An Upcycled Wooden Play Kitchen for Jericho!

 

Happy Birthday Jericho!

As our daughter turned two last week, we were able to give her a really awesome present. Inspired a while ago from a Pinterest posting, Laura suggested we find a small cabinet at Goodwill or Resource York to turn into a play kitchen. But as it turns out, the perfect start to this project was already in our house: a section from the upper cabinets over the fridge in the old upstairs bedroom (in the process of becoming Jericho's new room). Follow along in the transformation!

 

1) An old cabinet

 

 

 

                    2) With one door turned vertical and new shelving added

 

3) A "backplash" and the "stovetop" added

 

 

 

4) Trimmed out                                     



 

 

5) Painting in progress

 

 

6) Final details including sink and burners

 

Cheese!

 

 

With just a few exceptions,

 everything in this project was recycled or we already owned.

 

Hardware from the cabinets was reused, the backsplash was made with plywood and 2x4s rescued from a demo project in the basement, the trim came from the old kitchen on the first floor and leftovers in the garage from the 1970s basement finishing job. All of the paint we already owned, used in our real kitchen. The shelf was made of the bottom of a cabinet drawer and the wheels were mounted on recycled 2x4s. The stove insulation was a leftover scrap from our kitchen remodel and finally, the wire baskets inside the stove and on the side came from our restored 1950s MacDougall built-ins. We bought: 4 wheels, epoxy, two wooden knobs and two flat wooden cut-outs, and a dog bowl.

 

Jericho's Room- Update!

A few photos from the latest work in Jericho's room. Progress due in large part to the help of Jeff, Pop, and my father!

Swinging a Hammer Into the New Year

 Transitioning a second story kitchen into a bedroom is harder than you might imagine. Here's a shot of the cabinets mostly demolished. The uppers have already been moved to the garage to make storage space (imagine the white area on the wall as the "backsplash"). In this picture you can see a number of potentially deadly DIY projects:

The rest of the demo work reveals missing baseboard and miserable water  damage to the flooring.

W. M. Rutter- apparently a now defunct WV lumber  company.
Difficult to obtain 1 1/2 x 5/16 red oak strip flooring.

My pathetic first attempts at soldering copper pipes in the wall between the room and a closet. You can see that the first try didn't work (water sprayed on  lathe).  On a second try, I forgot to empty the active water line down to the valve in the basement and nearly lost an eye when steam in the pipe built up and shot off the end cap like a bullet!

Plaster patching finished (I was forced to cap the waste water line and leave it protruding slightly from the wall). It connects to an air vent directly on the other side of this wall in the corner of the closet. Since we didn't want to remove the whole thing, which would have also involved roof work, we settled for a small oddity. It will likely be behind a bed or some other piece of furniture anyway!

You can see the electrical outlet now moved to the baseboard just to the right of the ladder.

Well, it's still a work in progress. I was able to reuse baseboard from the kitchen in this room, except for one stretch. I also found trim work I had saved to match the existing wood around the closet door. I would not have been able to match it otherwise, short of custom millwork (hah!). What remains? SERIOUS flooring work (2 inch x 5/16 straight edge is on order- I will have to rip each piece), then refinishing the entire floor and lots of painting. Stay tuned!

A Church Family Christmas

Our Christmas holiday was very full! This year we traveled to both halves of our families splitting our vacation time right down the middle. But of course, it all begins a few weeks earlier with the annual Christmas tree hunt:

We found this tree very quickly, a Blue Spruce with incredible coloring, very slim, and what I estimated to be the perfect height (just over 9 feet). I had forgotten a tape measure (contrary to my father's excellent tree selection training growing up) and had to judge off my own height. In the picture, we are standing on higher ground.

The tree fit wonderfully!

On further inspection, we found that our tree, with its "incredible coloring," had been sprayed with dye! I complained and was told that it was standard industry practice these days and that I was the only one who didn't like it. I don't know about you, but if I am going to buy a natural tree, I would prefer it to be natural! I actually tend to think that the Blue Spruces had a rough summer\fall and had a lot of yellow in their needles prompting Family Christmas Tree Farm of Red Lion, PA (among others) to spray them. 

Jericho looks cute while trying to electrocute herself.

Pop Pop!
We headed south to Harrisonburg as soon as we got free from work. Jericho Faye adores her Pop Pop, along with cousin Rachel May.

Snuggle time with Momma and baby brothers...

Cousins!

More cousins!
This is up at the extended Church family gathering in Woodstown, NJ.  Judah and Isaac are anticipating the birth of another sibling (each in their own way I believe), and Jericho looks forward to cousin #8, with #9 on the way too!

Laura and I approached the "gingerbread house" making competition full throttle, preparing in advance to build  this church using Jolly Ranchers to create stained glass. We ran into some structural difficulties, and the steeple got nixed (all Asa's fault), but were still pleased with the results!

The Big Reveal

Short of a cutesy blue\pink icing in the middle of the cupcake party, we trained Jericho to reveal the sex of our twins. Now how cute is that?

If you can't understand toddler talk, the proof is in the pudding below:

Looking from below Twin A, you can see thighs sticking out at 90 degrees and pronounced genitalia. The mass above\right of the thin line is Twin B.

Less clear, but you can once again see thighs with genitalia on Twin B.

Of course the tech could be wrong (but it sure looks like she is right on at least 1 count!)

The Church Twins at 14 Weeks

Have you ever wondered what difference 4 weeks makes in the life of a baby in the womb?
Here you are!

Baby Twins at 10 weeks! This is pretty zoomed out, as to capture the womb and separate sacks, but  here the twins are still in a "blob stage," albeit with beating hearts and the start of digits!

At 14 weeks, we have fully formed babies! What isn't there are lots of internal organs that would allow for  life on the outside. Otherwise, the twins have fingers, lips, toes, and even baby sex parts... stay tuned for further news on that front!

   Thanks for your congratulations, thoughts, and prayers. Everything looks great! The twins are about 4 ozs each and 3 and half inches long, crown to rump! Laura turned a corner with her nausea and fatigue just about two weeks ago now, so that is a blessing. That isn't to say that she's not completely exhausted at the end of a teaching day!
    The current challenge is to gain the weight she is supposed to while downing over 14 full size vitamin pills a day. She was told that she is behind the game in twin-pregnancy weight gain, which should be frontloaded in the 1st and 2nd trimester to safeguard against low birth weight. She has been asked to consume 3000 calories a day! I'm trying to avoid sympathy poundage with all the extra food around. She's expected to gain 45 lbs. by D-day.
    The twin hoarding has already started. Baby food on clearance? I bought them all. Friends with twin toddlers are giving us their baby carriers. Perfect. And another set of friends are passing off a crib. We are still looking for another wooden full-size crib for Baby B. Let us know if we can help de-clutter someone's home!
    I leave you with this:

Wacky Day at School, the perfect opportunity to wear a bowl cut, pencil beard, and my  favorite sweatshirt.

The Big Big News News

Laura and I are excited to announce that we are expecting TWINS in mid-March. While we were planning on our second child this spring, the news of twins at our first ultrasound Wednesday was quite a shock! The very smooth technician asked Laura how she had been feeling, to which Laura replied "Not very well." "Well that can sometimes be a sign of twins," he replied. At this point I was scrunching my eyes at what appeared to be a mirror image on the monitor screen. "You're kidding!" Laura gasped. "I never kid about twins," he said. "But that's impossible, there's no twins in either of our families!" Sagely, the technician reminded us, "Well there is now."

So yes, we're still absorbing the news. We are, or course, thrilled! As teachers and Christians, we believe that educating and raising children is the primary means of changing the world! We have been doubly blessed! At the same time, we can't help but be terrified. We realize our lives are about to change drastically. A new car, job\career decisions, an accelerated home re-model timetable, 3 under 3... the implications are endless! Your wisdom and advice are welcome. Knowing that we are are surrounded by an incredible community of support here in York, south Jersey, Virginia, and beyond makes us feel a lot better.

Lots of ultrasound and bump pictures to come! Praise God. 

We all fall down...

Fun with friends!

Jericho has been having a lot of fun around here!



Cousing Rachel and Jericho had a great time exploring the wonder of belly buttons and giving each other wagon rides!



Jericho has warmed up to classroom-pet-at-home-for-the-summer-only, Joe.

Couzin Tirzah found a great pal to rough house with.

Jericho loves popsicles (in hand) and saying "cheese," among other things.





Jericho goes sailing (again!).

Last week was our "annual" family week on my brother's 34-foot Hunter, Miss Eve.

This was a more ambitious trip than last year- six days and five nights. Here's what our itinerary ended up looking like:

Sunday PM- Bohemia River to Wharton Creek
Monday- Wharton Creek to St. Michael's
Tuesday PM- St. Michael's to Crab Alley Creek (Kent Island)
Wednesday- Crab Alley to Annapolis Harbor
Thursday- Annapolis to Tenthouse Creek (West River)
Friday- Tenthouse to Knapp's Narrow (Tilghman Island)

2012- Jericho at 1.5 years

Jericho, one year removed from her last sailing trip was a ton of fun, if not a bit more difficult. Look at the difference!

2011- Jericho is approx. 6 months

We had overall great weather with the nights cooling off considerably and enough storms\frontal movement to give us some periods of great wind. Highlights were 10+ kts from Wharton Creek to Rock Hall in cool overcast skies and a banner day of 15-25 kts out of the SE sailing upwind and then reaching from Annapolis straight into the West River.

It was great having college buddy and Sigma Chi brother Steve Richter along with us from the Bohemia to Annapolis. We did a good bit of reading aloud from The Horse and His Boy.

Jericho stayed busy on the Miss Eve, coloring, climbing, and generally being silly. It took a few days of adjustment, but she was really awesome overall.