Our House Addition

Well here are some of the long promised pics of our house addition...

This particular day I drove up to our house and saw all these trucks in my backyard.
That's the concrete truck and the "crane" like dealy is the hose through which they pour the concrete.After the concrete was poured...

The 1st wall to go up...(the right window is my new office, the left is our bedroom)...

Interior walls are up (the builder is in part of the Family Room)...

The trusses were delivered by crane...

This weekend we had a bbq.
I found it funny that he is bbq'ing in our future Family Room.
How many people can say they've done that? :)

Now the slow part begins. The next few weeks will be filled with plumbing, electrical, roofing and all the little things that don't make much of a visual difference. But we're pretty excited.

I'm 5 Months Old This Week!

Sorry to be so long since my last blog, but we've been pretty scattered around here. The construction is going well (I'll post more pics soon), nearly all the framing is done. It looks so good so far!

The boy turns 5 weeks on Friday. I can't believe how fast this is going! He has been learning some special new tricks...he even grew 2 little teeth!

This picture was taken just a day before his first tooth popped through...

...he even learned how to roll over...

...and how to suck on his big toes (I'm so proud!)...

And how to sleep in a real crib (finally finished re-staining it and moved him out of his pack-and-play)...

And he learned how to turn himself to face outward when being held facing inward...

And he learned what face NOT to make when a pretty girl walks by
*cough* I'm sure it was me! heh heh! :)

The Only "Plant" I Can Grow...

I, like my mother (no offense ma!), have the darndest of times trying to keep plants alive. No matter how much I try, I kill everything. I sort of think plants somehow know when I come near...they flop over and die just to get it over with quickly. Eric is always chuckling under his breath whenever he sees me attempt to keep yet another plant - and fail - and fail - and fail. I think I could manage to kill a cactus! *sigh*

Well, at last I discovered something I can keep alive. A potato. This is the most thriving "plant" ever to live in my house. I found it the other day when cleaning out a cupboard that I rarely get into (and that I use for paper products). I couldn't stop laughing at the irony. How ridiculous! First of all because, um hello little sprouting potato, how long have you been hiding in that dark corner? And secondly because, well, look at the size of its sprouts! Those sprouts are like 12-14" long...desperately trying to grow towards the little light crack coming from the cupboard door.

As much as one might say this proves me to be a poor housekeeper...I stand proud of the fact that, well, something thrived here at the Jenks' house! :)

Special "Daddy Time"

I've been working really hard at getting Eli to get on a regular sleep schedule. He has always been a terrific sleeper, but he (like daddy and mommy) seems to be a night owl. For about 5 days straight about a month and a half ago he was determined to be wide-eyed until 1 or 2am. Then he would sleep 12 hours, but he just wouldn't sleep NORMAL hours. It was killing us! So while I was in Texas, I took advantage of the time difference and started getting him down early by allowing him to cry himself to sleep for the first time (so hard!).

When I returned home from Texas and showed Eric the new schedule that I was so proud of he was pretty much mortified. You could just see the look on his face....`what? CRY himself to sleep? our little baby alone in a dark room all my his lonesome?'...you could almost see a child-like pouty-face just dying to squeak it's way into Eric's face. I assured Eric that it is perfectly normal and acceptable for a baby his age to be doing this, but Eric was skeptical - yet, he listened to my mother's instinct and decided to go along with the schedule (clearly stating that he "isn't a fan" and does it under duress).

Well, things are going great schedule wise. But Eric's hesitation has grown because he realizes with Eli going to sleep so early, it doesn't leave much time for Eric to play with his son! So I suggested that Eric start doing some of the "baby chores"...like give Eli a bath, changing his diaper and getting him into his pj's...taking advantage of the time and learning to redefining these routine practices as special "daddy time".

While it may be true that little boys always love their mommies, but this special daddy time is instilling a sweet bond between them. Eli seems to be a turning into a real daddy's boy. Here are some pictures from a particularly "daddy-filled-night"...

"My daddy is SO fun at bath time!"

I had taken advantage of daddy-time by doing some business accounting in the office, but after about an hour I realized that Eric and Eli were oddly silent. Curious, I peeked my head into the Living Room and found them fast asleep on the Living Room floor..all snuggled up...

...and holding hands...

...and of course, Eli had to have a hand on his favorite little doggy!

I LOVE MY BOYS!!!

Construction Begins!!!

Today marks the first day of construction on our house addition. Right now there is a Bobcat tractor in my back yard ripping up soil and trying to take down the stump from the large magnolia tee that we just had cut down. Here we go!!!

Last weekend Eric started cutting down the 30+ year old magnolia tree,
but he found it too spiral and decided it wasn't safe for him to cut it down.
We had professionals out last Thursday to finish her off.

Our poor tree. We tried so many architectural plans to work around her,
but it just became clear that she had to go. Actually, it's a good thing because
once she was cut down we realized that she was rotting from the center.

Here's the Bobcat in the backyard. He's trying to dig around the root ball
so he can knock it out and remove it. Bye bye tree!

The big coward:
Greta is freaking out about the Bobcat. She's been yelping and moaning in fear ALL morning.
When she saw it in the backyard she went dashing for the Living Room and leaped right onto my sofa (a BIG no-no!). I finally had to crate her because she is so scared. Not that crating her is helping (she's in there moaning and shaking) but she could not be consoled and I'm sick of her trying to sit in my lap while I'm trying to take care of Eli! Total coward. What happened to dogs being tough and cashing mail-men? I think the biggest dog on the block is a big sissy!!!

We look like "junk neighbors"...oh dear oh dear!

Back Home

Hey everyone,

Eric, Eli and I are just back from a weekend in Spokane. The Washington State Republican convention was held in Spokane this year. Eric and a fellow Ron Paul supporter (Merissa) were deligates so we all headed up there for the event and stayed with Eric's family.

While Eric and Merissa were off waging Ron Paul on the republican world, I stayed at Eric's parents' house with Eli and hung out with family. And boy am I glad...I got to witness Eli's very first roll-over. Sadly, Eric walked through the door less than 3 minutes later.

More later -

Shaunna