First Steps...ish

7 has been walking with his chicken since he got it for christmas. After he spent his first hour at the gym's daycare, he started standing. He would just crawl across the floor, stop, stand up, and squawk, clearly very proud of himself. Recently, I have been standing him up a few steps away from his chicken and trying to convince him to walk to it. Today, he did it.

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Discovering cabinets

Joseph has figured out that there is lots of neat stuff inside cabinets!
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Progress!

We have a dumpster! Final plans for the second floor should be done tomorrow and demo will begin as soon as we get the permit! Woo hoo!
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House Updates

In other news, our house is temporarily free of workers, which is a good and bad thing. Our contracted jobs on the bathroom are finished, and we are left with the final painting and finishing touches.

We had the contractor reuse the window and door casings from the old spaces, so that they would match everything else in the house. Some trim came from the linen closet, and was never painted, which is why the window trim now looks goofy!

We are planning on changing the wall sconces to face upward, and decided that the paint color is too light, so the next coat will be slightly deeper. We also have to add the door knobs/handles to the vanity, but haven't even picked those out yet.

The toilet is now nicely tucked behind the shower wall you can't even really see it from the hallway (as the picture above shows).

 We ended up deciding to move the doorway down the wall about three inches, so we could have enough space for the full door casing and tile work, and to ensure that the door would open at least 90 degrees. We weren't big fans of the doors throughout the house, and decided to replace it, especially since we'll be putting new doors in throughout the second floor. This door still needs to be painted, but I think it looks a lot nicer already!

 Here's our new laundry chute opening. It needs to be painted and have a knob added, but I think it's a good solution, as opposed to the previous arrangement where it took up half of the vanity space (it used the drawer compartments as a slide into the wall space, if that makes sense). We are going to add hook-ups for a washer and dryer in the second floor, so the need to drop laundry to the basement may quickly become obsolete, but my guess is that it'll keep Joseph very entertained for years to come!

 And before the contractor finished, we had him take out the door and frame to the second floor, partially to see how it would look and so that we could make sure our king size mattress will fit upstairs. Turns out, we're almost a foot short on clearance space, so we'll definitely be redesigning the opening to the second floor in the remodel!

 We really like how taking out the doorway opens up the space though, and are planning on actually opening the base of the staircase a few more feet, so that the bottom 4 stairs or so are exposed with handrails. We'll add back in the arch between the living and dining rooms, but make it higher to the ceiling so our tall friends don't have to duck to walk from room to room (which they almost have to do now).

This is the view from down the hallway bedroom, and yes, I realize how sloped the floor seems! I hadn't noticed it being this dramatic before the picture, but some of this will be fixed when we add another support post or two in the basement. A few of the floor joists are saggin, so we want to make sure that we start with a strong structural base before we add all of the finished space upstairs.

And the good news, is we think we have enough information to move forward, and are planning on hiring a contractor tomorrow to start the work upstairs! Hopefully we'll have the building permit and demo starting this week, and will be able to move home in a few weeks!

Sharing with his dog

We finally got our replacement camera battery charger, so now I can catch you up! Hooray!

As we've mentioned many times before, we are SO lucky that Molly is super around Joseph. Last week she gave us another prime example of just how well behaved she can be, without much prompting. (sometimes!) Joseph was eating some graham crackers, and as she usually does, Molly was close by, watching the crackers carefully.

Joseph decided to "share" and crawled over, place one cracker on Molly's paws, and started playing with his toys next to her.

 Molly's reaction? She just looked up at me, with those sad eyes, and didn't hardly move. Joseph must have decided she needed more prompting to eat, and so came back over and left another few crackers on her paws, closer to her mouth. She seriously sat there for a few minutes, just waiting for me to tell her it was ok to eat them! What a good dog!

 Last week we also finally installed Joseph's new convertible car seat. It had been sitting in the living room for a couple of weeks, and Joseph loved climbing up into it. He couldn't figure out the mechanics of getting back off it though, so he'd stay put and fuss until I'd pull him back off.

He has loved car rides in the new seat! He sits upright and so much higher, so even though he's still rear facing, he can look out the window and see a lot more of what's going on around him. There's still plenty of capacity on the baby car seat, but especially this time of year with all of his layers on, he was really starting to get cramped. We have to fiddle with the seat positioning, though, as it's still tilted too far forward, so when he falls asleep his poor little head slumps forward. A few more adjustments and we should be good to go for a while!

Test from phone

I haven't figured out updating the blog from my phone and am using this as a test.
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11 Months!

How did we get here so soon? I can't believe Joseph is 11 months old today! To celebrate, we did some shopping so I could make him a couple new hooded bath towels, as he has solidly outgrown his baby ones. We are in the midst of a big snow storm, which had just started when we got back to Ashley's house this afternoon. I put him inside while carrying in my sewing machine and crafting supplies, and found him like this...

 He was really not happy that the dogs and I were outside and he was stuck inside! Oh well, it was too cold for the little guy, who's been fighting off a little virus for a while now.

Oh, and tooth #6 is definitely here! We started "brushing" his teeth this afternoon, which he really couldn't figure out. We are using the type of baby toothbrush that slips on over your finger, and all he wanted to do was chew on it.

Finally, while I was making dinner, he started standing up on his own again! I managed to capture a few pictures before he gave up and started crawling again. Since I still don't have a functioning camera, these are all taken from my phone, so I apologize for the quality... and his growing up!

 So proud of himself!

Uh Oh...

Today was a day of mixed emotions. The bathroom is finally finished, hooray! But that means now the hard finishing work begins, between sanding and painting all of the trim, priming and painting the hallway, dining room and those ceilings, and repainting the bathroom. We also have to seal the grout on all the tile, which will definitely take a while.

To start on all this work, and since the workers did an awesome job cleaning the whole house, I decided that during the day I'd move back in and work while Joseph napped. I had to run a few errands after he got up from his morning nap, including buying a new-to-us stroller for our upcoming trips, including to Disneyland (so excited about this!!) and so I didn't have much time to let him play back at home before his nap. I guess 6 1/2 weeks away from your real home and real bed is like a lifetime to a little guy, as he wanted NO part in napping in his crib! After about 30 minutes of serious crying (and me making about a half dozen trips moving stuff down from the attic to the basement) I gave in, packed him up and took him back to Ashley's house. I guess that's all he needed, as he fell right to sleep!

After he got up, I decided to test out the child care center at a community center we're thinking about joining. Other than leaving Joseph with friends and family, I've never left him by himself before, and I was kind of curious as to how it would go. After dropping him off, I went upstairs to run 3 monotonous miles around an indoor track, where 1 lap = 1/10 mile. I finished, stretched, did some ab exercises and went back down to fetch the little guy. While the daycare workers said he didn't cry at all, he was seriously fussy when I peeked in the door and immediately crawled over and grabbed onto me once I walked in the door. I'm sure he was just tired and hungry, and hope next time will be better - I really enjoyed being able to do something other than workout videos to exercise!

When we got home, on 4 separate occasions, he crawled over to me, stopped about a foot away, and then stood up completely unassisted and gave me this big goofy grin, like, hey, check me out! He's still not walking by himself, but this new move makes me think we're getting closer and closer!

Stretching Out the Finish Line

Hopefully today will be the last day of having the workers in the house finishing the bathroom! All of the major components are finished, they're just doing some final detail work. We really really hoped we would be able to have this crew just continue on to working on the upstairs, but a few details of this project left us questioning their judgment and thoughtfulness, so we're waiting on a few other contractor bids and the final drawings from the architect to come in before we hire anyone. Maybe it isn't realistic, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that we can get everything taken care of this week so progress doesn't stall.

And in all of the moving back and forth from our house to Ashley's and the cleaning for some showings they had this weekend, I have misplaced the camera battery charger, which is totally dead. So no pictures of anything fun until the new battery charger I've ordered comes in. I didn't realize how cheap a replacement was, or I would have ordered a backup charger and battery a long time ago!

In other house news, we had the contractor go ahead and take out the door at the base of the stairs to the second floor, so we could test whether our king sized mattress would fit up the stairwell. Good thing too, because Saturday morning Joe and I learned first hand that nope, not even after opening the space up the 10 inches. So we've gone back to the drawing board, trying to decide whether a new mattress would work, or if we're going to have to completely redesign the opening to the staircase and the ceiling above, or a combination of the two is the solution. Of course, we also briefly explored a few other options, like switching windows for doors on the second floor, and adding a patio off the back of the house so we would have an opening big enough for a mattress to fit through! Sigh, home renovation is never easy!

More Teeth

Since I don't have access to Joseph's baby book (it's tucked safely away in his bedroom ... which is behind two layers of tape and plastic in our efforts to keep the construction dust completely out of his room) I have to record some milestones here so I don't forget.

Joseph now has 5 teeth, with #6 coming in right behind! His second tooth on the right is now completely broken through, and the opposite tooth on the left should be also within a week or two. So exciting! Except it makes the daily nose nibbles he provides us a little more uncomfortable now. :)

New Year's Eve

When I was a baby, my parents posed me on a big chair with a bottle of champagne and celebration hat on New Year's Eve. I wanted to try and get a similar picture of Joseph, minus the party hat b/c we hadn't remembered to pick one up.

The little guy decided that being allowed to play on the chair by himself after bathtime was just too much fun and wanted to bounce and giggle WAY more than he wanted to sit and pose for pictures. Unless you count a squishy, squinty faced smirk that he pulled out of nowhere that night.

Then when he finally stopped bouncing all over the place (I think the head first almost dive off the chair at the end of the video startled him a little), he got very distracted by Mikael making dinner in the kitchen and the noise coming from the TV. At least he was sitting still!

This picture is probably the best real picture we got... after about 30 tries!

 And here's the smile he decided was appropriate for the night. I can't tell you how many pictures we got with this face!

Bathroom Progress

We have walls again! The drywallers are working on the finishing mudding and sanding, and will hopefully be completely finished in the next day or so.

 Here's the view into the bathroom from the doorway. The toilet will now be tucked behind the bathtub wall, to the left of the window.

 Double vanities and two mirrors will go along this wall.

 Subway tiles in progress, along with the built-in niche. We're also adding a tiled-in towel bar to the back of the shower. My parents have them in our bathrooms at their house and they definitely come in handy!

 And here are a couple of pictures of the basement, which as we said earlier, has been cleared of all of the various walls. Sorry for the blurry pictures, but you get the idea. The laundry room was on the left side of this picture, just past the window.

 This is the whole south wall of the basement (I'm standing next to Joe's new work bench, directly under the dining room). It looks really messy down there b/c we kept having to move piles to tear the walls down, including some tall but narrow storage shelves a previous owner had built. I can't wait to get it all cleaned up and organized!

Baby's First Christmas

As promised, here's a bunch of pictures from Christmas. I know I'm biased, but come on, isn't he the most adorable baby you've ever seen???

 Our family has a tradition where we have to sit at the top of the stairs when we're ready to go see what Santa brought us. My dad has to check it out first, and get the video camera ready, so we can take our annual family pictures. Joseph took the opportunity while waiting for a slow Aunt Ashley to eat a banana... he must have been hungry as he didn't share any of it with any of the 4 dogs waiting anxiously for a piece.

 His first train! Grandpa and Grandma found a country store near their lake house that sells a variety of homemade foods, produce, meats, etc, and also has a small selection of cedar toys hand carved by a local Amish man...who only has one hand! I have no idea how he manages to do such incredible work, but this train is adorable. I think Joseph's favorite part was the plastic tiger that came with the train.

Joe and I saved half of the toys we received earlier this year from Fisher Price (from the free house party we had to host in exchange) and were really excited about giving him this toy - a dino walker/rider, very similar to Joe's old chicken he had as a kid.

We also made sure, at this point, to show him the beauty of wearing bows on your head at Christmas... he even kept it on for a lot longer than I expected.

 Of course, we forgot that a lot of toys require adult assembly, so Dad went to work putting the dino together while Joseph watched.

 Notice the smile as he's standing up? He figured it out immediately, and didn't fall over very often at all! I think it was just the right time developmentally, as he's pulling up and cruising all over the furniture at home, but not quite ready to take his own independent steps.

 Then of course we had to try it out as the riding toy, which he got a big kick out of, too.

 Ashley and Mikael gave Joseph a musical activity table, an activity walker/wagon and Cardinals outfit.

 Aunt Jennifer gave him a rocking horse, a sit and spin, a Radio Flyer riding rocket ship, some cute Christmas slippers, and even a Santa jacket, although the last two came with instructions that they are for future kids to share too!

 Besides the wooden train, Joseph also got a bunch of bath toys, bubble machine, books and a beautiful needlepoint Christmas stocking and ornament that my mom had been working on all year.

Here are the pictures from sledding with Daddy on the 26th.

Now it's time for more snow so Joseph can go play again!

A Daddy Pulled Sleigh

I spent a bunch of time yesterday uploading pictures from Christmas, just to find out there was a glitch and I couldn't save the post. Therefore, I'm going to post a couple of cute videos, and will update the blog soon (I'm on a different computer without the pictures).

Joe took Thursday and Friday before Christmas off, so we were able to drive to St. Louis on Wednesday night. The trip took longer than usual due to a couple of accidents we were stuck behind getting out of KC, and Joseph had gotten really fussy by the time we hit Columbia, so we had to take a dinner and playtime break. We didn't end up making it to St. Louis until after 9pm, and with so many excited family members ready to play, bath time took a long time and Joseph didn't get to bed until 10pm, WAY later than usual!

Luckily, he was in a really good mood the next morning, and spent a lot of time playing with Grandpa and his trains, big and small. Grandpa and Grandma had pulled out the boxes of BRIO trains from when we were kids and set up a set in the living room, which Joseph immediately took to. Grandpa is also getting back into building bigger model trains, and was frantically working in the days before Christmas to build the huge train deck so he could get the rails laid down and the trains running.

We had a blast for Christmas in St. Louis with my family, and were lucky enough to have it snow all day Christmas Eve, so Joseph's first Christmas was definitely white! While we didn't play in the show on Christmas, Joe made sure to take him sledding on Sunday the 26th... And since it was pretty cold out, we made sure to bundle him up in so many layers he ended up looking like the little brother in "The Christmas Story" movie - he could hardly move! He was a really good sport though - probably because we allowed him to continue "eating" an apple...



 Joe started taking him down the hill in the back yard a couple of times, and then we decided maybe he'd enjoy just being pulled around the yard on the sled. It took a while, but by the time we were ready to take him in, Joseph started really getting into it. If you watch, about 30 seconds in you can tell he's actually starting to enjoy it. He was flapping his arms, what little he could, whenever Joe would stop pulling the sled. We don't know if he enjoyed going down the hill, but I'm sure he will as he gets older!



In other house related news, things are progressing nicely at our house. We're still probably two weeks away from being completely finished with the bathroom, and are deciding whether we want to just extend our stay at Ashley's house so that we could go ahead with our plans to finish the second floor now. We figure that since the house is completely torn up and filthy from top to bottom, it may make the most sense just to get that project finished before we move back in, since we are hoping to do it within the next 12-18 months anyway. At this point we're soliciting bids and will hopefully make a decision on how to proceed this week.

And if you're wondering how we spent the first day of the new year, Joe and I took advantage of having Ashley and Mikael in town for the weekend and tore out all of the walls and the old work bench in the basement. We had been hoping to do that for a while, but since everything was already covered in a layer of thick dust, we figured we might as well knock it out now. Since our basement isn't exactly dry, we discovered that most of the drywall was moldy at the ground level, so it needed to go before we feel comfortable allowing Joseph to play downstairs. Pictures to come. One day we'll have run out of things to demo in this house, I promise!