So, we’ve been all kinds of busy keeping up with Maggie the past, almost, 7 months now.
It’s been amazing to see her grow and develop from the little baby that we brought home not too long ago what will be a little girl very soon!
It was pretty amazing to see her start to hold her head up and recognize Julie and I. She quickly moved on to sitting in her “pod” chair while we worked in the kitchen. As we continued to try new things with her she learned to roll over while she was lying on the floor and she hasn’t stopped moving since! She’s decided that Jackson and Lucy are really interesting and enjoying rolling over to see them (Lucy is still not so sure about this development). Currently, Maggie enjoys spending time ‘motoring’ around in her walker. It was amazing to put her in the walker one day and watch her suddenly just…take off!
She was also baptized in December on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe by Fr. Liguori who is the priest that married Julie and I. It was a beautiful baptism that used the “old” Latin rite and took place in the baptistery of the Cathedral. This site is a very pretty (but very infrequently used…) part of the church. My sister Jenn and Julie’s brother Jeff are her Godparents but due to travel issues, we had Mark and Kris stand in as the proxies.
All in all, it’s been an exciting few months. She keeps us on our toes and amazes us with how much she changes from week to week–even day to day. Enjoy the pics!
Well, keeping up with Maggie isn’t the only thing we’ve been up to around here.
In the last several months, we’ve gotten all the trim inside the house installed and painted as well as the exterior painted. To get the outside painted we had to remove all the old shingle siding along the rear of the house and replace it with new cladding and new Hardie Board siding. It looks marvelous, especially with the new color.
We’ve got a few more little things to get worked out, like a rail for the porch and landscaping the front and back yard (yes, landscaping the whole yard is a “little” thing at this point!) But, we are certainly closing in on being done.
So posting has been a bit light (ha!) over the last 9 months…hummm, 9 months…just about the right time to cook up a little baby.
And that’s just what we’ve been up to.
On Saturday evening, October 17th, we welcomed Magdalen Marie (Maggie) into the world. She is a healthy, beautiful, sweet little girl. She weighed in at 6 lbs, 14.5 oz and right about 21″.
Julie and I had been preparing for as natural a delivery as possible, avoiding as much medication as possible, taking classes to really learn what we were in for, and getting ourselves ready to welcome our little one. As a part of this, we decided to try and labor at home as long as possible. Julie started having some contractions on Friday evening and had a rough night with only a little sleep. Saturday morning they subsided after breakfast, but returned after lunch and contractions started coming about 6-7 minutes apart. As the evening progressed, so did Julie, and a little after about 10:30 she was ready to push. We hopped in the car and made our way up to the hospital which was about 35 minutes up the road.
It was a quick ride and when we got the hospital we told the nurses that Julie was ready to push and that the baby’s head was ‘crowning’. They didn’t seem to really believe us, but once they took a look they realized that there would be a baby delivered in the next few minutes. Julie pushed four times and Maggie was born. The doctor, who was called while we were driving, showed up a few minutes later.
Both Julie and Maggie did wonderful and are doing great. Maggie is a sweet, sweet little girl and does a lot of sleeping. Julie is taking it easy but we have ventured out with Maggie on walks with the dogs (who are still trying to figure out this new little person), to the pediatrician (she’s gained back all the weight lost at the hospital and then some), and other ‘necessary’ places like Target. Everyone has been delighted to meet her in the neighborhood and I’ve enjoyed having most of the week off to help around the house and get to know our little girl. She is a tremendous blessing and we are so pleased that she’s here after all these months of waiting.
Here are a few pictures of our little one. More will follow. Enjoy!
I have recently started to learn how to quilt from a Quilt Master. Below are my first two attempts. The pink one with brown T’s (which I made second) is a baby blanket for my soon-to-be-born niece, Taylor Janosick. The white one with blue and green squares (which I made first) is for our bed. Thanks to an amazing Quilt Master, and the magic of the sweat shop, err … quilt shop, I am proud to say that I making real progress towards becoming a quilter!
So, we have made some serious progress on the house and wanted to show everyone what’s going on.
In the main room, we’ve got the trim painted, color on the walls, rugs down, and furniture in the room. It looks great and we’re really pleased with how it’s turning out. We’ve still got a little work to do, like hanging some pictures, but it’s looking really good.
We’ll post some more pictures of the front room as soon as we get it painted and finished up.
We had a low-key day in St. Augustine, fired up the Webber Grill to smoke our Christmas Turkey, and enjoyed the 70 degree weather. Our friend Paul was in town from London and joined us for dinner. It was great to catch up with him and hear some crazy stories about living overseas.
We made an effort to get our Christmas picture sent out early and were only moderately successful…at least they should get there by the end of the month.
We also had a the stellar idea of taking a “family” picture with the dogs. This seems pretty innocuous until you actually try and get two dogs to sit still for one picture…or thirty…at 11:30pm on a Friday night. Here are a few of the out-takes.
We had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with Julie’s family and we jumped at the opportunity. We decided to drive up and hit a few outlet malls on the way so we had a FULL trip.
On the way up we went through Atlanta so we could spend the evening with Julie’s friend from her days as an admissions counselor at Franciscan U, Two “N” Jenn and her husband. We had a great evening with them and were really pleased that we had a chance to see them.
Once we got to the Janosick’s we set right to work cooking and putting together some of the sides for Thanksgiving dinner the following night. We rocked out to Frank Sinatra and Neil Diamond’s Christmas that evening then crashed to prepare for a full day of cooking. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. It was a bit of work on everyone’s part but it was delish and we had an opportunity to see some of the extended family as well.
We also had the opportunity to see Julie’s brothers new house. Jeff and his wife, Suzy, bought a great house in a beautiful neighborhood lined with old, established trees and cottage-style houses. They’re working on some renovations on before they moved in. They’ve made some great progress already and we look forward to seeing the finished product. We know full well how satisfying it is to see a house come together.
Hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving as well.
This might not seem like a lot of progress when you first glance through the photos but, keep in mind, that not only was the trim nailed in, the doors were also hung…let that sink in…we were living without any interior doors. For 4 months.
Clearly she loves me.
Trim is one of those minor details that ends up being a huge amount of work to install, finish, and paint. Mainly, because there is just so much of it. Every inch of wall is trimmed with base boards. Every window has a sill and then trim all around. Each door is hung and then trimmed as well. We had a friend of ours, who is a contractor, install the trim and hang the doors. Even with a few guys helping, and using pneumatic nailers , this was a several day job.
The end result is really fantastic and makes the rooms feel even more “finished”. Now Julie and I get to use wood filler and patch every nail hole in every board–then sand it, prime it, and paint it…at least it keeps us off the streets.
Needless to say I’ve been a little remiss in my updating of the site and keeping you up to date on the progress of the renovation. When last we left Rohde, there were kitchen cabinets, but no countertops. While this had the unique advantage of being able to reach into drawers without opening them there were several, significant, drawbacks. Not having anywhere to prepare meals, being chief among them.
After several weeks (few months) the countertops arrived and were installed. We went from having a marginally functional room, to having a full-blown kitchen in a matter of days. The kitchen has ended up being a great space to cook, work, and generally hang out in. The island is large enough to house the sink, dishwasher, and on the other side, room for three barstools. Overall we are really pleased with how it turned out. Enjoy the pictures, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s huge progress.
Julie and I both had conferences to go to this summer and ended up being able to spend a few days in Chicago. What a fun town. We were right downtown and just a few blocks away from Millennium Park. We did a lot of walking and exploring but the highlight of the trip was a tour of the city on Segways–totally wild. It took a few minutes to really trust the machine but once you got used to it, it was a blast. They ended up being intuitive to ride and a fantastic way to see the city. You get the feel of walking the city, but are able to cover a lot more ground. We ended up really enjoying our time in Chicago and look forward to visiting again.