Home repair+baby = slight chaos

Recently we decided that its been long enough, so its time to get back into more home repair.  As you can see by the pic, Austin was ready to be mommy and daddy's little helper!  Which really meant that we played a fun game over and over again of put the safety glasses on, and then pull them off while giggling.  And then we worked on the renovations during naptime and after bedtime.  The biggest mess is redoing the basement.  But, since its easy to ignore that mess (out of sight, out of mind), the real big mess was putting in the new hardwood floors and french door.  We actually hired someone to do it instead of tackling it ourselves, but still, it meant that for a few days all of our furniture on the first floor was packed into the kitchen and family room.  Not the most baby friendly few days, but Austin was actually pretty good about the mess.  I'm sure we'll have better pictures later, but we are so excited about our new floors.  They make the house feel so much more open and new!


Austin checking out the new (and still dirty at the time) floors!

New french doors to the patio

We also had fun removing the 'jail bars' between the kitchen and living room.  We've talked about it for a while, and finally Mike took a saw to them and removed them in probably less than 15min.  A huge improvement!

Jail bar removal...awesome!

Home projects have kept us a bit busy, and our weekends have been mostly low key at home this month with the exception of a trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Raleigh.  Austin survived the mega-road trip there and back with minimal fussiness.  Surprisingly, my sunglasses fit freakishly well on his head and he had a blast multiple times playing with them instead of playing with a toy!

To get out of the house on winter weekends, we have been doing baby swim classes with friends of ours.  At first Austin wasn't very sure about singing songs and splashing in the water, but every week he seems to have more and more fun.  No pictures yet, but I'm sure we'll have some before classes are over.

I say it every month, but its hard to believe that Austin is almost 1 year old!  He sort of cruises around holding on to various objects now, so it won't be long until he is walking.  Yesterday he had an unusually fussy day of nearly constant crying (which a trip to urgent care concluded it must just be teething).  In a rare moment of playtime in between crying fits, he actually stood up on his own and had this expression of just being so proud of himself.  It was pretty adorable.  Of course, he immediately fell down and then started crying again though...

The crusing and standing has given him access to all sorts of things that we didn't realize we within his reach.  The other day I left the fridge open while I was cooking briefly, and I looked over and he had climbed up into it!  He'll grab anything in his reach, although the whip cream can has been a big hit lately.  At least he hasn't figured out how to squirt it!

We of course did our 11 month photo shoot a few days ago.  Its increasingly difficult to capture smiles and still moments on camera because he's constantly moving around these days.  Here are a few favorites:

It appears that our little buddy is growing up.  His little personality is showing more and more every day.  He laughs when he does something he knows that we don't like (like violently banging his head against the back of his highchair), he whines when we take a choking hazard away from him, he reacts to our laughter with giggles...its all quite amazing. 

I'll leave you with two pictures that are sure to make you smile!

Baby butt disappearing into the bathroom

Our tough guy in his awesome winter hat hitting up the aisles of Target