Petit Maison: Part 2

After assembling the shell of the house, I quickly sketched out a plan for the house and began to measure out the fenestration. I basically drew them in lightly in pencil for all three sides and then began to cut them out using the x-acto knife. Its important to change your blade after a few cuts because otherwise you will either end up with really messy cuts or loose a finger or both. 

The windows made a big difference to the house, it now looks much lighter and brighter. The next thing I did was to start to adhere colored card stock to the wood for walls to divide up the spaces and give some color to the house. Arielle loves pink and yellow so of course the house is going to be pink inside. We started with these sheets. Basically, once I decided where walls would go and cut them down to size, I glued the card stock to the wood with sobo glue and weighed them down for  a little while to make sure it was smooth and fully sealed, then I would cut out any openings in the walls. 

At this point, I was ready to start gluing the whole thing together, so I removed the tape and glued the exterior walls together and then glued them to the sides of the bottom floor. The I glued the interior walls to the both the floor and the exterior wall which gave the house some structure and rigidity.

I thought it was looking pretty good, but of course Arielle wants to know where all the furniture is and why its taking so long to do..I guess I could have just purchased the three story barbie house!

8 Weeks Old

Why am I wearing this headband?..I'm a baby!

And now I can smile..

As the time goes by, I am reminded everyday of how lovely innocence can be; the world is blossoming around her everyday and as she learns and responds to all that surrounds her, she brings light to our lives. At 8 weeks, Evallie is really cool to be around, she recognizes us and spends time scanning around to see what we are doing. You can "talk" to her and she responds with a very enthusiastic wiggle of her entire body, a smile and sometimes even a sounds. Its an exciting time for her as well, she spent the last few days discovering her hands..and fighting everyone uncoordinated bone in her little body to get it into her mouth and keep it there. I don't know what she weighs yet but I do know we do not wear nb sized clothing anymore and we're deep into our box of size 1 diapers. 

Her schedule is actually becoming just that..she is pretty good with what time she sleeps and wakes and eats..she's still a very quick eater so my awake time at night is very limited if any. Half the time she sleeps from 12-6am and the other half she will wake up at 3am for a quick feed and change depending on what time she went to sleep. 

We're fully out of the fragile newborn phase and into the chubby baby stage, she can hold her head up pretty well so I carry her around in the Bjorn or the Moby Wrap and she loves it. As far as tummy time, she isn't a fan..she could do without it but I realized the other day that Arielle was rolling over by now so I've really go to get her down on the floor more often. I take responsibility because, when Arie was young we had carpet which we have replace with hardwood so laying on the floor isn't as inviting to me, it can be hard on my old bones! In the last few weeks she's met a few more family members, been to the park many times, been out to dinner, been on a train, in the city, on the beach...

Anyway, I decided to stay home with her, the semester has begun and I turned down the courses I was scheduled to teach, I am looking forward the next three months I have and really want to make the best of the time I have with her. Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff. 

and sometimes I even laugh..

I watch my sister do funny things..

She's really silly..

Coney Island Beach

Labor day weekend is usually the weekend everyone goes away but we did the weekend before and stayed home for Labor day. So we decided to take some local day trips hoping that the city would be empty and we could squeeze in a few more days of summer. We went to Coney Island beach which was kind of an adventure for us because although my husband is from Brooklyn, he hadn't been to this beach since he was a child. Coney Island is kind of an icon but doesn't boast of the best (cleanest) beach. But for our purposes, it was perfect that day. I was just looking for a relaxing afternoon, the cool breeze, smells of the ocean and sounds of the waves while Arielle wanted to play in sand (which she wants to do everyday!) It was nice to see I wasn't the only one dragging a Bugaboo down the sand, I needed to because my little Evie was sleeping the whole time although every time she got hit with a cool breeze she gasped and cooed! It was very cute. It looks like we are getting better at balancing outings with the two kids..we are still not able to leave the house as quickly as we'd like but at least we leave the house...showered..and looking somewhat decent. 

Brit in the City

My auntie and cousin Brittany visited from Florida last week and although we spent most of the week swooning over the babies at home (Evalie and my sisters son), we did get a chance to get out a bit. Our outings were a compromise between what she likes to do, where I could handle going with two kids (and all that involves) and shopping which we all love! We went to Garden state plaza mall one day which was ok, we went to dinner a few times and on their last day here, we took the train into Penn Station and spent the day in the city. It was kind of like a real New York experience except we skipped the subway and walked mostly and we spent a fair amount of time in "The Macy's"..a nine floor mega department store. We ate at Chef Yu which everyone liked and then had some street meat after our shopping marathon. It was really nice to see them since we rarely see them for some reason. Basically, we see each other at weddings and funerals (luckily we haven't had many of those!) Its actually like that with most of my family, they live all over from Manchester and Leicester in the UK, Lagos, Virginia, Ontario, in total, I have 17 cousins and even though years pass in between our visits, when we do get together we have a blast...miss you all!