Maybe We'll Have to Put Him in Fencing

Zach turned 5 earlier this month. Forgot to mention it...oops. He's been in school for a month now and loves it and is doing well. He recently has become interested in Star Wars (which he's never seen and really doesn't know much about) and made swords so that Ryan and he can have sword fights in the back yard. He is getting really good!

He got Ryan pretty good here!

Something Exciting is Happening at Our House on Thursday...

Something to top off this:

We Have Way Too Much Junk!

I brought the camera with me today to do the classic "first day of school" photo shoot. No pictures were taken. Oh well. Zach started pre-school today. He loves it. I love it. Ryan loves it. The only person who is maybe a little bummed would be Becky. She wanted to know where her cubby was. But alas, he had to come home and take a nap instead. I worked...with NO interruptions. I think this is the start of a beautiful time in my life.

I found out that we have way too much junk. Way too much. I have NO idea how we squeezed all that junk into a two bedroom apartment. It's ridiculous. I'm a little disgusted. We haven't been able to park out car in the garage for 2 months. (It was the 21 boxes of kitchen cabinets that kept us from pulling in, but still.) So that's where I started today. If you are a mom: you'd be surprised how much you can get done in 1 uninterrupted hour. Amazing I tell you. My legs really hurt though.

This evening I had to get out the Narnia books. Zach and Ryan have finished "The Magician's Elephant" and have decided to read The Chronicals. I'm excited. I listened too. But here is the problem. We Have Way Too Much Junk. It took too long to find the books. They were in the very last book box. (I think I opened 7 at least.) It wouldn't be so difficult if we didn't have boxes stacked half way to the ceiling in the basement, 5 layers deep. Let's clarify, the box I eventually needed was in the final layer, at the bottom. Now my semi-tidy basement with 5 layers of boxes lining one wall is a DISASTER. But there's always tomorrow. You'd be suprised how much you can get done in 1 uninterrupted hour. Have I mentioned the uninturrupted time I get every day? UNINTERRUPTED! (4 days a week, for 2.5 hours each day counts as every day in my book.) It's beautiful. Now, just so you don't think anyone's life is this perfect (mine included, I'm just still in that honeymoon stage) read this. The part about Facebook and Blogs is what I'm refering to. Always makes me feel better. It's a good read. Don't miss it!

How do you feel about your junk? Talk amongst yourselves.

Blog? What Blog?

My friend said she noticed I haven't posted for a while and figured we must not be settled in our house yet. She hit the nail square on the head. This is NOT a joke: I have not completely unpacked a single box. That's right folks, we've lived here for almost 3 months and we're not settled. So Audra: congratulations on unpacking and feeling like you've been in your new place forever. Maryam: sorry your B-day card is STILL late. It'll be there before Christmas, I promise. I did actually buy one the week before your B-day.

But, we have good excuses!
A few weeks after we moved in we noticed that the kitchen sink was draining slowly. We stuck a drain king (high pressure attachment for hose) in there and tried to see if we could clear the line. Then water started dripping down the basement wall under the kitchen. Then the subfloor that we could see from the basement was wet under the kitchen. Then we determined that we would have to remove the cabinets to take care of the drain situation. So we did. We found where the pipe had broken in two places. Seemed a little strange for a drain pipe. So we put the drain king in the clean-out downstairs. After 30 seconds water started seeping up through the basement floor. This was a really special moment in our house owning experience. Roto Rooter wanted $6,000 to fix this problem. We fixed it our selves for under $500. And that $500 includes hiring 7 Mexican guys to cut and remove an 18 inch wide, 30 foot long hole in our basement floor. My husband is awesome.

Anyway, to go along with the drain issue, we had a moldy floor in the kitchen issue. So we got all that taken care of, along with removing the moldy cabinets. Much debating brought us to the conclusion that we might as well do our kitchen re-model now rather than wait. So, here we are, working on getting the last layer of flooring out of the kitchen (1975 asbestos filled linoleum) so we can start installing our new cabinets.

I'm so grateful that my husband doesn't mind working on stuff like this. The only thing we've had to hire someone to do was put in our new windows. So, the two of us (along with Ryan's dad sometimes...thanks Brent) have been able to get a lot done in the last few months. We did know we would have a lot to do to get the house in good shape, and we really don't mind the work. It's nice to have plenty of space, and know that it will all be how we want it...some day.

Finally...

I have a partner in crime! I thought I was living with three slobs, but Becky has suprised me. Yesterday she helped me fold and put away laundry. Then I found this lovely line of shoes in her room. There is still hope!

Port-A-Potty

What's Goin' On

Zach is suddenly very fond of peas:

Zach wrote his own grocery list last week. He asked me how to spell these items:

My children made a Birthday cake for me on Saturday while I was naping. Ryan was in charge. His coment when Zach presented the cake: "I thought I was watching them really well, apparently not." He later found a box of matches in Zach's room. We keep the candles and matches together in a bag. Usually in an unreachable place, but not on Saturday when it was still in a box...

In other news:
Zach stacked 8 pieces of bread in the toaster oven this morning (two stacks of 4). He thought we were all really hungry. Luckely he told me about it so I saved the middle pieces before they got warm.
We planted our pot garden. Not "pot" crazy! Just look on my garden blog, then you'll understand.

Things That Shouldn't Be in the Toilet

Not really sure what this is...it was in our toilet in our new house. We still have a problem though, so we're wondering what else is in there!

Ok, now for Jay's wedding. We got to go to Albuquerque for the weekend (minus two kids, woohoo!) for Ryan's best friend Jay's wedding. Here are a few pics, it was fun!

Here's Ryan, Chris McNeal, Jay and one of the other groomsmen.

The Happy Couple at the end of the ceremony.
Jay got creamed...whip creamed! And strawberry jammed too.
Ryan (Best Man...he gave a really good toast bytheway) and Jay at the end of the reception.
Finally a picture of us together.

Little Mommy

This is "Naked Baby"

Please notice what is on her knee.

99 Bottles of Coke on the Wall

I'm on my way to music camp. Riding a bus with 45 kids to Winter Park. Sounds like fun huhh? Had a blast last year, so it should be good. And I even packed a jacket this year, so hopefully I won't freeze! Wish me luck! My group this year is composed of 12 kids. 9 of them are ten-year-old Asian boys!

Under Contract

We close in 3 weeks.

Mr. Fix-It

This is my husband.

This is my dryer.

They have a close, personal relationship. You see, we have fixed our $37.50 appliance five or six times since we bought it five years ago. This last time was a real mystery that lasted 2 weeks. No, I'm not complaining about two weeks without a dryer. I did complain actually, until I found out that my neighbor has been without a dryer for like a year because theirs is gas and they only take electric dryers here in the fine apartments that are The Reflections at Cherry Creek. But I digress. Not really actually...part of my complaint (before I was not complaining) was how the management responded to my drying dilemma. You see, I had put off doing laundry long enough that I had quite a stock pile of loaded laundry baskets. It was a Tuesday, I decided to start with our bedding. When I discovered our dryer problem (running but not heating) I had wet sheets and a wet mattress pad. Those mattress pads take forever to dry in the dryer. It was a hot day, so I ran a string from my upstairs neighbor's porch to the fence. Granted, this was a very obtrusive way to dry sheets. But I hung the pillow cases over the actual walkway, so people just had to duck a little. (This explanation is taking a long time, hope you're in it for the long haul...)

The manager, Kim, was out walking the grounds with the guy who is really in charge. They were discussing this I hope:


See how much they care about us? This non-grass area that should be a lush carpet of water sucking Kentucky Blue Grass translates into a lot of dirty clothes in the last year. Sometimes multiple changes of dirty clothes in one day. Digression again. So, apparently they were discussing the situation. I'm assuming Kim was mortified by my use of string because she walked on over to me (I was out with the kids and our neighbor and her kids) and informed me that we're not allowed to hang laundry here. Not worried about the "grass" though. Or at least she hasn't been for the last year. Anyway...back to the dryer:

My amazing husband finally figured out what was wrong. He fixed it. Then he fixed it again because the first fix wasn't quite good enough for my snooty dryer. So, the moral of the story (do you like how I'm wrapping it up so quickly) is that we have lots of clean, dry clothes here. And I owe it all to my fantastic Mr. Fix-It.

Did I mention that he fixed Zach's dresser too?

Basket Liner

Maybe this isn't really worthy of this blog, but I'm really happy about the basket liner I made this morning. I know it's a simple project, but sometimes simple and fast is good. Right?

The material is actually black, it's hard to tell in the picture though. The liner is a little big because it will shrink a tad when I wash it. I didn't pre-shrink. What can I say, I'm a risk-taker! No, actually I didn't pre-shrink because the dryer is out of commission at this time, so no shrinking would actually happen if I washed it and hung it out to dry. ANYway, that's another story.

See how much nicer this black is than the cream fabric the basket came with. The cream was nice in theory, say if you don't have kids or if you aren't using it by the door for the shoes. So I went with black.

This thing has actually been washed recently. It just doesn't get much cleaner than this. The blob on the left is tomato soup. Nice touch huhh? Just don't think about what it did to the shoe it hit first!

Prom Dress

I had a last minute prom dress client last week. It was exciting because it's my first non-friend or family job! Anyway, I asked the girl to send me a picture of her wearing the dress, but haven't gotten anything yet, so this will have to do for now. It looks much better on...so hopefully she will send me a pic.

Marvelous Day

If you don't know who this guy is, you should:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHMPdrCvCkE&feature=related

We love Steve. We have his CD's and they make me happy. I love the one about the elephant, and Marvelous Day, and the one about the ducks. And, well, most of them.

That's all.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a typical Mother's Day here including a green snot nose for Becky and a zombie husband. I got to sleep all the way until 6:30. It was thrilling! Ryan was so exhausted from staying up all night working on a paper that he didn't wake up until I was in the shower. But I got pancakes. They were good. Zach made me some Mother's Day cards, and gave me some chocolate. Becky also gave me chocolate. Ryan gave me a nice miniature rose plant (when he gave it to me he said he had gotten me a dozen roses-there really are 12) and more chocolate. The chocolate is almost gone. I was really stressed out after Sacrament meeting because we didn't get our customary box of chocolates. But the young men saved the day when they brought us plates of cookies and chocolate dipped strawberries in Relief Society. I would have preferred the box of chocolate. But I'll live. As you can see, chocolate is pivotal in the enjoyment of Mother's Day!

"It's Just Not Your Color" or "What the heck are you doing?!?!"

See how it just really doesn't match her skin tone? She needs more pink in her foundation.

I tried to tell her, but she was really concentrating. She was sure that my foundation would work just fine for her rosy skin.

Thank goodness Mary Kay makes a cleanser that gets all this stuff off!

Soap

I don't think we need to worry about Becky getting Swine Flu. She washes her hands for 5 minutes before rinsing!

Kids These Days

If I let myself cool off for half an hour I probably wouldn't write this. But since I'm not cooled off...these kids were outside throwing rocks. One hit our window. I went out and asked them to go somewhere else because one had already hit our back door and I don't want to deal with a broken window tonight. One of the kids said "how did we hit your window?" The nerve! I recovered quickly and said, "I don't know, but it did." So they reluctantly left. Why is a 10 year old boy being so rude? I'm a little miffed.

How To Start Your Day

Zach likes to do Yoga in the morning. He makes me do it with him. This morning Becky was up too, so we all did it together. Didn't last for long though...Becky wanted to sit on my lap!

The kids for Easter.

Homemade Ant Farm

I've been a little preoccupied this morning reading three month's of blog entries by our Relief Society President's daughter. Her 3 month old baby passed away yesterday. I knew he had been sick since he was born, and wanted to know the whole story. Very sad and eye-opening. Makes me that much more thankful for the Gospel and for my healthy kids.

So, while I was neglecting my own children...ironic huhh...they made an ant farm. Zach has informed me that the ants are very hungry and he is taking care of them. This is the case that holds his plastic horn. It is now the residence of 3 ants. (Actually I think only 2 are living). Zach picked them up from the bathroom floor with toilet paper and made them "comfy" in their new house.

We don't live in a landfill by the way, the ants just come out from under the walls in the bathrooms and kitchen if any crumb of anything is left on the floor. So as you can probably imagine, I clean my kitchen floor daily!

Do these ants look happy to you?

I'm also very distracted because my friend from Church's house had a serious fire on Sunday afternoon. Everyone is ok, but I fear that the house is in very bad shape. It doesn't look very good to me. Most of the family is out of town right now. I just can't stop worring and feeling badly for them. I can't imagine this happening and wondering and waiting to see what the actual damage is. It's been a rough start to the week for our ward.

Why Am I Telling You This?

I'm not really sure, I just had fun watching my kids suck down their oatmeal this morning. You can't really tell from the picture, but Zach is using a giant serving spoon. I think that's what made this morning's daily ritual interesting.

I got a new plant yesterday. Whenever a new family moves into our ward the Filmore's bring them a plant in an egg shell. My first one didn't make it because I didn't care for it very well. My interest was sparked when I saw my friend's blog and how far her move-in plant has come since they moved in. So, I'm trying again!

Don't miss Sproutlings!