Walk, baby, walk

G is walking! We had officially 6 steps tonight, all by herself, no holding on. So exciting!

Haven't caught her in mid-stride yet, but this is how we felt watching her, anyhow...



Oh, and happy St. Pat's! We all got in the spirit today, particularly O....

Closing the Door on 2008

Happy New Year! I guess before I start anew with my first official 2009 post with a happy welcome to the new year - hello, it's the 5th of January already - I should make sure that I close out with everything I meant to post before end of year. Yeah, yeah...resolution, shmesolution.

Perhaps the best way to do that is keep with my theme for this past month and not make it just about myself but share a little bit of what we experienced throughout 2008 and especially during this holiday season.

Our first bit of awesome-ness this year arrived on February 21. Little miss G, who is our wee angel & little sister in this house. Hard to believe she will be a year before we know it.


O immediately acknowledged the fact that we had a new addition.


O finished his 3-year-old's preschool class and started "the 4s". He is officially...a boy. And so darn much fun, with a good sense of humor, mischief, and unfortunately he's also a lot smarter than his parents some days. He continues the rock star/surfer look.


G has seven teeth, is cruising, crawling on hands and knees, trying to go up stairs, can't be left alone for a second, and makes us laugh all day. When she meets you for the first time, you get an intense stare for about 12 minutes, then she warms up. She's got a lot to say but we can't understand all those coos and beautiful sounds quite yet. We think she's trying to tell all of us what to do.


C and I had a wild ride, a busy year with a new baby and an almost-conclusion to our house renovation. (Yes, I'll get to that once we get the driveway and landscaping done in the spring).

We got the president we wanted, the economy officially tanked, and I was laid off in September. In the long run, that's motivated me to further improve the work situation to emerge (finally) as a marketing and business development consultant. Economy tanking or not, I am looking positively at the coming year. There are still lots of opportunities out there.

Our trip to Aruba was great, a great underscore to all the family time we had this year. But nothing topped the holidays this year--we got to see so many friends and family, it made us realize how lucky we really are.

Christmas Eve...O with my handsome godson B. Like a big brother, he is. (God, that sounded like Yoda.)


G got her first "dollie" as a gift from her godmother. She loved it. Kissed it. We all fell apart.

Seriously, what kind of four-year -old needs to be woken up on Christmas morning? Mine.


We opened gifts with my parents at our house, had some mimosas, and got on our way to C's family. Little miss G, with so many gifts to open...just distracted by the sparkly stuff.


O goofing around on Grandma's lap with cousin J, entertaining as always...


...and C with our silly little gal, taking her turn at making like Frosty.

Ups and downs come and go but it's the real stuff that sticks. You know what I mean.

We Go Out Sometimes

Well, that sounds kind of lame. Okay...we don't get out quite as much with two kids. But we still know how, dammit. But on Saturday night we had a great time at our friend's surprise birthday in Manhattan.


Happy Birthday R! You are a classy chick, a wonderful neighbor, and a great friend.

We hit the roof bar afterwards for a quiet moment of our own, too. Yay.

Aruba 2008

Last week, we came back from our family vacation in Aruba. We have been about 5 or 6 times before, and we always go with my husband's family - his parents, brother and sister-in-law, and usually an aunt and uncle too. (I'm one of those lucky folks who actually enjoys my in-laws quite a bit!)


These are the moments I relish the most on vacation.



We had a grown-up night out with my brother- and sister-in-law. It was a blast and completely silly; after a delish dinner we hit a piano bar. We said "one drink"...I think we left after about 6.


You get to take pictures like this, that you never have time for at home...



The coconut flan finale to family dinner out presented with great flourish by O.

We took O on a submarine ride, which was truly cool - shipwrecks and coral reefs and lots of sea life he's never seen. Down 130 feet and you get the "wow"...



Our last big dinner night out pooped out our little party girl.


Mmm. Happy.

Leave Us Together

The leaves are just so gorgeous in our neck of the woods right now that C and O couldn't help themselves but rake up a few big piles. They came and got G and I to jump right in with them.

One of our neighbors walked by and offered to take a picture of us all in the leaves...heck yes! Like C and I are ever in a photo together any more...well, figures...neither of the kids looked at the camera.


Beautiful, beautiful fall day. Saved the best for last...

Tired. But I want to post, something.

Therefore, an easy picture montage.

G's first "swim" at our friends' (gorgeous) pool 2 weekends ago.


O's last day of camp (already!)...dancing while waiting for the bus in the morning.


I can't decide whether O was puffing up his cheeks to look like G, or whether they actually do have similar profiles.

Some days I just stare at the pictures. They are too much.

Renovation: Back Inside - Living in De-construction

Now. These photos are from October--I know, I know--but I'm catching up, aren't I? It's starting to cool down, but if you recall we had a rather temperate Fall around these parts.



First I'll give you a glimpse of how lovely our exterior looked once the majority of siding came down. Mmmm. House was built in 1945. Old. It should be mentioned that the second story to the above left is the master bedroom area, which was added in the early 90s.

The next three photos are: the family room (expanded and opened up to include the sunroom, which is where our old front door entered the house...do you see the cracks between the plywood?


...a wider shot of the now completely opened up sunroom area (our fireplace is to the right in this shot)....


And this little yellow room...what was that again?...oh yes, our KITCHEN. Still functioning. I think it was a rainy day when I took these. Cheery place to live, no? Ugh.


All I can think when I look back at this is, poor O. What a good, good sport he was.

Renovation: The Build on the Outside

Around the same time as the pictures you saw of the inside (ie: our open-air upstairs), the outside was slowly being ripped apart, too. See the gaping hole on the left? We actually cut into our dining room to create a new front door. You can see how we raised the roof on the right; this is where G's bedroom is now.



Here is the driveway side of the house...two car garage, and the second floor has taken shape. This area closest to the front of the picture is our dining/multi-purpose room, really the crux of the addition to the house.



This is the back view of the addition I was just mentioning. The space on top is O's new room. The big hole is for a set of french doors, ultimately out to a patio in the back. Note the Japanese Andromeda next to the house. Sadly, we lost it. Too big to transfer. Thank goodness we have another five or so.


Here is a view of our old deck. Note that the contractors put a temporary door in here, where they broke into our old dining room to create the porch for the new front door.

Good story (well, not really) about this lovely plywood temp wall. When they ripped the siding off initially, our outdoor light was still outside. It was a motion-sensor light, and it stayed on during the rain one night. It was kind of leaning on the wall, which was exposed rotting wood (nice, eh?) and insulation hanging out.

C was coming up to bed, and smelled something funny outside. Turns out the wall was ON FIRE and he had to run and get the hose, after slipping in the mud, to put it out. So yes, get rid of your motion sensor lights, please. I heard other horror stories about them after I told mine.

Tomorrow, more chaos. This is kind of cathartic, though.

Renovation: The Build, from the Inside

Yesterday's renovation post gave a quick glimpse into how the exterior of the house looked at the beginning of the construction and demolition. Here are some shots of our interior during that period. The first photo, above, shows what you would see when you walked upstairs. Yes, you read that right. Our bedroom door jamb is to the left in this photo. Other than that area, we had no roof for a few days. And then, tarp.



The next photo, above, shows what it was built into...a entry to my son's room, with a new bath on the right.


Now, note the stairway on the right. This third photo shows what you would have seen if you looked to the right after coming up the stairs (so our bedroom door, as mentioned above, would be at your back). You can see the chimney (which we ultimately had to extend) exposed here, which was behind the wall in O's original room. Which was all of a nook, truthfully.

Lovely views, though, no?


Here is that same space, framed out for G's room. Of course, we didn't know it was G's room at the time. O decided he wanted the new room, rather than the new & improved version of his space. Personally, I think the new version here is bigger than the brand-new room, but don't try to tell him that.

More to come.

Renovation: The Beginning

It's time.

Here are some pictures of our house pre-renovation and early renovation. It was sold to us in 2004 as an "other"...basically an adjusted cape; one portion of the tiny top was pushed out to create a master bedroom. (Really the selling point of the house, truth be told.) The first picture is actually of a guy taking a tree down behind our house, but it's one of the few digital pictures I have of the exterior finish. Vinyl siding and plastic shutters.

Next photo, albeit blurry, a picture of two of the guys with our first wall ripped open. This was our old dining area, next to the old minuscule kitchen. Note our chandelier still intact. Which now hangs in our new foyer.

The third photo shows the driveway side of our house in the build stage. The entire area to the right didn't exist, and to the left, they had to tear down the walls of our sunroom and reconstruct them...they were a disaster (rotten, leaky, etc).


The fourth photo shows the other facing side of our house (we have a corner lot). Our front door - really the door to an old closed-in porch that became an interior portion of the house with the last owner - was where the plywood is located here. The funny thing is, this is the side of the house where our front door should be, since our address is for this elevation, not the driveway side. The pile of rocks is where the steps were...which were also horrible; they had no landing so every time I opened the door for someone I practically threw them down the steps.

I'll post some additional entries this week to bring you all up to speed. :0)

I am so lucky

No, you can't be any cuter, G.

O by "his tree," planted after he was born.

Renovation: Pictures (disclaimer)

Shamefully, I was reminded just now as the bank inspector came by to take pictures of the house for our most recent draft on the construction loan that I haven't posted pics of the renovation yet.

Sorry. Once it stops raining here I'll get them taken with the new camera and do a mega-post. This weekend.

Really, we have a few things to do to get the C of O and then finishing our mess of a yard:

• porch
• stairs to porch
• stairs to french doors
• stair railing
• doorways in the basement

Can we get it done before O's birthday party on 6/28? The race is on.

I REFUSE to let this go to August, making it an official year-long project.

G: Baby Mysteries #1

How does this happen?

Note the sleeper-keeper, as I call it, under the blanket to her right. It is supposed to keep them from rolling over and suffocating themselves. She was sleeping soundly in that.


We woke up to find her lying perpendicular to it at the top of the crib.
Crazy baby.