The Soon-to-be Closet

Zach recently got a burst of energy and decided to tackle the upstairs closest project I've been wanting him to take on for a long time now. One of the biggest issues with this house is that there is almost no closet space to store things. We've got a closet in each bedroom for clothes, and other than that there's just the one small coat closet downstairs (of which was last year's project and has yet to be completed).

Anyway, we've got this 'dead space' upstairs above the staircase that I've always thought would be perfect to utilize as a closet. So last week Zach finally cut the hole in the wall and added the floor. He's actually got most of the new wall up too but I only have pictures of the first installment so far. But before any progress could be made, Zach spent the good part of Day 1 cutting holes in four other walls trying to remove the spliced wires (read: dangerous, illegal) he found when he cut into the wall.

The initial cut - this is in the kids' room.
This closet will serve as a linen closet,
among other things.

Just getting started on removing about
8 feet of wood paneling just to get to some
no-no wires from previous owners.

After Zach spent a full day getting the
wires out, he was able to cut through
the other side of existing sheetrock.
I leaned the door up against it because
at this point it was a gaping hole leading
to an 8 foot drop to the bottom on the stairs.

We got bunk beds off of Craigslist earlier this year.
Jacob just started sleeping in the top on. It feels
like such a luxury to have a second bed in our
house now! It still looks really messy until we get
the bottom part and closet squared away.

The view from the downstairs.

Welcome, Spring!

This past week was unseasonably warm! It was such a nice way to break into spring. We spent the whole week enjoying the outdoors. On the first of the warmest days I hung diapers on the line to dry, went running in a tank top and shorts and we hit the park (where it was more crowded than I have ever seen it). These are all sure signs of spring!

Here's some pictures of how we rang in the spring the other day. Jacob colored the walkway with chalk while Sabine chased the wooly bear around the yard, tapping her leg to get it to come like we do for the dogs. The kids played in the bed of Zach's truck, and at the bottom Jacob is obsessing over, I mean, giving his new seedlings some TLC.

Making our own Indoor Fun

I posted earlier about all our outdoor fun this winter. Outdoor activities tend to set themselves up; they're there for the doing and they're pretty much the same from year to year, with just the details changing. It's being indoors during the winter that dictates the need for creativity. We did a lot of crazy things in the name of staying sane this year. I'll file them under the title 'Cabin Fever'.

We made it to Christmas in a pretty good frame of mind.
Here's some of the cousins at Christmas.
Everyone looks happy and healthy.

Jacob got a remote-control helicopter for Christmas,
and initially I was like, "Couldn't you have given
him something a little more educational?" But it turns
out this thing was a lifesaver many times. Jacob passed
many hours mastering this - I still can't figure out how
to fly the thing. He also enjoyed torturing the dogs and
scaring Sabine with it.

We had a lot of hot chocolate parties...Sabine really
got the hang of drinking from a mug. All in the name
of chocolate, that's my girl.

Sabine thought she'd take it upon herself to
claim some of her very own computer time.

She also stepped it up a notch in terms of
hiding places and fitting into small spaces.
(that's her behind the shades)

I cleaned out my old make-up and let Jacob
use it for some really creative projects.

Zach and the dogs even started going loopy.

A bakery truck must have crashed in front of our
house because one day I came home to find 50
baguettes laying in our front yard. The dogs discovered
the frozen bread on the front lawn and they spent
the next two weeks dedicated to the goal of
digging it out and eating it. Ginger
succeeded one day and came running into the house
with a full loaf of it sticking horizontally out of
her mouth. It was the first time I ever saw her
stick up for her food when Mango tried to take it away.
Must be some bakery.

Sabine kisses everything with a face. One night at
dinner she discovered the honey bear had a face
and it was all we could do to keep her from climbing
over her plate to get to him for a smooch.

She also spent a lot of time in that hat, at times
pairing it with sunglasses. She rocked that look.
And she knew it.

The most exciting part of my winter was when
the new recycling bin came and we could suddenly
get rid of the piles of plastic I'd been accumulating.
"But look at all the things I can recycle that I couldn't
before!" I said in disbelief as I was setting up this photo.

I was taking photos for an Annie's contest, to win
a basket of goodies. The kids thought it was the
coolest thing that I let them eat right out of the
box - they stuffed their faces in fear of me taking
it away. They may be skinny, but this proves they
can house an entire box of crackers in one sitting.

The little one discovered diaper cream.

Zach invented "the Bull"

This is the first thing that usually happens
when he comes home from work now. The kids
hardly give him a chance to get in the door
before they jump him.

The game, it appears, will continue for
generations to come. Thanks Winter.

homemade

We did a lot of different 'from scratch' activities this winter. Here's a few:

I used all those boxes from shipped Christmas gifts to make blocks. I taped them together, covered them with the brown paper (or used wrapping paper) that came stuffed into the boxes as packaging material, and let the kids color them. There's two crates full of them and the kids like stacking them = free toys.

For Christmas I made vanilla extract to give as gifts. I mixed brandy (but you can use vodka or run too, and one other liquor I'm forgetting) with vanilla beans cut lengthwise. I filled the bottle with the liquor and let it sit for one month before being used. Each time you use it, you just top the bottle off again.
Jacob did a lot of the old-school standby: Shrinky-Dinks. We've got keychains, zipper pulls, magnets and bracelets up the wazoo.

In addition to this stuff, we did the usual baking that we always do, as well as making applesauce. This year I got a food dehydrator for Christmas and we used the homemade applesauce in their to make fruit roll-ups. Yum, Yum!

Dear Jacob: Winter 2009/2010

Dear Jacob,

Today is my Daddy's birthday. There was a while there when you were younger when I never even mentioned my father to you. I was afraid that if I talked about him, I would have to tell you what happened when I was a child, and that you might begin to fear the same thing happening to one of your parents. I came to a point where I realized that by applying my own childhood fear to you, I was also depriving you of knowing about a really great guy.

The day you saw an old family portrait of mine and didn't know the man in the photo made me really sad. I told you about him then, and you didn't seem to make the connection that this meant your parents could die one day. You asked a lot of questions, and I answered them as honestly as I could. These were really hard conversations to have with you because they were things I don't like to even think about. I'm hoping though this is one of the benefits of having kids; that you'll force me to think about things like that, and in doing so, maybe your fresh innocent perspective on the matter will help me come to terms with my own mortality.

Anyway, there continued to be conversations; they got more intense and more difficult, but they also gave you the chance to really develop compassion. You decided that Bartie the rabbit was in Heaven with Gordie...and when you heard about Daddy's grandfather, you painted a pretty picture about them knowing each other, and when Ma Betty died last year, I think this idea of Heaven you'd created for yourself really helped you deal with her death. I like the way you picture Heaven, and if it's ok, I think I'll try to adopt it for myself, as well.

You're a fun kid to have conversations with, and I enjoy your perspective on things. You're also very active, so it was a continuous project finding plenty of things for you to do this winter. We went outside a lot, of course. But when we weren't outside you kept busy with your imagination. You can play with one thing for hours, lost in your own little world. This is one of the things I think is still really important for kids your age, and one of the reasons I wanted to have you homeschool. We've decided that you are going to go to school for first grade in the fall. The thing is that we live in a very small school district, so you'll go to a one-room school house. How cool is that? It's only for kindergarten and first grade, so this will be the last chance for you to go there. I'm very grateful for this last year though, I think it's allowed you and Sabine to become close and form a strong bond. She is going to be one of the things that you miss the most when you go to school next year. But we don't know what's going to happen after first grade. You may come back home again for school.
You got rollerblades for Christmas this year and that gave you hours upon hours of entertainment right here in the house, scratching up the floors, playing hockey with 'the team'. We also brought your rollerblades into Daddy's work on the days when the indoor track was empty and had like a giant gym class with you and Sabine. You guys ran around like crazy playing with all the equipment - we're really lucky to be able to do stuff like that. You also brought your remote control helicopter to the college and you flew it up to the high ceilings. You flew it around our house a lot too, and you're really good at it.
At home you played with the brick building set I got you. This is something you could do on your own, mix up the mortar and build crazy designs. It was fun to see a three dimensional representation of what goes on in your mind. You've been doing a lot of school work too. I think you're really good at math. We also read a ton together. It's still one of my favorite things to do with you. And then just recently you really started to get it about reading. You can sit down with Sabine and read her some simple books (still with a little help with hard words). It's so cool to see!
You're still so very good with Sabine. You do everything for her. On the nights when Daddy and I wanted to watch a TV show but you guys were still awake, you got into this routine of going up to bed with Sabine and reading to her. I'd come up on a commercial break and find you guys both fast asleep, all snuggled up together. That's got to be the absolute best part of motherhood.

When we go to Playschool you help out with Sabine so much so that I can get all my responsibilities taken care of. Some days it's almost like you're her little classroom aide. At playschool this year we had an Olympics day during the two week period when the real Olympics were going on. It was very cute to see all the kids tramping around waving their flags. I got these big chills when I looked around the room at everyone and saw you over there, waving your flag and taking it so seriously. For a minute there I thought I was in one of the Proctor & Gamble Olympic campaign commercials and that you were a real olympian. It was like foreshadowing of what your life will be like. I would love for you to become an Olympic athlete...but I don't really want to put a second mortgage down on the house, so I could go either way ;-)
So I've got lots of pictures of you, most of them crazy ones, but what I don't have a picture of it where we went earlier today. You asked me if you could make a card for Gordie and bury in the backyard. I don't know where you ever got the idea to bury it like that, but how appropriate. I offered you another idea: I told you we could go leave the card by his grave. I've never brought you there; never even told you of its existence. I didn't want to 'go there' yet, figuratively. I hadn't even been there in years myself. But I took a deep breath and we went. It was a beautiful day, and I let you and Sabine wander around for a bit. You ugys looked so cute walking hand-in-hand while you pointed stuff out to her. I tried to think of it as an experience that was bringing fresh, youthful energy to a place that represents death. After a while we left the card you made and put it under some rocks. I told you it wouldn't stay there forever and you seemed ok with that. It was so lovely seeing my kids there in the pretty sunshine, I knew if I had brought my camera it would be hard to resist the urge to take a photo, but it just didn't seem like a moment I should be capturing on camera like that. It's a moment I prefer to hold onto in my heart.

Love,

Mommy

Jenny's Dress

This little dress was given to Sabine by my cousin at Christmas. It has little dogs all over it, so naturally, Sabine loves to wear it. I thought you'd like seeing this picture of her in the dress, Jenny. Although, this picture was taken a couple weeks ago (and I never got around to posting it), she's wearing the dress again today, so it is still an authentic post.

You can't see the tights in either of the pictures, but she's rocking bright, stripey tights with the dress, as well as cute little braids. And I've included a photo at the end with Jacob in it, doing what he does best (being a goofball).

Hope we get to see you soon!

Fun in the snow

Jacob keeps asking me when it's going to be spring. I tell him that it's already happening bit by bit, and that one day we'll realize that it never snowed again and winter feels like it was a long time ago. Then it will be spring.

It was a good, long winter full of activities and here's to hoping it's on its way out!

Getting ready for winter - pulling the
snowsuits out and trying them on. I
think this one is too big!

Toasting a Happy New/Noon Year with good
friends and 'champagne' in fun martini glasses

Saying goodbye to the Christmas season with
the exiting of the lighted deer.

Sabine stayed obsessed with these deer all day,
every day while they were on the front lawn.

Having them in the house where she could
touch them was like Christmas all over again!

Sleigh riding at Jessica's

Nice, big entrance ramp!

This was actually the only time we got out sleigh
riding this year. Good thing I took pictures.

Jacob actually got out cross-country skiing a lot
this year, that is one thing I sadly don't have any
pictures of.

Being daring in jammies and rubber boots
on the night of one of the first snow falls.

Pond skating: Check

Lastly, just some all-around good, clean fun in the snow.