The Penderys

Landscaping (part one of many)

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:31:00 +0000

Now that we've made a lot of progress inside the house, it was time to tackle the outside. We've made a ton of progress in the front, but the back is still a work in progress! Here is the front on the day of our inspection.

As you can see, the front landscaping was just some boxwoods, which made a great foundation to our landscaping. Although it's hard to tell, the boxwoods line the front of a very deep bed.

Here is what we did:

Moved the boxwoods back following the line of the house to create more of a hedge look
Added a white dogwood tree between the windows to add some height and visual interest to the bed
Added a row of hot pink azalea bushes which will eventually grow together to create a secondary hedge
Filled in with some hostas and New Guinea Impatiens

My overall goal for the front bed was to add some color in the springtime and also because it is such a deep bed, add some additional evergreen plants so we still have some interest in the winter. Overall, I think we achieved our goal, but I think we will need to make some changes next year. For example, as much as I love the hydrangea bushes we put in the front corners, the plants are growing much larger and faster than we expected and by summer, I think they may take over the boxwoods behind them. We planted three bushes on each side because they were so small initially, so I think next year we will need to move two from each side and prune the one we leave way back so it doesn't get quite as big. I think it's trial and error and for our first year and having a lot on our plates, I think we did pretty well!

Look how tiny the hydrangeas were when we planted them. We did not expect they would go SO fast!

We owe a huge thank you to Danny's aunts Kathy and Margy for their expertise and helping us plant the front bed!

Danny also removed this huge shrub from the front of our fence and we are going to add some lilac bushes in its place.

Not sure why this won't rotate, but I added some flowers to the side of our garage.

Something else I've been working on, and quite honestly, enjoying, is power washing everything I can think of. I find power washing to be extremely satisfying because you can see so much progress as you go. Much more interesting to me than cleaning the kitchen.

Right side post washing, left side needing to be washed. I haven't finished the fence because it will take forever, but I am going through it a section at a time.

Up soon, the rest of the back yard!

It's a girl! And some bump pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:50:00 +0000

So, obviously, I'm pregnant :-). I took a posting hiatus partially because we've been so busy actually trying to get stuff down at the house and partially because at the end of the day, I'm so exhausted that I just want to sleep! This pregnancy has been much more difficult than my pregnancy with Connor. Part of that I'm sure is because I spend my days chasing around Connor, but I think part of it is just because it's just different. But because I've been much sicker this time around, we thought maybe it was a girl (that's the Old Wives' Tale, which my OB said is somewhat true). Danny was actually firmly convinced it was a girl, I was a little more skeptical. We've been dying to know boy vs girl since we found out I was pregnant, so when my OB asked me at our 18-week ultrasound if we wanted to know, it was a firm yes! My dr said it is "definitely" a girl (I've heard stories where someone is told one thing and finds out when the baby is born, it's the opposite).

And for anyone wondering, no, we have no idea what we are going to name her. Connor was so easy. We agreed on it early, we went to the ultrasound and when we left, we agreed again to his name and that was that. This one just isn't that easy. It's not that we don't agree on names, it's just that nothing feels quite right yet. I've never been someone who wanted to wait until I met the baby to decide on a name, but I feel like that just might be us this time around. Maybe we will have one of those magical movie moments at the hospital where they put her in our arms and we just say "Hi, insert baby name here" and know. I doubt it. But maybe.

I often get asked if Connor understands and to some degree he does. He knows there is a baby in my belly and he likes to talk to it, hug it and kiss it. But do I think that he understands that in a few months a baby will actually be living in the room next door, taking up attention and rocking his world. No, he definitely doesn't. But he's very sweet and he loves to listen to baby's heartbeat (recorded on my phone from an appointment) and look at the ultrasound pictures (which I need to scan or take a picture of to upload!), so I think while it will certainly require some adjusting, he will be a great big brother.

Since most of the people who read this blog are family and actually care about the progression of my bump, I will post a few pictures.

Where I started, 4ish weeks

9 weeks (If I look tired it's because I am! This was the weekend we moved).

14 weeks. Starting to "thicken" up

17 weeks. Starting to look like a little baby is in there

Finally, I think I actually look pregnant to someone who doesn't know!

Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:04:00 +0000

I realized I hadn't posted anything in a LONG time and even though the house is far from finished, thought I would give you a glimpse of what we've done. We painted every surface (except the floors of course ;-), so while we are still missing some decor and furniture throughout and definitely have some projects to keep us busy, I think our progress has been pretty good.

Upstairs landing. Painted woodwork white and walls grey. Need to replace the light fixture and add a rug to the landing

Another view of landing and stairs upstairs. You can sort of see where we added carpet

Upstairs hallway. Has been painted. Could use some runners and some more art on the walls

Dining room. It's been painted like we are putting up a chair rail and one of these days we will. We finally bought the wood, so that's a step in the right direction, right?

View coming down our stairs. We have a small foyer. To the left is the kitchen, to the right is the living room and straight ahead in the dining room. We replaced the old light with this new chandelier, inspired by my friend Justine's sister-in-law. See what an amazing job she did with her house renovation here: http://youresomartha.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/house-tour-sarah-mike/

Front room with Danny's completed fireplace! The shelves are a work in progress, but they are coming along. Eventually we'd love to find a nice piece of artwork for above the fireplace, but in the meantime, my parents loaned us this mirror.

Bay window. We will be building and adding a window seat here.

More front room

Our gallery wall is a little lopsided. We changed the layout some from the old house and we need to get one more frame to fill in that space in the top left. We also just ordered another chair for the living room and got an ottoman, so this seating area will be complete soon. When she gets home from collage, my sister-in-law is also going to help make some pillows for the couch from some fabric I've been holding onto since January!

Just a little shot to show how the colors all work together. The kitchen is actually a pale blue color, not the same grey like it looks like here.

Our other new light fixture. We will be replaced the one on the landing with this same fixture when we "get around to it". With the old wiring in the house, it was more of a project than Danny anticipated, so he's not looking forward to doing it again.

Right now we are working on getting the landscaping ready for Spring, so I will post those pictures soon and then we will hopefully be able to focus on the bedrooms. I forgot to take pictures of the playroom, so when I get a chance to clean it up, I will show you that too!

New Fireplace

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:48:00 +0000

Although, we've been up to a lot at the house lately, one of my favorite projects is our new fireplace and mantle. The existing mantle and surround were pretty insubstantial and needed a facelift. In addition, the old tile was cracked and crumbling off.

First, we pulled off the old mantle and I chipped off the existing tile.

After that, Danny and Tom started designing the new mantle and surround. However, once he did a little research, Danny discovered, there are a lot of rules when it comes to the design of a fireplace with regards to building code. We discovered that we needed to have at least 8 inches of non-combustible materials before the wood part of the surround could start. Because we are limited on the width of the fireplace because of the built in shelves, we realized that in order to have a fireplace with the design we wanted, we needed to have our firebox made smaller. So, we brought a mason to add two layers of brick around the sides so that we had more room to work with.

Danny's cardboard mockup

Tom's design

Here you can see the new layer of bricks that was added. He also had to replace 17 bricks in the back that were crumbling/deteriorating. Here you can also see the start to the mantle and surround

Finished mantle and surround

Painted white to match

New tiles

All done!

Well, mostly. We are still missing a few pieces, but it's done for now. I honestly doubt we will use it the rest of this winter, but it is ready to go for next winter. We need to add a piece of trim to finish the surround and obviously need a screen of some sort, but I'm really excited about how it turned out. One thing I love about these pictures is that you can see the other progress that was being made on the room as Danny and Tom were working on this.

White wood revealed

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:37:00 +0000

Our painter finished with the woodwork last week and now that all the tape and paper is down, I love it even more. I think the transformation gives the house a fresh, clean look and lightens it and opens it up a lot and am absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!

White woodwork

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:42:00 +0000

Last week our painter spent the week taping everything off and papering the windows, floors, etc. This week he got started with the exciting stuff...painting the wood white. We went over to check it out on Wednesday night and I LOVE it. I kept walking around saying "Oh my gosh, I love this, I love this." I'm not sure if the pictures quite do it justice to see what a difference there is, but it's amazing. Even in the dark the whole place feels bright and more open. We love it and can't wait to see the final paint job! Note: The white really is white, but the poor lighting and the fact that the walls are a bright white currently make it look much creamier/yellower than they really are.

Crown Moulding

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:44:00 +0000

For the past two weekends, Danny and his dad have been very busy installing new crown moulding in the house. The existing crown was small and didn't really fit with the large, beautiful baseboards in the rooms so we wanted something with a little more presence.

We looked a lot of different options from Lowes, Home Depot, online outlets and the local mill. Truly, we liked a lot of them, but when it came down to it, the mill could supply 16 feet lengths making Danny's job much easier, so that became the deciding factor.

The thing with an old house with plaster ceilings is that the ceilings aren't exactly level. So Danny and Tom had their work cut out for them getting the crown to lay flat. Additionally, a few of the walls hit an exterior wall which meant they were nailing straight into the stone. Again not an easy task. But they powered through it and the end result is great.

We are ecstatic with how they turned out and I'm really proud of Danny for learning this challenging, new project. Bad news for him is that he did such a great job, now I want to add moulding to the kitchen.

Some paint samples on the walls. The halogen light (and probably the existing yellow wall) makes these appear blue, but they are really shades of grey.

It begins

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:27:00 +0000

The painter is starting on the woodwork Monday. He has been at the house all week taping and sanding so that he can spray the wood starting Monday. We are so excited. I think just the white wood will lighten everything up so much and give this great house a fresh, new look. It's been nice having him there working on the house during week because it feels like we are making progress, but we don't have to be the ones there doing it.

Afte agonizing over whites (who knew there were so many?!). We settled on a Benjamin Moore shade called White Dove. The grey we've picked (actually, narrowed down to. We won't be able to make any final decisions until the wood is white) is a bit of a warmer grey, which was necessary to go with the couches and chair we already purchased, so we needed a white with a hint of yellow, but not too much.

Benjamin Moore Decorator's White was too cool and bright for us:

And Sherwin Williams Dover White was way too yellow and antique looking:

White Dove was perfect (believe me, we looked at a lot more than three!). It's amazing how different these look up against the bright white computer background because the differences in person side-by-side are far more subtle. Realistically, we probably would have been happy with any of them, but we are excited to see how White Dove looks on our walls!

Now for pictures of the house in it's current state. All of the windows have been taped off, so the house from the outside looks like an abandoned property!

Help!

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Our painter is starting on the woodwork Monday and wants to know what we want to have done with the brick and tile on the fireplace in the den/bonus room.

For the time being this room is going to be an office/man cave. We will probably put our leaning Crate and Barrel Shelves and desk and Danny's beloved oversized leather chair (that I've been begging him to get rid of for years because we just didn't have the space, but he's so glad we've stored it because now we've got room for it).

Danny's bookshelves/desk which haven't seen much love since he graduated business school. They will be double this width

Eventually this will be turned into a nursery, so it's possible the fireplace will need to change again down the line.

We are having a hard time deciding (agreeing?) what to do with this. Do we paint it all white? Do we leave it an try to restain the brick? Just leave it as it?

One thing we do agree on (I think) is that we will pull off the trim and blend it more with the walls. We have no idea what color we are painting this room either, so suggestions are welcome there too. All of the other woodwork is being painted white.

Other views of the den in case you've forgotten.

Other views

Connor's playroom

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:58:00 +0000

This was by far the biggest project of the weekend! Danny spent many hours working until the wee hours to get this ready so Connor can have an awesome playroom. We met with our plaster guy on Christmas Eve (Monday) and he asked if Danny would have the wall down and ready for him by Saturday. Danny said sure, no problem. Keep in mind we didn't actually own the house to start work until Thursday morning. So that was only two days to complete this project, which I was a bit skeptical of, but he got it done.

If you will recall, the third floor has (had?) two bedrooms which we don't need at this time, so we decided to tear down the wall between two of them to make a playroom for Connor. The basement in this house isn't finished, and we knew we definitely wanted a dedicated playspace for our kids (finally a place for his 2082321 toys where I won't be stepping on Legos and trains everywhere I go).

Anyway, while I was downstairs stripping wall paper, he was doing this:

In this picture and above you can sort of see that there were two separate doors (naturally, since it was two rooms)

And here he and his dad knocked out those doors to make an open walkway into the playroom

Here is the other view of the doorway

All patched up and ready to be painted

We will add some trim around the doorway to give it a nice finished look.

Danny worked so hard to get this project finished in less than two days. And thank goodness we have an architect in the family who not only assured us that taking out this wall wouldn't cause the ceiling to come crashing down on us, but also got up in the pitch black attic above this and helped Danny put in some reinforcements to ensure the ceiling doesn't sag.

It was a crazy 4 days and we couldn't have done any of what we did without both our dads helping with the manual labor and our aunts, sisters and moms watching little man so we could actually get something done. Connor loves to "help", but he slows us down. He's so darn cute though. He absolutely loves his new playroom and all he wants to do in the house is go "up". Can't wait until it's ready for him!

Helping mommy remove wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:44:00 +0000

Today we got started with ripping out the carpet. There is a lot of of it! Fortunately for us there is beautiful hardwood (we believe original) underneath the carpet. We had previously pulled up a couple of corners and thought the wood would be in decent shape and today we discovered we were correct! Danny did all the carpet removal and haul away, along with my dad and then Danny, his sister, myself and my dad worked on pulling up all the staples from the carpet padding (there were A LOT). We will be having our floor guy come out this week to remove the tack strips and then he will be back in a few weeks to work on the floors. We will need to discuss with him whether the floors require a full refinish or just a buff and recoat once he sees their full condition, but based on our original conversation he thought they were in great shape and didn't need to be fully refinished which is great!

Before

Den/4th bedroom before

No more shelves

Den After

After

Before

After

Before

After

Connor's Room - before

Connor's room - after

Work Weekend #1

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:23:00 +0000

Whew, we are exhausted. It has been a busy few days since we closed (just four days ago). I am going to break each level of the house out into a separate post so it's not too long, but for reference here is what we have done so far. Stripped all the wallpaper from the kitchen, removed the kitchen desk and cabinet (just the one, not all of them), removed kitchen chair rail, pulled up about half the carpet, knocked down the wall between the third floor bedrooms and had a plaster repair guy into repair the walls (among other areas which needed some attention). Not to mention we went to Cincinnati yesterday to celebrate Christmas with Danny's grandmother!

Here are the pictures of the kitchen:

Just a before picture to refresh your memory. I didn't get a good picture from the other side, but there is a soffit above the cabinets that is covered in the floral wallpaper as well.

And the other very

In progress. Chair rail gone

More progress

Bye bye desk

No more wallpaper

Desk, paper and cabinet gone. My plan here is to put a bench by the window and get a rectangular kitchen table with 4 more chairs (see below for the chairs) around it to create a cozy breakfast nook.

Wallpaper totally gone

No more wallpaper

Removing the wallpaper was a tremendous pain, but I'm proud to say that I did it 100% by myself! Danny assisted with the desk and cabinet removal though. I have never removed wallpaper before and from the way people talk about it, I expected myself to be in for a 30 hour project. I was glad I had low expectations because I was pleasantly surprised. It still took quite a bit of time, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. My dad gave me a scorer which allowed me to make tiny holes in the paper and I simply sprayed the paper with a mixture of water and vinegar and went to town. Getting the majority of the large pieces off was ok, but it was the little paper pieces that stayed behind that almost pushed me to my breaking point. But now that it's done, I'm quite proud of all my hard work. We had our plaster guy repair a few places in the walls where some water damage had caused the plaster to come off and I think it will look great when it's painted.

Speaking of paint, what color would you paint the walls? We are not planning to put the chair rail back up. The cabinets will not be changing, but we likely will change the backsplash out at some point. And here are the four kitchen chairs we just bought. I absolutely love the upholstery! I haven't the slightest idea what color to put on the walls so any and all suggestions would be welcome!

This is not the exact table, but I want something like it (this one is just a bit too big I think). I am thinking that we will have a bench under the window on the long-side, with two chairs on the other long side and one chair at each end.

This Old House

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 14:36:00 +0000

Well, it's obviously been a long time since I've posted on here. Life has been busy. Connor is 20-months (almost 21!). He is a walking, talking bundle of energy and so much fun! I will update some more about Connor in another post, but this post is about our new house!

We put an offer on a house back in October and we just closed on it yesterday. It was very satisfying after years and years of putting pretty much every penny I earned into savings, though a little less satisfying to see all that money leave our account :-) It is a great house with great bones that just needs some elbow grease. It was built in 1927 and has so much charm and character! It's 5 bedrooms (with another small room on the 2nd floor that's considered a den, but could easily be a bedroom), 2.5 baths with a great backyard for Connor and Oxford. Before you comment on the bedroom count and how many kids we are going to have, you will see that we are turning two of the bedrooms into a third floor playroom, so it will ultimately be a 4 bedroom house. We will be in the same town where Danny and I grew up, but a slightly different neighborhood which will be a nice change, so it won't feel like we are exactly reliving our youth.

Anyway, on with the exciting stuff...pictures! The big picture is that we are painting all the woodwork white and painting every other wall. So even if I don't say it in the picture, assume it's happening.

The house side, taken yesterday! To the right is a covered porch, with an open part further back.

This is the front walkway up to the house. I love the curved front door.

Front hallway. The floors are marble, not vinyl. They just need a good cleaning and will look great. We are going to paint the wood, skirt boards and wall here.

Painting old woodwork white seems to be quite controversial we've noticed, but it is a look we far and away prefer. Also, there is some damage to the wood in a number of places that would require us to refinish the woodwork, so we figure if we're paying for it might as well get what we want.

This is the other side of the front hallway. There is a coat closet and a built in storage bench, plus the neat little built in shelf right there. Again, we will be painting the wood white.

Front hallway again. Straight ahead in the dining room and to the right in the living room.

This is the living room standing in the doorway. It's such a great room. I love the windows and the french doors.

This is straight ahead from the doorway. The bay window is such an awesome feature here.

We also love the built in shelves. Our plan for this room is to build a window seat at the bay window, paint and fix up the mantle. The hardwood is original (we believe) and it's in great shape, so we will just have it recoated.

This is the dining room. Again the floors are in great shape, so we just need them buffed and recoated. We will paint the wood white, and pick a new wall color. We will also look for a cool new chandelier.

Here is the kitchen. A bit dated, but in great shape. We will remove the wallpaper and paint and fix the spots on the floor where the stain/finish has come up, but otherwise don't plan to do much here for the time being. The appliances will ultimately need to be replaced, but are hoping to get a little help from our home warranty for that.

Small mudroom off the kitchen. To the right is the attached garage and straight ahead is a door to the driveway.

Not much point to this picture other than to show the location of the bathroom/basement. It's right off the kitchen to the left.

Downstairs bathroom. This needs a smaller sink because it's a tiny little powder room.

These are the stairs going upstairs. We plan to replace this carpet with a runner and paint the stair backs white.

Just another kitchen view. We are removing that desk and putting our kitchen table over there.

Landing to the second floor.

Second floor hallway. First right will be a kids' room, second right our room, straight ahead Connor's room. To the left the bathroom and next to the stairs the "den". We plan to remove this carpet and refinish the floors underneath.

This will be our master bedroom. Forgot to take a picture, but the closet is great, which in these older homes is hard to come by!

Second floor bathroom. The tile work in here is beautiful.

This room is the den. We don't know why they call it a den and not a bedroom, but they do. It's pretty small, but will work great for a nursery some day.

This is outside the den.

Here is the third floor landing. We will replace this carpet.

These are two bedrooms on the third floor. We plan to knock out the wall between them to make a playroom. This is the room on the right (so left wall is going)

And here's the other room (so the wall on the right is going)

Third floor bedroom. Again, the tile work is beautiful. We will likely paint the vanity, but who knows maybe we will keep the yellow. Grey and yellow is really in right now ;-)

A future child's room

Connor's room

I'm back

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 05:03:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm going to start up again. So if you are subscribed to this and you don't want to be, now might be a good time to remove yourself.

Connor's First Fourth of July

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:46:00 +0000

We had a really fun first Fourth of July with Connor. On Friday night we took him to the fireworks. He slept through half of the show and was fascinated by the other half. Most of the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, cooking out and spending time with family and friends. Monday morning we watched a wacky parade that goes right by our front door. Pictures below!

We have a roller!

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 02:46:00 +0000

I really can't believe how big he is getting! It is amazing how quickly he is changing. He has gone from smiling and small giggles to full on shrieking and huge belly laughs. Of course, he chooses not to laugh on video, but we will get it one of these days!

He is completely rolling over. He started rolling from his back to his belly at 10 weeks and would only do it sporadically (and I'm can't help but wonder if he did it by accident), but by 11 weeks he had rolled from his belly to his back and now at 12 weeks he is rolling over all the time. As a result of his newfound skill, we had to stop swaddling him at night so that if he rolled while he was sleeping, he has his arms free. I was nervous that this would lead to a regression in his sleeping, but he made the transition effortlessly. He is such an easygoing kid - it really amazes me. He still doesn't sleep all night, but some nights he does about 12 hours with just one break to eat, so I can't complain about that.

Two months old!

noreply@blogger.com (Danny) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:06:00 +0000

Well, I guess I haven't been very good about keeping up with the blog. Connor was two months old on Saturday! He is getting so big and his personality is really starting to show.

He is an extremely happy baby and generally finds life to be full of joy (and why shouldn't it be for a baby!). Yesterday we went for his 2 month shots and he cried at the top of his lungs for two hours last night which is easily the most we've heard from him since he has been born. We are very lucky with his personality.

He is growing so fast! We put away his newborn clothes around 6 weeks. As of yesterday, he weighs 11lbs15.5oz (60th percentile) and is 25 inches long (97th percentile - how did we get such a "tall" baby?!?!). His head is 16 inches around (70th percentile). He has a very long torso, so he is starting to outgrow his 3 month old clothes already! But he is very skinny and has relatively short legs, so shorts are really long on him and more or less hang off his skinny body.

Connor is full of smiles and is trying really hard to laugh. He thinks that his mobile is the greatest thing in the entire world and when he is watching it lets out shrieks of glee! He smiles when he sees Mommy, Daddy, Oxford and other people he recognizes. He will also "talk" back if you talk to him, so I imagine he will have plenty to say when he is older (I wonder where he gets that from!).

Connor loves to dance and listen to me sing (I wonder how long I have before he realizes I'm tone deaf and he asks me to be quiet).

He loves looking at pictures and in the mirror. I don't think he knows he is looking at himself (on a sidenote, Oxford can't tell that the big, black dog is his reflection either and often barks at it), but he thinks it is really fun. Danny and I are thinking of taking him to a museum sometime to look at the pictures.

He forced us to transition him to his crib. He was previously sleeping in a bassinet in our room, but one side was solid fabric. No matter how I put him in the bassinet, he would roll to the side of the solid fabric and I was afraid of him suffocating. He made the transition seamlessly and the first night he slept in there, he slept for 6 straight hours (which led to a terrified mama when I woke up). He is becoming a better sleeper. Some nights he will go for 7 hours and others we are still up every 3, but I can't complain considering it could be far worse. I think I'm pretty laid back with Connor, but SIDS scares me, so I have some anxiety about his sleeping.

He is very wiggly. He turns (not rolls) in his crib every night and sometimes I find him at the opposite of the crib from where he started. Last night he actually made his way all the way around the crib. You can tell he wants to be up and moving and I'm afraid we may have an early mover on our hands. When he lays on his stomach, he pushes with his legs and tries to scoot. When you stand him on your lap, he will put one foot in front of the other like he is walking (I think this may be a reflex, but I will continue to believe my child is just extremely advanced!). I figured I had a lot longer to babyproof my house, but I think we will need to get on that soon.

Connor took his first shower a few weeks ago. Sometimes he is a little skeptical of the spraying water, but once he warms up he loves it.

Depending on the day, he can sit in his Bumbo chair (picture below). Sometimes he doesn't feel like making the effort to hold up his head, but other days he will sit there contentedly for a few minutes.

We are looking forward to taking him to the lake this summer. I think he will love riding in the boat and dipping his toes in the water. I can't wait until he is a little older and he can go swimming and jump off the dock with his cousins!

He is starting to discover the cause and effect of waving his hands. He gets really excited when he hits something on his playmat, but he continues to whack himself in the face since he doesn't entirely understand that he controls them.

He loves riding in his stroller with the sun canopy down so he can see the trees. I'm sure he will love it even more when he is sitting up and can see everything going on around him.

His head control is getting a lot better - he is working really hard to keep it up so he can look around. He doesn't love being on his tummy, but will sometimes make the effort to lift his head and turn from side to side.

He loves naked time which has resulted in us being peed on many times.

His eyes are getting bluer, so I am hopeful they stay that way. His hair looks pretty red some days and pretty dark others. I think he will ultimately have hair like Danny's - brown with definite shades of red.

Now for some pictures!

Connor is one month old

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Connor turned one month old on May 11. It has been a busy first month! In that time we celebrated Easter, Mother's Day, my birthday and both grandmothers' birthdays. Connor has been out to eat many times and can't wait until he can actually try the food. At 4 weeks he weighed 9 lbs 10 oz, so he's growing fast.

In other highlights, Connor:

Still doesn't sleep more than 3 hours at a time
Smiles all the time
Has great head control, but can't hold it up yet
Loves to suck his arms and gave himself a hickey
Is the best snuggler
Eats like a fiend
Hates his carseat
Loves his swing
Loves his carrier
Loves pooping in a freshly changed diaper
Just outgrew his newborn clothes
Hates pacifiers
Makes funny faces. My favorite is what I like to call his Iguana face.
Can scoot across the ground. He doesn't go very far, but I've put him down in one position and watched him change to another.
Likes to look at pictures on the wall
Isn't fazed at all by Oxford's bark
Loves bathtime
Likes to look in the mirror, but can't quite tell who that is looking back. Oxford does the same thing.
Has hair the sometimes looks like a mad scientist

First bottle!

Fooling around :-)

Weeks 3 and 4

Connor's Newborn Photos!

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sun, 08 May 2011 03:09:00 +0000

We had newborn photos taken when Connor was 6 days old! We are so happy with out they turned out! Here is a sampling. If you want to see them all, go to BrittLakinPhotography.com, click on clients and use the password Connor11.

Connor's Stats

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:16:00 +0000

We had Connor's two week check up on Monday. He is doing great. Here are his stats:

Birth:
Weight: 7 lb 15 oz
Length: 20.5 inches
Head circumference: 14 inches

Discharge Weight: 7 lb 7 oz (weight loss under 10% of body weight is normal)

2 weeks
Weight 8 lbs 4 oz (35th percentile and still a pound less than Danny at birth)
Length: 22 inches (90th percentile)
Head Circumference: 14.5 inches

Now for some pictures (the bear is for comparison over the course of the year).

Oxford and Connor

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Oxford is a little unsure of his new brother right now, but I can tell these two are going to be best friends. Oxford loves to watch tummy time and Connor from the crib. He doesn't like when he's in the Pack N Play because he can't see in.

Hospital photos

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:14:00 +0000

The hospital has a photographer that comes to take newborn photos. We had a professional photographer comes take pictures last Sunday, so we didn't buy any of these photos, but here's a link to check them out. Thanks to Julia for the great hat!

http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=478c276e-56e7-4f43-bfa4-062eac5658f0

I don't think you should need it, but here is the password
577401355916743

Meeting Great Grandma

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:06:00 +0000

Danny's grandmother came to meet her great grandson!

Connor's First Bath

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:45:00 +0000

He's not so sure what he thinks about the whole naked and wet thing, but he looks pretty good in his towel.

Connor's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:14:00 +0000

Now that we're home and have had some time to settle in, I thought I'd write about Connor's birth. Sorry in advance if there are a lot of typos; I’m working from an iPad which does some bizarre autocorrects.

The short version

I was scheduled to be induced at 6am on Monday, but went into labor on my own around 11pm Sunday. We arrived at the hospital at 6am where I was given my epidural and had my water broken. I started pushing at 3:15 and Connor was born at 4:10pm, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz and measuring 20.5 inches. We had a brief scare where Connor was having trouble breathing, resulting in a visit from a NICU nurse, but he ended up being fine. Actually, he's perfect. Pictures follow the long version.

The long (detailed) version

I was scheduled to be induced at 6am on Monday since Connor had decided he was going to take his time and come a week late. I had been to the doctor for additional monitoring and everything was fine, but my doctor wanted to get him out by Monday. I started having irregular contractions on the Wednesday before Connor was born and kept getting my hopes up that "tonight would be the night." Every day the contractions were slightly worse, but nothing bad enough to stop me from my daily activities. By Sunday afternoon they had strengthened to the point where I was really starting to feel awful. But I just assumed that like every other night, they would stop once I went to bed. After packing our last-minute items for the hospital, we tried to sleep. As I was laying there, I noticed that the contractions were getting worse and worse. Normally I had no problem sleeping through them, but these were getting pretty intense. I decided to get up and start timing them. They were getting longer and more regular, but still nothing I couldn't handle. I watched some TV, tried to sleep, took a shower, etc. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't ignore the contractions. By 4 am, I decided to wake Danny because, while my contractions weren't a minute long and 5 minutes apart, they were shorter and consistently 90 seconds apart. We called the on-call obstetrician who was not very nice and told us it was too early to go to the hospital. So I dealt with the contractions as they came until it was time to head in for the scheduled induction.

We made it to the hospital in 7 minutes where the valet parked our car and we headed to Labor & Delivery. I checked in and they showed me directly to a room. Normally you have to go through triage first but since I had a scheduled induction I got to bypass that. When I arrived at my room the nurses got right down to business. I changed into a gown, they started my IV and asked a million questions for their paperwork. After hooking me up to monitors they noted I was already in active labor and would therefore get to skip the procedures used to help jumpstart labor. Thank goodness because those sounded awful. They also told me I could get my epidural any time. I never expected the early stages of labor would be as painful as they were, but having had contractions off and on for 5 days and been in active labor for 7 hours, I opted to get the epidural as soon as they could get the anesthesiologist to my room. Somehow I was at the top of the list so someone was in quickly. She appeared to be about 18 which made me a little nervous since she would be inserting something into my spine. She asked me a number of questions and had me sign a release form while the nurses gave me two bags of IV fluid. By the time my fluid was done, it was time for a shift change. The 18 year old left after introducing me to Ron, who looked like he had been doing this for 40 years. He was wonderful. He explained what he was doing which I thought would freak me out, but actually comforted me somehow. Everyone made a big deal about how big the needles are, but Danny said they were no bigger than a normal shot needle. As I sat there arching my back, I braced myself for the "burning pain" of the first numbing shot, but it never came. It just felt like a few pin pricks. After that, I never felt the epidural. My blood pressure dropped so they gave me a shot of ephedrine (yes the weight loss drug that is now off the market) to bring it back up. That made my heart start racing, but it did its job. After a few minutes my right side was totally numb, but my left side still hurt. So they rolled me to my side to help even out the drugs and five minutes later I was delightfully pain-free. They told me that even though my contractions never made it to the magic threshold (1 minute long and 5 minutes apart for a full hour) I was having pretty intense contractions and likely would have been in on my own later in the day. After they made sure I was stable with the epidural, they had to reinsert my IV because the first nurse had put in the wrong kind of tubing. The IV was easily the worst part of the experience.

About an hour later a resident came in to break my water and I was started on Pitocin to help my contractions become more productive. Around that time the nurses’ shift change came and the nurse who would be with me for the rest of the day came on. Her name was Dori and she was wonderful. She took such great care of me that I would like to request her for the next time around. About every hour Dori would come change my position. It was an odd feeling because I was numb but not paralyzed. I could still help move my body, but I didn't have any control over my legs. My mom came for a bit and then left and Danny and I took a nap and I enjoyed at least 5 cherry popsicles.

When I wasn't sleeping we were just hanging out and talking. Around 1 the nurse came in and said I was dilated to 8cm so we asked my mom to come back. By 2:45 I had made it all the way to 10cm and the Dori called my doctor because it was time to push. She said since I was so numb they might have to turn my epidural down, but we did some practice pushes and I was doing fine so they left it alone (dodged that bullet!). I started pushing for real at around 3:15, my doctor came a few minutes later and Connor was born at 4:10. I was hoping he'd hold out for 4:11 (so he would have been born at 4:11 on 4/11), but he was ready. I didn't feel an ounce of pain and was actually surprised at how quickly the hour went by. Danny, Dori and my Dr were all chatting between pushes, but I had to have an oxygen mask so I wasn't participating since no one could understand me. I thought I would at least feel pressure, but I was shocked when they told me that he would be out after one more push. As soon as he was born they put him right on my chest where he proceeded to poop all over me. He actually pooped on the doctor too as she was catching him. Connor was slimy, cute, and perfect. The biggest surprise was that he wasn’t a redhead.

They took him from me over to the warmer to do his initial assessments. He checked in at 7 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches. That's about a half pound bigger than the doctor’s estimate (although he was a week late) and apparently very long. His oxygen saturation levels were low and they called in a nurse from the NICU to monitor him. Everyone seemed very calm and said this happens often with big babies. My doctor told me he would be fine, but might have to go to the NICU for a while. I honestly didn't have much of an idea what was going on, but it seemed like they were monitoring him for a long time. Finally they brought him over to me for some skin-to-skin contact to see that would help resolve the issue. Apparently it did because we were told he could come to recovery with us instead of the NICU. Danny was able to hold him for a few minutes while they got me ready for recovery and we were on our way by 6:30. Elyse brought me a Jimmy John's sub since I had been craving deli meat for the past 9 months, and we watched while they gave Connor his first bath. My family left and the Penderys came a little while later. No one was able to hold him that evening except Danny and me because they had to monitor his temperature and keep him under the warmer for several hours. The rest of the night was a blur of nurses constantly checking on both of us and snuggling with our little boy. I had intended to keep him in the room with us overnight, but was so freaked out about his breathing issues that I wanted him in the nursery where the nurses could observe him overnight. They brought him back to me at 6am to eat.

The rest of our stay was great. The nurses were awesome and took very good care of us. I was surprised at how much pain I felt after the epidural wore off. No one really talks about after the fact - I guess because labor is so painful. We were released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon and have been settling in ever since.

Now for some pictures.

Leaving for the hospital at 5:45 am

Feeling good and enjoying popsicles after the epidural.

A little tired after no sleep the night before

Daddy waiting for his boy to arrive

He pooped all over my Dr and then all over me

A half-pound bigger than they estimated

Getting checked out by NICU

Finally cleared to go to recovery