this kid loves books

we have been amazed at how much JackJack is into books – and without us really trying super hard to cultivate such interest!  i mean, we read to him a bit as a baby…

when we moved into the house and filled the bookshelf with books, we intentionally left 1 square for his books, wanting them to always be accessible to him.  and he regularly (multiple times a day) goes to his little reading corner and sits and pulls the books off the shelf.  but he’s not just pulling them down to make a mess – he sits and turns the pages of most of them, looking at the images on each page and babbling to himself like he’s reading.

I also leave a couple of books in his crib at all times that he always looks at and “reads” when he wakes up in the morning or from his nap. He may snuggle a little with the teddy bears in his crib, but it’s the books he most enjoys and interacts with until we go and get him “up.”

and several weeks ago he started carrying a book over to wherever we were and holding it out saying “bah? bah?”  again, initially we thought he was just handing us the book like toddlers often like to hand you their toys.  nope, he definitely wants us to read it to him.  if we sit down on the floor with the book he immediately turns around and “backs in” to us and plops right down on our lap, hands placed contentedly and happily on his thighs as he waits for you to start reading.  it is adorable!

he brings me books to read frequently throughout the day.  and since i definitely want to encourage a love for and joy in reading, i try my best to stop and read him the book(s) whenever possible.

he has also surprised us at how long he will sit while we read to him – often for 4-5 books straight!  he loves to turn the pages himself and we have encouraged interaction by asking him to point out various things, or what a certain animal says.  i recently came across a blog post by a friend of mine with points and reasons why repetition in reading the same books over and over is not something to be concerned about but rather, is helpful and good for children’s development!  i found this very helpful and encouraging since 1)  Jack definitely has 2-3 clear favorites that he prefers above the others and wants to read over and over and 2) we only have about 10 books currently on his shelf and now i’m far less concerned about some super strong need to present him with a huge variety of books right now.

current favorites are:

Good Night Moon, in which he can and likes to point out the red balloon and the fire, haha!  he also knows the stars and occasionally can identify the moon (a little hard when it takes different shapes on various pages, plus it sounds just like “ballOON”).

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Brown Bear is especially fun because Jack can make so many of the animal sounds when we ask, “what does a _____ say?”
bear – “raaah!”
dog dog – “oof”
sheep – “bah!”
kitty cat – “meee”
horsey – “naaaay”
birdy – “teee teee”
and my 2 favorites –
fishy – he opens and closes his mouth, with his lips making a slight popping sound as they smack apart HAHAHA
dolphin – he totally clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth!  there are foam/plastic dolphins hanging from the ceiling where Jack has his little swim lessons, so Zach thought he would try teaching him “what does a dolphin say?” and i was so shocked that he actually imitated the clicking sound right away!

and The Going to Bed Book.

House Update & Pictures!

At long last, I am finally getting a post up with pictures of the progress we have made on the house!

Prior to moving in we did all the “big” things, got the house to a state of “liveable,” and left most of the rest of it to after we had made the move.  And by “we” I mean “pretty much ALL Zach, with some help along the way from friends and family.”  Big things were: removing the popcorn ceilings, painting nearly every wall, pulling up the tile floor and laying laminate, trimming most of the door frames, faux board & batten in the dining area, completely rebuilding the staircase + creating a built-in bookcase and closet under the stairs, gutting the kitchen and installing new cabinets, countertops and sink.  It was a massive undertaking and we are FAR from being done.  But we are so pleased with the results thus far and love chipping away at finishing the other little things as we go.

Here are a number of before and after pictures… (please note – the “before” pictures are from the listing when the house was shown and taken with a wide angle lense… whereas most of my “after” pictures were taken with my iphone and sometimes done as “panorama” – so the angles and stuff are a little off… but you get the idea.)

I have to start off with the stairs and bookcase – they are a major focal point and pretty much Zach’s greatest masterpiece of the house.
BEFORE (carpeted treads, metal handrailing, weird plant shelf on the landing, awkward space underneath…

AFTER (stained wooden treads and handrails, painted wood ballusters & newel posts, built-in bookshelves and a small storage closet under the stairs…)

the kitchen:
BEFORE (dated cabinets, even more dated countertops, very old microwave and dishwasher, no pantry, old school fluorescent light fixture, mismatched window blinds)

AFTER (new cabinets and countertops, new dishwasher, new sink, skipped the microwave altogether, matching window blinds, recessed can lighting… please excuse the missing cabinet door in the lower corner – it’s coming haha)

another angle:
BEFORE

AFTER (added pantry to the left of the fridge, yay!)

view of the dining area opposite the kitchen (besides painting, we added the board and batten on the wall and changed out the light fixture for a chandelier):

the downstairs bathroom is probably the closest to being completely done (still need to put in a couple baseboards and trim inside the door, which you can’t even see):

the nursery is the next closest to being completely done (still need to trim the closet and get a couple more cloth bins for the box shelves).  the majority of the room is decorated with airplanes for JackJack and we love it.  but since he and Chloe will be sharing a room for the next couple of years that we are in this house (we want to keep the downstairs bedroom reserved as a guest bedroom), and i was not about to redecorate in something neutral for both kids, i simply opted to girly up the corner where Chloe’s bed will be.  🙂

from the doorway:

from the opposite corner:

Chloe’s corner:

the details (baby dresses that *i* wore as an infant !!!!!! and a beautiful verse print my SIL found on pinterest):

about 5 days after moving into the house, the washing machine flooded due to the use of too much detergent by previous owners which clogged the draining sensor.  the entire laundry room had nearly half an inch of standing water and water had seeped underneath the laminate flooring we had JUST laid.  water is a freakishly fast and damaging entity you guys.  we immediately started pulling up the flooring to see how far the water had spread and to stop it from spreading any further!  sadly, it had gotten all the way into the downstairs bedroom, bathroom, hallway and a few feet of the dining area and in front of the bookcase.  if the whole thing hadn’t been so urgent, we probably would have just sat down and cried.  it was so depressing.

i kept reminding myself of the reasons we had to be grateful in the midst of this: friends only a couple blocks away who were available to watch Jack while we did damage control, the fact that the water had not spread to the kitchen (i couldn’t imagine if we had had to pull out the newly installed cabinets and countertops), that zach had just gotten home when we discovered the flood, owning a shop vac for swift clean up of the water…

and probably most of all, i was grateful for home owner’s insurance.  as depressing and frustrating as the whole episode was, the blow was softened considerably when our insurance company cut us a check a few days later for a couple THOUSAND dollars more than the cost of materials to replace the flooring.  while sopping up water and ripping up floor boards, i kept thinking, “God, i know you have allowed this for a reason and You are still good and faithful in the midst of this… but i am struggling right now.  this is HARD!” never thinking that God would actually have plans to bless us – monetarily! – as a result.  it was totally a blessing in disguise.  as a result, we were able to use the extra money to buy a number of things we thought we wouldn’t be able to buy for months: an R/O system for the kitchen sink, a utility tub for the laundry room, a hood range vent for above the stove… and probably most exciting, a NEW BED SET!

we had been talking for awhile about wanting to get a california king size bed (and putting our queen size in the guest bedroom) so we figured it was a good idea to take advantage of having such a large chunk of extra money and GO FOR IT!  and we absolutely love it!  while our bedroom and bathroom are the least finished rooms in the house, it makes me happy to walk in and see such a lovely bed set.

living room and guest bedroom are getting close… saving them for another blog post.  🙂

Grilling Recipes

We have been incorporating more and more grilling into our meals lately and we’ve discovered that a good marinade is where it’s AT.  I have come across several fantastic marinades that I simply must share.  Every time I’ve made any of these for others, I am asked for the recipe.  Which finally convinced me to post them here for [my tiny circle of blog friends] to enjoy as well!

Chili Lime Marinade
(We use this one for kabobs.  The marinade makes enough for about 2lbs of chicken chunks, and 1-2 red peppers and 1-2 zucchinis, which are our veggies of choice with kabobs.)Juice from 6 limes
1/2 cup olive oil
2 T chili powder
6 cloves garlic
2 T brown sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper

Split the marinade between 2 baggies – 1 with the chicken chunks and 1 with the veggie pieces.  I’ve done this up to 2 days in advance, or even just 2 hours in advance and both times it turned out great. Skewer and cook on Med heat for 3-4min on each side (pretend there are 4 sides).

Fajita Marinade
(We made this for the first time last week and it was amazing.  I’m already looking forward to the next time! This made enough to marinate about 2lbs of chicken tenders)
1/4 c olive oil
1/3 c lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
2 T chili powder

Lemon Viniagrette
(Ok so this is technically a salad dressing.  It’s actually a copy cat version of the dressing Pita Jungle uses on their Greek salad.  I spontaneously decided to try marinating chicken in it and was thrilled by the results.  We use this one for grilling chicken that is then diced and served over a green salad with lots of toppings!  Enough for 3-4 decent sized chicken breasts.)
1/2 c lemon juice
1/2 olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
4 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Thus far we have only had great success with marinating and grilling chicken.  Steak… not so much.  After several disappointing attempts, we decided that we prefer steak with just a little bit of Montreal Steak Seasoning and that’s it.  Zach is still working on perfecting his grilling technique with steak so, since it’s a more costly meat, we’ve been sticking to chicken lately.

A new strategy I learned about on Pinterest was to toss your meat and marinade together in a zip loc and freeze it.  Then you can pull it out days or weeks later and it will marinate as it thaws.  Brilliant.  Especially because the whole idea of grilling being a “quick and easy” “summer” meal option is a little crazy, right moms?  The amount of prep work required for a grill meal isn’t significantly less than something I’m going to throw in the oven, etc.  I still have to make the marinade, think far enough head to thaw meat, chop meat (in the case of kabobs) and/or chop the cooked chicken (after it comes off the grill) and fix side dishes.  I’ve taken to throwing the “quick and easy” mentality out the window and just settle for “simple, delicious and gets the husband involved” haha.  And why is grilling consider a great summer meal?  Clearly that was invented by people who live everywhere OTHER than Arizona.  When it’s 120* outside, standing in front of a hot grill is not my husband’s idea of a great meal.  However, he loves the act of grilling and loves the taste of grilled food enough to endure 20 minutes of the heat on a regular basis during the summer months.  But grilling is definitely be a year round thing for us!