Labor Day, a Rotted Porch and the End of Summer Sickies

A few years ago we determined that part of our front porch was rotting. Our friend Brian was tying his shoe on the porch and lost his balance and caught himself on one of our columns. The column bent where his hand hit to steady himself and that was our first clue. (FYI-A non-rotted column should not bend just from someones hand). As this title may (or may not) suggest, we have just now, several years later, gotten around to finding the time to replace not only the column, but a full porch beam that was also rotted AND holding the hooks to Colin's swing. On Labor Day Saturday we were just going to find out exactly what else was damaged and kind of make a plan for another weekend in the very near future.

Well, a little peek into the inner-workings of the porch sent us into motion. It was much worse than we thought and Mike thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of his three day weekend. The "us" I was referring to basically means Mike. He pretty much rebuilt the entire porch himself! Someone had to keep an eye on Colin since our front yard was filled with old wood with old nails sticking out and shards of metal and that's all he wanted to do was get his soft little hands on it all. So when Colin was taking his marathon naps I joined in the fun. Otherwise it was a lot of walking around keeping him our of harms way and an occasional exersaucer visit so I could lend a quick hand.

Of course we're not quite finished. In typical Masto style we still have the new columns to install (after we figure out what we're going to do), tons of caulking and painting and even a few pieces of trim left to put up. We're hoping it's not another few years before we finish it!

In other news: Colin's walking like a champ these days. His latest thing is when he falls, which he still does fall several times, he breaks out into hysterics-crying, yelling, carrying on for sometimes minutes at a time. We're not quite sure why he does this-he's not hurt but maybe he's just frustrated that he's no longer on his feet? He's still having trouble standing up from the middle of a room. He usually scans to find the nearest piece of furniture or closest wall and crawls over to that to help himself up. He's getting there, though. We've witnessed several standings with no furniture aid in the past few days. (so cute!)

He's got teeth sprouting out all over his mouth. Several coming in at the back and the fourth one on the bottom has emerged.

He likes to hold phones to his ear and even other objects, mostly the remote. He likes to put them up to our ears too.

He likes to brush his hair! and brush his teeth!

He likes filling up a plastic bottle with little plastic and wooden balls and then has figured out how to turn the bottle upside down to make them come out again. (and repeat several times!)

He learned how to use a toy hammer to punch the little balls out of their little slots in a few toys he has. He's also learned to use that same hammer on our windows, the television screen and other things around the house. We're just waiting for him to attack the cats!

Colin and Guthrie joined a one year old soccer league. Just kidding! But doesn't this picture look like they're kicking the ball to each other? We hung out with the Sanders a few weeks ago on the Green on another beautiful evening in Charlotte. Thanks guys!

My new personal favorite of Colin's is that he's saying bye-bye! He waves and says "Ba-ba!". He started that a few days ago and we thought it was a coincidence. But it's not. And we try to get him to do it all the time!

The summertime sickies have caught up with Colin once again. Just last week he started getting the sniffles and a watery nose. We thought it might be allergies but a fever showed itself Friday and Saturday and a little on Sunday. He's on the mend but still has the goo coming from his nose. We're going to the doctor this morning just to make sure he's not harboring any major germs before we send him off to school this week. Poor guy.

That's about it for now. We'll talk to you soon. "Ba-ba!"