New room for the boy

This Father's Day, Sunday, we spent time all working on redoing Nigel's room. It's time for him to have his own identity now that Lily's moved into her own room as of last September. We spent considerable time and energy getting her room ready, so now it's his turn.

The idea is to turn it into a jungle sort of thing, something like Max's room in Where The Wild Things Are. So this weekend we successfully tore out all the carpet, which was well worn and stained beyond repair.


This wasn't easy, because we had to lift the bunkbed back and forth over the roll of carpet to get it out. Then came my favorite job -- pulling hundreds of tiny staples and splintered tack strips out of the hardwoods. Kids were great help on this -- we all donned safety glasses and got to work with pliers, pulling.

Then came the fun -- actually slapping on the first coats of bright blue paint. They did a great job covering half of the first wall. Elissa did the edging and I did the ceiling. Check out the fashionable paint smocks, including my old Napster shirt.

A girl who was born to dance

Here's the class shot of Lily's troupe for the 2006 year at the Discovery School, in all their Irish-dancing-spritefulness. It's hard to explain how natural she is as a dancer. It's breathtaking.

(She's the best one, as you can see.) - Isaac

Bunk bed boy

Nigel's snoozing in the bunk bed, snuggled down with Pooh's lower half.