Horton Point Lighthouse

My ancestors, the Horton's, came to Long Island and we have a lighthouse named for us! The Lighthouse and my ancestor's graves are near where my in laws live, and when we were there for Christmas we visited the Lighthouse with Jon's brother Andrew and his wife Sally. I enjoyed showing them the lighthouse, they had never seen it before and their parents live about 5 minutes away! The lighthouse was actually starting to turn on too.

Sally and Andrew


yes, we walked down all these steps...it took me 3 times as long as everyone else to make it back up.

Jon and I- but mostly of the sun set...sorry Sally I didn't tell you how to avoid this major shadow!

hesitant...

Well i haven't really wanted to post pictures of my pregnancy this time around because I am large- and only getting bigger in the 10 weeks I have left! Hardly any clothes fit me still, and I am still not used to the actual space I take up when walking past things or people (oops! Sorry random man in the grocery store!) But...here we go- a distance shot, and then I included the one I was trying to get Caed to take of me- he's usually pretty good, but I was trying to get him to take a vertical picture and that's a little harder for a 2 1/2 year old...me today, at 30 weeks carrying two little ones. Tomorrow I'll have more stats- I go for another ultrasound...

I'll have more to post soon of other stuff...

Catching up...

I took this picture the other day- inspired by a friend of mine photo I saw a long time ago. I was assuming you could tell it was my belly from my point of view- but maybe it's not that obvious. Belly has become official remote holder, coffee cup rest-er, and excuse to sit my bottom down every time I can.


These photos always load backwards unless I remember to upload them backwards from my files. These 2 photos are of most of what's left for needing to be put away. So proud of us. Still lots of organizing to do- but most of it's actually back downstairs, the largest hurdle..(love my new flash!!)

Bathroom, taken for the glass doors- thanks to the advice my friends and family gave me! I still need to purchase the One Step Ahead cushion thing that will help with bathing kids and dog over the door track. (oh thought I had another photo of it here, guess not- another day)

Look at that dust! It's horrible I tell you, and as of today, it's still there!! (I know, I just can't seem to work up the energy to wipe it off myself. I'll be calling a cleaning service as soon as the back room is fixed)

Here we go with the cabinets. Still organizing, that's why it looks to be a mess. At this stage we were trying to decide if we could put pot lids in that open space in front of the heater. We didn't do it and the heater actually has a nice cover for it, that you can't see because it's over to the side (the pot lids are on it below)

And mom, here are the pantry doors! No pictures of the system yet though, we were/ are trying to get that settled out still.

Looking into the half bath (no mirror yet, although I think Jon just hung it up right now)

Sink/ Pantry

Back room- love the green!

Home Update 1

Christmas in NY went well- and New Years celebrations home here were good too. Every morning we woke up in NY, Caed asked to check out his stocking.

We've been awaiting the finishing of the kitchen and bathroom renovations. They mostly finished this past week, hooking up our kitchen sink and dishwasher on Wednesday. They have a project still left, and that's fixing the non working radiant heating on the back floor. They've tried to fix it without having to break up the back floor, but I think we may be closer to that solution...blah. Everything looks great around here though and we're looking forward to having places for everything. We're mostly out of room in the kitchen and may be looking at storage in the back room, even though we were hoping to avoid that.

Here are some pictures. I looked on my computer for the pictures when we looked at the house before we moved in, they aren't here, so we must have saved them to a disc. I'll need to find those to compare.

Bathroom before the renovations- no, that's not brown paint it's the glue that we couldn't get off the wall behind the REALLY old wallpaper. We lived with it like that since we moved in!!:





Half Bath after it's completion (we are waiting for a mirror still):


This isn't a great picture- I am using the new flash Jon gave me for Christmas and I am still getting used to it- so a bad shot- but mostly looking at the fact that there's no more door frame in between the kitchen and back room, which opens that doorway up a little more. And a picture of the porcelain tile we had put down for flooring.


It's messy around here in waves- between washing dusty dishes and finding places for everything.. shot of the sink:


from the dining area...

Happy Birthday Auntie Kik!

Today is my oldest sister Kristen's birthday!! Happy Birthday Kik, wish we were with you today! Have a GREAT day!

(i would do a video except I don't know where my video camera is in all this mess!)

lots of improvements

Caed's been feeling better, so that's a huge improvement! He was able to go to his last class, and boy was he happy! There was a pizza party, and Santa showed up too! We'll miss going to school over the next month, but I think we'll be busy enough to keep us distracted...!

The kitchen is waiting small improvements, but mostly the cabinets at this point. They come in tomorrow! I've been a little uncertain to keep the kitchen color or not, it was a little more yellow then the "tan-ish" green ('dried palm' even sounds brown in color, doesn't it?) I thought I was getting. But I think we're going to stick with it- especially since cabinets will be covering it mostly. I think it's a cheery color....The appliances all come in on Friday! What a good week for the kitchen!

The upstairs bathroom is done- and we are thrilled to be showering in the new shower! Putting the seemingly huge sink and cabinet were at first a regret- but it's really going to help store a ton of stuff upstairs- and it's not much bigger then the previous cabinet, it was just a shock from having it empty to full again.

We got a tree this past weekend and put out a limited amount of decorations. Caed is really excited for Christmas this year, and it's a lot of fun. I am glad we put up a tree despite the really crazy house right now!

They started demolition on our little half bath. They had to brick in our nice built in nook, and by the time they did that and then finished off the side inside the bathroom it's a lot less deep then it was. Here's looking from the hole in the bathroom to the back room. This was the original outside wall of the house, so this used to be a window. It still is in some houses in our neighborhood too.

The kitchen, you can't really tell the color from these pics though, i need to attempt it again..new heater they will box in...

upstairs bathroom- and we're putting in glass doors, we've got to wait for the tub refinishers to come before the doors are installed though...

I LOVE this sink!! it's still crowded in there, but it's suitable...and it does feel spa like, except for the size...

Built in shampoo shelves- they are going to add glass shelves in the nook too:

Better view of the floor:

feeling better

Caed's doing better although a fever seems to be spotting here and there. I think he's making his way through. So mentally I'm doing better too. It's amazing how much better Caed acts when his temperature is normal! But it's just been such a weird thing. And being in the middle of it has been somewhat cloudy as to how to cope! I think we're getting back on track. Jon's promised a Christmas Tree this weekend and some lights around the house...words of encouragement that came to me were so helpful too. I was very thankful to be encouraged....

The house is coming along, and the shower is nearly done!! We'll be able to shower tonight at home!! We're making a last minute decision as to a shower curtain or doors, and I think although it's not as accessible, we'll be switching to doors...once I take some new pics you can see how nice the tile came out and I think glass doors will make the room appear bigger then it's small self...I love the bathroom sink too. oh it's nice. They want to start on the half bath so they're working quickly to finish the full bath...

alright on to more work...Nana and Coco's Christmas photo, and my neighbor's photo of her kid too. Just for fun!

blahh

Ever feel just bogged down for no good one reason, just lots of little things? I feel that way tonight. Caed's been fighting a fever since the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was about the 104 mark, but more recently it hovered around 101. This morning was his first 24 hours without a fever. I felt great. And it's good news too because tomorrow morning I teach in Caed's classroom and I was worried what would happen if he had a fever again.

Tonight though, Caed started getting REALLY needy. And if you're trying to get a dinner prepared (having to ascend and descend all levels of the house to complete it at this stage) and you're pregnant and then you have a two year old needing you to skip every "commercial" (he watches Noggin, which has no real commercials) and every scene on the TV that he doesn't like in the basement, you start to wonder what's up. So I took his temperature tonight and it's back at 103. On Sunday morning it was 103 and we gave him a bath instead of medicine, and his temperature went down on it's own. So tonight, as usual we were running late and cannot seem to get done with dinner before 8pm, we then bathed him about 8:45, and about 15 minutes after the bath, his temp was down to 100 already. So happy he's responding to a bath instead of continually pumping him with meds- but I can't help but feel overwhelmed and wondering what would be causing such fluctuations in his fevers.

I'm still planning to teach tomorrow and bring Caed, but I might be thinking about giving him Motrin before we leave. I can't say that I'm not stressed about this though.

The dog's been walking on three legs since I came home at one this afternoon. Can't figure out why, and Jon and I have both checked out his paw and leg.

I've got an 8am ultrasound on Wednesday and then I'm in the classroom again on Thursday.

Our house is torn apart, but I honestly am not stressed about that. I feel like that's the blessing in it all. I feel really grateful that we can have this work done and our house will be a much happier place.

I know there are bigger things being dealt with by my friends and family, but I can't shake this feeling of being bogged down. Since we've been trapped inside our house because of Caed's fever, I don't feel like I am experiencing anything from this holiday season. And I know it doesn't have to be commercialism, but I wasn't able to go to my mom's group for the little Christmas party they had, I'm not sure I'll get to the outreach opportunity this week either. I can't bake anything holiday related. I just feel out of touch with the community around me.

Progress

Here are the updates, so exciting!! And you can see our new doggie, "Rado" for Colorado in the first photo...

Back wall in our back room. We're leaving it exposed brick.

The bathroom! We love the tile!! (and love the rock stripe!)

The Skylight:

Cold

We returned home from nice warm Myrtle Beach yesterday night. Our house was cold when we came in. Turns out the furnace has to stay off for a couple of days! Ohh it's chilly! I was thinking I would leave to Heather's house, but I can't imagine hopping in a car again after sitting through yesterday's traffic. So we've got space heater's that helped with last night. We need another for the basement where spend most of our time these days.

Maybe the chilliness is good for Caed's fever?