Merry Clarkmas

Clark's first Christmas spanned 2 weekends and 3 different houses leaving him a very sleepy boy. He kicked back on a mountain of gifts:


Not only did he receive gifts, he gave out his fair share - mini Clark bars for all!


Moose spent a lot of time trying to figure out which presents were his:


One very special (and difficult) moment was this picture. My grandparents are now great-grandparents to FIVE little great grandchildren, all born between August 2009 and October 2010. That's a lot of babies in a little over a year. They were finally all together in one place on Christmas Eve and this picture was managed:



From our family to yours, we wish you a Merry Clarkmas


and a Happy Moose Year

Deck the halls...

The tree is up and decorated and we put some lights on the outside of the house now that we realized our house can (sort of) be seen from the road.





The nights we light a fire and cozy up in front of it are nice and Christmas-y.


Clark had some quality time with the big man.


We're not sure what he asked Santa for but it probably WASN'T this...I'm sorry Clark. You're a good sport though.



We didn't bothering putting an "ottoman" on our Christmas list because as you can see, we already have one.

A Kitchen and an Addition

So they aren't really 100% done but there's been a whole lotta progress on both the addition and the kitchen so I figured I'd post pictures at this point since it's almost done.

So let's start with the addition, which will be Dave's home office and our laundry room (actually the laundry "room" is a closet with a washer and dryer in it but whatever...) The contractor we hired is Smith Builders and they did a great job (otherwise I wouldn't be plugging them here)

It started with a giant hole in the ground:



Foundation poured and foundation block put in:


Insulation:


A good old fashioned office raisin' (it's an amish joke, get it? Yeah I know I'm not funny):


Walls go on:


Roof structure begins:


More roof work. See that plank in the window? I walked up and down it several times while 9 months pregnant to see inside and take pictures. Smart? No. I never claimed to be.


Inside structure:



Then came the day they chopped a hole in the wall, making the square attached to our house a room instead of...well, a square attached to our house.




The wood burning stove is gone with the huge stone under it. This was under the giant slab of stone...ewwww.


Moose and Miller checking out the new room:


Dave got to work painting every surface in the room (ceiling, walls and trim):


A lovely shade called "river mud"


So then it was time for flooring. The kitchen and addition would get the same 5 inch wideplank hardwood in a "moose" color. I'm not kidding, they came with the wood samples and I told them I wanted it to be the color of the dog. It's a perfect match. (Though now he can hide like an alligator in a swamp in there.)
?Ugly teal and white checkered tile comes up:


Wood floor goes down! Oh no wait..it didn't. The entire lot of wood we bought was damaged. So they re-ordered it and we walked on sub-flooring for a week. (note: this was not done by the builders that did our addition - we hired a separate company for our floors!) BUT with no wood on the floor, we realized we had time to paint the kitchen with out worrying about drop cloths...so...

We started painting:


I say WE but this was the height of Clark's "I will be inconsolable and scream all day long and you will like it" phase so I helped for a cumulative total of 40 minutes throughout the day during ultra brief Clark naps. Dave pretty much did everything by himself:


(doesn't the paint color look great against the teal countertops? gag!)

It's a really dark purple color. I never thought I'd have a purple kitchen but actually, it looks great.

And then...the FLOORS! Dave installed the last light fixture in the kitchen tonight too:


Remember how I said we aren't done? Things to be replaced in the photo below: countertops, sink, faucet, stove, dishwasher and both microwaves. Why do we have 2 microwaves? Because the one above the stove broke about 2 months after we moved in and luckily, we had the stainless steel one you see on the counter from Dave's old condo.


Back to the addition...the floors are the same as the kitchen and the trim and closet doors were installed today:



I'll post photos of the office once it's furnished and some photos of the kitchen once it's totally done...which will be next year sometime.

One last thing! We adopted Moose in May so we didn't know what he thought of snow. Turns out, he loves it. He dove nose first into this year's first snowfall, which was a few inches deep. It's very easy to find him now when he's outside wandering around - high contrast:

It's beginning to smell a lot like pine trees

I grew up with artificial trees and swore when I had my own house, I'd have a real tree. Dave suggested we chop down our own and that hadn't even occurred to me! So we found a place that lets you cut your own in a huge field of trees.

Santa Claus himself drove us out to the field via hay ride:



Dave did the cutting and dragging:


I did the holding while we waited for the tractor ride back:


Moose didn't do much but this:



It took several days to decorate the tree and the rest of the living room, because Clark demands most of my time. But FINALLY it's done:



Fireplace - I had fun picking out the stockings for each of us. I like Clark's the best...it's a robot:



November wasn't all smiles and sunshine. There was one particular day of torrential rain that resulted in a leak in the guest bedroom's ceiling. So once again, we have a hole in a ceiling.


Sorry Moose, we're ending on a Clark note this time. I bought a wrap that's essentially a long piece of overpriced fabric but it's worth every penny. Holding Clark all day is great but it takes 2 hands and I get nothing done every single day. I've done that for 6 weeks and now I have the wrap, which gives me TWO hands while I "hold" him. Also, he loves it. After a little while though, he slouches and needs to be readjusted. Behold, our contortionist: