He slept!

Just to update you on our sleeping situation because I know it is important to your lives, he slept last night! From 8:00 pm until 5:07 am. I nursed him and he went back to sleep until 7:01 am. I feel so rested that I'm going to go paint something. I owe the front of our house another coat of paint.

Sleep number beds for babies...

We have a Sleep Number bed. I LOVE it and wouldn't sleep on anything else. Well apparently neither will Graedon. He much prefers our bed to his crib. I've tried to make his crib nice and cozy. He has a pillow he sleeps next too, his tiger and a hand crocheted blanket.

Last night he woke up 3:00 am to nurse (he doesn't need to nurse as he is 14 mths old but I'm too tired to put up a fight) so I fed him. Brian put him back to bed and he threw a fit. We decided to let him cry it out even though that means we wouldn't sleep. His crib is pretty much at the end of our bed.

Cry it out doesn't just refer to a baby - the mom also participates. I got up so many times to lay him back down, pat his bottom and tell him "night-night". Up he would stand and continue crying. Finally we just layed in bed and let him cry. At this point it was a pretty fakey cry, like he was forcing himself and trying to be really pathetic. We didn't buy it.

Grae would fall asleep for 5-10 minutes - just long enough for me to start to relax - before bursting into and tossing me out of bed in alarm. This went on from 3:00 am until 7:00 am when Bri got up for work.

I'm tired.

It is my hope that tonight it will be better. He's had a really good nap today. I don't know if I can take another night like last night. I might have to break down and buy him a Sleep Number ;)

New roof...

The roof looks really great! I like the color we picked out. Brian wanted a metal roof but we couldn't afford it.

I'm just glad it's done.


Front


Back


Side

We have paint...

We wanted to paint the siding last week but it rained all week. The roof went on one day before the rain but not the gutters. Oh no - the gutter guy couldn't make it over. So we had waterfalls coming off of our house all week. The new siding was really muddy.

We woke up this morning to sunny skies and warm weather. By 8:30 am we dipped our paintbrush in the green paint and went to town. Lowe's did an excellent job of color matching to the old ugly green. (we are going to repaint the house in a year or so and will be using Benjamin Moore. Lowe's paint is temporary).

Here it is in progress.





I don't like painting but I did the majority of it. Of course no pics of me doing it. ;)

Getting there....

We put the tar paper on over the brand spanking new plywood. It had skip sheeting and we pulled it all out, re-insulated and nailed up the plywood.

>Brian put up new window moulding and a window sill. I've already primed it!

New pre-primed cedar siding. Bri and I are doing it ourselves and it isn't nearly as hard as I thought. Actually kinda fun.

Chimney's

Before: one furnace chimney (the tall one) falling down, one fireplace chimney falling down.

Furnace chimney gone...

Fireplace chimney going...

Dry Rot in progress

Remember our little dryrot project?

Well my dad came over and said that we couldn't take care of it all from the inside and would have to tackle it from the outside. Problem is we have brick along the bottom 1/3 of the house. We were going to just remove the brick from the dry rotted areas and patch it with cedar siding to match the top of the house. My helpful dad and Brian decide to remove all the brick from the front.

Before:

See the brick on the bottom 1/3?

After:



My dad sledge-hammering away.

More...

Major dry rot! I don't think I snapped a picture of the worst of it. We found some more on the other side of the door. So Bri and my dad are replacing the 2x4's and rim joists that are damaged. We only knew about the dry rot because the window moulding was rotted away.

I scared Jehovah's Witnesses today.

My husband and little son just walked down to a garage sale. I sat back down at my computer to check email and there was a knock at the door. Maybe Bri and Grae forgot the phone or money...I open the door to find two men looking at me. Okay one wasn't a "man" but a 16ish year old boy (taller than me). They are dressed impeccably. I on the other hand had just stepped out of the shower and had on paint splotched clothes and dripping hair. (those of you fixing up houses know not to wear good clothes at all, who knows when you want to whip out the paint brush and paint something).

The 16ish year old said "Oh" and appeared to forgot his speech. I smile benevolently and he starts again, and doesn't look me in the eye. Do I look that bad? After his speech I say "I'm not interested, thank you." He looks relieved and turns to leave. The other man smiles and says "bye". I close the door and chuckle. That was easy.