Banquets and Tigers and Bears! Oh my!

The boys had their Blue & Gold banquet for Cub Scouts yesterday. Evan was earning his Tiger badge and Spencer earned his Bear badge. I swear they are the cutest things I have ever seen in their little uniforms.

Spencer's den put on a couple of short skits for entertainment. Of course they did...Trent is the leader of that group. The boys did great even though they only had one night to rehearse.

Spencer got his Bear badge from Daddy - his den leader.

Next year he will be a Webelo and he will need a new uniform shirt.

Evan received his Tiger badge from his leader.

I am very proud of these two little guys. And like I said before - cutest!

Not for a minute....

I knew that when Hailey was a toddler she could not be left alone for a minute. If she was, she would be getting into something - most often something that she wasn't supposed to be getting into. I thought that since she was older now, she had outgrown that.

I was wrong.

Today as I was furiously trying to cut up strawberries and roast almonds to finish my salad for the Blue and Gold banquet she walked up to me with a pair of kid scissors in hand. It took me second to realize that her black pants were COVERED in hair.

"Mom! Look! I'm a big girl now! I can cut my own hair!"



So maybe my impromptu trim of her hair yesterday was a bad idea?

She had barrette in her hair at the time so it was difficult for me to assess the damage right away. After her nap I could tell that she took a pretty good chunk out of the side of her hair.

I honestly can't believe that kid scissors would cut through hair that well. What are those people thinking?

The hair clump that I found laying on the living room floor. This doesn't even include the tons that I cleaned off of her pants.

We may be making a trip to the salon this week.

Finally Friday

This has been a long week.

Ironically, because of President's day it was actually a short week of school. We took advantage of the long weekend by taking a mini trip to my sister's house so that we could visit them and celebrate Mirabel and Lainey's birthday with a disco party. Spending time with them and in Madison was a blast (as it usually is), but because of a forecasted winter storm on the day we were supposed to drive home, it was a bit stressful and included a lot of weather channel watching. Thankfully our drive wasn't nearly as bad as we expected it to be, but there were definitely road conditions that we could have done without. Such is traveling in winter I guess.

So dealing with the physical and mental stress of travel this week, plus Spencer and I came down with a stomach bug that had us on the couch for a day - has made us all the more ready for a weekend full of downtime. Not to mention that I have had a sinus headache behind my right eye for the last three days and today when I finally broke down and purchased a neti pot as a last resort it seems to be gone. Which is actually a good thing because I am a little bit freaked out to actually use the neti pot.

In other random news, I decided to trim Hailey's hair today. She had just gotten out of the tub and I had it all combed out nicely and just wanted to give her a little trim. For some reason with her hair the trims turn out to be major. I really didn't cut that much, but it looks so much shorter. I think it curls up so much when it dries it is misleading to cut.

At nap time today I told her to go to her room and pick out some books. When I came up she showed me how she had tucked in her dolls - something that she never does. The small armless baby is the only one that gets a pillow because it is her birthday.

And this baby doesn't get to take a nap because she is in time out. When I asked Hailey what she did to get put in time out she told me that she was there because she thought she was real.

I love to see her actually playing with her dolls, even if she is putting them in time outs. Yesterday she and Evan played Matchbox cars all night. I guess that is to be expected when you have two older brothers.

I wanted to get some chores done around here after I posted this, but I have to say that a nap is sounding pretty good. I might as well finish out the week huh?

Water world

One day last week while I was getting dressed, I noticed that the cold water handle on the faucet looked crooked. As I tried to straighten it out, the handle broke right off. There is some kind of a plastic piece inside that was totally cracked apart in about three places. I don't know what happened to it but it was definitely broken.


I thought to myself, or maybe even said out loud to Hailey - "How inconvenient. What a pain. It seems like there is always something when it comes to things needing repair around our house". I am fortunate to be married to a man that can fix almost anything or knows the people to do it. So I didn't worry too much about the faucet. The hot still worked. We have another sink in that bathroom that was perfectly fine. I didn't even think to tell Trent about it until I heard that he was going to Home Depot and then I told him he could pick up the parts to fix it.


Come to find out that Home Depot didn't have the right parts so Trent had to order them online and they are in the process of being shipped to us. More inconvenience. Ha! If only that were our only problem right now....


We have had water leaks in our dining room since our house was built. Poor design? Maybe. The fact that the wrong roof trusses were delivered but the builder installed them anyway? Maybe. We have had it fixed - I mean - thought we had it fixed, twice now. I can't really blame it on an ice dam or excessive snow because it leaks in heavy rain as well. So every once in a while we will hear the tell tale drip drip dripping and know that it is time to get the buckets out again and once again our ceiling will turn a nasty brown color until it gets wet enough to start peeling off. Nice.


On Monday I kept noticing that the floor in the dining room felt wet. Really wet. Like someone took a glass of water and just dumped it. If I pushed down hard with my foot, water would pool up. Weird. I sopped it up assuming that Hailey our resident spiller took a cup of water in there or a watering can she wasn't supposed to have or anything else. It just didn't seem to be drying up at all and I didn't know if it was my imagination or if the water seemed to be spreading out. I knew it was warming up outside, but I didn't see any drips or any other indication that the ceiling was leaking.


It was ten o'clock that night when I walked through there again and my slipper soaked through that Trent and I ripped up the carpet to see what we were dealing with....


Talk about an inconvenience.




The worse leak is apparently inside the wall. The sheeting was soaked. I could wring out the carpet pad. I have a sneaking suspicion this has been leaking for years. I can remember a few years ago when I grabbed one of my platters from under the hutch it seemed to have condensation on it. I remember feeling the carpet and thinking that it didn't feel wet at all. Well, it didn't feel wet at all last night either but look what was underneath. It just wasn't getting stepped on constantly so the wet just stayed in the pad and the sheeting.

After hours of drying with the fan. Looking a little better.

Can you see the water coming out of the pad as my foot puts pressure on it?

I emptied and moved that hutch all by myself. I knew I needed to dust in there, but really I didn't need such a huge sign.

As of this morning the sheeting and the carpet pad were almost dry. I was going to finish drying them and then prop up the carpet with something so that could dry out. I was eating lunch and watching the news when Hailey ran to the window because she heard the mailman's truck. Then she screamed "Mom! Come here! Water is coming out of the ceiling!"

Our near forty degree temperatures today with the bright shining sunshine started to rapidly melt the snow on our roof. Back again were our old friends the drips - these are the nasty guys we have known all along.

Our nice dry floor with a bucket to catch the drips.

And then there were two....

Then I noticed the floor around the bowl looked really wet. More wet than it would be from over splash.

Sure enough it was coming down the inside of the wall too. See the little drips ready to fall and add to the growing puddle?

Spring can not get here soon enough.

Because they have my heart everyday of the year.

To the first born......I've always loved you best because you were our first miracle. You were the genesis of a marriage, the fulfillment of young love, the promise of our infinity.You sustained us through the hamburger years. The first apartment furnished in Early Poverty... our first mode of transportation..and the 7-inch TV set we paid on for 36 months.You wore new, had unused grandparents and more clothes than a Barbie doll. You were the "original model" for unsure parents trying to work the bugs out. You got the strained lamb, open pins and three-hour naps.

You were the beginning.

To the middle child...I've always loved you the best because you drew the dumb spot in the family and it made you stronger for it.You cried less, had more patience, wore faded and never in your life did anything "first," but it only made you more special. You are the one we relaxed with and realized a dog could kiss you and you wouldn't get sick. You could cross the street by yourself long before you were old enough to get married, and the world wouldn't come to an end if you went to bed with dirty feet.

You were the continuance.

To the baby...I've always loved you the best because endings generally are sad and you are such a joy. You readily accepted milk stained bibs. The lower bunk. The cracked baseball bat. The baby book, barren but for a recipe for graham pie crust that someone jammed between the pages.You are the one we held onto so tightly. For, you see, you are the link with the past that gives a reason to tomorrow. You darken our hair, quicken our steps, square our shoulders, restore our vision, and give us humor that security and maturity can't give us.When your hairline takes on the shape of Lake Erie and your children tower over you, you will still be "the baby."

You were the culmination.

~Erma Bombeck

I have always loved this verse. My mother in law had it hanging on her staircase next to photos of her three boys. Not every detail of it is apropos to my family, but there are definitely things I can identify with - the sentiment is there.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Who wouldn't want an office that looked like a powderpuff?

Hailey has always been kind of a "make up girl". Even back when we were potty training her, the only thing that could motivate her on the sticker chart was receiving a tube of "lips" (lip balm that she thought was lipstick) as a potty prize.

We quickly learned that even after she earned her "lips" we had to keep them out of her reach or the waxy balm would end up mostly wiped on the wall or our couch. Seeing it on the cupboard ledge over the stove would often lead her to ask us for her "poo poo lips" which makes me smile so big when I think of it now. At the time though and to anyone that might not know what she meant - "poo poo lips" sounded pretty gross.


For her birthday, I bought her a make up case with make up in it that I found for fifty percent off after Christmas. I guess stores consider make up sets and jewelry boxes seasonal? It seems to me that they would be year round, but who am I to pass up a fifty percent off deal.

The make up case is sort of a pain.

She wants to play with it by herself, but she really can't. Yesterday while I was on the phone, I came back into the room to find pink streaks all over the carpet and a large pink circle all over her face. There was also pink all over the sleeve of her shirt from where she had wiped her arm over her face.

This picture makes me laugh because this is how she "orders" me around these days pointing at me with a mouth full of something. She thinks she is something all right.

Anyone who has seen me talk to my kids knows that our nicknames for them are ridiculous. They evolve at an alarming rate until you can't even derive the original name source. Hailey's for a long time was "Tizzy" - that came from the "Llama Llama" book where he throws a tizzy waiting for his mama. "Tizzy" was shortened to "Tizz". Then elongated to "Baby Tizz". Then shortened again to "Bee Tizz". Lately I have called her "BeeBee". And now because of the make up she is "Bebe Gallini".

You don't know who Bebe Gallini is? She is a character from the Brady Bunch that Mike Brady had to design a building for. She was a cosmetics mogul who wanted her building to be a powder puff and then a compact with a rising roof. I think she was into astrology and she made Mrs. Brady rather jealous. I know what you are thinking. I know WAY too much about the Brady Bunch. It is one of my all time favorite shows. My sister and I could tell you what episode it was about five seconds into the show. Big, big fans. Huge.

So for now, I am going to try to find a better hiding place for the make up case.

Cupid would be proud

Hailey is the snack helper at school tomorrow. The class theme for the day is "I'm a little Valentine". I was wracking my brain trying to think of something "heart-y" to bring into school. Something "heart-y" yet still healthy - I was drawing a blank.

What would I do in my life without the Google? Seriously. I have no idea what I did with myself before the internet. Leave it to all the smarties out in cyberspace to solve my dilemma.

So this morning my little snack helper and I made some cupid arrows. They are made from a watermelon heart cookie cuttered out and orange slices on the end to represent the tip and quiver. Quill? What is that end piece called? The feather part?

They were a little more challenging to make than they looked. Isn't that always the case? First of all, watermelon was a bit hard to come by at the store. I had to buy two "personal" size seedless watermelons at three ninety nine a piece. Yikes! I guess it isn't really the season for a big daddy watermelon. My knives are atrocious so I had a hard time cutting consistent slices. They turned out pretty cute though.

I still have some reservations about them. If the kids in her class don't like fruit the way my kids like fruit, they won't be much of a hit. And if they do like fruit, I don't know if the amount on the skewer will be enough to fill them. Hailey ate the equivalent of three pieces of watermelon and a whole orange while we were making them. Then again, she eats all day long without ever being full.

I guess we will see tomorrow!

Blizzard: Now

We were hit by a blizzard yesterday. Schools were closed. People were stockpiling food. The real deal.

The weather forecasters were predicting it to be almost as bad as a blizzard we had back in 1978 that basically shut down the city for a week. Honestly, I was looking forward to it a little bit. I don't remember much about the blizzard of 1978 so I wanted to see one in action. As long as our heater kept on running, we would be fine. We had plenty of food for ourselves and even some neighbors if need be. Bring on the snow!

Every school in the city and surrounding cities closed for Wednesday on Tuesday night. That is a rarity - and a big clue that things are going to get nasty. On a regular snow day, we get three to four calls between five thirty and six thirty in the morning telling us that school is closed and pretty much eliminating any hope of being able to sleep in. Things were looking blizzard-y!

We woke up the next morning to find quite a bit of snow, but nothing like they were predicting (at least in my opinion). Kind of a bummer, but still fun and a snow day nevertheless!

Hailey and I opened the garage to find a foot and half wall of snow.

Dickens watching the snow fall from our window.

Our snowman sculpture looks like he is going down for the last time.

Good luck with that Spence!

Spence and Hais trying to clear our walk.

American Gothic - snow style.

Red cheeked Doovy.

The best part about being outside is coming in to warm up with hot cocoa.

So that was our Blizzard of 2011. Snowmaggedon. Snow-zaster. Every other word the newscasters could think of to get people riled up. If you want to see a real blizzard, keep on reading.