the videos below. :)

The story began about a year ago when Aunt Jo-Ann sent us some of Zach and Gabe's old books. These were books that the boys willingly donated to Sheinah. We are pretty sure that Gabe said something like "those are baby books" when Aunt Jo-Ann asked him which ones he wanted to send to Sheinah. Most of these books were really great and well liked by Sheinah. There was one book, however, that we found to be a little different from the rest. It was a book of nursery rhymes that many of us remember singing as kids, such as "Pop Goes the Weasle" and "Hey, Diddle Diddle." The very first rhyme, though, was one we had never heard of called the "Owl and the Pussy Cat." We took it to Sheinah's daycare center and no one there had ever heard it. We showed it to nearly everyone who came to our home and always got the same reaction. In fact, today, when we showed it to our friend Libby, she was the only person we've met who actually had seen it before.

Anyway, we thought it would be great fun to ask Uncle Bacqua to read it to Sheinah when he came out this summer to paint the Kingston House. It was so much fun that we did it again with Travis' parents when they came in July. Now, of course, we won't be able to have fun with this anymore because all our friends and family will have seen these videos on our blog. However, the videos are so funny that we just had to share it with everyone.

Enjoy!

Zach: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7493262025902762978&hl=en

Lala (we especially love how Opa really gets into Lala's song, even moving his head to the beat). http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1195237751161878843&hl=en

Birthday party take two...

The Minnesota Bums got to take a trip back to Colorado in October so that Melissa could attend a pharmacy conference. While we were there, we had another birthday party for Sheinah with the Colorado Bums and Vigils. We started the party at the park by David and Shannon's house but got rained out. Aunt Virginia was kind enough to open her home...not only for the party, but also for us to stay there for a few days.

Uncle David made Sheinah a really cool horse cake. Sheinah really liked eating the carrot. While we were at the park, Naomi took charge of playing with Sheinah. They had lots of fun playing on the slide.

Sheinah Turns 2

Sheinah turned two on October 3rd. We celebrated her birthday with her friends from daycare by having a party at the Children's Museum of Duluth. It was really nice for many reasons (1) No clean up (2) No clean up (3) No clean up...it think you get the idea! The kids really had a good time interacting with all the different exhibits. The highlight of the party was definitely the face-painting...although Gabe might disagree with that statement :) Check out a few highlights from the pictures below:

Gabe enjoyed the campsite exhibit Sheinah, Gabrielle, and Gabe held hands on the way back to the party room.

Sheinah really enjoyed the face painting. She chose a butterfly from the picture of options and picked the colors herself. She sat very still while the painting was happening and did a really good job of not touching her face the whole afternoon.

This is our favorite picture of Gabrielle (on the right). It really shows her curious spirit. She is Sheinah's best buddy from daycare. The two girls are two months apart (Sheinah is the older one) and they are like two peas in a pod. They even look a little bit alike! Melissa made homemade cupcakes for Sheinah's birthday (in an effort to control the sugar intake). We had juice boxes, raisins, pretzels, and cheddar bunnies for a snack. Sheinah got to sit in the special birthday chair.

Check out this video of Sheinah blowing out the candle. You gotta love the shock on Melissa's face (she didn't realize that Hannah had taught Sheinah how to blow out the candle). http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5592916894609818557&hl=en

1, 2, 3....JUMP

Sheinah really loves to jump....down stairs (which we don't necessarily like), on the carpet, and, new this week, off of daddy's tummy. Check out this video of Sheinah practicing her jumping skills (please note, the pillow's were mommy's attempt to protect Sheinah's head). http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8950204180423099482&hl=en

ABC's

Sheinah likes to sing songs (particularly the Itsy Bitsy Spider song) so we decided to give the ABC's a try. Check out this video to hear Sheinah sing the ABC song with Melissa

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7754314557732550039&hl=en

Feet and crackers

For Labor Day, we drove up the shore to Two Harbors (which was slightly ironic since Melissa had just been there on Thursday with the pharmacy and medical students). The reason we went to Two Harbors was that Travis had an appraisal to do up there so we figured we'd make a day of it. We went for a tour of the Edna G tugboat, checked out the trains and then had lunch. On the way home, we were thinking that Sheinah would sleep while Travis shot the photos for his appraisal. Unfortunately, Sheinah decided that she did not want to sleep. By the time we shot this video, she was quite deliriously tired. We are pretty sure that it was the delusion that made her decide to eat crackers with her feet, but it makes for great video.

Click here to watch the video.

We've moved

After five months of "pure joy" (can you hear the sarcasm) remodeling our new-old house, we finally moved in! We had lots of help from our friends from church and a few folks from Melissa's work. Now, the fun of unpacking begins. We'll take some pictures as soon as we get the place looking a little more presentable. Like all good bloggers, we will NOT be posting our new address on the web :) If you need it, send us an email.

Bumbumo

We discovered that Sheinah can say Travis and Melissa pretty well last week so we decided to see if she could also say Bumgardner. Check out this video to see Sheinah's version of her our name: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8013222950287827195&hl=en

A story to make you smile...

Sheinah is progressing really well in her potty training endeavors. We found that it helps for her to say "bye bye" to the potty before we flush (then she doesn't get scared by the noise). This particular time, Sheinah had gone "poops" (as she often calls it). Thus, when we asked her to say bye bye before we flushed, she said "Bye bye Sheinah poops." If only we could get that one on tape...

Florida in July

While July is not the ideal time to visit south Florida, it was the location chosen by the crazy folks at AACP to hold their annual meeting. Since Melissa had a seminar to give at the meeting, we decided to bring the whole family and connect with Melissa's parents (Nama and nampa to Sheinah) in Florida. It was so incredibly hot that we spent most of the time in the water or in the airconditioning. We did go to Sea World one day...and lasted about 5 hours before we started to melt. Here are a few pictures, the rest are in snapfish (if you didn't get the pictures and want them, leave a comment with your email address and we'll add you to the list).

"Nama" and "Nampa" with the performers from the Sea World Show

Lego Land

Strawberry Pickin'

It's the time of year in Northern Minnesota when the strawberry fields are ripe for the pickin'. There is a pick-your-own farm about 20 miles outside of Duluth that we decided to check out on Sunday. Apparently, the folks around here take their strawberry picking pretty seriously...big straw hats...knee pads...giant buckets. We were amateurs to say the least. Anyway, once Sheinah figured out that she was allowed to eat all the strawberries she saw, she had a blast. We would help her pick the strawberry and then it would go right into her mouth and she would say "more please." Needless to say, she was a bit red when we left.

So good at sharing...

Notice how pink her hands and shirt are...yep...they are still soaking in OxyClean...

Carnival

A small carnival comes to town every year for the Fourth of July. We decided to check it out and see if Sheinah would go on any rides. Just in case you were wondering...she DID go on the rides...and she DID NOT want to get off :) Thus, in hind sight, this was probably not our smartest parenting decision since it cost a fortune to ride the carnival rides. Since Travis is a wee bit large to ride the kiddy rides, Melissa got to fly the helicopter and ride the train with Sheinah. Check out the pictures:

Fishing

Da original bums (Al, Lori, and Travis) went fishing today on Lake Big Jessie up near Grand Rapids. They had an AMAZING day. They caught the limit of fish (eighteen) even after throwing back several that they couldn't keep because they were TOO BIG. Lori was the best "fisherwoman" of the day catching the biggest walleye and the biggest perch. Check out this video of Lori "holding" the biggest fish of the day.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7159323684188526897&hl=en

After you stop laughing...check out the pictures of the big catch:

Painting Done

Despite Zach and Travis' best efforts, the painting of the Kingston house didn't get finished before Zach left last week. Part of the problem was the weather. We had 100% humidity and rainy weather the weekend before Zach left. We decided to paint anyway...which was not the best decision. The paint in the kitchen kept running down the walls because the air was so wet. So, Zach and Travis decided to roll the paint again...and it ran...again. Four coats later, the beautiful red paint now looked kind of scary (think lipstick red). Thus, we decided to try a painting technique called Bellagio Faux. That took two coats of faux and then another coat of sealant. Altogether, we figure there were eight coats of paint in the kitchen!

Sheinah's bedroom was another problem. We wanted to do something special with multiple colors. Travis taped the walls to paint the squares and it looked beautiful. Then, when he went to pull off the tape...the paint came with it...not once, but twice. UGH. Anyway, after some extra work, Travis got her room all nice and pretty. Enjoy the pictures of the finished product.

Kitchen, with two coats of faux paint...it's looks much more "pink" than it is in real life.

Sheinah's room (picture taken from the door). The wall you can't see is blue.

Sheinah's bathroom/laundry room. That white thing in the corner is a shower.

Living room. That's Eric working on the trim.

Master bedroom...all the trim is done in this room.

Silly Songs with Larry

Melissa's parents bought Sheinah a DVD called Silly Songs with Larry (from Veggietales). Sheinah has several Veggietales movies and her favorite part is always the silly song section so we all figured Sheinah would enjoy a whole DVD of Larry. As soon as we put it on for her, she started dancing. This particular dance is to the song "The Dance of the Cucumber." If you listen carefully, you can hear the song is sung in spanish by Larry the Cucumber with translation by Bob the Tomato. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4760493162453609035

Canal Park

We took Uncle Bacqua (that's Zach) down to Canal Park on Sunday. Sheinah loves birds so we figured she would get a kick out of feeding the seagulls. Zach thought it would be cool to see if the birds would take the crackers right out of his hand. They did! Then Sheinah wanted to give it a try. Check out the videos http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5254428256788979963 and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3300781079683331966

House Update

Travis' brother, Zach, arrived on Tuesday night to be our painter. Wes, Eric, and Travis have been working hard to get actual walls up for Zach to paint :) They ran into some troubles with inspections (plumbing still won't hold 5 pounds of pressure) but passed the electrical inspection on Friday. Here are some pictures of the progress. There is actual drywall up in the kitchen, no more hole in the wall in the living room, and Zach got serious paint on his eyelashes. We especially like the one of Zach's eyelashes :)

Eric in the living room finishing the "hole in the wall"

Zach poses before they hang the "rock" in the kitchen.

Good-bye to Nicole

Our babysitter, Nicole, will watch Sheinah for the last time on Thursday. We knew this day would eventually come since Nicole is one of Melissa's students so she eventually has to move on...although it would be cool if she could just babysit forever! Nicole has started her fourth professional year which means she will be in Washington state and Wisconsin completing her experiential rotations. We won't see her again until graduation next May :( Thus, in her honor, we are posting the only video we have of her and Sheinah (how sad is that). We took this video back in January when Sheinah was going through a phase where she liked to bounce on the exercise ball. This was just two weeks after we got Samson when Sheinah had justed started using words (like puppy). We will greatly miss Nicole!! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8109910179289671569&hl=en

Bedtime Story

Part of our nighttime routine with Sheinah is to read her several bedtime stories. One of her favorites is a book called "I Love You Through and Through." It is a story with a little boy and his bear. It was a gift from the staff at the Vineyard when Sheinah was born, but we only found it a few months ago. Anyway, we created a bunch of "actions" to go with the story to help Sheinah be more interested in the book. Now that she is talking more, we decided to video tape the reading of the story. We're actually going to have to do it again because Travis accidentally skipped a page (fingers and toes page). For now, enjoy the video! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7596049320176076710&hl=en

P.S. When we turn the book upside down it is because the Teddy Bear is upside down in the picture. Sheinah always wants to turn him right-side-up.

Lots of stones

Melissa just got out of the hospital for the second surgery in two weeks. Melissa had her gall bladder yanked or if it makes you feel better you can say removed. Anywho, the surgeon said the gall balder need to come out because it was full of stones. Travis asked the surgeon for the stones and voila (see picture) a bag of stones arrived. The pathologist broke a few for reasons unbeknown to us. Melissa and Travis counted the stones and depending on how you count the broken ones came up with at least 12 BIG STONES. We are not sure how Melissa was not in much more pain. According to wikipedia, the gall bladder is 3 to 4 inches long. Travis is threatening to have a bracelet made out of the stones. We put a dime to give reference to the size of the stones.

Cholecystectomy

That's the medical term for gallbladder removal which Melissa is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30am. She had a flair of gallstones last month and the surgeon thinks it would be best to just take out the whole gallbladder now. They will do it laproscopically (just three small incisions in the abdomen) if possible which means Melissa will only be in the hospital overnight. We appreciate your prayers :)

da bums

Class of 2007

The whole Bumgardner family went down to Minneapolis for two days to celebration the graduation of the first Duluth class from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. We had a little pre-graduation celebration on Thursday night. This picture of Travis and Sheinah is from that night.

The actual graduation was Friday night. We decided to go check out the waterpark down by the Mall of America. Here is Minnesota they have tthese indoor waterparks inside hotels. Since Travis and Sheinah were stuck at the hotel while Melissa was at work, we figured a waterpark hotel would be a good idea. Sheinah LOVED IT!! We'll post some videos of the waterpark as soon as we get to work with a better internet connection.

In the meantime...you can enjoy this picture of Sheinah and Lucy the Pharmacist. The guy who used to write the Peanuts comic strip (can't remember his name) is from Minnesota. There are statues of the peanuts characters all over the state. This one is right outside the school of pharmacy.

Waterpark

As promised, we finally got the videos from the waterpark edited so that they can be posted on the blog. This first one is of Sheinah going down the waterslides with her daddy. The quality is not that great because we have to make the file small enough to be uploaded. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2870656625993224677&hl=en

This second one is Travis trying to "surf" in the simulated wave machine. He made it a whole 30 seconds :) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2117434446733912852&hl=en

Enjoy the videos!

Welcome to da bums blog!

It seems that "blogging" is the way to go in today's high-tech world. For those of you who have no idea what this blog thing is...a blog is short for "web log"...it's kind of like a diary, where the entries are shown in reverse chronological order. With us being so far away from the "fam," we decided to go ahead and start using one of these thing-a-ma-jiggies to keep everyone up to speed with what is happening in our lives. The coolest part is that we can apparently post videos here which means you guys (the blog readers) can see what Sheinah is doing BEFORE Christmas when we make our annual "year in the life of Sheinah" video :)

So, here's the deal, we promise to do our best to post something once a week if you promise to read it. We figured out that we can back date our postings so things will be written in pseudo real time. Oh, and it takes a gazillion hours to upload on video because our editing software is malfunctioning, our files are just gianormous, and our internet upload speed leaves much to be desired. We'll get a video or two linked up as soon as we can.

Travis makes the cover of the PRESCRIPT

When Melissa did her lectures this semester, she added in pictures from the family (mostly Sheinah and the puppy) to give the students a break between concepts. She actually borrowed the idea from a talk she went to in which the speaker did this to help people stay awake...it was effective for her so she thought it would work for her students. Some of the pictures she used were ones that Travis has taken of Duluth of the past three years.

To make a long story short, the editors for the College of Pharmacy's mini yearbook (called the Prescript) asked if they could put Travis' pictures on the cover since this year was focusing on the first graduating class from Duluth. WOW, what an honor. These are the two pictures they chose to use. The lighthouse is on the cover and the lift bridge is on the back. The lighthouse picture was taken during our first winter here when it got really cold. The lift bridge picture was taken just a few weeks ago on our way to pick up Sheinah. We take a scenic route called Skyline that gives us an amazing view of the harbor every day. On this day, the weather was really odd. It was very humid (hence the fog) but the sun came out and it got warm. The fog just sat over the harbor but it was clear above (on the Skyline road). Travis just stopped in the middle of the road and took this picture from the window of the car. A little photoshop later and this picture is what resulted. GO TRAVIS!!

Kingston Progress

Our remodelling plans for our new home include turning it from a two-story house into what we like to call a "ranch plus." Basically, we want all the essentials on the first floor (including the laundry room) and then the two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs become "bonus." We also don't want Melissa to ever have to go into the basement because it is scary. Seriously, the original home was a two bedroom cabin with a basement with a ceiling that is like 5.5 feet high. At some point in the life of this home they did an addition (of two more bedrooms and two bathrooms). The basement under the addition is wonderful with much higher ceilings. You just have to walk through the scary, low-ceiling, moldy part to get to the good part. :)



The plans include gutting the kitchen and making it bigger, installing hardwood floors, putting in new cabinets (from IKEA of course), a full-sized fridge and full-sized freezer (think restaurant style), a wall-oven and cooktop, and a "peninsula". Now we had quite a discussion about this peninsula. Everyone is probably familiar with an "island" in the center of the kitchen. Apparently a peninsula is a counter top that looks kind of like an island but it is attached to one wall. Who knew that land and kitchens were so closely related?



All of the carpet in the house will ripped out and replaced. The current master bathroom will be turned into a walk-in closet and the other first floor bathroom will become the masterbath. This kind of odd room next to the living room (we don't actually know what to call it, it is just a random room behind the kitchen) will become the new first-floor bathroom slash laundry room. We are replacing all the first floor windows and doors. We are getting a fancy new water heater (called a tankless water heater that supposedly means you never run out of hot water) and a new furnace and air conditioner. This new house is too far from the lake which means we will actually get warm in the summer. Our final, and perhaps most important purchase...a super fancy mosquito zapper! Living in the woods means lots o' skeeters!



The pictures here are of the demolition that Wes (our contractor) and his faithful helpers (Dano and maybe Eric) have accomplished so that the remodel can begin. We think it's sort of cool to have a bathtub in the living room.

NAMA

We try to keep in touch with our parents by using our web cam to talk to them whenever we have time and they are home and Sheinah is awake...clearly, its hard to make all those variables line up. We refer to Melissa's parents as grandma and grandpa and Travis' parents are lala and opa. The story behind the "lala" is not what you think...it's not because Lori is in "lala" land :) It came when Shannon's kids (Travis' sister) were little. Lori wanted to use the spanish word for grandma (abuelita) because the kids already referred to grandpa using the german word (opa) and the german word for grandma (oma) just sounded too much like opa for the kids to tell it apart. Well, the kids had trouble saying abuelita and all they got out was "lala." Hence, Lori became "lala" and now she does get to be in "lala land" when she's with her grandkids.

Anyway, back to the story here. We were about to connect to grandma and were telling Sheinah that we were going to see grandma when all the suddent she says "nama"...just like that...no prompting or anything. And then she starting pointing at the computer screen and saying "nama." While we were waiting for Jackie to fire up here computer, we took advantage of the new word and videotaped Sheinah saying "nama".

Click this link to view the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3878780087046013042

Sheinah's Alphabet

One of Melissa's coworkers (Adam) lives down the street from us and has a daughter close in age to Sheinah. We take walks over their quite frequently. One day, we were hanging out at their house and got to talking about how well their daughter, Eva, could say her alphabet. They mentioned that they do alphabet flash cards with Eva every day. So, we ran out and bought Sheinah some really cool alphabet flash cards :)

It is absolutely amazing how her language skills just started taking off. We video taped her saying the words from the flash cards that she knows. You'll notice that she still uses her baby-signs for some words (mouse and cat are two examples).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3143163631843797001&hl=en

Moving...AGAIN!

Sometimes there are hazards associated with one's job. For Melissa, it is getting attached to my students over the course of our four years together and then having to send them off into the real world when they graduate. For Travis, it is looking at homes everyday at being compelled to BUY the really good deals which results in frequent moves (but also financial benefits). While we have reached a record...we've actually lived in our current home for two whole years...Travis has found another amazing deal and we have purchased another home. (see picture). It is an amazing deal because it is a foreclosure that has been sitting empty for a year and a half. With the help of some rather creative financing, we are now the proud owner of three homes (yes, three). We've got the one we live in, our rental property, and our new foreclosure.

We'll call this house the Kingston house (since the address is on Kingston road). We got a good deal because the house is not actually livable right now. It has no plumbing (literally, there is not a single pipe in the house), no electricity (at the time of this posting), a septic system that likely needs to be repaired, moldy carpet in the basement, lots of broken windows, and the lovely scent of a property that's been vacant for way to long.

So, I'm sure you are asking yourself, why in the world did you buy this house you crazy Bumgardners? The answer to that is simple: it's a four bedroom, three bathroom house on 3 acres of land just 10 minutes from the University...country living on the edge of the city. We've been living on a busy street for the past 3.5 years. Now that we have a toddler and a puppy, we really wanted to feel safe letting them play in the yard. Oh, and we'll finally have a garage again! WHOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

Thus, our biggest remodeling project has begun. We've got a general contractor this time because Travis is just too busy to do this whole thing himself. He's an awesome guy from our church. We've also got a carpenter to do some of the work. He's also an awesome guy from our church. We get to design the interior that we want and bless our friends with work while we do it...supercool. We'll keep you posted on the happenings with the house and pictures of the progress as we go.

Mommy and Daddy play barber shop

Ok, so it took us all of 30 seconds to figure out how to back date these postings. Thus, here's what's been going on in real time :)

Sheinah got her first haircut when we were in Colorado for Christmas. Of course, her barber was her Opa (Al Bumgardner). That haircut lasted a whole three months...what can we say, both her mommy and daddy are pretty hairy folks. Travis decided that he'd seen his dad do this sort of thing enough times that he should be able to trim Sheinah's bangs himself. Now I know that you reader's out there are already seeing the problem with such a line of thinking, but we were brave parents, ready to forge new territory, no matter how silly it is to think that we (who have never cut a child's hair) would be able to trim her bangs with no problem.

Now when Opa cut her hair back in December, Sheinah sat very still and did everything he asked her to and it was a relatively struggle-free event (see picture to the right). She even smiled for the camera. Unfortunately, we do not have any wonderful pictures of the parental haircutting event as Sheinah was not quite so cooperative with us. In fact, we both ended up trimming the bangs in an effort to get them straight (yes Opa, we actually gave her straight bangs). We did try to cut them fancy and "wispy" in true Opa style, but we are just not as talented as him! We must admit, at first we weren't entirely pleased with Sheinah's new look, but boy does it grow on you fast (see picture to the left). As they say in Minnesota "Oh for cute!"