Friday, December 18, 2009
Eleanor VanDuyne
Eleanor Joy VanDuyne was born on Friday, December 18th at 2:32pm. She weighs 6 pounds 7 ounces, is 20 inches long and has blond hair. Both mother and baby are doing great.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Getting ready for the Holidays
We haven't updated the blog in almost a month now so I thought I'd put something out there. We've been pretty busy getting ready for the holidays. We all put up the Christmas tree when we got back from Thanksgiving and Kristin's starting to decorate the house. Abby's not a big fan of the house decorations changing. It's been a week and she still asks about why the mantle is different every morning.
She's also learning to sing Jingle Bells.
We're toying with the idea of outside lights but we haven't gotten around to that yet. I feel like I'd be obligated to rake my leaves before that which is a definite con.
Some of Abby's new tricks include sliding down the stairs, 'on her bottom'. And helping mom organize the kitchen.
In other news, after almost 100 years of faithful service we finally lost our boiler to old age. It took a while, mostly just to pick the right contractor, but we have had a new one installed a few days ago. It turns out there are still quite a few contractors and manufacturers out there who work with steam. Once we gave someone the go-ahead they had the old one out and the new one in the next day, though it took them another day to get all the controls in.
It seems to be working pretty well now, though these things take some time to settle in.
The old boiler.
The new boiler.
Hopefully the new one will serve as well as the first.
We have the rooms painted now. We had a lot of trouble with the red and may need yet another coat. I'm not anticipating getting around to remaking the trim until next year.
The floors are mostly sanded as well. I've gotten the vinyl off of our bedroom and scraped most of the tar paper off as well. There's still a lot of glue but I'm hoping I can sand that off. If I can we'll probably stain and finish the floors this weekend.
Hopefully by next weekend we'll all be warm in our new rooms and preparing for Astronaut's arrival.
No one's going to freeze to death ... check
Everyone has a place to sleep ... check
That's a pretty good year I think.
She's also learning to sing Jingle Bells.
We're toying with the idea of outside lights but we haven't gotten around to that yet. I feel like I'd be obligated to rake my leaves before that which is a definite con.
Some of Abby's new tricks include sliding down the stairs, 'on her bottom'. And helping mom organize the kitchen.
In other news, after almost 100 years of faithful service we finally lost our boiler to old age. It took a while, mostly just to pick the right contractor, but we have had a new one installed a few days ago. It turns out there are still quite a few contractors and manufacturers out there who work with steam. Once we gave someone the go-ahead they had the old one out and the new one in the next day, though it took them another day to get all the controls in.
It seems to be working pretty well now, though these things take some time to settle in.
The old boiler.
The new boiler.
Hopefully the new one will serve as well as the first.
We have the rooms painted now. We had a lot of trouble with the red and may need yet another coat. I'm not anticipating getting around to remaking the trim until next year.
The floors are mostly sanded as well. I've gotten the vinyl off of our bedroom and scraped most of the tar paper off as well. There's still a lot of glue but I'm hoping I can sand that off. If I can we'll probably stain and finish the floors this weekend.
Hopefully by next weekend we'll all be warm in our new rooms and preparing for Astronaut's arrival.
No one's going to freeze to death ... check
Everyone has a place to sleep ... check
That's a pretty good year I think.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Our Budding Percussionist
One of Abby's new favorite things is to turn something into a drum. It started the other day with a pie plate, and since then just about anything she can get her hands on gets turned upside down and banged on. It's such a classic toddler activity, but I think it's just adorable!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The 2nd Halloween
We had Abby's second Halloween this year. Kristin made Abby a bear costume several weeks ago and we've been working since before that to get Abby excited about Halloween. We have this little routine we go through:
Dad: Abby, what are you going to be for Halloween?
Abby: A BEAR!
Dad: What are you going to say?
Abby: ROAR!!
We had gone threw this little script everyday for maybe two months and we were feeling pretty good because Abby really gets excited and enjoys it. So this Saturday around 5:30 when it was time for Abby to get dressed and walk around to the neighbors I started the routine:
Dad: Abby, what are you going to be for Halloween?
Abby: NO!
Dad: What are you going to say?
Abby: No, No, NO!
Apparently, Abby did not want to be a bear for Halloween. Unfortunately for her, Kristin had already gone through a lot of trouble to make the costume so one way or another she was going to wear it. After much screaming and fit throwing while Mom and Dad put on her costume Abby was in fact a bear for Halloween.
After we put little pieces of a Hersey bar in her Elmo bucket she stopped throwing such a big fit, though she remained quite unhappy. (She's never learned a word as fast as she learned 'candy'.) You'll have to piece together several different shots to get a good idea what she looked like, as she was not all that cooperative.
Closest shot we have with the hood on.
Eating candy from Elmo.
Trying to save bear from the hood.
Hopefully she'll be more excited next year.
Other than that, Abby's been enjoying the leaves and the last days of warm weather.
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