This and That

Emma's 3rd Birthday!!


My Emma Jean or Emma Chotsky or Puppet as my sister likes to call her celebrated her 3rd birthday with the family yesterday. She was treated to a slue of doggie treats and a trip to the dog park! I can't believe she is 3 years old already. I was living in Vegas when I began looking for a puppy to accompany me on hikes and other adventures. A friend of mine that I worked with said that she had one puppy left from her last accidental litter and she thought that I would be a perfect fit. I met Emma at a Petsmart store where I carried her nervous, squirming self around and fell in love. Her ride to the store that day was in fact her first car ride and she was terrified. I took her on a car ride everyday that weekend to different parks where we walked around. She quickly got over that fear and many others....

-She will now not only walk in puddles (she use to be terrified, wouldn't step in one even on a 100 + degree day..) but she will also walk in running water, and Connor's mini swimming pool.
-She not only got over her fear of walking up steps but she now will willingly and eagerly jump/climb any rock pile, boulder, wood border, you name it she will climb it (or fall trying).
-She has learned to dig quite well (and now that we have a garden I have to try to teach her not to dig...ugh what have I done...)
- She is an amazing flyer
- She is patient and gentle with children (even when they have kicked her, pulled her ear, pulled her jugular, yanked her leg and sat on her)

My first baby (which everybody finds amusing) is growing up! We love you Emma Chotsky! Emma has no idea what is in store for her when Connor begins crawling. Connor just loves watching Emma, he just smiles away at her. Emma loves kissing Connor!

I'm carrying Emma Chotsky before we cross over the scary draw bridge

Connor's Room

While Connor was sleeping the other day I untangled the tree that we had set up in Connor's old loft bedroom (which he never entered because we were only there for one night before we moved into our new house) and put it together in his new bedroom. Patrick was pretty impressed with my ability to untangle the mess that he was ready to toss.

While rooting around in his closet I found some safari stickers and I placed them beneath the tree along with the extra tree leaves.

The other wall of his room is coming along too. We have two shelves hung and some more safari stickers. Next we need some decorations and perhaps a picture in that frame.

First DIY furniture project

Inspired by various other DIYers and blogers along with our goal of saving more money and my goal of becoming more crafty we took on our first DIY homemade piece of furniture a window seat bench. (and by we I mean that Patrick did all the hard work, I simply modeled on top of it for now).

First we looked at pictures of various other window bench seats online. Our aim was to settle on one type of window bench seat that met both of our expectations. This meant that the bench seat had to be both functional and "pretty", Oh and cheap (however as many firsts go we were not able to stick to this last goal, instead it may have categorically been cheaper to actually buy a bench. But hey we have begun our DIY furniture making and we are mighty proud.)

After deciding on all the minute details, how do we want the trim to look? do we want cupboards? do we want cubby holes? do we want a trunk? hinges, no hinges? We drew a plan and Patrick was off to the hardware store. Final decision; three cubby holes and decorative trim.

Step two: Remove molding, remove the old phone jack from the wall and patch the hole.

While Connor, Erin and I had fun at the Battle Ground used book sale (you could fill a bag full of books for only one dollar! Naturally Erin and I were pretty excited, being the avid book lovers that we are.) Patrick stayed home to work without distractions.
Here is what was waiting for us when we returned home.

The Con-man was very excited for all of Daddy's hard work

Next step:
* finish adding the rest of the molding.
* Sanding
* Staining
* Then the BIG step, my part which involves learning how to use my sewing machine so I can make a pillow cushion for our bench.

For now reading will have to be done on the bare wood...

Connor has been working on a project of his own learning how to sit without assistance.

Perhaps he will master keeping his saliva inside his mouth next!

The nuts and bolts:

Money spent:
$ 44.97  1 sheet of 4x8 oak plywood
$ 34.96  2 8 foot 1x4 oak
$13.97 pine wood for the frame
$12.94 2 boxes of screws (plenty left over for future projects)
$3.49 10 pack of pencils (unnecessary in my humble opinion, I think that regular ones could have done the trick)
$9.97 stud sensor (another item for our tool box and future projects)
$4.97 steel square (useful for the future)
$6.47 1 box of 1 1/4" screws

Total : $170.61 (missing the cost of the trim)

Hours spent: 2 days

Keep checking back for pictures of the final result!

Lots to Say

This video was taken the other day while the family was laying on the bed talking to Connor. He decided that he had a lot to share so I whipped out my cell phone and took this video.

I only wish I had my camera around yesterday to capture Dad and Connor laughing away. While holding Connor dad took out a popsicle. Connor looked at the popsicle and laughed. This made dad laugh and then Connor. The two of them just kept laughing at one another it was possibly the cutest darn thing ever!

Trying Food!

Connor tried his first food, avocado on July 8th. Patrick fed it to him and he seemed to enjoy it.

Connor tried his second food, carrots yesterday. He was not such a fan of carrots. If he doesn't have any bad reaction to carrots then perhaps I will try mixing avocado and carrot and see if he likes that better. I am making my own baby food, so we now have the extra carrot puree frozen in cubes in a baggie. I think it is fun!

Other firsts...
Yesterday, while napping on his tummy (yes I know it is taboo) the Con-Man puled his feet up under his tummy for the first time.

I picked back up the book that I started to read forever ago, the baby whisperer and read the section on sleep. It has worked amazingly. Connor took all of his naps yesterday in his crib, in his bedroom. He even slept in there through the night and in the morning (which I didn't think I would be comfortable with until he was at least 6 months, but it worked out alright). He has been going down quickly.. he has caught on! The first nap yesterday took about 20 minutes and lots of crying. Since then there hasn't really been any crying just a little fussing. I have been laying him down awake too!

At his 4 month apt. on July 6th Connor weighed 16lbs and was in the 70%. He was 26" long, 83% and had a head circumference of 43.5, 80%. All in all a happy big boy! I get lots of comments from 50 year old men about how cute he is.Apparently men like a large baby.