Dining Table

Winter has brought us snow twice so far.  It is snowing right now, as I type, and a couple weeks ago we got about 2.5 inches.  That was the first time I have ever had to shovel snow (other than the car).  Nate claims to actually enjoy shovelling snow, but he was at work the day it came down, and that left me to deal with our 100 foot driveway.   I got the girls bundled up and they both thought it was exciting to play while I shoveled.  

Lydia loves to put these Mr. Potato Head glasses on her face.  The glasses are obviously much too small, but she somehow manages to both be fairly careful of her eyes and get them to stay on. She's a funny girl.

There was a family history activity at church last weekend and children were invited to dress up in heritage costumes.  It was a chance for the girls to wear their Norwegian bunads and silver.  Karina declared it is her favorite dress. Both dresses were mine when I was a child. 

Whereas Lydia is an assertive daredevil, Karina is cautious and sensitive.  Their personalities manifested themselves when I was making banana muffins with Karina.  Lydia saw what we were doing and managed to shove Karina out of her way and get into the good spot where she could reach the batter easily.  Karina was left half crying and upset.  It's kind of strange to have to worry about the younger child bullying the older one. 

Now that it is winter, our house seems to have a lot of built up static electricity .  Karina has figured out how to rub her head on the couches and then have her hair stick out in every direction.  She does it repeatedly and laughs at how cool her hair looks.  

Lydia has been impressing us with how large her vocabulary has grown.  At 19 months, her vocabulary is well over 200 words and she has also shown off her ability to string words together, often 3 words at a time, making near sentences.  She had also gotten better at jumping, sometimes getting both feet off the ground.  In the past week, she has also become an expert at puzzles and finally understands how to twist the pieces around to make them fit into place. 

Karina has been making a lot of progress with her writing skills.  She now writes her own name and it  is legible if you know beforehand what it is supposed to say.  She also practices all the other letters.  She is good at all the sounds letters make and is an expert at guessing what letter words start with.  Her drawing skills have improved as well, and instead of just squiggles, shapes, and letters, she now makes faces, rainbows, the sun, frogs, ducks, and snowmen.   She has also gotten better at hopping on one foot, and is usually a good helper around the house.  

Yesterday, I finished the dining table I started at the end of December.  I designed the dining table myself, calculating all the angles for the x-base legs, and the other measurements.  After I marked the cuts on the wood, Nate cut it for me.  

We did end up renting a fancy saw at Home Depot because Nate couldn't make the angled cuts accurately enough with our saw.  I was quite pleased when the half joints of the X's fit together perfectly, leaving level X's.  I had been paranoid that the angles I had calculated would be a little off, but they were correct.

I used a Kreg Jig to make pocket screw holes to assemble the table top.  With a couple of clamps, that went fairly quickly. I then sanded, stained, and applied polyurethane.  

After letting the protective poly cure for a week, I was ready to attach the legs to the table top yesterday.  The table measures 84 L x 38.5 W x 30.5 H and seats 8 people.  Here I am doing the last bit of assembly, with Lydia in the way:

I'm very pleased with how my labor of love turned out and I like how the table fits with my antique chairs: