House Happenings

Sorry for my hiatus from posting. Things have been busy! W worked hard on his 2 weeks off and got a lot done around the house. Here's a shot of his set up while painting all of our doors with his fancy new paint gun. Bit by bit, we're getting some trim up around doors and windows. It really dresses up the place.

We had a great visit to Texas for Thanksgiving, where we got to meet our newest family member! Baby J had a great time playing with everyone!

He continues to enjoy all the new flavors of food that I whip up. Thanks to Ollie for the bib and Zoey for the food mill! He's currently sick with a nasty cold but still in good spirits. He's trying really hard to get the hang of crawling.

Just this weekend M&L came to visit and we got our Christmas tree set up. It really makes the holiday season complete.

Fall Pleasures

When we moved in, there was an old charming wood burning stove that was installed in the fireplace. Last winter, when we didn't have heat (remember that?!), we looked into getting it repaired. After a year of deliberations, we finally got everything fixed and up to code. It's so nice to have a warm fire, and so hard to leave the warm living room. W has big plans for building a mantle down the road.


Scout loves the fall. He thought the wood delivery was a wonderful gift. And he really enjoys when we rake the leaves into a pile!

And Baby J enjoyed his first taste of "real food"- something other than milk. Unsurprisingly, he loved it! He was chasing the spoon around. He really prefers to eat from a bowl and spoon, and shunned the cereal mixed into a bottle.

W finished up his training course and is enjoying a couple weeks at home. He's working on patching the doors so we can get them hung. Top priority is the front door, which currently consists of a plastic bag taped over one glass square- classy. Next up is the attic door, which is in Baby J's room. We have a several layers up to block the cold draft, but his room is still noticeably colder.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Halloween excitement

Happy belated Halloween! Can you guess which pumpkin I carved, and which ones W carved? Yeah, the lame middle one is mine. Baby J donned his dinosaur outfit a couple times on Friday- once at daycare and for a few minutes of trick or treating. Scout was NOT pleased with this costume and barked ferociously at Baby J, understandably so- Baby J was looking very intimidating.

W is in his final week of training and will take some time "off" to work on the house. I'm crossing my fingers for a banister on the stairs by Thanksgiving- hopefully right before Baby J starts testing out his mobility skills. Right now, he can spin around on his belly, but hasn't figured out the crawling bit.

In terms of other new tricks Baby J has learned, he has found his feet and likes to chew on them as much as possible. He's also growing blond hair. He still doesn't sleep more than about 2-3 hours at a stretch, but I'm hoping that will change when we start introducing real food this week. Although I find it hard to believe he's starving. This 100% breastfed baby weighs in at whopping 18 pounds at less than 6 months! I've developed tendinitis in my left hand from picking him up! He insists on sitting up for bath time these days and splashes all over the kitchen. And he provides me with constant joy and laughter.

House Progress!

Guess what?! We have one room almost completely finished! It's still missing a door but otherwise the half bath downstairs is pretty much completed.

5 Months Old!

I can't believe five months have gone by. Growing is hard work, requiring a lot of naps, preferably in someone's arms.

And I'm already working on my PSU brainwashing. But you'll notice the Texas Longhorns playing in the background. He's much closer to roaring like a lion than making the longhorn sign. I'm sure my Texas family will work on correcting that soon.

Time for Change

Baby J is changing so much these days. Just this week he learned how to blow raspberries. It is so funny to watch him imitate me and my silly antics. Here's how I manage to entertain both babies, and therefore how I spend many of my evenings.



Bath time continues to be one of his favorite times of the day.


And the exersaucer is a big hit. He loves to "stand" on his own. He's learning to sit by himself but falls over without extra support.

Still not much hair, but he's working on it. Baby J decided that he really likes to be upside down these days, so he's often throwing his head and arms back. He's really turning into a squirmy guy!

He's still not sleeping more than 3 hours stretches (ugh) but he's sure cute during the day light hours!

Landmarks

We have officially crossed the one year mark. And my, what a difference a year makes.

To sum up the past year, we have:

1. 2 new roofs (we think, anyway)
2. New plumbing and electric
3. 1 new floor
4. 1100 square feet of refinished floor
5. Plus one kitchen, minus 2 old ones if we count the one in the basement
6. 3 new bathrooms (4 if we count the one that got torn out twice)
7. About 50 gallons of paint
8. 1 working garage door
9. About a million trips to Home Depot and Lowes
10. One beloved dog gone, a new one here
11. One baby

I don't think we'll ever have another year as eventful as this one.

Baby J had a very busy weekend, traveling up to PA to meet his other set of great grandparents. His new trick of the week is rolling over. He can get onto his belly, but then can't roll back, causing much distress.

Fun times

Tummy time is getting to be a lot more fun now that he can actually hold his head up and grab toys. Baby J's big accomplishment this week was the growth of eyebrows.

Bath time is the best time of the day. Well outside of naptime, and diaper changing time, and play time.


Don't forget about Scout!

call a spade a spade

Well I'm throwing in the towel on the home renovation blog for now, and this will temporarily be a baby blog! W is in an intensive course and doesn't have a free minute to work on the house (or even come to the house!) but that's no excuse to stop blogging. There are still other exciting developments in our little house.

Baby J is doing great. He started day care last week, and promptly got his first cold/cough which he's still fighting off. Sadly it has totally ruined his beautiful 6 hour stretch of sleep. Last night he felt like reverting to newborn ways, and woke up about every other hour. WHY??

I'm back at work, and that's going pretty well too, although I'm familiarizing myself with that very common working mother's guilt.

Scout is doing great- such a great dog. He likes to move his bed throughout the house. He thinks it's the biggest, best toy ever. Such a sweet, floppy dog.

Happy Birthday to me!

Here's J doing his Happy Birthday Momma dance! Thank you Erin for the sweater and quilt shown here.







Not much house progress to report.

Garage Door

At long last, we have a working garage door! The new one arrived and was installed today. It looks so much better and opens with the touch of a button- a big improvement! Here's the before and after:

We expanded the door to the original opening so it'll hold 2 cars. W sweated in the garage for 2 full weekends working on the framing and wiring in the garage. We still need to put up some trim to clean up the edges, and we have hinges (straps) that we can put up when we figure out where they'd go.

And here's a picture of our baby! At nine weeks, he's all smiles and coos these days. Except at this precise moment... so signing off for now!

Another Addition to the Family

Today is a very exciting day for us. After 6 months without a dog, we adopted a puppy! He's from a rescue so we don't have all the details of his past, but he seems to be a Shepherd mix, about 14 weeks old, and 100% sweet. He's very affectionate. Since I'm already up at all hours of the night, I'm hoping we can get him house trained quickly. No accidents today! I'm sure people will think it's crazy to have a newborn and a puppy, but my family isn't complete without a dog and I'd rather do it now while I'm home with Baby J.

And here's an new picture of Baby J, learning to relax on the sofa!

Updated Blog Page

Hey! Check out updated title and images above! My clever sister-in-law created that for me! Isn't it great! She's 11 days away from having a baby. The family is rapidly expanding. Watch out world.

New Fence!

The new fence is almost completed! As always, my husband takes things to the next level. Not only do we have a beautiful fence, but we also have a lovely trellis on the side of the house. My dad also came down and helped. The yard feels so much bigger with the new layout. My baby bjorn carrier has proven a very helpful device. I've been able to strap J on and still help out with a little bit of the work, and J loves to be snugged up against me. We still need to put wire behind the fence and we're also awaiting the post caps. When they arrive we can cut down the posts to the correct size, and then stain the wood.

Here are some pictures from the process...


Posts are in:
Building the trellis:
Gate 1 of 3:
Front of house:
Gate 2

Fencing

W's next project is fencing. We had an ugly old chain link fence that we took out last weekend. Even that was an improvement. W spent hours outside in the blazing heat (it was about 100 degrees) with a rented jack hammer, tearing out the cement footers from the old fence. Now he's moving on to the planning phase of the new fence. It's going to look really nice- and it'll enable us to get a dog sometime in the future!

Here's a picture of the planned fence, although we'll paint it white.

And here are some pictures of the painted downstairs!

W's sister is visiting us this week. She's also handy, so I have no doubt there will be progress to report soon.

New Arrivals

Quite a bit has changed since my last posting! We had our baby on May 15th! He arrived a couple weeks early, as I expected he would. It was a smooth delivery, and I survived a natural delivery. We're all very excited to welcome him into our lives. My in-laws even made the trip all the way from central Texas to see him!

We had a couple other "deliveries" on my delivery day. First, after a lot of confusion dealing with Macy's our new sofa was delivered on the 15th as well. It's really nice to have a sofa again. And during the delivery process, while we were away, it seems the door was left ajar. A family of 3 birds made their way into the house- and into the walls via a gap in the dry wall where some trim will be installed. Although I wish I could say that they were storks delivering our baby, it seems they were sparrows or something. W was eating breakfast the next day and heard chirping that sounded VERY close. At first he thought it was birds outside, but quickly determined that the sound was coming from inside a nearby wall. One bird found its way back out, but 2 other younger birds were stuck inside. W eventually found them and cut out a small hole in the dry wall and released them.

In other house progress, things are really coming together. We brought in some key furniture, including the dining room table, and the guest bed. And all walls but the laundry room are painted! It looks great.

W is currently ensconcing himself in the basement, setting up shelves for his shop.

Floors!

Another milestone was accomplished last weekend! W slaved away for over a week to refinish the remaining floors on the first level. They look great. It took a lot longer that we were expecting, but it was worth it. Plus it meant that I had a week's vacation at my aunt and uncle's house nearby.

It's looking like I'm going to have this baby sooner than my due date (but of course that could be wrong), so we're in a mad scramble to pull the rest of the house together. There's still a lot to be done, but it's really getting there. The main issues are painting and bringing the furniture back in.

Here's a couple recent pictures:

Kitchen Completed

This weekend was a huge one for us. After almost exactly 7 months of eating out, I cooked dinner! It wasn't anything fancy, but it was wonderful to eat my own home cooked meal. It also meant that I had a reason to do my grocery shopping somewhere other than Target.

Here's the before shot of the kitchen. We've come a long way!

The kitchen is just about done. It's definitely functional at this point. We're waiting on a part for the dishwasher and the island hasn't been installed yet, but I don't need those things to cook. So I cooked for about 2.5 hours tonight. My feet and back are killing me (only 5 weeks till my due date) but it was worth it. It really makes a house feel complete to have an installed kitchen, even if our furniture isn't inside yet.

Here's a good shot of the kitchen floors, from 2 weeks ago when W finished the floors.

Last weekend, we hired a plumber to come out and repair a couple of the issues left over from Maribel. Although they ended up doing a good job, we had yet another gas leak in the house. This time the natural gas for the water heater (which we had to move) was leaking into the kitchen, stinking up the whole first floor of the house. Luckily we got that all fixed, so our water heater is venting properly and we have a working toilet on the first floor.

My sister and brother-in-law also came down today to help us out. L and W worked on hanging a few doors upstairs in an effort to establish some privacy for the bathrooms. M and I worked on unpacking kitchen boxes. They also set up the crib for me!

We still have a lot of work ahead of us- mostly W since I'm not much help these days. But I still believe that we'll have a somewhat completed house by the time the baby arrives, as long as s/he doesn't make an early appearance!