Monday, May 17, 2010

My Day


Pro’s

  • Went running with my sister
  • Mopped my floors this morning
  • Was called a scallawag idiot by Xander (okay so technically this should be a con as Xander was really mad and ment it as the meanest name he could think of. But I love it when he calls me a scallawag. It makes me laugh, but only when I turn my head or am around the corner of coarse. Do you think it is a mean trick to teach your kids that outdated and funny insults are normal. What is going to happen to them at school?
  • Soren prepared and ate his own snack - this also might technically be a con as I was watering our grass seeds (definitely a con) he went inside and without telling me got a pear, the biggest butcher knife we have and cut it up, put it in a bag and grabbed a cheese stick. When he came out and I saw what he had, I asked, “did you cut that pear yourself? (horrified and amazed). Soren said, “Yeah, I did. But I didn’t got blood. “ and then promptly went on his way. I then began day dreaming of the day he gets all his snacks for himself. Sigh, unfortunately the consequences would be too great if that day was today. So we went over the knife rules......again.
  • Eating salad as a snack with my boys. We all love salad.
  • Soren drawing an anatomically correct sidewalk chalk person. It was the first time I ever gave him sidewalk chalk (we have never had a concrete driveway before) and I was in the house cleaning when after 10 minutes he runs in and excitedly beckons me to come see his drawing. And this is what I found. I immediately could tell it was an esophagus, heart, and intestines. I just assumed the blob lower was a stomach. I asked him and he just said it was a stomach. He has only seen the innards drawing in the Barnstein Bear book “no more junk food”. You think he isn’t absorbing anything sometimes and then he comes out with this out of nowhere.
  • Watching dancing with the stars with my boys. The whole time we watch it Soren is telling me how I should buy those dresses. I think it is so funny and cute. Then they request to dance with me.
  • Boys rediscovering our backyard after a 6 month absence. They played well together outside for some time.




Con’s

  • I had to water 11,000 sq feet of grass seed - again. A daunting task that doesn’t seem to ever end. The only time I want it to rain and it doesn’t.
  • Xander peed his pants.......again. Being called a baby, changing his own clothes, threatening no preschool if he isn’t potty trianed by the fall and sticker charts don’t work on him. My new plan = hosing him down with the outside hose every time he poops, and maybe pees. We will see. how desperate I get. Anyway, maybe that will be a encouragement or discouragement enough to procure change. He is perfect everywhere else which his potty training - church, when out and about at stores, grandma’s ect.
  • My floors not looking like they had been mopped in weeks by then end of the day. Sigh, I have forces working against me that are unnatural.
  • The piles of laundry that are washed and not folded.


Overall a pretty good day.

  • Minimal - moderate amount of tantrums.
  • Moderate mess making
  • Minimal possession destruction.
.

See? The heart and esophagus and intestines are really good on the top half. now we just need to go over the lungs,liver, kidneys, bladder and he will have all the major organ down.
I am not sure what is with the 4 arms

Sunday, May 2, 2010

We've Moved In!!!!!

We did it! We move into our new house. (That is why I have 3 new post in one day). On Wednesday we passed our final inspection and got the go ahead to move in. This was a surprise as I was told no one passes their first final inspection. Usually you get a list of to do's and then after you complete them you can move in. Well, we had already been delayed due to some subcontractors, so we had extra time to perfect things and we passed the first time. Well, 30 seconds after we passed, Ryan informed me we were moving in that day. Yikes! We had nothing packed at that moment. But when Ryan is properly motivated he is a race horse and can accomplish the impossible. And so we moved about 80% of our stuff that day and finished it off the next day. It is so awesome being in this home. Waiting for it and seeing every part of it being constructed has made getting it so great. So far, every day I love it more. My favorite part is the kitchen. The island is AWESOME! I also love the bathrooms. The 2 full size bathrooms have double sinks and enclosed toilets and bath tub. I have a small walk in closet which I also love. The laundry room is a decent size and we have 5 bedrooms with a study. The house is pretty much huge. We have ginormous bonus room upstairs. My nieces spent the night last night and they loved playing hide and go seek. It took us forever to find Sadie. Kids just love doing laps and running in the open space. I am in heaven and it doesn't seem real. I can't wait to have family and friends over. I built it big so I could have lots of people over - I sort of adore people. They make me happy. Everyone come to my house!!
This is going to be the project area and computer area.
Big bonus room



Hatching Chicks

I have always wanted to hatch chicks in an incubator. It just sounds so cool. So, last year, when we decided to sell all our animals and build a house I thought the following spring just might be the perfect year to do it.......and it was. My 8 and 9 year old nieces live in my same appt complex. They have been having a rough couple of years moving often and this was no exception being in the new appt. Sadie (the older one) in particular loves animals and so I thought it would be great to hatch some chicks with them. They could read up on how to do it, have the incubator at their house and turn them 3 times a day for 3 weeks and after they hatch take care of them until their mom was tired of chicks in their appt. So 4 weeks ago we started the project. They did a great job monitoring the temperature and humidity and turning them. Well Last monday they hatched! It was sooooo cool! we had 29 eggs and we got 18 chicks. The ones who didn't make it were basically just egg yokes, with the exception of 2 who died while trying to hatch. You see, it was about 24 hrs between when the first egg hatched to the last and the already hatched chicks were running around in the incubator rolling the eggs that were trying to hatch all around. I think that might have been why 2 did make it, but I don't really know. The sad thing was the day they hatched I had to work a 12 hr shift. I kept calling my sister to see how many had hatched like every other hour. I wasn't jealous that I was missing it all until the 8th one hatched. There had been streams of family and friends who had been able to come over to see these chicks hatch and there I was working. I started to feel grumpy when my patients alarm when off. I went in to see the problem and then I realized the contrast almost immediately. Here I was grumpy I didn't get to see chicks hatch, while I was taking care of this 30 yr old woman who contracted H1N1 in October and throughout her horrible case of this, received brain injuries such that she will never walk or talk or eat by her mouth again. I hate immediate guilt trips.

The last chick hatching. I will post better hatching chick pics with a video later.

Soren is kissing the chick, but instead it looks like a hick mustache!

Building projects

I built this little landing with stairs so we could actually use out sliding glass door. This was a delight because we installed a slidding glass door where a window use to be on our old manufactured house and I never built the deck because we decided to build a new house instead so I was delighted to actually get to start using this door. The deck wasn't too bad but it was the first time for me to build this long of stairs and to do the railings which turned out to be trickier then I thought it would be. This deck is designed to be temporary as we would like to build a big deck in a year or so (when we have some more money again). So, this deck was made out of left over wood from building the house. I can totally see us having to replace a car or two in the next year and this deck lasting a lot longer.....so I was sure to make it of non-pressure treated wood so at least one day it will rot and then we have to replace it. ;)
I finally finished putting in my hardwood floors. It was about 600 sq ft. of nail down strand woven bambo. This stuff is awesome! It is gorgeous, and super hard and dense. You can take a hammer to it (not full force) and it won't even dent. The finish can scratch with sharp edges of things, but it is really amazing for wood. Anyway, I installed it almost complely by myself. It took me FOREVER! I did it in 4 days......but not 4 normal days. These are the hours I logged on it. 16hrs + 20hrs + 13hr + 14 hrs + 63 hrs. The last day I called some friends to help because I had to finish that day and it wasn't looking good. I love my friends. They came to my rescue and we got a lot done and pretty much finish that day. I am very happy with the results.


After the first day of being in this position and knealing and getting up a million times, my quads, and back were soooooo sore. Not hurt just muscle sore. The next few days were rough, but by the last day, I could do hours of labor like this without even feeling much. It was awesome. Thank you Thompson genes for quick muscle building.