A weekend away!!

A few months ago, Shawn and I decided that we needed to get away one more time before little DeBoef boy #2 gets here in the fall. We knew we needed to keep the cost low and I was dying to lay on a beach so we came up with an easy solution- we would head up to Chicago and the Indiana Sand Dunes where we got engaged. Definately not the ocean, but sand and a large body of water....close enough! So we booked a Bed & Breakfast in Valparaiso and our trip was planned! (Little did I know the chain of events that would lead up to this vacation.)

Shawn took the last 2 weeks of his summer break off to work on our addition, but all of the rain recently has put us over a month behind where we had hoped to be at this point. Last Tuesday night, Shawn's Dad came up to help him finally lay the floor so that they could start putting up some walls!! We think Shawn was working on putting down one of the last pieces of plywood to finish up the floor when the plywood gave way and Shawn fell into our concrete basement, hitting the rafters on the way down. He never did pass out, but after Shawn started asking questions like "what are we building" and when looking at me saying "apparently we're going to have a baby!" we decided a trip to the ER was necessary. Shawn ended up with a minor concussion, but it took him a good 3 days to get his short-term memory back and as of Thursday morning I still wasn't sure if we would be able to leave that afternoon for our trip like we had planned. Here are some of his "battle wounds":

He is going to kill me when he sees that I put this picture on here. :P
In the end we were able to take off on Thursday around noon (we decided a weekend of relaxation was MUCH needed for him!), and after dropping Kallen off at Grandma and Papa's house in Oskaloosa we were off to chicago!! Thursday night we ended up getting a hotel room in downtown chicago for the convenience, and Friday we spent the day walking!

(I almost didn't put this picture up because I look huge, but oh well. I'm over it. :P )
We decided to walk to the zoo (a total of 6 miles) and quickly realized that we had made a very poor decision in footwear....flip flops. By the time we were half way back to our hotel my feet were rubbed completely raw. :(
But we still had a great time at the zoo and despite our aching feet we were having a blast!!

That afternoon we headed to Indiana to check into our Bed & Breakfast which was AMAZING!! I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a quiet weekend getaway! Plus, we are talking 3 course breakfasts here people! The two days we stayed there we were never hungry for lunch! :P

I actually took a ton of pictures of this place because it was all decorated so cute, but I knew they would get boring pretty fast so here are just a couple! ;)

My feet were still suffering on Saturday so our plans to climb the dunes and hike the trails turned into reading on the beach and people watching. Here is the beach where we got engaged!(insert awwwww here) We climbed a sand dune to the left that you can't really see, and Shawn popped the question just as the sun was setting with the silhouette of Chicago in the background. He did a great job...very romantic!! I can't believe that was 6 years ago!! Makes me feel old!

Here is what we spent most of the day Saturday doing! The perfect medicine for Shawn!!

We finished the day with a competitive game of miniature golf (Shawn beat me by 1 stinkin point) and by the time we woke up on Sunday we were ready to get home and see our little boy! It was an awesome weekend getaway and I am soo glad we had the chance to do it!!!

construction update

Here are some updates on the construction around here:

The walls are poured and ready for dirt to be filled in.

This was right before they layed the concrete on the floor. The rain made us wait an entire week before they could come back and finish. :( This will be Shawn's room for meat processing and the shelf that you see is for storage!

The guys were finally able to come yesterday to pour concrete so Shawn spent a few hours last night getting things ready to lay the main floor today!

And here is what's left of our poor backyard after all of the trucks and skid loaders cleared out. My poor, poor yard. :'(

Racoons? Squirrels? Nope, Kallen!

We spent the weekend camping in Pella at Lake Red Rock with Shawn's family. His Dad is 1 of 12 kids and every year the whole family (or as many as can make it) gets together for a weekend of camping and reconnecting. It is an amazing family and I feel so blessed to have married into it!

Our first night started out a little rough with thunderstorms and rain basically all night, but we managed to stay dry in our little tent and, suprisingly, Kallen slept through all of it!! The next night was PERFECT!! It was not too hot, not too cool and we all slept great!

Kallen woke up a little bit early and we had just managed to get him back to sleep so I went back to bed and Shawn stepped out of the tent to have some quiet time to himself. We had Kallen in his pack-n-play for the weekend so we didn't really worry about checking on him....I guess we should have! I woke up to this chubby little hand pounding on my leg and thought- Oh, Shawn got him out and told him to go wake up Mommy! When I sat up- here is what I saw:

Kallen had somehow managed to get out of his pack-n-play and had gotten into everything! Our tent was a DISASTER!! It looked like a wild animal had gotten into our tent....nope just Kallen! It is still beyond me how he got out- and luckily it has not happend since then. Shawn said he had heard someone rummaging around in the tent, but he just figured I was up and getting ready. I still have no clue how much our little boy ate for breakfast that morning, but boy was he having the time of his life and just beeming from ear to ear. :P
The rest of our weekend went GREAT! Yes it was hot and muggy, and Yes I have bug bites all over my feet and legs despite ridiculous amounts of bug spray, but it was all worth it to just be outside and slow life down for a few days! Plus we were surrounded with amazing people (I think there were over 90 people there this year) whom all have great hearts and are just a ton of fun to be around!!

Random thoughts

Between construction workers needing in our house and Kallen waking up sick on Wednesday morning, I have been stuck in this house all week and I am about to go crazy!!

I love our house but I was not made to stay inside this much!
(ok, it's not really even that bad I worked on Monday from 5-8 and Wednesday from 3-6, had a photo session Tuesday night, and we did leave for a quick dr.'s appt on Wed. morning so it's not like I haven't left the house in days)

It has really made me think about those people who are not able to leave the house. I can't imagine what their lives must be like.

On a positive note- I have had lots of one-on-one time with my little boy! We have been reading books galore and working on our abc's.

(ok it's more just me trying to read Kallen a book and Kallen throwing abc magnets across the kitchen floor but hey- at least I'm trying!)

And slowly, but surely they are making progress on our house!

I am guessing this means we will be getting walls soon!

And this is a doorway cut into our basement wall.

(try getting your child to take a nap while that is happening)

Here we go!

Things are going to start changing around here. We are adding on a salon to our house. I am soo excited to be able to work from home! Our goal is to have this all done by November- we'll see how it goes.

Here is our house before- Shawn had just finished tearing off some of the siding.

Kallen spent most of the day yesterday with his nose pressed against the sliding glass door. He LOVED watching them move the dirt around!

And here is what it looked like by the time the guys quit for the day. Now that is a big pile of dirt! - if Kallen were a little bit older he would be in heaven. :P

It's a boy!!

This is our newest little Baby Boy DeBoef!

(I know this picture isn't very clear, but it's the best I could do for now.)

A lot of people have asked me if I was disappointed to find out we were going to have another boy and my answer is not at all!! I honestly went into our ultrasound appointment without a care at all as to the gender of our baby. I really was just praying that it would be healthy! I was so excited when the technician pointed to his little boy parts and said "can you tell what you're looking at?" My first thought was- "Yay a little buddy for Kallen to wrestle around with!"- then I started thinking about how much money this would save us! With Kallen being born in April, we will be dealing with opposite seasons, but for the first few months all we should need to buy is diapers!! I just love the thought of two little boys running around, catching frogs, and playing in the mud. I grew up in a house full of girls so this little boy thing is new to me, but I am quickly learning that if you are going to raise little boys you just have to relax a little and know that things are going to get messy. :P (That doesn't mean that I can't at least try to teach him to stay clean though.)

I am soo grateful that God has blessed me with two healthy boys and it is not something I take for granted!

Our Big Boy

This sweet little boy had his 15 month check up today! While we were sitting in the waiting area a couple came in with their brand new baby girl for her first check-up and it almost made me cry! I feel like it was just yesterday that I brought Kallen in for his 1st appointment- but I guess I'll be doing all of that all over again soon enough!

Anyways, here are Kallen's stats:

Height: 30 3/4 in. (40%)

Weight: 21.6 (13%)

Head Cir: 18.5 (45%)

This was much better than his 12 month check up when he was only in the 1 percentile for weight! All in all he is just your average little boy! And he is definately 100% boy!! He spends his days throwing/kicking balls around, playing with rocks and sticks as much as possible, destroying anything he can get his hands on, and recently throwing EVERYTHING! (does anyone have any tricks to help with that last one? I can't get him to stop throwing things- so far I have tried time-outs and spankings and neither one has phased him. :S )

Aside from the throwing- Kallen has been soo much fun lately!! He is really picking up on following directions. Like if we ask him to go get his drink and set it on the table- he does it! I find myself telling him to do things just to see if he can figure it out! It also seems like he is much happier now that he can communicate with us- rather than getting frusterated and whining until we figure out what he wants. And the best part of all- he has been soo OBEDIENT!! Maybe all those months of discipline really did pay off! Last week he learned this fake little laugh which cracks me up! He will sit down to read books and just start laughing, or jabber something to me then laugh about it. I just LOVE it!!