Snow!

I feel like someone has hit the fast forward button with Gage lately! He's developing so fast now and it seems like every day he is getting just a little bit bigger. In the past couple of weeks he's learned how to pull himself up on stuff and has even figured out the neat trick that if he climbs up my leg I pick him up 9 times out of 10.
Mostly I pick him up because it's so dang cute and he has semi ignored me half his life so it's nice to be wanted. In fact, he's become so loving and cuddly. It must be that age where other kids refuse to go to anyone but their mom and Gage is exhibiting it in that he seems to prefer me. He still goes to anyone (as proven by his popularity in Relief Society today) but it's nice to be needed. At church this morning Cody made the discovery of Gage's first upper tooth. It explains his behavior from the last day or so and by tonight he was running a full out drama show. No amount of teething gel or medicine seemed to help so he went to be early. Poor little guy! Cody and I had a great weekend of projects. Some went well and others... not so well. Our TV broke recently and Cody was lucky enough to be awarded some extra money from the Army that they owe him for schooling so we finally joined the club of plasma owners. We got our 50 inch plasma off craigslist for a steal of $540 and even managed to find the perfect stand for only $60 more! It was just what I wanted (which was good because I was extremely sad to see my old entertainment center go- It took me 4 hours to set it up the first time and over an hour of hard labor to take it down so needless to say I had invested some serious time into it). I wanted a TV stand that would keep the DVD and Cable box out of Gage's reach and also to have some wood in it for my country themed living room. It turned out great. Unfortunately, we got it home and it was 2 inches too short for the TV to fit so my wonderfully handy husband re-drilled all the upper shelves and sawed holes in the back for cables to go in. That was our successful project. Now for the not so successful. We have been working on re-finishing a coffee table for the living room. It's the one in the picture before we decided to do our "final" coat of stain and seal. So re-doing furniture is no picnic. First you use a type of acid to take the original finish off- then you scrap that finish off- then you sand the whole thing- then you do the first, second and sometimes third coat of stain to get just what you want. That's where things broke down for us. We got the stain + finish combo and I don't think it agrees with cold weather because it was like trying to spread quick dry molasses on a table that just keeps getting darker and stickier. Totally ruined it so now we'll have to start from step one again. I think we'll try separate stain and finish this time. So help me I will finish this project! I've already done too much to drop it now. The picture with the TV was our pre-screw up and it looks so good! Anyway- you win some and you loose some. On the plus side it was a blast getting to use table saws, band saws and sanders with Cody. It reminded me of wood shop. Cody only has a week of classes left and then they give the students 3 weeks to study for and take their finals the first half of December. Hopefully he does well cause loosing the scholarship would be terrible. Stupid curve grade! He could get an A on the final and still fall in the lower 50% of his class. He's doing great so far and I'm so proud of all his hard work. I can't believe he's willing to go through this for me and Gage. What a loving husband!
Lastly I wanted to include pictures of Gage's first run in with snow. He was a little confused by it but the puppy sure had a blast! I have a couple of videos that I need to post but we just re-formatted the computer so I lost my video converting software so once I figure that out I'll be able to throw some videos on. Miss you all and love you all!