Rachel, a college friend, came to visit us. Our favorite Anna moment was when Anna had a toy in each hand. The dilemma came when Rachel offered her a third toy. Anna looked at her left hand, looked at her right hand, then leaned forward and grabbed onto toy #3. With her mouth. She remained attached while the three of us tried not to fall over laughing. Anna’s cousin Joshua, just one-year-old, uses the same strategy. I guess ingenuity runs in the family.

Grandpa Bill came over for dinner, and got to spend some time with the little bear before she had to go to bed.

Anna and I very much enjoy watching quite a variety of birds on our birdfeeder in the morning. We now have identified several I had seen around before the birdfeeder–blue jays, cardinals, goldfinches, house finches, two kinds of woodpeckers and chicadees. I’ve been really interested to see tufted titmouses (tufted titmice?), junkos, wrens, and beginning last week, the pine siskin. (And in February we even saw a flicker. Very cool.)

Here’s some evidence. This year was a perfect year to get a feeder because there was snow on the ground (not patches, the whole ground) for the entire month.

We celebrated John’s birthday with a football extravaganza, with only one photo to show for it:

GramE stopped in several times to visit and Annasit

Anna’s reading skills are now bilingual, thanks to Aunt Megan:

GramE tries to teach Anna how to propel herself, to cries of “nooooo!” from her parents. We’re really really okay with the fact that she can’t move towards electrical cords on her own yet. Check out the new range hood and cabinet in the background. Wow, did that take a bunch of planning and work. Thanks for all your work, John, Eileen, Mom, Dad, and Samson Electric!

Anna, more excited than any baby in the history of the world to receive her car seat for when she outgrows her bucket:

A visit from Aunt Shauna:

And a visit from Uncle Louis. I had no idea how good Louis is with kids until I saw him with Anna. It’s the rare person who gets on the floor and plays with her, and she really enjoyed Louis.

Aunt Noelle, Most Valuable Bridesmaid, stayed the weekend with us. Noelle was my roommate the entire time John and I were engaged, so it was like old times to have the three of us hanging out together, plus Anna of course. It was the most relaxing weekend any of us had in a long time. It was so good to see her. Sometimes she hid behind Anna, though…

See all the pictures we posted from January here.

As I’m posting this in March, I am really, really glad the snow is gone and it’s warmer now. Hooray, spring is coming!

This is the nursery , which has come a really, really long way from not too long ago.  It’s exactly what I wanted, and makes me smile whenever I poke my head in.  The lavender (which is Amethyst Cream, to be precise) came out as I had hoped, and gives the room a very cheery, feminine feel.  I feel so girly for wanting it, and John was good enough to oblige me.  He even likes how it turned out.  Our parents did virtually all of the work for the nursery, and I did hardly any, as most of it involved fumes.  My parents and Eileen tore out the old pieces in the closet (which John is standing in to take this picture–the door to the room is immediately on his left).  Eileen spackled and the parents sanded at least three separate rounds, transforming a wall that could only be described as mountainous into a crisp, smooth wall.  My parents painted everything white.  One morning, John and I returned from church to find my dad there painting the purple.  You know your daddy loves you when he comes over to paint the nursery.  You know he really loves you when he comes over to paint the nursery purple.  My parents also picked up the chair rail John and I had picked out (hooray for a minivan!  our little “go-kart” of a car wasn’t long enough), then stained it at their place so that I didn’t have to deal with the smell.  Then John and my dad put up the chair rail. [John took a picture that shows off the chair rail's beauty, but due to what is probably the norovirus infecting my poor husband, I've been evacuated from my home and computer to Eileen's home and computer until John is better and can disinfect the place to prepare for my return.  I'll put the picture up later.  Feel better soon, John!  I miss you!]

You may have also noticed that we have a crib!  Marc and Elise, parents of three who are in our Bible study, were generous enough to give us this crib, which is absolutely gorgeous.  They’d warned us that the last movers who had disassembled and assembled it had used the brute force method, so it would need some repairs before use.  Enter my dad, who makes furniture for fun.  He fashioned two brand new support pieces from oak.  They’re now the sturdiest part of the crib, and I can rest easy.  Thanks, Dad!

Also pictured is one of the twin beds I grew up in (bunked with either Megan or Max, depending on age) with a quilt made by Gram, John’s maternal grandmother.  There’s more to be done, but for now the nursery is a tangible reminder, along with my expanding belly, that there’s an:

Before I get to the progress we made that day, or the cumulative progress over the course of a very intense year, I’d like to point out ways that we saw God work through our not going to visit my cousin.

1) My cousin and all points in between and beyond on the East coast got hit with a large, unforcasted snow storm that caused her area to basically shut down and be completely unsafe for travel.

2) We were able to spend quality time with parents on our debt-a-versary.  And make significant progress on the house once more.

3)  I had prepared stuffed shells for Leanne, Matt, and baby Joshua, who have significant amounts of very supportive family within easy driving distance.  Instead, John and I took them over to David, Christina, and *their* baby Joshua.  We got to bless our friends with lunches for the week while sharing in their joy of a 3 day old adorable baby.  We got to visit with them while Joshua ate and slept in Christina’s arms (that whole sleeping part was pretty new, so we didn’t even ask to hold him), and we got to see a newborn after all.

4) We got more rest than we would have even without crazy weather patterns.

So we are thankful that God is in control.  He does a better job than I would.  I should also mention that the last time we tried to visit Leanne and Matt on the way to see our two best men and their wives, we were prevented by the most snow they’d had in years.

Back to our house and progress there.  That Saturday, John installed new thermostats and prevented drafts from sabotaging them, which not only gave us nice programmable functions, but also stopped the problems we were having with our boiler.  He also ran around with patch paint for all those spots we’ve found or created since we moved in.  Eileen finished spackling and painting our bathroom, making it completely ready for move-in, which we promptly did.  My mom, dad, and I prepared shelves we’d gotten as hand-me-downs from them to hold heavy things without falling over.  We also sent a lot of the contents of the “armory” (storage room/workshop) into the shed, to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, or long-term storage at my parents’ house (thank you!!!).  Then we pulled everything workshop-esque out and reorganized it for long-term ability to find things.  This is a significant improvement from February last year, where the entire “mess room” (think family room) had tools of all kinds scattered on the floor so we could see and get to everything.  My dad stopped our particle board drawers from raining onto our pots and pans.  Eileen and my parents all contributed to the first step towards making the third bedroom into a nursery, by ripping out the single shelf in the closet, spackling, and painting in there so we can put in shelves for the duckling’s clothes.  Wow.

This brings our first year list of major projects completed to:

Work by contractors, research and decisions by John with a little help from me:

*New floor everywhere in the house

*New roof

*New gutters

*Insulation, bathroom lights/fans, and a new water heater (co-sponsored by the state of New Jersey)

*New windows of the ones that had rotted through (co-sponsored by the federal government)

*Plumbing and tiling in the bathroom

*Fix the electrical work so that the next time a truck comes into our driveway, no one gets electrocuted

Work done by The Team of Five (my parents, John’s mom, John, and me):

*Removal of 1500 square feet of vinyl floor tile

*Demolition (that would be the DemoMoms) of built-in shelving, old baseboard mouldings, the entire non-functional bathroom, and anything else that got in their way

*Installation of closet and pantry shelving in 4 different locations

*Installation of an attic fan

*Lots of cleaning.  You don’t want details.

*Replacement of old 2-prong outlets with grounded, tamper-resistant outlets and/or GFCI’s in anticipation of a duckling

*Cutting down of at least 18 trees that were dead/dying/killing other things.  Also lots of pruning so you can see the house from the street.

*Patch painting and caulking of the outside of the house, plus some repairs to the roofline

*Planting of blueberries, raspberries, peaches, tomatoes, herbs, and more

*Lots of nailpop search-and-destroy and spackling

*Spackling, painting and shower sealing of the new bathroom

With the help of Lucy’s extended family:

*Painting and installation of baseboard mouldings

*Beautification of windows in the form of cleaning them and adding faux stained glass

*various carpentry jobs

With the help of our Bible study:

*Painting the entire living room, dining room, kitchen

And that’s just the work from through February (when I wrote 99% of this post and then didn’t finish…)

The latest project has been the nursery!  Stay tuned!

Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity!  (It’s from the book of Ecclesiastes, people.)

The 3rd bedroom–now with bunk beds!  (And quilts from Gram!)

Also a cute little bear…

Moms declare victory–and after a 4th straight election win for my mom and a job offer for Eileen this week, they certainly have been victorious!

Guest bedroom is ready for guests this weekend plus missionaries in 2 weeks:

My bike can now be garaged in the armory (where walking was previously difficult).

The Mess room is no longer living up to its name.

What’s this…?

We dogsat for Woodie last week, who lives up the street.  Part lab, part terrier, all love.

John likes to hold the baby… (and you will note the embarrassing pre-moms state of the house)

Before:  The tub drained solely by leaking into the ground, the toilet was non-functional (though my dad did make it usable in January in case of emergency), the tiles were falling off the wall and the vanity was rotted through.  Yes, if it worked, we would have lived with its green glory.  But it didn’t…In case you think the color is a trick of the light (thanks, Aunt Lynn and Mom for this):

So the self-named Demo Moms took crow bars and hammers to it!  My mom shows off the first tile that was pulled off, joining all those that had fallen off.  I made trash disposal runs and was the gopher.  My dad made it so we could detach the sink without an explosion, disconnected the toilet and sink, and worked on insulating our electrical closet.  The moms laughed as they destroyed the bathroom they despised:

My dad carried all of the fixtures out–this is the sink top (thanks to John for fixing the white balance on this pic):

John came home just in time to help my dad get the tub out, which was no easy feat.  Turns out that under the tub there was several square feet of–ground.  Manliness:

Feels so much better to have it one step closer to being done!

And the heroes rested.  They’ll be glad to hear we’re hiring someone outside the family do the renovations.

On the same day, the flooring guys came to fix the huge bowed lump in our living room floor.  In the process of putting in a new threshold, some paint came off, revealing some of the original wallpaper that had been painted over several times.  It’s part of a scene including women in rose-pink dresses, trees, horses, and carriages:

And THAT was our labor day weekend.

2009-05 Walkthrough from John Jameson on Vimeo.

2009-05 walkabout from John Jameson on Vimeo.

Heroic crew after a long day of work

Mom painting baseboards:

which Mike and either Gow (shown) or Lynn cut, and installed:

Uncle Arthur and Richard work on the kitchen project:

Man at work:

Eileen painted the cabinets and the wall:

Looking through the hole in the wall left by the air conditioner:

Working on the hole left by the air conditioner:

Megan and Aunt Lynn work on the window:

A beautiful window!  (Thanks, Megan and Lynn):

And then there was FOOD!  Hooray for the moms and Megan!

I love my berries, of which there were many:

Eileen made speides (and Raisin lurked behind):

My mom made a delicious strawberry short cake:

Our deepest thanks to all our workers.