4th of July weekend

Nothing says lets celebrate America like taking on some home-improvement projects. We decided to go with refinishing the deck since Mario had the extra days off work. The threat of rain prevented us from fulling finishing the deck, so I don't have complete before and after pictures. But if your deck looked like this, wouldn't you want to do something about it?

The actually staining of the deck isn't so bad... kind of like painting a room in your house. There's just a lot of prep work. Mario was master of the sander. I found it was a bit stronger than I am.

So I was stuck with the tedious task of setting the nails that had popped up back in the deck. I'm only smiling b/c MJ asked me to. I am glad I learned to sink nails and eventually got into a pretty good groove.


This is what happens to our home when we do projects (especially outside ones). The kids entertained themselves pretty well. This is a very creative home made out of patio cushions that were quickly tossed inside to clear the deck for work. That night I thanked the children's guardian angels for keeping them alive since we didn't watch them that much all day.

I do think it's nice that the kids see us doing projects. MJ certainly enjoys it.

He really loves power tools and has taken several still shots of the various tools we own. Typically he has to pose them in the exact way they are on their boxes or the front page of their instruction manual (which he loves to read and thinks are his magazines).

Despite all the work, we managed to celebrate the 4th in a more conventional way of a BBQ at our neighbor's house. It was great getting to hang out and get to meet more of our neighbors and all of their kids. Plus, a few of the men had some great fireworks so we all enjoyed a very nice show on their lawn.
Mario didn't like that I let Joey use a sparkler on his own. (I still did it after taking this picture, but I held it with him).

I have a cute video of the boys and their sparklers as well as the 2 dozen neighborhood kids, but I didn't know if you'd find that interesting.

What would a blog post be without a picture of Sheila and one of her cute faces?

Oh, I have to get a video of her crawling before it's too late. She continues to improve in speed. Our new song for her is sung to the Spiderman theme song tune "Danger girl, danger girl, goes wherever the danger is"
The projects did not end there. Sunday I returned to Home Depot to rent their 14 ft ladder (which after renting the sander on Friday, I think they began to recognize me). With more threat of rain on Sunday, we couldn't work on the deck. So we moved inside and replaced the chandelier in our foyer. It is now my new favorite part of the house to stare out. Mario still amazes me with all the new things he takes on. His only comment is something like, "The more I do, the better I get at trying new things."