MJ 5 Months

MJ is five months old today. In some ways it seems like she should be a year old and others I can't believe she is already five months.

As you can see in the picture she is already as tall as the port-a-crib is wide. She is wearing a 6-9 month outfit. This is just so weird to me as with the other kids about this time we are FINALLY moving them up to 3-6 month clothing. She really is going to be our tall one.

She loves it when you play with her. She loves Patty Cake and riding the horse like the others have. She also likes being in the saucer now and sometimes can get it to rotate. She loves to grin REALLY big when she first wakes up in the morning. It just starts my day out right.

MJ has started grabbing hair, and she has a fantastic grip. She seems to really enjoy Henry right now. Whenever he is in charge of keeping her from crying she smiles a lot at his dancing and singing. All the kids are just loving having her around.

She has really turned on the drool. She is also good at raspberries. She also has this cute little growl she does. I love it. I will try to get it on video.  She can roll over but mostly does it when she should be going to sleep therefore making it hard to go to sleep.  I am sure she would do it more often but I don't have many places I can lay her on the floor to play.  Soon.

She also likes to look at ANYTHING that produces light. Whenever I burp her and our room is dark, she will contort her body just so she can turn and look at my clock.

She is crazy and we all love her tons!

Rambo MJ

Guestroom drywall

Should be the last one for today.




















In the middle is where the kitchen will be.
Top left and then clockwise:
The closet closest to the window, a little of the other closet, and the new fuse box
Full look of the other closet and part of the doorway (such an exciting picture)
The shower (wow, another great one)
Full shower area
The post is on the right of the picture and you are looking at the outside of the guest bathroom
The wall between the two windows
Another look of the bathroom

I know, totally exciting but things are coming together somewhat quickly now.

Den Drywall

On the left is the window we created in the wall to open up the room. On the right is the really weird area that is now just a nice rectangle and they used to extend the duct work into the guest room. LOVING IT

Laundry room Drywall

Starting top left and going clockwise:
The closet
The shelf behind the washer and dryer
The rest of the wall behind washer and dryer, see the dryer vent?
And the little on the wall WAY above the washer and dryer. There was a pipe that stuck out in the corner so our awesome contractor wanted to clean it up. He takes pride in his work and thinks of all these little things.

Drywall in Bathroom/stairs

By the stairs where the new railing will be, the new doorway to the bathroom, where the door was and we will extend the brick and the doorway into the laundry room.

Discovery

Not a big exciting one but this is what was under the chair rail. I keep going back and forth between liking it and not liking it. Doesn't matter though, it's going away!

3rd room

They are fast! They have only been here about 2 hours and they have 3 rooms done with significant progress on the others. So EXCITING!!! This is the cold storage room. (not as exciting.)

Another Drywalled Room

This is Libby's room and a look from the other direction of the kid's hallway.

start of drywall

This is the new hallway and Henry's room. Sorry, not very good pictures but they are kind of small rooms. Just showing that the drywall is up. More to come, very soon!

Sneak Peak

They were doing prep work today to make sure things are ready for dry wall.  This is finally really really feeling real.  They might start putting up the drywall tomorrow afternoon.

In the bathroom off of the kitchen they took down the chair rail.  (Ugly wood) Under it was some old wall paper.  I will try to put up the picture of it tomorrow, I will be up all night trying to get all the laundry done as my washer and dryer will be out of commission for "at least a week."  Lets hope they all work fast, right?

Sleep well and get some extra sleep for me  :D

Really quick Random from 11-11-11

You have to post with a date like that!

The new washer box on the left was installed today. Bottom right is what we are living in. That, my friends, is my dining room. :D So much fun.

Top right is my attempt to bring some normalcy to my house. I like the idea of decorating for holidays but am really lazy about it. I love putting up this garland every fall. Finally got it up today. It will only be up for about 2 weeks before I do a Christmas one, I hope.

Back to work. I have to constantly clean to keep my kitchen clean enough to eat in. things are happening fast enough now that we should be done about the end of November, I hope.

Sliding Glass Door to Window

In what was Libby's room now the part that is Henry's room there was a sliding glass door. Basically like the one you see on the top right. They removed that and put in the window. The window is smaller than the door so some changes had to be made. As you can see in the bottom right. They added the brick, the ledge and the stucco. It isn't perfect as they just did a straight line but this window is hidden under our deck so it really isn't a big deal. The brick was all originally on the house somewhere, just removed from various other changes. So it all matches really well.

I LOVE IT!!

Little Helper

The electricians were working in the laudnry/bathroom yesterday. Syd was sitting there watching them intently. They asked if she wanted to help, she was so excited. They told her that she needed shoes. I think they thought it might deter her. Nope. She ran and put on her coat and the one shoe that she could fine. I found the other and went to put it on her, she wouldn't let me. SHE had to do it.

They were totally awesome with her. They had her get her little broom and dust pan and had her "help" clean up. She was still cleaning after they left.

(see that tile, it is slippery and ugly. Can't wait to rip it out and put in the new stuff.)

On Masons and Miscellaneous

Mike here this time around. I spent the day finishing up the installation of the network, cable, and phone wiring since well, I sortof enjoy that sort of thing. I should probably let a pro do it, but... Anyway, so the masons came back and refinished the brick around the new windows. It looks great! It also seems warmer in that area too. I think the old window just leaked air like a sieve.

Starting from top left and going clockwise is the finished product, then how it looked before the new windows, then before the new windows with the teeny-tiny window, then the masons taking out the old brick and finally, the scaffolding they put up to get the done.

Great story of the day

Yesterday we were supposed to get the ceiling insulation in so that they could frame the walls in the guest room.  They were trying to work around each other.  Apparently it was difficult so the framer just left and came back today.  I thought that was the whole story.

Apparently the framer had to leave for a bit.  When he came back the insulation guy had decided to use one of the framers $200 tools and had broken it.  He had come back to find the insulation guy trying to fix it.  yay :(

Pictures to come!

The Last Holiday Concert

Libby got some more books about a week ago from the school book order.  I had to take them away that night as she chose to read instead of taking her shower.  So I got to read this:

I like his books, but at the same time I cringe to think of kids reading it.  The kids in the book always do something just awful.  In this book Hart shoots rubber bands in class.  As a teacher that just makes me want to cry.  But it is a good story and he ends up learning a really good lesson and was truly sorry that he had shot those rubber bands.  I really did like it and I recommend it, it still makes me cringe though!

Halloween 2011

I figured, stay at home mom, I can do more than just buy my kids costumes.  Not sure if it worked out and I probably spent more money than I would have, but I think I probably ended up with better costumes for the most part.  Anyway, I think my kids are cute.

MJ was just the flower that we had from Sidney from 2 yrs ago.  She is so drooley that we called her the "Self Watering Flower"

Next is Syd.  She has turned into a MAJOR Mickey Mouse fan.  When we go-go in the morning about the only way I can make her happy about going back home is to see if Mickey Mouse is on.  So I convinced her that it would be ok to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween.  I looked at one in a magazine that I got in the mail, almost bought it until I saw what came with it.  For the money it would have been I didn't think it was worth it.  So I decided that I could just make her a skirt and find most the other stuff.

I got her some black leggings, a Star Wars shirt that had black sleeves, and some super cute hot pink shoes.  I was just going to go to the fabric store and get some polka-dotted material to make the skirt.  I was at Ross, I think, trying to find a shirt for Libby's costume when I came across the perfect skirt for cheaper than I could probably have made it myself.  My mom happened to have gloves and a headband so we were now set.  Libby also had a hat from when we went to Disneyland so we also had a back up.

I think it turned out great, and she wanted to wear it which can be really hard with a 2 yr old.  She is wearing the skirt and hat again today. I think it will be in her dress-ups from now on.

Henry's costume I copped out on.  I just bought the Jango Fett costume.  I wasn't going to even attempt.

This is an action shot, he is shooting the rocket on his arm.  I love that he loves Star Wars this much.  It is turning into something the whole family can do together from watching the movies to playing Star Wars Lego.

Now for Libby.  At first she wanted to be Hermione.  Fine.  I started crocheting the scarf.  Easy enough.  I was also planning on making her cape.  It was to be the first thing I have sewn in more than ten years.  I don't think the table runner I did two years ago counts as the machine didn't like me and the lady teaching basically ended up doing it for me.  One day Libby comes home from school and tells me that her and two of her best friends all want to be American Girl Dolls for Halloween.  So after talking about it all she decided that she wanted to be Hermione for school Halloween and then Emily for Halloween day.

I bought the tie and the wand as I knew I would never get around to finding one or making one.  I bought her a polo shirt and crocheted the scarf.  The scarf isn't the greatest but I am not a fan of changing yarn colors ever two seconds.  I started out doing that and couldn't take it.  I kind of like my interpretation.  The cape was fun.  ;)  I found some directions online that seemed easy enough.  I read through them about 50 times before I went and bought the fabric.  I probably ended up with extra fabric but as I have none it is good to have some on hand for random things.  I finally started making it Wednesday night as she needed it Friday morning.  I worked on it off and on Thursday as I was also trying to finish up things for the Primary Program that I was in charge of this last weekend.  (Way too much going on)  I ended up staying up late Thursday night.  Mike ended up watching me make it so that the sewing machine would behave.  I think it turned out great for not really sewing much.  I did the lining color too.  Halloween can be very cold, last year it was raining like crazy.  Turned out to be a nice warm day Friday and on Halloween.

If you recall Hermione in her early years has rather crazy hair.  What I could find for recommendations on the interweb was to just blow dry her hair upside down and scrunch it with some gel.  Gel doesn't tend to work on the several different kinds of hair in our house.  Maybe we do it wrong.  So I got Libby up when I got home from a meeting Thursday night and this is what I did to her hair so it would be a little crazy.  It was slightly damp still from her shower.

If you look at the final product I think it turned out great.  Great volume, a little crazy, and slightly red.  I did some ratting, some braiding, some twisting, some curling, and I even put some ratting and some of the braids in curlers.  It was fun to do and she really thought it was silly.

The kids were able to dress up for school on Friday.  They had a parade and then parties in their classes.  That night Mike took the oldest three to the Karate Halloween Party.  On Halloween Libby went to a friends Halloween party while I took the kids all the way out to Mike's work just to get 5 pieces of candy.  Sorry dear, not worth it.  Then we took them trunk-or-treating, to Grandpa and Grandma's house to scare Syd with Dad's awesome Darth costume.  Last but not least they went real trick-or-treating just on our street.  It didn't take very long and they still got 3-4 times more candy than I ever did just trick-or-treating.  Lucky kids.

Here are the action shots from the school parade.  (remember, I said Action Shots.)

The kids are almost running through the parade so even when they "stop" so mom can get a picture they aren't really stopped.

Halloween was tons of fun this year.  I am glad that my kids are old enough that we do all the things that make it fun.  I didn't like the in-between stage.  That stage where you are an adult and the holidays just aren't as fun as they were when you were a kid.  Or you might have kids but they are too young to understand or really get excited.  Henry made us decorate for Halloween this year.  They were so excited about their costumes, they remembered the things that can be done on Halloween and made us do them.  I LOVE IT!

Brick Removal

We are taking a hallway, a bathroom, and a laundryroom and turning them into just a bathroom and a laundryroom. The problem comes in that the one widow, seen on the left, is right in the middle of where the wall needs to go. Can you see the wood down the sort of middle of the window? Thats the new door into the laundryroom.

We decided that we will split the one itty bitty window into two normal sized windows. They came and removed brick today. Bottom right is with just one side done and they are starting on the left side and the top right is with it all removed for now. They will come fix it all after the windows are installed in a couple days.

When he got here to do it he informed me that their big saw had already had the blade broken and he wasn't sure if the smaller saw would work.  They might end up going home and changing the blade.  They don't want to brake the brick getting them out as we are going to reuse them around another window so that the bricks all match and don't look too weird.  There were only two casualties.  One was already cracked and I am not sure what happened to the other one but if you look closely its the third brick down on the right.  Not bad considering their saw wasn't cutting as deeply as they would have liked.

Things are moving along quickly now!  YAY