Traffic

When I drive around with the kids, I try to teach Caleb about basic traffic rules, like green lights mean go, and red lights mean stop. Today while running errands with the kids, I was approaching a red light and Caleb started this really annoying whine over and over. Here is a transcript of our short conversation-

Me: "Caleb, what's wrong?"
Caleb (in super whiny voice): "Nothing, I'm just whining."
Me: "Well, why are you whining?"
Caleb: "Because the lights are red!"

Hmmmmm. Isn't that interesting? Apparently he's picked up on the fact that red lights not only mean stop, but whine annoyingly and continuously as well. I wonder whose behavior he's imitating here. Something to think about....

House Update....or, Why I never clean my house anymore

*Sigh*

I know I said in a previous post that everything was supposed to be finished before we went to Utah. Finished? No. Close? Yes! If you don't care about any of this, feel free to avoid this post. This is mostly so I can look back on this experience with fond memories. Here's the latest...

Two Saturdays ago I left the house in the morning with the children for a rehearsal and my kitchen window looked like this:





Four hours later, we returned, and it looked like this:




Yes, that is a HUGE gaping hole in my house! Glen knocked out all the windows to replace them with one smaller window (cabinets to take the place of windows).

Here is Glen working on the window:



(is it me, or does he look a leeeettle too happy to be doing all that work?)

More of the mess:



Window and kitchen after a day's work. Well, it's actually just the hole where the window goes. It looked like this for a week before the actual window arrived yesterday:




Then when I came home last Saturday after being gone most of the day, my kitchen looked like this:




I don't think I should leave my house any more.

It's definitely slow-going, but we're making progress! I'll post pictures of the finished kitchen soon, along with the finished basement (which, by the way, we're still working on). For now, here is the current kitchen:

Still Alive

I've been a bad blogger. I'm blaming our 2-week vacation to Utah for that fact. I'm still trying to recover from said vacation, and still working on tracking down a few pictures, so until I find those pictures, here are my adorable children.


Glen snapped this picture of them after baths, and it is quite possibly my favorite picture ever taken of them. It captures their personalities perfectly. Grace is a sassy girl, and Caleb is a goofball :)

Stay tuned for Utah fun, and house updates...

I'm Tired

I'm tired. Do you know what time it is now? It's 9:10 a.m. Caleb has now been awake for four hours and twenty minutes. Yes, you did the math correctly. Caleb woke up at 4:50 a.m. FOUR-FREAKING-FIFTY in the morning!!! Is this some kind of joke? Seriously. It all started a couple of weeks ago when he started waking up between 6 and 6:30. He has a child proof lock on the inside of his door (trust me, it's necessary. And he can actually remove it and come out of his room if he really wants to). Anyway, he would wake up and get out of bed and start playing with his toys, loudly. Then, over the weekend, he woke up at 5:30 a.m. two days in a row. Enough is enough at that point, I honestly didn't think it could get any earlier than that. What am I supposed to do at this point? Drop his nap? I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I need his nap just as much as I think he does. Now I'm starting to think he needs it less than me. I tried skipping his nap about a week ago, and he still woke up at like 6:00 the next morning, and the rest of the day was complete misery for everyone.

So with all this waking up too early, I know he has NOT been getting enough sleep (even with his nap) because he has turned into a creature that I hardly recognize. And as a result, I am turning into a creature that I hardly recognize. I seriously cannot get the child to do anything without MAJOR sirens and waterworks. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm abusing him because the screaming and crying is RI-DI-CU-LOUS. Any suggestions? I'm considering skipping his nap today even though he's going to be a total beast without it.

Glen and I have not been getting enough sleep either because of this dang house. Remember my last post about full speed ahead? I am so done. I. Am. So. Done. Everything is more stressful without adequate sleep, and I'm reaching the end of my rope. We're leaving on vacation in just over a week, and supposedly it will all be finished by the time we leave...

Here's hoping for some serious zzzzzzz's soon, folks!

Finish Line Up Ahead

We are definitely seeing the light at the end of the never-ending-basement-tunnel! Glen hired a guy to hang the drywall a couple of weeks ago, and now we can actually visualize the space. This next week will be spent putting up the trim around the doors and paining the walls. Then next Saturday we will be putting down the carpet. Do you know what that means?? Usable space, people! Usable space!!

I almost get a little emotional when I think about it. Seriously. This basement has been consuming our lives for the past year and a half. But only in the last couple of months have we (mostly Glen) really kicked it into gear. Speaking in running terms, I feel like we're at the point in the race when you come around a corner and you can see the finish line. So what do you do? You book it. Full speed ahead until you cross that line!

Here are a ton of befores and currents. The next pictures I post of the basement will be of the finished product.


Stairs (or lack of) before:


Stairs current:



Looking into laundry/bathroom BEFORE:


Looking into laundry/bathroom CURRENT:
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Bathroom BEFORE:


Bathroom CURRENT:


Hallway BEFORE:


Hallway CURRENT:


Storage Room BEFORE:


Storage Room CURRENT:


Family Room BEFORE:




Family Room CURRENT (in same order as before pictures):