It's Done!

After months of work our basement office is finally done! I did most of the work myself with some help from my Dad and my Grandma Clark. Yep that is right my Grandma is awesome and is great at taping and mudding. Anyway here is my corner

and here is Jessica's. I think this is a much better place for her sewing machine than the utility closet.

The only parts I didn't do were the carpet and the trim. We hired one of our neighbors for that and he did an excellent job so if you live around here and need any type of flooring done let me know and I'll give you his number.

It's a.....

HI!!! I'm Baby Ekstrom #2...

They told my parents that I'm a GIRL!!!

But they were wrong! I'm a BOY!!!

I was just being a little shy...

Today in the car...

While we were driving in the car to my parents' house today, I couldn't help but laugh my head off. So Nate & I were talking about babies, and it came up that he doesn't like to hold newborns. I know! Crazy, right? It's because he's afraid of "breaking them." I guess I can see his point, they are pretty fragile. Anyway, I told Tyler, "Daddy is afraid of tiny babies! Isn't that silly?" To which Ty responded, in a very sympathetic & comforting voice, "Ohhhh, it's okay daddy! There aren't any babies in the car. Don't be afraid!" So funny! But that wasn't the end, he went on to describe what WAS in the car, "See Daddy, there's only toys, and books, and mommy, and Chester" etc. etc. I thought that would be the end of it, but once we arrived at my parents' it continued. "And there's no babies in the bushes to be scared of either Daddy!" I love when Ty takes on the role of parent & tries to comfort us. :)

Little Book Worm

Tyler loves books. He loves to have us read to him. But even when Nathan or I are too busy, Ty loves to look at the pictures and "reread" the book in his head. He has an astonishing memory, and can remember most words to most of his books (anyone who has seen our bookcases knows that that's a lot of books!). He always has several piles of books lying around the house & in the car. You get the idea. I didn't think much about his love for books until I found him the other day with not one of his books, but one of mine....The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.


He was, no lie, sitting there "reading" this book for about 5 minutes before he even looked up. As soon as he noticed me, he got too embarassed & stopped reading. But after I left, I heard him go back to his make-shift reading nook (aka. a stool by the front door), and return to the book. As you can see, he even uses the little shoe cabinet in our entry as a place to store his books!

Tyler also loves to learn. Whenever he finds a book, newspaper, magazine, or even a piece of scrap paper with typing on it, he brings it to us and says "Talk about it." Recently, we've been trying to learn our letters. He likes to write them, with a little help from mom. This picture is a little old (a few months old actually), but I had to include it. After I had helped him with his writing, he did this...


As you can see, he gets a little shy in front of the camera. Many of our pictures have an embarassed smirk or smile, like those that you've seen so far. Maybe he just thinks that his mom is silly for taking pictures of him with a pencil.