Its actually been working pretty good living at my parent's. They are hardly home so Jaimee and I pretty much have the house to ourselves all day. We set up the living room as "our" room with Jaimee's toys, our computer and TV and stuff so we have our own space. Our bedroom is set up too with our King bed up there, our TV, and it still has the futon in there so we can watch TV from the couch too. Jaimee's room was one of the last ones I have worked on. It was the storage place for quite some time. Any time we took stuff out of our room and didn't know where to put it, it went in Jaimee's room. I wasn't going to set up her crib but decided to do it anyway. So I pushed the twin beds in there to the sides (one on each side of the room) and then put her crib along the back wall between them so we can still use that room as a guest room if we ever have visitors. We have a toy box in her room and her closet filled up nicely with her little toys (this girl has soooo many toys!!), and her Ikea chair in the corner with a nice little table with a few books on it next to the chair. A lot in that room but she still has plenty of floor space to play.
"Our" living room is finally feeling homey. We decided to go ahead and have a satellite hookup put in there so we can watch our own TV. We got a DVR that can also be operated up in our room so hopefully Ryan and I won't have to fight over the TV anymore. We always have the Xbox and DVR hooked to the same TV which means if he plays Xbox I can't watch my recorded shows but now I can go upstairs and watch them! I still prefer watching TV in the living room over the bedroom. Mom asked that if we are going to let our dogs into "our" room that we cover the couches so they don't get dirty and covered in hair so our couch covers finally arrived and now I don't have to worry about the dogs jumping up on the couches.
I ordered some new baby gates cause Jaimee can now push through the ones we have. There are stairs that she really likes to sit on and climb up but she's not very stable and has taken a couple little tumbles so I really need to get those blocked off. We also want to keep the dogs out of the dining room and from havnig free roam of the house. Until we moved in, my parent's dogs were not allowed in the living room and dining room and since they are not used to it we are afraid they will have accidents if not watched. The gates we currently have work great at keeping the dogs out but not so great when a tiny little girl is constantly pushing them open. The dogs can now come into the living room but only if they are being supervised. Two of the 3 gates came and work great. Just need one more to have everything baby-proofed.
If you stop by, you will see that there are still quite a few "stray" items that have yet to find a place to rest but its coming together. Amazingly, this house accomodates 5 adults and 1 baby quite nicely.
It has been really nice being so close to family. Our first couple weekends were packed full of family activities- fireworks/bonfire at the farm, family reunions, etc. Ryan and I have been able to do a few things by ourselves while Gramme or PaPa watch Jaimee or after she goes to bed we can run errands cause there's someone home just in case she wakes up which she never does but you just can't leave them alone :-)
I got Jaimee signed up at the public library for their summer reading program. If we read 1 book each week, she gets a little prize (ice cream cone, stickers, a new book, etc). The library has a combined goal to have 15,000 books read this summer. If the kids make it, they get to have a party at the end so we've been trying to turn our books in each week. Usually we turn in about 10-15 books each week. The library here is really nice. It has a great little play area with a couple train tracks, a rocking horse, some doll houses, and a nice little area to sit and read. Jaimee loves playing there. They have a really nice reading program on Monday mornings and Wednesday evenings that I love taking Jaimee to. They do 20 mins of "circle time" where they read a couple books and sing some fun songs and then they pull out a bunch of neat toys for the kids to run wild and play with while the parents visit/play. Jaimee loves it. Her favorite is the shopping carts- she loves pushing them all around. They have tubes to crawl through, big soft blocks, big play kitchen with tons of food, etc.
We got a pool pass so we can go to the Aquatic Center anytime. They have a really nice play area for short people with water that squirts out of the ground (like little sprinklers), little slides, and other fun little stuff. I just discovered about a week ago when we went with my aunt Joy, Reese (3yrs old) and Dayton (4yrs old) that we can take the kiddos down the big slides on our laps so we took them on all the big slides and boy did they enjoy that. A favorite slide was a big one where they let 5 people sit and go down together. We raced and held hands and had a great time.
Ryan is having his church membership transfered here to this church. I've been getting involved with stuff. I was asked to sit on the School Board and now I teach the cradle roll lesson each week. There's only 1 other baby besides Jaimee so its a nice small group. I took one of our baby gates and when its time for the lesson, I gate them in and I try to make it interactive for them. A couple weeks ago my cousin Wynter, her husband Andy, their friend, and I all did a special music together. It went pretty good and was fun getting together to practice.
Just up the street from the house (would be walking distance if you didn't have to cross the highway) is a really nice park and area to walk the dogs. Jaimee loves walking on all the "bridges" on the playground, sliding, and swinging. Its really nice cause it has nice squishy stuff under it instead of sand or gravel. I hate when playgrounds have sand or gravel cause it covers my flip flops and feels icky. This playground has one end where everything is lower and shorter for little people but then the other side has bigger slides and stuff to climb up on. Across the street is the dog walking area and it has a little pond and walking trail.
A few weeks ago I had walked up to the Dairy Queen which is just past that park and saw a huge turtle with a long tail. I was super intrigued so I walked up to it and looked and took pictures. Its tail looked like a dinasour tail and it didn't pull into its shell. I called Ryan up and he drove over with the dogs and looked at it. He said it was a snapping turtle. The turtle was headed for the road so Ryan was going to pick him up and put him back closer to the pone. Before he reached down, he tapped the turtle on its back with his foot. Instead of ducking further into his shell and hiding, the turtle quickly turned around and stared Ryan straight in the eye ready to fight. Ryan put his foot back up to "taunt" the turtle and the turtle reached his head out and SNAPPED nearly getting Ryan's foot. The turtle was quick and his neck had incredible reach. Very cool!
We joined the Y which is just down the road from us- takes like 5 minutes to get there. I have taken Jaimee a couple times to the daycare to just play with her so she feels safe and comfortable there. She really likes it. They have a little slide inside, lots of babies, little tables and chairs (she really likes to sit in chairs that are her size), and other fun toys. They also take the kids outside where they have a sandbox, playground, and some sidewalk where the kids can ride the little bikes they have available. She does much better there than the one in Lincoln.
My aunt Bellie asked if I would do zumba with her in the mornings so we are going to start going Monday mornings and then I somehow talked my mom into trying an evening zumba class with me and we just went for the first time this Monday. She's coming to at least one more class (she already paid for it) and we talked my other aunt Gail into coming along with us to try it so that should be fun to zumba with friends :-)
My dad asked me to sub for one of his tennis team's members. The guy that was going to miss was on the phone with my dad and asked if I was any good to which my dad replied, "well, she's better than a forfeit." Thanks dad! I went. The other team didn't have enough players, my dad's team did so we got the win!! I ended up playing singles with a girl who would have been my partner. I lost horribly but pretty much every game went to douce (or duce) so they were close games. It was fun.
We've been very busy this summer so far. Lots to do.
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