Make that 3 front teeth! It looks like he's got the second tooth on the top right cutting also, and the mirror image tooth on the top left isn't far behind. He's going to look so different in just a few weeks with all of these new teeth!

All I Want For Christmas

are Joseph's two front teeth.... which have just cut the gum line! At least I think both are breaking through... we can just feel the same roughness like when the bottom two came up. Nothing to take a picture of yet, but here's hoping we'll see them soon!

10 Months!

Somehow the little guy is 10 months old! Where did this year go? He is just so much fun - we spend lots of time playing and exploring each day. I discovered earlier this week that the little guy LOVES going down slides... and can manage to get himself started and go down little slides all by himself! Of course, he usually doesn't land completely upright, but he doesn't mind.

Joseph is definitely into finger foods now. It's hard to get him to eat pureed baby food of any kind. These last few weeks, frozen or canned fruits and veggies of any kind are his favorite things to eat, along with string cheese, pieces of bagels or toast, oatmeal, grilled cheese sandwiches, beans and noodles. And while he still likes drinking from a bottle, during the day he prefers sippy cups.

He's been "talking" up a storm too... we're getting closer and closer to a true first word. And he's crawling and cruising on furniture like crazy. Along with doing crazy things with his body.... like this...

He likes to bend in half, with his head on the ground and look between his legs. This particular morning he decided to stop and play with Molly like this... notice his hand? He was petting her upside down!

Joseph has been really enjoying having the two dogs to play with these last two weeks. Molly and Lily are really good around each other, and will take turns sleeping on each of Lily's dog beds. Except for when Joseph decides it's his turn!

Santa and Baby

We finally found some time to take Joseph to go see Santa last night. He hadn't taken very good naps due to some work we are having done at Ashley's house (the construction mess is following us everywhere we go!), so I wasn't sure how well it would go over. He was super fussy at dinner, but we decided to go for it anyway.

Whether he was just happy to be in his stroller or with Daddy, who has been working a lot lately, we don't know. But the little guy was in a great mood and had lots of fun flipping around in his stroller, standing up, waving and talking to everyone in line.

The camera was acting weird, so although we took a bunch of pictures, most came out blurry.

Wide eyed right before his turn to sit on Santa's lap...

And here's the official photo! He kept looking up at Santa, and back at us, while we danced and clapped to try to get a smile. The best we did was to get him to look and clap along, which he's in the middle of doing in the picture. Hey, no tears, so we were happy!

Progress!

After days of destruction, we finally have some progress in putting the house back together! They built a couple of temporary support braces to hold the upstairs in place while the old rotten wall between the dining room and bathroom was torn out.

Here's the wall upstairs that was the surprise on top of the surprise. You can see just under the right side of the window where the termite damage stops... and the rest of that is water damage.... pleasant, huh?

Our new support post in the basement. I think at this point they are finished rebuilding the bottom layer of the wall that was rotten, as they've moved on to the first floor today.

Another new floor joist to replace the damaged one. I'll be interested to see if the gentle slope down toward the back of the house is gone/less noticeable after all of this!

It's so nice to finally see progress being made. I need to take more pictures tomorrow, as the first floor damaged exterior shingles have been removed, and a new exterior wall is in place. Thank goodness we don't have any bad weather in the near future so they can get the house sealed up again soon!

From Bad to Worse

Just when we thought the remodel couldn't get much worse, it did. Apparently our house is the structural twin to the house in the movie "The Money Pit." And boy is it. Remember the wall with the termite damage upstairs? Yeah, well, when opening that space to find out just how far the damage went, the contractor discovered adjacent water damage, to the tune of that whole upstairs wall has to be torn completely out (think snowflakes blowing in through the space where an exterior wall should be) and rebuilt. And that 2-3 week timeframe? Yeah, it's been obliterated. So fun. The only upside is that with all of this mess happening in just about every corner of the house, we may just decide to go ahead and finish the upstairs into the remodeled space we were hoping to do next year, so the weeks can turn into a couple months and just be finished for good. We'll see. Here's hoping tomorrow doesn't bring more bad news.

Hmmm....

So, when you think bathroom remodel, being able to see the shell of the bathroom from the kitchen isn't what jumps to mind for you? Me neither. But when you remodel a 60+ year old house, things don't always go as planned. Case in point:

 We found old termite damage when Joe and I opened up the bathroom walls. Initially, our contractor thought it wouldn't be a big deal to repair. However, when he came to inspect the space, he realized that the damage wasn't concentrated to the corner of the bathroom - it extends from the basement clear up to the top of the second floor. The bright spot, I guess, is that all of the damage seems to be within a 30 inch wide section, and that we found it now, not when we were opening walls to do the upstairs remodel. It's not going to be a cheap fix at all, but at least we now know why the dining room wall had a crack, can explain the sag in the dining room floor and why the dining room window seemed to be dropping down the wall... notice in the picture above two of the studs holding the window up aren't attached to the floor anymore!

Yes, that's a hole where the floor is gone. The other bright spot, sort of, is that all of this damage is concentrated right on top of the foundation, so when the plates and studs holding up the upstairs floors were gone, the house just rested on the foundation, so it didn't have far to drop.

Likewise, the damage that continues up into the ceiling led us to have to continue tearing out walls upstairs to see how bad things are...

We'll probably lose about a third of this upstairs bedroom wall before we're all said and done. I guess we have a lot more painting to do, beyond just the bathroom and hallway (we're closing up the doorway to the old linen closet and moving the door to the bathroom down a few inches). Fun times. Unfortunately, this is going to delay the bathroom being finished, so we are even more grateful to have Ashley and Mikael allowing us to stay with them. I think our hopes of being finished by the end of the year are probably dashed, along with staying in budget.

 I'm thankful we had negotiated the original bid from the contractor to save almost two thousand dollars by doing the demo and some of the finish work ourselves... I'd be even more upset to have that much more money to spend on all of this extra work. But at the end of the day, I'll be very happy to know that all of this old termite damage is repaired, and the structure will be sound again.

Practing for Christmas Morning

 These pictures are back from Thanksgiving, and were taken as Joseph was opening a present from Grandma Dianne's parents. Without any prompting, he had this expression while opening the gift! It was the cutest and funniest thing I've seen him do in a long time - he just kept making these huge excited faces and gasping at the Frosty the Snowman book and pop up toy he received (along with the bag and tissue paper, which were equally exciting!). Dianne's parents are so generous and it was great watching the kids play with their new toys.

We weren't sure how he'd react to opening a present, but this experience gave us great hope that Christmas is going to be a blast!

And the remodel begins...

I still have lots of Thanksgiving pictures, but wanted to post what we've been working on lately, and especially today. Due to many issues we've had with our one and only bathroom, we had wanted to remodel it for a while, but weren't looking forward to being without a functioning bathroom for a few weeks. We hoped we could save up, build a new bathroom either upstairs or downstairs, then tear our current space out. However, things don't always work out as planned. This bathroom is definitely teaching us the truth in that!

 So here are a few before pictures...

 Joseph absolutely loves playing in the bathroom, so he decided to pose and help the before pictures look much better than they should! :)

We are completely redoing the layout of the bathroom - tearing out the hall linen closet that is behind the bathtub so we can gain more space and add a double vanity. This bathroom will definitely be a workhorse for a while, at least until we can save up and add the bathroom upstairs, so we really wanted to squeeze a lot in without making it feel cramped.

 After cleaning everything out of the house (we're staying down at Ashley and Mikael's for the bulk of the time - thanks guys!!!) and moving our stuff out on Saturday, we decided to visit with Linda, who was in town for one of Joe's grandma's funeral.  She was staying with us, and graciously agreed to watch Joseph for us while we started demo on Sunday. Ashley and Mikael were happy to continue watching him when Linda had to head for the airport, so we had our bases covered to work for long stretches at a time.

We got started a little before 10 AM, and it didn't take too long before the wall separating the linen closet from the bathroom was gone, along with the sink vanity. Our walls are plaster and thus not easy to pull down, but it wasn't really that difficult.

 By about 9:30 PM we called it quits for the day, and the space looks like this now...

And the floors? Well, turns out there were 4 layers total. The lovely beige and green vinyl that we had when we moved in, under it was the turquoise linoleum in the upper left cover, followed by a tan and brown floral motif, which was on top of the original green and white tile floor.

Here's hoping our contractor says we did enough demo and they'll get started rebuilding it in a few days!

I realize how woefully lacking the posts were in November, so I promise to be better this month. Most of my free time has been spent working on getting things ready for our big bathroom remodel, which will be starting this weekend. Here's hoping it's finished by Christmas!!

Before we left for Grandpa Joe V's house for Thanksgiving, I snapped a few pictures of Joseph one morning - he had managed to work himself out of his pajamas all by himself, and was quite interested in the local CVS ad...

Look Mom, I'm reading too!

He loves helping me sort through the Sunday papers by pulling every add and section of the paper down off the couch, one by one. Occasionally he'll pick one up and study it, but never half out of his jammies before!

Teeth On The Way!

Well, just a few days shy of his nine month birthday, and we finally have the signs of teeth! This weekend we noticed, during the usual nose-chewing session we're given each morning, that there was a little more bite in that otherwise gummy mouth! So far the bottom left tooth is breaking the surface, and the bottom right looks like it's just a few days behind. Remarkably, other than being a little less apt to take his usual long naps and being a little more cuddly than normal, he's acting as if cutting teeth is no big deal. We'll take pictures once we have a good view of the brand new pearly whites!

Little Pumpkin

Warning: this is a picture heavy post with little else of interest. Who wants to read a post anyway, when you can look at a handful of cute pictures of an adorable 8 month old in a pumpkin?? :)

He had so much fun watching us pick up leaves and toss them down, as our way of getting him to look up for the camera. That, and eating leaves. Mmmm, crunchy! These are just a showing of the 70+ pictures we took trying to get a good shot. All we really got were some good pictures, and a nagging sense that we need to be getting a better camera soon! Oh well, we'll be spending our money on practical things, like a new bathroom, first. Sigh. More on that to come.

Happy Giraffe

Sorry it took me so long to get these other Halloween pictures posted! Joseph spent last Sunday dressed up as a giraffe until bedtime. He accompanied me to the grocery store, where just about everyone stopped me to say how cute he was! Well of course, with a face like his - no surprise there! :)

 He is doing his best to pull up and stand on everything now. And he's loving crawling all over the house, checking things out. His favorite is to crawl from the living room, where we hang out the most, to the bathroom or bedroom when someone moves into one of those rooms. Just yesterday he was trying to climb up on me, and managed to pull up standing and stand on his own, unsupported for almost a minute before falling over.

Joseph is SOOO big! And he knows it. Well, at least he thinks he's so big. So much so, that feeding him traditional pureed baby food has gotten increasingly difficult. He'll eat anything we offer, as long as it's bite-sized and he can pick it up and put it in his mouth. Spoon feeding? That's SO 2 months ago.

At least this morning he was hungry enough he let me feed him some of his usual morning favorite - oatmeal with fresh bananas. Oh well. As long as he's eating and still growing ok, then I guess I'll hope it's just a phase!

Happy Halloween!

Our little pumpkin had a great first Halloween! Ashley and Mikael came down with cute outfits for Joseph. They tried to let him pick which to wear by holding both in front of him. His solution? Grab both at the same time! On his second try, he went for this one:

And he looked adorable! We even had orange socks, again, thanks to a previous Ashley and Mikael gift, but they are really easy for him to take off, so they didn't last very long.

We also decided it was time to pull the activity garden that I bought earlier this fall at the kids' consignment sale out of the garage. Joe wiped it down while Joseph was finishing up his morning nap, and it was all ready to go when Joseph woke up and finished off his lunch. He loves practicing standing, and this particular toy is great because it's heavy enough that it doesn't tip over when he pulls up on an edge.

 He was having fun opening and closing the mailbox door, and even managed to stand on his own while clapping his hands!

 Then of course, he had to start chewing on the toy carrot and onion, along with the pieces of mail. He hasn't figured out the whole toy, but I'm hopeful that it'll provide lots of fun as the weather continues to get colder and his activity levels go up and up.

More pictures to come tomorrow of Joseph in his second costume - the giraffe!

We won!

The trunk or treat that we attended on Thursday was hosted by a mommy's group to which Lauren and 7 belong. Apparently, they have a contest for the best decorated "trunk." So, naturally, we won.

Lauren covered a box in brown paper and drew burners on the top and then put a pot with candy on one and left the other open. She also made up a little table with a tablecloth and fake food and a sign that said fresh 17lb lobster to put in front of 7 in his "pot." I think most of this can be seen in the pictures below.

I just wanted to let all of you know that Lauren is amazing and that her mommy's group agrees.

Trunk-or-Treating

Tonight was a trunk-or-treat with my mom's group. I had been planning on dressing Joseph in the giraffe costume I bought a few weeks ago, but this morning Joe brought up that we didn't have costumes for the both of us. He had been talking about taking Joseph trick or treating as a lobster in a pot forever, but I didn't think we were actually going to do it. This morning, though, it sounded like a fun idea, especially since I could decorate the back of the car (there was apparently going to be a contest).

Instead of getting lots done around the house, the wheels in my head started spinning. I had approximately 8 hours to pull together a whole new costume for Joseph, Joe and me, and car decorations. Hmmm. We ran to a thrift store as soon as Joseph was done with breakfast, and found a red long sleeved and pants sweats outfit, and some fake vegetables. Then we headed home for morning nap, where I scoured the internet for pictures of babies in lobster costumes. I made my shopping list, so when Joseph woke up from his nap and ate lunch, we were off again. This time we headed to Walmart and Jo-Anns and luckily found everything we needed. At this point it was a little after 2pm, and I had 4 hours before we had to be at the park. I frantically started sewing Joseph's lobster costume, decorating items for the car and trying to pull everything together. I ran out of time to execute all of the ideas I had, but ultimately I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

 
Joe and I wore red aprons. I had started to make chef's hats, but ran out of time. Ashley came with us to see all the kids in their costumes, and wore her matching apron too. We ate pizza and cookies with the group, where Joseph was a hit! I'm new to the group, and have only met a handful of moms and their kids so far, but everyone kept coming up to us complimenting us on the idea, costumes and even asking to take our picture!
 

 Joseph nibbled on pieces of cheese and crust from the pizza. Apparently we'll need to teach him how to cover his mouth when he "chews!" I guess it's hard when your claws get in the way. :)

 Joseph was awesome - he spent quite a while content to hang out in the pot/bucket. I think there were enough kids running around to keep him preoccupied.

We even brought Molly along, and she had fun getting loved by all the little kids. I think our car was a hit too - we brought the obligatory bowl of candy, but I also decided to get the party sized tubs of play dough, figuring there would be enough 2 and 3 year olds who really don't need/want candy. It went over really well!

 This is the only picture I have of our "display." We had a little table with the red checked table cloth, play food, a stove with the pot on it, and a sign announcing "Today's Special: fresh lobster, 17 lbs!" Of course, he's only 17 lbs dripping wet and with 3 layers of clothes on, but who cares!

Maybe we'll pull out the giraffee this weekend, and maybe not. I'm awfully proud of the little lobster, and think my first venture into sewing halloween costumes, especially given my lack of time, was great! Joe and I are already scheming about what we'll do next year for the group's trunk or treating.... :)