September 2022 - Erin's Middle Niche

Friday Favorites 9.3022

This may include a couple from more than just this past week since I missed doing this post last Friday.

Natalie had an apple day or two at preschool. I’m guessing they are made applesauce in the crockpot.

Super cute petting zoo where you just walked into a big pen to pet the animals. There were goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, rabbit, calf, potbelly pig, and a donkey. Of course you could buy cups of feed and the goats very quickly targeted the people with the cups.

The petting zoo was for a United Way Kickoff event. I didn’t get any pictures of Uncle JD reading his book but Brandon did get a video. When he started making (very) loud squirrel sounds, the people in line for face painting jumped. When they saw who it was they just said “oh, it’s just mr. orwig.”

Speaking of face painting, we stood in line for two hours for them to get it done. Can you guess how long Natalie lasted before she wanted to wipe it off? The lady doing it was very talented and did a great job, but it also meant it took about ten minutes per kid, hence the long wait.

They both liked it better than this picture shows. Natalie just thought it was “itchy”.

Little family party for the girls’ birthdays. Easiest party ever. Ordered all the food and I didn’t host it at our house. Thanks JD And Shelley!

Nothing beats a Walmart banner. Guess they spell Birthday different in China or wherever this was made. Lol! I’m totally keeping it for future parties.

Brandon has been clearing a space for the girls to play in a space by the house. Morgan painted some trees and stumps like the park in Macomb. Although that park has eyes and is much creepier.

Natalie had a field trip to the Fruit (Frueh) Farm this week. She loved it. She gets to go on a lot of field trips. Morgan is very jealous.

A normal night. Just sitting at the table, naked, eating a chocolate covered granola bar.

And that’s it for this week. Heading back to Macomb to get warmer clothes. It was 90 degrees when we were there three weeks ago. Pants, sweatshirts and heavy coats weren’t on our minds then. Plus, I want to get the Halloween books and decorations. We need a spot to hang out ghost. Have a great weekend!

What’s been happening

Yeah, I totally dropped the ball on blogging last week. It was a busy week at work with some late night activities and meetings. Then I just didn’t have it in me to blog at night. Hopefully I’ll find a routine soon.

We have made progress on the floors downstairs. They are basically finished and ready for furniture to be moved in. We had to buy quarter round since it didn’t have any previously since there was carpeting. Brandon tried to get ahead of the game by staining it before we did the floors. Unfortunately they turned out lighter than the floors, so now he’s going to try to use tinted poly to go over them and match them better. I think the type of wood makes a huge difference in the stain application.

Brandon used an air hose to blow out all the debris from the space between the floor and baseboards. All the prep work of cleaning takes just about as long as the staining

We did a new technique for the downstairs. Brandon ended up wearing a mitt and applying the stain. I waited a couple of minutes for it to soak in, then wiped it off. This eliminated the blending issues we noticed on the upstairs floors. Which is exactly why we did the upstairs first. 🙂

This method was MUCH more labor intensive though. Brandon was on his hands and knees while I chose squatting and bending over. I’m not sure how much square footage it was but enough that we were glad to be done. I think it took about 3 hours.

Now the issue is the baseboards. We are very tempted to strip and stain those because they have been beat up over the years. Luckily that is not quite as intrusive to living around as the floors. While the poly was drying, we were carrying our food outside around to the porch and piling up on our bed to watch movies for three days. But we won’t have to do that if we choose to do the baseboards. However, we will have to choose a stopping point with the doors and windows because if you give a mouse a cookie…we might end up with everything refinished.

We also have fit in some football games, birthdays, my first overnight work trip, petting zoo, face painting, watching prep work for harvest, riding 4 wheelers with cousins, fishing, and more. This past week flew by and Brandon is about to enjoy his last week off before starting at his new place. Glad we got the floors done before that. I mean there is still our bedroom and the small hallway, but that’s nothing compared to what’s been done. 🙂

Natalie is 4!

So she turned 4 on the 21st but I worked late that night and am just getting around to this.

Natalie is wild one. If you just met her you won’t see it. But once she warms up to you or the situation, it comes out quickly.

She is stubborn and definitely does things on her own timetable. And there’s not a lot of use in trying to change that timetable.

She loves to cuddle and will wiggle her way next to me in about any situation. Natalie also loves to drive her sister nuts and is really good at it. 🤣

She is a spitfire and I think this 4 to 5 year phase will be a tough one. It was with Morgan, too. And then a switch flipped and it was so easy. Can’t wait for that switch to flip. 😂😂😂

She’s always had a good choice in music.

Not impressed with sledding. I think she kept this face the whole way down.

We’ve always let them pick their clothes which leads to fantastic pics like this.

She does crack us up every day. I do love the way she sees the world. I bet she keeps that fierce and fun personality.

Morgan is 7!

Since pretty much all my views are from family and friends, you probably all know Morgan. And if you don’t, that’s a bummer for you. 🙂

Now that I know her, I feel like she was wanting to argue with me that it wasn’t time to come out yet. Lol.

She is full of energy. I have yet to really find anything to use up ALL of that energy yet. I really thought 2.5 hour swim practices would do it but she would still leave there asking what we were going to do and if I had anything planned.

From the time she could talk, which was by 1 year old, she would ask kids on playgrounds their name and if they wanted to play with her and be friends. I really hope she never loses that ability to talk to people and want to be include everyone.

Morgan has never really played with toys. She’s always preferred the real deal. She wants to use Brandon’s tools and my cooking equipment to do projects. And keeps getting more independent with both of those. She loves to make us stuff and wants no help while doing it. She’s been amazing at a lot these past seven years and I have no doubt she will keep doing amazing things.

This costume is pretty perfect for her. Constantly asking questions.

And I just love this one. Captures her personality.

A quick and easy project

We haven’t had a lot of quick and easy projects. We have been focusing on the big things like fixing the walls, painting and refinishing floors so it was nice to have something small to accomplish.

This bed was in the blue room and fit so well in there that we kept it. It’s a heavy, TALL, iron bed. We already had a full-sized box spring and mattress. Plus, this allowed Natalie to upgrade to Morgan’s twin bed without us buying something new.

All I did was wash all the dirt and dust off then scuffed it with some sanding blocks. There were a few spots where it was rough and bumpy so that smoothed it nicely.

Then is was just a matter of spray painting it. The girls got involved in that process. After using the spray paint for a couple of coats, Morgan was impressed with the precision of the graphics we see on the trains. 😂

It took a couple of coats and really looking it over because there are a lot of angles and intersections to that frame. But we finished it up on time to move it up to her room on moving day. I need a step stool to get on it but she just uses the frame. Her feet are tougher than mine.

It never actually looks this neat. 😉

That’s it! I wish more projects were this quick. But they will keep getting easier. I think/hope.

Macomb Weekend Wrapup

Once I started my job I quickly realized I didn’t bring a lot of “work” clothes, no jewelry, and the only contacts I had were the ones in my eyes. We “moved” a month ago so those were starting to feel icky. Plus, Morgan was ready for a visit and I was too.

Morgan had her Storm Sweetie performance Friday night at the football game so we couldn’t leave until halftime. So we had a late arrival to Macomb.

What? You can’t find her? Lol. She is the third girl from the left in the second row. She did great and I was very impressed with the whole group. They were incredibly in sync for only practicing for two hours last Sunday and briefly before the game.

They actually fell asleep on the way. We arrived a little after 11 and got them to bed without them waking up all the way. #parentingwin Then Natalie was awake at 5:30am. #waytooearyformama She was Cranky that afternoon and we both took a nap. 😁

Saturday morning started out with Natalie and I checking out the hot air balloons. Then we picked up some donuts and headed home to wait for Morgan and Brandon to wake up. We did all that before 7:30am. Then all of us dropped a couple things off at a friend’s yard sale before heading to Chandler Park for the farmer’s market and Art Show.

Always love seeing the balloons land. Glad they had good weather for the morning flights.

I had to improvise for eye protection that morning. We started out so early I hadn’t even put my contacts in yet.

An extra fun part of the farmer’s market was petting and feeding the alpaca. His name was Bluey and he did not like being disturbed while drinking his water. He sprayed the girl standing next to Morgan. I think she got a bit on her, too.

Only 5 balloons did the flight in on Saturday night. It was too windy for the rest to attempt it. It felt perfectly still to us sitting on the ground but the higher you go up, the stronger the breeze is. The Glow was canceled as well which was a bummer. Maybe next year…

So we ditched the balloon glow and headed to the Powder Puff game at the high school. The girls both found some friends to play with from daycare/school so that was good for them. And we did a lot of this fun stuff with the Westen family which of course made it even more fun. And we spent some football and nacho eating time with them on Sunday before heading back north. All in all it was a great weekend. I should be food prepping or something but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ll be asleep soon.

Friday Favorites 9.9.22

It was a short week, so I only have two posts this week. My goal is 3, so hopefully next week I’ll make that goal.

This week marked my first week at the new job! I’m learning a lot every day and meeting a lot of new people. There’s a lot of travel this week, but I think that will decrease as time goes on. They greeted me with flowers in my office and there were treats everywhere I went. Everyone is very welcoming, so it feels like a good fit.

A few weeks ago Brandon made a crucial mistake of leaving chicken breasts in his car over a weekend we were gone. Whatever you do, don’t do that. I thought Clarence had killed something big and it was rotting. Nope, just his car. He took the carpet out, used an anti-stink bomb, and even took the plastic out and replaced it with plywood, but it still smelled. After some recommendations, he took it to Shane’s Shine Shop and had it detailed. They worked some serious magic and it no longer smells like death. Most likely I’ll start driving his car since it gets better MPG than mine and I don’t want to show up smelling like a corpse.

Not a Friday Favorite is Clarence has been gone for over a week. I’m still holding out hope he will show up, but it’s diminishing as time passes. His biggest threat is coyotes of course. Plus I saw a large tom cat in a shed and I’m worried he chased Clarence away. But if that was the case, I think he will come back eventually.

If this is the last picture I get of him it’s incredibly appropriate. He brought a live ground squirrel into the house. Brandon got it away from him and we think it lived to see another day.

Tonight, Morgan has her Storm Sweeties dance at the football game. Then we take off from there to pick up Dexter and head to Macomb. I need to get a few more things to wear for work and other staples we didn’t initially pack but realize we need until the big move. I know she is excited to see some of her Macomb buddies and I am too!

Putting the Labor in Labor Day

It was a busy weekend to lead up to my first day of the new job. Since we want to finish up the floors downstairs while Brandon is off the next month, our bedroom needed to be sanded, primed, painted and carpet removed. So that was the main event with a lot of other stuff filling in the gaps.

How can you tell you are in the Midwest? You watch Friday Night Football next to a cornfield. We hadn’t planned on going but while we were eating supper, Morgan asked “is there a game tonight?” Which I knew meant her friends must be going, so we headed to our second game in two days. But it was worth it because both girls found friends to play with and had a great time. Natalie was not ready to leave when the game was over. 🙂

Another way to tell is there is an inflatable pig costume at the game for no other reason than it’s funny. We hope it makes an appearance at all the games.

View from my new walking route. I will soon be walking in the dark, so I ordered a lighted vest last week.

Then it was time to get rid of the yellow. Yellow ceiling, yellow walls, and yellow carpeting…

We had done a round of plaster repair but that was interrupted, so there were still spots that needed sanding and a couple that we had to put another layer on. While that was drying, we headed to the canal where Brandon and Morgan rode their bikes in pursuit of walnuts while Natalie and I threw some rocks in the water.

We finished up with priming and painting the ceiling Saturday and it needed time to dry before we could tape around the ceiling to add the paint to the walls. It worked out since we had family pictures then had to come through with the bribe and got ice cream after. Morgan would pose for hours for pictures while Natalie was done after one shot.

Morgan had a practice for the Storm Sweeties performance for the upcoming football game after pictures and ice cream. Brandon and I got the room painted while she was gone.

We explored the “West Place” Sunday night. It has a cool barn with a basement and some other interesting old buildings. The girls and I had explored there in the spring, but Brandon hadn’t checked it out yet.

Had to get a picture of the carpet before it went bye-bye.

We got the carpet up and are working on the tack strips and staples. We rounded out the long weekend with a trip to Menards to get fun stuff like a dehumidifier and water dispenser.

The girls are getting driving lessons down the long drive way. They have a long way to go. LOL!

Hope you all had a fun and productive weekend! I’m excited to start the job tomorrow!

Friday Favorite 9.2.22

This will be short and sweet. This was a more laidback week with a full week of school and doing a few things to prep for starting the new job.

Brandon found this toad in the basement. He had been living a pretty good life down there. Morgan didn’t mind holding him until he peed on her. LOL! Natalie thought that was the funniest thing to happen to her sister.

We finally cleared off the tools from the dining room table so I got a few things at Walmart’s dollar spot to celebrate being able to sit at a table inside.

Natalie was very proud of her mixing of orange and brown. 😉

Thursday Night Lights in Princeton this week. With a referee shortage they had to move the game to Thursday night.

My new walking route. I just ordered a lighted vest when I have to start walking in the dark next week.

Now we are moving the furniture out of our bedroom to finish patching the cracks and get it primed and painted. Then pulling up that bit of carpeting, so the sanding can begin. Not sure all that will get accomplished this weekend, but a lot will. Have a fun weekend!