Happy Birthday to the sweetest, most beautiful, most incredible wife, mother and blogger I know.

Nevertheless, I’ll try and gently remind my lovely bride to feel free to indulge in the occasional sweet, but to do it in moderation. For example, we had some of those Little Debbie snacks in the house this past week, the “Ho-Ho” style rollup thingees that come two in a package. I encouraged her to eat just one (single Ho-Ho thingee, not one pack) per day or so (to make them last) by writing on the side of the package in black magic marker, “ONE PER DAY.” (I’m so subtle.) Anyway, she’d done a great job of resisting temptation, and we were down to the last four (two packs) last night after dinner. I split one pack between the kids, and ate a single treat myself, leaving one in the fridge for Deb (either that night or the next day — her choice). She was grateful that I chose to share, and decided to wait till the following afternoon to indulge.

As she’s talked about on her own blog, Deb has kind of “reconnected” with God’s intent for her, taking time each morning to actually ask Him (I’m always afraid He’ll answer in a booming voice, or drop an anvil with a note attached on my head — I’m odd that way). Lately, He’s been refocusing her on her diet and exercise routine. She diligently exercised this morning, and when she went to the fridge for water, she found He’d also used our daughter to help her with her diet:

Abby had eaten the last snack.

Which leads me to an awkward decision — do I punish her for taking something from the fridge without asking, or am I risking God’s wrath for messing with His plan?

My side of the bed faces the window, and the other night, while my daughter slumbered peacefully on the floor beneath the window, I woke up to the sight of something being slithered through the window over my baby girl. Without thinking, I grabbed the intruding object. It felt thin and wiry, and I further felt some device attached to the end. Immediately, I reached over with my other hand and began to aggressively unscrew the device from the wiry protrusion. In the dark I was unable to see the device clearly, nor could I make out through our shade whether or not my unseen prowler was still outside the window. It didn’t matter. Someone was apparently attempting to harm my daughter, and the threat had to be halted. I successfully detached the device, calmly placed it on my nightstand, and immediately fell back asleep.

The next morning, it took me a few minutes to understand why the coupler connecting two shorter cable lines (which run up through the floor from the basement and across my window to the small TV on our dresser) was sitting on my nightstand.

I may be crazy, but at least my daughter is safe and sound.

That pretty much rocks, I’d say.

Anyway, you’ve not visited my humble blog to read proclimations, I’m guessing. You want one thing, and one thing only: photos of adorable munchkins.

You greedy little readers. Your wish is my command …

So yeah — Christmas was yesterday. The Simon family, though, celebrates several mini-Christmases, as we travel to visit out-of-town relatives. Last weekend we packed up and drove the three hours to my mother’s place in Westland, spending part of the weekend with her and part with my father, in Brownstown Township (I think that’s his technical address, anyway — in this day and age, I never mail him anything, it seems). Before I get to the gift stuff (a vital part of any post-Christmas blog entry), permit me a moment to offer a bit of backstory (hey — it’s my blog and I’ll digress if I want to).

As I’ve mentioned before, I come from fairly musical stock, though our instrument of choice is our voices. My sister, to my knowledge, has never learned to play an instrument, and my mother used to be able to pluck at a guitar a bit, but both have always relied on others to produce the instrumental notes while they use their God-given vocal talents. When I was a teenager, I suddenly got a bug to try and learn the piano. I can remember taking about half-a-dozen lessons from a wonderful older woman who really had a heart for teaching children — trouble was, I was no longer a child. I was a teenage boy more interested in his girlfriend who skipped about three straight weeks before showing up on the fourth only to find his instructor leaving for a dinner with her husband, having learned not to expect me. We mutually agreed to cancel any further lessons.

About 18 months ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to drum. Now, I have rhythm (I also have music, daisies and green pastures — indeed, who could ask for anything more?), but drumming is a bit of a different beast. I found that the same limitations that kept me from really taking to piano (namely, an inability to keep a certain time with one hand while the other played something entirely different) was making learning to drum a struggle. I can play bongos, for example, and I can tap my feet to a certain rhythm, but trying to make all four appendages work together was mind-boggingly hard to me.

So I told my wife I wanted a guitar.

Now, you guitar-playing readers are probably thinking to yourselves, “Does he think guitar is EASY or something?” No, I don’t think guitar is easy. Yes, I realize I’ll still need to learn to make one hand do something entirely different from what the other hand is doing. Yes, I realize that just like piano or drumming, I’ll need to practice, something I clearly had little desire to do during those aforementioned forays into musical education.

But there’s a difference this time.

I actually OWN a guitar now.

Strummin’

Yes, dear readers, thanks to my wife’s mentioning of my wish to my father, and my father’s generosity, I am now the proud owner of a Squier by Fender acoustic steel-string guitar (you guitar players are collectively sighing, “You should’ve started with a nylon-string guitar, you fool” — and I can’t really disagree. Steel hurts). It comes with a swell little book that walks you through the “Fender method” of learning to play, which so far entails learning a neat little Spanish-sounding ditty using only the “E” string and the first and third frets (more importantly, though, I now know what a “fret” is).

I have an ace up the sleeve, though, and it’s those aforementioned guitar-playing readers of mine. The next time one asks for help with a computer or blog or something, I’ll start bartering for lessons. I have no shame.

Enough about me. Let’s move on to the munchkins, shall we? (Egads, this is a long post.)

Saturday we visited my in-laws and Deb’s grandfather in Grayling. While there, Alex and Abby posed for a sibling hug (Alex, it seems, is at that age where just smiling for the camera is a chore — no, he must make odd faces. You’ll see as we go on).

Ain’t they adorable?

Christmas Eve, we stopped by the home of the Dewey’s, who had two of their three children and one of their two children-in-law (or “in-love” as one of my aunts likes to put it) in town for the holidays (the other child-in-love would arrive the next day, and her husband, the third child, is serving our country in Kuwait/Iraq — yes, your prayers for his safety are welcome). The Dewey home is a warm and welcoming place, and my kids adore Mike and Lori, so they’re pretty relaxed while there.

One, two, three — yer out!

Alex continued to show his uncanny ability to avoid a natural smile…

You talkin’ to me?

…unless you catch him while otherwise engrossed, such as being tossed about like a rag doll.

Flyin’ high

Sunday morning, despite my son’s protestations that I, in fact, am actually Santa, the “real” Santa “proved” his existence with a visit to the Simon living room.

The living room

Alex, of course, was confused and amazed.

“What the … ?”

His sister shows he doesn’t own a patent on amazed faces on Christmas morning.

“For me?”

Alex then takes back his crown when his sister shows him their joint gift.

Emotion overload

Finally, I’m hoping to put to good use my new study bible, a New King James version with a concordance, several in-depth articles, introductions to each book, many maps, and a variety of word studies using Strong’s references. I figure if I can’t learn enough to convince people of their need for God’s grace with this tool, I can always use it to club them into submission. It’s pretty heavy.

I’m kidding about the clubbing thing, you know.

Mostly.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, thanks to the expertise of a friend and father-in-law, our french doors are installed. We started about 9 a.m. Saturday and finished up about 10 p.m. that night. I was amazed it got done in a single day, but my father-in-law’s presence saved us a significant amount of time when we had to re-route some wiring. I’d tell you exactly who the friend was, but I don’t want everyone asking for his help – that’s less time he’ll have available for my projects.

I took a few pictures of the process. First, here’s the original window as we stripped back some of the drywall. You can see the wiring that was strung through the studs using these little metal clips.

Here’s where we finished Friday night; we were just trying to get an idea of what we were dealing with, and you can see the how the wiring is in the way of where the door needs to go. You can also see a bit of the original header.

A quick close-up of the wiring and the interesting way it was clipped into the studs.

The window itself came out quite easily (I didn’t take the time to make sure I set the camera up for backlighting – sorry).

This shot is still just window-width, but with the lower portion of the wall removed as well (it’s also from the outside, so it’s a little easier to see).

Ripping the new header. The TimberStrand headers, both an inch-and-a-half by nine inches (we used two thinner headers and glued them in the opening, which was easier than muscling a three-plus inch thick header into the air), needed to be shortened to about seven inches tall. Using software, it was calculated the header could be as little as five and a quarter inches thick and still stay structurally sound.

Bet you wondered if we’d be doing this. Fear not – as I said, I had knowledgeable help. We screwed an eight-foot 2-by-10 to the ceiling into three tresses, using some carpet padding to save the popcorn texture. A few 2-by-4′s and a plate and presto – a temporary supporting wall.

The new header installed.

Here’s the final opening from the outside; the aluminum siding was simply scored and clipped off pretty easily. We drilled screws through the corners from the inside and snapped a chalk line on the outside. (Faces have been pixelated to protect my future projects.)

Here’s Alexander being a goof, just to break things up a bit. He’s a living sprinkler!

Don’t blink, or you’ll miss the finish. Actually, I just didn’t think to take more photos during this timeframe, but the installation of the door itself went pretty smoothly, other than a bit of a struggle getting the doors even and level with each other.

A view from the outside. The treated 2-by-8 at the bottom supports the edge of the sill and will be used to attach stairs.

Speaking of stairs, today I put them together. This is a simple thing for you builder-types reading this, but I had no idea how it was done. I bought three four-step stringers, and used a pair of six-foot 2-by-6′s to create the treads, which leaves a bit of a gap for drainage and helps avoid “cupping” over time (I feel like I’m in a “Friends” episode). I’m pretty happy – I’ve jumped up and down on them, and they don’t move (that’s good, right?).

And that’s that. I can’t thank JL and my father-in-law enough for their help (I can’t even really call it “help” – that would imply I was leading the work and they were assisting. It was most assuredly the other way around). The doors really open up the dining room, and now we just need another sunny day to enjoy the backyard – unfortunately, it’s been raining all day today.

Happy Fourth!

Too bad I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to install one.

Fortunately, I have a couple of friends who’ve built ENTIRE HOMES on their own, and one of them apparently has nothing better to do this weekend than to tear into my load-bearing exterior wall (I say that for Matt’s sake). Thanks now to that friend’s incredible offer, we’ll be working on the installation over the holiday weekend.

Stay tuned for photo updates of the progression, along with any Daddy injury reports (which would come from Alex, who lives for that – you’ll have to read his archives once we get them up to understand).