Easter Candy Regrets

I realized that I had forgotten to post pictures of our actual Easter morning. This year Joseph was a little unsure of what all the morning fuss was, and wasn't really excited to see the haul that the Easter bunny had brought for him, including the Cars movie, Incredibles movie and some candy filled eggs. You would think after the fun of the Easter egg hunt the day before and loving the Tootsie Rolls and Smarties candies he had found in those eggs, he'd be more excited to see more eggs. Not so. I swear this was his expression for the first few minutes that he was up and looking at the basket.

That is, until we helped him pop open an egg and let him take out the peanut butter M&Ms that were inside the egg. Then he happily wore this expression for the next few hours...

And he learned that those big plastic eggs hold LOTS of goodies! So many candies, so little room for real breakfast. I swear the kiddo ate a few dozen M&Ms and luckily Daddy helped with an egg full of Starburst jelly beans, otherwise he would have finished those off too.

Such a happy little man! He thought all of this was great, and being the dumb parents we are, we were happy to watch him gobble up food. I mean, this is the kid who hardly eats all day and now he can't get enough? Wahoo!

Until it was time to get everyone in the car for the 2 minute car ride to church. Joe was running late, so I got Joseph in the car seat, thinking I'd help us get to church on time. Except remember all that candy for breakfast? Yeah, it didn't like being in his belly. So the regurgitated version ended up all over his church shirt. Sigh. I ran inside to grab a new outfit for him while Joe finished up, and luckily we still made it to church on time.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back and like any other recent day... lots of painting for me, and Joe entertaining Joseph so he'd stay off the step ladder and out of the paint cans. Joe made our Easter dinner for the 3 of us, which was delicious, but we ended up with enough food to feed a dozen people. It just seemed weird to have a holiday meal without anyone else to share it with.

And with all of his new-found signing abilities, Joseph has figured out the signs for "eat," "more," and "please." Especially when there's candy in plastic eggs involved. Unfortunately, that's all he wants to eat now. I did figure out that if I put small bits of food, like peas and carrots, into said plastic eggs, it is still kinda fun for a 14 month old and worthy of eating (yup, the little guy still loves his frozen fruits and veggies more than just about anything... except candy!). But for the most part, when he signs "eat" all he really wants is sugar. Oops. We're weaning him off this sugar high, slowly.

Just to document, here's a list of words he can sign well and uses frequently: eat, more, please, thank you, car, all done, milk, juice, sleep, train, hat (which frequently ends up being the sign for dad too).

We're Finished!!

Well, it's official - we're finished with the remodel! Only 5 short (ha!) months later, we've moved all of our furniture upstairs into our new bedroom and are in the final stages of putting the rest of the house together. It's so hard to believe that our 2nd floor staircase has gone from this...

 to this!

Although it is a little strange to walk down the (short) hallway to our new bedroom, the space flows so much better. That's the door to our new bedroom, and the short door on the right is the access to our new heat pump.

And the new entrance to the upstairs is so much nicer. I need to take a better shot from the front door, but have to finish painting in the dining room and get the spaces cleaned up first. So for now, here's how the staircase looks. I love that when I'm sitting on the couch, I can see through to the screened porch and back yard now!

Here's another before shot of the former guest room/new master bedroom, although really it was a "during" since this was after the water and termite damage had been repaired in January.

 And here's the bedroom now! We absolutely love the new ceiling and rope lights, and the ceiling fan is beautiful (I'd turn it on for the photo, but Joe somehow messed up the remote last night and we haven't fixed it so it doesn't turn on right now). Our neighbor Carmen helped us with all of the wall colors, but I love this one the most. It seemed so risky for me, but it really makes the space feel "grown up" and sophisticated. It's a dark blue gray in person.

 

Hard to believe, but this is the same wall as the before picture. We still need to hang our mirror, but for now the space is all set up and complete.

This is a view from in front of the dresser, and you can see the mirrored french doors that cover my closet. As an afterthought I picked these out, when I realized I really wanted a full length mirror somewhere in our bedroom, since we've not had one for years. The door into the bedroom is just to the right of the doors, and the bathroom is down the hallway to the left.

Just next to my closet is Joe's closet. We opted for two small pocket doors, so that he could hang his clothes perpendicular to the doors and to save floor space (there's a bunch of pocket doors upstairs now!)

Just across from Joe's closet is the laundry room, which I've already come to love! We still want to add some more shelves, but need to wait for the final inspection before installing them.

Here's another view of Joe's closet, with his built in drawers and custom shoe cubbies. The worker, Phil, who built these for Joe jokingly asked if 18 spaces would be enough, thinking Joe's like the typical guy with a half dozen pairs of shoes... he was rather surprised when I went to count and realized that Joe could easily fill all of the spaces! I'm a little jealous of how great Joe's closet turned out, but will be customizing mine in the coming weeks which will make it that much nicer (right now it just has one long hanging rod).

And drumroll, please... my absolute favorite part of the upstairs. Somehow we managed to go from this unfinished space, completely full of potential...

to this gorgeous new master bathroom!

 I'm completely in love with it and amazed that it turned out so well and just about as close to my inspiration picture as possible. I smile every time I walk past and see that beautiful tub and the light reflecting off the marble floors.

It's so tempting just to turn on the shower and see how it works, even though we still don't have shower doors. Hopefully by the end of the week they'll be here and installed.

Another favorite aspect of the bathroom?

His and hers vanities with plenty of storage space! We also added a linen closet with shelves and an off season clothes closet on either side of the bathtub, trying to maximize the usable space in the roof eaves.

This is the view standing in front of the window and looking back north. We had the guys install the tub about 8 inches away from the window sill, so that I could get a broom back behind the tub for cleaning. Joseph loves hiding behind there and keeps leaving toys and books for us to find!

And the private toilet closet, which turned out much larger than we had anticipated.

And the last before picture - the north end of the house, with the chimney in the distance.

Here's the same space, taken just a few feet closer!

This is the new north bedroom, future nursery when the time arrives. For now, we're planning on leaving the room empty. I love the large built-in drawers, and the closet actually turned out larger than I was thinking it would be.

 It'll be a perfect space for the next little kiddo... and we have plenty of time to figure out how to make it as special as Joseph's room.

So that's it! We couldn't have done it without help from my parents, Ashley and Mikael for letting us live in their house for months, our neighbor Carmen for design help (and I'm sure more in the future!) and the wonderful guys working for John Corker Remodeling, whom we will actually miss.

Hunting Easter Eggs

Saturday afternoon we took Joseph to a nearby park where a church was hosting a free community Easter celebration, complete with an egg hunt, rides, balloons, etc. The event started at 2pm, but we didn't know what time the egg hunt was going to happen, so I wanted to get to the park a bit early. I'm pretty sure I was the most excited about the afternoon, as Joseph didn't have a clue what was going on, and Joe doesn't have the history of crazy mass easter egg hunts with tons of other kids like I do.

As we were walking up to the park, we heard the organizers announce that the hunt was going to begin in 10 minutes, and to find the age appropriate section for the kiddos. We tried to wait patiently behind the yellow rope in the 1-2 year old age area, but it was a little difficult with all those eggs right in front of us!

While we waited, Joseph kept trying to walk over to start picking up eggs. I'm not going to lie and say I hadn't spent some time letting him "practice" his technique at home in the days before Easter, so I wasn't terribly surprised to see him trying to take off. Of course, he was the only little guy there trying desperately to get at the eggs before the start of the hunt!

Finally we gave in a few times, since he was clever enough to stay behind the ropes.... just walking forward enough to drag them with him while he'd go and get an egg.

When the Easter Bunny arrived to start the hunt, Joseph was ready and off to a great start (with the 3 pre-race eggs he'd already picked). There were a bunch of eggs and a good number of little kids, but each family seemed to take one section so the kids could pick up plenty of eggs. Joseph hunted eggs like a champ, making sure each one ended up in his basket.

 Like a true Parsonage, once he'd completely filled his basket and realized none of his extended family was there, he recruited an innocent grandma onlooker to hold his eggs for him. :) She was quite happy to help the little guy out.

And once the eggs were all gone, Joseph turned to picking dandelions and the little puff weeds.

The only family picture we took all weekend...please excuse the crazy hair and fingers in the mouth!

After the hunt we tried to catch up with the Easter Bunny to take a picture, but missed him. Most of the other games were geared at the older kids, so we headed to a different section of the park with playground equipment to play. Joseph surprised Joe with his incredible sliding skills... I swear Joe looked a little sad when he realized Joseph didn't need his dad's help to climb to the top of the slide and was able to go down all by himself!

1st of a couple of easter posts

Most of the good pictures and video are on the real camera so I will have to post them later. For now, here is a video of 7 and his dancing easter duck. He has liked the dancing stuffed animals before, but he keeps forgetting that he doesn't like this one. All day long, he would pick it up, press the button, and then wail. So sad. So cute. I think this is going on the highlight reel for future girlfriends.

Fun with sound

7 has taken to babbling very loudly. Everywhere. On our many recent trips to Lowes, he has taken to wandering the aisles flapping his arms and shouting. We are quite popular.

In this 33 second video, he is doing a little babbling, but the main focus is him playing with sound. He likes to block out the ambient sound by covering his ears and then pulls his hands away very quickly and listens to the noise.

Please use as directed.

Oh, and the mattress made it upstairs

This is not the first picture I took. Actually it is the last. It was just too fun watching Lauren struggle to hold the mattress by herself.

I am really glad that we had them back the opening up by 1 floor hoist because it still barely fit.

The cleanest our room will ever be

My phone camera does not have a wide enough lenses to see our new huge room, but please note the recessed ceiling, rope light, etc. We will use the real camera later to post better pictures.

Upstairs may actually be done this week!

Martin (worker): should we put the hand rail up on the stairs?
Me: I thought we were going to do that last so that we can move the furniture up first.
Martin: That's why we are clearing out the trash up there. Phil (other worker) is hanging mirrors and then we are done.

Technically, Bill (painter) still has to paint the doors and do some touch up, but we will be moving all the furniture upstairs tonight.

Getting Reacquainted

Joseph has taken to being back home quite well. Gone are the screaming episodes when placed in his crib, and instead the usually happy, energetic toddler has settled back in to life at his real home. We spend lots of time outside playing, partially to get yard work done and enjoy the weather, and partially to stay out of the way of the workers. Of course, now that there are stairs (carpeted, finally!) available to climb, that's what he's most interested in doing. He's really gotten quite good at going up and down, and has learned that the plastic carpet protector on the stairs makes them slippery... and way more fun to just slide down on his belly instead of going one at a time!

 We're hoping that the workers will be finished by the end of the week, but have decided to wait until they are completely done with upstairs before moving anything up. The north bedroom just needs the drawer and door hardware installed, our bedroom needs the lighting installed in the crown moulding, a set of closet doors and door/drawer hardware installed, and closet shelving painted, and the hallway is finished. The bathroom needs the most work, with final coats of paint, trim around the tub base, vanity tops and sink faucets installed, mirrors hung, and shower doors installed, whenever they arrive. Beyond that, as you can see in the pictures below, the bottom portion of the staircase needs to be finished, and then they still have to install our new front door and baseboards in the kitchen before we can call the job complete.

While at his grandparents' last week, we learned that Joseph really enjoys having his hair combed after bathtime. One night this week Joe brought out the comb, and ended up letting Joseph play with his hair instead.

 Joe was a great sport, as Joseph tried to comb through Daddy's hair, but mainly banged the comb against his head, and eventually got it stuck!

Which was clearly so funny!

And ended up causing a lot of giggles during a period of baby hiccups. And honestly, who doesn't enjoy listening to a baby laughing?



Joseph still doesn't talk, but definitely likes to grunt, shriek, shout, etc. to get his point across. This is somewhat indicative of how he likes to communicate now, although each day he's learning more signs and is happy to use them.



Saturday evening was beautiful, so we decided to take Molly out for a walk. Earlier this week Joe had mentioned wanting to take Joseph on a walk to Baskin Robbins, which is about a mile and a half from our house. That particular evening dinner ran too long to go, so we tabled the ice cream trip. Saturday we managed to get Joseph fed and still had plenty of time before bedtime, and thus opted to head for the nearby Russell Stover's for ice cream... also a little over a mile away, but in the opposite direction of Baskin Robbins.

We had never been there before, and I was a little amazed at how nice and big it was! (And I'm not going to lie, I thoroughly enjoyed the nice assortment of candy samples :) ) They had a good selection of ice cream, which Joseph wanted no part of. He did enjoy picking up the jelly beans that someone had spilled and trying to eat those! Joe and I each picked out our ice cream, and watched as Joseph walked up and down the sidewalk, exploring and making friends with other little kids outside. It was a perfect evening, the ice cream cost half as much as our favorite, Murray's, and the experience couldn't be equaled. I'm so glad we opted to walk to the ice cream store and hope to enjoy many more trips this year!

I got a new phone at the end of last week, with a much better camera and faster data connections, so I'm excited about being able to post more frequently with events as they happen, as opposed to waiting to get home, upload pictures and then recount the previous week's events.

Signing!

We've been working with Joseph on learning sign language for a few months now, but it didn't seem to be sinking in at all. Until now. Actually, he started about 10 days ago, right before heading to St. Louis to stay with his grandparents and aunts/uncle so we could run in the Brew to Brew race and move everything back home. He's just started with "milk" and "more" but it seems like now that he's figured out the connection between making a sign and getting what he asked for that he's like a sponge soaking in all of the new words and signs we present. I'll try to take some video of it soon, but it's awfully cute!

And as I mentioned, we are officially back in our house! No, we're still not finished, but we're over 90% of the way there. The carpet gets installed tomorrow, and after that there's just a lot of little details, like final paint touch ups, installing the toilet and vanity tops, shower doors and hanging the closet rods. We are really hoping that by this weekend we'll see enough things finished to move our bedroom furniture upstairs. We are probably a little overly ambitious saying that, but who knows, it may happen. :)

Luckily, Joseph has taken to being back home quite well. Gone are the crazy refusals to sleep in his crib. Maybe it's because we had the house all cleaned up and his toys scattered around the living room and his room, so we could play a lot and explore before it was bed time last night. Today we had a baby play group in the morning and he ended up falling asleep in the car for his morning nap before we made it home. But by the time he was ready for his afternoon nap, I decided to let things happen and put him down in his crib. Even with the half dozen guys running around, firing nail guns, sawing trim pieces and generally being noisy, he still managed to sneak in an hour long nap - not too shabby!