Casing The Joint

Since we finished the basement I've moved my home improvement projects to the main level. There are three jobs, all involving trim, that I'm going to finish up this winter. Two of them involve the fireplace and television viewing area in the living room; the third, the openings to the dining room and office. As a side note, I'm typing this blog on my new iPhone 5 with a purring kitten in my lap.

The kids were entertained with markers on my materials. It was a good idea at the time. It wasn't such a good idea when I tried to paint over them. The areas where Julia colored took almost 10 coats of high quality paint. White paint just doesn't cover color very well, even at $60 a gallon.

Overall things turned out well, but I made many mistakes. Since the length of the openings were greater then the standard eight feet materials come in, each flat section has a seam. I was able to fill some huge gaps with wood filler, but I rushed the biggest one and didn't take the time to sand it down flat enough. If you look long enough in the right light it's pretty obvious. 

Initially I wasn't sold on how much white space it added, but over time it's really grown on me. It was something that hadn't been changed for over five years, so it took some getting used to. Next!

Happy Halloween

People Person

It only took kitty three night to find us and make herself at home in our bed at night. She's been sleeping between us every night since.  Who has who trained?

Over the past few days I've taken a few shots that were worth sharing. She likes my lap, the blankets in the bin (she wrapped herself up), and lending a paw for painting.  I had to put her on the other side of the ladder while I was painting after she thought the brush and roller were toys. She batted the roller with her paw. It's hard to get paint off of a kitten...

A New Friend

Freckles is my new buddy. The last two nights she has fallen asleep in my lap while I've been watching the World Series. She likes Stacey and Julia too, but I've been the only one around at night to pet her, so we've had more time together. She runs when Jonathan comes around, probably because he just moves too fast and is too loud.

Each night she has gotten progressively more comfortable around me. The first night here she stayed near me and periodically let me pet her. As I've already mentioned, the next two nights she's slept in my lap. However, tonight she also started licking my nose, face, and hands until I made her stop. Then, she followed me into the basement when I went down to play the guitar. She just laid on the chair and rested until I was done, then followed me back up the stairs. She definitely wants to be around people as long as they aren't wild and crazy. I just happened to be the one around at night this week. 

She also has a thing for scrambled eggs and black bean soup, but I stopped her before she ate any of it...

Freckles The Cat

Well, we went ahead and took the plunge and brought home a kitten. We've been thinking about getting another pet for a little while, so when our neighbors brought home a kitten a few weeks ago, it started the discussion again. We mentioned it to our parents and it just so happened that one of their employees had a litter of 10 week old females ready to be taken home.

This afternoon Stacey took the kids over to my parent's animal hospital to let them "play with the animals". We were really having them stop by to check out the kittens and to see what the kids thought about them, how they would do with them, etc. Julia took a liking to one kitten in particular since it was cuter, softer, and a little bit more mellow then the rest.

We didn't tell Julia that we were probably going to take one home, so the kids left and came back home after visiting them. After I work I met my parents and picked up the kitten. The kids didn't freak out quite as much as we had hoped, but they were definitely excited and interested in our new pet.

Julia really likes the name Freckles. I think we're going to have a hard time changing it to anything else since that's what she's been calling it tonight. We sort of had to make the kids back off at first until the kitten got used to its surroundings, mainly because it was already a little bit afraid. After only about 30 minutes it took a little tinkle in its litter box. Although it had been using a litter box up to this point, it was a welcomed relief (no pun intended). However, it really likes our rugs and curtains, so we'll have to address that soon. The markings and the colorings are very interesting and pretty on this one.

As I've been typing this blog Freckles has been exploring the house a little bit. She's been tearing back and forth between the dining room and where I'm sitting in the office, but it's quite entertaining. It's nice to have an animal back in the house. Personally, I don't like one more then the other, but cats (especially kittens) are very interesting to watch. They are actually pretty amazing creatures. This last paragraph has taken awhile to finish because Freckles has taken a liking to me and my desk. It's a little hard to type when you have a purring kitten in your lap and/or circling your keyboard and monitor...

Little Miss Popular

Today after school Julia received a warm send off from several of her classmates. Stacey picked her up from school, a few classmates around her told her goodbye, then a boy from across the room yelled, "Bye Julia!" It seemed like most of her class wanted to tell her to have a good day. Then, on the way out, another girl from her class wanted to tell her goodbye as well but couldn't remember her name. So, instead, she referred to Julia as "the pretty girl" to her mom.  

Do they have Homecoming Queens in kindergarten? Just sayin'...

A Few Words

It's becoming a habit, leading off a post with apologizing for how long it's been since I last made a post, so I won't do it this time. We're just so busy with work and the kids that night is all we have to take care of the other things on our plate. We're all just beginning to recover from a two week long cold, so that didn't help this situation either.

I'm getting a little off topic, so I should start talking about the reason for this post: Jonathan. He still doesn't say much, but he's saying new words every day. Sometime soon he's going to put it all together. Things have calmed down a little bit with his medical issues, but we're still not sure if we're making progress or if he's growing enough.

Regardless of his growth, he's been saying and doing the following:

1) His color is blue. Obviously we've helped this by giving him a blue blanket, painting his room blue, etc. We still have pictures up around the house of Julia as an infant, but Jonathan is convinced (and will insist) that the pictures of Julia where she's wearing a blue shirt are really pictures of him. He won't be convinced otherwise.

2) He takes his color to another level and gets excited at things he sees that are blue. He likes the blue train on the show Chuggington and points out anything else he sees that's blue. The other day Stacey and the kids were at the store and he saw a huge roll of blue fabric in the corner. It must have reminded him of his blanket, because he ran over to it, yelled "blue", and gave it a big hug. Another woman in the store got a good laugh out of it.

3) He got really excited about Stacey's new vest jacket. Stacey put it on today, Jonathan got all excited, and then said "Momma cue" (cute), to let her know he approved of her purchase. He also really likes his new sneakers and wants to show me every time he puts them and/or his pajamas on.

4) Yesterday he decided to stop using the word "yeah". He replaced it with "yep" or "yeppers". He was copying something he'd heard Julia or us say in the past, but the lack of prompting made it funny. I'd ask him a question and he'd come back with a "yep". Pretty funny.

His little personality is starting to show a lot, both from his words and his actions. He's a very particular or strong willed child at times. He is exhibiting all of the classic two year old traits, which makes us realize just how unique Julia was since we never had to deal with these things. At the same time he's also very sweet, randomly coming up and giving us hugs or patting Julia on the hand when she's hurt or being concerned when she's crying. It's almost like he's all crazy boy yet still is aware enough of other people to make me think he's going to be more of an extrovert. One good example of this possibility is that he seems to like being goofy and making us laugh. He exhibits some traits that make me think he could be a class clown or at least someone who likes to joke around. Julia liked to be silly at this age too, but it's different in that he seems to be acting rather then just being silly for attention's sake. Julia has always been a lot more literal and exacting, but it's hard to explain.

No matter which child we're talking about, both have already provided us with many memorable and happy moments. I'm sure things will continue to be just as good as time goes by.

Playing In The Playroom

The extended director's cut...with new scenes never before released.

Playroom Videos

Here are a few videos of the kids seeing the playroom for the first time. At first they don't know what to think, since the room was entirely redone. I guess this was our little version of Extreme Home Makeover. They were initially most excited about the tunnel and the tent, but after a few minutes they started to discover the other things, one by one. Julia kept telling us thank you and Jonathan was visibly enjoying it all. According to Julia, the old playroom had become boring, so it was good that we stepped up our game...

Playroom By IKEA

We spent all day Saturday finishing up the kid's playroom, and for that matter, the basement. Although both of us were fighting colds and already tired, we dropped the kids off at my parent's house with my Mom and Michelle, and drove up to IKEA, the Mecca for yuppie home improvement. We wanted to finish this area up before the weather turned too much, so we'd have an area this winter for the kids to play this winter.

We loaded our loot into two shopping carts, then the entire back of the car, and then our basement. We made a few impulse buys (who doesn't at IKEA?), but for the most part we stuck to our original idea and just picked out the things that best fit. 

I had already painted the wall and trimmed out the opening to the playroom.We cleared out a lot of the old stuff. Although it was easy to put all of the furniture together and decorate the room, it still took us about eight man hours to set it all up. We finished the room up while the kids were asleep, at about 10 o'clock.

I included a picture of the room before we set things up and Stacey's car loaded with stuff. We unveiled the playroom to the kids this morning and took a lot of video. They were very excited and have been playing in the room the entire morning. I'll post the video of their reaction soon.