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

a day at grandpa & grandma's house

well it was virtually impossible for us to hang out at our house last sunday due to the lack of running water. so we camped out at my mom and dad's for the day. this meant that miles got extra spoiled...not a bad deal in his mind! he spent the day playing on the floor, browsing the internet with grandpa, watching the twins AND vikings, sitting outside on the deck, and jumping like mad in the johnny jump up. fun times.

this one is especially for matt, scott, and shawn...enjoy!

four months old

miles is four months old already!! here are the latest stats and monthly photos:

NAME: miles edward kroening

HT: 27 inches [92%]
WT: 16 lb 5 oz [72%]
FAVES: rolling, drooling,
standing on laps, eating, watching
puppies and tv, looking at hands
BIG NEWS: two bottom teeth!!

a fun weekend until...

we have had a fun-filled weekend...and I should emphasize the word FILLED! after a warm bubble bath in the kitchen sink, we went to a soccer game for my cousin olivia on saturday morning. it was a little cool outside, but it was fun to watch her play. they were behind 3-0 for most of the game but had a great 4th quarter and nearly pulled out a win with a final score of 3-2.
after the game, miles and I went out to lunch with my aunts (sara & terry), cousins (alex & olivia), mom, sisters (beth, helen, & nykkole), and helen's cousin khaliya. miles was an angel and got passed around the table multiple times!

happy birthday alex!

sisters [my mom, nancy, terry & sara]

khaliya & helen (almost ready for homecoming!)

my cousin, alex, celebrated his 14th birthday on saturday so we went over to the lovett's house for cake and ice cream in the afternoon. miles had a blast watching my cousins, nick & ellie, run around. I'm sure he was taking mental notes and will be chasing after them soon enough! I suppose we figured that since we were on a celebratory kick, we would also swing by kyle's brother's birthday party! conrad, like me, had the pleasure of turning 30 this month. miles had a fun time with everyone over there and showed off his rolling trick to grandpa randy!

comparing belly buttons with nick & ellie

the day was going just peachy until we discovered this mess in our basement...
...yes folks that is water...and a LOT of it! apparently we have some sort of busted pipe inside the wall/ceiling of our basement! we spent last night sucking up gallons of water, cutting and removing drenched carpet pad, and stocking up on drinking water. we were forced to turn off the water main and go without running water. this makes staying here for any length of time a real treat. toilets are inoperable without flowing water :) argh. needless to say we were unable to hang around here today, so we spent the day at my mom and dad's.

the water is leaking from a pipe in the bathroom ceiling and/or wall...this mysterious brown liquid is now oozing from the ceiling...not good.

one of the many times we emptied the wet/dry vac

we came home to a lovely 'eau de wet carpet' scent. it's just lovely! we are hoping to get the insurance on it right away so we can find out the next step. home-ownership is a dream :)

UPDATE: as of 10:00am on Monday this water leak was all patched up. now we're just waiting for the insurance adjuster to come out and let us know what the damage to our wallets will be.