Ezra's Last January as an Only Child

I'm working on something serious and feministy, but it is pretty sensitive for me.  To avoid putting it out there before it's ready I am posting awesome pictures from January.  We got a year pass to the aquarium for Christmas, so we enjoyed the aquarium today.  Fewer toys, more fun, right?

 Ezra and Clay had fun playing before Clay and family moved, but we are really looking forward to seeing Clay and family in a week or so :)

 Mischief makers

Trouble a-brewin'

 Hide and Go seek with kiddos.

Aunt Kerri made Ezra a cape for Christmas.  Super Ezra means tired Ezra later.

 Sometimes, timeout doesn't have the desire effect.  Here is Jason trying not to laugh while Ezra throws a timeout party.

 After I told Jason to keep an angry face.

 Checking out lemurs at the aquarium.  Ezra and Jason are in the middle.

 Play area.  I am photobombing in the window.

 Ezra really got a kick out of the bamboo spinning.

 Who trusts this safari driver?

Ezra in a bald eagle's nest.  

Renovations!

Before picture:  

Every single day since Ezra could crawl, this bookcase has given me a heartattack.  What you can't see in this picture is that directly over that bookcase is a one story fall.  I was told that I should just train my kiddo not to climb, but in the words of Jason:  "Training is for activities you are allowed to fail at once in a while."  Thus something had to be done about these shelves.  

Demolition:

So we destroyed them.  Or, we removed them-  we actually used some of the wood from the original shelves to build ourselves the new ones.  

Time out:

Projects aren't complete without Orange Crush in a bottle.  We aren't soda in our house kind of people, but when ever projects that require several days of attention arise, it's Orange Soda in a glass bottle time.  

Demolition complete:

As you can see, not only was it a one story fall, but there are hardwood stairs to break your fall (and your neck) when you tumble over.  

Putting in supports

Drywall

Plaster

Beginning shelves.  We reused wood from the old shelves.

More shelves.

Ezra is helping.

White washed.

Wall of shelves <3  No more fear of kiddo falling over and down an entire story.  

And of course the real after picture, by which I mean 6 months after the project is completed.  We use the bottom two shelves as kiddo shelves (for now anyways-  new project is about to be in the works for a playroom :) :) ), the middle shelves for "Mama Books" (of course meaning mine and Jason's), and the upper two shelves for display items not meant for little, sticky fingers.