Los Kleinman The First 4.5 Years

Straws and Bugs

There are a lot of things that Nathan loves. But lately he has really been enjoying blowing bubbles in a cup of water with a straw and he is very aware of anthing that may or may not be a bug. Sometimes he will notice a lint from his toes floating around in the bath water and he with say "bugck" over and over till I notice and fish the lint out. He is not really afraid of bugs, he just does not want one in his bath water.

Wanting me to play catch even though I am taking his picture.

Playing with and trying to poke little ants in the backyard.

Blowing bubbles.

Summer Projects

Here is what I have been up to this summer.

I have been really focusing on building up our food storage. We have a bit more than this but is in another closet. We are about 1/3 of the way there for a family of 4-5.

This was a fun enrichment craft project. I made it to match our bedroom.

I plan on putting a picture of Curtis and I in it.

I finally got around to painting up these boards that my sister-in-law Bekah made for me.

I think Nathan's growth chart board really turned out good.

This was my little birthday present to myself, before (grean/pink with roses) and after. I found this wooden box w/ drawers at a thift store for $3. I gave it a makeover to match our bedroom with the scraps left from the boards I made.

The secret world of CL

Here's to you Emily for encouraging me to open up my horizons and experience the wonderfulness that is CL. I may not have bought my house off CL but I have had 2 wonderful experiences with making purchases.

purchase #1 - $10

purchse #2 - $285

Halloween

We started out our Halloween celebrations with the story time trick-or-treating around the library. At first Nathan didn't want to leave the Kid's Space area with all the fun things to climb on, but he soon realized that it was fun to walk around and have people give him little trinkets that he got to keep. The rear view is adorable.
Nathan insisted on taking this soccer ball to trunk-or-treat. He had a blast kicking it around on the grass around the church. Nathan loved the "nana" that came with the costume. He held on to it most of the time and would shoe it to everyone that talked to him.
A few people had orange balloons decorating their trunks and Nathan kept going back to them. In fact we never made it to the other end of the parking lot because he went back and forth between his favorites ones, the ones with balloons. Eventually someone was kind enough to give him one and he was thrilled. At some point Nathan ripped the wrapper off a tootsie pop by himself and he would not let the thing go.
At the end of the evening he was one sweaty, happy kid.
I decided to make Nathan's treat bag. I wanted something cute and original and just his size.

We never did get Nathan so say "Trick-or-treat" but he fully embraced every other aspect of Halloween. He loved his costume, his bag full of candy, the other kids wearing costumes and of course the balloons.

Animals, Ice Cream and Pumpkins, Oh My!

Grandma and Grandpa Kleinman treated us to an afternoon at a pumpkin patch. There were a lot of fun activities for families to enjoy. Nathan was not in the best mood so the whole experience was a bit tainted by his tantrums but there were times when he was his usual happy self.

Being pacified on the hay ride with handfuls of Cheerios. He eventually relaxed and enjoyed the ride.When Nathan is being difficult I get tense and I usually get testy with Curtis. I am learning a lot about myself through motherhood. This time I quickly apologized to Curtis and thanked him for keeping his cool, kissed him and then we smiled and took this picture.

Nathan loved the little petting zoo. They had pygmy goats, sheep, bunnies, a horse and a mammoth donkey.

At the farm they had fun music playing. Nathan walked up to this speaker and started dancing.

Curtis was playing with Nathan trying to distract him and get him over another little tantrum. Gotta love toddlers.

We didn't make it to the train ride before it closed but Nathan still had fun "driving" his car.

Freshly made ice cream is hard to beat.Picking out his pumpkin.

Escrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did it, we are in escrow! This is the stage of the home buying process that we have been longing for but until now have never been able to acheive. We are so happy with our first little house. It is a bit retro 70's because it had old people living in it, but they took extremely good care of it and left behind all of the appliances. Washer and dryer here I come! The house is 1400 sq ft, 2 bed 2 bath, so it has a ton of living space. We have plans for a 3rd bedroom soon and eventually we hope to add on a new master suite turning the old one into a family room. So we are excited.

One of the first things we plan on doing after we move in is to replace the old fiber glass garage door with a new modern white one. During the day the garage is always lit up because the sun shines through the door creating a warm glow. At night when the garage light is on the house looks like a jack-o-lantern with the light glowing through the garage door. We will work on painting the brown eaves and trim white to better compliment the pale yellow siding. As it is the house colors remind me of a very ripe banana.

The yard has a lot of mature trees and landscaping which is great. Mostly we just have to work on removing some not so kid friendly pear cactus in the front yard, trim back some of the overly mature bushes, and haul out rock to make room for some lovely grass. And prep and enlarge an existing garden spot. And probably install a drip and sprinkler system. We are going to be busy.This is the kitchen. It is a bit out dated as well, but we'll do our best to spruce up the cabinets for now. I love that it is open and roomy and the appliances are fairly new and really clean. The dining area is nice and big too, but it has carpet. Luckily we are not partial to the carpet and plan on replacing it some time too. In the mean time I will not be too worried about the food that Nathan might spill. He does really good about not being a messy eater, I have worked hard to teach him table manners and for a little guy he does great.
This is the living room and it is big. Here you can get a better look at the carpet. It is quite clean and not too worn out, but it is not attractive. However I can live with it and it will be a daily reminder that I need to work hard on our budget to save our money so that I can replace it sooner rather than later. You can't really see it in any pictures but the house has popcorn ceilings in the bedrooms and living areas. My little sister Aubrey likes the ceilings because the popcorn has gold flecks mixed in, quite retro feeling. At night the ceiling sparkles from the lights and Aubrey thinks it is awesome. That is one thing we are taking care of before we move in, sorry Aubrey. Curtis and I will remove it and then hire someone to retexture it. There is also an empty brick pad where a wood stove once resided. So that will be a fun project to tear that out, but for now Nathan uses it like a stage.
Not only will I have washer and dryer connections with a washer and dryer but I have a laundry room with lots of potential. There is even a space to add a utility sink! And room for cupboards/shelfs. It is going to be great.
These are pictures of the hall bathroom, also in need of updating although it is clean and in in good shape. When we move in we are replacing all the light fixtures, Curtis can't even stand them. But I have to admit that the lenoleum in this bathroom is growing on me. The little old lady that lived here loved pink and gold.
This is the 2nd bedroom. I told Aubrey she can use these curtains to make a fun pioneer dress to add to her dress up collection.

Here is the master bedroom with its wonderful curtains and the master bath. The walk-in closet is huge, literally a small room, so it will double as the food storage room.

This is the arizona room off the dining room.

This is the back patio with a built on storage room.

It was dark outside when I took these pictures of the backyard so you can't really see it but it is flat and good sized. Our lot is a quarter acre and we have good sized side yards too.

We have had our inspection and every thing looked good. We do have a small leak under the kitchen sink but we know a good plumber. We get more excited every time we look at our little house. It is in a great neighborhood. We were out in the yard one afternoon around 4pm and there were a lot of kids out playing in their yards and riding their bikes and it just felt like a great place to raise our family. We our one block from a nice big park and the best part is we are right across the street from the chapel. We can see it from our front yard. We feel super blessed to have this home. We are glad we waited.