Ian's Nursery Compliments of Poppa

Poppa spent a Saturday painting the nursery to match the Noah's Ark theme we decided on for Ian. He is a much better painter than I remember him being when we moved in the South End condo and painted many of the rooms there. I am not allowed to complain about his edges anymore since he had to cover some of my paint job errors from when we moved into Oak Street a year ago:)

Since we had a number of built-ins already in the room, we decided to stock the shelves with baskets, books and stuffed animals to match the bedding. I was at a work meeting a few weeks ago and must have mentioned the difficulties in finding a stuffed elephant that was blue and not gray. Lo and behold, one of my co-workers found one while she was in Florida on vacation with her family and brought one all the way back for Ian. Thank you Cherrice for your thoughtfulness!! It was a perfect match!

We have a couple of things left to do for the room but this is very close to the finished product and wanted to update the blog before his big arrival in 10 days or so!! We are anxious to meet the little guy!

Ian the Torpedo

No, not that Ian the Torpedo. This one...


The little man has begun to forcefully announce his presence. Julie and I both think she carries him much differently than she carried Jocelyn - her belly seems to shoot straight out with him (hence the torpedo reference), whereas Jocelyn sat much lower. He also seems a lot more active than she was at this stage - when we are hanging out at night I often look over at Julie because I thought I saw her move, but in fact it was just her belly swaying from side to side when he kicks around. We keep thinking that she should be at the stage in the pregnancy where there's no more room for him to shift, but we haven't gotten there yet!

We are both very anxious to meet him. For the last six weeks or so, the nesting has been in full swing - our weekends have been spent preparing his nursery, installing car seats, getting his clothes and supplies set to go, etc. I think we are pretty much set to go. Of course, I thought that with Jocelyn and was later informed that we were much less prepared than I thought. :)

If the doctors have his due date right, he will be here a month from yesterday. I have a hunch he will arrive a few days early and his birthday parties will always have a St. Patrick's Day theme...not a bad thing for a little Irish guy. We shall see!

Jocelyn's Happy Valentine's Day Card

I came home on Friday afternoon to a whirlwind in the kitchen that was my daughter's first arts and craft activity with Grammie. Grammie was teaching Jocelyn to paint with her hands ~ which according to Grammie she didn't like very much. I guess she cried when Grammie put her palm in the paint to make a hand print. Better luck next time, I guess, but the end product is very cute!! Thanks for the creativity Grammie and the Valentine's Day card Peanut!

The Playroom

We spent the last several weekends renovating part of our basement into a playroom for Jocelyn (and Ian, once he arrives, although if all goes according to plan we will have moved by the time he is old enough to use it). It was a ton of work, but watching her laugh and smile and tumble around, clearly loving the space, makes it feel like time and effort very well spent.

When we started, the walls were covered with dark wood paneling, the floors had just a thin tile over a cement sub-floor, the stairs were covered with a ratty, dusty old carpet and the exposed pipes had rust spots all over. The space just felt *dirty*.

When we got going, it seemed like every improvement just exposed something else that needed fixing, like when each coat of primer seemed to expose more seams and holes in the paneling that needed patching, or ripping up the carpet on the stairs revealed hundreds of staples that needed to be ripped out by hand. And as we got near the end, we ended up doing some extra things we hadn't planned for because the room was turning out much nicer than we thought it would.

Here are a few shots:


Here's the view when you come down the stairs. We chose the Pooh theme mainly because when Grammy takes Jocelyn to reading hour at the library every week, she always gravitates to a big stuffed Tigger, which Grammy thinks is funny because apparently Julie carried a stuffed Tigger around with her until she was about 7 years old. Whenever Jocelyn is held close to the window valance she points toward Tigger's face and tries like heck to say his name, but can't quite get it out yet.

We (actually, I should say Pepere) drywalled in what had been a bar that opened into the adjacent unfinished room to create a TV cabinet. (Julie had enough points accumulated from a program at work that rewards her for achievements to get us a new flat screen TV for free.) We have had the couch sitting elsewhere in our basement for months (it used to be in our TV room in Manchester). The built-in cabinet was already there and makes a convenient spot for a stereo, DVDs, stuffed animals and such.


Here's the view from the opposite corner of the room. Pepere installed the stairway banister. He was a little nervous when he started because he had never installed one before, but from the finished product you would think he does it for a living.

We had originally intended to put interlocking panel foam rubber mats on the floor to finish the project as cheaply as possible, but later decided to go with carpeting because it wouldn't cost that much more. Then Julie was able to talk down the install company more than $600 off their original quote, which made it a no-brainer.


Here's the view from the couch. Pepere and I framed in the door by hand, since there used to be just a paneled hallway, and cut out a pet door to allow the girls access to their food and box. The table and chairs were a birthday gift for Jocelyn from Grammy and Pepere - she loves them.

One of the great features of the room is that it was pretty much completely baby proofed from the start. The TV cabinet is about 4' off the ground so Jocelyn can't reach it, and there are only 2 electrical outlets in the room, one inside the cabinet and the other behind the couch. Now that we have a gate at the base of the stairs, pretty much the only thing she can reach is her toys.

I have to admit that I have complained to Julie from day 1 about this house (many of you know that we bought the house intending to tear it down before we learned about the problems with the Manchester house), but if we had built a new house as planned I would never have gotten the reward of watching Jocelyn play in a space that we built for her. It's a pretty cool feeling.

Look At Me Poppa!!

Sledding With Grammie

Grammie decided Jocelyn needed some fresh winter air after the last snow storm and took her out for some sledding.

Grammie started the adventure in the backyard.

But the snow was so deep that Jocelyn received a few white washes before Grammie decided that sledding on the driveway and sidewalks was probably a safer bet.

Not that Jocelyn minded landing in the snow!! According to Grammie, she thought it was very funny and laughed every time!

The sled is a fabulous hand-me-down from Jocelyn's second cousins Lillian, Maggie, Liam, and Poppy.

Jocelyn wanted to say thanks for the good time!!

How Lucky You Are Jocelyn and Ian...And Me:-)

For the past month, Poppa has been hard at work for you both, Jocelyn and Ian, to create a playroom in our basement. We had a 50's style wood paneling area in our basement that Poppa has spent the past 5 weekends from 7-7pm every Saturday and Sunday filling a million holes and seems, sanding them all down and then painting about 5 coats of primer and paint to cover the dark wood and brighten up the room. He has also been drilling some seriously aggressive holes in the cement that are our walls to run cable and electrical cords. He was worried a few times when the drill started to shoot sparks and the room started to smell like burnt wood but he finished the job! He removed cabinet shelves in order to paint and then had to replace them. He also spent an entire day painting heating pipes to avoid having to enclose them in with wall board, which now surprisingly blend into the rest of the room. After the first couple of weekend days, Poppa would head downstairs thinking he only had a few things left to do and every weekend day, I would eventually have to come down the basement stairs at around 6:30pm to tell him that you were waiting for your tubby time.

Pepere has added his handiwork to the room by learning how to put a banister on the stairs, walling in an already semi-enclosed tv cabinet, and framing out a couple of doors. It was pretty amazing to see your Poppa and Pepere working together this weekend to frame in the remaining door (and the cat door within the door) and put the finishing touches on, what I have to say, is a pretty cool little playroom for you both. Poppa was certainly glad to have the job mostly finished Sunday afternooon and proceeded to fall asleep on the floor while you, Jocelyn, crawled around on top of him. I regret not having taken before pictures but as soon as the carpet is in, which goes in tomorrow, and the furniture is in place, I will post some pictures to show the fantastic job that your Poppa did for you!! And, of course, many, many thanks to Pepere for his help as well!!