Our newest little one Evalina Gabriella joined us last week. She made it longer term than her sisters – to 38 1/2 weeks and came a day after Alex’s birthday! We had to spend an extra day at the hospital due to her jaundice – also like her older sister but she’s doing great and her sisters were so happy to meet her friday evening and dote on her all weekend!
Without further ado… here are some pics!
This past weekend (we were home on Monday only) marked some progress on the linen closet! Friday my neighbor Pete was over working so he sanded, primed and painted the closet (then did some other projects like empty out the master bathroom area).
Monday we went to home depot and got the closet system, then I painted the second coat on the walls and ceiling. Once the paint was dry I installed the closet light, then Ryan installed the rails for the closet system (we’ll wait on shelves which just pop in until trim is done). Then Ryan made and installed all the closet trim (baseboards and door trim) on the inside of the closet!
All that is left is to sand, caulk the trim and then prime/paint the trim and doors! I’m so excited to have a closet soon upstairs! The only problem with working on it is that it’s RIGHT outside Alex’s room so I can’t do anything noisy when she’s trying to fall asleep, so we’ll see when I get some time to sand it (painting is quiet at least).
House progress is always fun, especially on a weekend when we also got to go back to NY and see all our family! The Pig Roast was this weekend and we had a great time – the weather was really nice even though rain was predicted!
Alex and Jason had a blast, they both love tractors so first thing we went out (in pajamas) and let them sit on Grandpa’s tractor
On Sunday Grandpa got his car out and the kids got to drive that too!
I don’t have my pics off my camera yet, just my phone ones plus I didn’t take any pictures at the actual pig roast, I was too busy talking to people! It was a great turn out (anything is better than last year when we got rain AND cold!).
My little boo is 2!
She gets an even bigger birthday gift but we aren’t setting it up until Friday night (it’s an 8′ trampoline we are going to put in the cupola!). So for now she gets the bike and some puzzles 🙂 Luckily the front room is empty right now so it’s perfect for some tricycle riding!
This weekend Alex and I went down to Aimee’s house to work on their new nursery (for baby #2!). Alex wasn’t much help but luckily Grandma was there to entertain the kids so I could help on the nursery. Jason got the wallpaper off, I scraped around the trim and then skim coated 2 walls. A good start! Gotta get this room done before baby girl arrives!
Meanwhile back at our house on Friday the work continued, our contractor continued work on the ceiling boxes and our neighbor got the front hallway walls taped. I haven’t gotten pictures yet so will post that later on.
This is a very late post but generally I like to have my sewing projects on here along with house projects. So I’ll do a quick recap. No house work has been going on, Ryan has been working every free second he has including all weekend every weekend 🙁 This means I’m on Alex duty and with the teething lately (molars!), her naps haven’t always been great so I’ve been focusing on things that are easy to quit when she wakes.
What have we done ? Well first up was Halloween, I made her costume this year, she was a purple owl. She LOVED it. She loved the costume, loved trick-or-treating and just overall had a blast. She walked down and back up the street carrying her bucket and chatting with the neighbors. The idea of picking out candy and then getting to eat some at the end of the night – wow. It was fun.
After Halloween Alex and I went down to Aimee and Jason’s for the weekend (Aimee’s birthday) and the kids all got dressed in their costumes. We had a great weekend playing, Alex loved playing with all of Jason’s toys (I got a ton of great xmas gift ideas out of it for Alex 🙂 ).
The last 2 weekends we’ve been home. We started going to myGym on Saturday mornings and Alex loves it. We love it because she’s happy and gets tired out enough for a great Saturday nap 🙂 I need to come up with a Sunday morning activity to do the same! In the afternoons we hit up the park and do some daddy snuggles while he works (usually a xmas movie is on). We started introducing xmas concept to Alex and so far ‘Santa’ and ‘Ho ho ho’ are fun ones.
Alex’s favorite toys right now are trains so we spend a lot of time playing with Thomas and friends 🙂
And this weekend I finally finished the top to Alex’s wall hanging for her bedroom. I set up my sewing room in my diningroom and Alex sat at the table and colored while I cut and ironed. After Alex went to bed I put the top together and I am looking forward to hand quilting it!
Hopefully we’ll have a house update next week, this weekend we plan to tile!
It’s that time again – staycation! We started our vacation with a long weekend back in NY. Heading to NY Friday night, going to our niece’s birthday party Saturday then heading down to NYC Sunday morning!
We stayed with PJ and Erica in the city and on Monday spent the day at the Bronx zoo. Alex had a good time, although she was pretty tired since we skipped her nap for the day (she slept on the drive back north and then for the bedtime drive home too). She enjoyed seeing the Giraffes, Sea Lions, Gorillas, Bears and Polar bear the best probably. It was a good day and Alex really did great especially off schedule!
We got home late Monday night and Alex let us all sleep in till 9am! A great start to our staycation portion of vacation. After breakfast I took Alex to daycare (and by the way she went right back on schedule – not sure how they pulled that off!). Ryan and I got a start right away working on the outside.
We worked on the small section that has a roof to stand on outside the back bedrooms. We got the soffit all stripped down, sanded and prepped. Caulking and holes all filled, gaps filled with wood putty. Prep prep prep. Then we got a coat of primer on both the siding and all the trim/soffit! It should finish up very quickly tomorrow (or the next rain free day) and we’re on to the next part.
Once we finished that section for the day I got a coat of primer on our second half moon window our neighbor restored for us! It also came out great and he took pictures as he restored them so I’ll do a blog post on just windows soon. Ryan continued the porch painting along the outside soffit while I went and picked up Alex. Lots of outside progress since it was a beautiful day for painting!
3 more full days to go, hoping for no rain but even with rain we’ll get some work done (under the porch and tiling the bathroom). Now it’s time to relax and catch up on TV from the last week and a half!
This was one of those perfect weekends, lots of family time, lots of house progress – just perfect all around. Aimee, Jason and little Jason came up on Saturday. The guys worked on the bathroom, Jason getting the rough-in plumbing finished up and Ryan getting the cement board up and both of them installing the tub. The bathroom is really coming together quickly after this weekend.
Jason also got the rough-in for the laundry room done and Sunday our neighbor came over and helped ryan finish sheetrocking the bathroom. I think we have just 4 small pieces of cement board around the window to do, then we can red-guard the tub/shower and it will be tile ready. In the mean-time I’m hoping to have time to tape/spackle the ceiling and walls.
On Sunday I got the upstairs all cleaned up and vacuumed and then went out and got a coat of paint on the window and trim on the front. It needs 1 more coat and some sections of crown need to be touched up (filled holes) but it’s all yellow so it looks like the finished product now.
Aimee and I took the kids to the park Saturday for a long while (and again on Sunday for a short while) and they had a blast. Alex built up a lot of confidence on the structures having a kid close to her size show her how to do everything and Aimee convinced me to allow her to go down the big slides by herself – I had a heart attack each time but Alex had a blast!
To really make the weekend perfect, Uncle Pete, Aunt Erin and gang all made it out Saturday for dinner so the kids got to see more family and we got to catch up – it’s too long between visits with busy schedules on all sides!!!
Finally the rebuilding has begun. This past weekend (Saturday at least), Ryan made a couple trips to the dump to get rid of all the demo debri from the ceiling demo. We got the upstairs cleaned up more, things moved around, the saw brought up and vacuuming vacuuming vacuuming.
There is still more cleanup to do (one section of ceiling still has a lot of insulation, but i want to get the bookcases underneath there moved first (and they need to be cleaned off), so I focused on the rest saturday. Then Ryan got the first wall of the bathroom built! This was mostly during Alex’s 2 naps although the wall was built while she was awake Saturday evening. The cleanup part all happened during naps.
Sunday we had other projects to complete (work, shopping, berry picking). Hopefully next weekend we can get the other two walls up and the tub installed?
Sorry for the lack of posting, we were up till about midnight every night Wed, Thur, Fri with working on the kitchen and birthday party prep. I’ll try to recap how the rest of the week went.
Wednesday I finished filling nail holes and caulking the installed trim. Then I stripped the last 4 rosettes. When Ryan got home he put up the last bit of door trim and baseboards (caps haven’t gone in yet though).
Next up we got the backsplash finished (tiling) and this time I got to help so I did some cutting and some installing – it was just the top half of the one wall left to do so it went pretty quickly.
Thursday was recycling metal day (2 trips to recycle stuff in the yard -old pipes etc) and i lost count how many trips to the dump. Ryan did all that while I cleaned the upstairs of the house and started on the downstairs. In the afternoon and evening we got the fridge installed which was NOT easy!
But totally worth it! I ended the night Thursday by sealing the floor grout right before bed. It was one hour and was exhausting at 11pm but no worries for the party now!
Friday was more cleanup, Ryan installed the toe kicks, I installed the dishwasher (finally screwed in!), Ryan grouted the backsplash and installed the window apron so the window looks trimmed out now. I started the tool room cleanup and by 9pm the diningroom and livingroom were cleaned up for the party.
So we got enough done on the kitchen that we could enjoy the party! By 9pm I was able to start baking the cake and cupcakes for the party and my sister arrived shortly after and helped with all the party preparation (thank goodness, I would have gone crazy trying to do it all). One more late night but Saturday went off without a hitch thanks to the hard work of everyone. No one tripped over a saw or loose nail (thank goodness) and we had a TON of people stuffed into our mostly unfinished house 🙂
Here’s a view of one of the unfinished areas we used for the party – livingroom diningroom where most of the adults hung out – this is after cleaning but pre-decorations:
I’m so glad it’s over. Now we can just relax and finish up the kitchen (painting and crown molding left) and get started upstairs on the bathroom!
Yikes I guess it’s been a while since we did much on the house. We’ve been a little busy with traveling to NY for Easter etc. In the evenings we did manage however to get the last 2 sections off the kitchen spackled and sanded and Ryan got the long piece of baseboard scribed and installed.
We still need to finish the trim installation in the bathroom hallway on those 3 doors and the arch but this weekend it’s time to tile the kitchen! I think Ryan wants to get the plinth blocks installed tonight first but we’ll see. Depending on what is being worked on I may get the priming done, that at least protects everyone’s clothes from getting plaster dust on them when they rub against the wall 🙂
Next week is our vacation week to work on the house so I’ll try to update with pictures more often and boo boo is turning 1 year old on Wednesday – unbelievable! The little munchkin just amazes me every day 🙂