The Vineyards at Southpoint

One great thing about where we live is that people make wine here. We can go, just for an afternoon, to taste wine from its source and relax while we sip and look out over the vines. It's honestly like a little mini-vacation. I feel like we've been out of town when we get home.

Imagine Paul doing his best french hauh hauh hauh here. :  )

This place is actually about 15 minutes from our house. It's near the mall. Crazy. 

I loved the wine I had Sunday, a Viognet, (say it with me now, vee-oh-nyay). I attest that it is the best wine I have ever had, although I am not known for my sophisticated palate or my memory of how other wine tastes. But it was good.

Look at this though. These trees have swallowed up the support beam for this swing and made it stinkin awesome.

And we found a pretty leaf.

And Ella had a great time running around on the porch and finding acorns. 

Also at one point she got into the driveway and decided the best thing to do there would be to run full speed for the main road. How do kids know to do stuff like that? The absolute most dangerous thing is the first thing that occurs to a little person's brain sometimes. Good grief.

All in all this place get's a big thumbs up from the McCall's guide to the greater Durham area. Come visit us! We'll take you! (But I'm not sharing my glass of Viognet.)

Floors are down!

 This is definitely progress! It was funny, when I took these photos, I was still standing at the edges of the rooms, peeking in, out of habit. I forgot for a second that I could actually walk in since the doorways no longer lead up to a cliff down into a dirty crawlspace. : )

Not quite move-in ready yet. But taking some extra time before the move-in will allow for a visit down south with Gramma and Granddaddy for a couple of weeks which is always great! Also, we have Aunt Megan booked for some help setting up house at the beginning of October. Super! There are fun times ahead.

Packing

The time has come! We are actually starting to box things up to move into the new house. On the one hand, it seems like it should be a sad thing to leave this happy house, but somehow, no. It is like (what Ella recently reminded me of) when you get new shoes after having grown out of the old ones, all of the sudden the old ones look smaller and shabbier than you'd noticed. Not that our house is shabby. We have loved it. But the thought of all the fun (and the space!) in the new one makes me really excited to get there. Also it's like a new school year. Or . . . a new . . . well you get it. Exciting!

It will still be a couple of weeks before we are are actually in, but Paul was just there and says it's looking great-evidenced by the fact that the floors are down and a lot of the construction debris is out of the halls and stuff. I will try to get there this weekend to take some more progress photos.

Run, Ella, run!

Big Sis is majorly into toddlerhood at this point. But to be honest, it seems like this stage involves more running than toddling lately! Ella has so much energy that she sometimes feels the need to burn it up just running circles around the middle of our house. Seriously. She runs laps.

Making friends

Shoes

Concentrated effort . . .

And then success!

My favorite onesie (alt. title: The blowout onesie)

I love this pink onesie. It is just the right shade, and the little ruffles are the perfect amount of sweetness without being fussy or cutesy. I know this is much ado about a little onesie, but I really like this one. Unfortunately, however, it has the magical power of inducing a blow out. This was true for Ella, who only got to wear it once or twice for more than half an hour or so, and incredibly, the same phenomenon seems to be occuring with Nora when she wears it. This picture was taken about 9 am. You can't quite see in the photo, but there is a little wet spot at her waist. Darn it! Into the laundry pile it went again. At least we got some cute shots in it today.

You would think I would learn and not put my babies in such a mischievous outfit, but it's so cute I just can't stop trying. Maybe next time it will last longer! (Exactly what I said the last time . . .)

Bathroom

This week we've been thinking a lot about the bathroom at the new house. It is so much fun to work on this stuff. And yet, at the same time I am having the sensation I had when registering for my wedding. It was something I had looked forward to for so long, but when the time came, I was totally overwhelmed and wound up cranky. I am still really excited about the new stuff. But a lot of my planning and picking out has gone like this:

Me: The bathroom looks ok, let's just fix it up.
Powers that be: Actually, you can totally redesign it!
Me: Wow! Ok, lets put the tub under the window.
PTB: Well, that won't fit to code.
Me: Ok well leave it in the corner, and we can just use the pedestal sink and toilet that were here. They are nice and simple.
PTB: Actually the toilet is cracked and you need to pick out a large vanity instead.
Me: Ok, how about one of those cool vanities that are open underneath where you can put baskets and stuff.
PTB: The vanity needs to be closed to hide the pipes.
Me: Ok well here is a closed one that looks pretty good.
PTB: The reviews on that one say it is poor quality.
Me: Ok here's another one that looks all right.
PTB: Oh actually we don't have to hide the pipes.
Me (to self): Arggghhhh! Just let me know when everything is done and I can choose the color of my towels if there is no code dictating that!!!

Grumbling aside, I am very excited. Look at this pretty clawfoot tub we inherited. And we are going to keep the brick walls uncovered. I am pretty sure we are going to go with white penny tile for the floor. (Is that crazy? White? With white grout? Will it ever appear clean? Anybody have thoughts on that?) But we've got a little ways to go as you can see.

Nora up close

Silly head

Reunion

This past weekend the McCalls had the great delight of joining a whooole bunch of Malones at a beautiful house on a gorgeous piece of the Chesapeake. This house belongs to my Aunt Debbie who just bought it and envisions us all having lots of fun family times up there. We got a great start on that last weekend, and I think we have caught the vision too!

It did start with what will probably become a legendary night of sleep deprivation, where Ella-belle treated a house full of maybe 15? 20? people to 2 solid hours of screaming from 11pm-1am. We did EVERYTHING we could think of to get her to settle down, but she was not having it. A drive around town finally did the trick, but we have never had to resort to that before. And guess what else? Nora slept peacefully in her little basket beside the pack n play the whole time. She must have been the only one in the whole house to do that.

Anyway, thankfully the other nights were much better and we had so much fun during the day that we kind of forgot about all that. Here's a taste:

Some sweet and silly smiles

And this is not a smile, but it's still cute.

Sisterly love

Waking up

What with Ella's perpetual busyness, climbing ability, complicated babbling and conversation, and expression of her will, I had forgotten how much of a sleepy little stranger a newborn is at first. But in the past week or so, Nora has started to be more and more interested in the world around her. She is staying more alert and has even smiled a few times. (I can't wait to catch one in a photo!) I've looked back at some old photos of Ella (so old! . . . about 15 months ago : P) and she has that same wide-eyed and somewhat bewildered look on her face. A little baby has so much to take in! No wonder life is so exhausting and distressing for them at first. But it is fun to see Nora starting to get into being in the world a little bit.

Sunglasses

Not enough hands!

And I'm not talking about me with that title, although that could be true as well I guess. But poor Ella has been having so much trouble keeping a hold on all of her treasures lately. She will frequently pick several items to cherish for an hour or so that cannot be put down at any cost. Or rather, the cost is a temper tantrum. But the cost of holding them so tightly is sometimes falling or missing a snack or not playing with another toy. Yesterday the chosen ones were my purse, a wipe, an empty wipe container and a remote control. It is kind of funny to watch her try to manage.

Trying to eat her snack . . .

Taking a rest . . .

 Afraid Mama might be thinking about stealing something . . .
 

More family!

Well, you can always tell when I've had company because the blog gets a little neglected. Paul's parents were here last week and we spent as much time as we could just being together. Ella really enjoyed playing with her grandparents and I think Nora was very happy to have more warm laps to sit on.

We were able to show them the new house and take them on a little tour of downtown, including Paul's office. We also enjoyed lots of delicious home cooking from Paul's mom. Oh and while they were here, we scrambled and got out of the house for, count 'em, three showings. On Monday, I had the nicest little treat when my parents-in-law took Ella and Nora to the mall playplace while I got to spend my birthday gift certificate to Anthropologie from them. Great in-laws, huh?

We had a great visit. Thanks for coming Vovo and Granddaddy!