Progress!

I was looking for progress and we are getting there, ladies and gents!  Last week John text me this picture while I was at work. 

If you can't tell, it was the exterior kitchen wall that had to be replaced completely, somewhat unexpectedly.  We had to move the window over a few feet to get the cabinets to work out and apparently in doing that, John decided the whole wall should be replaced. 

 Here it is completed, in addition to the interior wall completely removed and the beam put up across the opening.  If you look closely, you can see Ray has been busy getting electric wires ran and boxes put up, too

And the view in to the living room/courtyard.

We also figured out the final cabinet arrangement (minus the island) because we picked out and bought appliances last week as well.  True to form, we bought ones we were not planning on and in sizes are had not planned on.  But it all worked out and I'm even more anxious to see it all together! 

Next up is renting a jack hammer and tearing up the concrete where new plumbing has to be ran.  The furnaces are being replaced starting this week and will likely take a couple weeks.  We are having several trees and nonsense removed at the end of next week that will allow us to put up the fence so Rufus can get accustomed to his new digs.  And word is the roofers are there today finishing up.  Progress!!

Rudy has been his busy self.  We spent a lot of the weekend at Gran and Grandpa Ballweg's helping with their garage sale.  

 Rudy also scored some new toys when I took him on a stroll to check out the other sales.  He basically was crawling out of the stroller to get to that fire truck and another play table, that I couldn't say no...already! :)  He has issues getting to sleep these days.  He HATES to take a nap and its especially hard when we aren't at home with no fun stuff going on.  Mom had to trick him into taking a nap by taking him on a walk where he fell asleep in the stroller because he was clearly so exhausted.  He doesn't want to miss anything!  We are contemplating a "sleep training" method.  Everyone I've talked to say it is so hard getting through it, but everyone agrees it works and they all wish they would have done it sooner...ugh. 

He has gotten pretty good at waving "bye."  It takes us even longer to leave anywhere now because we have to wave "bye" to everyone.  It's adorable, though!

He is still as much in love with Rufus as he's ever been and Rufus is still not much of a fan.  One morning Rufus was actually putting up with him (he must have been really tired or comfortable) and let Rudy lay on him for a few minutes while he watched cartoons.

 Then Rufus turned quick and gave him lots of wet kisses!...

  Rudy belly-laughs at Rufus at times.  I've never heard him laugh as hard and loud as he has when Rufus gets him going.  Our parents were able to see it over the weekend.  They had us all laughing!

 Cute boy, hanging with Dad.

Teeth!  Check out those chompers!

Our poor baby's teeth have been giving him so much trouble these last few days.  He has had some really rough nights (for Mom and Dad included) this week.  He acted like this last time right before the top four broke skin, so we are pretty sure more teeth are the culprit to his sleepless nights.  

We are hoping they pop through soon because we are looking forward to our weekend in the Chicago-area and want Rudy to be his happy self!  We are headed to see lots of family there and hopefully the zoo, too!  Hope you all enjoy the long weekend!