Home Improvement, Fun in the Sun, Grand Haven with Friends, and Sleep

Can you tell by the title of the post that a lot has been going on (or could it be that I should have updated this thing sooner??) Anyway........With a new little one on the way in four months (wow - where has that time gone??!), the Petroelje house was in need of expansion. So...we added an egress window to a room in the basement to give us a little more room to roam! Grant was on cloud 9 when Eric came home with a mini excavator. He loved being a "big helper" throughout the whole process, although more times than not he was just in the way of the work.

Future excavator operator???Helping Grandpa P. dig the hole for the well.
Eric, Grandpa G., and G-man putting the finishing touches on things.

My parents are camping out at the beach again this week and last, so of course Grant and I have spent quite a bit of time out there. Eric has been working some weird hours teaching driver's ed. during the month of August, so he hasn't been able to join us much at all, to his dismay (can you sense the sarcasm? - my husband likes the beach about as much as kids like dentist appointments!). Every morning when Grant wakes up he wants to go to the beach. He just LOVES playing with Reese and Ava, throwing rocks into the channel with Grandpa, spending time in the water, digging in the sand, and even taking naps in Grandpa's bed (that's how we have convinced him to take a nap out at the beach, when there are so many other things he'd rather be doing - it's big stuff to take a nap in Grandpa's bed). Getting him to go potty out there has been pretty easy, too - it's Grandpa's potty! Thanks for letting us spend time with you (or should I say mooch??) Mom and Dad!

Filling up the dump truck with Reese.
Swimming with Grandma G.
Such good buddies!

I decided to try and take Grant's 2 year picture myself, out at the beach this summer, just for something different. To be honest, I didn't feel like trying to get him to cooperate in a studio to 1) get the pictures taken, and 2) to sit patiently and wait while I chose the pose I liked. So...to try and make life a little less stressful, we went this route. Below is the picture I think I am going to go with. I don't have the fastest camera on earth, so being able to catch a pose and/or smile exactly when I wanted it proved difficult, but smarties work wonders when you're trying to get a kid to cooperate (...and I vowed I'd never bribe my kid with candy - yep, that went out the window for this one! Bad mommy!). This past weekend Eric, Grant, and I headed up to Grand Haven to reunite with a college friend I hadn't seen in over 2 1/2 years - Heidi. We ate Pronto Pups (I have to admit, I've never had one before - but they sure were good!), walked along the channel, watched the kids play on the playground at the marina, and ate ice cream. It sure was nice to see her again, and we hope to make this a yearly get-together!

Grant eating his first pronto pup. This picture adds a few pounds, making it look like he's had 10 of them!
Hannah, Reese, and Grant running down the hill.
Future Hope College scholars? (and athletes?) - Grant, Reese, Abbie, and Hannah
L to R: Heidi (with Abbie), Marcy (and Reese), Amy (and Hannah), and me and G
Eric and Grant on the old locomotive on display along the Grand Haven channel

Lastly (sorry this is lengthy - thanks for hanging with me), I just had to post the following two pictures of Grant's various sleeping positions. We are in week 3 of him being in a "big boy bed" and things are now going pretty well. He goes down great at night and has done a much better job lately sleeping in a bit longer and also going down for his nap without coming out of his room (telling us he has to go potty - even though we know darn well his bladder is bone dry, as he just went!). His sleeping positions, however, change like the wind. Belly, side, back - he uses them all. However, these two are my favorites. If you've already chalked me up as being a bad mom for bribing him with smarties for his 2 year picture, I am going to totally lose the nomination for mother of the year for the fact that in both of these pictures you will notice that the poor kid doesn't have any sheets on his bed. Because he's potty training, he's had a few issues with yanking off his pull-up and peeing in bed (you see, the kid loves sleeping without clothes on - such a guy! - so the pull-up is that much more accessible to pull off). Well, these two pictures were taken at times when he had irrigated all over both sheet sets and I hadn't yet had the chance to wash any of them.
Can summer be coming to an end so soon???? We are having too much fun!!