T-ball and the return of Old Mr. Jim

Luke started T-ball this week. They have practices every Thursday night and Saturday afternoon. He was frustrated after the first practice because they didn't do any batting, but I explained to him that the coach had to rush over from his work and couldn't stop to get his equipment. Also that there is more to baseball than batting. I think he understood and today he got to bat so all was well again.

Here are a few pictures. I'm not positive, but it seems to me that the ages range from about 4 to maybe 8 or 9. The 4-year-olds don't really have a clue. Luke has a red glove in this picture.


Here they're playing "fox and rabbit," a game to help them learn how tag out a runner. Luke is the fox.


And here he's the rabbit.



Today they played catch with a partner for the first time. It was pretty funny because only 1 or 2 can really throw yet and none of them can catch. They were supposed to say something to help them remember how to throw properly, but I don't think many of them remembered what to say, much less how to throw. I guess we can work on it in the back yard during school breaks. In the next picture Luke is bending down to catch.


And in this one he is just releasing the ball. Funny enough, he throws right handed. However, I noticed that they had him batting left. Maybe he can switch hit. I guess he's opposite of my dad - writes left and plays sports right.


I forgot to take pictures of the big lumber piles in the backyard. They were delivered from The Home Depot earlier this week (Monday? Tuesday?) and Alec had to move everything from the curb outside the fence a few over into the backyard, a tedious job that took most of one day. The first picture is a whole pile of 2x8s? 10s? Not sure exactly - big, long boards.


This pile is plywood. I know what that is.


Yesterday Old Mr. Jim came back to help finish up the brick laying stuff. Remember him? He got up on the scaffold again to help with the last course.


Alec also finished knocking out the bricks for the doorway between the 2 stalls. There used to be a window there.


Now he's bolting the first boards to the brick. I think he'll be finished with that tonight.


Here are some pictures I took from Erin's bedroom window so you could see a bird's eye view.

One more step back

When Alec was removing the old garage roof, he noticed that the cinder blocks were very old and not put together properly. Properly meaning that they were held together by mortar (which by this time is very old and crumbly) but not filled or reinforced. When he built the new portion he put re-bar every few feet and filled the blocks with cement. No such stuff on the old part. Anchoring the new roof to a block would be only that - one block and a perhaps wobbly block at that.

So the past few days he has been mixing cement, climbing ladders & scaffolding, and pouring cement down into the blocks. The blocks are so old that their openings are much smaller than new blocks and he had to improvise a funnel - cut the tip off an old caution cone and turned it upside down. It works.

He's been pretty sore and tired at night lately.


At least the weather has been nice.


Meanwhile, Erin finds more places to "rest" with her multitudes of blankets and animals.


And Luke has been playing with a new Lego set that Aunt Pat sent for his birthday along with Erin's present. I think he has built, torn apart, and rebuilt the set about 5 times in the past 2 days.

No more roof

Here are some more pictures of the garage de-roofing that happened this weekend.

First, Alec cut the roof with his circular saw. I think he was cutting next to all the 2x4s, but I was trying not to watch so I'm not sure.


Every now and then I saw him kick out a piece so he had something to hold onto.


Here's the shed, packed to the gills now. Which was what it was built for in the first place.



And here's the inside of the POD. See the Model A headlight? It's at the left corner of that window, under that board leaning up against the car.


Here's the garage with almost all of the roof gone. Only the front needs to come down but the siding is asbestos so Alec has to be careful ripping it off.


That's the roof. Or what used to be the roof.


And a aerial view.


Last night I had to go out to the big freezer for something. It was weird to open the door, walk into a building, and still feel like I was outside.

Developments

Very quickly, here's a recap and a bunch of pictures of some recent developments around here.

#1) Luke's robe

I finally finished Luke's new robe. The old one was way too small and he wears it all the time. He picked out a pattern and fabric he liked then waited patiently for each to go on sale at the fabric store - took a while! I made it for him last week finally - hadn't really felt well enough to cut and sew fabric for a couple months.

He's pretty proud of it and loves how long it is. I like how long it is too since it means I won't have to make another for him for several years!


Erin felt the need to join in. See brother's "I'll humor her but only for a minute" look.


#2) Baby growth

I find it amazing how much a baby can grow and develop in just one short month. Here's the first sonogram we had on February 4:


Doesn't look like much, does it? Here's the latest from March 8:

I realize these things can be hard to see but basically the first picture is the baby's side view, the second is his/her legs (they are crossed), and the third is an arm & hand/fist (kind of looks like a wave). Since I will be 35 at delivery and am high risk because of the diabetes they did measurements and blood tests for physical deformities. Results came back yesterday: risk for Down's is 1 in over 800, risk for trisomy 18 is 1 in 10,000, heart looks fine, size is a little bigger than normal but not enough to change the due date. Sounds good to me.

#3) Garage

Alec ordered a "PODS" to be delivered on Thursday. He has it for 3 weeks and has pretty much emptied out the garage into it and the shed by now. The next step is to tear off the old roof and then put a new one on over the old and new parts of the garage together. Progress.

It was pretty nifty to watch how these things are delivered. They come on a big truck and the storage container itself has a kind of wheeled frame around it. They call it a POD-zilla. The little wheels are lowered to the ground and then the truck slowly pulls forward:



After the truck is cleared of the container, the container is lowered slowly to the ground.


Then the POD-zilla is raised enough to clear the top of the container and driven back to the truck:



Neat, huh? Alec got the biggest container he could so he could put the Model A in it. That was a feat of strength in itself. It was pouring rain to start with. He had to put a small ramp over the edge of the container. Then I got in to steer, which was impossible because it was packed to the gills with stuff. He pushed and pushed and pushed (because it isn't running) and it finally went over the edge. Then it had to go up onto a board for some extra stabilization since it's so heavy. I'll put up some more pictures later so you can see how full the container is now.

#4) Quilting

I have a whole bunch of projects that have been sitting around for a while. Maybe it's early nesting, but I've been trying to finish them up lately. The first had a deadline - a birthday quilt for the "Wrapped in Hope" project my friend Carin runs for kids who have an incarcerated parent. I chose a little girl with the same birthday as Erin so I wouldn't forget. And of course I forgot until about a month ago. Providentially I had an almost finished quilt that pretty much fit the description for this little girl. The list of interests and colors said "green, pink, dress-up, make-up, jewelry" - there isn't any jewelry or dress-up but do you think this would fit the color scheme?



Here's a shot of the back. Erin wanted to be in the picture, too since I was using her bed.


The next quilt to finish is one for Mom's cousin Linda - a zig-zag made out of mostly scraps. I initially made it to be lap sized but it needs to be 60x80 so I'm adding a whole bunch of borders out of all the leftover pieces. I think it looks pretty cool.

I'm also working on a Christmas stocking for the baby since it will already be 3 months old at Christmas. With the other kids I had almost the whole year to work on it after they were born, but now I have to work ahead. It's fun quick work at night while I put my feet up.

And of course there are always various baby blankets I'm working on for the approximately 57 other people at church who are also expecting. Well, that's a little exaggeration but it seems there's a new announcement every other week.

#5) Erin

My baby girl turned 4 yesterday! We've kind of been celebrating a little bit all week. On Tuesday we had some friends over for supper. It was Shrove Tuesday so we had the traditional pancakes. After supper we sang Happy Birthday and had cake. Not exactly the most nutritious meal, I guess, but exceptions can be made for special occasions, right?



On Thursday Luke and I made brownies and brought them to Erin's school to share with her classmates. The birthday person always gets to wear a little crown and be the leader that day. They light a little candle and sing too.



And yesterday morning we opened presents. Quite a haul.


Two were for Luke since Aunt Kelly sent his presents now - the best present ever for him. A spy gadget set & "night vision" goggles. He's been playing with them non-stop and even wore them to Target yesterday (where he promptly felt goofy & embarrassed for wearing them in public). He's been having fun setting up the motion detector in hidden places and then hearing it when we walk past.


Erin got some new furniture for her doll house and a whole bunch of new clothes. Good thing since she doesn't need more toys but she will definitely be too big for a lot of her clothes this spring and summer.




Well, that was longer than I anticipated but it's been a long time coming I guess. Probably next up will be pictures of the garage and maybe a new bunk bed in Luke's room. Time to get the 4-year-old out of the crib, don't you think?

Done, for now

Here's the last batch of garage pictures for now. I don't know what Alec's time table for putting the roof on is - may be a while before we see that happen.

This first group is of Alec chipping out bricks from the existing garage to tooth in the new part. Very dusty, loud work.




Here are a few of the kids indoors after their bath that night. We have been eating late to let Alec get more done outside. Erin wanted to use Luke's pattern blocks. It was the first time she used them and she understood right away how to make the pictures.


She told me she was Superman Pajama Girl.

Luke with the ever-present Legos.



Here's Mr. Jim finishing up on the top row of bricks on Wednesday.




And what it looks like now. There is the last row of block on the top . . .


and you can see the bottom of the window finished in this one.

Thursday it rained all day - pretty good timing, I think.