On the Brink of Summer

Whew! It's been a doozy of a month and it's not even over yet! So much has been going on and one morning I woke up and - *poof!* - school was out. That means, I will have a second and third grader in a few short months. That's just nuts!

So after our long and exhausting room renovation, I've taken to doing a few of the things that have piled up in my brain. I'm hoping to get a few art things done that I have on my "to do list", a quilt for Evie (as she's the only one I haven't made one for yet), write my Imagia book sequel, learn something new (I'm looking into purchasing a used guitar), and...of course...conquer the world. Oh wait. I did that last Friday.

One new fun thing that has taken over our house is Pizza Friday. Back years ago, when I discovered soy cheeses, Alex decided that it wasn't in any way tasty and rejected it. So my attempt at a very expensive soy pizza went in the trash and I vowed to never try it again. Yeah. I tried it again. With all the pizza parties that come with this age (school, etc.), I gave it another go. Guess who loves it? Alex. And Abby. And Evie. And even me! Turns out that once you get used to the flavor, it's quite mild and doesn't cause the after burn that I get with nearly every food. So we have Pizza Friday each week and we all enjoy it. How does pizza night look with a dairy allergy? Just like this:

Hard to believe this thing is milk-free. Sure doesn't look like it, does it?

Abby is slowly cashing in her Book-It pizza coupons from Pizza Hut. she shares with Evie. I drool over both their heads.

In other news, Abby lost tooth numero dos. She was dead set on pulling it herself and was very sure she would do it at school. Alas, the last day of school came and it was still barely hanging on. Instead, she bit down on a slinky "accidentally" and it came 98% free from the gums. It was bleeding pretty bad and hurt so she was a bucket of tears. I told her she could hurt all night long and not eat because it would be all dangly and messy OR she could let me pull it and it would hurt for one second. I froze a rag and it took all of one second to pull. Actually, she didn't even believe me when I pulled it until she looked in the mirror because (and I quote) "it didn't even hurt!" Congrats to my Abby!

My kids are obsessed with a show from the 70's called "Emergency!". We started watching it on MeTV, a channel we pick up luckily. I started watching it with them and pretended not to enjoy it. Then I found it on Netflix. Fast forward to today and I've binge watched the show through four of the seven seasons. I'm obsessed and love it more than just about any show I've ever watched. Crazy, right? Anyhow, we found out that one of the actors that plays a main character called Johnny Gage (Randolph Mantooth) had a fan site. My kids wrote him letters/pictures and look what he sent them back. Signed pictures for each of them with their names on them. FYI, the guy is super awesome and I might just be in love with him a little bit.

Alex wants to be a paramedic now when he grows up. I think I kind of want to be one too!

And on that last note, the end of school came and went and we got our annual pictures of the kiddos with their teachers. They had amazing teachers this year and I was super happy that they were a part of our lives. I will never be able to show enough gratitude to them for all they have done with my kids. Abby had Mrs. Dunagan twice due to a looping option and she will be missed next year. If you get to know them and let them truly into your lives, teachers become a part of extended family that you didn't realize you needed. I became friends with both their teachers. Fantastic people!

Alex and Mrs. Wright - 2nd grade

Abby and Mrs. Dunagan - 1st grade

Upgrades

We moved into our home almost nine years ago. When we bought the house, I was about extremely pregnant with Alex and desperate to move out of my parents' house (which we'd been living in for three months as we searched for a home). Call me crazy, but bringing home a new baby would be better in your own home. When we bought this house, I was...well...perhaps 'desperate' is too strong a word. Nevertheless, a two-bedroom, one-bath house was fine with us and considered a starter home. We figured we'd move up on a five year plan.

Nope. Wrong-o.

So we put it on the market once. No viewings. We took it down when we found out we were going to have Evie. Now we've currently had the house for sale for just under a year and have had zero interest - again. About a month or so ago, we decided to modify our plan. We're going to keep the house on the market, but we just needed a third bedroom to get by until we do sell it (fingers crossed). We can't afford an addition so we improvised. First step was to move the washer and dryer into our mudroom - a.k.a. "the cat room". Basically, it holds litter boxes and the feeding zone for our pride of cats. We moved the dryer first, courtesy of a friendly electrician named Bob. He was super nice and did a fantastic job. Next was a fun-filled weekend moving the plumbing around to move the washing machine. That was Josh's job. Lucky guy. He had to spend the entire weekend under the house in the crawl space. I didn't envy him. After this, it was all in my area of expertise. My mom helped and the deconstruction/construction began. One very messy, long month later, we are officially the owners of a three-bedroom house.

Alex moved into the new room and is happy to have it. He gets scared in there all by himself. He usually ends up sleeping in Evie's bed while Evie sleeps with us or sleeping on the floor by my side of the bed. But he we no longer have Evie's bed in our room so it's kind of nice to have some personal space again. That being said, Evie sleeps in her bed until about 2:00 a.m. and then joins me in bed. It's better than it was. Now for step four which is repainting the rest of the house and on to step five: Selling the house. Once again - fingers crossed.

Alex's new room without embellishments (i.e. posters, etc.). We had to do a rough bay window.

He picked the color for the accent wall.

The girls have new paint as well. Abby wanted pink for her wall and Evie wanted purple.

Crazy Jumpin' Fun

Josh's dad gave us a belated gift card for Christmas and told us to get the kids what they wanted. I vetoed the whole 'pick what you guys want to spend your money on' idea and gave them an option. I told them that they could get one big gift for everyone to enjoy and they decided on a trampoline. At first, I was a little hesitant. I mean...I do have a tiny two-year old who could get smashed on it. But then again, I was thinking about how much fun they could potentially have. So a trampoline it was!

Josh and I put it together in an afternoon and by the evening's end, three very happy kids were bouncin' like crazy on it. What we forgot to get when we bought it were some tie-downs so that it wouldn't blow away in the crazy mid-west wind we have. Well, needless to say...it was a priority. Just a couple of days into having that thing, there was a forecast for some pretty nasty wind and storms. We got some tie-downs, courtesy of my mom who was in town at the time, and tied that bad boy to the ground. Guess what? It barely held. That night we had a storm like nothing else I've seen in my days in this house. It hit fast and hard and within seconds the storm hit. We had no time to prepare and, honestly, when I looked outside, I was 98% certain we were in a tornado. I couldn't even see the backyard anymore. I was scared beyond words, grabbed my kids out of bed and we hunkered down in the bathroom until it passed...children terrified and shaking. Ah heck! I was terrified too! The next morning, I went out to assess the damage and it was pretty bad. Mr. Trampoline had his legs bent underneath and had moved across the yard, barely tethered to the ground by one remaining line that had been stretched beyond it's capacity. They said it was straight line winds, but I doubt it. Two homes were destroyed in our town and we lost half a tree in the backyard (amongst other things). I believe we had a small gustnado (if not a small tornado). Scared the bejeezus outta me! As you can see...the trampoline took a beating. But I fixed it and it's all good now.

Poor Mr. Trampoline

Barely connected to the ground

What's left of the last anchor.

Since then, we've readjusted our tie-downs and I think we'll be okay in the future. And now? Well, now three kids are out there (and me as well...Whew! What a work out!) nearly every day. They love it and it's great fun! Thanks, Grandpa (Paul)! What an awesome present. And just so you know, miss Evie, small as she is, holds her own on that thing. She's a pistol and loves to jump, jump, jump! I'm super-happy we got it after all.

The Chop

Levitation

The Dancer

The Stomp

The dive

The invisible motorcycle