Laboring on Labor Day Weekend... and some injuries

So we took Labor Day literally this year and did some work around the outside of the house. One of the things we were hoping to do when we bought this house was to paint away the yellow "loveliness" that the previous owners added... especially to the garage door. So Elden set to work scraping and sanding as much as he could before painting our door a much more normal white! It makes such a difference!! I couldn't get a matching "After" picture because the cars were in the way, but it changes the look of the house so much.

The next step will be to paint the shutters a lovely blue. In my mind it will look great... so we'll see. Maybe next weekend??

The second project for our Labor Day weekend was to put together the raised beds for our garden next summer. We don't have a lot of good sunlight for a garden, and the ideal place is near the front of our house... so we wanted it to look nice. Mom and dad gave us a little housewarming gift which made putting together our beds much easier - corners that you just slip the boards into. It has such a nice clean look! Elden and I assembled one of them, and then Matthias helped with the second.

raised bed and a beautiful white garage door!!! Happy girl!

Matthias and daddy high-fiving over a job well done!

We rounded out our labor day with some grilled pizza! We realized that we hadn't made grilled pizza all summer... which was not acceptable. So we squeaked it in on the last official day and it was delicious! It was fun that Matthias could help add the toppings this year.

Of course Labor Day wasn't all work. We took a family outing to Hannibal, MO, the hometown of Saumel Clemens (Mark Twain)! We didn't get to do a lot of the historical stuff (a little hard with two kids) but we walked around, checked out some antiques, had some ice cream, and enjoyed a picnic at the park. We got off to a rocky start, though, when Matthias took a nose dive into the bottom lip of the car (when the door was open... it is hard to explain... ) and got a big old bloody nose! Like all over. all over our shirts. ugh. I was afraid we were going to have to take him to the ER because it looked pretty bad. Swollen nose, black and blue, etc... But after some snuggles and cleaning up it looked a little better, though he was pretty subdued for most of the morning. (A totally different story when we got home and he was bouncing off the walls!)

Matthias actually had a pretty rough week. On Wednesday he ran into a table at church and got a huge black eye (still not completely gone). On Thursday he stubbed his toe and took off part of his toenail. On Friday he fell off his chair at the table and got a bruise across his back. And then his nose. Mommy can't handle too much more of this two-year-old-boy stuff. 

But back to Hannibal... 

In front of Mark Twain's boyhood home... shortly after the fall. Matthias wasn't too interested. 

TRAINS!!! There is a little train museum which got Matthias' interest... though still pretty subdued after his injury

Photo with Mark Twain! Nora even got in on this one :)

And in other news around the house... Nora is into everything, especially mommy's cookbooks. 

Most of the time Matthias plays nicely with Nora. He likes to show her things (and then tease her by taking them away), and teach her how to use them.

And I've learned that the easiest way to get things done with the kids around it to let them just make a big ole' mess. I wanted to make a tomato pie (southern, I know! We also made fried green tomatoes... ) so Matthias wanted to "help." He got some bowls of oatmeal to stir... and spill, and drop on the floor. I got dinner made... and then had a huge mess to clean up. But he had fun and Nora didn't eat too much of the oatmeal on the floor...

There is life here! Nora is still teething and is fighting a runny nose and drool. Pray that Matthias stays safe this week!!