Bathrooms gone wild

Okay, this will be my first and likely last post for 2008. Buffy was out of town over Thanksgiving weekend attending her brother Tony's wedding. While she was gone, my parents and my brother Jesse came up from the Carolinas to help me remodel the master bathroom as a Christmas suprise for her.

Here is the before picture:
Note the fine workmanship in the original bathroom, how the original builder painstakingly duplicated the look and feel of an actual prison lavatory.

After 4 days of intensive work, here is the new old bathroom:

We pulled up linoleum, replaced rotted-out flooring, laid tile, replaced the vanity, moved the electrical wiring and plumbing systems to the adjacent wall, put in new light fixtures and bathroom hardware, and repainted. And the best part of it all: I bought all the upgrades off of craigslist for pennies on the dollar. Powerbuy!

It's another Festivus Miracle! I toyed with the idea of trying to keep it a suprise until Christmas, but couldn't figure out how to keep Buffy out of her bathroom for another 3 weeks.

Now, in the spirit of Festivus, it is time for the Feats of Strength, followed by the Airing of Grievances. This should prove interesting. And now I must leave and set up the Festivus aluminum pole in the center of the household.

Happy Holidays to all,

Tim

Election Day

We physically voted for the first time this year (previously we voted via absentee ballot). We figured that was a good enough event to warrant dorkily taking a lot of pictures. We went as a family before school and waiting in line (in the rain) for about a hour and a half (friends of ours waited for five and a half). All in all a good day, a good moment.

Halloween

Putting James in his costume...no one does a better "long suffering" look than James.

He does a pretty good scary look too.

Princess Gillian

Gillian's Crown

Our third pea pod.

Man down.

Triumphant return.

Mommy's pile (aka confiscated peanut candy).

Bonus picture...last Halloween, we took our one and only halloween picture on the camera itself rather than the SD card and it took me this long to finally figure out how to upload it to our computer. Eleanor is in the picture too--she is just very, very tiny.

Eleanor Sitting

A picture of Eleanor when she first started sitting somewhat reliably a little bit ago. The picture is followed by the inevitable "falling" pose that came after the sitting.

Knox Family Reunion

Every October we have the Knox family reunion on the farm that Tim's Granddaddy Knox grew up on. This year was the 250 anniversary of the farm. It has been in the family since 1758 and is still a working farm. We had such a fabulous time.

This is the old farm house built in the 1800s. Granddaddy Knox was born in this house, as well as his father, and his grandfather, and perhaps his great grandfather. When I first entered the Bunton family, a couple of Tim's aunts still lived here. But now the house is vacant, and this year, someone went through the house, cleaned it, organized it, and opened it for a tour. It was truly a lovely house.

Being at the farm, I can kind of get a feel for how life use to be and it is not an altogether unpleasant picture. Until they start showing us all the farm equipment and start talking about their work day. Farming itself really doesn't sound like much fun to me. I am lazy by nature.

Aerial view of a part of the farm.

Children Should be Seen...

While the adults congregated and listened to speeches, the kids had a great time getting reacquainted with their cousins. It was beautiful, crisp fall weather and the kids spent almost the entire time playing chasing and racing games (there was a small digression into stick fighting until I put a kibosh on that).

Just a wee bit chilly.

Warming up by the heater under the tent.
Tim's cousin Nancy and her fiance are public history masters. They came wearing period pieces, Kyle (the fiance) made his own jacket even. They looked absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them together. I did get a picture of Nancy sitting with the kids during lunch. I bet they were glad it was cold this year. If it had been last year, they would have roasted in those outfits.

Spare the rod...

Just teasing, that is one old saying that definitely would never apply to my sweet angel. She was actually fantastic all day. We just held her all day in the windy cold and she was just cool with that.

Amanda's best friend, Donna Ehrisman, actually took Eleanor for the first half of the event. After a bit however, I started to feel bad for foisting an infant off on non-family and I went to hunt them down. I found Donna leaning against the trunk of an impressive magnolia tree with a sleeping Eleanor. I was quite surprised. My children generally need beds to sleep. Donna has the touch.

All Work and No Play...

They had so many super fun, old timey games arranged for the kids. They looked for buttons in the hay barrel, had potato sack races, and they hunted for eggs in the barn. These eggs were filled with candy however, so definitely not chicken eggs.

Gillian and Grandpa Jim looking at the cows. Judging from the picture, I don't think those cows smelled too hot.

Eating their booty.

Wagon Ride

The traditional hay ride on Saturday was replaced with a wagon ride. Can I just say again, how much I loved Little House on the Prairie when I was little.

Sara's youngest, Lillian, just adored Eleanor. Eleanor was not quite sure how she felt about Lillian however.

I think it was about this point that she made her final decision about the situation. I'll leave you guessing as to what that was.

Sunday

We spent the night in Winston-Salem with Tim's family. After a quick breakfast Sunday morning we met many of the Knox clan at the First Presbyterian church that Granddaddy Knox attended growing up for morning service and then we all met at cousin Clark's huge building for a fish fry. That's right, a fish fry. It was actually delicious. They had two huge jumping houses going for the kids to play in. They really went all out this year and they had those delicious brown sugar cookies again too. I'm afraid I ate more than my share.

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James and Sara's oldest Luke

Gillian, so not happy with her puzzel interruptus.

Eleanor and Jim

Eleanor and Amanda

James channeling Charlie Brown

Unsatisfied with Snickers

So I went to try my first Snicker Bar since the end of my peanut embargo and found new packaging. I sat down at the end of the day, the kids were in bed, I had a blanket and a book, my house was clean, I take the first bite and...was confused. I think, "It's been over a year, maybe I just don't remember what they taste like? Did I just brush my teeth? Maybe I got confused and this isn't really a Snicker bar." I closed the wrapper, looked at the candy bar and saw a picture of Harrison Ford along with this, "Satisfy your taste for adventure! Rich Chocolate. Crunchy nuts. And a cliffhanger kick of exotic spice and a hint of sweet coconut flavor." What is that all about? Why are so many companies pulling that crap these days. If they want to make a new candy bar, make a new candy bar. Or at least make the limited editions one look a great deal different from the original. Coconut is all well and fine, but in a Snicker bar? I of course ate it anyway, but I wasn't happy about it.

Seriously--how cute is that?

I have never seen a "baby in the bath" picture I haven't liked. Babies should just be naked all the time I think. They are just so, so, so cute!

Living in the South

So James just called Eleanor a Cracky-crack-Cracker. Hmm--I am hoping that is just him experimenting with sounds rather than something he picked up at school. I guess out of all the racial slurs, Cracker is probably the best one to pick up--it will get him in far less trouble if repeated.

On a different school note, James is now in speech therapy for his "R" sound. Currently, that is all they are concerned about, and on some words his R is quite clear, so hopefully it will not take as long to correct his speech patterns as it did to correct mine. I still remember Amanda (Tim's mom) asking who the Spanish girl was who kept calling and asking for Tim (i.e. me).

It's Official

It's official that my baby is no longer my baby. She absolutely refuses to nurse anymore--she reacted like I was covered in salt the last time I tried--like it was just the grossest thing in the world. It kind of offended me and hurt my feelings. To make myself feel better I went out and got Peanut M&Ms, a Butterfinger, and a Peanutbutter Cookie mix.**

But there are tons of advantages to bottle feeding. I no longer feel tied to the house. I don't have to "nurse her one last time" before we leave the house. I no longer have a time limit when I leave Eleanor with Tim, I don't have to be home to feed the baby. The kids really enjoy feeding the baby and serving her like that. Plus look at how wonderfully chunky she is now. Her gaining weight so quickly means to me that she really wasn't getting enough from just nursing.
**with a history of peanut allergies in the family, they strongly recommend that you don't consume peanuts while pregnant or nursing and that you hold off giving peanuts to the child until after the age of five. So I haven't had any peanuts in over 15 months. I was very excited. It made me feel really guilty to eat them however. It is hard to change gears that fast.