After three months of sawdust, noise and plastic tarps, we’ve finally reached a goal. The interior is finished! Mostly, anyways. there are a few minor items like doorknobs and paint touch-ups, but it feels so good to finally remove the child\doggy barricades and let everyone roam free in our fresh new family room and office. We’ve spent the entire day in the family room and it has been awesome. It came out exactly how I wanted it: bright and roomy. Now Caleb can pull out every one of his toys and still have room to run around without tripping over anything. We pulled out the hardly-used chaise from our bedroom and put it in the corner for a cozy reading nook. The huge closet does a wonderful job storing everything we could possibly need. Here are a few before and afters for some good shock value:
Before, nasty messy garage:
After, sweet tranquility:
Before, a plain old garage door:
After, gorgeous archway:
Before, cramped and cluttered:
After, nice and spacious:
There’s plenty of space to spin around…:
…and lounge around:
Andy’s picked out the perfect colors for his new office:
And Caleb has more storage room than he could ever need:
The next step that will hopefully happen within a few days is the exterior painting. We let our Facebook friends vote for their favorite color and most of them chose the riskier option (hurrah!). We will probably be the first blue stucco house ever… and I thoroughly intend to start a trend. No more tan houses!!
Since we’ve had a lot of projects around the house with the remodeling going on, We’ve gained a little blonde-headed shadow that often imitates whatever we do. Here are a couple of videos showing his busy big-boy activities.
To state the obvious, our lives have turned into a frenzied disarray. Dozens of people hammer away at various parts of the house throughout the day, everything is coated in a fine layer of sawdust, and we have a gaping hole in our living room wall. It’s chaotic right now, but the changes are very exciting. Here are some pictures I took this evening right before the sun went down.
The huge hole that will soon be an archway into the new room:
What is soon to be the new living room. That creepy dark doorway will be Andy’s new office/man cave:
The view from the new living room into the house:
Our new enormous new patio roof. It will be insulated and finished with a ceiling fan when all is said and done. The ply board wall on the left is the office addition:
And the view from the backyard. The room on the right is the office addition sans windows
I am amazed how one day, I have a meek little baby toddling around and the next, an independent, self-thinking small child manipulating the world around him.
Caleb has learned how to test the disciplinary waters with me. For example, He loves to color, and sometimes paper is not enough. But he knows that he can only color on the paper I give him. Sometimes, when he’s feeling ambitious, he’ll look at me, lift the paper up, and look at me again, crayon frozen centimeters away from the bare table. I will say, in my stern mommy voice, “no, we color on paper only”. And just like that, he replaces the paper and resumes coloring, with a big smile on his face like he did me a favor. Seconds later, the same scenario starts again. I think he likes to be sure where his boundaries lie; almost like it gives him a sense of comfort.
Another area he’s discovering is helping. It started a few months ago when I was unloading the dishwasher. He was under my feet trying to get to the silverware, when I handed him some tupperware and told him to take it to his play cubbard. To my surprise, he toddled right over to the cubbard, opened it, threw the tupperware inside, closed the door, toddled back over to me and waited for his next assignment. From that moment, he has been the most willing little helper. He finds some way to help me for every chore. Laundry: he helps sort the whites from the darks and puts the clothes into the dryer. Vacuuming and mopping: he loves to “steer”. Emptying the trash: he shakes out the new bag and stuffs it in the trashcan. Dusting: he gets his own dust rag and goes over the spots I miss. He puts away his toys and books before bed, and takes out/puts away his clothes. He loves turning off lights for me, watering my herb garden, throwing trash (and some non-trash items) away, opening doors, and finding missing toys. He even took a spoon from his snack he just finished, and put it back into the silverware drawer without me asking (not the best place to go, but he got the idea). I’m actually enjoying the extra help. He really does a descent job and is quite entertaining to watch. I can actually distract him from potential temper tantrums just by asking, “do you want to help Mommy?” Works like a charm.
Yesterday, I noticed for the first time that Caleb was bored. Immediately upon this observation, all of the following happend within the next 5 seconds:
1) I had an epiphany that my little baby was now a busy, curious toddler.
2) A wave of parental guilt/panic washed over me.
3) My mind raced with fears that my lack of educational activities from the past few weeks have been hindering his blossoming potential.
4) I got on Amazon.com and rush-ordered the thickest, most comprehensive, unabridged toddler activity book I could find.
5) The rational part of my brain finally kicked in and I calmed down.
I bought some finger paints a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve been too reluctant to use them because of the insane amount of mess they cause. However, today I was determined to plant some sort of educational seed in this 15 month old’s mind. So I stripped the boy down to his diaper, flattened out a grocery bag for a placemat, prepared a half of a roll of paper towels for imminent spills, splashes and smears, and let him at it. I would say it was a success. He got a kick out of the colorful slime and, by the end of it, he could even point to each color when I asked him.
Educational toddler lesson accomplished. My overactive parental instinct has been appeased… at least for now.
I found this great app called Shakeit Photo. It turns your iPhone pictures into these neat little polaroids. We decided to have a little fun with it today while we went to the playground and hung out in the backyard. It didn’t hurt that it was a simply gorgeous day. I wish days like these would last forever.
I recently made some small changes to Caleb’s room. I wanted to change it from his nursery to a “big boy” room. There was no need to change the paint color or rearrange the furniture so the changes are subtle. But for me, it’s enough to get excited about. My sweet Sister-in-Law made the cute artwork for the walls.
It’s also been a while since I updated everyone on our little guy. It’s hard to remember since I don’t do monthly updates anymore. Caleb just got over a scary sickness of which he had a fever as high as 104.6. We now think he has an inner ear infection just by the way he’s been acting recently. His balance is off and he’s cranky all day long. We’ll be going into the doctor tomorrow to find out for sure. Aside from that, he’s been doing great. He can say (with much exuberance) “dog”. He also waves and says “bye” and “night night”. “Noi noi” is a favorite, but I have yet to figure out its meaning. He blows kisses, points to a variety of body parts and dances. He can throw and catch a football, kick soccer balls, and bounce basketballs (much to his father’s delight). He had figured out how to turn on, unlock, and navigate his way through my iphone. It’s a little unsettling that he knows more about technology at one than I did at five years old. His sippy cup has become his lovey of choice and he demands it at bedtime. This has been quite a struggle because he likes to play with it and chew on the spout instead of falling asleep. First thing in the morning he prefers to lounge on his toddler couch with sippy cup in hand while watching his favorite cartoon “Boz the Bear” in order to properly wake up. He loves the outdoors. He would spend all day outside if he had the choice. He’s also discovered bugs and is fascinated by the creepy crawlies that lurk around the backyard. There aren’t that many in AZ so we actually have to search them out. He is such a cuddler and loves to give hugs and kisses.
He has become quite the celebrity at our local stores. I tend to frequent Target and Sprouts during my weekly errands. The garden center lady at Target dotes over him every time we visit. The moment she spots him, she squeals with delight, calling him “my little gerber angel baby!”. There are also a couple of cashiers at Sprouts who get excited when they see us come in. They also fight over who gets to ring us up. I guess he’s quite a little ham.
Come Wednesday, half of our house will be in shambles…and I’m so stinking excited!
Why?
Hopefully in a few months the garage will be transformed into a huge family room and an office/fourth bedroom will be built onto the back of the house. We will also extend our patio roof, built a carport off the side of the new family room and paint/stucco the entire outside of the house. Some people (okay, a lot of people) think we’re crazy to live in AZ and not have a garage. But I know from experience that as long as the car is in the shade, it’ll be fine. Besides, why should the car get the biggest room in the house? The extra bedroom will free up some space for more kids and/or hobbies and the family room will give us some more breathing room. It’s way better than moving in this economy and we love our house for so many reasons (awesome layout, awesome backyard, great location) we really have no desire to move.
Once demo starts on Wednesday, our lives will become full of noise and dust. But the exciting changes far outweigh the inconveniences we’ll have to endure. Andy and I keep joking that house projects are one of the things we do best together. We love going to Lowe’s and looking at flooring, lighting, etc. I played Sims 1-3 simply to build awesome houses and now I kind of get to build my own.
Here are a few “before” pictures with some homemade conceptual art:
I finally got the hankering to turn Caleb’s nursery into a big boy room. My Sis-in-law gifted me some ridiculously cute canvases and an awesome growth chart a few months ago. I set them aside thinking I would get this redecoration started “right quick”. Two + months later, I’ve finally gotten around to it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to repaint anything because the artwork I got matched perfectly with his already blue room; one more thing I didn’t have to worry about. All I had to do was replace some wall decorations and move a bookcase. Easy Peasy. I figured this transition was also a good time to take some current portraits of Caleb.
Caleb’s also at the stage where everything is novel. He’s also discovering that every part of his body has a name. He’s got all the facial parts down and is working on the rest of his body. He loves pointing out these features on other people and animals too. It’s a great laugh when he gets up close and personal exploring someone’s ears, hair, eyes, etc.
Here’s the portrait series I’m using in his room. Truthfully, there were about a dozen to choose from. I had such a hard time deciding on only four that I put them all up on Facebook and let everyone else decide for me. That made things even harder. After much deliberation I finalized these four. I’m printing them out in 11×14 prints and hanging them around the window. I’ll post the finished room when the get here.
We moved into our current house almost three years ago. When we saw this:
we put “remodel the bathtub” at the top of our to-do list. Now, almost three years later, we can finally check it off our list. Why we kept putting this off eludes me. The tub has been Toby’s personal bathing spot because no human would willingly shower in there (sorry Mom!). Since Toby’s white, no one notices the tiny paint chips stuck in his fur. Not wanting to risk some toxic contamination, we crammed poor caleb into his infant sink tub until he couldn’t fit onto it anymore. From there, we transitioned him to our bathroom. I finally got tired of Caleb’s creepy rubber duckies staring at me when I showered and called someone to fix the guest bath tub.
Now it looks like this:
Caleb has his own bath, Andy and I can shower in peace, and Toby can be paint chip-free. Win win win.
Recent Comments