Micah Leigh

Baby Brother was born at home early Tuesday morning on his grandfather Pop's birthday. We are all thankful he arrived before the big snowstorm on Wednesday, because we've been without power (which also means without water) since Wednesday night! 

It has been an adventure of birthday week! First Pop/Micah, then mine, and now Geeda's! It has been beautiful outside but I know at least Geeda and I would appreciate the gift of a hot shower... maybe tomorrow?

Welcome to the world, my little Micah-Man! You are already a blessing to our family!

Ode to My Father-In-Law (And Family in General)

In case I haven't mentioned it enough (which I'm sure I haven't), an essential piece of our home-improvement progress is all the generous help we've received from Archer's family over the last 6 months. The process of our settling into The Big House has been a family affair from the beginning, and we are overwhelmed by the generous gifts of time and energy we have received.

My father-in-law Butch has definitely put in the most hours and blood, sweat, and tears into our projects, helping us make our dreams (and needs) for The Big House a reality. In honor of all his effort, and his birthday today, I decided to write a little poem.

To the tune of Old Tannenbaum

Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

Your son is strong, but so are you,
I cannot count, the things you do
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

You move our stuff from here to there
To fix a house for a crazy pair!
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

You slice your hands, get soot tattoos,
You stacked more wood than we'll ever use!
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

Removing lead, and poison plants,
Protect our babes from itchy pants.
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

You trap the mice, and fill their holes,
No more infest, God rest their souls.
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

The Reading Machine, is never old,
Our girls know Pop is fun four-fold,
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

Thanks for your time, your sweat and scars,
We are so glad that you are ours!
Oh Father-in-Law, Oh Father-in-Law,
How thankful I am for you!

One Project Not to do while 38 weeks Pregnant

You might be a little crazy when you watch an episode of This Old House and realize you have done half of the projects on the show in the last week. with a team of two amateurs who have other full-time employment.

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/m/tv/video/0,,20869122,00.html

Staining antique floors today, my Noelle says I'm just like Rehab Addict. 

Now that it's done, I realize I am way too pregnant for this particular project. 10am-5pm on my hands & knees means my everything aches and my knees and wrists are pretty banged up and bruised.

I spent the entire evening in bed. My big girls are aspiring masseuse, which is lovely. Maybe I'll be able to move in the morning?

Progress in Pictures

We are pretty much eating, schooling, and working on the house(s). The tenant in the Little House moved out and the emptiness of the house revealed several unexpected issues there. So in addition to the expected landlord responsibilities of carpet cleaning and repainting, were added floor and fridge replacement as well as a variety of other repairs. 

Then there is our house bathroom/laundry project. 

Our bedroom is the workshop:

Laundry room almost ready!

Whoops, tile shop missed 10sf of our order... Tile all snipped and laid out ready for the last few sheets before installation:

Batch4 is 37 weeks + 5 days cooked. We had better hurry up!

Fourth Baby Funnies

Two funny conversations between my excellent strong man and I today:

#1:

Archer, (noticing a white drip of cheese on my shirt), says, "Ohh. That spot on your shirt makes me think of baby spit up. Awhh! Baby!"

I'm not the only one who can't wait for Batch4 to arrive.

#2:

Kimberly, looking in the full-length mirror at the baby belly: "I look a lot bigger than yesterday! How is that possible?!"
Archer, turning to check, "I dunno, but I know what you mean."
Kimberly: "It does look bigger, doesn't it?!"
Archer: "Yep." And goes back to brushing his teeth. :)

= Love.

This makes me think of my favorite scene from one of my favorite big-family movies, with Lucille Ball & Henry Fonda.

Girls Enjoying Fall Leaves

Fall in New England

One of the most beautiful places in the world = New England in the fall.

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..."

Romans 1:20

Small Town Life

Thursday is walking to the library to meeting Lily on her way home from school and have our cookies and milk before going in to read read read!!!

School Days

Lily is loving school and doing well as far as we can tell. We have realized one big gap in her education at home: math facts memorization! So we are working on flash cards a lot in the evenings. Even so, in every respect it seems that Lily is thriving in the new setting and enjoying her new independence. 

Noelle was not thriving, however, I'm half-day kindergarten. So after 3 weeks we pulled her out. She is now back to her cheerful, energetic, school-work loving self. 

I am so thankful for these different options for my different girls! It is still much quieter at home without Lily all day, but we are enjoying doing preschool/K work and reading time! 

It has still been a great mental burden for me lifted to only be "teaching" the little girls this year. I can enjoy my time with them without worrying about how the more rigorous academic requirements of my big kid are going to get done!

Project Sneak Peeks

Bathroom hardware!!

Cardboard mock up of washer/dryer:

Cardboard tub:

Rodent Skeleton & ancient corncob from the walls (extra insulation?). ;)

Completed Project: Back Deck!!

Most of what we are doing right now is home projects, and folks seem to enjoy those, so here are some details about our latest completed project; the back deck.

I think I'll stick to mostly pictures, with perhaps a few lessons learned sprinkled in.

BEFORE:

Deck LL#1: All projects take a lot longer than you think. We thought this was a quick 1-2 week project. It's been 3+ months. All that needed to be done, was:

Add balusters for child-proofing:

Repair/replace missing steps/deck boards

 and add the missing railing at the top of the stairs, and paint.

It looked so idyllic from the swing set:

What actually happened: 

We had to wait for Archer to get lead-certification to fix the missing railing at the top of the stairs, because the exterior of the house contains lead. 

Replaced rotten boards (just a few more than anticipated), 

lowered the bottom rails so that little bodies cannot fix underneath but we would have a clear path for shoveling (i.e., pushing) snow off, 

After cutting all the balusters I couldn't feel the fingers in my left hand for a while...
pregnancy+repetitive motion = temporary carpal tunnel! 

added a bazillion balusters and 

a child-proof gate. 

 Power-washed, then scrubbed, 

then power-washed to prepare for primer. 

Priming, painting, and learning many things. 

Like primer - even water/latex primer - doesn't come off of skin as well as paint.

And when adding balusters, you should paint the balusters BEFORE installation, and save yourself a lot of brush-work in 3.25in spaces created to prevent arms and legs from getting in between them...

Oh, and tinted primer would have been a better idea.

Little girls enjoy painting things red.

Oh, and really you should wait for your husband to fix those last few holes before trying to paint. The goal is to keep people from falling through the deck, and your impatience caused someone (yourself) to fall through the deck.

But the final product was worth taking the time to fix all your mistakes and do it right. 

  

I was so excited to be done with this project, I immediately started on the next one...