10: November 9 on 9

9: Possessed???

8: Flower Girl

I forgot to hit the "publish post" button last night.

7: November 6 on 6

Trying to lock the cabinets with the child safety lock.

Playing with balloons from Papa's party.

We had to resort to taping the sign to him to get a good pic.

Making a mess in the pantry.

Some things to update:

• Words you say: Mama, Dada, more, woof-woof, ball, uh-oh, banana, hot, up, down, hi. You're first word was "no," but you don't really say it anymore. Sometimes you repeat "bye-bye," but not often. I might be forgetting a couple.
• Signs you do: all done, more, eat, car, please, thank you.
• Sleeping: We have been letting you cry a lot at night. You wake up and the paci doesn't work. The only choice we have is to let you cry. You have been able to stay up until 8:00 recently.
• Play: You LOVE baby dolls. You like to ride Thomas. You like your piggy bank and shape sorter toys that you put pieces in to. You like to dance to fun music. You pick out books and bring them to us to read to you, then you back yourself up and sit in our lap to listen.
• Stats: We will find out height/weight on the 16th - check back.

6: Surprise, Papa!!!

One day late...

5. Garbage Man

Mitchell figured out the garbage can tonight. He has been interested in it for a while and has even thrown toys in there a few times. Tonight he started throwing paper towels away and listened when we told him to throw them away. Good job, Mitchell.

It was also a good day for Mitchell because he got to play with his girlfriend.

4: Dinner Guest

We had an unwanted guest at dinner tonight. As I was eating, I looked down and saw a spider on the underside of our glass table. It totally freaked me out!

Arthur got it with the "electric chair."

"Maya, what do you think of the spider?"

"Mitchell, what do you think of the spider?"

On a random side note, one of the perks of doing a daily blog post is being able to look back and see what you did exactly one year ago to the day. This was one of the reasons I started this up again, because I know I will be sad when I can't do this anymore. I just so happened to check out today's date last year and the funny thing is I wore the same sweater to work today that I had on exactly one year ago. I would have taken a picture of myself wearing it a year later, but I had already changed.

3: How We Roll...

This is how Mitchell prefers to "roll" on Thomas - as Maya's passenger.

This is how Mitchell has insisted on eating dinner lately. He won't stay in his high chair if Daddy is home. He makes eye contact with Daddy, does his "all done" sign and demands to sit on Daddy's lap. Once there he sits patiently and lets Daddy eat.

Playtime at our house - who needs a mechanical bull?

Mitchell started this game, but Maya likes to play along. Not sure what they are doing really, but they think it's hilarious.

2: What Did You Do This Weekend?

We dealt with severe water damage on all three levels of our home. Here's what happened from the beginning:

About a month ago we had a plumber come out and fix the faucet in our shower in the master bathroom because it was leaking. When we bought the house it came with a home warranty that covered this job. In order for it to be covered, though, we had to use the specific plumber given to us by the home warranty company. The plumber came out and replaced our faucet and the pipes that led to it. He cut a hole in the drywall in our closet that backed up to the shower in order to replace the pipes. This is what the hole and pipes look like:

It's hard to see in this picture, but on the right side the drywall is darker - from water. Overnight Thursday the pipe busted and leaked all night. Arthur got up in the morning and walked into the closet which was filled with steam and the carpet was soaked:

Please excuse our messy closet floor. Of you look closely you can see indentations from our footsteps - that's how saturated it was. The water continued to move down. Below our closet is the laundry room and garage and below that is the unfinished part of the basement. As much as a nightmare as this is going to be to get fixed, we are so lucky it didn't get to any furniture, appliances, or major living spaces of the house. Here is a picture of how much water got all the way down to the basement.

Friday morning ServePro came out to "suck" out all the water:

They had to put these fans all over the house to dry the place out.

The fans were so loud in the house that we couldn't even stay at home. We stayed at my parents house over the weekend, but came back home Sunday night.

Here is what our closet looks like now, no carpet:

Our laundry room - missing a wall:

and missing the ceiling:

They also had to rip up the floor in the laundry room.

This is the back wall of our garage:

The plumber who came out Friday to repair the pipe said that he could tell it was the fault of the previous plumber. Our insurance is taking care of everything, but will hopefully get it all back from the at fault plumber's insurance.

Those pictures were mostly taken over the weekend. As I have committed to a daily post, here are my pictures from today. Mitchell loves to play with baby dolls. Some people probably don't like boys playing with dolls, but I think it is adorable. He is surrounded by girl toys because he has a big sister. He plays gently and appropriately with babies. I love it!

He walks his baby:

Pats his baby:

Picks up his baby:

Holds his baby:

He also rocks her and kisses her. It is precious!