It's a Beautiful...

Banister, isn't it? We've gone from this

to this.

Let's be honest, it's not perfect. We still need to do the banister going down the stairs...but we found this bad boy on Craigslist for $80 and spent several dollars more, which is far, far cheaper than we would have paid new (like, at leat $150 cheaper, probably more like $200). We still have finishing work to do on it (trim work below, sand and stain, etc), but there were safety issues with the old one (sheridan has become a monkey and was trying to climb over it, little children's heads fit in between the balusters but couldn't easily be removed, etc). I'm vying for a dark stain, but I don 't think Tyler will agree...

In other news, I was going to post pictures of our new baby-to-be, but we don't have a scanner. Baby has the cutest little profile, all limbs, and was the "most cooperative baby" the ultrasound tech had dealt with all day. I hope that is a good sign for what kind of kid this will be. The tech informed me that the placenta is implanted all the way at the back of my uterus, which means that baby is all the way out in front. "you've probably felt this one a little more and a little earlier," she observed. Yeah, I could have told her that at 18 weeks when I started being able to move baby's back around and feel individual limbs! She said I'll probably have more sleepless nights since there's no placenta between my belly and baby's kicks. Awesome. I was getting too much sleep as it is :) But, what do you expect with a baby boy?

BTW, our connection is so bad that I haven't posted in a month and am not likely to be consistent about posting or reading posts until fall, when we'll hopefully settle on a new provider (any suggestions are welcome, especially the inexpensive ones that still do the basic job...which, I've learned, dial-up does not do!). So, I'll try and fill in all the blanks while we have connectivity...