A monumental owie

So Sunday night while Paul and I were in the garage moving stuff around so we might possibly fit a vehicle in there, Lana and Tanner decided to play tag on the driveway. Both had wrapped themselves up in blankets. This was the end result. (picture taken the day after with my new phone camera)



I'm not sure what distressed Lana more, me cleaning the wound (thankfully there was no rocks or anything large embedded in her face) or seeing herself in the mirror.



I kept the poor girl home Monday to watch for infection. Thankfully none. Then Tuesday she was adamant about not going to school because she didn't want anyone to see her owie.




So we spent the day making special beds on the floor of the family room and watching some favorite shows.

I finally had to force her out the door Wednesday and wrote a note to her teacher telling her what happened and hoping DHS wouldn't show up on my doorstep. But she made it through the day and everyone was so caring. Her teacher even sent back a note saying they'd make sure to be more sensitive to Lana about her owie (she is still a little self conscious of it).

I am amazed at how quickly her wound has healed. You can see considerable progress each day. Now we just keep our fingers crossed that she won't have much (or any) scarring.

Free child labor at its cutest

An after church conversation with Lana

Today, because of our ward Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference, Paul taught Lana's Sunbeam class third hour. When we got home from church this is how our conversation went:

Me: Hey Lana, how was Sunbeams?
Lana: Fine. (standard answer for everything)
Me: Who was your teacher today?
Lana: Daddy!
Me: What did you learn in class?
Lana: (Shrugs her shoulders and does the I-don't-know hum.)
Me: Okay, what did daddy tell you?
Lana: To sit down and be reverent.
Me: (Dying of laughter) I turn to Paul and he says, Well, the lesson was called"I can be reverent".

Halloween

Oh Halloween, where are the days where you had a parade of costumes at school and then went door to door in your neighborhood to get candy and that was all? Now we have a Halloween season, there are so many things to do. The pumpkin patch (there are atleast 2 around here that I know of), Boo at the Zoo, Trunk or Treat and our Ward Festival, one of Lana's classmates had a dress up birthday party, people handing out candy everywhere, our neighborhood had a party at the playground (bbq, hayride and trick or treating) and a friend of ours had a party at her house (sorry we bailed Manda! They were little maniacs after all the candy they ate.). It's a little crazy what Halloween has turned into, but I love it. For me it just means the holiday season has been extended another month.

On to the costumes. Do you think Tanner enjoyed his costume? You be the judge.








I can just hear him now, "Mom, why on earth would you put this ridiculous/torture contraption on me?"



Lana on the other hand was excited to be a pink fairy. I never did get a picture with her complete outfit. She had a crown, necklace and a magic wand. You can't tell in the picture but I made her "Tinkerbell hair". She doesn't really like me to do her hair other than one pony tail with a clip on the side. So when I want to do something different I have to make up a story like "it's Tinkerbell hair" or "Princess hair" or something to that extent.



These kids have thoroughly enjoyed Halloween this year, we have so much stinkin candy.



And on a random note, this is a typical picture that you will find multiples of on my memory card. Atleast his hands are clean. My kids have the greatest facial expressions. I wish I could capture them all on camera.

A day in "The Big Easy"

It's a sad fact that we've lived 90 miles from New Orleans and yet I've never been there (Paul has when he went to do clean up from Katrina). When we first moved to Mississippi I was excited to go see it, 4 weeks later Katrina hit and I no longer had a desire to go. 4 years later we finally make it down. Thank you Grandpa Jerry for coming down and giving us an excuse to go!



We took a carriage ride around the French Quarter to get a lay of the land.


Our driver's name was Howard. He was pretty funny.

Howard pointed out celebrities homes and historical sights.



There were also a couple close calls of people getting run over by Sassie the mule.




Close up shot of the decorative and ornate wrought iron balconies.



Lana enjoyed seeing the "horsies" which were really mules.



One of the sights on the carriage ride was this Voodoo store that also sold children's books. We walked by there on our way back from eating lunch and the guy standing at the door tried to lure Lana into the store. I kept a firm grip on her hand and walked away very quickly.


The Saint Louis Cathedral. Paul called it the Temple Square of New Orleans.





We opted out on the river boat tour only because it was 2 hrs. long and it was scheduled to leave 5 minutes after we had arrived.



We did not do Cafe du Monde only because by the time we got to it, there was a long line and the tables and floors were absolutely disgusting. Next time we go down we'll hit that first and then see the sights!

Anyone seen October?

Because I haven't. Perhaps it is underneath the mountain of moving boxes in my garage. The month has flown by and I didn't even notice. I had not even given a thought to Lana and Tanner's Halloween costumes until Friday. The day of our ward's Fall Festival. I know, I suck. Poor Tanner. You'll see why in the Halloween costume post. I also noticed I only had 2 blog posts for the month. Sad. But I'm about to fix that.

First a question...



Why can't all my moving boxes be as cute as this one?

Destin

First off, I just want to say how happy I am to finally have Internet access again. 2 weeks without it has been absolute torture (for me). Not to mention I've been missing all my shows! Thank heavens for Hulu.

So we moved into the house 2 Saturdays ago and 3 days later we snuck off to Destin, FL for Paul's birthday with his brother Dave and sister Shirley and her family. Unfortunately for us we just happened to hit the fluke cold weekend. It was so cold and windy we weren't able to spend much time at the beach.


One day for lunch we went to Fudpuckers, not to be confused with Fudruckers. Because at Fudpuckers there are live alligators.



And you can hold a one and take a picture with it. I was so impressed with how calmly my kids are taking this. Lana was the first to volunteer to hold it.



Alligators are pretty boring. Unless they're eating something or someone. These gators weren't eating anything.



So Shirley and Jared decided to camp, like in tents. I, on the other hand, am not a camper. I think it would be okay if I didn't have to take care of small children while doing it because my children do not sleep well in places that are not their beds. And that means I do not sleep well and when I am sleep deprived I am not always the most patient mother in the world. Anyway, we "camped" during the day and went back to our hotel room for the night. That was enough camping for me.


Oh, and did I mention that it was cold and windy? We still had a fun time though.


Unfortunately we only made it to the beach twice. The water was amazingly warm but the wind made it just miserable. Neither one of the kids were enjoying the sand pelting their legs.


Lana was pretty upset she didn't get to play more in the sand.


But she made the most of what time she had.


Here's Tanner not very happy about getting out of the water.


We also stopped at a small amusement park that had kiddie rides and 3 go-kart tracks and a bunch of other stuff. Lana really enjoyed riding in the 2 person go-karts with Paul. Too bad for Tanner he was too small to ride, but he seemed to enjoy the kiddie rides.

It was nice to have a few days away from the moving boxes and clean up I think we all want to go back and try again but on a warmer weekend!

Finished! Well, mostly...

We closed on the house Wednesday, but of course we have a lot of small things left to do. The landscaping (garden beds, trees, etc.) is not done (I hope you're ready dig in when you get here dad!!). We will have shutters on the front of the house as well. The outside windows need to be washed so I can put in the screens, but first I have to get out my spider spray because some really nasty ones have made their homes in them. And a few other things as well but I don't have time to get into it because I'm up to my eyeballs in cardboard boxes and the lucky Elders Quorum will be here at 7am tomorrow morning to move them. So I'll post more pictures after we get settled and have internet (who knows how long that will be). Anyone want to come visit Mississippi? We have an extra bedroom and you won't even have to share a bathroom!

Almost there

Paul worked late into the night last night getting the hardwood floors started so it would be a little easier going today. His friend Randy came and helped. The kids and I stopped by to give some moral support but didn't last long since the kids haven't had a good night's sleep in a week. Paul and Randy get a little loopy late at night, especially Paul who called me at midnight to tell me they were on their way to Sonic for a break. I have always told Paul that I cannot be held responsible for things I say after 11pm at night. Sometimes I can be really cranky.



"Helping" dad. I know, I'm such a good mom letting my son play with the sawzall.



This was Lana's "Please take my picture" pose.



The finished product. Beautiful!



The kids loved running around on this floor.



This was taken after the floor had been wiped down and the kids had their hayday of running around on it. It is now covered in dust.



Pouty face!




I'm not sure what kind of face Lana' s making in this one, but it was a good shot of the tile floors and counters.




My babies. Did I mention that I'm pretty positive that Tanner grew at least 3 inches last night? I swear he fit into his clothes yesterday.




The kitchen counters installed.




Up close of the counters.



Up close of the floor tile.



Up close of the hardwood floors. They are caramelized, stained, hand-scraped, distressed bamboo floors. A little bit of a mouthful, but beautiful. Paul thinks that all the processing used to make these floors completely offsets any environmental advantage bamboo has.

The carpet will be installed Monday and we should have everyone out finishing up their jobs (plumber, trim and paint). Paul is putting great faith in me and assigning me to tile the backsplash in the kitchen and screen in the back porch. Ha! We'll see how it turns out.

Busy Bees

We've been busy little bees this last week. I can't believe how quickly the days flew by. We've been out at the house every night this week (except for me on Friday since we had our Fab Friday activity that night...6 hours of craftiness, loved it!). Of course I forgot pictures, but I promise there will be more soon.

We've got a brother from our ward laying the tile for us. He's doing an amazing job. It looks really sharp. The guys who tiled our last house didn't even bother to sweep before laying the tile, you can still see some nail heads and other various things in the tile grout. They also were the ones who scratched up our hardwood floors. I'm so glad we have someone laying it who cares about their work.

We've got almost all of the light fixtures hung, just a few more to go. The sod was laid Friday so we now have an actual yard instead of a mud pit. Unfortunately there was a down pour later that afternoon and the sod by the road all got pushed over from the running water. Yeah, I still hate the fact there's no curb and gutters out here. The grass seed we spread in the back yard is also growing so that's good news there. I had my doubts since I'm not one for growing things, but you can definitely see the little grass blades poking out of the dirt.

We also got our appliances, except they're not in the kitchen since the tile isn't finished yet. But they're here and that's one less thing to worry about. I also love my new fancy schmancy fridge. I've never had one before, and we got a really great deal on it. We keep finding cool little features every time we open and close it. I feel like a kid in the candy store.

Lana had her primary program today. She did such a great job. We practiced her part every day. "Reverence and keeping the sabbath day holy, helps to strengthen my family." They had a practice on Wednesday and a 2 hour practice on Saturday. I think that really wore her out though because when I picked her up after practice the first thing she said to me was "Mommy, I'm tired and I have to go potty." Poor girl. I think that practice was too much for her. She did great the first half of the program today. She stood up and sang with the songs. Then she got bored waiting for her turn to say her part. When it was finally her turn she did go up to the mic and say her lines but she wanted her teacher (Sister Pack) to go up with her and help her. She was so quiet, but she did say them. We're so proud of her!

We're up for another busy week. Paul's hoping to get the countertops done in the bathrooms and utility room, the hardwood floors laid and the plumber in to get his stuff done. Wish us luck!

The pink glow

Can you see it? That pink glow coming from Lana's room? It's called weakness. And where Lana is concerned, Paul is weak. She's got him tied around her little pinky and she knows it.






In the 45 minutes it took me to run to Lowe's, Lana had Paul convinced that her room was the wrong color (it wasn't pink). I never in a million years thought I would paint any room in my house pink. I like the color pink, don't get me wrong, just not as a room color. But it's not my room. It's Lana's. And if something so small and insignificant as in having a pink room makes her happy, then who am I to tear her happiness into shreds?

I also need to remember that it could've been worse. Her first color pick was Hot Neon Pink.



The rest of the house is Nomadic Desert and Hopsack (a darker brown). Oh and see that puddle of water on the floor? Yeah, the AC leaked. Nice.

This weekend Paul and I have been working hard on getting the outlets and light switches in. Paul actually let me put together some of the outlets. I now know more about the standard power outlet than I ever wanted to know, but it was a nice change of pace to be doing something other than picking up garbage and sweeping out the house.

You probably won't even notice...

So yesterday during Sacrament meeting a letter was read from our Stake Presidency. It encouraged us to participate in a "Media Fast" to help us prepare ourselves for our upcoming Stake Conference the following Sunday. We have been asked to avoid all types of media (ie. the internet, television, radio, newspaper, cell phones...in regard to games, surfing the internet etc.).

My first reaction to this was to giggle uncomfortably. You can't be serious right? Oh, you are serious? Oy.

Tv I can handle. I have a DVR.

Radio, fine. I only listen to it in the car to drown out the kid screams coming from the back seat.

Newspaper, we only get on Sundays. Sometimes we don't get it at all. That's another issue completely.

My cell phone is crap. There's a huge crack in the front screen so I can't see who's calling before I answer. Sometimes it decides to not work at all. I don't even have internet access on the phone so there's no problem there. The games on it aren't even worth my time.

But the internet? I am an internet junkie. The first thing I do every morning while I eat my bowl of Honey Smacks or Cookie Crisp is check my email, my facebook and read the news. Now I'm actually going to have to use my kitchen table and stare at the wall or the dirty dishes in the sink (depending on which chair I sit in) while eating my cereal.

We as a family have agreed to start this so called Media fast tomorrow (Tuesday). Starting it today just seemed like unsolicited torture. It's a holiday. We're on vacation rules. Okay, maybe I'm just weak. 6 days sounds do-able. Well 5, after all Stake Conference is over by noon.

It's only 5 days so no one will probably even notice I'm gone. But I'll be back with lots of pictures of the house (we started painting today!) and more pictures of the kids and our adventures of a week with no Phineas and Ferb, Dora, and Handy Manny. Oh, we'll survive alright. I just may or may not have my sanity intact when all is said and done.

Kitchen Cabinets

Okay, wow. I will admit that I was apprehensive about the kitchen on our house plan. It looked about as big as our apartment kitchen. But now with our cabinets in, I am amazed at the amount of storage they fit in this little kitchen. These are factory built cabinets, they came out yesterday and put them all up in one day. I am not sure I will ever go back to site built cabinets now that I've experienced these beauties.