Paint!

The drywallers finished on Wednesday!  It was expensive but WELL worth it to have it ALL done in a week and half.  With that much work, and T’s time limits it would have taken months and months for him to do that.  Plus that is one job he doesn’t like so it was definitely worth it.

I had to get this video of Bug sleeping peacefully through the racket they were making the last day.  It is so funny but after living in a construction zone for the past three and half years, both our girls sleep better when there is tons of noise.  Hammering, saws, machines, you name it.  Someone can be banging on a wall right near their heads but they sleep right through it.  On the other hand, when people aren’t working they wake up if it I tiptoe past their room. So funny.

On Thursday morning Noni helped us get going with the first round of paint!  I’m so excited that we are finally to this point!  We tackled the laundry room first so we could get the washer and dryer hooked back up and start on Mt. Laundry. :)

We had two little helpers who kept us on our toes. :)

Our hardest job all day was keeping them out of the paint.  Boo kept climbing up on the window seat and asking Noni, “What doing? What doing?”  Her only complaint about our new improved laundry room is that the little window ledge there is “No big nough seat! Me no fit!”

We got everything done but the ceiling, and I’m really looking forward to picking out cupboards to go in there.  My mom, grandma, and aunts all gave me birthday money last summer to pick out the ones I want. 

As soon as the girls go down for naps today I’m going to go get started on Bug’s room!  Yay for progress!  We’re getting there!

Sunny Arizona

Ok, I’m done with my sick complaining posts…even though we’re still not recovered around here. :P One of the perks of our sick week was that I may have been here in body but I was definitely not always here in mind.  From Thursday through Sunday I was living vicariously through my husband.  For his brother’s 30th we sent the guys to opening day of the Mariner’s and they loved it.  They are both huge baseball fans.  I knew I wanted to do something fun like that for T’s 30th and I finally came up with Spring Training. 

We went to school in Phoenix, and I’m pretty sure part of the reason T chose the school was so he would be able to attend spring training for the Cactus League. :)  What better way to celebrate his 30th than to send him back for the first time since we graduated!  With all the hard work he’s done on this house for the past three years and everything he does around here he definitely deserved the guys weekend!  And he was sweet enough to keep me well updated throughout the trip.  I thought I’d share some of the pictures he sent me while he was down there.

This was the first one I got.  Claim Jumpers.  Yum.  I think we only went there one or two times since we were totally poor college students, but I remember it was delicious!

The first game.  They got the good seats the first game, bleacher seats the second, and the outfield grass for the third.  I guess they wanted to mix it up a bit. :)

Here’s a pic of one of my favorite things about living in Phoenix…the year round gorgeous weather!  I remember going to the pool in January. So nice.  It’s hard to believe they have flowers this pretty when we are still getting snow!  Although I have to admit one of my favorite things about the Northwest is that we have four very distinct seasons.

Here’s a picture of the new pool at our alma mater.  T said they have totally redone almost everything and he hardly recognized it.  He said he almost got lost there are so many new buildings. 

One of the nights he was there he was able to have dinner at the home of some of his good accounting buddies that he went through school with.  There was a group of them that always hung out and they got along really well so he had a great time catching up with them and meeting two of the couples first babies’.

Night game.  Nothing like a baseball game under the lights!

And this was one of the last pictures he sent.  Giant dog chillin in a jeep. :)

The guys had a great time even though T came back sunburned. :)  He’s already talking about doing it again, but this time he wants us all to go with him.  We have so many great memories of college.  It was definitely a simple, carefree time of life when our biggest worry was which paper was due when and where we should go out to dinner on the weekend.  I wouldn’t trade our life for anything right now, but it’s fun to look back on that responsibility free time and remember all the good times we had. :)

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Days

Oh what a week.  It’s pretty much been…horrible.  Yep.  That’s the only word for it.  This illness has been a terrible cold with a 24 hour flu thrown in for good measure. T and I both started coming down with the cold on Thursday. Bug had the flu part on Wednesday, Boo on Thursday, I had it on Saturday, and T was on a trip, but waited until he got back  and had his turn with it yesterday. He actually stayed home from work and slept most of the day…he NEVER does that!

Even though the flu part was no fun I think yesterday was by far my worst day.  I felt like my head was going to explode, even with my obstetrician approved medicine.  I felt like I needed to sneeze all day long but couldn’t - combined with my eyes watering, nose dripping, and a horrible headache.  I haven’t been this sick in a long time.  We’ve gone through about three boxes of Kleenex in one week!

K appears to be totally recovered (other than a lingering cough), but I kept her home from school today just to make sure.  Boo is still coughing and has tons of green snot, and I’m definitely still congested.

Now we are in that super fun phase of post-sickness whininess and hyper-sensitive emotions.  Both girls have been pretty wussy lately, the slightest trip or bump into something dissolves them into a puddle of tears.  And that silver lining of illness that everyone talks about – how snuggly their kids are while sick – is not so fun with two sick kids.  They both like to be rocked while sick, but instead of taking turns I mostly ended up with one standing there crying while I rocked the other for a minute. 

At least we are done with the eye drops now.  Boo decided on Friday that she was done with them and we still had 11 doses to go…not that they did any good because the massive amounts of tears probably just washed them right out.

In house news, our drywallers are still here.  The head guy had to have some emergency oral surgery last week so they got behind.  I’m guessing they’ll be done tomorrow…or maybe Thursday.  I can’t wait to be able to clean things up!  The sheetrock dust is definitely not helping with the sneezing, watery eyes!

Here’s Boo’s room.  I took this picture yesterday afternoon.  If you look outside you can see the white from where it snowed all day. 

And here’s Bug’s room, the hub of their operation.  Good thing we are getting carpet!  Those floors are dark brown!

Want to see what 9 days of no laundry machine with four sick people looks like?  I could totally apply for Hoarders with this picture!

And this was just par for the course yesterday.

Thankfully I waited until AFTER they were done eating before dropping their trays, and since we invested in the Hoover Canine 2004 model it was cleaned up promptly without much effort on my part.

I think this picture of Boo sums up how we’ve felt this week.

Maybe we’ll move to Australia. 

The Onion Factor

Has anyone ever received that email about the onions?  It is a pretty long email with explanations and success stories, but the gist of it is that onions help you stay healthy.  Supposedly if you put onions out in a bowls in each room of your house, they somehow absorb bad germs and thereby keep you from getting sick. 

I kind of just figured it was a wives tale but since I planted a whole box of onions in my garden last year (and we really don’t eat many onions) and had/have a big cardboard box full of them in my garage I figured I might as well give it a try.

I am now a believer.  Normally we go from one cold to another…literally being sick with something ALL WINTER LONG.  This winter we have all been healthy as little horses. (are horses really that healthy?)  Bug got the flu and then a cold right when preschool started, but I didn’t have the onions harvested at that point.  I got a really bad cold over Christmas break but it was during the two weeks that we were away from home.  Several times we have started to get cold symptoms and then the next day they are gone.

The girls spent last weekend at Noni and Papa’s and they have both been sick all week.  Disclaimer: that sounds like my mom’s house is germy/dirty, when in fact her house is 100% cleaner than my house on any given day at any given moment!  Her house is always “guest ready” while my house always looks like a hurricane came through, and right before guests come I sweep everything up, dump it on our bed, and shut the door.  So I am NOT saying that they got sick because they were at her house, just that they didn’t have the magical protection of the onions. :)

On Sunday we noticed that Boo’s eyes had a little bit of goop in them.  The next day there was a little more, and on Tuesday she woke up with her eyes swollen and red and very goopy.  T took her in to the clinic here so I wouldn’t have to drive her all the way to her pediatrician (one hour, one way) and they promptly diagnosed her with a form of conjunctivitis (pink eye).  We bought a teeny tiny 88 dollar bottle of eye drops and began torturing her three times a day with them.  The first few times we would just hold her down and pry her eyelids open.  I had to have Bug help me since Daddy was at work.  Afterwards I went to wash my hands and came back to find this…

I think Bug was feeling repentance for her part in the atrocity. :)  I have since learned that if I put on a show and position her just right I can sneak them in.  She doesn’t like it all that much but it’s a lot easier.

Both girls had been coughing on and off for a few days, and that night at 3:30am Bug started coughing so hard she threw up. 

The next morning she woke up with a fever so we kept her home from preschool.  She pretty much laid on the couch the entire day…very unusual for our active girl.

Then yesterday morning Boo woke up crying, with a fever, and just felt absolutely miserable.  She went through the same list of symptoms that Bug had done the day before.  I got her up and dressed and then went to get dressed myself.  I came out and found her just lying dejectedly on the living room floor sucking her thumb.  She wouldn’t even get up to let me hold her.  Poor baby.

Another day spent on the couch, although Bug was much improved so I’m hoping today Boo will be feeling better.

The other thing that has made this week so interesting is that on Saturday the mudder/taper guys came and gave us a bid and told us they could start on Monday.  The girls were originally supposed to stay only one night at Noni’s but we left them there all weekend while we worked quickly to get everything ready for them to come. 

This is what my house currently looks like.  They put down paper to keep the floor clean…very nice.  All the stuff from the laundry room had to be moved into the kitchen…including the washer and dryer.  On Sunday T said, are you sure you can do without the washer and dryer this week?  No problem, I said.  Little did I know I was going to have one child throwing up and the other with pink eye where you are supposed to change the sheets every night.  Since I only have two crib sheets and no washing machine that hasn’t happened. :P

Izzy hasn’t liked being locked out of her room while they work on it but I am SOOOOO excited to see the progress happening.  We really are in the final stages of our remodel!  These guys should be done on Monday, and then we can start painting.  I’ve got eight gallons of paint in the living room just awaiting it’s mission.  The carpet is already ordered, and then we will just have to put up trim and then we can get the girls MOVED IN!   

So so so happy.  Now we just need to get healthy.  I’m going to go change out my magical onions for some fresh ones. :)

“Laugh With Me!”– Part 15

As usual I am way behind on these…

July 2nd

Bug came out of the bathroom and handed me a Q-tip. “Mommy?  Can you floss my ears?”

July 7th

Daddy came home for lunch and was talking to me.  The girls were coloring at the counter.  He said, “Boy there was a huge line at the Post Office!”  K perks up, “A REAL LION!?!?!?”

August 19th

Grandma and Grandpa were over.  We were talking in the living room.  After naptime I went to get Bug and she looked up at me and said, “I like to listen to con-fer-sations when I’m in naptime.”

August 22nd

Bug often likes to try out words that she hears us say.  Today we were playing and she stood up and said, in a shocked voice, “Holy Mack-re-ler Cow!!!”

September 25th

A big box came.  T – “What did Mommy buy?” K – “Shoes, Mama?” Me – “I didn’t order anything! Daddy did!” K – “Oh! Then it’s for me!” 

September 26th

K – “Can I sleep in your room?”  Me – “Sorry, honey, you have to sleep in the breezeway.”  K – “I won’t snore! I promise!”  Me – “There’s no room in the bed for you."  K – “Yes.  In the middle.” she pauses for a second, thinking, “You sleep in the breezeway.  I’ll sleep with Daddy.  That’s my plan.”

October 4th

She comes skipping into the kitchen and says, in a sing-song voice, “You break it, you bought it, you put it in the basement!”

October 10th

In a store. K – “Hi!” (to a man).  She grabs my hand and says loudly (and still within earshot of him) “I said hi to him because he’s OLD and that’s nice.”

October 11th

K – “ Do you know how much I love my sister, Noni?  As much as that whole building!”

October 26th

K – “I have a foreache Mommy.”  Me – “What’s that?”  K – “It’s when your forehead hurts.” (giving me a slightly exasperated look).

:)

Slippy Sliding

Last Wednesday we woke up to several inches of snow.  It was melting fast but after we picked up Bug from preschool the girls wanted to play outside so I sent them into the backyard. 

I watched them for a few minutes and saw that they were making a little snowman together so I went to put some stuff away in my room.  When I got there (our window looks into the backyard) I heard hysterical giggling, squealing, and laughing.  That usually means they are doing something they shouldn’t, and in this case it was no exception.  I looked out and saw them climbing up the playset and then zooming down the slide. 

Boo is not supposed to climb up there without an adult around since it is pretty high, and I started to go outside and stop her but they were having so much fun together that I decided to pray for safety and let them play.  She was fine and didn’t fall, and they had an absolute blast together. Boo would go shooting off the end of the slide and land in the snow so Bug started going down first and catching her. 

I finally got a video of it.  It was way cuter in person since you could hear their sweet giggles, but you get the idea. :)

They came in for lunch all wet and totally muddy…their snow clothes had to go straight into the washer, but they had a great time together and that makes it worth anything. :)

One, Two, Free, Fuffy

Boo is actually getting pretty good at counting to ten.  I took this video a couple of weeks ago.  Now she is able to count all the way without skipping, but at first she would say one, two, free, eight, night, TEN!  Then she added four, but it (still) comes out like fluffy. You can hear her say it in this video.  

I love the way she pronounces some words.  She can pretty much say anything and has a great vocabulary but she can’t say her “L’s” so the other night when we were at Noni and Papa’s she kept saying “Quita (the dog) yick my yeg!  Quita yicking me!”  I love listening to her because I remember how fast those funny sayings/pronunciations went away with Bug.  Kids change so quickly, and I’ve learned to appreciate things more this time around!