Phase 2 and 3 of remodel

It's taken us a while, but we are finished with phase 2 and almost done with phase 3 of our bedroom remodel. For phase 2, electrical work, Wes was the mastermind behind all of that. It took him a few weeks, but he had some crazy stuff to work with and figure out, including hidden junction boxes in the wall, climbing in the boiling hot attic more then 20 times, feeding a chord from the attic to the basement, and the worst, dealing with the previous owners "electrical skills" when they remodeled the first time. I am so proud of him for figuring everything out on his own. He is so smart, and I love him. Here's a picture of some of the electrical stuff that Wes put in.

Phase 3 started last saturday with the help of my dad and his trailer. He helped us get the sheetrock that we needed and we've been working on that this whole week. Wes has been working on it every night after he gets home from work. He's such a trooper. Here are a few pictures of his handy work.

Today I decided I wanted to give it a shot, so while Oakley was watching Elmo I finished one whole room all by myself. It was actually fun. I liked it cause it's like a puzzle. I did the whole top half of the drywall. Impressive huh? You can hire me for $100/hr if you want. The two pictures above are the same view. Isn't it fun to see the change?

Here's another view of the work that I did.

Another little mini phase that we had to deal with was the old doorway to the old bedroom. We had to remove it so that the hall didn't have this random doorway in the middle of it. Wes did this the other night and it makes such a difference now. It opens the hall up so much and he didn't even do that much damage. It looks great, as you can see in the pictures above. You can see on the wall and the floor where the old doorway was.

Our goal is to have the sheetrock done by the end of the weekend so we can hire a mudder to come in and mud for us. We decided that after our horrific job mudding in the kitchen that we should just hire that part out so that it looks nice. I think that will save our marriage. ;)

Stay tuned for more phases to come.

Oakley's other language

I had a post a while back with Oakley "talking" to the video camera and you couldn't understand a word he was saying. My friend said it sounded like he was saying stickers stuck in the grass, but who knows what he was talking about. Well, this post was suppose to follow that one, but it took me a while to edit the video enough so that it wouldn't take days to upload it. So here's the post about Oakley's other language.
I think I've mentioned this before, but Oakley and I started watching these "Baby Signing Time" videos that I get from the library when he was about 10 months old. He seemed to like them, but he never really did many of the signs. He would do 'more' and 'please' but that's about it. Well, when we went to California in November all of a sudden he just started doing all the signs that we had been watching. Since then he does almost every sign that's on the movies, which is over 90 signs, and we just keep learning more and more. It has been so nice, because he can tell us what he wants even though he doesn't talk. The ones he uses the most are more, please, bath, eat, drink, all done, grandma, cat, and dog. I made my sister Katy video tape him doing some signs with me "translating" them a while back, so I thought I'd share before he starts talking and not using signs at all. I know some people are worried that their kids won't talk as much or as soon if they learn sign language first, but as you saw from one of my previous posts, I'm not worried about that cause Oakley talks plenty, and at least in sign language I know what he's saying. :)

Big Boy

Yesterday we went to the doctor for Oakley's 18 month appointment. The last time we went she said that he had gained quite a bit of weight and that was unusual. He has always been right above the highest curve on the growth chart, but last time the curve had turned up because of his weight. So, I started being more concious of what food I was feeding him. I'm still not the best, cause I give him cookies and fries and stuff, but I try to throw more fruits and breads in there. Anyway, when we went back yesterday, he was back on track with his weight. He weighed in at a whopping 35 lbs and is 36 1/2 inches tall. He's the size of a regular 3 1/2 year old. I wish I could say that by him being so heavy my arms are way toned, but I rarely carry him now. I just make him walk, unless we're in a hurry of course. Wes brought up the point that usually you can tell how tall someone is going to be by doubling their height at 2 years old, and if that's true, Oakley's already passed 6 feet and he still has five months to go. Sweet!

I didn't have a picture of him at the doctor, but here is one of him wearing one of my shirts. It's pretty cute. I think he'll fit in to it sooner then we think.