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.

Renovations: The Third Floor

We have finally taken the first step in our plans to renovate our home. For plumbing purposes, we're starting from the top (third floor) and working our way down.

For the past two years, the third floor has gone somewhat unused. It has three bedrooms, two of which are good size that we used as guest rooms and a smaller third bedroom that we use as an office. It also has a door at the back end of the hallway that goes out to a third floor deck.

Our plan is to make this floor into the kid(s) floor (no, she's not pregnant). The first problem with this floor was that there is great living space, but no bathroom. We tinkered with keeping the layout as is and cramming in a full bath somehwere, but it just didn't work well. We then decided, because we have two large bedrooms on the second floor, that we'd take the smaller office/bedroom and make it into a nice size bathroom. This way we're left with 4 good sized bedrooms and a nice bathroom for the kid(s).

Our contractor is Todd Slocum from The Solcum Group in Beverly, MA. He did some work on an old building across the street from us and I got to know him a bit while he was working. He has been great to work with on the project.

Todd put up some "Dust Prevention" to protect all the floors below from the demo run off.

View from the door to the back deck looking forward past the two bedrroms on the left and the new bathroom at the front of the house.

View into the new bathroom. To the left of that stud is where the old door/entrance to the office used to be and to the right of it is the new entrance into what will be the bathroom.

This is almost the same view, but moreso from the entry way. The bathroom will have a separate sink area (double vanity will go on the left in this picture) and then a doorway into the tub/toilet area (toilet is placed right where it will end up being, tub will be across from that). This way we figure we can have as many as three kids in the bathroom at once..two at the sink and one taking a shower or taking care of business!

This is where the double sink vanity will go.

This is a view from the toilet looking to where the tub will eventually go

Not sure why, but the last owner decided to cover the original hardwood floors with some really thin wood floors that we're not really fans of. We were happy to see what was beneath and plan to rip up all the floors to expose and refinish the original pine hardwoods. The bathroom will be tiled, however.

This will be Hampton's new room once it's done! They are going to replace all the walls and the ceiling and wood trim and add crown molding.


View from Hampton's bedroom door to the to-be bathroom door across the hall.

This is the room that I took about a month to refinish. They're just replacing the ceiling, the woodwork/trim and windows in this room.

More updates to come soon!