Sept 2011 Titus and Isabele Kayaking (in the rain)

Titus is 4 1/2 and Isabele is almost 3. Titus had been out a couple times on his own in front of my parents. He's pretty capable of getting his kayak where he wants it to go. This was Isabele's first time all on her own. She had been out once before with me holding onto the rope at the front. Both had been out several times sitting on my lap or Brian's lap, so they aren't totally inexperienced...

Isabele and Titus September 2011

Basement torn up but with stud walls in

Wall down the center beam of the house - the closer side is the utility and walk-way. The far side is our new bedroom.

Utility area.

Hall/Utility area.

Corner under the steps - closet that was there we torn out.

The drywall is one side of our new closet!

The closet from outside of it - nice and big, with a window!!

Isabele Pants

The latest pair of pants I made for Isabele. And Titus is being the big brother. Cute pattern, rather easy - still loving the book they came from Sewing Clothes Kids Love.

Reading

The wonderful world of literacy is slowly dawning on Titus.  He spontaneously read "keep" (a word we have not read) off of Brian's t-shirt at breakfast the other day.  Also - I found a series of books "Bob" books for teaching reading.  I love these!  Titus loves them.  It is not a fight to get him to sit down and read the few pages.  Then he usually reads the book several more times alone or even to Brian. 

What?

Titus found the brie cheese in the fridge and was eating it with crackers.  Isabele showed up with apples.  So, Titus tried the apples in the cheese, and said to Isabele, "it fills my tummy with joy".  (and no, I don't have the slightest idea where he came up with that)

Do we need to say anything else?

Re-doing the Basement

A work in progress, but by the end of next weekend, we are hoping to have a new bedroom and radiant floor heat installed and working.  All the tear-down in the basement proper is finished, and Brian is putting up the main wall along the support beam for the house.  Tomorrow should finish off the secondary wall and our closet.  Then it will be time to tear down the ceilings in the existing bedrooms so we can run the heat tubing in those areas (for the living room).  We put up the tubing for the dining room today.  It went very well. 
I think I may do the cleaning/washing of some of the outer wall brick this evening after the kids are asleep.  Tomorrow I have to work on getting all of the torn down drywall in acceptable form/containers for the trash men to take on Tuesday.  I also have to take some pictures, just to prove we really did what we are doing.