My New Favorite Tool

Although it may not look like it, we actually got a lot done with the bathroom this week. Grandpa and Uncle Logan came over Tuesday and we finished hanging drywall about 2 minutes before Nathan's bedtime. I did a little mudding on my own Wed and Thurs, but we finally started mudding in earnest Friday evening when Grandpa came back.

On our 45's we used a tape that was recommended to me called strait-flex. It's kinda like a cloth tape that holds an angle. Ours definitely needs some more mud and serious sanding, but it makes a nice line.

On Saturday, Grandpa and Grandma came back again. Grandma took the boy shopping while Grandpa and I finished the mudding. Up until now, my favorite tool for this project was the sawzall. Now my new favorite tool is the 90 degree inside corner trowel. I am soooo glad we bought one. How else could a lunkhead like me with no mudding experience make perfect corners with one swipe. Man is it sweet. We finished mudding early Saturday afternoon so we went ahead and sanded what we were able to.
I'll have a good bit more sanding to do Monday, with coat 2 soon to follow. After sanding there wasn't much we could do except watch mud dry, so Grandma and I took advantage of 60 degree weather in February and took Nathan for a walk. We should have taken the camera, but we didn't. We happened by the playground at the park and Nathan got his first crack at it. He liked the jungle gym and the slides, but his favorite thing was the swing. He LOVED the swings. He cried when we took him out to go home. We'll take the camera next time.

Kermitt's Halftime Special

Ok, it's halftime of the big game, the perfect opportunity to throw together this week's post. Everyone's been asking about how Nathan's walking is coming along. It's amazing how one day he's stumbling every 3 or 4 steps, and then the next day he's gone. Friday he managed to walk un-assisted from the couch to the bathroom. Unfortunately, we haven't got a decent memory card for our new camera yet. The current one only allows us to take like 10 or 15 seconds of video before it's full. So, I've not gotten any good walking videos yet. However, the old one still works from time to time and I was able to get this gem of his first fresh chocolate chip cookie. Excuse the weird color from my weird camera.

With some help from the fam this week, we were finally able to clean out the bathroom and make some space for serious drywalling.

We made big progress. We now lack most of one closet and a lot of little stuff. I think another 2 evenings and we'll be ready for mud. Ugh, mud. But now, back to football.

It's Starting to Look Like Something

It's almost February and the new bathroom is actually starting to look like a room... kinda. With the help of Jonesy and Uncle Logan, we finally got the tub in this week.

As you can see, it's currently being used for insulation storage. The blue is a protective plastic it came in. Jonesy came over again on Thursday and we prepped the room for drywall.

You can't tell much from this picture, but we spent the entire evening shimming the studs so that the wall would be straight. Some places were as much as 3/4" out of line. Luckily, most of the new walls needed no work at all. I'm sure it's because of the highly skilled carpenters that built them! The drywall showed up Friday afternoon and all day Saturday was spent hanging it. Wade and Grandpa were there to help Saturday and for once we got done more than I expected.

I would say I now have 99% of the plumbing and electrical done and about 90% of the insulation too. We've probably got half the drywall up, but most of the rest will be smaller pieces and will take more time. I'm hoping to have it all hung in the next week or so.

Now, the obligatory baby pics...

What a ham. The mere sight of a camera now instantly produces this face.

Progress..... Finally

When last I left you, I was waiting on the power company to FINALLY show up and switch the power over to our new service. This was the last big hurdle keeping me from continuing with the bathroom project. Logan and dad came and helped me with it Tuesday. We finally got started mid-morning. There were a few hiccups and near misses along the way, but long story short we were totally switched over and running on the new service by 6pm. Amongst other things, we turned this...

into this...

I know it doesn't look like an improvement, but it is. My thanks to Vanna in the first pic. With everything switched over and the old wires removed, I was finally able to gut the rest of the old bathroom.

Knocking down the soffit that was over the old bathtub really opened things up quite a bit.

By Friday, we were able to continue framing things up.
Then Uncle Logan and I had a marathon day yesterday and we were able to complete the framing, plumbing vents, and 99% of the electrical. And there was light...
So it was a big week for us with hopefully another one coming this week. We need to finish a little plumbing, install the tub and finish the rest of the insulation before we'll be ready for drywall. I'm hoping to have all that done by Tuesday and be hanging drywall on Wednesday or Thursday.

Got Milk?

Step 1: Give baby milk...

Step 2: Allow baby to make mess of himself while drinking milk....

Step 3: Make baby laugh producing instant milk vampire...

Ah-bmmm

Wow, we're already 2 weeks into the new year and I haven't even posted pics from our trip to Iowa yet. We went up there over New Year's weekend and celebrated both Christmas and New Year's while there. It was a fantastic time. The only thing that would have made it better would be if Nathan had actually slept more than 5 hours each night. Man, that was rough. In exchange for depriving us of sleep, Nate did offer a cute new habit. His favorite book is a little number called "Drummer Hoff". This also happened to be a favorite of Uncle Logan back in the day. I'm rather fond of it myself too. It's so hard to find children's books that teach the basics of field artillery and military hierarchy, but "Drummer Hoff" excels on both fronts. The climax of the book comes as Drummer Hoff fires off the cannon with 2 pages devoted to a single word... KAH-BLOOM. Understandably, this is Nathan's favorite part and while at Shauna's he learned to say the word. Well, kinda. It comes out more like Ah-bmmm, but still very cute. See for yourself.

Ah-bmmm is now how he requests that someone read this book to him. Here's some more random pics from our weekend...

While up there, we also celebrated Nathan's first birthday and Grandma Dudley's 29th. You know what that means... SMASHING BIRTHDAY CAKE. Well, not so much. Turns out my boy is quite a dainty eater. He doesn't like getting too messy while eating.

When we got home that Sunday, we had another small birthday party for family that wasn't with us in Iowa. Once again, Nate wanted little to do with smashing birthday cake.

His mother ended up having to smash it and smear some on his face for him. He wasn't super fond of that.
Nate also got his big red wagon from Great-Grandma and Grandpa Dudley. He was quite taken by it.

In other news, the power company is supposed to be here TODAY to get us switched over to our new service. Grandpa and Uncle Logan are coming over to help us rewire the house today and hopefully be back to normal by this evening. We'll see how it goes.

Nathan's First Year

A little movie I made for Nate's first birthday...