You Will Find True Love on Flag Day

Basket Bingo

2012-02-13T09:42:00.004-05:00

On Saturday, Kiree's preschool had their basket bingo. Bingo is not really our thing, but I'm on the fundraising committee and I was helping out, so we all went. Bob and Jaide played bingo. Kiree bounced around between where they were sitting and where I was sitting (near the door selling raffle tickets). Jaide won a lucky neighbor prize (she was sitting next to someone who won a bingo), a cookbook the preschool had made last year, a journal set, a large bar of fancy soap, and lunch box note cards. Jaide was really excited about the cookbook.

They had all the baskets on display and the girls were really excited about one that had games in it.

It had a little mini bowling set in it that I had donated out of my personal kid prize stash. The girls really wanted that silly thing, which made me feel a little bad until I thought about what would have happened if I'd given it to them. I'm sure they would have loved it for a little while and then I would have been stepping on tiny bowling pins until I got fed up and threw them away.

It was interesting to watch the hardcore bingo ladies play.

I think bingo could make an interesting subject for a documentary.

So Tired: A stream of conscious recap of January

2012-01-29T22:08:00.004-05:00

It's hard to believe January is almost over. I've been keeping pretty busy despite my lack of blogging. With some help from Bob (and occasionally the kids) I've been getting the last of the wallpaper off the kitchen walls. I've even managed to patch and prime a few of them. It's amazing how long it has taken to get it all off. It's like three layers, fugly shiny top part, papery bottom part, and gluey sticky mess bits.

Kiree is in a co-op preschool this year which she really enjoys, but I'm looking forward to having her in a regular preschool next year. I've enjoyed getting to be in the class with her on occasion and I don't mind bringing snacks and helping clean up. I'm just really tired of being on the fundraising committee. I don't want to beg for stuff from local businesses for the basket bingo any more. I don't want to go to the basket bingo, but I'll do these things. It'll all be over soon, then I can fret about throwing parties and trying to get my kitchen all painted before my parties.

My belly grows larger and larger. I think my belly button (or peach as Kiree would say) is going outtie this time. Kiree is obsessed with belly buttons. It's handy though as a distraction when she's whiny or angry or whatever. I just ask her something about her peach and she's gotta stop whatever she's doing to check out her belly button (or my belly button, or Jaide's or daddy's). The girls are really excited to meet their little brother. The Night Rooster is kicking and poking me frequently. Jaide and Bob have felt him kick lots of times. Kiree, I don't think, understands what she is supposed to be feeling. She always just says she can't feel any thing. She also half heartedly freaks out any morning she sees me take my shot. "You're going to poke the baby!" she says, sometimes with more conviction than other times. And every time I tell her that I'm not going to, that the needle is way too short, and that it only goes in the skin/fat and that there's lots of fat, muscle, and tissues between the outside of my skin and the baby. Sometimes I also go into the whole I need to take this medicine to make sure the baby and I both stay healthy thing. Kiree came along with me for another ultrasound at 28 weeks and we had the same technician we had at 20 weeks. After I said something to Kiree about not being sad this time the technician said that she remembered us. Kiree's reaction to finding out the baby was a boy was pretty memorable. I have to/get to go in for weekly ultrasounds starting at 36 weeks.

Bob and I (okay, mostly Bob) put together the crib yesterday. We bought a new one since the old one had been patched up by us multiple times, still was kind of broken, probably would have been recalled if the company who made it was still in business (a very similar crib was recalled), had plastic parts and a drop side (which nowadays are no nos), and we ended up destroying it to get it out of the house before we listed. I wanted to put the new crib up to help me figure out where to put things in the baby room. It's much sturdier than the old one and looks pretty good despite the couple of dings and uneven finish in parts (good old made in China quality!) well it wasn't too expensive any way. We also got a car seat (we got rid of the old infant seat too, but it was 3 point harness which both the girls figured out how to slip out of at around 9 months). The new car seat is gray with Mickey Mouse on it. It's one of the few infant seats I've ever seen that actually seems gender neutral and it fits into the second base I bought at the nearly new sale for the old carseat. Since I last bought any baby buckets, Graco started making infant carriers that can hold babies up to like 35lbs. I don't know how that is a useful feature, unless you're going to leave the seat in your car all the time. Those darn things start getting to heavy to schlep around before the kid even hits 20lbs. And my kids take forever to even get to 20lbs. Kiree is like barely 35lbs and she's 4! So our new carseat is like the old one (so it can fit in the old extra base, the new ones have different bases :P) and only goes up to 22lbs, which is fine by me. I'm fan of good old, cheap Cosco convertible seats once the baby buckets are no longer useful. I'm sure we'll buy another one of those when the time comes. Kiree's rear facing convertible seat got tossed after our car accident. She has a forward facing to booster one now.

The weather has been crazy. Freezing one day, in the 6o's other days. We had one snow that stuck, topped with a nice layer of freezing rain. It wasn't much, but the kids were thrilled. Bob and I were thrilled that we have a fenced backyard and that the kids are old enough to go play in it by themselves (and for lots of windows facing the back yard so we could keep an eye on them). I've been crocheting a lot lately. I made lots of hats for Christmas and now I'm making lots of blankets for baby season. It would probably be easier to make all the same, but I'd be too bored to finish. I had planned to specialize making those hats, but making different hats seemed like it would be more fun. I'm not very good at making my own patterns, but I don't like having to follow a pattern, so I've made a lot of variations on a couple of patterns so far.

We're starting to plan a family reunion and Jaide's birthday and baptism this summer. It'd be good to have as much stuff planned as I can before the baby's born. Not everything can be though. I'll just be happy if I can get my painting list finished and get the house a bit better organized.

Happy New Year! Stuff I want to do in 2012

2012-01-04T21:23:00.002-05:00

It's a new year and I'm cautiously optimistic. Actually, there's a lot to look forward to. Here are 12 goals I have for 2012.

1. Get exercise every day.

At some point we're going to have to get a new gym, like maybe in April. For now I'm doing a prenatal yoga DVD (part of it anyway), walking Jaide to school, and trying to find other ways to get a little more movement in.

2. No more candy. (at least until April)

I'm gaining weight and I have to, but I don't want to gain too much, too fast. I think between Halloween and Christmas I've eaten way too much candy. Candy isn't necessary. I'm not limiting other sweets or stuff that's home made by me.

3. Eat lots of fruit and veggies.

4. No more soda. (also at least until April)

I got into a bad habit with soda during morning sick times. It's not necessary either.

5. Empty kitchen sink every night.

Got to get back on the daily dishes bandwagon.

6. Laundry every week day.

It's easier to complete little loads- all the way to put away!

7. Remind kids of their chores and see that they're done.

They both have things they're supposed to do each evening and we often forget.

8. Meet obligations early.

I was thinking specifically about recurring things I have to do, like planning activity days and making the monthly PTA newsletter. I prefer being on top of things to putting out fires, so that's what I should be doing right?

9. Plan ahead for the next day the night before.

Check the calendar, pack lunches or other stuff that make my life easier in the morning.

10. Six dates with Bob.

Kind of lame, but yeah, we haven't been going on tons of dates without the kids. I'm trying to be realistic.

11. Monthly kid dates.

Each month let one of the kids pick an activity for the family.

12. Be kind to myself and others.

Christmas Card

2011-12-26T10:32:00.004-05:00

A Look Back at 2011- What a year it's been!

The year started with...

a mad dash to get the house ready to sell

we started looking at houses

we listed our house for sale

and then...

we got rear ended and thought the car might be totaled, but the repairs were just under the max$$

we got an offer on our house that fell through

we nearly gave up on trying to sell the house

but then...

we got another offer

we went to California and celebrated our 10th anniversary a year early

we sold the house (4 months after we listed)

we were homeless for two weeks at our friend's place

and that was when...

there was an earthquake

we bought the first house we saw (it was also the 17th house out of 18 and the 3rd house we offered on)

we moved in the weekend of the hurricane

immediately after that...

Jaide started 2nd grade and now we walk to school

shortly after that...

at Kiree's preschool orientation, the remnants of another hurricane flooded the parking lot and my car

Kiree started preschool

the car was, in fact, totaled this time

we bought a minivan

finally...

we celebrated our first holidays here- Labor Day/7th anniversary of moving to MD, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas too

oh, and also...

we found out we're having a baby boy due in April

Bob kicked a field goal at the Raven's field during a dads and kids event (he won a gift card).

Meg finally started painting and still hopes to get the rest of the kitchen wallpaper removed before the end of time.

Jaide started Brownies, read the first several Harry Potter books, and is above grade level in math and reading this year.

Kiree talked the ears off of any and everyone who'd listen to her, she loves preschool and can't wait until 2013 when she gets to go to elementary school with Jaide.

It's been a crazy, but good year.

November Round Up

2011-12-06T14:26:00.004-05:00

And here's the rest of November:

I got to go with Kiree on her preschool field trip to a farm. We went on a hayride and learned about pilgrims.

Kiree got to go up and demonstrate what pilgrim girls did. It was freezing, freezing cold! We were all happy to leave at the end. Kiree and her friend I drove both fell asleep on the ride back.

Kiree's preschool had a pancake breakfast fundraiser at Appleby's one Saturday morning. As a member of the fundraising committee, I got to help out with plating pancakes and busing tables. It was fun. We also all ate some pancakes.

The Monday before Thanksgiving was the turkey trot at Jaide's school. Kiree was very excited about it. Part of it is on the path from school toward our house. Kiree ran the first part with Jaide (just around the field).

I'm happy Jaide was willing to go a lot slower than she could have to stick with her sister.

Thanksgiving was just the four of us. I wanted to go for a hike at the state park that morning, but we ended up sleeping in and then spending the rest of the day cooking. Bob stayed in his PJs all day long! Jaide and I were going to go to Michael's Thanksgiving night, but Jaide decided to stay home and play wii. I went and bought lots of yarn and some stuff for Activity Day. Bob and I did some black Friday shopping separately. I got to take the kids with me. I went to Walmart at about 8:30am and all the sheet sets that had been on sale were gone. There were piles of TVs still however. I just bought some ornaments. The girls went with a friend and her mom to see the Muppet movie that afternoon and in the evening we took family photos at Target. They had a black Friday deal where you could get a CD of all the pictures for $49.99. That's what we got.

Saturday we finally went on our hike at the state park. The girls did very well.

We hiked the paved trail from the swinging bridge to the one end and back. Next time I think we'll bring the girls bikes.

We put up the Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. It's a brand new pre-lit tree and one row of branches doesn't light. Bob has been trying unsuccessfully to get it fixed. The company that made the tree has now sent us two replacement sections, neither of which fit into the bottom part of our tree. Today it looks like they sent us a new top piece. I think we're going to end up with a whole new tree at this rate. We've been slowly putting up all the Christmas stuff and I've been painting the family room.

Baby Boy!

2011-11-30T10:29:00.003-05:00

I went in for my detailed anatomy ultrasound on the 17th. Since my appointment was at 9am, we ended up bringing both the girls. They were very excited. Jaide guessed the baby was a boy. Kiree guessed the baby was a girl. Bob had also guessed girl and I had refused to officially guess since I have always guessed wrong. Very quickly I saw something on the ultrasound that looked kinda boyish. The technician got some views of the heart and then she showed us the little bottom. Sure enough, it was a boy. Kiree seemed to think that if the tech kept looking she would see that was a girl, but no, we told her, it was a boy and it was always a boy, we just didn't know until then. Jaide was happy to be right. Kiree was sad and then inconsolable. Bob had to take her outside for a while to calm down. Jaide stayed with me and wondered why we were still looking at the baby since we had already found out the gender. They have to look at all the baby's parts to see if he's healthy, I told her. That's the reason for the ultrasound, not just to find out the gender. Jaide was very interested in watching the rest of the ultrasound and she got very good at figuring out what parts of the baby were on the screen. The baby looked very good and is measuring right on with my dates, so he should be born no later than April 12th. The girls each got a print out of the picture of the baby's profile. That probably was the best picture and we ended up with four pretty much identical copies of it. No print out of the little boy shot though, so you'll just have to take our word for it.

one of the baby's legs and foot and a cross section of the other leg, ultrasounds make some creepy images some times.

When I had an ultrasound at 12 weeks, the technician remarked, "look at those long arms and legs!" They did look quite long. Bob wasn't there that time.

Maybe if he had been, it wouldn't have been so surprising. I'm scheduled to have one more ultrasound at 28wks. So far I've had a total of three this pregnancy. With Kiree, I had 13. I'm happy to not be needing so many this time around.

speaking of creepy pics, here is one of the baby's hand (center) and face (right)

Kiree had a birthday, shout hooray

2011-11-09T10:16:00.003-05:00

Kiree with her cake, cupcakes, and one of the presents she opened throughout the day.

Kiree is four! Bob came home to have birthday lunch with Kiree and I. Kiree got to have a playdate with one of her best buddies and she got new toys! A drum, a playdoh pizza set, an art kit, and a Scooby Doo set were what she got.

I interviewed our newest four year old on her birthday.

M: Kiree, can I interview you?

K: Yeah, what's an interview?

M: I ask you questions.

K: Okay

What's your favorite color: purple, blue, and pink, and green.

What's your favorite thing you do at school: play and help make stuff.

What is your favorite place: amusement park

Favorite movie: Scooby Doo

Favorite Book: Dora's Time Adventure

If you could do any thing, what would you do: play with new toys, get a playdoh cake thing and a playdoh muffin maker.

What do you want to be when you grow up: (quietly) a mom (more animated) I wish I could be something awesome like a cowgirl, a pilot, or a firefighter.

What will you be like when you turn 5: just big

Do you think the baby is a boy or a girl: a girl!

Meg's observations:

Kiree is a sweetheart. She is very softspoken and tender hearted most of the time. Sometimes she is very feisty and loud! She can be very dramatic, she has declared many days the best or worst ever! She enjoys learning and asks lots of questions. She loves to practice new phrases she's learned and she remembers a lot. Kiree loves preschool and playing with friends. She loves her family very much and is very excited to be a big sister. She is starting to like running more and wants to be faster than Jaide some day. She is willing to try most foods and likes many of them. She has very long, curly, strawberry blond hair and hazel eyes. She and Jaide love to do things together even if they do annoy (and sometimes hit) each other frequently. Kiree often says hilarious things and seems to really enjoy making us laugh. She has asked us to sing Jingle Bells every night since last December. She loves to watch PBS kids and would watch all day if I let her. We couldn't imagine our family without her.

Hershey's Chocolate World

2011-11-07T10:36:00.004-05:00

Somebody's having a birthday tomorrow. In her honor, we went to Hershey's Chocolate World on Saturday. In Hershey, PA, near Hershey Park, they have a pseudo factory where people can go and learn about chocolate and spend money. We had fun. The tour is free. It's like a ride that takes you through how chocolate is made and it has singing animatronic cows! You get candy at the end. It was like cookies and cream balls, which the kids didn't like too much, but that didn't stop us from going on the ride, er tour twice.

We had lunch in the food court. Kiree and I had soup. I think my broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl was the best lunch of the bunch. Kiree had cream of tomato soup that tasted like the sauce in canned ravioli. Bob and Jaide had pizza and it turned out to be more than they wanted to eat.

The girls were very excited to see the Reese's guy. Jaide wanted a Reese's stuffed toy but we said no since she has a few million stuffed animals already.

I printed out coupons from the Hershey site, so we got a buy one get one free hot cocoa. That was pretty good too. Another coupon we had was for the chocolate tasting adventure, so we decided to do that too.

It was fun, we got to try five different kinds of chocolate plus some chocolate milk.

I learned that it takes 10 days to make regular chocolate and even longer for the fancy kind. At the end we all got "masters in chocolate tasting" from "Hershey University." The kids were excited, or hyper, it was hard to tell at that point. We then took these pics outside before heading home.

I had the bright idea of bringing the girls'

Halloween candy along to preempt the inevitable desire of the kids for us to buy them candy. A lot of the candy they had is Hershey's any way, so there you go. It was handy on the ride up (it did take long weeks to get there) but it got melty in the car (cold outside, hot in the car) and ended up in the trunk for the ride hom

Halloween Wrap Up

2011-11-01T09:46:00.004-04:00

My phone battery was dying so we sadly didn't get any pictures at the ward trunk or treat, but I debuted my Halloween costume there.

That same day was Kiree's preschool Halloween party and parade.

On Halloween Jaide's school had a parade.

It was difficult to see everybody and I couldn't get a good picture of Jaide.

I hope they do it differently next year. Jaide's class had a party that afternoon. I couldn't help out with it since I had to pick up Kiree from preschool right in the middle of it.

The girls wanted pizza shaped like a pumpkin for dinner on Halloween.

Bob carved the last pumpkin we hadn't carved yet quickly before dinner. I

drew the design on it and he carved.

Bob took the girls trick or treating and I handed out candy.

There was a hospitality table set up at one of the neighbors' house. We had several trick or treaters but still ended up with quite a bit of candy left over. Between that and the girls' hauls from trunk or treat and trick or treating, we have a lot of candy in the house. I'm trying to resist temptation since sugar and I don't seem to be getting along as well as we used to. Today we take down the Halloween decorations and start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas!

October Fun

2011-10-28T21:35:00.002-04:00

Larriland Farm- Picking apples, hayride.

Halloween Party!

Family Fun

2011-10-11T14:19:00.003-04:00

Last month we went to Medieval Times with Bob's work. The kids seemed to enjoy it despite it going quite late. Jaide didn't want to watch the fighting parts, but liked the other parts. It sure was a lot of meat to eat. At least they gave us a doggie bag for the girl's food. We brought home the equivalent of a whole roasted chicken. I turned it into soup.

We were in the red and yellow section. That's the same section my family was in when we went to the one outside Chicago when I was a kid. Does the show always turn out the same way? It's possible.

Last Saturday Bob and the girls went to the Ravens' stadium for a fun event. It was an "All Pro Dad" event that the Just for Dad's group at Jaide's school attended. They got goodie bags with mini footballs and coloring books.

Bob got to kick a field goal from the 20 yard line. He won a gift card for making it. They got a nice photo that I had to take a picture of with my phone. Darn fragile scanners that break the first time you ever drop them on the floor!

Other People's Houses

2011-10-04T10:23:00.002-04:00

We're still getting auto-email updates on the houses for sale in our old neighborhood from our realtor. It's kind of interesting to see what's happening with our former competition (only two houses in our association have sold this year, including ours) and the new listings. Eventually this link won't work any more since they are under contract now, but I thought it might be interesting to share a house very similar to our old one to show how someone else made the floor plan work. I think they might have done a better job than we did, but someone (the sellers or the previous sellers) must have spent a lot 'o moola.
http://slideshow.mris.com/slideshow.cfm?ListingKey=97424270198
I was impressed that they managed to add a half bath on the main floor (where the closet in our house was) and a full bath to the basement (we had a half bath) without it looking ridiculous (I've seen other listings that looked like they added a big box with a toilet in it to the middle of their kitchen and other such nonsense)
This house listed right after our offer on the house we bought was accepted. I think the kids would have loved this house (it has a pool!) It's a beautiful house and it was priced well. If they had listed sooner, we might have bought it!
The two other houses we put offers on finally closed, so we got see what they ended up going for. The foreclosure house closed way, way, way, way after it went under contract. I'm sure that shady bank got lots of $100 per day past closing fees from the poor sap who bought that house. The sale price ended up being more than the list (perhaps due to all those shady fees?) The other house that we felt was overpriced held out and got more than they countered to us for. It was a nice house but it was not all that. Congrats to the new owners of the most expensive, old house in the neighborhood. Hope you don't have to sell any time soon!

And then What Happened?

2011-09-27T10:56:00.006-04:00

Well here is the follow up to some of what I've blogged about lately (or a while ago) and some other stuff that has happened.

The green car ended up being declared a total loss by our insurance company. We got more money than we could have sold it for (makes sense since they give you replacement cost). My friend Sara was so nice to let me use their minivan for a week while we were car-less. We went through a long and tedious process of trying to decide what car to buy. Used cars around here are over priced! Bob had this whole spread sheet thing going on. We went to carmax and looked at cars. That knocked the Toyota Highlander off our list (the third row is a joke!). We narrowed it down to the Toyota Sienna (minivan) and the Honda Pilot (suv). They both had the ability to seat eight (not that we're going to fill up that many seats with our own children, thank you very much, but we would like to be able to transport friends and visitors, and STUFF). Bob's calculations gave him the bright idea that a new car might be a better value than a used car. How is that possible? Ask Bob. I think it has to do with the low mileage- thus extra years of having the car and the better gas mileage of the newer cars. Bob requested price quotes from all sorts of dealers and thus we got gazillions of calls from car sales people. We're still getting occasional calls. We test drove two new siennas and a new pilot. We got one quote for a 2012 pilot that was very very low (who knows what it would have gotten jacked up to, but...) Bob really liked the sienna after the first test drive. He was impressed with the features in the LE. I really liked driving the pilot. It felt very comfortable and more like a car to me. We thought either would work. I finally decided I'd go with Bob on the sienna because for one- it had more storage space when you're using the third row (or when the third row is folded in) and two- I thought it was less likely to get me car jacked. Who car jacks a mini van? We ended up buying a blue sienna (Bob really wanted a blue car- silly boy!) I'm happy enough. Bob seemed a little bummed driving it on Saturday. He was the one originally who didn't want to get a mini van. We cleaned out the garage so now we can both park there! I have to fold in one of the rear view mirrors to get the van in, but hey, at least it fits!

Earlier this month Kiree started preschool. She LOVES it! Three of her friends from church are in her class. I had my first time as a coop parent and it was fun. The kids are pretty hilarious. My next coop day is on a field trip day, so that should be fun. I'm glad to have a car to drive for that (and for other purposes).

Jaide is still enjoying school. She has a field trip today and her first day of Brownies after school. I think she's going to sell Girl Scout Cookies this year.

I posted some pics of the new house here.

This Friday I'm taking the GRE. Why? Well, because it was half off in August and September and Friday was the last possible day to do it for half price. But why? Well, some day I think I might do more school. I'm not sure what or when, but I guess we'll see. We'll have to see how well I can cram all the high school math I forgot back into my head before Friday. Yes, it's high school math. And it's making me feel like an idiot.

waterlogged

2011-09-09T18:31:00.000-04:00

Alternate post title: What's next? Locusts?

To say we've had a great deal of rain around here might be an understatement. Fortunately, our house hasn't had any water infiltration. Yay! But who knew that the remnants of a hurricane that hit the gulf coast would cause more problems for us than the hurricane that actually skidded along the east coast? On Wednesday, tropical storm Lee dumped rain on us. I was at Kiree's preschool's mandatory three hour parent orientation. By the time I got out of the building, the parking lot was flooded, right where I was parked. I think I was probably parked in the lowest spot in the lot. There was a big drain in front of the spot, but it must have been super clogged. I waded into the nearly knee high (and remember I'm tall, so that's like 18") water to get to the car, which I then discovered was filled up to the seats with water. The light weight junk was fa-loating. I did not try to start the car. It ended up getting towed to our repair shop, where it sits even now. The insurance adjuster is going to look at it maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday. I think this might be the end of the line for the little green Honda. It was only like 18months from retirement!

We may not have locusts (yet) but we do have quite a few ants marching into our mailbox, to get out of the rain I assume. Also, a few are getting into the house at the front door.

Surviving August

2011-09-02T10:32:00.000-04:00

We survived packing, moving out, selling our house, being homeless for two weeks, an earthquake, buying a new house, moving our stuff into the house, a hurricane/tropical storm, power loss, cancelled church, cancelled school and the first few days of school.

Being a walker means you can play at the playground sometimes before or after school

I hope to also survive unpacking and setting everything up. I'm looking forward to Christmas, because I'm hopeful that we'll be done unpacking by then.

Summer Doings

2011-08-22T22:31:00.000-04:00

Summer is almost over. Isn't it crazy? Maybe I should be relieved. I'm not sure that I did most of the fun things I had planned to do with the kids, but I think they still had fun.
A lot of my summer could be summed up with this visual illustration.

Yup, that about sums it up.
Being homeless this past week and a half has been a bit of a slower pace, but I think that illustration will be applicable again before the end of this week. So I'd better blog about the fun things we did this summer before I find myself in the month of November or something.

Summer
I already blogged about our trip to California. It was Jaide's birthday not too long after we got back. With the general craziness and uncertainty of trying to sell a house, (and the fact I sort of thought we'd be in a new house by Jaide's birthday) we decided not to have a party this year and to go to Dutch Wonderland instead. It was insanely hot that day. The girls went on the fun slide a couple of times and then we just spent the rest of the day at the water area of the park. Seeing a Pizza Hut right across from the park (and maybe also because she was pretty hungry and didn't want to wait for the drive to Chick-fil-A?) Jaide decided she wanted Pizza Hut for her birthday dinner. We gave Jaide a Scooby Doo board game that is sort of like Mouse Trap or 13 Dead End Drive. It's been a big hit with kids.

We went camping at the end of July to Pocomoke River State park. It's about half an hour away from Assateague Island. We stayed for two nights and I think we all enjoyed that length of camping trip. Bob asked the girls if they wanted to go camping again and Jaide said, "maybe next year." I guess camping is a good once a year thing. We spent a day at the beach on Assateague Island. The girls really love the beach. We played a lot in the sand. We came to the beach for a day trip our first Saturday of homelessness too. It's about a three hour drive each way.

our day trip to the beach

Our gym membership ended August 5th. We tried very hard to make good use of it before then. It was hard with all of the other things we were busy with, but the girls were very happy to go swimming often. Jaide got very good at swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house so she was not at all afraid to jump of the diving board or go down the waterslides into the deep end. Kiree was much more relaxed in the pool with a floatie on. On the day we had to take the membership cards back, I took the girls swimming and played one last round of mini golf with them. We did not keep score and it was much more fun that way. Jaide only lost her ball once, but we managed to find it.

The same week that our gym membership ended was the week of Jaide and Kiree's soccer camp. That took up our mornings all that week. But the girls had a lot of fun. One of Kiree's friends was in the "petit" class with her. Jaide's class met at the same time at the other end of the same field and lasted longer than Kiree's. I managed to go back home a couple of times and get some packing done. The girls were very excited to get two t-shirts each and their very own soccer balls. They also liked the shin guards I bought them. Kiree wanted to wear her's all day. The coaches were all from England and they had fun accents and said things like "you silly sausages."

Jaide lost some teeth, but she's getting new ones.

August 5th was also the day the storage POD arrived. We took down our beds and packed them that night. I haven't slept in my own bed since August 5th! The kids have been sleeping on the floor since August 5th! We packed up most of the house that Saturday and had the POD picked up on the 11th. Then there was still some more packing of the stuff for "camping out in the house" as well as church stuff and all the other regular business. And cleaning, there was a bit of that as well. I did a lot of driving stuff from our house to the places where people were letting us keep it. On the 11th we started staying with our friends and on the 12th, we sold our house. The kids have been in heaven playing with their buddies most of the day, every day of homelessness. We celebrated Bob's birthday on the 14th with our friends and icecream cake.
Closing on our new house is this Thursday, the POD will come on Friday, and we'll have to unpack everything before we can sleep in our own beds again. In addition to that fun, there is also a preschool activity, elementary school open house, activity day, and a baseball game with Bob's work (all on Thursday or Friday). I see more of this in my near future.

Kayaking- a three hour tour, and the rest

2011-08-18T21:30:00.000-04:00

I think the kayak tour was more like 4hrs actually, but close enough

One of the things we had planned to do while we were at Lake Tahoe was to take a kayak tour. We found one online that seemed fun and which included some instruction and all the equipment. They even fed us lunch! And it was tasty lunch!

Bob and I had requested a double kayak, but they ended up putting us in separate kayaks due to Bob's massive length (you had to put in how tall you are when you make reservations). Bob was in a double kayak by himself and I was in a single.

Kayaking was hard to get the hang of at first. With some help and lots and lots of practice, I started getting the hang of it. It was very fun. The lake is very pretty. There are cool things to see. We kayaked past the Thunderbird lodge. We kayaked to a different beach and had lunch.

Then we headed back. We played ultimate frisbee until one of the doubles flipped their kayak over. I would definitely kayak again. Maybe we'll end up buying some someday.

I didn't realize it until it was much too late, but I had missed a triangular patch of skin on my left leg when applying the sunscreen. It ended up burnt or dead, well, just badly burned. It hurt and hurt, then itched and itched. It also bubbled and peeled and now (over a month later) it just looks brown and splotchy.

We went out to dinner at Outback in Reno and finally used the gift card my mom gave us for Christmas.

While we were in Reno, we bought the girls some surprises at a nearby Toys R Us.

On the way back to Bob's parent's place, we stopped at the Bodie Ghost town. It was very cool. Bob thought it would be dumb and touristy. It is actually a California state park and pretty well off the beaten path. They don't let anybody take anything, so there is still loads of stuff there. We took way too many pictures.

When we got back, we had a few more days with Bob's family. We surprised Jaide with an early surprise birthday party. I made Jaide a sand bucket cake. It's like dirt cups, but with vanilla pudding and crushed graham crackers. I also found some octopus gummies and some gummy rocks. They were very brightly colored. Bob wouldn't let me get swedish fish. Bob's mom surprised us all by whipping up an adorable little quilt for Jaide's sock monkey doll.
One morning we visited some adorable goats that a friend of Bob's mom raises. Kiree was very leery of the goats (even the adorable tiny baby one!) but was slightly less so after they let her give the baby a bottle.

While we were gone, the people who wanted to buy our house managed to get all of the inspections and appraisal done. That was quite handy. We only had to clean insanely well once (before we left). And since all of that went very well, we didn't have to do any more insane cleaning again (well, not until we moved out anyway). And when we got home, we could just sleep. Since we took a red eye home, we got in at about 6:30am (and that was eastern time, mind you and we were all still on pacific time). We all got back on eastern time eventually.

I'm glad we didn't die: Our hike of Shirley Canyon

2011-08-08T21:28:00.008-04:00

Here are two different waterfalls we saw along our hike, there was a crazy amount of water because there had been a ton of snow this winter.

While we were wandering around one evening, we found
some magazine type things about stuff to
do in North Lake Tahoe.

One of the sections listed several trails to hike.
Going on a hike sounded like a good idea because it's a pretty area and because hiking is good exercise and because it's much easier to go on a hike without the three year old who shall remain nameless who walks 5ft on flat ground and whines to be carried.

We decided to hike the Shirley Canyon trail because it was listed as a moderate hike, about 5 miles long.

When we got there that morning, we were met with this sign at the trail head.

This picture was taken after we finished the hike of course

We paused and then decided we would just go as far as we could and then turn back.

We passed by several people coming back down. But we also kept seeing people continuing on the trail. So we kept going.

Eventually we had gotten so far that I wasn't very excited about turning around.

We still saw people going on and hadn't seen very much snow, so we just kept going.

Eventually we did go over some snow, but it wasn't too bad.

We were basically following two other groups of people going all the way to the top.

Going to the top started sounding very good because at the top, there is a cable car you can ride down the mountain in. If you hike to the top, it is free to ride down. We kept going up and up and then we started going down again. There was an icy lake at the bottom of the last mountain.

I was very tired by this point, so I sat down to rest a bit, Bob looked around a bit.

The other people continued up the mountain.

The next section was pretty snow covered.

We learned later that there had been snow and people skiing there over the 4th of July weekend (just a few days earlier).

We basically ended up hiking up a ski slope.

My legs were so sore and I kept slipping on the snow.

At one point, I was not sure I would be able to make it up or down.

looking back down at part of the most difficult stretch

Eventually we made it up to the top.

We ate the lunch we brought with us at a picnic bench up at the top.

It was the best food we ever tasted. I felt like we had been in the wilderness for a very long time. We were quite dingy looking. It was kind of jarring to see all of the Squaw Valley Olympic stuff and lots of people who had taken the cable car up.

The 1960 winter Olympics were held there. We went to the museum and got to see the open arena where figure skating and hockey had been held.

There was also a swimming pool (it was super windy and not too many people were in there) and a hot tub (more people in that one). Apparently down at the bottom, you could pay for the ride up (like $30), swimming/hot tubbing, roller skating (on the iceless ice rink), and/or other stuff they had up there. There were also restaurants and event spaces. We stayed (and sat) for a bit and then headed over to wait for the cable car down. It was much faster than our trip up! If you look at the top left corner of the third picture in this post, you can see the cable car.

Lake Tahoe

2011-08-06T16:17:00.004-04:00

In celebration of our 9th anniversary (or 10th a year early) Bob and I took a little vacation to Lake Tahoe.

Bob and I stayed in North Lake Tahoe in Tahoe City. It was our first trip without kids since we had any.

We had a fun time.

Every night we walked to a different nearby restaurant and had dinner. During the day we did various outdoorsy activities.

I really wanted to go inside this cute little shop- I liked that jump in the lake sign- but it had very limited hours and always seemed to be closed at the most convenient times. I'm going to do a separate post about our daring do's of the trip, because I've been having issues with getting pictures to show up in the right spots with this here blogger.

June/July kidisms

2011-07-31T21:09:00.000-04:00

K: I'm already asleep.

K: have fun at lake taco

looking at her garlic bread, K: where's my bite? oh, there it is.

K: I want a boat for my birthday. M: What kind of boat? K: a speed boat!

K: we went to the money bank and I got a treat.

California! Grandparents! Swimming! Giant Trees!

2011-07-19T20:38:00.007-04:00

At the end of June we went to California to visit Bob's parents and to celebrate our 9th anniversary (or our 10th one year early). It was a much appreciated break from the daily slog of trying to keep our house showing ready all of the time and it was so much fun! We hadn't been out since Jaide was 2. The girls were very excited to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Rosie, who just graduated from BYU. They were also very excited to go swimming in Grandma and Grandpa's pool. By the time we left, they were both little fishies (well, Kiree was a little fishie with a floatie).We flew out on our anniversary. We tried something new getting to the airport and it worked so well, I don't know that I'll ever go back. I dropped Bob and the girls off at the airport, then drove back to our dear friend and neighbor's house. I left my car at her place and she drove me to the airport. While I was doing that, Bob checked us all in and checked luggage. I met up with him and the girls in the play area/observation deck. We did something similar coming back only with the rental car shuttle instead of a friend and me checking in instead of Bob.We flew into Las Vegas and got in very late, so as we had planned, we stayed the first night there and drove to Bob's home town in the southern California desert. Our plan was to stay there a few nights and then for Bob and I to go up to Lake Tahoe for a few days.We enjoyed very much visiting with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Rosie. Every afternoon at about 4 o'clock was swimming time. That is when the shadows of the trees covered the pool. Almost every night we participated in Grandpa's traditional root beer float after scripture reading. The first Friday we were there we didn't have root beer floats since we had had a lot of dessert type food on our day trip up to the trail of 100 giants.

That day Grandpa rented a mini van so that we could all travel together, over the mountains to the Sequoia National Forest to see some of the giant sequoias. Sitting in the very back of the van, Kiree had her first experience with car sickness. Fortunately we stopped and got out for a bit before she actually got sick in the car. She didn't know what to call what she was feeling, but from her description we figured it out and now she knows what being car sick means.

We had a picnic and walked the trail of 100 Giants taking lots of pictures. Some of those trees are estimated to be up to 1500 years old. They were huge!

And fire resistant, I guess you'd have to be to make it that long. Jaide and Kiree especially liked the ones you could go inside of.

Jaide called this one "the open house" (a little too much real estate?) On the way back, we stopped in Kernville and had smoothies. I found a sign for the blog of unnecessary quotation marks.

Since that Saturday was the first of the month, we took the girls and Grandpa to Home Depot for the kids workshop.

The girls made coasters and a little holder for the coaster. They decided that the holder was a toaster (I might have suggested it) and that the coasters were cookies (because you bake cookies in a toaster?) Grandma got out some craft paint so that they could put the finishing touches on them later that day.

The girls were really excited to be visitors in primary on Sunday. They were less excited about walking to church and ended up getting piggy back rides home.

On the 4th we went to a 4th of July event at the church in the morning and had a barbecue and pool party with some people from the ward. One of the families that came had girls the same ages as Jaide and Kiree and they had fun playing together. There was a thunderstorm which cut the pool time short. Their town doesn't get much rain, so it was a bit unusual. But by fireworks time, the rain had moved on. We went to the fireworks show not too long before it started and still got to sit right up in front. I think it was the first time Kiree had ever seen fireworks in person. She seemed to like them from the secure vantage point of my lap.

next up: Lake Tahoe

Home Again

2011-07-14T14:08:00.002-04:00

We're back from our trip to California and I'll be posting about our adventures soon (with pictures!) While we were gone things continued going well with the contract on our house. It looks like we might just sell it after all (I shall continue cautiously pessimistic until the deal is closed, but...) We could be homeless before Bob's birthday. So we've got a job to do looking for a new house, well that and packing.

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T18:47:00.002-04:00

It's summer doancha know

2011-06-27T08:50:00.002-04:00

School's finally over for the summer! Jaide had her last day last Wednesday. We ended up missing the first grade picnic the Friday before because Jaide wasn't feeling well. That was the first time Jaide ever missed school because she was sick. But Jaide did make it back for the last three half days of school. Unlike last year, Jaide was very happy about the end of the school year. She is also very excited about being a second grader.
We are all looking forward to our trip to California to visit Bob's family. Jaide hasn't been to their house since she was almost nursery age. Kiree has never been. The girls are very excited to swim in Grandma and Grandpa's pool. Bob and I are going to go on a little trip by ourselves during our trip to California. We've never gone anywhere without the kids! Our 9th anniversary is tomorrow, so we'll be celebrating that.
This summer may prove to be full of adventures. We shall see what happens with the house situation. Besides all of that shenanagins I'd like to do some fun activities with the girls this summer. I'm not going to do theme weeks like I've done in the past, but I have a few things I'd like to do. I want to write a story with the girls. I'd like to put on a play. I'm sure we'll also go swimming, play outside, and have play dates. We've already planned one camping trip and we'll definitely have to make use of our state park pass. The girls are signed up for a one week soccer camp in August. We'll have to bust out the calendar and figure out when we'll be doing what soon because school starts up again August 29th.

My First 5K

2011-06-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

at the start of the race

towards the end of the last lap, a short distance from the finish line

The PTA at Jaide's school held a 5K race as a fundraiser this year. I decided to run it. I looked up some training tips online and practiced mostly on the treadmill at the gym. The race was this past Saturday. I finished the race in 25:50. I was the 35th out of like 124. I was the 8th female overall and the 3rd female in the 30-39 age group. I got a little medal at the end for being 3rd in my age group. The kids are enjoying playing with it. It was a lot of fun to cheer everyone on at the finish line. A lot of kids ran too. Jaide wants to run next year.

Happy Flag Day!

2011-06-14T13:41:00.002-04:00

Hey everybody, today is Flag Day. I hope you've found or will soon find true love!

Crab Feast!

2011-06-10T12:39:00.003-04:00

Every year Bob's company has a summer party for all of the employees and their families. We always have crabs and other food. We've neglected to bring our camera every year until this one (since now we've got phones with cameras on them!) But I still neglected to get a picture of the crabs, perhaps because eating crabs makes your hands quite messy.

Bob's company has given out a lot of t-shirts, many of which would seem to be inside jokes, but I think they're actually just things the president of the company has said in meetings. I told Bob last year that we should make fake shirts that play off those he's gotten for us girls to wear. It was hard to decide what mine would say.

One of Bob's shirts says "I wonder" Jaide's shirt says "I wander."

One of Bob's shirts says "picks fights" Kiree's shirt says "picks nose" (sadly, it's true you know).

One of Bob's shirts says "optimist" my shirt says "realist."

We had also considered "optometrist"

We had a fun time. The food was really good, and we got to go into the bay. The girls played in the sand.

This stuff also happened in May

2011-06-05T17:05:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I almost forgot to blog about two highlights of the month of May. Going to Dutch Wonderland and going with Jaide on her class field trip to the National Zoo.

Kiree was not a fan of this ride

I got to go down the big slide this time

They gave all the classes their own animal print bandanas

pandas really do eat bamboo

the lion cubs lined up for a family photo

So Long May!

2011-05-29T16:23:00.000-04:00

I never went to EFY, but I remember seeing people wearing EFY shirts that said Joy in the Journey. This hasn't been the funnest couple of months lately, but I'm trying to find some joy in the journey right now. In that spirit, here is what else is going on in my life right now.
I'm looking forward to the unofficial (and official too) start of summer. We will probably do some work around the house, and generally enjoy being together on Memorial day. Jaide's last day of school is the 22nd. I see us making good use of the outdoor pools this summer. The weather has already been quite summery lately.
I've been preparing to run a 5K at Jaide's school next month. Next month we will also have our 9th anniversary and a vacation to look forward to. Jaide's 7th birthday will be in July and even though we probably won't get to have a big party, we will still find a fun way to mark the occasion.
I think I will make a countdown to vacation thing tonight.

and it's over

2011-05-27T08:10:00.000-04:00

If you haven't been on Meg complains on the internet, aka my facebook feed lately here's what you've missed:

May 17th we accepted an offer on our house. May 20th we put an offer in on a house, a foreclosure, still in Jaide's school district. May 23rd they countered. May 24th we countered back. Two nights ago they sent our realtor another counter that was worse than their first one. Not knowing whether they are just idiots or just being nasty, I googled the company handling it (nationstar mortgage) and discovered that they are terrible and bunch of crooks. So yay, they never accepted any of our offers. May 24th was also our buyer's home inspection. She brought her mom along and apparently mommy didn't like the house (the inspection was fine!) so she backed out yesterday morning. So there you go, not selling or buying. Probably our realtor is the saddest one about this. And we just patience on. And we're just out those $200+ for the condo docs. :P

One Fine Week

2011-05-23T12:56:00.001-04:00

What an awesome week we had! Sunday night we got an email that someone was going to be making an offer on our house. On Monday our realtor let us know she got the offer and she presented it to us on Tuesday. We accepted the offer and so now, if everything goes alright, we'll be closing June 27th. We gave our realtor some addresses of houses we wanted to go and see when we met with her on Tuesday. Wednesday night I found some more. Thursday afternoon we went and saw three houses. The third one was a foreclosure in Jaide's school district (the other two were in different schools). Friday morning we put in an offer on the house in Jaide's school district. We haven't heard back on that one yet. Friday evening we picked up the green car from the repair shop just before it closed and then took the rental car back less than an hour before the rental place closed. I had that rental for three weeks exactly! We ended the week with a trip up to Dutch Wonderland amusement park on Saturday. We met some friends up there and had a fun time riding rides and watching shows.
Will the good week spill over into this one? Will we be homeless for a period of time? Will our offer get accepted? I don't know, but I sure will let everybody know once I do.

April/May Kidisms

2011-05-19T21:58:00.001-04:00

J: (crying and carrying on while playing wii) M: wii is supposed to be fun.
K: the night rooster kept me up last night
M: You're being disobedient Jaide. J: I'm not-ey (Jaide likes to add a y to the end of words) M: Yes, you're being naughty.
K: we went to the money bank and i got a treat

Big Car

2011-05-16T14:16:00.000-04:00

We've ended up taking the green car in to be repaired. The repairs weren't costly enough to merit a total loss. The other guys' insurance company rented a car for us to drive in the mean time. We've had it now for 18 days. I've gotten quite used to driving a new car around. All of the features on it work and I even have a little button on the key chain to unlock the doors. Also it's much newer and cleaner than the green car. Maybe I will have to clean out the green car when we get it back. I will probably have to clean out this car before we take it back. The insurance company called last week to find out which shop we'd taken the green car to. I guess you usually know before you get the rental car, but we had to wait a few days for their estimator guy to come and we got the rental before then. It took a couple of days for the shop to get back to us after we took it in and we're still waiting to hear back when the car will be ready. The girls have been enjoying driving in the "huge white car." I've been Bob's chauffeur far more often than usual as I'm the one listed on the rental.

Spring Break- part 2

2011-05-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

Here's the rest of the story.
We finally made it to Richmond after dark. Bob went and got a pizza from the nearby Little Cesar's and we had dinner at bed time. We finally got the girls to go to sleep and Bob emailed our insurance company about the accident. I did some walking on one of the hotel's treadmills to try and combat the soreness. Bob and I were both quite sore by that point.
The next day we went to King's Dominion (we'd already bought tickets online). It was a bit cold and damp, but we still had a fun time. The girls went on a lot of rides. Bob and I didn't go on anything too fast or bumpy. It was everyone's first time there except for me. About sixteen years before (to the month if not the day) I had come on our big 8th grade fieldtrip to DC and King's Dominion was one of the places we visited. They still have the Hurler roller coaster, which when I came was a Wayne's World* themed ride. It doesn't have the theming any more, but the ride and it's name remain.
After our real life bumper car incident, Bob and I had no interest in riding on bumper cars at the park. The girls, however, quite enjoyed riding on some kid sized bumper cars. Kiree even drove her own little bumper car. At first, all she managed to do was to go round and round in a circle, but eventually (with a lot of instructing from us and the ride attendant) she managed to actually drive a bit. I'm going to include a couple of the videos I took with my phone.
Around dinner time we were ready to go home. We ate our leftover car food for dinner on the road. We wanted to be back for the primary baptism on Saturday. That's where we went Saturday morning. Saturday we also dyed Easter Eggs.

a room with TWO beds! -Kiree

one of them there tilty houses

In front of the Hurler

Lamest ride ever! Sorry I made you go on it Jaide. It was super slow and the attendant kept telling Jaide to hold her feet up (rather than walking along the ground like she was)

Kiree center, Jaide (back turned) upper right

Our fabulous designs

On Easter we made scalloped potatoes from scratch in the crock pot. We had tons of it and the girls wouldn't eat it. But Bob and I worked our way through it over the next several days (the girls missed out) The girls did get to find all of the hidden plastic Easter Eggs. We did not risk hiding the real ones, but the did get eaten any way.

*for the youngsters, a film from the early 1990's starring Mike Myers (you know, Shrek) and Dana Carvey based on a SNL skit

Spring Break- part 1

2011-04-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

It was spring break last week and yesterday. It's been a nice break from school for Jaide but not a break from the craziness that is our life right now.

The first Saturday of spring break we went to the gym and it happened to be member day or something. The girls got to get their faces painted which they thoroughly love to do. The rest of the day people asked us if whatever place we happened to be at had face painting going on. We went to an Easter thing at Toys R Us (the girls got to find stickers throughout the store and then got a "goody bag.") Then we had lunch at Chick-fil-a over at the mall before going into the mall and buying Jaide some new sneakers. Her old one's had a big hole in them. Kiree got some Dora sneakers for future wearing as well (the striderite outlet had a buy one get one 50% off sale).

Like two kids in a toy store.

On Monday we went and saw the most gorgeous, awesome, perfect house. By the time we finally let the realtor know we wanted to put in an offer on it, it was showing up as under contract as of Monday (the day we went and saw it! ) We had let our realtor know we wanted to go see it the day it came on the market (Friday) but she was out of town that weekend. It is a short sale, so maybe things will fall through for the first people. Who knows? Monday was also the day our new dishwasher was to be delivered (the new new one). It was supposed to come sometime between 2:15 and 4:15. It came at nearly 5 which was also the time we were supposed to meet the realtor at that house. Sigh. Then later that day Bob installed it with much crankiness. But all's well that ends well and this one works every time- unlike the last one that only did rinse cycle and didn't do any other cycle fully until we tried it one last time on Sunday night.

At the Easter Egg Hunt, love my girls awesome baskets no?

Tuesday we went to an Easter egg hunt at the home of one of our friends. Despite some light rain, we were still able to have it outside. I thought the realtor tour was supposed to be that day, but apparently it wasn't until today. And this time I could tell that they actually did come. So I guess we'll find out what they had to say at some point.

Unsurprisingly, the turn light no longer functions.

Thursday and Friday were our "vacation days." We went to the pool at the gym in the morning. Went to the temple after that and then headed south to Richmond. We spent the night in Richmond before going to King's Dominion amusement park. On the way there, we got rear ended. The lady behind us some how lost control and hit us twice. I think her car might have been stuck to ours when we pulled off but then it got free and careened off around us and for some distance in the grass. We at first thought they were trying to make a break for it, but they did end up stopping. We're still waiting on her insurance company to take care of our car. After I opened the trunk it would not close again. I don't know how much longer will have the green car.

That car way far ahead in the grass, that's the one that hit us.

The End of our Troubles

2011-04-15T10:38:00.002-04:00

We signed the papers to list our house a week ago today. So far we've had one showing, on Sunday during which time the next door neighbors who don't play loud music very often at all decided to blast it. It takes at least an hour and a half to leave the house in the morning- due to cleaning and setting things up *justincase* someone wants to come see it while we're gone. We turn the lights all on before we leave and turn most of them off when we're home. We're like reverse vampires! We had a small debacle with trying to replace our dishwasher. Don't buy a return, even if it's $300 off, just don't do it! It's going back on Monday when a new one will be delivered.

I guess I'm kinda naive. I thought when we finally got the house listed, I'd be done. I'd have all this free time on my hands. Hasn't happened yet. Maybe next week. Hope springs eternal! I guess like the saying goes, I didn't know which end.

March the Month in Review (Besides That)

2011-04-03T10:07:00.010-04:00

All my posts lately have been about the house. This is probably because that's what's been on my mind and my to do list for a long time now. We did do some other stuff in March (I had to consult the my pictures folder to be sure). Here is some of that.

I finally got to be a

chaperon for one of Jaide's field trips.

We went to the Maryland Science Center.

I took Kiree to her friend's birthday party (she was so excited about

it!) Kiree got to take a turn whacking the Cinderella pinata.

We celebrated St. Patrick's day with some

naturally (and some unnaturally) green food. Good old St. Patrick's day tacos with guacamole.

And we decided to go with rainbow colored dessert- peanut m&m's.

Last weekend, we went to one of the local high schools to see a few of the kids from our ward (some that have babysat the girls) in the Sound of Music. One of the girls in our ward was Maria. When she came out at the beginning of the play, both the girls asked if she was Belle. Kiree said, "she's so beautiful."

Jaide really enjoyed the play. Kiree fell asleep before intermission.

The girls were very interested in seeing the movie so we got it from netflix on Wednesday. I had never watched the whole movie before. It has some catchy songs.

Kiree strikes a pose before the play

I almost forgot the most important development of the month! Kiree is potty trained!!! Woo Hoo!!

On Monday, I decided that we'd just try wearing undies to kidspace at the gym. She can hold it long enough for me to workout. She was so excited to be a big girl and play in the big girl area that she wanted to keep wearing undies. I took her potty before we left and then again when we got there. We stopped at the store and she went potty there after the gym. We got home and then I got distracted bringing stuff in and then the UPS guy came and she had an accident. We didn't give up though. She had three accidents the first day. Tuesday she wanted to go back to the gym. I told her if she had fewer accidents than the day before she would get 10 legos (in addition to all the m&m's she gets for going potty). She only had one accident on Tuesday. Wednesday we stayed home to work on #2 (since she'd gone in her undies Monday and hadn't gone at all Tuesday). After she went in the potty we celebrated and ran a couple errands. Since Tuesday she hasn't had any accidents. She's even been dry two out of the last three nights (we still put a diaper on for bed). We're so proud of Kiree! She is a big girl. She got to go to gym and swim at the gym on Thursday (she even waited to pee until after going swimming!) She also got to go to Smaland at Ikea with Jaide on Friday (it was a half day of school). Kiree is also going to get a mini-pillow pet. When Kiree is totally potty trained at night we'll have to have a party for her (we made a lot of ~~bribes~~ promises lo this last year+ of potty training).

The Master Bedroom-basically done

2011-03-29T16:51:00.006-04:00

I promised Kathy (my sister) some pictures.

Here's our master bedroom. The only thing I still need to do in here is touch up the paint where the carpet installers dinged it and make the

bookshelf look pretty.

Here's our "dressing area." I got the storage ottoman from target.com.

The black chair we found at the thrift store one Saturday for just $17 (everything is 25% off on Saturday at the local Salvation Army).

Yesterday I bought an inexpensive but highly rated upright vacuum and I filled up a bag (and the hose) with new carpet fuzz. Better that than stuck in Kiree's curls (as it has been), I say.

I had experience getting new carpet fuzz out of a clogged up vacuum when we visited my friend Amber last spring break at her new apartment, so it was no biggie.

Today I finished caulking up the ledge I made. I'm trying to decide if I should paint these picture frames or not. I thought of painting them white, but they are kind of uneven (cheaply made) in the corners and I'm worried painting them might make that more obvious. What do you think?

A few little things

2011-03-22T22:22:00.003-04:00

Man am I sick of painting stuff. Our to do list is growing shorter, but it's not done yet. This week I haven't been working nearly as hard because, well frankly, you can't keep such a crazy pace indefinitely. Kiree was sick last week. So was our plumbing system. Kiree had a bug or something. The sewer pipe had a couple roots. Both caused unpleasant back ups in their hosts. This weekend I seemed to have caught whatever Kiree did. And while I didn't literally 'get sick' I haven't had my usual energy, taste for food, or will to slog through my 'homework.' It hasn't stopped me from almost daily trying to sample some chocolate though and that has caused me regret pretty much each time.

This week I'm also watching extra kids and thus not as able to bust out the sandpaper, paint, and caulk gun.

What we've got left is mostly little things for us to do. We finally got approval for our deck so now of course the people we got quotes from are all backlogged about 3 weeks out.

We got new carpet put in upstairs last Friday. Hopefully we can keep it looking good!

These pictures are a few I sent to our realtor to show her what we'd been up to. They're not the most recent. They are the powder room in the basement (we put in beadboard paneling and trimmed the mirror), the upstairs stairway (pre-new carpet, post me painting all the trim along the stairs, we also built that ledge and replaced that door), and the old dishwasher now with touched up black spray paint and previously mentioned faux metal contact paper*)

*I think it's actually duck brand shelf liner

March kidisms

2011-03-19T21:56:00.000-04:00

K: I want to be a soccer player when I grow up.
K: now mommy, these things are very dangerous, so only little people can touch it. it'll germ you, that's why you don't want to touch it.
J: When will it be 2012? M: uh, January 1, 2012...
B: The middle name of all our cars is 'pick up.'
K: (on what she would name a baby) um...birdcage! (M&B laugh) no, birdhouse!
K: (holding up an animal cracker) what's this? M: It's a horse. K: no, it's a llama mama!
K: (sniffing her hair) mom, it doesn't smell like strawberry blonde.

A Blue Bathroom and other pictures of my Homework

2011-03-06T17:10:00.007-05:00

We decided to switch rooms with the girls again. We are back in the master bedroom and they're in the small room. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the lighting in their room, but I had to try out every configuration. After moving almost everything around like five times, I realized I should have taken pictures so I could compare. So I went back through the process taking pictures. These pictures are from that process (that's why there's so much junk in the pictures) In the end I decided to go with my original plan. There's a nice before shot of the door to that room too (we replaced it on Saturday).

Besides the obvious cleaning and organizing, I just need to move the pictures and attach the skirt fabric to the bottom part of the bench. I also need to figure out how to fix that nice floor lamp I just bought at target since it's now leaning like crazy!

Saturday morning we went to the home depot kids workshop and made orange race cars. The kids were thrilled, especially since we've packed up so many of their toys already.

Here's a sketch of our deck plan for the backyard- just waiting for approval from the condo association.

The dishwasher now has some faux metal contact paper and just needs a coat of black paint on the bottom pieces (and they come off- happy, happy, joy joy!) and a little touch up on the top.

The bathroom is finished. I have a pretty hotel-ish fabric shower curtain I'm going to put up when we list the house and some nice towels that match them. They're both white with a brown line. It's hard to take a good picture of a bathroom! But I think it has turned out well and Bob doesn't think putting trim around the mirror/medicine cabinet is such a dumb idea any more.

I spray painted the outlet covers with the same bronze paint as I used on the mirror trim. I wasn't sure if it would work, but they're cheap to replace, and I think they turned out just fine. I also spray painted the antique brass hooks that are on the wall behind the door too. Now every metal in there is either bronzey or silver. I neglected to get a picture of them today while I was taking pictures. I think our little cannon is on it's last rubber banded together leg.

Spring has sprung in the kitchen! The branch I brought in now has flowers on it.

February kidisms

2011-02-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

M: It's supposed to be warm next week. K: is it going to be my birthday next week? M: No. K: then it's gonna be cold.

Just like the last post, but with new pictures!

2011-02-27T21:44:00.005-05:00

Hard work continues. I've been slacking a bit in the picture documenting department, but I took a few pictures today to show you where we're at. Please hurry 'after'!

Well one before and after I have for you today. The railing. I used Restore-a-finish and it looks much better now with minimal effort on my part. Hooray! Done and done.

It snowed Monday night/Tuesday morning so school was canceled. Bob's work was closed too so Bob even stayed home. We got to do more hard work together. Neither of us can remember what exactly we did. We didn't play in the snow, this 'snow man' is made of used painter's tape. Bob bought a bunch of painter's tape at ace hardware (because we got a rewards gift certificate for there) and we've been using it!

So what have we accomplished? Well, we bought some stuff we needed. We ate two "free" meals at Ikea. We finished painting the big bedroom and are one coat away from finishing painting the bathroom. We put the big mirror back up on the wall in the big room and it was much harder than it seemed like it would be. We've patched, primed, painted, packed, (I've run out of p words). We ripped out the caulk in the bathtub, did a major clean up job of it and I recaulked last night. I also caulked up the trim the previous owners had put around the bathtub surround. Silly previous owners! You don't just nail up trim and call it done! Caulk is what makes it look good, like it's supposed to be there!

Here's the state of the bathroom right now. Should be finished tomorrow.
Spider man was here. Thanks Spidey for keeping that light fixture out of paint's way!

This next one has a couple of things we've done all in one. First, there's the fallen tree branch from the backyard. I'm making it bloom like I've seen in magazines! It's going to be awesome! It's already starting to open. Also, you might notice the painted cabinet, all finished painting (except for touching up where we scratched it getting the stupid top shelf in). There's also boxes of stuff we've bought but haven't put together yet, The orange bucket and wipe container under it are full of crayons we unwrapped for the next Activity Day at church (I had to pay Jaide $2 to do most of it for me. Bob was smart and told her to soak the papers off). Then there's the table itself. An Ikea hack! I bought a butcher block counter top. We used the table saw to take 5" off it the long way. Bob sanded (thanks Bob!) and also drilled holes for the adjustable table legs. Soon that neat little counter/table is going to have two cute little stools (also in boxes, waiting to be assembled) under it. The white wire part in the foreground is the top of a birdcage I spray painted white (it was forest green when I bought it at a yard sale a couple of years ago and also as it sat collecting dust in the utility room the last few years). If you ask Kiree (or maybe she'll just tell you) it's going to be a deh-coe-ray-shun. And then she might ask you several times why it's called a bird cage.

I also sewed some pillow covers out of napkins (3 in middle) and some pillows out of fabric (3 front and left). I also bought a bunch of premade ones(far right) on clearance at Target this week ($3.24 a piece!). The sewing machine went kaput before I could finish the cover not pictured, but after I cleaned and oiled it, it worked again! Hooray!
I had fun with spray paint

and paint stripper (and will have to have fun with paint or something again very soon to cover that ugly).

I'm really sorry if that picture shows up sideways (I changed it once and I don't know what to do to make it stay)

Next up, moving the furniture around. Big bed in the big room, bunk beds in the little room. I can't wait to show the after pictures. Mainly because then it will be after all the hard work!

So much busy for such a little month

2011-02-13T15:25:00.006-05:00

We're still alive. We've been spending a large chunk of our time working on the house. Here's a bit of our life.

I made some art. I took these photos myself, 20 bonus points if you know where I took them at!

Lately I've been bribing Kiree with legos to go potty. She really wanted some legos and we had none before. I bought a little bucket of over 200 legos and she's been earning them one at a time. She has the little guy and the bottom portion of his car so far.

I made my own version of fake board and batten in the "dining room" This is a treatment currently popular on design/diy blogs. I just needed something to hide the fact I'm not very good at hanging wallpaper. I extended the wallpaper all the way over to the kitchen and Bob helped me cut trim (more chair rail and the screening pieces that cover the wallpaper seams). I did all the caulking, painting, and designing myself.

The end is near for the basement stairs project. I started tearing out the carpet way back in December. The only thing that's left to do (besides touching up the wall paint in that stairway) is to paint and install the false riser at the top of the stairs. I don't know why that one was different and gappier than the others. My stairs are a bit more, um, rustic? than others I've seen around, but good enough for me!

We've also been working on a lot of various other little projects. One example is this upper cabinet in the kitchen (aka the "head hurting cabinet). It is an open cabinet, and it used to be light blond wood laminate colored, so we decided to paint it to match the rest of the kitchen cabinets. We also added matching trim to make it look like the rest (this cabinet is one we got from the as-is at Ikea, the shelves are from an old bookcase). That's just primer on there now. It should get painted up this week (and I'll get to fill it back up with all the stuff that used to be in it, hopefully).
We've also finished installing the last bits of baseboard trim. I started repainting the girls room (again). Bob and I made a google document of everything we need to do to get the house ready to sell and it has over 100 entries. We're sure we missed a few too. But we've knocked out a good number this past week.

All this has been done while trying to keep things reasonably clean, feeding and clothing the family and doing church stuff (the activity days girls sure did enjoy 'heart attacking' the bishop's office door!)

We continue packing up stuff we won't need for a while. As we've worked on quieter tasks (ie no table saw or the like) we listened to The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food on CD. We've listened to/watched some movies as well. Bob and I even went on a date Friday night to see Harry Potter (we've seen every single one in the theater so far, we can't break the trend when we're so close to the end!)

I'm really glad the weather is supposed to be nice this week, not for being outside or playing, but for painting. Here's hoping we can get it all done!

Snow Days

2011-01-30T17:53:00.006-05:00

This past week we had our first significant snow of the season. School was cancelled on Wednesday since it was supposed to start snowing in the afternoon. It started snowing around 4 or so and didn't stop until Thursday. There was a little bit of snow Wednesday morning, but we didn't go out, we were waiting for the big snow. That's why we ended up going out in the dark while it was still snowing Wednesday night (that and because it's easier to get everyone ready and go out when Bob is home). So Wednesday morning the girls and I went through their room and got it cleaned and organized. We had a box for donations, a box of stuff to pack up and put in the attic, and the trusty old trash can. The girls weren't super excited about working for as long as we did, but the payoffs in finding "lost" toy treasures and in the end having so much room to run around in made it worth it for them. I was surprised at how long the girls wanted to stay out in the snow Wednesday night. Usually Kiree is asking to go in for hot cocoa after like a minute, but I guess making their first ever snowmen was a big enough draw for staying out.

On Thursday morning, Bob and the girls went to our nearby friend's house and shoveled out their driveway. It was another day off of school.

The girls played with their little girl and then everybody came over for some sledding behind our house. I ended up watching their friend while her mom went grocery shopping and then she watched all the girls while I went shopping (we had both meant to go shopping before the snow but didn't make it). The girls enjoyed playing most of the day with their friend. The roads were pretty clear by that point and it hadn't snowed in quite a while so activity days was still on. We had a good turnout despite the snow.

Friday there was school, but it was delayed two hours. So at this point, the last day of school will be June 21st (unless there are more snow days). It's kind of lame. I wish we could make up the days sooner by having fewer random days off between now and then, but nobody asked me.

As much fun as snow days can be, I'm kind of hoping for an early spring since I like having Jaide home in summer and it's a lot easier to paint and stuff when it's not too cold to open the window. That and I like spring and dislike being cold.

January kidisms

2011-01-29T16:31:00.001-05:00

K: when I grow up i'm really gonna get married, and when i grow up i'm going to know how to cook and how to jump on a trampoline.
J: Not the pretend tomorrow, the real tomorrow.
K: (after seeing too many lifelock commercials) we don't leave our car unlocked...and we don't leave our money un-prah-tect-ed.

What we've been up to

2011-01-23T23:38:00.002-05:00

We've been spending pretty much all of our time lately working on the flooring in the main floor of our house. We're nearly finished! I sure do miss having furniture in my living room though. If you'd like to read a little bit about the process you can check out the post I meant to post here but accidentally posted on my other blog link here. I'll do a whole before and after post with more of the details of what we did after we get it all put back together.

Christmas Closing Ceremonies

2011-01-09T14:01:00.002-05:00

We decided to hold our 3rd annual Christmas Closing Ceremonies this past Friday evening. I was ready to put the Christmas stuff away. We said goodbye to our free after giftcard artificial tree which had faithfully, though increasingly sheddingly, served us these past six! Christmases. Has it really been six Christmases in this house? Yes, I counted on my fingers, it has. Most of the prelit tree light sets no longer worked and that along with the shedding and the general getting rid of stuff before we sell our house made it time for it to go. Bob took it to a recycling drop off at the dump. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures this year. We were busy trying to make new packing configurations for the Christmas stuff. I bought some red and green plastic bins at Target to replace the falling apart cardboard boxes we had been using previously. Those boxes had also gotten seriously infested with those ugly little hibernating stink bugs that are taking over the midatlantic. When we got the Christmas stuff down everything smelled like stink bug for days!

We found that the one box that we had taped completely shut was bug free, so that's what we did with everything this year. Any cardboard boxes (we were also packing up other stuff this weekend to store in the attic) got taped completely. The plastic bins got their lids taped all around.

The girls had a lot of fun playing with the Christmas stuff before it got packed. I had to ask them several times not to play with our big outdoor nativity though since baby Jesus has had to have his head crazy glued back on three times now already! That evening after stacking our Christmas boxes and trying to vacuum up all the tree droppings, we enjoyed some hot coca.

On Saturday Bob took boxes up to the attic. We also moved a lot of stuff around. We're getting ready to pull up the carpet in the living room and replace it ourselves with laminate. It's going to be a big job. The kids think it's kind of weird to have stuff moved around, but they're really liking all the empty space in the living/dining room. We temporarily have an eat in kitchen. I'm still not certain where the fish tank will go.

The past two weeks I've been working on the stairs to the basement. I removed the carpet since there won't be carpet on either end of the stairs when we're all done. Bob and I worked hard to sand and prepare the steps for staining. I've already stained every other step and we'll see how it goes with the others sometime this week, after we've moved what furniture we need to into the basement.

How'd I do in 2010

2010-12-31T23:51:00.005-05:00

Scroll down to the next post for Christmas pictures

This year I didn't do follow up posts on my goals, but I did still work on most of them ;)

I think my 2009 goals were a bit more specific and thus a little easier to work on. I think I've got some good starting points for 2011 goals.

Here's how I did

2010 goals:
Continue good habits established in 2009- I did pretty well, those things (for the most part) have pretty much become habit.

Take care of and enjoy the things I already have.

- using craft and other project supplies I already have, making use of free things (like the library for example), taking full advantage of the memberships/passes that we've already paid for, taking care of our house (improvements/maintenance)

I did work on this one. I tried very hard to use up our Christmas wrapping paper and other craft materials, for example. We went to the zoo a few times, we went to the amusement park several times. I did a lot of work on the house, but I did have to buy a lot of things in addition to what we already had.

Ask myself each day if what I'm doing is going to help us get closer to our financial goals.

I think what I had in mind here was really about evaluating how I was spending money and time. I don't know that I always did this, I tried to think about it often, but obviously I didn't go without any frivolous expenditures this past year.

Take time each day to do fun things, even if it's just for a few minutes.

I only did this a couple of times. This one was basically a fail. I bought art supplies and spent some time drawing a couple of times, but for the past several months all that has just sat in the closet and under the bed (it's not even all in one place anymore!) I think I need to lighten up some times. I put off having fun way too often.

Get to the root of my bad eating habits. Learn the principles of good nutrition and apply them in my life.
-reading nutrition text book, reading other good information from the library and online, also continuing to exercise consistently

I did really well with the learning and reading parts. I read the nutrition text book (I probably need to review it some more) and some other really good books from the library. I really recommend one called Mindless Eating, it was really interesting. I did great at putting things into practice until sometime during the summer. I just kind of backslid.

Find more opportunities to give service

-complete at least two blankets for Project Linus using yarn/fabric I already have, look for other service opportunities (especially ones I can involve the kids in)
I made one blanket but haven't donated it yet. I got involved with the PTA this school year. This Christmas we participated in some donation things above our usual getting rid of stuff donations to charities. I don't know that I really got the kids involved in service like I wanted to.

Get our emergency preparations in place

-work on our year supply of food by getting enough grain to complete 1 year long-term food storage for one person (or 3 mo for our whole family, it's the same thing).

yay! Finally one total success!

-make a will by the end of February

It didn't happen by the end of February, but it did eventually happen, although we still need to get it signed by witnesses so it's actually legal.

Projects we hope to complete in 2010

making slipcovers for our freecycle sectional couch that we did
fixing/painting the lower kitchen cabinets also done
new kitchen countertop that was done in June
new flooring on the main floor didn't do this one, but we did replace the flooring in the basement instead. We bought laminate flooring for the main floor though and we should be starting that project next month.
improving the drainage and grading of our swamp backyard We took some steps to help this out, we've got more to do back there though.
exterior painting done
some interior painting Don't know exactly to what this was referring but I definitely did some interior painting this year, and not just because the neighbor sent 6" bolts through our shared wall.

Christmas 2010 in pictures

2010-12-31T22:00:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas to you!

2010-12-26T22:59:00.004-05:00

We ended up taking 24 Christmas eve pajama-clad pictures, and this one was the best. I told Bob that was going to happen when he decided to pose upside down.

Or maybe this other one is the best. I don't know.

At least we had some laughs. Next year, I'm thinking I'll go with pjs that aren't XL and/or horizontal stripes.
I hope you had a very merry Christmas!

December kid-isms

2010-12-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

K: (standing outside the baby gate I put up in the kitchen) "did you know that this is a gate that keeps little people out? M: yeah K: "did you know that it keeps me out?" M: yeah

K: (after being told everyone has a skeleton) "i DON'T WANT a skeleton!

J: "You shouldn't pull down somebody's pants unless they say so."

K:(after making a mess with finger paint) "i got art on my shirt"

J:(talking about Meg's birthday) "There's no theme! The theme should be, uh... happy birthday!

K: "i know an easy way to get dressed" B: What's that? K: "first you put your shirt on, then you put your pants and socks on."

K:(after I asked her if we should tell Grandma about her intestinal distress) "it's not time for potty talk."

The Post Formerly Know as Decembering

2010-12-22T21:45:00.008-05:00

My friend Jenny wrote a post titled Decembering the same day I originally started this one, crazy huh?

So this is December 22nd? And what have we done?

The month's almost over, and winter break hasn't begun.

Bob cut his own hair for my birthday, because I don't like to cut his hair, but I like his hair to be cut.

Bob and I went to his work party.

That face about sums it up.

There was a ward Christmas party- A night in Bethlehem.

The girls made a festive pair.

We listened to BYU win the New Mexico bowl and decorated sugar cookies.

Bob had enough BYU shirts to clothe our entire family, I'm sure he's not the only one.

The cookies kept breaking, so we used what we learned from the cakewrecks blog to make up for it.

I finally got around to entering in a little over three months worth of receipts.

I stuck a pencil in there for scale.

Today the first graders made gingerbread* houses. *they used graham crackers

Kiree and I came to join in the fun. I'm not sure how Jaide managed to get so much frosting all over her entire self. Jaide ate most of the candy (with some help from Kiree) when she got home this afternoon.

This evening we got the kids in their pjs and drove around to look at Christmas lights.

Tomorrow is the last day of school this year (finally!) and we're hoping to go see the lights at the temple.

A New Decade

2010-12-12T22:22:00.002-05:00

I had another birthday this week. Bob and the girls made it a special day for me. Jaide made a banner. Bob put it up. Jaide and Kiree made me pages and pages of drawings and notes and wrapped them up in Christmas paper and every gift bag we had. Bob took us all out to eat at Outback Steak House and he made me brownies frosted with peanut butter and topped with cup up reese's peanut butter cups (my request after I saw it in an email I got from bhg). My present from Bob was a new phone. It is a fun little phone. It's an android. It is still my prepaid phone, but I can use the wireless internet at home on it. And it takes pictures! I've been using it to listen to Christmas songs on pandora and Bob put the scriptures on it today so I could use it at church.

What to do with broken gingerbread men cookies

2010-12-07T11:19:00.002-05:00

Thanks cake wrecks! Now we know. The rest of the post is here

And Now We Shop

2010-11-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

I started my Thanksgiving times shopping Thanksgiving night at Michaels. I was on a mission to get a bunch of baskets for my Ikea bookcases. Thanksgiving/Black Friday seems to be the only time they are on sale while there is also a %off sale priced stuff coupon. It took like four visits to three different stores over two days, but I managed to buy 7 matching baskets (matching 2 I already had) for cheap. Woo hoo!

Later on Thanksgiving night I headed out to Toys r us with my friend Danelle. The store opened at 10. We got there about 10 minutes early. There was a looooong line. It took us over an hour to even get into the store. I guess it's good they didn't cram the place full. When we finally left, there was no more line. Sadly, I was wearing my boots instead of my sneakers and my feet hurt for two days afterward. But it wasn't all hassle. We both got what we were looking for. It was great to have a buddy at the store. One could man the shopping cart, or wait in line while the other gathered stuff or had a potty break. For the most part people were all very nice. We even saw some people from the ward. We didn't get back until like 1:30am. I didn't get to bed until like 3am.

On Friday, I was so tired I slept until 9:30. Then I rolled into some clothes and headed to Target. It was too late. Even the stuff I thought surely would still be there was gone. But they did have similar stuff that was way more expensive right near where the cheap stuff would be. Target landed on my naughty list on Friday, but it didn't last long. I guess they've built up sufficient good will with me that it covered it apparently.

After another Michaels run, I tried to go to the Children's Place outlet at the mall. There wasn't a single parking space! I wisely left and went home.

At some point we got out the Christmas decorations and put up the Christmas tree. I was tired all day.

Saturday was my Grandma's birthday. I called and wished her a happy birthday. We also shopped some more. A little online. A little more Michaels. Kiree and I shopped. Jaide and Bob shopped. Christmas presents for one another were purchased and secretively wrapped. Kiree and I scored several awesome kids books at the Goodwill (3 for $1!). I also bought some solar powered led Christmas lights to use outside. I was pleasantly surprised to find they were 20% off this weekend only! They're not as bright as we're used to, but at least we don't have to run cords through a cracked open window throughout December! We put up said lights and more of the Christmas stuff. Bob ran out in the evening to exchange one of the light things that was messed up. I put up regular old lights inside the windows.

And today is Sunday, the day of rest from shopping and decorating.

I'm sure I'll be checking out the deals online on Monday though.

But, hopefully, I'll have all my Christmas shopping done before December 1st. First time ever!

November Kid-isms

2010-11-25T15:28:00.000-05:00

K: (at the grocery store) let's buy cows milk!

(whiny with a big frown on her face) i'm not frowning, i'm happy!

(talking about directions in the car) right is the strong way.

we are going to make pumpkin pie and eat it all up and then go to bed.

that's not impressive.

M: How long have you been poopy? K: a couple of weeks.

J: Hey, Kiree, I found a game for you. It's so easy a caveman could do it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T11:55:00.004-05:00

Jaide has been learning about Thanksgiving at school. Last week, Jaide's school had a Thanksgiving feast for the first graders and their "special persons." Bob and Kiree attended that. This week was the annual Turkey Trot. Kiree and I came and cheered Jaide and her classmates on and joined them in running the last part.

Today is Thanksgiving. Yesterday I made two pies and a crust for Bob's pie. Today we're making some side dishes and Bob is making cranberry meringue pie.

This morning we got some exercise running to the library and back.

This afternoon, we'll have turkey time with some friends. Tonight I'm going shopping!

We have a lot to be thankful for. What I'm most thankful for is all of our family and friends!

Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!

oh yeah!

2010-11-21T21:24:00.006-05:00

... is something my 20 month old niece likes to say, apparently. We got to hear it quite a few times lately.

Last week my niece and her parents

(Bob's sister Emily and her husband Travis) came down for a visit.

Travis had a conference in DC and the girls tagged along.

We were glad they could come because the girls love their cousin Alyssa!

And we were glad Emily could come despite being very pregnant (one morning Kiree asked Emily why her tummy was so bumpy). We had a fun time visiting and taking a few fun outings.

The Tramily Family arrived Sunday afternoon and the girls soon got to work playing and orchestrating a "costume party."

Monday morning Travis headed down to DC where he stayed for his conference.

After getting Jaide on the bus and everyone dressed and ready to go, Kiree, Emily, Alyssa, and I headed over to Patapsco to play at the playground, take a little hike, and eat a picnic lunch.

Our hike took a bit longer than I'd expected because I'd kind of forgotten the distance and Alyssa wanted to walk pretty much the whole time.

We got our exercise in that day, walking from the swinging bridge to the Lost Lake and back.

Nearly everyone took a nap when we got back home.

Tuesday was rainy, so we hung out at home.

We made sugar cookies and decorated them when Jaide got home from school.

On Wednesday, the power had gone out overnight which resulted in lots of things beeping in the basement (sorry Emily!) and the aquarium filter ceasing to work.

We all took a little field trip to the pet store that used to be in the mall, but which is now by Costco. I thought the kids would enjoy seeing all the pet store animals. I bought a new filter and didn't realize until I'd already started putting it together that afternoon that at some point, the old one had finally kicked back on. I'm still going to replace it when we run out of it's filter cartridges though.

After the pet store we headed over to another local playground. We brought beach towels to dry any leftover rain from the slides. It was a nice day, but it was very windy. We had the place to ourselves. The girls ran and laughed and played for a long time.

In the evenings, we chatted and played games. One night we let Jaide stay up to play Clue with us. She was quite tired the next day.

On Thursday we drove down to the National Zoo. Travis met up with us since his conference was pretty much over. We got to see several things that I'd never seen before, even though we've been there a few times.

This is the only picture my dumb camera managed to take at the zoo! And I managed not to get either of the girls who were both standing right there.

The elephants were back, and I don't know how I managed to miss the zebras, cheetah, tigers, lion, and gazelles every other time I've been there. When we were finished at the zoo, I dropped the Tramilies off at a metro stop since they were all staying in DC the rest of the week.

I was really glad that Bob could come home early since we didn't get back in time to meet Jaide's bus.

Jaide had been very sad about Alyssa leaving on Thursday. She was somewhat comforted when I told her we could go down and meet them for dinner on Friday.

That's what we ended up doing.

With a little bit of trouble, we all managed to meet up at a Five Guys burger place in DC (near Gallaudet University of all places).

But we enjoyed getting to spend a little more time with them before they left.

We'll have to go visit them up in Boston some time, maybe for spring break.

Three

2010-11-15T15:45:00.003-05:00

Can you believe Kiree is three? Can you believe she's only been three for like a week? I made a Dora cake for Kiree last year and this year she wanted Dora again. We made some cupcakes on her birthday and then this past weekend we had a little Dora party at the state park, with no boys allowed (except for daddies). The weather was awesome! We had Dora Star cookies instead of cake.

At her 3 year old check up, Kiree was in the 50th percentile for weight and about 75th for height.

Kiree is quite the little talker these days. Her hair is still curly and strawberry blonde. Kiree is very sweet- most of the time. And she apologizes very sweetly when she hasn't been. She loves her big sister and her little cousins (all of

whom she's gotten to see this month!) It's getting harder and harder to remember what life was like without her.

Little {Great} Grandma Party

2010-11-10T14:21:00.010-05:00

My Grandma is turning 90 later this month. She wanted to have a party and we all wanted to come party with her. Some people can't get off work around Thanksgiving though, so we ended up having a Halloween time celebration.

We got a random assortment of photos from this trip on account of forgetting to bring our camera along to important events (such as the party). Maybe someone will share some of those photos.

The pic at the top of the post is from Halloween at Grandma's rehab center (recent health problems and a surgery have landed her there for a bit). In addition to our family there's Grandma, Kathy and Asher, Mom, and my Aunt Cynthia.

The drive out wasn't too bad. Bob and I switched off driving. I made the kids zip folders full of art supplies and paper. We made it all the way in one day even after starting out past 11am.

The next day, we took Grandma out and all met up at her apartment to chat and eat. The kids had a lot of fun playing together. The girls don't get to see their few cousins too often.

The next day, the three of us kids and the three grandkiddos visited Dad and went out for lunch. Our crew then headed up to Great America for Fright Fest. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the sky trek tower. They had it decked out to look like King Kong had climbed on top of it and that there were people trapped inside with a fire. It was fun, but it was cold (ya, know, it being nearly to Wisconsin and all) and the lines were fairly long, and major bummer-there was no trick or treating that day. The kids were dressed up and everything! All four of us got to go on the whizzer together though, that and the roller coaster from kiddieland.

My kids slept in a ~~drawer~~ closet. Due to a hotwire snafu (possibly Bob's fault) our rooms only had one bed and one reclining chair. Kiree eventually ended up in the chair, but no one slept super great. Poor Kathy called and asked if they had a crib, over the phone they said yes, then when we got there, they had no cribs!

Grandma's party was on Saturday.

The party was at Colonial Cafe in Elgin, a restaurant Grandma used to take us to frequently when we were little. It's a place famous for it's icecream kind of like Leatherby's. Grandma had all her kids, all of her grandkids, and her surviving sister at the party, along with many friends. Kiree thoroughly

enjoyed playing with her reflections in two mirrors positioned in a corner of the room we were in. Somehow Kathy ended up sitting with all the kids, sorry Kathy! Mick and Amber had flights leaving very early Sunday morning, so they decided to just stay up all night.

They came over to our room and played games for awhile.

Sunday we went to church, ate, and then visited with Grandma.

Asher was sad when his mommy took a shower and left him in the same room as that sketchy Uncle Bob guy.

Not even favorite cousin Jaide could console him.

He later learned to smile again though.

Monday we said goodbye to Mom, Kathy, and Asher and stopped by Grandma's one more time. Of course Jaide was very sad to say goodbye. We did have something to look forward to though. We took a little detour up to Ann Arbor Michigan to visit Russell, Jen, and baby Andrew. So the girls got to see another cousin! We didn't get to spend too long with them, but we did enjoy chatting with them over dinner and playing a game of yahtzee.

We even got a couple of pictures. After a night at a nice little place in Toledo, we headed home the next morning and got there by dinner time, if you can believe it.

If you're anything like me,

2010-11-06T21:55:00.002-04:00

... you've been crazy busy lately, yet still found time to goof off on the internet.

Here's some of what I've distracted myself with lately.

My sisters in law Rosie and Becky are in India and Rosie has been blogging about their experience. Recently she and Becky made poems about all the members of the family. Even me!

Through another blog, I found a blog called unhappy hipsters. It's not quite as funny as cakewrecks, but some of the posts did literally make me lol.

You could spend hours looking through this site- http://www.oneprettything.com/

I also enjoy reading the Thrifty Decor chick's blog (and the blogs on her blogroll). It's always fun to see stuff other people have done on linky posts.

October kid-isms

2010-10-29T20:43:00.000-04:00

K: grampa is grandma's husband!

we gotta have ice cold smoovies!

daddy, you help me with my pants and socks. mommy help me with my shirt.

(running into the room) daddy has a white car!

mommy, jaide tasted me!

praying makes my hair hurt.

J: I'm hungry, tired, and ready for parties.

(before our realtor came to visit us) The inspector's coming!

(after hearing we weren't going to stop and visit our friends in Ohio on the way to Chicago that day) So are we going to take a plane now?

Mommy Daughter Date

2010-10-28T10:36:00.004-04:00

Jaide and Kiree both have sticker charts to help encourage good behavior. Recently, they both filled up their charts. When they fill up their charts, they get to pick a one on one outing with either mom or dad. Jaide decided to have a daddy-daughter date at the playground. They played frisbie golf and played at the playground. Kiree wanted to have a mommy-daughter date. Bob thought it was funny, since Kiree and I spend a lot of time together while Jaide's at school. I was fine with it. Kiree and I went to Clark's Ellioak Farm last week during school. Kiree had a free admission ticket from the summer reading program. We went through the pine tree maze, played on the Enchanted Forest play dealies, fed and pet some goats, went on the hayride, and picked out a "huge" pumpkin from the pumpkin patch.

Mystery Inc.

2010-10-16T16:40:00.004-04:00

We're kind of missing Halloween this year, so we have had to have some dressing up fun early. We went to Fright Fest at Six Flags last Saturday with the kids and two of their friends. The four of us wore our costumes. This year we're the Mystery Inc gang from Scooby Doo. Jaide is Scooby Doo, Kiree is Daphne, I'm Velma, and Bob is Shaggy. We were kinda like celebrities going around the park. I don't think adults are actually supposed to dress up
, but I don't think anyone was going to mistake me for a park employed ghoul (that's what I was always afraid of at Fright Fest growing up, weirdos in costume who weren't employees). I know at least a couple of people took my picture. I liked the people who talked to us about our costumes more than the people who stood nearby and talked about us like we couldn't hear them. But people seemed to like our costumes. One little boy asked us where Fred and the mystery machine were. The part of the day the kids liked best was the candy!

The other day the girls and I got to wear our costumes again to a friend's Halloween party. Ironically, Shaggy was at work. ha ha!

Grandma!

2010-10-10T16:12:00.003-04:00

Bob's Mom came for a visit last weekend. She was in Michigan helping Russell and Jen with their new baby. Then she visited Emily, Travis, and Alyssa in Boston. She got to come here from Boston and then headed back to Michigan to fly back home. It was a grandchildren-palooza for Grandma! The girls were super excited for a visit from "silly Grandma." We got to hang out and watch General Conference on the internet. We got the traditional Saturday Conference icecreams. Each of us picked out a half gallon of icecream. We had lots of icecream to eat. I think we still have two partial containers left at this point.

Grandma got to stay in our ~~half finished~~ newly refloored guest basement. It was a great motivation to get the job done! Bob and I enjoyed staying up way late and chatting with her. It was funny web chatting on Sunday with Grandpa in California and Grandma with us. The kids were very sad to see her go on Monday, but as Kiree said, "gwampas all alone" and I'm sure he was very glad to see Grandma again. I think we're all looking forward to going out to visit them next summer.

Larriland Farm

2010-09-29T15:17:00.003-04:00

Today Jaide's class went to Larriland Farm to pick apples. I wasn't picked as a chaperon (they had to do a drawing to pick) but the teacher said parents could come and meet at the farm for the picnic lunch. That worked out well for us, since I could drive and take Kiree along too. Jaide and her classmates each got to pick five apples. Kiree and I picked some apples for ourselves (Jaide and her friend helped us a bit too). We didn't get to go on the hayride, but we did meet up with Jaide for lunch. We got to see some animals and a hay maze too. Several kids yelled out "hi Jaide's mom!" during the trip. Kiree got a couple of hugs. Before we left, Kiree and I picked out some mini pumpkins and a squash for dinner at the store there. It was nice of the weather to hold out while we were there. It started to rain as we drove home. It would have been nice to get some pictures of the trip but I forgot to grab the camera. It hasn't been working super great lately anyway. I sure wish I had a cell phone with a camera, maybe I'll have to ask Santa for one.

The Good News

2010-09-26T20:50:00.002-04:00

If you're interested in all the gory details of our past couple weeks, you can read the next post down.
I think I might complain too much. So here's some of what I'm grateful for:
I really enjoyed the Relief Society Broadcast last night. Our stake always has a dinner before it and it is always fun to get dressed up and chat with friends and eat yummy food. We had chocolate last night! The talks at the broadcast were very good. I was glad that President Monson spoke. Before the conference began, I turned to my friend Danelle and said, "I wonder if President Monson is going to speak tonight." I don't think he had at RS broadcast since becoming the prophet. When the first presidency walked in Pres. Monson was holding a folder and Danelle commented on that. Then Pres. Monson opened the folder to show the audience his talk. I guess I wasn't the only one who had wondered about that.

I'm grateful for being able to chat on the phone with my sister. It always cheers me up.
I'm grateful Bob made dinner and did the dishes tonight.
I'm grateful that Bob's Mom is coming to visit this weekend and that we get to listen to General conference.

Not Quite Job, but Annoying Nonetheless

2010-09-26T19:12:00.004-04:00

If you read my ~~complaints~~ posts on facebook or have talked to me lately, some of this might be old news.

The week before last, there was some kind of plumbing issue in our row of townhomes. The neighbor to the east's sump pump was going crazy pumping out tons of water when there hadn't been any rain. Ours went off too and we got a bit of water in the utility room. Throughout the week, various plumbing professionals were called in to variously turn off all the water, tear up the sidewalk, run our front hose, take over our lives, and what not. The tearing up of the sidewalk didn't reveal the problem, the problem was uphill at the end of the block. They had a bunch of water in the basement. We still have a pile of dirt/mud and a bunch of caution tape instead of a complete sidewalk to this day.

On Monday morning, I discovered the neighbor to the west had screwed bolts into and through our shared wall. At least he's now replaced the 6" bolts with 4" ones so they're not in our house any more.

Then our roomba vacuum 'wall-e' got messed up somehow and wasn't actually vacuuming up stuff, just pushing it all around the floor. Fortunately, Bob was able to get him working again.

On top of all that, we've been working on redoing the basement floor, so all the basement stuff is in the rest of the house right now. We discovered a very uneven floor with a very cruddy section (rocks, pieces of wood, etc) after pulling up the carpet, pad, and rusty tack strips. (Did I mention the tetanus shot I ended up getting?)
After caulking up cracks (and scraping and chiseling some high points and crud) we mixed up some self-leveling compound and spread it on the floor. It nearly killed our drill to do all that mixing, not to mention our respiratory systems with all that dust. I've got a really nasty sinus/cold thing now. The floor didn't end up perfect, but it's better than it was. There's now a cricket encased in our concrete. That's what you get when you get in my basement dumb cricket!
We're cautiously optimistic about getting the floor all done this week and maybe even getting the trim back up! The cases of vinyl plank flooring are downstairs acclimating right now.

September Kid isms

2010-09-12T22:04:00.000-04:00

K after fake coughing: "i need sugar cause i got bless yous in my mouth."

J to K one morning: "I thought you were walk sleeping."

Grabbing a toy we bought at a thrift store K: "take this toy away, it's too fancy."

J and K singing in the bathtub: "I'm better than a pirate! I'm better than a pirate!"

J: (getting) "a dog, that would be splendid!"

Discussing breakfast K asks J: "you want sugar and brown sugar?"

Driving by a cemetery, Jaide is explaining to Kiree about cemeteries. She sees someone leaving flowers on a grave and declares, "I saw two people burying a dead body!"

The next day, going by the same cemetery. K: "i don't see anyone burying bodies"

Done Baking

2010-09-11T15:21:00.002-04:00

Today Bob made some bread. The whole house smelled really good. We ate one whole loaf for lunch. It was really good.

After lunch, Jaide wanted to use the easy bake oven we got from some friends whose kids never really used it. We made some cookies. It doesn't make very many cookies at a time. And it's surprisingly easy to burn them. They didn't all burn though. The non-burned ones were good.

We found out today that our newest nephew (son of Bob's younger brother, Russell and his wife Jen) was born late last night. As of a couple of hours ago, they still hadn't settled on a name. A few pictures have been sent and he's a cutie. We've doubled our nephew count to a whopping two!

Potty Wars

2010-09-06T20:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what to do about the kiddo and her lack of willingness to use the potty. She seems to be able to tell when she needs to go and sometimes she even lets us know in advance. But most of the time, she'd just rather go in her diaper. If we suggest that she go potty she says she doesn't want to. When we went to Ikea on Saturday we discovered that Kiree is now tall enough to go to the play area but she can't go until she is potty trained. She was sad, but quickly got over it. She wants to go play, but she doesn't want to do what it takes (ie use the potty! now, and every time you have to go) We've tried a lot of things. Maybe I just need to wait until she wants it more. We offered to throw a party for her (she loves parties!) when she's gotten it down. But maybe that seems way too far off for her. Maybe we should have a celebration if she has one dry day or something. I don't know. We were spoiled with Jaide. sigh.

First Day of School and the First Day Off

2010-09-03T14:06:00.000-04:00

Jaide started first grade on Monday. She was very excited to go back to school. She still loves school.

Jaide and Kiree wore matching shirts.

The first week of school went very well. Jaide was happy. Kiree wasn't sad. It probably helped that we've had activities to do each day this week (a birthday party, a back to school party, the gym, and playgroup).

Here comes Jaide's bus, home from school.

Today is Jaide's first day off this school year. It's a teacher day or something. I really think it's just an extension of the long, labor day weekend. Maybe if we weren't so travelled out we could have gone somewhere (but just thinking and typing that has made my head hurt). Jaide, Kiree, and I went to the far away gym. I worked out while they played and then we all went swimming. Then we had lunch at Chick-fil-a. Thanks for the free kids meal coupon summer reading program!

August kid-isms

2010-09-03T13:07:00.000-04:00

J: Kiree is true! (ie Kiree is telling the truth)

J: Mom, can I watch now, because talking to you is boring.

K: can i have a veggieroll? (referring to a tootsie roll)

K: i know how to change my own diaper

(while crossing the bay bridge on the one east bound lane on the west bound side) GPS: make a sharp left

(While we were driving to NJ) K:do you see bay-cation yet?

J: I am NOT about dolls.

J: (while playing) they're either going to get sacrificed or married.

K: a plate needs a cake on it.

Camping!

2010-08-31T14:23:00.011-04:00

We went camping at the Assateague Island National Seashore last week. We spent three nights there. It was our longest camping trip ever. Not mine but our family's. I found out about Assateague Island after we came back from Florida, when I was looking online for cool beaches in our area. The most notable thing about Assateague Island is the wild ponies that live there. I'd say the second most notable thing would be the enormous mosquito population. But it is a very beautiful place and we loved hanging out at the beach.

We bought a screen tent on our way down since the forecast called for scattered thunderstorms. It didn't end up raining though (at least not while we were awake), but we were very greatful to have the screen tent for eating without being eaten by bugs!

I only got a couple of pictures of the horses and these photos do not show nearly how close they came to us a few times. They work very hard to make it clear (photos, handouts, signs) that you should stay far away from the ponies since they are wild (and you need to keep food locked up too!) so I was convinced and I convinced the girls too. The ponies however have no fear of people and don't care how close they get to them. I never got any pictures when they were really close because I was too busy watching them to see what they were going to do. One time Jaide was rinsing off at the shower near the beach and one pony walked right behind her to get a drink. Fortunately we didn't end up having any problems with any of the animals (besides mosquitos and one tick- have I mentioned lately how much I hate ticks!).

The horses near our site the first night. That site was across the road from ours. That is they bayside of the island beyond the horses.

Besides the horses and insects, we also saw some deer, some rabbits, many birds, a frog, and some dolphins.

The first day we spent at the beach was overcast and not quite as warm as the second. We set out our chairs early in the morning and stayed until lunch time. We had quite a bit of beach all to ourselves. Kiree loved digging and playing in the sand. Jaide liked jumping into the waves and went out past the waves with Bob or I a couple of times. We collected lots of big, pretty shells.

Bob built a sandcastle. He also helped the girls dig a big hole.

The ocean beat me up a bit. The crashing waves hurled lots of seashells at our legs and feet and I ended up with a bleeding cut. I didn't go back in after that one until the next day. The waves also knocked us down a few times. We ended up with quite a bit of sand in our swimsuits.

The second day at the beach it was much, much sunnier and warmer. It was also much more crowded. We'd been kind of spoiled up until then. We came early and the beach went from fairly empty to pretty full by the time we left (about 4 that day). We made sandwiches for lunch on the beach. Kiree fell asleep in her chair underneath my beach towel.

We all got a bit sunburned despite our best efforts to reapply sunscreen. We had a fun trip but we were glad to get back home in time for a real shower before going to Jaide's open house at school.

This last photo is kind of funny I think because the perspective looks weird. Bob and Jaide are farther away than they look because there is actually a big drop off and then flat beach. It also looks like Kiree is making a water bottle levitate.

College Buddies

2010-08-29T16:28:00.005-04:00

My friends and I are getting to be hitting that milestone age of 30 these days. My friend from college, Amber, hit this milestone earlier this month. To celebrate, she wanted to take a trip to Chicago to visit Nancy (our other college friend, and for me a high school friend as well). She invited me to join them and so I drove out with the girls. I'm really happy I went because it was incredibly fun. I really do miss Chicago (I grew up there) and loved spending time there, hanging out with Amber and Nancy, and showing the girls places from my childhood and youth. We stayed with my dad and the girls got to know him a little better. I'm really glad I went, but I don't think I will ever drive that far alone with the girls again. It was rough. I broke my perfect streak of never getting pulled over on the way out. Don't speed in Ohio people! They are serious about speed limits and the revenues, er fines they can generate.

But the time in Chicago was a lot of fun.

Jaide was very excited to see the hall of Jade at the Field Museum.

We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo (my first job), the Field Museum of Natural History (we used to go practically every Saturday when I was a kid and then we became volunteers there when I was a teen), the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier, and the Art Institute. Transformers 3 is being filmed downtown and we got to see some of that hoopla. We ate delicious deep dish pizza at Giordanos. We drove to my old neighborhood and saw my elementary school and our old house.

A bronze cow given to the people of Chicago commemorating the cow art exhibit around the city the summer I graduated highschool.

The kids were sad to leave. We sure did cram a lot of living into a Monday night through a Friday morning. The trip home featured far fewer run-ins with the law although we did have one small detour in Pennsylvania due to my misunderstanding the GPS. It only added 30 minutes to our driving time and gave us a lovely tour of rural PA in the dark! We got to see deer run right in front of the car! When I saw the time until destination increase by a half hour I wanted to cry but I knew it would do no good, so I didn't. I sure was glad to be home when we got there and I felt like I was still moving inside the house. I'd never had that feeling from driving before. But I sure did gain a better appreciation for Bob, as he is usually the main (often only) driver on our long car trips. It sure is a pain in the butt (and back, and legs, and well, pretty much everything) to drive that long continuously.

Here are some more photos from the trip, now with captions!

New Jersey

2010-08-22T19:45:00.006-04:00

You know what's weird about New Jersey? They don't let you pump your own gas.

We went up to the Six Flags park in New Jersey over Bob's birthday weekend. We left Friday afternoon, checked in and had a quick dinner, then went to the park for the evening. The next morning, we got to the park a little before it opened and stayed until late lunch time before heading back home.

I think I've only ever been to an amusement park at opening time once before in my life. But this was the first time I ever got there at opening and then went to a giant playground first thing. Bob went on the tallest, fastest ride and I waited with the kids at a nearby play structure. The first actual ride I went on was a dumbo type ride. But then it was my turn to go on the tallest, fastest ride and it was fun.

I think the best part of going to the park was getting to go on rides all together. There are a lot of rides there with no height limit (or only 36" limits) with adults. And these weren't just kids rides in the kids sections.

I think a fun time was had by all.

Happy Birthday Bob!

2010-08-15T16:08:00.002-04:00

It was Bob's birthday yesterday. We made him an icecream cake and put a Scooby Doo candle on it to represent the 30 and a duckie candle to represent the 3. We sang to Bob and he blew out the candles a few times. The girls and I got Bob a black wii-mote. Bob is awesome!

Friends

2010-08-15T15:55:00.003-04:00

See we did finally have some friends over to play. Homemade playdough Wednesday morning. Sand in the back yard (for a little while) Wednesday afternoon. Two different sets of sisters (three if you count Kiree and Jaide)

When you've been wondering where the summer has gone...

2010-08-10T15:13:00.010-04:00

...it sometimes helps to consult your digital camera.

Let's see. Here we go.

Oh, yeah, I remember now. The last week in July, Bob went on a week long work trip, so the girls and I had a girls week. We went to the zoo. Baby elephants are always cute. The kids started playing with these things and then all these other kids came to play on them too. Jaide and the polar bear looked at the camera for the picture, but not Kiree.

While Bob was gone, I spent a lot of time rearranging all the art and pictures in our house. I changed frames and where things were. Here's the staircase to the basement. I think it needs a couple more pictures.

And here are a couple of pictures from last weekend. Our friend Becky got married in the DC temple and we were able to attend. Becky is Danelle's sister. She had been living with Nathan and Danelle for a few months when she met Calvin. We were at their house the day they went on their first date and little Dan-o (now 2) greeted Calvin by standing naked in the window.

Bob took all of these photos.

These next photos are from the start of cooking week way back on Monday. I've been meaning to do ~~but too lazy to~~ themed weeks like I ~~sorta~~ did last year. Cooking week may actually go off sort of like I envisioned. The girls are going to help me make dinner tonight (fingers crossed). Yesterday went pretty well. The girls helped me make spaghetti sauce (opening cans, pouring them in the big pot, stirring). Then I wanted to make cookies. Jaide wanted to watch a movie. Kiree wanted to help, but as she was sitting on the counter next to the mixing bowl and I was searching annoyedly for the baking powder, she discovered the goldfish in the cupboard. Reaching for the goldfish, she managed to knock down the bowl and make a big mess of the floor and my pants. Cooking time was over for the day and Kiree joined Jaide downstairs with the movie. I ended up making cookies by myself (with non-floor ingredients) and we later dropped most of them off to a friend who just had a baby.

Speaking of movies, ~~the girls~~ all of us have been enjoying watching lots of movies since we signed up for netflix again. Now we can watch them streaming on the wii. That's been fun.

And last night while Bob and I were watching some dumb movie, I managed to pull out the sewing machine again to make Jaide a really big, lined zipper pouch to put all of her school supplies in. I also fixed the straps on this one pair of sneakers she barely got to wear before the ribbon like straps got all stretched out, rendering the shoes unwearable.

Tomorrow we're finally getting around to having some friends over to play (Hey, it's been a really short summer break!) and the next couple of weeks are going to be full of stuff. Oh yeah, and then there's school.

July kid-isms

2010-08-03T14:04:00.000-04:00

July

K: i like sky diving. sky diving is awesome!

K: this is cwassified.

J: I got first place! That's a trophy and a medal!

K: i want color cheerios (fruit loops)

Jaide's Birthday

2010-07-25T21:31:00.013-04:00

Can you believe Jaide is six already! We celebrated her birthday at Pump it up (an inflatable slides/bouncy house/etc place near us). Jaide was very excited to be able to invite so many friends from school and church. I made a pump it up cake for Jaide. It's supposed to be the obstacle course, but I didn't have a picture for reference. It is much simpler than the real thing. I used the same awesome marshmallow fondant recipe I used to make Kiree's cake last year. It turned out much better this time because I actually noticed that the standard bag of mini marshmallows I buy is smaller than what is called for in the recipe. I ended up using a bag and a half!

My original design had cake walls, but the walls came a tumblin' down during the crumb coat phase.

Here's the actual obstacle course.

The kids seemed to have a great time playing and even Bob and I played a little bit too.

Then we had snacks and cake in the party room.

Jaide and some of her friends from school.

Jaide opened up some presents, she makes great excited/happy faces any time she gets a present. It is fun to watch.

The last thing we did to celebrate on Jaide's birthday was to bunk the bunk beds. Now that Jaide was officially six years old, she could sleep on the top bunk.

Here are a few more pictures from the day.

Famly riyn

2010-07-22T10:14:00.004-04:00

One of the last days of school, Jaide brought home a book she had made called "My Summer Journal" On the front she wrote three things she was going to do this summer along with pictures. The first thing was the title of this post (family reunion). The other two things were "wach" (as in watch TV) and "swim" We've done all three so far. Earlier this month we had a family reunion with Bob's siblings, parents, one (great)grandma, and one cousin/niece. It was at Allen and Hannah's home in Albuquerque, NM. Some of the highlights included playing wii, playing cards and board games, visiting Explora (a science/children's museum), visiting the zoo, shooting off two liter bottles and straw rockets, and of course- taking some crazy family photos. I finally figured out how to make a slideshow of pictures. I hope it works for you. I'm also going to try to put in a couple of video clips, because they're awesome.

Summer, Anniversary, Fourth of July Weeks

2010-07-06T14:00:00.008-04:00

It's summer! Today the high is supposed to be 104! Crazy talk.

We've been adjusting to school being out and having Jaide home with us all day. The month of June really flew by (maybe because we were so busy, we had no time to pause and reflect on it).

At the end of June, Bob and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. We celebrated by taking out our 25+ year old, messed up laminate countertops and living without a kitchen sink for several days. Actually, we did take a break from doing that and went out to dinner together without the kids.

We demo'd the countertops ourselves to save some money. We didn't realize just how much work we'd have to do to level the stupid cabinets once we got the countertops off. We knew that the old top was slanted away from the sink, but what we didn't realize that it was about one whole inch off of level at the end! We (mostly Bob) did a lot of shimming. We ended up taking one of the cabinets out and reinstalling it since it was crooked in multiple directions. Don't buy a Ryan Homes built house! I think they've been sued in multiple states, and it's not surprising.

But the next day we got our new granite countertops- shiney.

And by Friday afternoon (3 days later) we even had all the plumbing hooked up again!

We crammed a lot into the end of June, so we took the 4th of July, super extended holiday (I don't know why this year 4th of July turned into like a two week event, but whatever) to relax, somewhat.

We made much red, white, and blue food.

Of course the kids liked the white whipped cream the best. This is what we ended up with when we told Kiree to put the waffle down and stand up, so we could see her face.

We took the kids to the kids workshop at home depot. We did a little shopping. We cooked out. We didn't see any actual fireworks, but we did give the kids some glow bracelets.

We finally did something that I wanted to do last year for Jaide's birthday. We bought a bunch of play sand and dumped it out in the back yard. I need to buy some more. But our yard was totally uneven after Bob dug a bunch of drainage trenches. We made a couple of french drains using some gravel and weed blocker fabric. Yesterday I set out the rest of the fabric that we had left over and poured out 9 bags of sand on them. I like it. It doesn't matter that the ground is totally uneven and has more weeds than grass, it's all covered up and filled in with sand!
And when Jaide saw it through the window yesterday evening (the girls were engrossed in a video while I was working on it) her "wow" made it all worth it. Maybe we'll actually go play in it when the sun goes down.
I'm thinking of setting the kiddie pool up in the top corner, partly on the sand, partly on the grass, with the slide turned to it.

Dads and Kindergarten Grads

2010-06-26T17:01:00.000-04:00

This first paragraph was written last week and then ignored until now, I wanted to get the pictures up and I was busy.

We had a good weekend and I hope Bob had a

good father's day. I think he did. The girls made him cards and pictures. I bought him a book and along with the girls we made him waffles for breakfast. I also made him a special dinner- pot roast in the crock pot. I helped make brownies for the men at church for father's day and I got to bring home two of the extras-sweet.

It's hard to believe Jaide's first year of elementary school is over!

On Monday we went to the kindergarten picnic. I volunteered to help with games and that was pretty fun. It reminded me of my volunteer days as a teenager and my first job at the zoo. The station I was at was a water balloon relay. Bob and Kiree went around with Jaide's group. They were the last group at my station. Then we went in with the kids for a little

bit and got some water in our water bottle. It was super hot out! Then we had a picnic lunch outside. Since I had so much stuff to bring and Bob was just meeting us at school, I forgot the camera. I was sad too that there were no pictures from the picnic in the school newsletter on Wednesday. Oh well. All the kindergarten classes lined up and sang songs to us at the end of the picnic. They were wearing their color-coded t-shirts from their zoo field trip and they looked like a rainbow.

Tuesday we picked Jaide up a little bit early from school and went to Six Flags with one of the guys Bob used to work with and his family. It was fun to visit the new kids area- Thomas Town. We didn't bring the camera.

Disgustingly, I found the remains of this last school lunch in Jaide's lunch box just this evening.

Wednesday was the last day of school. Jaide was happy to ride the bus home, but sad that kindergarten was over. She told me she wished kindergarten never ended. She also told me that she wished

that first grade started the next day. We actually counted up how many days it would be until the first day of first grade but I've forgotten already.

I think Jaide is enjoying being home with Kiree although she's sad she hasn't gotten to go to kidspace at the gym yet.

Today even though we dragged the kids around to several boring places, they still got to get free samples at BJs, play at the play area at the mall, have icecream at the mall, and splash in the kiddie pool at home before bed.

We finally got rid of the extra fridge Thursday evening! The counter tops are going next!

June Kid-isms

2010-06-25T10:14:00.000-04:00

June

J: I don't want to be called Jaide when I grow up.

K: when i grow up, i want to be elmo.

J: I'm going to trick robbers.

K: the fan loves me. it blows on me.

K: the sun loves me.

Wearing the tie shaped paper she'd made for Bob on father's day K: i'm a church man! i'm a church man!

Looking at the best buy ad sadly, K: i wish i had a phone.

K: i wonder if i got more pees in my butt.

K: i can read potty words! (after being asked what words she could read after she said she could read the potty book)

M: (handing Kiree a calendar she'd kept asking to see) Here, knock your socks off. K: take my socks off! (as she takes them off)

M: How'd you sleep? K: i sleeped for long weeks.

Kiree Kiddo's Great Adventure

2010-06-14T07:48:00.006-04:00

On Friday, Kiree and I got to go to the summer birthdays celebration at Jaide's school. Kiree was so excited to go to Jaide's class! The kids in Jaide's class were very excited to see Kiree! Kiree was quickly surrounded by kids and hugged by several. Another mom and I were helping with the party, getting the snacks served to the kids. Kiree sat with Jaide and participated in the festivities. We sang to all eight kids who had birthdays June through August (all at once) After snacks, it was time to play! Jaide and one little boy played with the overhead projector and colorful transparent shapes. Kiree played with them for a while.

Then Kiree saw some other kids doing art. She joined them. Several kids drew pictures for her. Two little girls helped Kiree paint and then play with play dough. Then it was time to clean up and get ready to go home. Jaide enjoyed getting to be a "car rider" for the first time going home from school. We played outside at home for awhile and Jaide got to watch her bus drop the other kids off a little while later.

Friday night we packed up a picnic dinner and went to the outdoor pool for the first time this season. The girls were really excited and they even helped me get dinner packed up. It's really nice now that Kiree can walk the entire length of the baby pool confidently.

Saturday Bob and I had a lot of projects to work on around the house. The girls were bored (we're doing the fast from the world- ie no tv/videos/etc this month) and I needed to spray paint some stuff in the backyard anyway, so I set up the kiddie pools for the girls. The slide that came with the one pool never stays in very well anyway, so we set it up at the bottom of the plastic slide. It was a good little set up. The girls enjoyed it very much.

On Sunday the girls wore their matching dresses I bought this week at the Children's Place outlet. They were only $3.99 each and then I got an extra 20% off with a coupon! Swinging skirts are great for dancing!

Memorial Day and Others

2010-06-07T15:38:00.003-04:00

We had a fun Memorial Day. We went to Ikea for free breakfast and purchased a couple of small things. Then we went to the waterpark at Six Flags. It was hopping! We got to go on more rides with Jaide this year than we did the last time we had passes. Kiree can't go on much yet, but there are some fun water areas for her to play in too.
I had a flashback while we were in the kiddie area. Kiree climbed up into this play slide in the kiddie area and then got too scared to go down the water slide. When Jaide was little, she longed desperately to go up in every fast food play place we went to. But alas, she was too scared to scale the heights. (I don't blame her though, seriously, those things are high up off the ground. Back in my day we had low to the ground play things made of metal) Her fears of course, didn't fully materialize until she was stuck a couple of levels up into the thing. I had to rely on bigger kids and a shorter, more lithe mom or two to retrieve her more often than I'd like to admit. At least for Kiree stuck in the water slide thing, I could summon Jaide to help her out. Kiree was so freaked out though that Jaide had to physically pick her up and put her in her lap to go down the slide.
Jaide had her own chance to freak out when we went down one of the bigger slides. Instead of just putting her feet down in the water at the bottom, which was well below her neck, she tried frantically to swim and then just freaked out in flailing, sobbing, frenzy until I scooped her up. Sadly, I was frustrated and turned into "ugly mom." We didn't take another opportunity to go down that slide. Maybe next time.
In spite of the small freakouts, we had a pretty good time overall. We were ready to go after a few hours (the park was getting more and more crowded, they started filling parts of the parking lot I didn't even realize exsisted).
Then we headed home to barbeque. We invited some friends over to eat with us and afterward we played Monopoly Deal which was fun. I made funnel cakes for dessert.
I forgot to mention that on the Saturday before we bought a new fridge from Sears. It was on sale, rebate for delivery, $100 rebate for being very energy efficient, and I used $110 in gift cards I earned on mypoints for it. Plus it's a pretty inexpensive fridge to begin with. So I'm happy. It's a plain old white one and it'll be delivered next week.
After being confused all week as to what day it was, we made it to this past weekend. Some of the highlights of the week included going to the Kids Workshop at Home Depot on Saturday, working on making slipcovers with Bob, murdering a wasp family and poisoning their home, finding a tick on Jaide before it had a chance to dig in and feast on her blood, buying more food storage, searching for Jaide's school library book so we don't have to buy it (still searching), Jaide attending her friend's birthday party and swimming in the bay, Bob participating in our friend's baby blessing, feeding the elders, getting clogged up plumbing working again, seeing for myself that there aren't any roots in our sewer line, field day at Jaide's school, and holding two little babies that aren't mine.
This week we have Jaide's second to last full week of school (her last day isn't until the 23rd (remember all that snow?) but there's no more homework. I get to volunteer in Jaide's class on Tuesday during reading time and Kiree and I will be helping out on Friday for the summer birthdays celebration. Bob is going to volunteer during math next week and then the last Monday of school we'll all go to the kindergarten picnic. Hard to believe kindergarten is almost over.

Changing my other blog

2010-05-28T22:15:00.003-04:00

I decided to change my other blog. The new address is www.itsmegandshesdoingstuff.blogspot.com
I'm going to post about my projects, ideas, and random stuff over there and do mostly family/kids stuff and pictures on You'll Find True Love on Flag Day. I've added the other blog to my experimental blogroll so you can see if I've posted lately.
Just FYI :)

May kid-isms

K: (with color chalk on her hands) daddy, i changed color.

J: I said a long time ago that the only commercial I believed in is clorox.

K: we're having chicken and sam. i love sam (that'd be salmon)

K: daddy, you're my boy!

Getting Things Done

2010-05-16T20:35:00.007-04:00

This week I gave Kiree her first haircut. I trimmed her bangs and cut some in the back. Kiree wanted me to put her hair up in a ponytail after I cut it. I think her hair looks a little more curly now that I've cut the part in the front which was the straightest part.

I finally finished painting the kitchen cabinets and we got them all back together this week. The sink cabinet is mostly done. All that's left is putting something in the bottom of it (probably some of whatever flooring we end up using), better securing the middle part of the cabinet face, and touching up the paint Bob accidentally scratched off part of it. Bob put the false drawer fronts back up with the tilt kits, so now they are tilt out sink drawers! Woo Hoo! I figured out just today that I could put all the kitchen washcloths in the one.

Next to all of that now white cabinetry, the almond colored dishwasher was looking very ugly. I decided to try and paint it. My first thought was to paint the bottom white and the top (but not the control panel) black. I cleaned and sanded the bottom part. The part at the very bottom that came off was really easy to paint. The main front panel doesn't come off, so I had to cover everything up all around it and spray it in place. I oversprayed on the one side and then tried to wipe it with a paper towel. Then I just had a mess on my hands from there on out. I kept trying to fix it, but then I ran out of spray paint. I bought a can of el cheapo white spray paint and after the first was dry, I sanded it a bit and sprayed it up some more. I don't think I shook the second can well enough and it just came out weird and ran all over. It was a big mess and the kitchen was just a fog of white stinkyness by the end. I just let it be.

Yesterday I decided to try out painting the top part. The panel is metal, but the top part is plastic. So after I scrubed it well with a brillo pad and wiped it clean, I sprayed it with a clear spray primer for plastics. After that dried, I sprayed it with some black spray paint. I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. I think I might spray the rest of it black later on (I'll have to try and remove the white paint and maybe prime it too).

If you look closely at the dishwasher, you can see the streaks of beige poking through. The control panel is beigey too- that's why I wasn't going to paint the top white.

Now that the cabinets are "done" we can replace the countertops. We went to a granite place near our house yesterday to check them out. We need to get a few more quotes and actually decide what kind we want to get. I think I'm going to have to make a post to request opinions. We also visited one of the Habitat for Humanity ReStores on Saturday. The girls got free flashlights, that was nice of them. We bought a towel rack and a tp holder for the bathroom and some caulk. They had a lot of used ovens, but no dishwashers. They also had cabinets- used and new, various building materials, and even furniture.

Jaide wanted to be in the picture I was taking of the cabinets, she was jumping up and down- hence the hair.

I promised the girls that we would do something fun if they were good during our "boring stuff" on Saturday. So Saturday night we got some tacos from Taco Bell and took them to the park for a picnic. After we ate, the girls played and played on the playground. Kiree did great all on her own. Jaide did stick with her a lot of the time too. Bob and I got to sit and talk while they played. Jaide went across the monkey bars all by herself for the first time. She is strong!

Two weeks in Four random paragraphs

2010-05-09T21:10:00.003-04:00

Two weeks ago, I finally crossed something off my list that I'd been meaning to do for a long time. I went down to the cannery and got some pre-canned wheat. Then last weekend Bob and I cleaned out the basement closet to stick the cans of wheat in the back (the closet is under the stairs, it gets smaller as you go back into it). The closet must not have liked this getting organized business because it fought back, whacking me in the head with one of it's shelves. I actually had a bleeding wound and a huge lump. But then my skin was nice enough to get zitty near that healing spot, so no one even noticed!

Yesterday we went to Six Flags. We had a fun time. We had a somewhat unusual experience on one ride. We went on this big innertube raft ride that makes you really dizzy (it just spins the whole way down). I went on it a second time with the girls while Bob went on a rollercoaster. At the end of the ride while we were waiting to get back to the station, they shut the ride down. I still don't know why. But we were stuck waiting for a long time, just 10 ish feet from the loading area. I'm glad we got in the tube with those three highschool kids though, since if we'd waited for the next one, we would have been stuck in the tube way up on the slide. Those guys had to climb a big ladder, high in the air and walk back down the conveyor belt. Eventually a maintenance guy got us out and they took down our names (still don't know why on that one either).

While we were sitting in our raft stuck with teenagers, Kiree kept picking her nose. I kept grabbing her arm away and telling her not to. Kiree got mad and said, "but i WANT TO!" Then she defiantly stuck her finger in her mouth and said, "mmmm yum!" Eww, not quite as bad as what she licked in the bathroom the other day, but still, eww.

Being at Six Flags made me want funnel cake, but of course we didn't get any there. I did find a recipe online and made some last night (I 1/3-ed the recipe). It actually turned out really well. Thanks Alton Brown for your good recipe. I might have to try it again some time I want to impress people.

I made two funnel cakes- one was more cakey, the other more crunchy and light, the only difference was how long they cooked. I was a bit sunburned.