Under Construction - our deck

So our deck is now under construction! I mentioned in a previous post that we got a guy to buy the material from our old deck and do the demo. That worked out perfectly! He paid us on a Wednesday and came by last Saturday with two buddies and they spent the morning taking out all of the old pavers. They brought two trucks and loaded up twice. It was so great to have them take care of that work AND pay us for it!!! Awesome deal!

Tony started the demo a few days before the guys came for the pavers - taking out all the railings. Here he is working! He was even proud of himself to get a small injury - wouldn't expect less!!! Oh and we found out from our backyard neighbor that the old deck has been here for as long as he has been in his house, which is like 17 years! We were surprised to hear that - we thought it was newer, so I guess it has held up fairly well for that long!

Here's what the old deck looked like before and during demo.

The construction company delivered the materials on Monday morning. The guys started on our first lovely rainy day this week - Thursday. So there are two guys here doing the work, both just crossed the Mexican border! I'm sort of guessing it's hard to find Americans that would do the work they're doing, especially the first day of work. They dug out the remaining posts and perimeter of our old deck with shovels, filling an entire large dump truck with dirt and making a huge pile of old wood. They trenched out the new perimeter of the new structure and worked until they ran out of daylight. Here's what it looked like on Friday morning after their first day. (notice also how many yellow leaves have already fallen down in our back yard - BOO!)

Oh, and as I was cooking dinner Thursday night, I looked out the window to find "the old man" walking around our back yard. See, we have this old man neighbor that doesn't speak a lick of English that is always walking down the street yelling at people. If you let him, he'll walk up to you and give you a kiss (we avoid this as much as we can and when we can't, we only offer a cheek!). He also likes to give candy from his pocket, which also contains lint and a bit of a question as to what year that candy was actually made! I know he means well, but he's annoying. So anyway, I guess he couldn't stand the suspense of what we might be doing, so he invited himself to come back and survey our project. Poor Mexican guys were probably wondering who the heck he was and I wanted to tell them "Loco Neighbor"! It was funny too as Hannah looked out the window and said, "what's the old man doing out there?"

The same two guys came back Friday and started installing the retaining wall. It's really dusty when they cut the blocks. It's sort of hard to invision what the finished product will look like, but we like what we see so far! Here's what it looked like after their second day. Oh, and by the way, the old man came back again for another look Friday night!!! And the guys worked again until the daylight was gone.

I heard the guys pull up in their truck around 8:30 again this morning. They worked until around noon today. They've got the retaining wall around the bottom just about finished and are starting on the top. Here's what we've got so far today.

I'll keep posting the progress. We're hoping it might be done by the end of next week, but I guess it probably depends on the weather. Even if we don't end up staying in this house, this is a terrific improvement that will hopefully help sell. If we do stay here, we'll have a great outside area to enjoy!

O-H

I-O!!!!

Tony got to go to the OSU/Miami game last weekend! My dad's buddy (I guess that's what he is - more on that later) has the tickets, so he went down with the two of them.

He left early Saturday morning and they went down to do some tailgating first.

Ok, so the scoop on my dad and his friend Rick.....well, let's just say that Tony wanted to call Hollywood after spending the day with them! They are probably more alike than my dad may want to admit (sorry dad), but they are so different also. They both know EVERYTHING which tends to lead to the many debates and bickering! Tony said a reality show following these guys around would be like a bad train wreck - that you couldn't stop watching!!

So anyway, Tony really had a great time attending the game. He was really grateful for the tickets - which were great seats! I even allowed Tony to take my camera, which he guarded with his life adn successfully brought back home!

Here are some pictures he took at the game.

I forget the name of this building that they watched the band warm up, but Tony said it was really great and hearing them play gave him chills. He said it would be cool to have a kid play at that level, to which I reminded him that they would have to start first with High School Marching Band....OK, so maybe not so cool!

A great view from their seats

A packed Horseshoe doing O-H-I-O

And a couple more cool pics - Go Buckeyes!

And then because these are the cutest kids I know, here are two siblings that adore one another to all ends!

And this one is of Nicholas the other day playing peek-a-boo with Hannah

Some Good News

Well, I have a few good news stories to report (but this post will be pictureless).

Nicholas isn't allergic to formula after all!!!! This is REALLY good news! After we got through all of the stage 1 fruits and vegetables, we decided to give regular formula a try again. I slowly introduced it again and he had no reaction to it! Now, we are officially 100% on regular Enfamil formula!! What a relief! Not only for the next 5-1/2 months of formula, but maybe we won't have food allergy issues to deal with!!!

Next good news story is our new deck. Well, really our old deck. I emailed the lady at the company that's going to do our deck yesterday to ask if she had our job on the schedule yet so I can make plans to demo the old deck. Her reply back to me (this morning) was that it was going to be some time next week and we should have the demo done by Monday! That's less than 4 days away and Tony has plans all weekend! I sort of freaked for a minute and then posted the deck on Craigslist asking for $150 and for an interested buyer to do all the demo and haul away before Sunday. Within an hour, I had a guy text me. By the end of the day, I had two interested parties (one willing to pay, one would do the demo & haul away for free). The first guy stopped over to take a look at what he was up against and SOLD!!! For the $150 we asked and he'll start demo Friday and should be done Saturday!!! How cool was that?!?! So we saved $250 by not having our contractor do the demo, made $150 on the old material AND don't have to do most of th work! Sounds like a great deal to me!!!

6 month and Family Pictures

I got our pictures back the other day.

Here are Nicholas' 6-month pictures.

And here are the family pics we took.

I love how this one with Tony and the kids turned out!

So I know there is so much more to blog about since I've been neglecting it lately, but this will be the brief version.

Hannh started her new gym for gymnastics and we really like it! She goes for 1-1/2 hours now, which is a LONG time to be there with a 6-month old on the move!!!

Speaking of on the move, Nicholas has mastered his hand over hand crawling, but still inch-worms a lot. He actually does this bear crawl thing where he tries to stand up on his legs, but keeps his arms down and his butt goes up in the air. He wants to move and is trying to figure out which is the quickest way to get to where he wants to go! He is also pulling himself up on the furniture or anything else he can.

Here he is yesterday trying to climb on my boxes of my Tastefully Simple Stuff that came!!! (excited about that too!)

And he is also playing with "big-boy baby" stuff now too. Like blocks, snap beads and little people and laundry baskets! We actually put away a few more baby items that are headed to the resale this fall....never to return to our house again!

Tony and I went to Kalahari last weekend, just the two of us! That was fun. My mom took both kids overnight for the first time. They learned quickly that it's a little different with two!!! But it didn't scare them too much because the kids are spending the night again tonight so Tony and I can play poker tonight. I can't believe our league is starting again - I guess summer is over (sniff, sniff).

I had a rough week at work last week. We had one of our employees die at a jobsite. It started of as what seemed like an accident - falling off of a ladder, but it may have been a natural cause. The whole thing is still under investigation and waiting for final ruling, but none-the-less, it was a very sad few days that presented me with challenges and new things that I had never had to deal with before at work. We're slowly starting to feel normal again there, but it's too bad he's gone - he was actually one of our really good employees! And he was only 41, so it was sad to see someone go so young. Made me remember to love my family a little harder and hug and kiss them longer and tighter and be really thankful for each day with them all!

We also went back over to the builder I mentioned a while back to sit down and talk seriously about maybe building a new house. We have gone through and picked our floorplan and options and are in the works of executing our plan to make it happen. I hope that within a year from now, we might be in the new house, but there are a handful of major things that we need to get done before that happens, so Tony and I are working our plan one step at a time. I sure hope it all works out according to our plan!!! I'm in love with the house!

That about sums up the past couple weeks I think. I'm off and running with the Tastefully Simple business now, so I'm starting to work on booking parties! Be sure to let me know if you're interested or know of someone else that might be!

I'm in Business!

It's official! I'm in business for myself!


No, I didn't quit my job (yet)! I have become a Tastefully Simple Consultant. I'm so very excited about this new venture and only wish I had more time to put into it than I probably do.

The idea of this has really excited me. I was very leery about the time commitment, but I think I can scrounge up a few days per month and will work hard to get orders through other means like catalog parties and internet sales.

So here's the scoop:
I won't beg you all to have a party or place orders, but I will ask that you remember me when you want to order product or have a party as well send referrals my way!!! I'm going to have several ways to place orders in hopes to cover as many bases as possible.

I have a new email address for Tastefully Simple Stuff - time4simple@gmail.com. You can email me orders any time.
I also have a website (that's so exciting I need to say it again - I have a website): www.tastefullysimple.com/web/mcarrossellia. You can place online orders and pay with a credit card any time.
And you can reach out to me to host a party - in your home or just a catalog party anytime. I'll probably work on booking between 2-4 parties a month for now.

So for those of you that don't know what Tastefully Simple is - let me give you my "elevator speech".
I sell gourmet food products and each of the products require two ingredients or less to make! This is great for us busy people - that's why I picked the email address that I did - I only have "time for simple"!!! I will do a home party where you and your friends will have the opportunity to sample many of the products we offer, share easy meal ideas, recipes and serving suggestions and have a great time! Another great thing about our product is that all of the individual products are under $10!!! And lastly, everything you order gets shipped direct to your house - no delivering your friends orders (and the orders come super quick)
The advantage to being a host is FREE product!!! And as a little heads up, October would be a GREAT month to be a host (HUGE host rewards are going to be offered!!!) So give me a call to book for October!
There are also several gift ideas for anyone wanting to give a unique, useful gift.
So anyway, I'm super excited about this and hope to be successful! I'd appreciate your support - even if it's just by spreading the word and passing out my info!!