A January Christmas (Part 1)

We had a visit from Sarah when she came up from Portland for an interview. Her and Aiden read books and shared breakfast together. We also had a delicious dinner at Russell's before she headed back to Portland and we flew to Indiana. 

Because of hectic work schedules and plane ticket prices we made our annual Christmas trip to Indiana at the end of January.

Meme made Aiden a reindeer pancake for "Christmas" breakfast. He kept eating the blueberry eyes and asking for more to replace them.

After breakfast we opened presents. Aiden worked on piecing together his new Mr. Potato Head, but he really liked storing the pieces inside.

 

We had friends over for the last Colts game of the season. Don't be fooled by our smiles, we were crying on the inside. Luckily we had lots of fun people around to distract from the pain. Dzia Dzia and Aiden enjoyed some quality time together in the ball pit.

We ate very well during our visit, pancakes for breakfast, Mug N' Bun for lunch and Italian for dinner at a little place in Salem Indiana (not all in the same day of course).

Dzia Dzia and Aiden enjoying their morning coffee and watching the laundry spin...

 Playtime with Meme and Dzia Dzia. He loved telling Dzia Dzia how to drive the train and "loading up cargo".

 We went to the Indianapolis Zoo on our last day with my parents before having lunch at Shapiro's. It was a surprising 50 degrees and sunny, plus the zoo has lots of indoor exhibits. It was great to only share the zoo with a handful of other families. A very wonderful experience!

 

New Years and Beyond

I was lucky enough to work from home between Christmas and New Years. I gained almost 2 hours back in my day and it was so refreshing. I felt like I had energy to accomplish other things in my day!

I built this helping tower for Aiden. The platform is removable so as he grows we can slide it down to the lower rungs that he currently uses to climb up. I'd seen several of these on Pinterest and all I could think is "where would that sit in my house all the time?" But when Andrew found these plans with a collapsible option I was convinced (We have to make the most of our 1600 sq ft). 

 

 

Aiden has been doing a lot of shopping with his grocery cart from Great Granny!

Over the weekend, we took a rainy walk to the park together before heading to get dinner at Blazing Bagels.

I've had lots of time to try out new recipes from my Skinny Taste cookbook! Shrimp and Grit, Fettuccine Broccoli and Mongolian Beef are 3 of about 9 recipes I've tried so far. Since we have an eighth of a cow in our freezer I started with all the beef recipes first. 

Aiden has had a bit of a cough and hadn't seemed 100% lately, sleeping a lot and eating a little, then sure enough he woke up with a fever today. Since we'll be traveling on Saturday we didn't want to waste and went straight to the doctor this morning to be sure we weren't dealing with anything that he wouldn't get over on his own. Turns out it's an ear infection. Luckily he'll have a few days to recover before getting on a plane (...and I am using nap time to catch up on the blog).

With my new camera from Christmas I can do video now!

"Where's W!?" I'm almost certain he doesn't actually know what W looks like.

So Over That Futon

I have been over this futon in our loft for a while now, but without a good solution for replacing it I haven't done anything about it. I'd been tossing around all kind of options from rearranging the desk space making room for a permanent bed to expanding the loft into the extra 6 feet of attic space in the garage. Andrew was strongly against any desk relocation since his current setup is ideal for seeing the TV and expansion is a major renovation I'm not interested in right now. Instead I decided a murphy bed would be a better solution for the space the futon is currently in. We could use a real mattress, it would be hidden away from the cats when not in use (otherwise it just becomes their bed) and it would take up less space than the unused futon, so Friday after New Years I started making a plan. I based my plans on this wall bed plan sold online. I made some minor adjustments to accommodate our space limitations.  

We took apart the futon. Aiden thought the mattress made a fun trampoline in the living room for the week. I assembled the box on the first night.

The second night I cut, sanded and attached the shelves.

After looking at some different versions of completed plans, I saw one that stood out and had a much more finished look. So when I picked up the plywood I also got wainscoting panels for the front-facing side of the mattress platform. I glued the paneling to the plywood so when I cut my 2 platform pieces the edges would be perfectly aligned. Then I screwed the platform the the back of the shelves.

Once the bed and the box were done I added latches to hold the bed/shelves in place. It's nearly done!

 I added replaceable notches in the mattress platform so that when the bed is down it can slide back into the box against the wall. This saved crucial inches in our narrow loft space. I made the cuts align with the grooves in the paneling to keep them as inconspicuous as possible.

 Then "we" painted the entire thing. Most of the lumber I bought was already primed so painting went quickly. I ended up doing 2 coats of the trim paint we've used throughout the house.

  The final product... We're going to get a real mattress so for now the futon mattress is a placeholder. I love this so much more than the futon!