I went digging through the blog for before pictures of this room, I’m sure I can find better ones but from this you can tell that it used to be a kitchen.

It’s so fun to come home everyday to more progress, I had forgotten the excitement of having professionals work on your house. DIY comes with a lot of pride at the end of the job but it’s oh so much slower.

Contractors started yesterday and we now have walls! Looking forward to wrapping up any construction projects for awhile!

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Insulation is up!

For several months we’ve been working on transforming the upstairs back kitchen into a bedroom for Helen Jeanette, we now find ourselves with our backs against a wall and Chris’s dad Keith is in town to help us push towards the end. The plan is for the guys to finish installing insulation and then hire someone to put the drywall and trim back and paint. We estimate we’re through 8.5 of 12 work items and it’s taken us quite a while to get here, but Chris and Keith have been working really hard to complete the do-it-ourselves steps up so we can hand the baton to the pros that will run the anchor leg.

This is her new normal reaction whenever a camera comes out.

I was interested in starting a family pajama tradition where we all get matching pajamas every year on Christmas eve. It turns out that I wasn’t willing to be pay $30 a piece for them so only Helen Jeanette ended up with Christmas Eve pajamas, I think the tradition will be that the kids get matching pajamas. We also let Helen Jeanette open up a book that Mrs. Silvia had sent for that purpose.

After Helen Jeanette went to sleep we had a couple hours of assembling to do to prepare for Christmas morning. Helen Jeanette work up extra early, so the Christmas excitement must have been contagious. She was thrilled to sit in her little chair to open her stocking (once she realized what the stocking  was for) and she was very sweet and quick with a fake smile whenever the camera came out.

After her stocking she wanted to start opening presents but we made her wait until after breakfast. She had a great time with her presents and we had a great time watching her.

We’ve been working on transitioning to 1 nap a day, but that was definitely not happening today. During her morning nap the 3 adults all slept too which was marvelous. We had Christmas dinner mid-afternoon followed by a short walk and some time at the park. During her second nap the adults all watched “The Interview” which was funny but very very crass. I do feel like I did my part for freedom by paying the $6 and watching it though.

Overall it was a very nice Christmas and we had so much fun with Helen Jeanette this year. This year she only had a vague inkling of the happenings (before we did Christmas with my folks last week she wasn’t even interested in the gifts under our tree, that changed after she discovered what they were for though!) but it was still so fun to watch her get involved. We usually have to prompt her to say ‘Thank you’ in sign language, but she was pulling it out profusely and frequently with every present she opened today. I’ve heard it said that the holidays are really all about the kids and making it great for them, but I suspect the kids will give me more joy at Christmas time then I am able to give them with gifts and food and traditions.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Covingtons!

2014 has been a wonderful year. It was our first (and last!) full year as a family of 3 and we have enjoyed every minute. The year was marked with lots of travel and, especially in the summer, we were go-go-go. Some of the highlights were getting to attend 4 weddings of beloved friends and family members, getting to visit my Aunt and Uncles in Hawaii, Chris getting to speak at Linux Plumbers Conference in Germany, and the biggest moment of the year was finding out we were going to be expanding our family! We are looking forward to 2015 and want to invite any friends and family to Durham any time you can!

Love,
Chris, Jessica, Helen Jeanette, and Killian Covington

Helen Jeanette loves to lounge. Give her a couch or a collection of pillows and she is happy to recline and prop her foot up. Here she is at work yesterday having a quick snack while the car heated up.

I haven’t posted in awhile so here are some pictures that haven’t made it onto Facebook.