I’m a part of a playgroup here in the Valley. It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet other moms and to form friendships among our kids. Since we joined about a year ago, Caleb has thrived. He loves all of the great activities and has already made a few little friends. I honestly don’t know what I would do without this great group of people… probably just be really bored all the time… and I pretty much go crazy when I’m bored….not a good thing….

But I digress.

With the help of my friend Brad the Fireman, I set up a tour with one of the Peoria fire stations for a playdate. Even though Caleb is a little too young to fully grasp the awesomeness that is a fire engine, he still had a blast. And the older kids loved romping in and out of the three enormous fire trucks. I also think the staff at the firehouse had just as much fun as the kids. Who does’t like to show off their 1.5 million dollar toys?

One of those big expensive toys.

All of the mommies and their kiddies. (btw, this is about 1/10th of the whole playgroup)

The staff and the kiddies. Caleb is in the upper left being held by Brad.

Me and a tired little boy who refused to wear the cool fireman hat.

Driving the firetruck!

On another note, I finally broke down and bought a little point and shoot camera. Caleb’s childhood just wouldn’t be the same without the slew of average quality pictures. So be prepared for a lot more flashy, amateur shots, because I am never taking this baby off of auto.

This morning, Caleb and I went with our friends Nikki and James to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix. It’s a three story museum located in a renovated school right in the middle of Downtown. It was amazing and full of creative exhibits. What’s even neater is that everything used to create this place was derived from recycled materials. Definitely worth a look for all you local folks. I thought about bringing my beast of a camera but decided against it knowing that if it was stolen, I would have a bunch of unhappy clients for the next few weeks. So I opted for my trusty iPhone instead.

And here’s a cute video of Caleb pushing his little buddy James around in a cart.

It’s actually been a few weeks since it was painted, but here’s a picture of our new paint job! I was dead set against anything brown or tan as living in AZ, you see enough of it. My desperate plea for a splash of color was granted. Now we have a fresh new blue house. I am so happy!

Now we just need some greenery in our red rock yard….

After  three months of sawdust, noise and plastic tarps, we’ve finally reached a goal. The interior is finished! Mostly, anyways. there are a few minor items like doorknobs and paint touch-ups, but it feels so good to finally remove the child\doggy barricades and let everyone roam free in our fresh new family room and office. We’ve spent the entire day in the family room and it has been awesome. It came out exactly how I wanted it: bright and roomy. Now Caleb can pull out every one of his toys and still have room to run around without tripping over anything. We pulled out the hardly-used chaise from our bedroom and put it in the corner for a cozy reading nook. The huge closet does a wonderful job storing everything we could possibly need. Here are a few before and afters for some good shock value:

Before, nasty messy garage:

After, sweet tranquility:

Before, a plain old garage door:

After, gorgeous archway:

Before, cramped and cluttered:

After, nice and spacious:

There’s plenty of space to spin around…:

…and lounge around:

Andy’s picked out the perfect colors for his new office:

And Caleb has more storage room than he could ever need:

The next step that will hopefully happen within a few days is the exterior painting. We let our Facebook friends vote for their favorite color and most of them chose the riskier option (hurrah!). We will probably be the first blue stucco house ever… and I thoroughly intend to start a trend. No more tan houses!!

Since we’ve had a lot of projects around the house with the remodeling going on, We’ve gained a little blonde-headed shadow that often imitates whatever we do. Here are a couple of videos showing his busy big-boy activities.

Picking out paint colors for the walls:

Reading the Sunday paper shopping for doorknobs: