Holiday Time!

Christmas has already come and gone, and we are in that delightful time between Christmas and the New Year. Our Christmas was quiet this year, as we did all of our traveling during Thanksgiving. It is very cold here today with wind chills down to -1 F. Here's a picture of our beautiful tree (with Max).

Fionna's first tooth is visible today (bottom left-central incisor). Fionna enjoyed her very first Christmas - she got lots of gifts from generous friends and relatives. She loves holding books and at least looking at the pictures.






Nate and I have had some time off so we have been tackling little projects around the house and finishing those unfinished projects. For Christmas, Nate made me a spice-rack addition to the pantry. This is great because for those of you who have been to my house and tried unsuccessfully to find spices - worry no more! My spices are now visible and alphabetized - from allspice to vanilla extract! He also made me some cabinets dividers to organize my cookie sheets, cutting boards, trays, etc. Now, my kitchen is more organized which makes me more happy!

Pantry-tastic!

After we recovered from a Thanksgiving adventure to New England, we have slowly gotten back to working around the house. One thing that I have wanted is some more pantry space to store small appliances and canned goods. There were some shelves and peg board on the way down the cellar stairs, but it was kind of dark and gross down there and there wasn't enough storage. Its really the perfect place to store winter veggies like potatoes, carrots and beets because it stays pretty cool. Nate installed two new lights and we put up a new wooden shelf along the top of the foundation wall on the way down the stairs, and then put up new wire shelves. Here's a picture of me working on it.
I painted everything with porch paint so it would look brighter and clean up more easily. Nate also built me a great canned-goods shelf which holds a lot of stuff. We covered all the exposed insulation with more pegboard. You'll also notice the awesome veggie bins on the bottom shelf - those were just two cheap plastic bins that we cut the front of and then melted the plastic a bit so it wouldn't be sharp. Now I can just reach in and grab a beet or two! Now we have room for things like the dehydrator and I have plenty of room for my winter CSA veggies and lots of cans of salsa and apple sauce. I even have room for paper goods and cleaning supplies. It looks so much cleaner and more organized down there now, its great.

Fionna and the Mobile

Yes, its bees awhile since we've posted. But we've got a good excuse - really! Our lovely daughter has been keeping us busy. Nate has still found some time to work on finishing up some projects around the house - more on that later.
Fionna is 2 months olds now, its hard to believe. She's really starting to notice things now. And she smiles and laughs. She seems to be a mostly happy baby. She likes to listen to the "Coffee House" channel on XM which is this acoustic/folk music channel. She sleeps for ~ 6 hours a night before waking up and wanting to be fed - which is great. She is a great sleeper, at least right now. She really likes sleeping in her "doughnut" which is what we call this breast-feeding pillow thing. She digs it!
Over labor day weekend, we took Fionna and the dogs up to Lake Placid. Fionna did really well traveling. She still slept and ate well and we were able to take her on a gondola ride up Whiteface! Her first mountain!


Last week, Nate bought her a mobile for above her crib - she really seems to like it. I took a video - check it out!

More Fionna

Well, its just Fionna and me today. Nate is at work and the parents have left (thanks for all the help!). I'm hoping for a relaxing day, maybe I'll be able to take a nap or get outside for a little while and play with the dogs. It looks like it will be a beautiful day. I thought I'd post a few more pictures from last week - our little girl is just so cute. She's sleeping right now, so I'm actually able to sit down at the computer for a little while!

Fionna Aline Woody

We're a little busy so just a short update with some pictures. Everybody is fine and learning how to deal with each other!

Stawberries Galore

Well, as summer finally gets underway, its time to talk about the garden. First, our strawberries that we planted and then transplanted into the front garden last year have been producing like mad! We've gotten an abundance of the sweetest, most delicious fresh strawberries this year. I honestly thought that I'd be able to eat them all, but it turns out I really couldn't keep up. So I've been freezing the leftovers which I'm sure will be excellent come this winter.

The peas are also coming along, I planted sugar snap and shelling type peas. I figured that I'd be able to store the shelled peas to make baby food this winter. That's the plan anyway. The onions and lettuce are doing great, not surprising given the amount of rain and cooler weather we've been having. Even still, the tomatoes are getting tall and I even have some cherry tomatoes set on as well as some "New Girls" - the earliest of the new hybrids. The corn is starting to come up and even my green beans have begun. The only casualty so far is the green peppers - the one's I started from seed were eaten by slugs! Oh well, I bought some green bells from Lowe's and we'll see if they survive.

Nate put landscape fabric down in the planting area and boards to mark off the walking area. It has been working out really well. No weeding!

Bat in a Box

Our extended family paid another visit last week. We are slowly becoming more efficient at capturing and releasing the little buggers. Julie didn't even have to knock the bat, herself, or me unconscious catching this little guy. I've been working in the upstairs hallway with the attic door open a lot, so I assume he snuck in there at some point. He (or she) came swooping out of the bathroom as we came up for bed.
I took some time to play with my new pond last weekend and it's fully functional now. We migrated all of the fish into the new pond and I got rocks around about half of the pond. The skimmer, filter, and waterfall weir are all working, if not completely hidden. The fish seem happy and it's really nice to be able to sit on the lower deck and look out at the fish!
Progress is slow on the hallway, It's still all hand nailed, and I've got two more entrances taken care of. I've gotten the first diamond in, and two of the miter corners are all set. So all of the components are in, at long last.