May 2012 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Pig Roast

This past weekend we had our regular annual pig roast – a first for little Jason and Alexandra! We drove back to NY Friday night (Alex, Fitz and I picked Ryan up in Boston and we headed out). I was a long drive because we had to stop to feed Alex since the only time she goes more than 3 hours between feedings is at night (when we’re lucky). However she was wonderful in the car, even though she didn’t sleep for the second half of the drive (after she ate), so I didn’t sleep because I was keeping her occupied (so she would remain calm and she did).

Jason and Alex meet the pig. Alex was in her Beco carrier on me while I took pictures.

Saturday was the pig roast, Alex and I got up early. She wasn’t sleeping great (different bouncy chair and I think she was a bit on the cool side with the a/c running). She was happy during the day though because everyone wanted to hold her so she pretty much never had to occupy herself 🙂 This makes for a calm baby.

georgia — Cousin Georgia gets to hold Alex for the first time!

chloe — Cousin Chloe having a chat with Alex 🙂

maia — Cousin Maia and Alex - Alex really needs to work on her picture face 🙂

Sunday we celebrated Jason’s first birthday (he’s actually 13 months old now but it was a great opportunity to get everyone together). He’s such a ham and since he was napping quite well all weekend he was in a good mood (except during picture moments pretty much) 🙂
Monday was a day to relax, we went down to see Ryan’s family and have lunch before our long drive home (another stop to feed Alex).

cake — Hannah is quite the artist, even with frosting - check out this monkey she drew!

cousins — Wow - they are getting so big!

papa — Papa Williams holds Alex for the first time!

All in all we had a wonderful long memorial day weekend, lots of friends and family and Alex was very good. She sure slept great the first night home though, we were all happy to be back in our own beds (or bouncy chairs) 🙂

Shelves in the closet

The nursery closet that is. On Friday I managed to finish up the nursery closet shelving.

That’s one more item off the nursery todo list. Just have to finish up the mural and paint the windows and doors now before it’s completely done. Squishy and I spend most of our days in the nursery now, it’s a very cozy room. And hopefully in a few weeks she’ll be sleeping in here too… working on it 🙂

Heat/A/C

Well today was a dud. We have decided to hire someone to install forced hot air heat upstairs and downstairs with an a/c unit for the upstairs. We found someone, got a quote that was reasonable. Then today they came to start work (first a walk through then they went to put in for a permit). Well during the walk through he mentioned that the boilermate we have would not hook up to the new furnace and that we would need a new water heater (not mentioned before when we discussed this). So Ryan called to clarify when I verified that his quote did not mention a water heater and he had assumed we were keeping the oil furnace for the hot water (which doesn’t make sense since in his quote he has taking out the furnace mentioned).

So the project is on hold, not sure if he will get us a new quote with a water heater or what. I believe he’s waiting to hear back from us at this point but Ryan is a bit busy at work so it will have to wait a few days for us to decide what to do. I’m totally bummed, I thought this was going to move forward and get done – now this set back. We have so many issues whenever we try to hire someone for work (we’ve been trying to hire an exterior painter to strip the porch and do some painting – no luck so far). Just so frustrating.

In other news, pig roast this weekend! I guess i don’t have to stay around the house today for the plumber, I could go to Bjs today and get the zitis made for the weekend.

Oh and Ryan cut the shelving for the closet so i can install the closet system now if I have a good break to do so. Baby girl is napping on her tummy right now so I can’t leave the room to do that kind of project but i might move her to her bouncy chair so i can take advantage of this nap.

Owl family

Today I started painting the mural Sarah drew above the crib. I’m pretty sure the picture is fuzzy because it’s from my cell and taken from far away since I was feeding the baby. I’m adding texture to the owls as I paint, making them feathery and I’m really excited with how they are coming out! Now I just have the branch, leaves and trunk to do but baby girl doesn’t take 2 full naps so maybe tomorrow I’ll finish.

Ryan has to work all weekend so this is probably the only house progress we will make but I’m secretly hoing he has time to just cut the shelves for the closet so I can put the closet all together if baby girl naps tomorrow.

I realized today I could watch netflix on my phone, much better than sitting here doing nothing while alex eats.

Gifts

The nursery is still in disarray because the closet system is not yet in so I’m waiting on final pics of that (plus I want to paint the mural). In the meantime … here are some gifts I wanted to show. First a package arrived for Alexandra from her Gramma Bozik…

And for my first Mother’s Day from Ryan…

A white gold locket so I can carry a picture of Alex with me always.

Yesterday we had a very busy day, with my allergy shots in the morning, walking the dog since we finally had nice weather to do so, then down to Worcester to pick up our stripped doors! Finally a stop at my aunt’s quilt shop and then stitch night. Needless to say we went to bed early last night!

Today we have mother’s group (find out how much Squishy ways – that’s her new nickname), then cleaning the house!

Putting Together the Nursery

That’s right, the nursery is just about done after this weekend! Let’s recap:

Mom came out this weekend to help with Alex, and of course to see her so ryan and I took full advantage and finished up the nursery.
Things accomplished saturday:
– she molding installed the rest of the way, nail holes filled, sanded for last coat
– fan/light and switch installed
– ceiling of closet sanded, primed and painted
– closet light installed
– outlets almost all installed
– rug put dow, crib put together, bed frame together and dressers moved in
– mural drawn (sarah came up in the evening and drew the mural for us so I just have to paint it now!)

On Sunday we finished everything up:
– finished outlets
– closet switch installed
– painted shoe molding
– mattress moved in and furniture all set up in final spots

It's hard to see since it's a sketch but here's the mural Sarah drew for us! Can't wait to paint this in this week!

More pictures to come once I have things more set up. We did move the rocking chair in last night so it’s getting close.

What’s left on the nursery?

– Installing the closet system
– Priming/painting the doors and putting them up
– Priming/painting the window sashes
– Installing cable/ethernet drops
– Painting the mural

What a great weekend and great first mothers day! I got to sleep in so in total I got 7 hours of sleep which is a first since alex was born!

The end of an era

Of fan trouble that is. It’s kind of crazy how this saga ends (see fan saga here).

After working with Lutron to get our Maestro fan/light double dimmer switch working, which failed by the way, they left me with one last idea. They said the way it’s behaving it’s acting like there’s interference from a CFL or plasma tv or something. Problem is that taking the CFLs and plasma tv off the circuit in that room did not help. So the last idea was to turn off everything at the breaker box except the one light circuit and then slowly add them back on until I could pinpoint the interference.
Well this is time consuming but finally today I had some time and wouldn’t you know it, it worked! The CFL on the kitchen circuit somehow was interfering (note that it’s a difference circuit). So I changed that to incandescent and boom – it all worked like a charm. Holy Moly that was a real project. So now I have to get back to the Lutron folks and they can send me some sort of filter so I can use said CFL again but until then, we have a fan!

Family Visits

I got the most recent pictures off my camera and thought I would share some pictures from Aimee and Jason’s visit this past weekend:

: Fitz thought Jason was a fun new toy/person to play with and snuggled right up. He was very good with all the grabs and quick movements from little Jason even one really hard ear pull 🙂

: Little Jason opening his birthday gifts Friday night from us. He likes anything he can turn into a drum :)Little Jason opening his birthday gifts Friday night from us. He likes anything he can turn into a drum 🙂

: On Saturday Uncle Mark, Aunt Mo and Hannah stopped by for some quick baby snuggle time.

: Hannah meets Alex!

: Uncle Mark snuggling with Jason.

jason happy — Jason however was a complete ham for me while i rocked alex and took pictures of him playing.

My favorite pic of little Jason the monster 🙂 I have no idea how I caught this one but it was a great face!

And now it’s back to the week, counting down the days until the next weekend. Monday Alex and I drove down to Worcester and dropped off 6 doors to be dipped/stripped (goodbye lead paint!). That includes the 2 doors for the nursery! Plus all the tvroom doors (3) and our closet door for our bedroom. Going to have a lot of doors and windows to paint as soon as the weather is warm enough to keep the windows out for a period of time!

Floor Pictures

On sunday ryan did start the shoe molding install, a couple of long pieces have to be trimmed and the saw isn’t set up at the moment but soon we can finish that up. The floor has to cure for 2 weeks before we can put the rug down and bring in all the furniture. I’m hoping to start the mural this weekend though and we can get the outlets in and work on the closet ceiling. Can’t wait for the weekend!

Nursery almost done

We’ve had a couple of long nights with a cranky Alex and today she was a bit out of sorts as well but we managed to make some good nursery progress and it’s almost done!

I did the cutting in on the walls while ryan watched alex, then we switched off and he rolled the walls (so they are done!) And put a coat of paint on the shoe molding so once that’s installed tomorrow we just have to touch up the nail holes.

After dinner aimee snuggled peanut while I did the final coat of poly on the floor (another tinted coat). Tomorrow the floor should be dry and we can finish up the room (the closet has a bit left including a molding and the ceiling but we can put the room togwther sans closet for now. Tomorrow ryan will install the shoe molding and I’ll do the outlets and we’re done!