The One and Only

Annual Halloween Costume Guessing Contest: late edition.  If you already know, no cheating.

Good luck!

See, it is red

For Caryn

Animania

I had paint leftover from my last furniture improvement scheme, and I am prone to impulsive projects, so Aaron now has a green room. 1/3 of a green room, actually, because I didn’t have enough paint   But a few bucks at Big Lots for animal borders and decals and it all looks intentional.

In the morning when Aaron wakes up he spends 15 minutes just staring wide-eyed at each of the animals, one at a time. It’s very cute, and it keeps him content for an extra 15 minutes every morning. Thank you Big Lots.

Final Product

I took this using our panoramic stitch-together feature on our camera, so try not to let the Escer-esque walls weird you out.

Props to Kari for the fine couch. (Do people say “props” anymore?)

We love our kitchen.

More to come.

At Last!

It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you are too busy to breathe. Here are the highlights from the past 2 months.

Big Numero Uno – We finished our house and moved in on Labor Day weekend! WOOOO! Thank you very VERY much to everyone who helped us install floors, clean, babysit, move, borrow trucks, unpack, etc. We couldn’t have done it without you and we appreciate it so much. We love you!

Favorite things? SPACE! More than one bathroom. Garage. More kitchen storage and closet space than I can handle. Cushy new carpet. Walk in closet. Brand new beautiful appliances (learning how to use them has been a challenge, though, I’m not gonna lie). Brand new everything! And the list continues. We love it! Pictures to come soon.

As much as we love our home, we love being done with the construction process just as much. Since we decided to build a custom home that meant every teeny little decision was ours to make and every problem was ours to solve. None of this a, b, or c business – we spent countless hours shopping online, at building supply stores, plumbing stores, hardware stores, door stores, flooring stores, ETC researching products and comparing prices and bargain hunting and matching colors….and then we spent countless hours at the lot going over things with the subcontractors and giving Aaron screaming fits from all the banging and sawing and hammering…..and then we spent countless hours going over the invoices and talking to the bank and writing checks….and then we spent countless hours freaking out and trying to come up with solutions every time a subcontractor broke a sink, or installed the wrong toilet or the wrong countertops or the wrong windows, or destroyed our new cabinets, or broke our window screens, or forgot to install outlets, or hung the doors at the wrong height, or put the wrong locks on, or installed cracked baseboards, or our light switches didn’t work, or our coaxial wiring was not connected to the circuit box (yes, all of these things happened)… and now we don’t have to do any of those things ever again. Hallelujah!  And – our home got finished on time and under budget. It’s a miracle! Those were not highlights, that was just me whining. And now I have an awesome house. Don’t you feel sorry for me? Now I am done.

Moving along, Aaron has many new tricks. He rolls over, eats cereal, and has started sleeping 12 hours at night with only one feeding in the middle (I’m going to qualify that with a 65% of the time rating, knock on wood). He also talks and squeals and babbles constantly, much to the delight of his overly reinforcing parents. Other big news: we finally got the poor kid a crib. He outgrew his playpen weeks ago but we didn’t have space for a crib until we moved. Aah. He is a much happier sleeper now (see above), and I am a much happier in general. We also got him a baby bathtub, and suddenly he enjoys his baths instead of screaming the whole time. This is magical. If I had known 4 months ago that the key to bath time success was a blue whale baby tub, I’d have had a much cleaner baby all this time. Take note, ye mothers to be, that $20 bathtub is totally worth it.

I think that pretty much covers it. On the job front – Adam graduates from his Management Training program tomorrow – congratulations! He loves his work and his company and is excited to be an official top dawg now We don’t know what the future holds for him – he has worked in almost every department of the company during the last 2 years and there seems to be no permanent resting place in sight. Luckily, he has enjoyed everything they’ve thrown at him so far, and he’s up for the adventure. I have cut back to 30 hours/week, a lot of which I do from home, and as long as I have child care when I need to go in to the office, life is grand. Days when Aaron comes to work with me = insanely stressful waste of time. Shameless plug (perhaps plea is more appropriate): I am looking for a daytime babysitter for a few hours a week if anyone wants to watch the cutest blue-eyed redhead ever. I want to get a few people so I always have a backup. Pretty please leave a comment if you’re interested.

And that, dear friends, is a wrap.

Quick house shots

Looks like we are finishing up this week. These are not the most recent pictures, but we will show it all off soon.

Sneaking in Some House Stuff

Rachael thinks that I am boring the world with my home building updates. But I am going to do it anyway. We have started the exterior, drywall is almost done, and we start flooring tomorrow. We will probably start the finish work on Monday. It is going by so quickly!

More Baby…More House

Sorry, those are the most exciting things in our life. So first, a baby update, because he’s more fun to look at.

Aaron is wonderful. He is getting cuter and smarter by the minute. He is also spending less time crying and more time jabbering and being completely adorable and responsive. Yay! Parenthood is getting easier and more fun every day – and we love it!

We are also only weeks away from moving into our new house. Woo! We have been crazy busy making decisions and lining up contractors for all the finish work, and the process is flying. If all goes as planned construction will be done exactly 2 months from the day we broke ground. Pretty impressive if you ask me.  I’d upload pictures of the drywall and insulation phases, but I’m betting they wouldn’t be thrilling to anyone but Adam.

We have a roof

The electrician and the plumber and the HVAC guy are all hard at work.

Building Update

They have finished sheeting the roof and are almost done with the interior framing. Even the HVAC guy has started.