I Pity the Fool

Liv was having some fun with the boy's hair again after his bath the other day. It seems he has a little Mr. T in him.
Who knew? Unfortunately, a mohawk is insufficient to constitute a full blown Mr. T costume, so he had to go to his playtime at mom's group as a pumpkin instead.

I know what you're thinking, and relax. We're not dropping bills on a Halloween costume for a 10 month old. It was actually a hand-me-down from Olivia's cousin. It's still pretty cute though.

Liv brought the boy out to do some farming again last night. They came to visit me in my truck and hang out for a while.

He's been out 4 or 5 times already, and he seems to really dig the big trucks most. He LOVES to drive them, or at least pretend to.

Nathan's Piano

With all the rain we had yesterday and today, there wasn't any farming going on and we decided to have Grandma and Grandpa Dudley over for dinner and baby wrestling. After dinner we had to show them Nathan's new hat, a.k.a. his Buzz Lightyear PJ bottoms...
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Cutest... baby... ever. Nate also took the opportunity to roughhouse with grandpa a little.

Later, Liv broke out the new toy we got Nathan when we went garage sale shopping last weekend. It's a little battery powered piano that also has big duplo like blocks that you can build on it with. Nate had never seen it before tonight and I think he really liked it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera running when he did his funniest antics at the piano. His mother was pressing the keys to show him how it works. I guess he had enough instruction because he grabbed her hand and more or less threw it out of his way. All of us busted up when he did it. That alone was worth the $2 we spent on the thing.

More Fun in the Kitchen

The boy woke up all hot and sweaty from one of his big hairy naps yesterday, so I took the opportunity to style his hair for him...

While momma was cooking some dinner tonight, the boy decided to help me empty the dishwasher. I took a few good videos of him doing so. He's really becoming quite the little jabber box at times. I've started fooling around with some video editing on my computer here and I've spliced the best portions of his videos into one montage. Notice how pleased he is when he realizes that he's being filmed.

At dinner I snapped a few more still shots. Get used to this pose folks because I imagine you'll be seeing it for the next 18 years or so...

Cooking with Nathan

Liv was working in the kitchen the other day and Nathan decided to, um, help.

Destroying the kitchen is such hard work...

In other news, the warehouse that is my garage grew even more full this week. I managed to heave the tub walls up on top of the squat rack to make room for the 70 2x4's I found on sale this week.

The rest of this weeks purchases included the sink, medicine cabinet, exhaust fan, and new turlet.
Now the only real big purchases we have left to make are the drywall and cement board. There's still A LOT of small stuff that needs to be bought yet, but most of that should be less pricey than what we've got so far. We're still doing good on our budget, but I won't be at ease with it until it's done.

A Change in Plans

We've been shopping for more bathroom stuff as it comes on sale, and as a result have tweaked our master plan here and there. The biggest change is in the sinks. We realized how expensive faucets and large cabinets are and downsized our sink to a single. Here's the modified layout...

It's largely the same with a few small changes. Other than the vanity being smaller, we also opted for a bi-fold door on the east closet. I also found that there was more headroom than I anticipated, so we were able the shift the tub/shower more to the east and give ourselves a little more open floor space. This discovery also allowed us to purchase the pre-fab walls that went with our new tub. We were planning on tiling the wall inside the tub because we thought the pitched roof line would interfere with the height on the pre-fab walls. They were a little pricey, but it will save us a lot of work in the long run.

Here's what our garage looks like now...

My squat rack has been overtaken by PVC, doors, insulation, and tub walls.

We've also already got the tub, vanity cabinets, light fixtures, faucets, replacement window, and a new entry door.

The door was a steal. I found it in the scratch and dent pile. It was the right size and type but it had a small 2" chip on one corner. We're going to try a little wood putty and some strategic placement of the bad area. I think we can make it work. If not we got a $30 door for $2 so who cares! We went "unfinished" with a lot of our wood stuff...

We got the vanity and all the doors in unfinished oak to save a little money, but also so we can stain them with our trim and have an exact color match. Speaking of color, we also took our tile to town and Liv started working on our color palette. She got some accessories and also narrowed the wall color down.

She's leaning toward the lightest brown on the color swatch there. I think this bathroom will go from being called "Ugly Bathroom #2" to "The Chocolate Bathroom." Mmmm, chocolate. Anyway, she asked for my advice but all I was able to come up with was "We need something halfway dark because our tub, tile, and toilet are all white." I'm a guy so I automatically remove myself from color decisions due to ignorance. The only guys I know that are very color-savvy are those guys on HGTV that are a little light in the loafers. But that's a topic for another post. So since I was little help to Liv with her color questions, she is still looking for feedback on her color choice. Please feel free to comment! If you want to compare the color to the tile, see "Kermitt Turns 100" from 9-25-08 for a picture of the tile.

As it becomes increasingly difficult to park or even walk in my garage, I'm finally starting to grasp the fact that this is really going to happen. We've talked about this project since before we were married and it feels good to finally be working towards it. Gotta go check the Menards flier for this week!

Enter the Dragon

It's time for some more cute pics of the boy in all his glory. First up is one of him in his PJ's.

I don't really understand these particular PJ's. They say "little dragon" all over them and have pictures of dragons. Is this implying that my son is a little dragon? I've never heard of a 9 month old being referred to as a dragon. Maybe a little orc or something, but not a dragon.

Grandma Dudley got herself a baby seat for her car Friday so today she felt the need to try it out. She kidnapped the boy and brought him out to the field to ride in Grandpa's big truck. So, he had to throw on his John Deere boots and farmin' hat.

Grandma and the boy both had a wonderful time, so I'm told. She said he took a huge nap in the sleeper of Grandpa's semi. I guess a purring diesel engine is the soothing he needs for good sleep. That's my boy. It must have worked good, because he was full of energy when he got home. He scaled the stairs almost like he was crawling on flat ground...

Adventures in Baby Tossing

For the record, he loves this...