Can Someone Please Tell Me if This is Normal?

Things that come out of Becky's mouth on a daily basis:

"I don't want those socks!"
I go to put them back,
"I do, I do!"

"Not those shoes!"
I go to put them back,
"I do want those shoes!"

"I don't want that cup!"
pause
"I do, I do!"

"I want the pink teddy bear in my bed."
bring the bear
"I don't want the pink teddy bear in my bed!"

You get the picture. I'm spending a lot of time pretending to put things away these days. What is the deal! Is this normal?

Not Such a Bad Mood Anymore

My sweet friend Katie showed up at my house last night with a bag of wheat free goodies. Including these cookies. And they are really good! So, once again chocolate has cured everything!

My picture taking skills aren't quite as good as the internet picture, but you get the idea.

I'm in a Bad Mood

I'm in a bad mood because I am allergic to wheat and I've been trying to pretend I'm not and I really can't anymore because it is making me feel HORRIBLE all the time. SO DON'T BRING ME ANY COOKIES!


Don't these look delicious?

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.