Tuesday we got together at Mary's house to celebrate a very special occasion: Mary and Emme's first family day! It's amazing that it's already been a year that Mary and Emme have been a family, and in some ways, it seems like it's been much longer!
We had a fun dinner with the little girls, and some cake to celebrate with after. All the girls loved the cake!
Happy first Family Day Emme!!!
We celebrated Skype Baby's birthday at their house- Liana loves hugging the little girls- I'm not sure Emme wanted all the hugs that she was getting, but she was a cheerful and patient "hug-ee."
The older girls started "cheers"-ing at the kids table- Zoe, Dumpling, Eva & Liana. It was so cute because they all did it in unison with their various sippy cups! I love moments like this!
Dumpling was very excited for skype baby to open her presents- she is a good big sister who doesn't always realize that little sisters are not the equivalent of your favorite stuffed animal in terms of how they can be hauled around, but fortunately Skype baby is about the happiest baby ever, and almost anything that Dumpling is doing, makes her smile or laugh.
And the infamous cake picture... She had no qualms about reaching right in and digging into the frosting! And when you have a bunch of sugary frosting, you are most certainly going to need a sippy cup of milk to wash it down....
Happy Birthday Skype Baby! We are so glad you came home to be a part of our Village! We love you and wish you many more happy happy birthdays!
Stripped walls!!! And a whole lot of wallpaper on the floor! Clearly this was before we actually moved to the house, since there is room in the living room. As of now, it's stacked full of multiple couches and tables and a big chair and two ottomans. We are waiting to move much stuff to the second floor until we have done some of the more urgent remodel things upstairs- taking wallpaper out of Maddies Room & putting in a new carpet, and taking the extra wall that makes it into two rooms) out of our bedroom. So for now, furniture that should be in the extra bedrooms downstairs is all in the living room, and furniture that should be in the upstairs bedrooms is in the downstairs bedrooms. Sooner or later it will all get straightened out!
Maddie didn't seem to mind the construction phase too much, as long as there was a good stool to play on...
I love this little cheesey grin!
We followed the same process as last year- dumping the apples into a big bucket with water to rinse them, then cutting them in half and into the 'grinder' on the cider press. Maddie LOVED playing with the apples in the water and loved to go get apples to bring to us, bring apples to put in the water, and help the older kids fill the pots and pans with apples for us to cut for the cider press.
After the apples went through the course 'grinder' on the press, the top went on and the pressing started. Everyone had fun taking turns spinning the crank that pressed the cider out of the apples.
As beautiful as ever! We had an added bonus this year- I found out about a website where people can list fruit trees found on public land. I went unsuccessfully in search of apples, but did manage to find two Asian pear trees FULL of beautiful Asian pears- on public land! they were poured into the bucket with the apples but somehow they all disappeared. Finally when we had cleared some of the floating apples, we discovered that they had all sunken to the bottom! There was a pressing of mostly asian pears, which we did not yet taste, but we're excited to see how it affects the flavor! 
We had takeout from Sckavonnes- one of our favorite breakfast places but also great for dinner. One of Maddie's favorites is Macaroni and Cheese:
I think she is saying "this stuff, can I have it every meal?" We were back there for dinner recently & thought it would be wise to order her a childs serving of Mac & Cheese. they told us the kids menu mac and cheese is just Kraft. We thought, really? You guys make this rocking mac & cheese and you give the kids KRAFT??? I said, "oh, I don't know if she'll eat it, she's never had it before." But we decided to give it a try, and guess what? Nope- not at all interested. In fact, she ate two noodles and decided no more. However, Baba had gotten Mac and Cheese and she proceeded to eat nearly half of his plate of Mac & Cheese. What can I say, she's a foodie from early on!
And this one isn't so much a smile as a satisfied girl- she was having a rough time (you would too if you were getting 4 new teeth at the same time...) so I followed a friend's advice (Thanks Holly!) and went in search of popsicles. I couldn't find the mini slow melt ones she mentioned, but did find some great whole fruit ones that came "otter pop style"- Maddie LOVES them.
Maddie loves music. No, she doesn't just perk up when music comes on, the girl MOVES. She has a baby Einsten book that plays this really loud mechanical music when you push the buttons, and she will just sit in the back seat of the car and rock out to this book! If she hears music, her little body just starts moving on it's own! There is uaually music playing when we get to school in the morning, and this morning, the beat was just too good to not move to...
As for the hair- we decided it was a "three ponytail" kind of day. She is pretty good about getting her hair done, but some days she really gets into it. She has gone to school before with about 10 barrettes in her hair because she just kept handing them to me. Today it was rubber bands....and I remembered seeing a referral picture many months back and the family saying "our daughter has 3 ponytails!" So, we were inspired this morning to do 3 ponytails. We'll see if all 3 have managed to stay in through the day or not...
The walls in the kitchen were all Malamac- this shiny plastic stuff that was pretty popular back in the 50's or 60's. (I think, I've never actually done the research to find out exactly WHEN it was hot, but that seems likely...) A sweet story about this wall- the woman we bought the house from Ella, raised 3 children in this house along with her husband Fred. They owned this house for 48 years before Ella went into a retirement home this year. She wrote us a beautiful letter that we found when we got our keys the first day, and one of the things she said was that she always hung her kids artwork on this wall.
Unfortunately we had to take the molding down, as the Malamac went underneath it. We'd have to anyway for the new drywall, so there was no avoiding it. Scott was in charge of safely removing & marking window & door molding. It all came off in good shape so it will be easy to get back up.
But unfortunately the cabinets were built in place, so we couldn't remove them. It was a shame because they were seriously solid cabinets. They were really beautiful and heavy duty- but there was just no way to "nicely" remove them from the walls, they had to be dissassembled.
And finally, after all the lathe & plaster dust had cleared...
So maybe the dust hasn't all cleared, but at least the lathe & plaster are off the walls. it was a BIG job, thank goodness we had many hands!!! 
The electrician came in on Wednesday to put in a new panel, and again on thursday to wire the kitchen. Jim & Hilda (my drywallers, they seriously ROCK. They are the best ever!) are bringing drywall out on Friday, starting on the ceiling on friday or Monday, and hopefully the electrical inspector will be out on Monday morning (not afternoon) so they can get going on the walls Monday as well.
A friend from many years ago had been previously married to a Japanese man. She told me that in Japan, they believe that laughter cleanses a house of past spirits. She told me this when I bought my last house (Or something vaguely along those lines, that is how I remembered it and interpreted it!), and I still remember it to this day. When I bought the house that we just sold, she and I and her only daughter at the time came to the house one night before I moved in and we just ran through the house laughing and giggling until we couldn't breathe anymore. I think her daughter may have been 2 or 3 at the time, so of course she loved it. It was fantastic- an empty house, no curtains, lights on, dark outside, and here are two adult women and a little girl just running circles around the rooms laughing away. It's a great memory!
This is a view of one of the two upstairs hallways. the little closet on the right is really pretty big, and the door leads into a bathroom. We are so lucky that there is already plumbing on the second floor! We'll be adding a shower at some point in the future, but for now the half bath is better than no bath!
This is the room that will be ours until we get the 2nd floor to a shape to move everything up there. Love that pinecone wallpaper!
This is a closeup of the vintage second floor wallpaper. We were joking that if only we could remove it nicely, we could sell it on ebay to fund the remodel!
A view of the backyard. There is great soil in the gardens, and even a greenhouse!
Maddie's temporary room until we move into the 2nd floor. Ironic that the only two yellow rooms in the house (after dismantling the yellow kitchen) are the room that she'll start with and the one she'll end up with. Funny because her room now is yellow and we keep talking about how to keep her world "similar" when we move to the new house. We didn't pick the yellow rooms for this reason, it just happened to work out this way!
The living room- yes, wallpaper. also beautiful coved cielings and a hearth that Maddie LOVES to walk across!
And more vintage wallpaper. Seriously, it's going to be fun when we get to removing wallpaper!
But, the good news is, by Wednesday (The day that Baba stayed home with her because she couldn't go to school), she was back to her old self- wanting bottles again, eating voraciously, and happy as ever. They came and met me for lunch at work- what a thing to treasure! Your sweet husband and sweet daughter coming to have lunch with you!
She was following her around to "make sure she didn't need help standing"- you know, just in case...
And of course the star of the entertainment was our own little villager Nina! She is the 3rd one in from the left side, in the front.
And here she is featured bouncing as part of the song- everyone was still and she was in the front bouncing bouncing bouncing- it was totally the cutest thing ever!
And this one is just a random pic I had to throw in- one of her teachers at school loves to put ponytails in the girls hair- we didn't have any ties at home, so after a few days of school ponytails, we accumulated some so we could do our OWN ponytails! This was Maddie's first day of TWO ponytails and the first day with her new jacket.... I LOVE this jacket- it's her own little navy pea coat to match Baba's and she is just adorable in it!
In other news, now that Maddie has made a full recovery, Jeremy went to the Dr yesterday to find out why his mouth has been bothering him- it turns out we had our own little typhoid Mary in house and he has gotten a milder version of what Maddie had, although the Dr said he's likely to be done with it in the next two days, let's hope so!
And playing in my veil when I leaned down to tie the ribbon on my shoes
My sister Heather and my best friend Lisa...my two bridesmaids! I really love the dresses we ended up picking!
We did photos before the wedding so there wouldn't be so much delay after while we were taking photos- I'm glad we did it this way because then we got to share the special moment of seeing each other for the first time alone as a couple. Our photographer had told Jeremy to "wait there, don't turn around" and I walked up behind him. It was very exciting and seems weird to think about it, but it was such a special moment when he turned around and I saw him for the first time that day and he saw me...
We were both a little dumbfounded that this day had finally come, and overcome with happiness at the same time!
After the initial pictures Eva, Liana & Maggie came running over to see us- they wanted to play of course!
I really love this photo...
