if you build it...

a new deck was in order for brian and blair. they recently moved into their new home and have transformed the place from the paneled pit to a home that would make everyone at HGTV very proud! one of the last projects that needed "doing" was the deck. while functional, it was fugly ugly and the red paint left a little to be desired. my siblings and spouses chose to donate some materials and (free) labor to make this an outdoor entertaining space they can be proud of. in true oh-you-have-to-be-outside fashion, mother nature stirred up some blazing hot weather and threw in a little thunderstorm, just for fun.
thanks to air conditioning, tiny baby pools, big ol' shade trees, and umbrellas...the wee ones managed to have a ball!

having a snack with blair and sadie

baby blue eyes
this one has crossed his feet since birth

perhaps we need a lifeguard?

the rogers girls - kristin, jocelyn, and sophia

he tries to get as many limbs into his mouth at once

blair kept everyone full with dee-licious lunches and yummy snacks. miles opted to hang out with nana and papa on sunday, which meant that henry was all alone with a bunch of doting aunties and uncles. he didn't mind. it reminded me of how simple life was with only one baby, but we certainly wouldn't change our family of four for all the money in the world!! miles is really into holding henry these days. which is great as long as he remembers to hold him under his arms and not by the neck.

brothers

I think this picture of henry sums up how tired everyone was on sunday night!

sorry for the lack of before/after pics. the rain was coming down too hard at the end of the project for us to do any photographing. I'll get back to you on that...

demolition

the demo of the basement is finished. kyle has been working hard to clear everything out of there. we had someone come to give us a bid on the sheet rock portion of the renovation. needless to say - it would cost us six times more than materials alone. ha - kyle will now be doing the entire bathroom project on his own. not as though he is incapable. we all saw his handiwork in the other bathroom and know it will be done well! so now we will get to live with even more dust in the house. when we decided to do a bunch of work before miles was born, I swore we wouldn't be doing any home renovations for a long time. what I should've said was that we wouldn't be doing any VOLUNTARY home renovations for a long time. this project was forced. argh.

what the basement looks like today...sigh

returning home

we just finished up with quite a busy weekend. our friends the Bansemar's, Harms's, and Maio's all came to town and the girls enjoyed Robin's baby shower. Scott and Anna brought their 3-month old Ethan along and i think that he was the only guy at the baby shower and was getting quite a bit of attention from the ladies. we all went out for pizza last night and then enjoyed some Guitar Hero before retiring for the night.

our home renovations wound down on Friday evening. we had some more help from everyone, this time moving our belongings back in and putting the house back together. Clayt was really helpful with doing some substantial electrical work and, as of right now, the house is liveable again. on Saturday morning we had carpet installed in the baby's room and our new refridgerator delivered, all before 11:30am. the pictures below don't show how drastic the changes are in the floors. they really look great, just like the rest of the changes that were made to the house. thanks to all of you guys that volunteered to help us out, and a special thank you to Hotel Friedt. Robin and I (and the baby) are truly appreciative of you all.

new poll

we took a peek in the house yesterday to check on the progress of the floors. they look really nice and should be getting sealed today and ready for us to walk on tomorrow night after work. we should be able to show the changes with pictures here tomorrow evening.

for now i've posted a poll on the right side of the page. the plan is to leave it there until the baby is born so everyone can weigh in with their opinion on what they think our baby will be.

Happy Anniversary to us!

here we are, it's already one year later and we're celebrating our first wedding anniversary. people say it all the time, but the days have flown by. we realized the other day that Robin has been pregnant for 7 of our 12 married months.
we enjoyed Easter with friends and family this weekend. on Saturday we all met up at the Grandma Becker-sponsored rendezvous at the Ramada Inn and everyone got to witness Robin's active belly firsthand.

we also visited Best Buy and picked out our first refrigerator together. we actually bought it without ever being able to see it with the doors open, since none of the stores in town actually had it in stock. the description has everything we were looking for, so we weren't too apprehensive about pulling the trigger on the purchase. especially since we got it on sale and will have it delivered for free on Saturday.

anyway, there aren't any pictures to post in this entry (sorry Laurie). our hardwood floors are beginning their transformation as i type this so when we go to check on the progress we will be snapping a few shots. Robin took a few yesterday after we had all the rooms emptied (thanks Marc, Beth, Brian, Nancy, Seth, and Blair - and Jen, too, who found out yesterday has influenza b but loaned us her husband) so we will be able to show more before/after shots in a few days.

we will be abandoning Hotel Friedt for one night to stay at a hotel downtown for our anniversary, then heading back to stay with Beth and Seth for a few more nights until the house is ready to be lived in again. we should have more to share at that point.

spring is here, almost

tomorrow is scheduled to be the first day of spring.
but since www.weather.com declared a 100% chance of snow overnight it doesn't appear that the seasons want to change quite yet.
we're hoping Robin's relatives from Milwaukee and other cities coming to visit for Easter have an uneventful drive.

speaking of spring, our one year anniversary is coming up on Monday. because of the floor refinishing going on in our house next week, Robin and i will be staying in a hotel that night to enjoy a relaxing night during what will turn out to be the eye in home renovating storm. the bathroom remodel is now complete. pictures shows before and after.

and, speaking of anniversaries, thanks Jen for pointing out to Robin a website that's using a few of our wedding pictures in its advertising. by visiting the website of our wedding photographer and clicking "vendor fetch" to find locations to have a wedding reception, our faces (not to mention the rest of the wedding party, and others) are all over their Rochester Art Center page. for those who are curious, click below.
http://rochesterartcenter.bellagala.com/?fetch=yes

lastly, thanks to Scott Greseth to being the first to comment on the new blog. Scott, i think i owe you a Summit for being the big winner.