Hannah’s 7 on the 1st!

First of all, I find it hard to believe that Hannah is turning 7.  How did that happen?

We had her party today (7/31) at a local park, a very bike-friendly park, since Hannah’s riding on two wheels now!  The kids in attendance brought bikes and various wheeled things, so everyone had fun on wheels.  There is also a playground, so there was climbing, swinging, sliding, and general merriment. 

The morning was cloudy and cool, but our prayers were heard and the clouds cleared for the party.  There’s Hannah, biking around the path at the park:

You can see how sunny it was.

Naomi spent almost the entire 2 hours – well, almost 3, by the time we left – on her glider.  Or one of the other little girl’s bikes.  She’s a biking addict!  Michael and the girls rode to the park on their bikes.  I would have, too, had it not been for some pesky details like a cooler, a cake, and other refreshments.

There’s a fun climbing structure at the park.  Michael and Mr. Pat had a fun time on it.  You can see Sim in the bottom right corner, trying to get on the climbing structure.  No dice.

This is fun!

He REALLY wanted on the play structure.  Incidentally, bold horizontal stripes are a great thing to put on a toddler for playground outings.  He was very easy to spot.

Did I mention that Naomi likes to bike?

 

Sim tried out the scooter his cousins brought along.

 

One of the few moments that Naomi wasn’t biking, caught on camera.

 

She had a fun time at the party.

Sim decided that the structure for the little kids was a fine substitute for climbing walls.

 

Michael is attempting to light the candles on the cake while the breeze is blowing.  It’s trickier than you’d think.  That’s the famous Apple Breakfast Cake that Hannah’s had for the last 5 birthdays.  Well, not the same cake, really, but the same kind of cake.

  

Gifts were given and appreciated, and we brought home a tired but very happy birthday girl.  And her tired but happy siblings, too.

And apparently a tired but happy Dada, who had to lie down on the couch for a nap after the kids were put to bed.

Comparisons

Michael:  Hey, Hannah, check this out:  Mama got me some watermelon wheat beer.

Hannah:  Watermelon beer?  That’s the best thing since the gas-powered light bulb!

Okay, the floor

I know, I know, you’re all saying:  “Enough with the heartwarming stories and camping photos – SHOW US THE FLOOR!”

Or maybe not, but you’re going to see the floor.  In a looooong post, because I forgot to post the ones of the floor patched but not finished.  So here you go.

There were some sections of floor that had to be taken out and replaced.  Then there were some that weren’t there in the first place, like where the chimney had gone through.  Then there were some that I’m not sure what had happened to them, like under the oven, which should have been there, but wasn’t for whatever reason.  Some sort of other material had been put in under the old floors.

Here’s the hallway in front of the bathroom.  It had originally had a couple of walls that had been moved or taken out, so there were odd pieces of wood that ran diagonally to the rest of the floor.  That’s why this whole section had to be taken out.  The black floor is the old floor before the glue had been taken off.  Mmmm.

 

You can also see the cold air return, which isn’t covered at the moment.

  Check out the header that had to be put in.  The kitchen is beyond it, and there used to be no stairs and a wall there.  That’s because this used to be a 2-bedroom house with an unused attic.

This is under where the oven is.  Stuff’s been removed so a patch can be put in.  Why wasn’t there floor there?  I don’t know.

This is where the chimney used to be.

This is the hall closet.  The back half apparently had NO SUBFLOOR.  Yeah, great idea.  Good thing my kids never took to hiding in there.

Okay, but here they are:

 

You can tell where the patches are, but I actually think that adds to the charm. 

 

 

 

The kitchen floor didn’t have patches and had more character than the other areas, because of heavy use, I’m sure.  They wanted to know if we wanted them to dig various pieces out and fill it with wood-colored putty so that you wouldn’t see the stains and things.  We declined.  Our house is nearly 100 years old, for crying out loud, and I don’t think that it should surprise anyone that the kitchen floors have been put to use.

    

I really couldn’t be happier with the floors.  We didn’t know if they would be remotely salvageable when we started the project, so this is fantastic!  Far better than we’d hoped!  Michael likes them, too.

A small victory!

As of Friday afternoon, there are no major appliances in our living room!

Um…yeah

Me:  What’s that funny smell?

Him:  I don’t know.  What?

Me:  Are you cooking something?

Him:  No.  But I did just bring up the dishes from camping so I can put them in the dishwasher tomorrow, since it’s full right now.

Me:  That smell is the dishes?

Him:  Should I put them back in the basement?

Me:  Um…yeah. 

Staying with cousins

Since last Thursday, our clan was staying at my sister and brother-in-law’s house while the floors got refinished.  We got back home yesterday.  We THOUGHT we’d be there Thursday to Sunday, but the final coat had to wait until Monday because sanding took longer than expected. 

Actually, only my sister was at her house until late Sunday night, when the rest of her family got back from the east coast.  And actually, Michael had the girls camping for Friday and Saturday nights.  So really, we were just based out of their home as we ran to various activities. 

In any case, the kids had a great time with their cousins.  I took everyone to the playground the other day and watched in amusement as different play styles worked together (or not). 

For example, boy cousin was utching along the play equipment and announced:  “I’m a giant jelly blob!”  Naomi, standing nearby, said, “Wow!  That sounds yummy!”  Boy cousin was nonplussed for a moment, then made a slight amendment to his identity, “I’m a giant rotting jelly blob!”  But by that time, Naomi had moved on to other things, so she was not there to be either impressed or stricken with terror. 

Boy cousin was also an octopus impervious to any of Hannah’s attempts to spear it with her various made-up weaponry.  For some reason, she didn’t enjoy this game much.

A few minutes later, I suggested we look for fairies in the trees. 

Boy cousin:  I don’t believe in fairies. 

Me:  I don’t believe in giant rotting jelly blobs.

We didn’t actually find any fairies, but then we decided to do timed running exercises (in the interest of depleting a bunch of energy), and some gymnastics, including somersaults and cartwheels. 

We are most thankful for the hospitality and the fun that we had with the in-town relatives!

Michael, on the new kitchen floor

“This floor rocks.”

Photos to come.

Dosewallips Camping 2010

The girls and I went out this weekend with two other families to Dosewallips (“Doseywallips”) State Park.  It is a beautiful spot where the Dosewallips River meets the Hood Canal, and we had a great time. 

We took a ferry to get across the Sound:

It was windy, as you can see.  We went over on a Friday morning, so we had a good three days there.  Friday afternoon we checked out the tidal flats, which were full of clams and clam shells:

Naomi finds a shell:

Saturday morning, we hiked up to Muirhut Falls, which were absolutely gorgeous:

Hannah was in charge of the two-way radio, so that she could be the scout and send reports back from up ahead:

Naomi was in charge of this camera for a while:

The kids ran the entire way back down from the falls to the car, which was pretty impressive.

That afternoon, after quiet time, we visited the Dosewallips River itself.  I think it was 100% snow runoff and extremely cold.  Hannah liked having her feet in …

… but I was definitely in and out.  I did make it to the log in the middle:

We went back out to the tidal flats a second time on Saturday.  Naomi was not at all impressed with the crabs on the beach, so I told her she and I could do something else.  Mostly taking more pictures with my camera.  She was pleased:

We came back on Sunday.  We had to make breakfast, break camp, pack, and wait a while for the ferry.   By the time we made it home, we were tired and dirty, but happy:

We’re definitely looking forward to camping in the San Juan Island in August!

- Michael

More redecorating

Okay, so now there is a dishwasher and a range in our living room. I don't have a picture at the moment. Suffice it to say that I don't think we'll be leaving it this way.

Freedom!

Hannah now knows how to ride a bike!  Let me tell you, the glider concept has worked really well for Hannah.  She was a very tentative training wheel bike rider, but once Michael took the pedals off her bike, she quickly gained confidence and learned to balance.  We’ve had the pedals off for a few months now, letting her get used to the balance.  She got to be a pro, gliding down whole blocks without having to put her feet down.

Saturday, Michael put the pedals back on her bike, and yesterday she was biking all over the place…except for the more steep hills.  We had tried the “run along side” method, which didn’t work.  We had tried the training wheels, which also didn’t work.  This worked. 

Hannah is thrilled, and is now hoping to have a birthday party including a bike ride with friends.

Naomi’s moved up from a trike to a glider, and is already learning balance well.  She’ll probably be ready for a bike soon.  She looks a lot like this while she’s on the glider, but we don’t play Santana while they bike.  Naomi is pretty funny, because she’s a dedicated biker, and doesn’t really have much fear.  She mastered the hand brake on this thing in no time, so she goes down hill at a great rate, braking at the bottom like a little pro. 

Simeon is still limited to the trike that I can push him in or the burly cart behind one of his parents’ bikes.  But I have a feeling that he won’t waste much time once Naomi’s done with her glider.

If you’re trying to help your child learn to ride a bike, you should really consider this.  They almost teach themselves with this thing, and it’s much more pleasant than some of the other ways of doing so.  Taking the pedals off your child’s bike is a great way to go, because you don’t have to get a separate glider.  Michael highly recommends taking lots of pictures as you take it apart, though, and using them as reference for putting it back together.

And don’t take the chain apart.  And don’t let your almost-2-year-old loose with the hammer, especially near your head.  ‘Nuff said.

Booster seat

Simeon got tired of his high chair, and it was timed just about right, since it coincided with the work starting on our house and 4 rooms’ things being put into 2.  SO…the high chair went to the basement, and we started trying to figure out whether Sim was ready for a regular kids’ chair or needed a booster. 

Turns out, he needs a booster.  If he’s not strapped in, he uses his time at the table to see if he can leap to the ground without injury (the answer to that one:  not every time), climb from chair to chair while Mom is up getting something (yes, at great peril to himself), or push his chair over backwards (yes, although it was caught in time).  So Michael resurrected the booster seat, and now he’s at the table with us, but safely in a booster.

The booster doesn’t stop him from exploring other freedoms that his seat at the table affords him, though.  I had forgotten just how few manners kids his age know or follow.  Tonight, I put chips on everyone’s plates, then went to get something out of the kitchen.  When I returned, all of my chips had somehow migrated to Simeon’s plate.  Gee…how did that happen? 

Later in the meal, he decided to dip his chip into Michael’s water.  He thought it was great and went for another dip.  Happily, we’d seen the first one (or had we?  I guess he could have been dipping before that…) and Michael had moved his water.

He also decided that chips weren’t the only things he could help himself to.  I was right in the middle of eating my dinner when a small hand reached out and tried to take one of my grapes.  I explained to Simeon about asking, “Please pass the grapes,” and getting the serving dish passed, not taking it from someone else’s plate. 

I’m sure he got the message…

Good Point

Hannah’s reading a book called Tsunamis and other Natural Disasters.  It sounds like a real winner.  She’s fascinated by it, and loves to read passages from it to me, particularly about what you should do to avoid such disasters or survive them if you can’t avoid them.  Like this:

Hannah:  Hey, Mama, listen:  “If you think a landslide is coming and there’s not time to get away, get under a piece of furniture and stay far away from anything that could fall on you, like a refrigerator or a book shelf.”

Me:  Boy, that doesn’t sound like fun.

Hannah:  It’s not supposed to be fun, Mama, it’s a disaster!

Conversational

This morning, Naomi was watching Mr. Nathan paint in our kitchen. Mr. Nathan has been here for the last week and a half while Mr. Dave was on vacation. Mr. Nathan has a baby about 5 weeks old, so he’s intrigued to see the upcoming phases that he’ll have in his own model in time. He’s great to the kids, explaining things to them, chatting with them, and generally being kind.

I had to go into the living room, but I could still hear snatches of conversation. Very interesting:

Mr. N: A wimple? Isn’t that a hat that nuns wear?

Naomi: No, that’s a veil.

Mr. N: Right, but I think the hat that the veil is attached to is called a wimple.

*At this point, I couldn’t hear any more for a couple of minutes. Then, this:

Mr. N: Oh, do you want to be like Sr. Maria? Or maybe like the Reverend Mother?

Naomi: I want to be the Reverend Mother.

Mr. N: Wow, that’s a job with a lot of responsibility.

*Again, couldn’t hear for a minute or two.

Mr. N: Well, I cleaned the wall because if I just paint over the wall and there’s dust on it, the paint will stick to the dust, but the dust might come off the wall, and then the paint would come off, too.

I’m going to venture a guess that Nathan doesn’t have too many discussions about wimples and reverend mothers in his usual work.

The Chess Masters

I’ve been trying to teach Hannah a bit of chess recently.  She really likes it and has picked up the moves easily.   Not only does she understand the mechanics, but she’s started understanding some of the humor; she thought this comic was hilarious.  Of course, Naomi was not to be left out: she wanted to play, too.  She’s not completely clear on how the pieces move, but she likes to jump the pieces around and make exchanges.  Whenever I take a piece of hers, she takes back – there’s always some piece on the board that seems to be able to recapture.

I didn’t expect Sim, the chess master, to step in.  “I want to play chess!” he announced.  At first, I delayed him by handing him captured pieces, but that wasn’t enough: he wanted to play.  So, I reset the board, put him in a chair, and took my seat opposite him.  I waited for his first move.

He stared at me from across the board, and, without making a move, solemnly announced,

“Check.”

This was awesome.  He checked me without making a move.

This has to be on a Chuck Norris poster somewhere.

“When Simeon Joseph plays chess, you’re in check before the game even starts.”

July 6, 2002 – July 6, 2010

8 years!  Wonderful ones!

 

 

Here’s to many, many more!

Too much furniture in two rooms

Baby-proofing, contractor style

We’re living in our house while it’s being worked on.  That’s fun!  Well, it’s actually not been too bad, because our contractors are really quite pleasant to work with, friendly, and accommodating.  They don’t mind that I’m still going in and out of the kitchen in the morning when they get here, making breakfast for the kids.  We usually are out and about for most of the day, and we’ve been doing naps and quiet time at my sister and brother-in-law’s house.

The contractors did put up plastic in the doorways as a means of controlling dust.  There’s a bunch of dust involved in demolishing walls, taking down a chimney, sanding down the mudded new sheetrock, and all that fun stuff.  There will be still more when the floors get refinished.  We’re more than pleased to have a dust barrier between the work zone and the other areas of the house. 

PLUS!  The plastic has zippers in it, and that’s how you get in and out.  If it’s zipped, you can’t get through.  Unzip, and you’re once again able to make your way into the construction zone.  This has been a mighty revelation in the area of baby-proofing.  Well, toddler-proofing, in this case. 

This is a view from the living room of one of the doors:

The blue painter’s tape adds an extra something, I think.  The key is, when it’s zipped, Simeon cannot get through.  At all.  There is no chance of falling into holes or grabbing tools or generally getting into trouble.  He can’t get through.

This frustrates him no end, of course, but has been a sanity-saver for his mother.  Although I don’t often leave him alone while this work is going on, I do have to use the bathroom occasionally.  And sometimes I have to get something out of one of the rooms that’s on the other side of the plastic.

This is the door from the kitchen to the dining room.  The one above is the middle-zipper-only model, this one is the double-zipper model.  At the end of work each day, the contractors rolls this one up and clip the door part so that it’s easy to get through. 

This is ingenious.  I’ve read about people whose kids climb over baby gates and Houdini out of other containment efforts, but with this system, they’d be pretty safe, until the kids learned to open the zipper.

Okay, I’m not saying that it’s something I’m going to ask them to leave up when they finish, but I am saying that I really appreciate its help in keeping my son safe and contained while the work is going on.  My daughters can open the zippers.  But they’re not prone to grab Mr. Jeremy’s tools and try to use them, either.

Fun diversions during kitchen revisions

On the day that the floor demolition was done, I needed to make dinner.  The kids were bouncing around, clinging to me, and generally unsettled.  In a flash of inspiration, I announced that they could color on the brown paper that covered the really sticky parts of the floor, and since that was a pretty large area, they thought it was a great idea.  Both Hannah and Naomi decided on drawing boats.  Sim decided to spill the crayons and spread them around.  You can see that in the upper right in this picture:

Hannah dubbed her boat The Texan, and put sails and two flags (American and Texas) on it.

Naomi drew The Washingtonian.  If you can see the waves in blue under the black thing, you’ll notice that The Washingtonian is sailing quite nicely, despite a really amazing number of high, pointy waves.  Also, The Washingtonian is spelled out next to the good ship, as you can see here:

The only slight issue being that the letters are in no particular order.  Totally CUTE!

Above is The Texan in all its fully-colored-in glory.  It is quite striking.

And here are some of the letters of The Washingtonian’s long name.  You can also see the choppy, choppy sea below.

Mr. Jeremy (as the kids called him) thought it was a hoot that they had drawn pictures on the paper.  (Can one say “a hoot” any more?  Or is it archaic?  Probably not, since you all know what I mean.)  He brought his camera on Thursday (his last day at our house) to take pictures.  We bade good-bye to him before we left the house for the day. 

And when we got back, we discovered that Mr. Jeremy had left the kids a drawing on the covering of the floor he’d pulled up that day.  It’s not a boat, but the girls both agree that he’s a great artist.

I mean, really, how many contractors would do that?

Today, Naomi was weeping because Mr. Jeremy wasn’t coming back.

Chimney Removal

Our house, built in 1916, had a chimney that served the kitchen.  Since it’s been a while since anything in the kitchen needed a chimney, the chimney was walled in at some point, and served as the vent for the furnace and water heater.  However, a large footprint in the kitchen was taken up by this chimney, and it wasn’t at all necessary for an exhaust for the furnace and water heater to have that much prime space in the kitchen, hence the removal of the chimney project. 

I forgot to take any “before” pictures.  Whoops! 

But here’s the section of the kitchen we’re talking about:

On the left is what used to be walled in.  The right side is the funky half-wall that used to hide the back of the fridge.  At this point, there has been no demolition to that half-wall.  It was like that, with exposed electrical stuff.  Of course, the fridge was in front of it, so it wasn’t really a hazard, but it was definitely odd.  And it took up more space than necessary, too, since the fridge was too big to slot into it.

The chimney’s already down in the pictures here, but the grey tube is a sleeve that was in the chimney.  In point of fact, there were three sleeves in the chimney.  There was only one that went all the way up and out – that was the one that we’d put in when we moved in and found out the chimney was in rotten shape from years of not being properly sleeved.  We didn’t know there were the other two sleeves at the time.  The cool things you find when you’re having work done on your house!

Here’s a different angle, looking at the same thing.

The wall of the girls’ room was opened up to get access to the chimney in the attic.  There’s the sleeve that went all the way up and out.  I can’t tell you have fascinating the girls found it to look from their room into the attic and into the kitchen.  The contractors were a bit nervous about that.

Simeon loves that vacuum cleaner.

Here’s Dave, directing Jeremy (whose feet are visible, standing in the framing around where the chimney used to be).  I can’t remember what they were doing, but I found it striking to have feet visible like that.

 

Oh, and you can see that the funky, code-violating half-wall is gone.  Turns out you’re not supposed to have a whole bunch of exposed electrical stuff around!  Haha!

Okay, so here’ the new framing.  A small portion will remain, since there’s a heat vent to the girls’ room in there, and Heaven knows we need to keep the girls’ room warm when it’s cold out.  You can see the new B vent (for the furnace and the water heater) – it’s all nestled into the framing now, so that we can have more space.  Ooo!  And the hole in the floor.  When they left for the day, they carefully covered that thing.  It was a good thing, too, because it gave me palpitations when it was open and Sim was on the loose.

 

See?  You can see right into the basement!

Here’s the framing for the new half-wall.  It’s more like a banister wall, really, now.  The space will be much more open.

So here’s all the framing.

And now it’s all dry-walled.  Looking good!  That’s our dishwasher, which is the portable kind.  Not that you can take it when you go out for errands, but that it rolls to the sink, hooks up, gets plugged in, and runs.  When it’s done, it goes back where you normally keep it.

 

The hole in the floor is covered, too. 

Now we’re just waiting on the mudding and painting for that stuff, then we’ll be ready to finish the floors and move back in!

Have I mentioned that we’re really happy that we’re not doing this ourselves?