Monthly Archives: November 2011

Raise the Roof!

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel
Over the holiday break, I managed to get Carter's loft bed finished and set up in her room. It worked out great! It's high, but she can still sit up just fine. And her room is so tiny, that it made a huge impact in her available space. I think we almost doubled her play area by getting her bed up off of the floor. Both kids were most impressed with the fact that they could touch the ceiling now, without my having to lift them up. Sean's bed is about halfway done, and I should get it finished within the next couple of weeks. The beds are both built with just framing lumber, so they only cost me about $50-75 per bed in materials. They're finished with a whitewash finish, with two coats of polyurethane over the top. That whitewash finish should help hide the wear and tear on the bed much better, and is really easy to touch up.

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Watercolors

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel

When Ryan was sleeping over, Lori got the kids all to sit down for some painting with watercolors. I love their watercolor paintings now - they actually look like something. When they were younger, they would just mix all of the colors together and make a big brown muddy mess on a paper, which I had to pretend was beautiful. :) Now, I can actually tell what they meant to paint, and I don't have to pretend anymore.

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Four in a Row

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel
Ryan was stayed over our place on Saturday night for a sleepover, and at some point the three kids and I were all playing Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii. Lori caught this picture from behind of all of us lined up across the floor, sitting far too close to the TV.

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A Bushel of Bowls

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel
A few weeks ago, I helped a friend cut down an apple tree that was growing too close to his house. I took a whole bunch of the wood home with me, to use for woodturning. Since then, I've roughed out all of these bowls. Once they've finished drying out, I can turn them down to finished thickness, and put some finish on them. But for now, they're still soaking wet. While turning them on the lathe, I sometimes ended up with a line down my shirt and across the floor of water. When turning fresh apple wood, there's a smell almost of apple cider - it was pretty cool. I really like the contrast between the dark red heartwood and the cream-colored sapwood in these pieces. Apple has a tendency to crack and twist pretty badly as it dries, so if at least 50% of these rough-turned blanks make it through to finished bowls, I'll be really happy.

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Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel
This is about typical for our family get-togethers. About 10 different activities going on at once, and there is always a bit of wrestling in there somewhere. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

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Pilgrim

Posted on November 28, 2011 by joel

Sean was a pilgrim at his school's Thanksgiving celebration. He wore his costume home from school, and Lori snagged a picture. It was only made of paper, so I'm shocked it actually survived the whole day at school and the bus ride home.

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Robot

Posted on November 11, 2011 by joel

Sean loves drawing robots lately. Here's his most recent. One of these years we're going to have to make him some sort of a cool robot costume for Halloween.

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Halloween

Posted on November 11, 2011 by joel

We had no power this past Halloween, so trick-or-treating was a great excuse to get out of the cold, dark house for a couple of hours. We went to Lori's Mom's neighborhood, and things went pretty well. Sean did better this year than he ever has before. Usually, he gets tired and bored pretty fast, and starts to get cranky and ruin our fun. But this year he had an awesome time from start to finish. Carter had a great time too - most years, it's too much walking for her little legs. But she's really shot up this year, and had no trouble.

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First Snow of the Season

Posted on November 2, 2011 by joel
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Carter’s Halloween Story

Posted on November 2, 2011 by joel

Here's a little video of Carter reading a Halloween story she'd written. It sounds like that monster had a pretty busy day!

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