Orange You Glad?

Really, aren't you glad you'll get to sit in this warm, bright dining room when you come visit? It's called "sweet carrot" and it looks a bit brighter on my screen than it does in the house, but you get the idea. It was a little scary when we opened the can, but we think we like it. :)

We thought we were well into the final phases of this project (well, the final pre-move-in phases...there will still be lots of big and little projects when we're in). We weren't planning to do anything except paint the kitchen and the bathroom. I mean, look at this room! It's perfectly functional, albeit a little outdated. If you're my size your knees don't even touch the vanity when you sit on the toilet!

But we found some unexpected things in that bathroom, and this is what it looks like now.

Before

and after.








We'll give you a good deal on these if you'll pick them up.

The front door. I'm going to go ahead and say it's not the original 1888 model. And yes, that is wood-grained contact paper covering the windows--tacky (in more ways than one).

The beadboard on the bottom of the kitchen will be one of the 18,000 hues of white that the paint companies allow you to choose from. The top will be purple("grapevine"). Yes, we are nervous about this.

90th Percentile

This guy has a huge noggin (not surprising when you measure the heads of both his parents). Yep, that's right. Cannon is in the 90th percentile for head circumference (of course, that means his brain is big :). He had his 6 month check-up this week! Insanity--where did 6 months go? He is weighing in at 17.5 pounds and is 26.5 inches long these days (both 50th percentile, if you're into comparisons). He's been a little sick and sleeping lots during the day (not so much at night....).

We had to scrape four or five inches of snow off the car that morning before we could head out, by the way, and when we came home (after dropping Timothy off to continue work on the house) Cannon and I could not get the car up the driveway (he really wasn't much help at all--refused to get out and push, wouldn't sit in the driver's seat and steer...) because it was so slick. We had to park at the bottom and make the chilly trek up the hill. I guess we've learned that October really is not too early to put on the snow tires, and we are in the market for an all-wheel drive car once again. :)

Meanwhile, Timothy and a couple of guys he hired are making huge progress on the house. The drywall is up and mudded, and the wall texturing has begun. We are working on picking out paint colors (the fun part!) and trying to keep ourselves from living in Rainbow Bright-land. We're trying to talk ourselves into a muted shade for at least one room, and we've agreed that at least the ceilings will be white. :)

Swimmin'

We think Cannon shows incredible promise as a future swimmer. You can seen from the photo that his technique is impeccable--and he hasn't even been in the pool yet! Do you see the determination and drive on his face? We'll never hold him back! We (seriously) have every intention of taking him to swimming lessons very soon.

..

While he is swimming in the leaves, Timothy is swimming in toxic dust. We bought a house! It's a wonderful little old house on a tiny lot in this small town of Leadville. Lots in Leadville are all former mining claims, so they're uniformly small and the houses are squished together. Our house was built in 1888 and has lots of charm--cool old hardware, beautiful doors, wood floors, high ceilings. We could have moved right in, but instead decided to upgrade a thing or two. We're tearing out the paneled plaster walls (and about a half inch thickness of wallpaper) and we took down the drop ceiling. We even found a huge window under some of that paneling! With all that plaster dust in the carpet (and a baby about to crawl), we had to tear out the carpet as well. We're hoping to get new drywall up next week and put some insulation in the walls (there wasn't any!), restore some of the wood floors, and then move in. The walls will be painted soon, and eventually we'll strip the original trim of it's paint and restore it as well. I am itching to be able to help more, but we want to keep Cannon and his lungs away from the dust. If anyone out there wants to come babysit so I can work on the house, please do! Or if anyone wants to do fun house projects, come on over! We're also planning a Thanksgiving weekend feast, and you're invited. Actually, you're invited anytime--we live in a beautiful place and we love visitors!

..

Last but not least, we found out last night that Cannon can eat the heck out of some prunes. Who couldn't?

Fallin' in Love

I'm hungry! Can't you see I'm wasting away here?
And I'll use the spoon myself, thank you.

Just kidding. I'll throw it on the floor. Rice cereal is delicious, but what I REALLY love is paper. Receipts, lists, resumes... you name it, I'll take a bite out of it.

Most days I help my Mom and Dad at work in the Outward Bound Warehouse. Today I was guarding some sleeping bags for them.

And sometimes I help them in the office.

Fall is Colorado is SO BEAUTIFUL!! We are lovin' it. Montana still wins as the place I (okay, this is Molly now) love most, but Colorado takes the cake for beauty in the fall. The pictures of the aspens were taken on our way to the doctor's office in Vail for some shots the other day. The sunset is above Mt. Massive. Those pictures were taken on the road we live on.