Meet the Fullers

Now featuring Henry!

Bathroom Progess

One week in and the worst may be over. Tobi declared our demo "the worst he's ever seen."WINNING! The guys have done a ton: electrical (including a lot of sorting out of 100 years of "improvements"), plumbing (including all new piping), insulation, ceiling fan install, lights, drywall hung for ceiling, floor started...It's already less scary and we're starting to get excited!

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Bathroom mood board

Upstairs_bathroom_moodboard_04

Our one and only bathroom is small...about 25 square feet (not much bigger than one of the cubes at work), so we want to keep it really bright and simple.  Our house is pretty simple also: it's old, but not very fancy.  So we're being somewhat boring and going with classics: subway tile, hex and dot tile, lots of white, and chrome accessories.  I'm hoping it makes the space much less dingy and much cleaner and brighter.  We also opted for a somewhat modern wall mounted vanity: we're hoping to be able to tuck a step stool and maybe the bath toys underneath to save some floor space.

We're debating either a very light blue or very light green to keep it clean and light and work with the new soft brown towels we got at Christmas last year.  

Given the state of the room currently, I can't wait to see how this comes together.

After the before photos but before the after photos

Today was demo day for the rehab of our one and only bathroom; here's the end result. This is the ugly part of rehab. Most of the replacement parts are bought and arriving within a day or two. We're hoping that it will come back together quickly, but it looks like we'll be showering at the Y for a while. Yikes.


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Henry's words at 18 months

Uh, second kid syndrome totally struck.  Poor Henry has little documentation.  But his vocabulary has taken off in the last couple of weeks;  he was at the doctor last week for his ear infection (his 18 month appt is in a couple of weeks...oops!  He turned 18 months 3/21) and they asked if he knew 10, 15, or 25 words.  Uhhhh....wasn't sure.  It actually looks like maybe even more than that. So here's the current list:

  1. Mama or "Money".  I like being known as Money, personally.
  2. Daddy
  3. Jack (pronounced "Dack"
  4. Henry (pronounced "Enri!")
  5. Doggie (sounds like da da)
  6. Woof woof
  7. Kitty
  8. Meow
  9. Mooo (for a cow)
  10. Where is it? (a bit indistinct).  Accompanied by shrugged shoulders and palms up.  Super cute.
  11. Milk (also knows the sign).
  12. Eye
  13. Night Night
  14. Please (sounds like "pease"; also signs this)
  15. Baby
  16. All done (also knows the sign)
  17. Shoes  (also knows the sign)
  18. Up (also knows the sign)
  19. Down (also knows the sign)
  20. Fish (also knows the sign)
  21. Bunny
  22. Birdy (also knows the sign)
  23. Ga ga (his pacifier; long story about why it's called that.  Jack actually coined the term)
  24. Book (also knows the sign)
  25. Thank you (also knows the sign)
  26. Eat (also knows the sign)
  27. Grapes (also knows the sign)
  28. Apple (he calls clementines apples)
  29. No (also knows the sign)
  30. Yes (also knows the sign)
  31. Bye bye (waves)
  32. Hi!
  33. Uh Oh!
  34. Oh no!
  35. More (also knows the sign)
  36. Banana (also knows the sign.  Pronounced "nana!")
  37. Cheerios (we think...or it's "cereal")
  38. Pizza! (we do a movie and pizza every friday night; it's awesome, don't judge).
  39. Help

 

 

 

Henry at 11 months

Henry is now 11 months old!  He's suddenly so big, and more like a little person than a baby.  Last weekend it was like a switch went on from "baby" to "toddler".  He talks now, too, so it's (again) a bit like the cat started talking.  So. Weird.

He got his first two teeth on 7/24/10, and then he started saying "Daddy" and very shortly thereafter "Mama" about 8/6.  We thought he was also saying "brother Jack" but it was hard to understand; it was confirmed by the girls at daycare on 8/20 who were all excited that Henry said it when Jack came to visit him.  He also says "uh oh" and can clap, blow kisses, and sign for "more" and "milk".  Yay, Henry!  Yes, I'm writing this here because I haven't updated either of their baby books yet.  Just hoping to remember it somewhere.

Henry's a bit more of a troublemaker than Jack was: his favorite pastimes include pulling all the Tupperware off the shelf, shredding magazines, and unrolling all the toilet paper and eating bits of it.  Jack never did anything like that as a baby, so I wonder if it's time to hide the Sharpies and keep handy the email address for SMKR. 

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Accidental Baby-led Weaning

 

So apparently there's a name for what we ended up doing with feeding Henry solids: baby-led weaning. We didn't mean to do it, but should have done it sooner if we'd really figured out what his howls meant.

We started feeding him rice cereal and then other veggie and fruit purees (I made them this time around) at 6 months, but he always cried and was unhappy when we spoon fed him. This was totally different than Jack, who happily ate baby food til almost 11 months. Finally at about 8.5 months we realized that, even though he has no teeth, Henry wanted our food. He would fuss at us until we gave it to him, and fussed if we tried to feed him purees, but was happy as a clam to feed himself small bits of whatever we were eating. We abandoned purees and haven't looked back.

Now I find out it's a "thing". More information available at baby-led.com.

Who knew?

 

Henry having fun at school-9 months old

One of my favorite things about the baby room at our daycare is that they randomly will email us pictures of Henry during the day.  It especially helps to receive smiley, happy baby pictures on days that are, shall we say, a bit rough.

Henry got to play outside on a hot day with some water--apparently he didn't love getting wet himself, but liked splashing.  At 9 months, he's also army crawling everywhere and is practicing rocking on his knees.  He actually pulled himself up on the edge of the bathtub on 6/24, and then again at daycare the next day.

The last few pics are of what Henry was doing instead of napping-sitting up in his crib and flirting with his teachers.

He also learned to clap this weekend, and seemed to be doing the sign for "more" to ask for more melon this weekend--he seems to have a deep and abiding love of melon.  In the last two weeks we've given up feeding him baby food altogether and have just been feeding him small pieces of whatever soft foods we're having.  He used to cry all through meals when we spoon fed him, but he's super happy to feed himself.  He loves to eat now, but he makes a huge mess!

He is really active and excited...I can't believe we ever questioned having a second baby.

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Family Photos-Henry at 7 months, Jack at 2 years, 11 months

We had seen Amy Tripple's lovely photos of our friends Erin and Tim's baby, so we called her to do some photos of the boys.  We took the day off from work to work with Amy; she's getting so popular she's booked months in advance on the weekends.  Her studio was lovely: sunny, quiet, very family friendly.  She did a great job as well of relaxing us and the boys, and suggesting poses and backdrops.   We're thrilled with the results, and highly recommend anyone looking for beautiful, affordable family portraits

It was also the first day Henry could sit up: we told her he couldn't sit up yet, but she asked us to try anyway, and lo and behold, he did!  Our smallest subject may have also peed on a rug during the shoot, prompting his brother to declare "we don't pee on rugs!" Indeed.

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