September 25, 2004
A Win!
Hurray!! Cody won his soccer game today! The team is really starting to pull together this year. It's so much fun to watch. This was my first game this season. He's had three so far. Mom was here for the first one, we didn't go because of the heat. I didn't go to the second one either because of the heat. Three o'clock in the afternoon has been really really hot these past couple of weeks. Today's game was at 9:00 a.m.! Aside from shivering every once in awhile and getting my feet eaten up by fire ants, all was well!
Daniel was pretty funny. Lots of parents were laughing at him. We sat behind the coaches and every time they started yelling or when we cheered for a goal, Daniel would screech and clap his hands too. Comical. I had hopes of putting Daniel on a blanket to play, but crap, the ants were just too bad! I wonder how Justin is making out at his meet. Looks like I get the afternoon to myself today while Cody goes to a b-day party and Doug runs the other two around. House needs cleaning as usual. Well I'm off to nap while the kiddo naps!
September 24, 2004
Sarah and her baritone
Yup boy child was dumping out the dog's water dish. Laundry room door was left open again. They should make spill proof sippy bowls for dog's water. He always splashes in it and dumps when given the chance. Speaking of Dogs...remember awhile back I mentioned how he'd eat dog food, but not table food. Well it's only gotten worse. He actually gets very happy and excited when Doug starts to feed the dogs now. He runs over to Bella's fence and if allowed...he will maneuver around that fence and stick his little fingers in to get him some dog food. He gets really MAD and will yell at you when you get after him. It's actually pretty funny to watch how excited, then upset he gets over the whole ordeal. Now I usually get him a bowl of snacks to keep him busy long enough for poor Bella to eat in peace. Heh.
Here's a picture of Sarah practicing her baritone tonight.
So far band has worked out pretty well for her. She practices every night without being told to and has a pretty general good attitude about her instrument, so I'm proud of her. Her practices started out sounding pretty scary, but has continued to improve. She can make some pretty good notes now. Seventh grade over all for her seems to be better. She has a lot more friends now and is excited about going to her first dance that's coming up pretty soon. She already knows who she's going to ask to go with her, so let's all pray the boy says yes or she'll be crushed! Sarah even has days now that she has no homework. That has hardly ever happened in the last two years for her. It happens at least 1-2 times a week now it seems and her grades seem fine. I think it's given her attitude a well needed boost!
Happy guy
This little dude always wakes up happy. I can probably count the times on one hand that he woke up a little cranky or sad. I know it's pretty common for babies to cry when they wake up because they want to be picked up. Daniel usually just makes some noise and we go right in to pick him up. He always gets this big happy smile on his face when the door opens. He definitely takes after his daddy for this. I never wake up with a big smile, it's usually with a moan, then a few choice words. I'm glad he's a happy boy.
Doug's class his their first exam on Monday, so Doug will be busy next week grading and what not, but I'm still tempted to start Justin's room. The faster I get that room done, the faster we move Cody and the faster I can get started on Daniel's room. I'm really anxious to see what that room will turn out like with the color I chose.
Is anyone doing anything fun this weekend? We've got an early morning soccer game and Doug has to get up even earlier than that to take Justin to his cross country meet. That's about it for us. I'll probably cook up some ribs, mail off some pictures of Daniel to people, watch me some Clean Sweep (that show rocks by the way, yes I am a TLC geek) and clean out the vehicles. Well the boy child just snuck off to get into god knows what.
September 23, 2004
Brainless
Wow I've really had nothing to say lately. I think I'm just going through the motions these days. Ooo I am happy to report I have an appointment with I*N*S early October. That's good news. I'm sure they will just explain to us that we have to start over from scratch, that they closed our file due to not receiving the change of address form we submitted. That will suck, but at least we'll know what we need to do. I've been trying to get an appointment for some time now, but I definitely need one now, so that made me happy this week.
Daniel has been whiney the past couple of days. Maybe more teeth or maybe he's just plain whiney. I started walking again and lowering my carb intake. I need to shop for clothes, but I've gained enough weight that I am inbetween sizes right now. NOTHING fits right and most things that I currently have are getting small. I HATE that, but I only have myself to blame for eating like shit. Well I hear Daniel waking up. Quick question...dress pants for work...is there such a thing as the 'right length'? petite is too short, regular length is too long (and baggy). Does anyone else experience this problem? Do you always get your pants hemmed?
September 20, 2004
Daniel update
He's starting to lose that baby waddle walk. =( It was so cute while it lasted. He still stumbles some, but he's getting faster and faster. I love watching him interracting with all the other babies in his class. Last Friday when I stood him down in front of this little girl, he immediately said "hiiiiiiiii". I was stunned. He normally won't say "hi" unless you've just come into a room and you say it to him first! It was pretty cute.
He finally cut those top four teeth that have been bothering him for the past few months. He now has SIX teeth! He's still refusing table foods competely. Last week before Mom left, I cooked a turkey dinner and saved out some veggies and a bit of gravy for flavor for him. The next day I whipped it all up with my electric beaters, added a bit of his milk to it and voila! Instant yummy baby food. I gave him a spoonful. He made this godawful face. The second bite got the hook. The third...fourth...fifth...sixth...bites got swallowed and he even opened up for more. Seventh bite...he threw up everywhere. Literally gagged himself until he threw up. Sigh. We'll get there I'm sure. At school he's watching all these other babies eat good stuff and since he's started he's already munching on goldfish and animal crackers. I figure maybe by Christmas we'll have a variety of table foods he'll eat. I hope.
Daniel and I play and read every night after supper. He loves to wrestle with me on the floor and enjoys climbing back and forth over me. We read a wide selection of his favorite books every day. One in particular is a Neighborhood Animals book by Einstein Co. He loves it. Each animal page, I say what it is, I make the noise a few times, then I read the first sentence. It was a little discouraging for awhile because he doesn't try to repeat the word or attempt the sound at all. Finally the other night, I turned to the page of the rabbit and he started sniffing his nose right away. I was so excited. I though ah ha, you do pay attention and learn, you're just not letting on you are.
He still has not said "mommy" yet which sucks. He does the "da da", "hiiii" and I'm pretty sure he has said "Dexter" (mind you it sounded more like "decter"). Other than those words, he mostly babbles, whines or yells. He still gets very upset if you go out a door without him or close it in front of him. He loves going outside. With this heat lately and the bugs, taking him out a lot just isn't an option. I'm looking forward to the end of September when cooler weather comes for us.
That's it for my little Daniel update. I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll think of other stuff that I want to get down...but oh well. He needs my attention right now...
September 17, 2004
Catching up
Short break. It's been a real crappy week and I've got a ton of housework to get caught up on (if such a thing). I did manage a couple of entries over at Trash Talkin', so those with passwords, catch me there. I'll try to get back around to updating this weekend. Things just suck right now.
September 12, 2004
Back to work
I had Friday off, so it sucks going back to work tomorrow. I have payroll to run, so it'll at least go by quickly. Doug's mom is coming to visit tomorrow afternoon, so we'll all go out to eat. Mom heads home on Thursday. I'm betting the rest of this week goes by quickly!
We've decided not to start painting Justin's room yet. We're going to wait until Mom goes home. Having the computer room in shambles all week was annoying and time consuming. We want to enjoy the rest of Mom's time here and relax a bit. Also the paint is filling Mom's sinuses right up and making her throat sore, so that doesn't help matters either. I'm glad we picked the computer room to do first. It was the most difficult room, so it was nice to have the help. It's odd because sitting in the room and looking around, I really like it. I see the potential it has with nicer stuff in it. It feels cozy. BUT whenever I take a picture of it and look at it on my computer, I don't like it that much. The camera always puts flash spots all over the wall and nothing looks like it matches (I guess because nothing really does match. Doug says next summer we can try to get some new stuff for in here, but we'll see. Something else always comes up before then).
Remember the nasty hallway?
No matter what, the room looks cleaner. Period. That god awful green, fuzzy wallpaper is gone. We textured the wall to hide the bad joints. We rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned our dingy ten month old carpet (thanks pugs). The ceiling is now white, not yellow/grey and our walls are one creamy, cozy color. Daniel is very happy to be roaming the computer room again and Doug and I are very happy to have our computer desks back in full use!
September 10, 2004
Did Someone Say Chocolate? (ha ha)
We ended up having some problems with the hallway as I mentioned in my comment earlier. Two coats of primer and two coats of good paint, I still wasn't getting the cover up that I wanted. The morons that built the house, wall papered the hallway without priming the wall first. The top layer of paper from the sheetrock pulled up with the paper leaving behind pieces here and there causing the wall to be rough (yes we sanded and no it wasn't enough to fix it). The joints they did were awful, no amount of sanding fixed that. We tried sponge painting the wall, but I didn't like the effect, so we textured the darn thing tonight. I like it much better and it definitely hides the shitty wall!
I'll have pictures later. I'm not really in the mood to upload tonight, plus we still have to re-paint the hallway after the compound fully dries. We do have the computer room painted. I chose a color called pepper spice. It's a rich, dark brown color (not what Doug would have chosen, but as he's pointed out many times...he's a guy!). Some times the walls look chocolate to me! I figure either you're going to hate it or love it. I just hope whoever our future buyer is...loves it. Heh.
Here's a quick sneak peek...not everything has been put back yet...so this is just a shot of the wall. I'm betting the color will look different to you all on your computers. Even between Doug's and mine, the color is different. Oh well, tell me what you think!
September 05, 2004
And so it begins...
Another home improvement job...gah! After careful consideration of some advice given, I decided to strip that nasty fuzzy wallpaper off.
Thankfully it came off in huge strips. I didn't need to steam it or scrap! However, we did confirm this wallpaper has been here since the house was built 29 years ago. There was no primer under the wallpaper, so we will have a lot of sanding to do. I'm glad now my hallway isn't so big!
I'm guessing 2-3 coats of primer on these bare walls!
Last night Doug helped me empty out the computer room, all accept for our desks and computers (we'll save those to last!!). The walls are really dirty looking. It's awful! I can't wait to see the finished result. I picked out a spicy brown shade for the computer room walls and lighter shade of the same color for the trim and hallway. I couldn't really decide on something for the boys room, so I thought the opposite of the computer room would be okay, so I'll do their walls in the lighter color and the trim in the darker spice color. I know that's not very imaginative, but I wanted something boyish for them, not childish. I bought Behr paint this time and got a $5 mail in rebate for each gallon, so I got my paint for $15/gallon this time! Yippee!
Well I'm off to make a list for Doug. He got that look in his eyes when I told him I threw away the plastic we had for Sarah's room ha ha! I remember though there was a good reason for doing so and he even agreed last time, but he doesn't remember. OH well, they are cheap! Hopefully I'll have before and after pictures in a few days!
September 02, 2004
Goodies
The mama arrived safely and came with her were all my goodies!!
I had me some ketchup chips tonight! YUM! The only reason one of those chocolate bars didn't get gulped is because it'd keep me awake tonight.
I got just a trim on my hair and foils done. Hair is much lighter now. I may regret not getting my hair cut shorter, but we'll see. I get more compliments from people with my hair longer, so I'll give it a try again. I'm sure I'll end up caving in and getting it chopped.
I've nursed a head-ache all afternoon and evening. I even let just Doug run to the airport to fetch Mom. I just didnt' feel well. On the way he stopped and got Daniel's shoes exchanged for extra wide, so I'm hoping that'll make the difference for the tops of his feet! We'll see tomorrow. Night all!
September 01, 2004
Yes I'm a nosey neighbor when...
I look out my window and see SIX police cars parked outside the house just across the street.
One of the cars had just driven away, so this pictures only five of the cars. It's either something tragic or something I don't want to know about.
Just for fun, here's a shot of Sarah's new instrument; the baritone.
Poor kid got on the bus yesterday, realized she forgot to pick up her instrument after school, the bus driver reassured her he'd wait, she took longer than expected, so he left without her. Because he had all her stuff on the bus, the vice principal called the bus barn, so he swung back by to pick her up when he got the high school students. She got front door service that day.
Mom arrives tomorrow evening. I managed to scrub my floor tonight and tidy up a bit in the computer room and living room. During my mad dashing to clean, I spilled my pop down into Daniel's barrel of blocks. Joy. I got to wash fifty blocks and a little wheel barrel in the tub. As if I didn't have enough to do already. Ghrr!
Cody had his first soccer practice of the season tonight. I ended up having to take him to it because Doug got delayed getting Justin at cross-country practice which made him late with the other errands he was running. Cody's coach wants him running. They have longer games this year and a bigger field, so he needs to get into shape. I met a Mom there tonight that we discovered only lives up the street from us. She has four kids as well, so we thought it'd be neat if the boys run together. I'll be encouraging Cody to call this boy this weekend. I hope this relationship turns out to be something good!