Grant is growing!

Here is Grant when he was very young trying out one of Grandpa's new bowls. A perfect fit! The picture doesn't do justice to how long his hair was. Next, Ryan's got Grant with his 3 month bow tie we received from one of his co-workers.

 When I realized that 6 days out of 7 were bad hair days for Grant, we decided to cut his hair.  He was only 3 months! There is not great muscle control at this age, and it took Amber and I working together to get the job done.

Then we had to do some touch-ups; it's easy to  notice when you miss a spot, after you've taken 2 inches off everywhere else.

Big storm and big game

 Two years in a row Ryan, and the kids have camped in the backyard only to be chased inside by tornado-like wind speeds. Here is what happened this year.

 Our kids are getting a little superstitious about camping in the backyard. Carl, who wants the final limbs of the poor ash tree to fall down, keeps asking to camp in the backyard again.

 I try not to encourage him since this storm cost us a new roof. 

This summer Ryan led soccer club for the kids. They met in the yard every morning at 6:30 and did drills and other "soccer things" until breakfast. As a final show of how much they learned, they challenged the Finch cousins to a soccer match. 

The Finch's not only outnumber the Hackett's, they also outweigh them. Everyone had a great time regardless. And I'm pretty sure that Carl spent the whole time practicing his somersaults. He's the one in the Argentina jersey close to the ground. I'm sure that one day he will be our secret weapon.

Piano Room

I have to apologize because these pictures were taken last winter when we normally do our wallpaper projects. The problem with getting these pictures is you do all the grunt work and then it takes a month to get all the new paper up and all you want to do is sit in the new room and enjoy it. 

Here is our piano room with it's new dogwood blossom green wallpaper. We love it!

Master Bedroom

I think that our master bedroom might be my new favorite room now. Here is the old room in a strong 90's style motif. This was not the only layer of wallpaper we had to pry off, but it was the darkest.

Luckily the kids love, love, love scraping wallpaper off. Is it the party music we listen to? Is it the good company? Is it the promise of frozen yogurt when we're done? It's hard to know.

If you will see Jane's technique below, that is why Ryan dremmeled off the corners of everyone's putty knives. He was sick of patching walls.

Here is the completed room. I made the curtains and they were being trained to hang right in this picture. I would take another picture now, but the room is full of baby stuff that are not so cute.