I've been real good

This isn't like any other toy I've gotten before. What's a luggage tag?



I want this one!



Wyatt taught me this little trick.

Master bathroom: Year's end progress

The work kind of stalled the last two weeks with a flurry of activity the day before and after Christmas. Here you can see the framing for the shower and the air tub. You can also see my handiwork with the recessed lights over the tub. The glass block windows were knocked out and smaller windows were framed in. The exterior was also stuccoed.


Here you can see the rough plumbing installed although not completed. We have a thermostatic valve with 3 volume controls above. These will control the shower head, hand shower, and rain head.


They needed to move the drain and increase the size so they took a sledgehammer to the foundation. They also plan on piping hot water from the tub area since it's 3/4 inch versus 1/2 inch pipe.

Santa's lap

I want a new car and a little brother.


Is this Santa for real? That belt buckle looks a little too big.


Guess Santa doesn't care about Chester and Riley.

ELMO meet LMO

Just another inch and I'd have you!

I'm 7 months old now!

This is how I'm going to sit on Santa's lap.

Starbucks at home

We just got an espresso machine through the American Express wishlist. This is where they sell things at an insane discount but only offer a limited number. All the times in the past where I've tried to buy a car or vacation package, the item has sold out in seconds.

This time I won. The funny thing is that the item is something that we had just tried out over thanksgiving at my parent's house. They had just bought one.

We got a Nespresso C100, cup set, and a milk frother. The retail for everything was $354 but we only paid $137. Not a bad deal considering the machine alone is over $200. The milk frother is really cool. It has a mixer that is magnetically activated. It reminds me of the chemistry lab beaker mixers where the beaker sits on a mixing plate and you drop a mixer into the bottom of the beaker. The downside to the system is that you have to purchase these capsules from the manufacturer as no one else makes them for the machine.

Big bottle

Daddy is lazy. Soon he'll be seeing if I can hold my own spoon. I can't even crawl yet.

Brotherly love

The funny thing is that we have another bed. When they aren't play fighting, they are quite affectionate towards each other.

Master Bath Demo

Time for the master bath since the guest bath is almost done. This definitely won't be finished by Christmas.

Bathroom nearing the final stages

The guest bath is getting closer and closer to being done. I installed the handshower bar, the curved shower rod, and the lights. The handshower bar needed wood backing in order to be really secure to the wall. Unfortunately we didn't have any in place when they put up the cementboard so I had to cut a hole in the wall from the back. We decided to keep the light box where it's at. It's a little low but still looks fine.


You can see the hole here and one of the studs for the handshower bar.


Here you can see into the wall looking up towards the wall spout. There's another piece of wood for the upper handshower bar connection. If you look closely, you'll see water dripping down the wall. The plumber didn't connect the wall union correctly so there was water leaking inside the wall. If I hadn't cut open the wall to put the wood in, I would have never caught this leak. I can only imagine the amount of damage or mold that this would have caused.


I installed this fan timer so that you can have the fan running long after you've left.

Feel like some crab?

On a recent visit to Costco home, they were giving out the Costco cookbook which uses at least one ingredient they sell at Costco. The crab quiche recipe looked pretty simple and used their crab meat which is one of the items we'll buy from Costco versus in the supermarket.

The recipe is really easy. Just grate some cheese, mince some onions, combine eggs, half and half, and all your other ingredients. Then pour into a pie crust and bake. Couldn't be easier.

Bathroom Week 3

The counters went in on Tuesday. The shop was able to fix the old piece by cutting off the old edge. As a result, the counter got shorter by on the side and rear. To fix it, they added a little filler piece so you can't see it from the edge. The rest of the area is covered by the back splash. Since we didn't want to wait any longer, we went ahead and installed this.



The plumbers came and installed the faucets, shower trim, and toilet. The toilet is a toto drake which is one of the best. It even has a soft close seat so it can never be slammed. The cabinet drawers are soft close as well. :)



Here you can see our faucets. They are Santec builder's series. Their more customized estate series were all too ornate for our tastes. Also the counter is a little pinker than we had hoped. The tone seems to be clashing with our wall color so we might have to repaint the bathroom or pay for a new top.

We still need to get a mirror and install the light. We bought a light but noticed that the light is too low so we'll have to move the junction box. Bad planning on my part. I just assumed it was at the right height. Since we can't find a light we like, it's easier to move the box.

Cheese please

We made spaghetti carbonara from Everyday Food but added in mushrooms and peas. You'll want to finish it all that night since left overs aren't the best with this recipe. The eggs get cooked when you reheat it.

First date pictures

Where do you think you're going? I didn't invite you onto my blanket just yet.

Top model

I call this look the left lean with a foot.



This look is my right lean with a foot.



This is my hubba bubba look.

Bathroom Day 9-15: 2nd time is almost a charm

Here you can see the tile for the shower. It's not quite what we had in mind but it should be fine. You can see the shade that we wanted on the sample tiles in front of the tub. We picked the grout color to match our samples but since the actual tile was a different shade, the grout sticks out a lot more.

We were supposed to have counters last Friday but when they came to install it, the counter had the wrong edge. Hopefully they'll get it right the second time around. That seems to be a trend as the drywallers and the tile guy had to come back a second time. At this pace, we most likely won't have the master bath done by the holidays.



Here you can see my handy work. I wired the outlet in the cabinet and also cut out and wired the side outlet.

Work in progress

Lauren's first suitor

Did I mention that I can crawl, almost walk, and can stick my tongue out at will?

Goodbye 80's

We finally got around to replacing the last of our ugly brass fixtures. If you look closely you can even see the plastic discoloring from the heat of the light bulbs.


Here is one of our new hall lights from Restoration Hardware.