Merry Christmas...and a Happy New Year!

Between Halloween and the "Holiday Season", we've been going fast and furious! Plenty to update and I promise to do that this weekend (errr...my New Year's resolution perhaps!). Amidst the economic roller coaster, we managed to sneak in some fun!

In November, we travelled to Wake for my 10-year reunion. We also had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend on the Cape with Eric's family. Here's a cute picture of HH enjoying the beach in November!

December came and went...we just returned home last night after a few sunny days at the other Cape (Cape Canaveral) where we celebrated Christmas! After juggling the stressors with work and the recession, we finally had a long overdue chance to relax. The weather was impeccable - mid-80s and perfect for Hampton to play with Gigi at the beach or in the pool!

Needless to say, the holiday spirit was geared around Hampton and spending time with family. I think that's what Christmas is all about anyway! We'll post some pictures (as promised above!) but until then...have a great NEW YEAR!

And, in the meantime, enjoy the picture of Hampton (and me) with Santa! All he could say was "Up! Up! Up!"....

Halloween (yes, it's late)

OK, so we're only two weeks behind the eight ball. Here are some photos from Halloween. Hampton was a pirate (Arrrrrrrrr). We had our second annual pre-parade Halloween party for the Charlestown kids (and Hampton's friends that don't live in Charlestown).

Every year there is a parade around the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Literally hundreds of kids from the neighborhood participate. Marin went at this alone last year because I was at J105 North Americans, so I had no idea how much of an ordeal this was in Charlestown. Pretty cool!

At first, Hampton was a little on the shy side when everyone started rolling in our house. Here he's giving CC a big hug. I bet she hated that.....


The group of Charlestown moms from the Charlestown Mother's Associate. Almost all of these babies were born July 2007

The Reilly's came up from Norwell to Join the fun. Hampton and Dad at the parade

The Band!

Hampton wanted to walk in the parade and push the stroller and walk Deacon.

He finally let me push him in his stroller

No idea who these people are, we just liked their costumes. Just 4 days before we had to suck it up and wait 4 years!

Just a pic of the scene at the base of Bunker Hill

Hampton Loves...

Lawnmowers (snow shovels would be a bit more appropriate/helpful for us)...

"nanas" (bananas)...

and Deacon!

Hampton's new word...

Water!

"All Done!"

....as Hampton would say with the clap of his hands anytime he is done eating or doesn't want to be strapped in a chair anymore....

We're finally done with phase one of the renovations. The painters finished about a week ago and the inspectors signed off on everything just yesterday. We're excited to have our house back...sleeping on a mattress in our family room was getting old.

Phase 1 consisted of putting in a nice size "kid(s)" bathroom in an existing smaller bedroom and refinish the existing two bedrooms and hallway by replacing walls and ceilings and all of the woodwork throughout the third (top) floor of our house. Though this project would bring our house from a 5BR 2BA to a 4BR 3BA, we figured a large bathroom was nicer to have than a 5th, very small bedroom. After the three phases are complete, we'll end up with a 4BR 2.5BA, but have about 400 more squarefeet of living space and a much better layout. We never really used the third floor for anything other than when we had guests, so now that it's refinished we were able to really spread things out and make better use of our space.

This is our new master bedroom (formerly Hampton's room) on the second floor. We had the painters repaint this room. Part of phase two will consist of refinishing the large bathroom adjacent to this room (through the wall to the left) and creating a master bathroom as well as creating an extra closet using the existing hallway entrance into that bathroom.

Our old master bedroom, also on the second floor, is now Hampton's playroom. I set this room up last weekend when Marin and Hampton were on the Cape and it was funny to see Hampton's face when they walked into the house upon returning from the cape and he didn't see his toys spread throughout the family room and dining room....he looked confused. But, when we showed him his new playroom full of all of his toys, he had a BIG smile on his face.

We refinished the stairs all the way down to the first floor and repainted the hallway, woodwork, risers, bannisters, etc all the way down to the first floor as well.

Now we're on the third floor, where you will see the refinished original pine floors that we "found" (we'll uncover them on the first and second floor eventually as well) and the new crown moldings, woodwork, walls and ceilings.

We added recesed lights in the hallway too.

Hampton's new room on the third floor. Still haven't found the time to rehang pictures, etc so the rooms currently look a little naked.

This is the new guest room on the third floor. Once "number two arrives" (no, we're not expecting) Hampton will move into this room. Btw, this ceiling fan is pretty neat. It'a made by Reiker and it cools and heats. The top part of the fan has a heater and the blades reverse and it circulates heat all with the use of a remote control.

We used this 6" crown molding throughout the third floor, eventually it will be throughout the house.

Across the hallway from the new guest room is our new bathroom. This was once a 11'x7.5' office/bedroom with a large closet. This is the sink area and through that french door is the toilet and tub area. We figured that this way we could have as many as three kids in the bathroom at the same time...hopefully elimnating any arguments. The french door is an original door with obscured glass. We had it in our basement so we asked Todd to refurbished it and use it for this doorway

We have a little "turtle" theme going on....

French door open into the toilet and tub area.
A shot of the tile we used.

Same tile as the shower.

Hampton Loves....

Tires! Yes, no matter where we are, Hampton loves to check out tires. Big ones, little ones...truck or car tires, stroller tires, toy tires...he is facinated.

And, now that we're appoaching 14-months, he's turned into a walking machine and talking machine. His talking is still babbling but there are a few distinguishable words -

Banana ("Nana")

Dog ("Dawwwwg")

Outside ("Outsiiiiiiiide")

All done (Said while throwing those hands up in the air!)

Show (said while picking up the remote)

Mama

Dada

Night, Night (now that is cute...especially when he reaches for the crib to put himself to sleep!)

And, he's got quite a bit of sign-language going too:

More

All done

Cracker

Milk

Hello/Goodbye

And...blowing kisses

So - we're having a ball. Soon he'll have a new and improved bedroom and bathroom AND playroom.

Politics are FUN!

So, November is nowhere near close and I'm already burnt out by the ongoing political banter. However, if you are bored of politics too but want to have a little fun, vote for your favorite candidate:

www.tastebudpolitics.com

You can also find out your the type of mexican food you are....yummm...I'm a burrito :)

Progress....

We're making progress. Floor guys are comning in on 9/18 and then the painters on 9/25 and then we should be pretty close to done!

View from the door to the deck at one end of the hallway looking towards the front of the house. Two bedroom doors on the left, the bathroom door on the right at the end and the sheetrock is where the doorway to the bathroom (then office) was.

Guest room. Todd replaced the windows and all of the trim and overlayed the old ceiling. Still need to finish plastering and add the crown molding
Hampton's new bedroom. Compleletel overlayed waiting for all new trim and crown molding

View from the entry-way to the new bathroom. Vanity on the left, doorway to tub and toilet area. The granite guys came and did a template for the vanity top this AM.

The vanity "nook". This thing is finally out of our living space downstairs. It's been there for about a month.

Tub with a little shelf/storage area in the soffit above. Todd will trim the shelf out as well as add beadboard, chair rail and crown molding throughout both areas in bathroom

We've decided that we're going to have all the paint sanded off the stairs and redo them to match the floors that are going to be redone on the third floor. They pretty much got destroyed during construction as expected.

The plumbing from the new bathroom had to go down through a room on the second floor and behind the front door in the foyer on the first floor. We're eventually going to make a built in out of the boxed in pipes on the second floor and Todd made this boxed in pipe look more like a pillar that matches some of the woodwork/molding in other areas of the house. Unfortunately, there was no sinking the pipe into the wall without jeopardzing the structure of the support for the house.

The new bathroom is in the very front of the third floor of the hosue and everything drains in the basement in the very back of the house....lot's of plumbing. They had to bust through a pretty thick wall to get that pipe to the back of the basement.

Lots to Catch Up On!

We have been pretty busy since our last blog...

The renovations are still underway, they will be hanging all the sheetrock, plastering and hanging all the new trim this week and then we should be ready for the floor guys to come in and refinish the newly discoverd original hardwoods we had hiding underneath the existing wood floors. More photos of that are on the way...

We celebrated our 4th anniversary on August 28th! Because Hampton's daycare was closed on that Thurs and Friday, Grandma CC and Aunt Nanny came up to Boston and brought Hampton back to the Cape for a couple of days. It was nice to be able to go out to dinner (we went to Aujourd 'hui http://www.fourseasons.com/boston/dining.html and it was excellent) without worrying about a sitter.

A couple weekends ago we visited Alexis, Billy, Will and Jackson Reilly at their new home in Norwell, MA (just south of Boston). It was great to see them and their house is truly incredible.
On that same weekend we walked over to the New England Aquarium for Hampton's first visit.

On Labor Day weekend we made our annual day trip to Edgartown to continue the celebration of our anniversary on Saturday. Hampton came with us again and needless to say he wasn't as easy to handle this time (he was only a month old when we took the trip last year), but he/we still had a great time. We were able to catch up with Craig and Cory (Veitor) Appleman, their adorable 6 month old boy, Bancker Appleman and Cory's sister Lindsay for lunch at the Edgartown Yacht Club. It was great to see them and it sounds like Cory has had a great summer in Edgartown with her their new additon.

On Sunday, we hung out on the Cape and the men cooked everyone a seafood feast which we ate out by the pool. Though Aunt Lauren doesn't really like seafood (she wouldn't even eat a steamer for $50!) she was able to enjoy some of her usual grilled chicken and we had a blast just hanging out in the beautiful weather.

Today, we went up to the Burlington (MA) mall for Hampton's first haircut! He hated it. He screamed worse than he did when they had to draw blood from him at the Dr.'s office. He got over it though and he's less of a ragamuffin and definitely looks a little older. The ladies at "Snipits" did a great job.

The Reilly's new house in Norwell, MA. It is absolutely beautiful. Congratulations Alexis, Billy, Will and Jackson!

Billy and Will Reilly

We walked over to the New England Aquarium for Hampton's first visit that same weekend. HH liked the Shahhhks!

On our walk home from the aquarium, we paused to take a photo of the new Rose Kennedy Park (part of the "Big Dig). It's amazing to think that only a few years ago this would have been a picture of Marin and Hampton underneath a overpassing highway (now the highway is running beneath Marin's feet!)

Hampton enjoyed the views of Falmouth's Inner Harbor as we shoved off for Edgartown.

While Hampton slept during last year's annual breakfast at "Among the Flowers", he was a bit more lively this year.

The Knight's and the Lewicki's having some appetizers on Labor Day weekend (steamers!)

Though not a fan of seafood, Aunt Lauren was just happy that there was plenty of wine.

Hampton loves the pool.

Hampton did NOT like getting his hair cut. He got over it though.