A Whole Quarter

That's right, Leo turned three months old this month. That's a whole quarter of a year! In fact, it was two weeks ago, so he's already three and a half months. Time does fly. And it's not surprising in the least that with the excitement of Christmas, I neglected to tell you about his second month. So, how about we cover them both at once?

Our little peanut continues to be an awesome little guy. He is so much more active now and we have a lot of fun together. He loves to play on the floor and bat at his toys. He's gotten really good at grabbing on to a few balls that he got for Christmas, and is always trying to shove them in his mouth despite the fact that they are much too big. When that doesn't work, he's pretty happy to shove his whole fist in there along with the endless drool!

He loves toys that light up and play music or make other noises. He kicks his feet in delight! He is enjoying being upright more often, and has started to spend time in his bumbo seat and exersaucer. He rolled over from front to back for the first time right before Christmas, and has repeated this feat a half a dozen times since. We have yet to catch it on video. He's clearly not predictable! But he does excel at tummy time, and his head strength was compared to that of a four month old at his two month appointment. 

He is an amazing little guy who smiles a lot, and looks inquisitively at the world around him. When he's not smiling, his brow is often furrowed with concentration. He chatters all the time, mostly just vowel sounds so far. 

In December, he weighed in at 12 lbs. and was 24 inches tall. But my scientific measurements using the bathroom scale, he is already close to 15 lbs. He's comfortably in his 3-6 month sized clothes already. It broke my heart just a little bit to pack up his smaller things. My little guy is getting big so fast!

We had a wonderful holiday, and managed to see most of our family. Leo was thoroughly spoiled by everyone! We're looking forward to seeing how he'll change in the months to come!

Merry Christmas! (Belated!)

This was supposed to post the week of Christmas. 

But, it's not too late for a Happy New Year wish, right?

Photo complements of my awesome friend Christine Conrad Lane. Design by me.

One Month with Leo

Despite the fact that my scheduled posts in the month of October made it look like we were up to something, the only project that has been going on in these parts for the last month is adapting to life with Leo.

He's an amazing little man, and we're getting used to our new way of life, revolving entirely around him of course. He pretty much does what he's supposed to, eats, sleeps and poops. He loves his swing, walks in the stroller, and does great in the car — he even survived his first trip to Granny's without needing to get out of the car seat for the entire three hours! My mom calls him a magic baby. I would have to agree.

He's up over 2 pounds from his hospital low, weighing in at 10 lbs. 10 oz. most recently. We're just starting to get an unprompted, non-gas related smile or two, and some coos that sound different than his initial squawks and grunts. He seems to have amazing head strength already, and when he's awake, he's incredibly alert.

We can't wait to see what the next month brings!

Enclosing the Shed

Now that the deck was operational, it was time to focus on enclosing the shed structure underneath so that we could reclaim the garage for my car before Luigi arrived. There is still some finish trim work to do on the deck itself, as well as staining the decking itself. But, we decided these things could wait in favor of garage space. 

The first step on the enclosure was to finish create another masonry wall along one side of the shed where the ground will slope down from the patio to the back yard. It took a few days of work for Greg to finish. 

Above, you can see the finished masonry wall with the stud framing in place. Below, you can see Greg and a few coworkers building that portion of framing. 

It's kind of a funny story how they came to help on a Saturday in mid-July. Every summer, Greg's company has a charity fund raiser, which involves a silent auction where various employees donate prizes. Some are as elaborate as a week in a time share, or a plane ride. This year, there was a group of people who got together to volunteer one day of handymen time to help finish projects around the house. Needless to say, Greg was determined to win this prize, and basically stuffed the box with $40 worth of raffle tickets. $40 for 4 people to help with house projects for a day sounds like an awesome deal to me. As it turned out, we weren't able to schedule all 4 of the at once, which actually worked to our benefit. We were able to spread some of the projects around. On this particular day, Reem and Mike were over, and not only did the help Greg with this wall, but they also painted Luigi's nursery and a bunch of trim in our stairwell! 

The shed continued to progress through the rest of July and August, and Greg started stashing stuff in there before it was fully enclosed. 

Casey and Dan, the other two of Greg's coworker/handymen came on a Saturday in August, and not only did they load the dumpster of all the constuction debris, they helped to finish all the walls and built the three doors that provide access into the shed. 

It looks like a great place to store stuff, doesn't it?

How About Stairs?

We were now halfway into the month of June, and though we could use our deck, we still had no way to get down from it. I certainly wasn't planning to jump in my condition! The race was on, as we committed to hosting Greg's family for the 4th of July, and Gina's 65th birthday party. 

But, before the stairs could even go on, Greg had to start on one of the walls to enclose the shed, that would be too difficult to take on after. It involved a masonry partition with wood framing above. 

Once the wall was complete, it was time for the stringers to go in. Originally, we thought it would save time to buy precut stringers. But, as it turned out, the ratio of tread to riser was not quite the 11"/7" standard we had used in our plans. This meant that the store bought, pre-cut stringer was not going to land on the sonotube we already had imbedded in the ground for the foundation. It was also made out of a 2x 10 instead of a 2x12, which of course, did not satisfy Greg from a structural standpoint. So, he ended up cutting his own. 

For the risers, we again opted for a white PVC trim product to keep maintenance down. 

After all of the structure was in place for the stairs, it was time to fill the last foundation tube with concrete. Greg decided not to do this one when we had the original concrete delivery because he wanted to be sure where the stair structure needed to tie into the foundation, and to make sure that the height of the footing was correct as well, 

It took more bags of concrete that I care to remember to fill that hole. 

As previously mentioned, Greg was up against a party deadline, so he was at it every night that the weather allowed, until the sun left for the day, approaching 9:00 pm. Below, he's painting the tops of the stringers before putting the treads on to help protect them from any water that might sit on that edge. 

Finally, it was time for the treads to go on!

And last, but not least, the railing. This was another complicated installation. The prefab PVC railings did not come in the right segment length for our spacing, which meant that Greg had to adjust a regular railing kit to make it work. He had to individually modify each of the plastic balusters to create the correct angle. I think it's safe to sat he did an excellent job!

And just like that, in right under the wire, the deck was suitable for entertaining!