Big Changes - House Addition Edition

We took on a big, exciting project this past winter! Two years in the making, we finally started construction on an addition to our house that added a brand new kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, opened up a wall from the living room to the dining room and turned our former kitchen into a laundry/mudroom. We found fantastic contractors (Steve and Mark) thanks to a friend's rec, and they started in early December and finished at the end of March. We lived in the house during the whole project which was...interesting, but manageable. Would you believe we were only without a kitchen for one day during the process and only because the new floor stain was drying. It was the best, worst experience we could have hoped for and we are so happy with how it turned out!

 

 

Kitchen before/Laundry - mudroom after:

New Kitchen:

 We moved the sliding doors to the back wall and put the kitchen where our deck used to be.

 We opened up the wall from the living room to the dining room from 4ft to 9ft.

We created a hallway using space from our former master bedroom. There used to be a door to our bedroom in that doorway at the top of the stairs.

 New master bedroom (above and below)

And new master bathroom - woo hoo!

In just 4 months it feels like a completely different house. The house was originally built in 1939. When they were working on one of the original closets they found this sliver of pretty wallpaper, possibly from all those years ago considering how many layers of paint surrounded it. We're just so happy it's finished!!!

Amelia Turns FOUR - December 2018

 Amelia with her best buddy, Cambria

This is a unicorn cake.

For the record books:
Amelia is full of life and personality and a touch of drama. She loves to sing and dance and act and perform. She says pink and violet and blue are her favorite colors. She likes to make dramatic faces and makes it very clear what (and who) she likes and doesn't like. She likes to paint and draw and play with her dolls and her favorite book is the "the Wizard of Oz, of course" she tells me though that's news to me. She is a ton of fun to be around and even in her less happy moments, she is quite the entertainer.

Chugging Along Through Fall and Winter

Time flew by so fast that I went another long spell without updating the blog! 

Before we knew it it was Halloween - Amelia was a fairy, Owen a pirate, maybe an attempt at Jack Sparrow?, and Jacob the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. 

Owen joined the cross country team for the fall and ran the 2k race at 2 meets.

We LOVE our Thanksgiving traditions of going to NY, seeing all the cousins (and everyone else too of course), playing a big game of football, watching football, eating tons of food, and our annual family adventure (which has turned into just me and Owen) into NYC!!

 Look at all those kids! So hard to get them to all look at the same time. 

Back together again. 

Mike's cousin Jeremy and Diya are engaged!!!

Laila (6), Drew (5), Avery (8), Amelia (3), Jacob (10), Owen (8), Heath (9), Olivia (6) 

(ages at Thanksgiving 2018)

Owen and I ate and walked our way through Manhattan with a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar, Wagamama's, the Empire State Building (well, the lobby), and everything in between.

Next was Christmas

Amelia was in her first school dance show. She did a little routine to the song Hot Chocolate from the Polar Express with her class.

In Richmond we saw Charlotte and Bill with baby Graham! His first Christmas.

Sam turned 18!

Visits from Anne Van...always the helper!! Owen had a small "indoor football game in the basement" accident that required a staple on his scalp (which he handled like a pro with no numbing med, NONE!) and AVA kindly took it out for him. Priceless.

New School Year - 2018/2019

Summer was over in a flash and we started a big school year -

Jacob's LAST year in elementary school!  

Owen in 3rd grade!

Amelia in the preschool 3's class! (her official first day pic is a little further down). 

Jacob has Ms. Yasechko for homeroom, Owen has Mr. Rodriguez (same as Jacob for 3rd) and Amelia has Mrs. Mac n Cheese (same as Owen when he was 3).

 Yipee! Back to school!!!

 Amelia's first day was about a week after the boys'. 

Jacob had already left bright and early for his post as a patrol. 

Patrolling his corner - keepin' people safe. 

Staring down people who look unsafe (like me apparently in this picture).

Double Digits - Jacob's 10th birthday & Beach trip

Last update was close to the end of Summer 2018 and now it's almost Summer 2019. Let's rewind and start our update with Jacob's TENTH birthday and our Sherman family beach trip to Bethany. We were so fortunate this year because we saw ALL of Mike's family's kid cousins in one week (that's 10 kid cousins - Jacob is the oldest at 10 and Amelia is the youngest at 3.5)!

Just in case you're wondering this is a homemade 2 layer chocolate cake, with chocolate icing, Kit Kat bars surrounding the perimeter of the cake, and the top filled with M&Ms. Yep.

 What a lucky Nana and what lucky grandkids!

 Here's the whole MD/NY Sherman/Wulfow crew

Silly Millie

Uncle Harris and Aunt Jane brought Joel and Jen's kids Henry, Ada and Oliver to the beach for the day!

Another summer's end. Next, back to school. 

Anne, Mike, Jacob (10), Owen (8), Amelia (3.5)

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For the (birthday) record books:
At the start of this new decade, Jacob has grown a LOT. Literally. He had a big growth spurt this year. He applied to be a 5th grade patrol at his school which he did every single day through rain, sleet, heat, and snow - walking himself the half mile to school, standing at the corner being genial and telling children when to walk or not. He also continues to love love love sports and this year we made the inconvenient decision to allow him to play soccer, baseball AND flag football for the fall. We continued this plan into spring, with a short basketball season claiming our weekends in the winter.
Perhaps I say this every year but at least he's consistent - Jacob is full of life and energy and persistence and curiosity... He can talk to anybody and does 😉 and is really one of the kindest souls, which is slightly in conflict with his almost constant effort to antagonize his younger brother. He loves to write, loves history and math, and of course PE. He hates eating breakfast foods (which makes our mornings interesting), and his favorite food is either tacos or really any form of cheese and bread or a burger with a special mayo he concocted and has been working to perfect. He keeps us on our toes and fills our lives with lots of love, laughter, ideas we would never have thought of, questions we often don't have answers to, a side of aggravation and shaking heads, all while feeling so lucky that he gets to be our Jacob.