Studio Apartment/Idea #5

In an effort to keep costs down around here, so that one day I will be rich and famous, we have moved Dylan into his own studio apartment. Its not very big. But, neither is he. And he seems to like it :)

Baby, you can drive my car/ Idea #4

What about a race car driver? Or some kind of stunt driver... They make money, right?

What does this thingy here do? Turns it on? Oh, great!
Yeah. I'm cool like that. And happy to be in the drivers seat.

Double clutch, pull the "E" break, then spin the wheel hard. Got it!

Checking your mirrors is for babies.

That is what you call "laying on the horn." *Snort, snort, chuckle :)*

Oh well. Maybe I should get off my duff and do something productive, instead of living vicariously through my children, and planning on depending on them to provide for me and take care of me in my old decrepit years (translation: age 35+)....

Nah. :)

Idea #3

My little man is completely different than my girls. He plays with different toys. He is interested in different things. And, he smells. Yes, I said it: he absolutely, positively has a different smell to him. But, one of the things that strikes me about their differences, is that he really wants to understand how things work. He is constantly turning wheels and watching them, putting things into little holes to see where they went, or stacking and building with anything from peanut butter jars to empty cereal boxes. The girls couldn't have cared less about that stuff. Kari, however, was only home for about 8 hours when she had already asked where her make up was... Geez :)

So idea #3 is for Dylan to be an engineer of some sort. They make lotsa money, right?

Can you tell what he is doing?
Yep. Putting spoons into the empty soda box. Just to see where they go.

Then, he dumps them back out.

And starts over again.

Note to yourself: If you ever come to eat at my house, don't use the plastic spoons. I can't guarantee they are clean. But, I do round them up from around the house (and I do mean around the house... I find these babies everywhere!) and wash them every few days.

"If I put his right here..."

"And that right there..."

Idea #2

Or failing the whole Hollywood thing, maybe some kind of famous DJ. I am sure people like that, who make a whole lot of money getting famous and mixing songs, share it with their families. Right? They take care of them in their old age, buy them houses, and fancy cars.... Right?

He asked me to put them on. Then, here he is running away while I try to get the picture.

He is looking for the turn table. Sorry kiddo. Not in here. Looks like he found it :) Dang that kid is cute. As my sister says, check out those cankles. Can't beat that! If I had better photo shop skills, I would totally photo shop in a turn table, some lights, maybe a scantily clad girl dancing in the background. Alas, I do not... So you will just have to use your imagination. But isn't that a perfect pose for those things? Put 'em back on, Ma! He just looks so natural, am I right? :)

Trumpet Flare

Guess what?!?! This is my, drum roll please, 500th Post!!!! I know, right! It's, like, amazing that I have had that much to say, and that you have been that interested and stuck with me for that long. Crazy!!!!



I wish I could host some kind of fabulous give away or something worth gazillions of dollars. Alas, I find that living on a budget doesn't really allow for things like that. However, I am currently offering a "fixer-upper" of a house, for a decent price, in Hades.... :) What? No takers?!?!

In spite of the house work, I do have a plan to make those gazillions of dollars. Firstly, I will use my wonderfully acting girls.

Enter: The Agent.

Hiya Honey. I am sure we can sweeten the deal, just a little bit.

He is a natural born charmer. And, he only has his sister's best interest at heart.

See what I mean? He looks closely at everything, to make sure we are getting the best deal.

And, if you look closely at this picture...

You will realize his fingers are actually doing this:

So.... Maybe we have some work do to :)

CandyLand

I miss my girls. They have been gone for a week. Of course it is nice to only have Dylan. And I have loved talking to them on the phone and we did a skype video conference too... But, something about those cute faces, something about my hormones this week, something about being a mom and having my heart walking around outside my body makes me miss them.... :/

Especially when they play so well together.

Right mom?!?

I heart body shapers

Let's face it. In the world today, we are always trying to make ourselves look better than we do without doing the work involved. Am I right? Its all about quick fixes and 15 minute workouts. Only to find that, after its all said and done, and we are standing naked looking into the mirror, just cuz our special shirt looks good on, our body still looks the same. However, I am happy to announce that I am officially a member of that club. Sorta.

I did start exercising once I weaned Dylan. I am proud to report that I have been faithfully sticking to the P90X workout schedule. And, mostly faithful to the diet. I am also proud to report that my clothes fit better, I can get through the workouts without dying, and I have lost 5 lbs.

However, I joined the ranks of body shapers a while ago. Lemme explain: I firstly did it for my SIL's baby shower. I was 5 months postpartum at the time, and I wanted to impress her friends :) But, I noticed when I wore it, my back didn't hurt at the end of the day. I suppose it reminded me to support my midsection. And, of course, it held my gut in a bit, and made me look a bit better in my clothes, and feel slightly better about myself.

That being said, I wore it out after a year, and I went to investigate to see if there were other/better options. I didn't pick this one for many reasons. Firstly, I think it just looks dumb. Second, I'm not so bad now, but when I was nursing, I was drinking alot of water. And that translates to going to the bathroom pretty often. So, this just didn't appeal to me.

This one didn't appeal to me either. Again, I bought my first one while nursing, so, taking away such easy access to "the ladies" didn't work very well for me. Plus, what am I supposed to do with the lace? Tuck it into my pants? Won't it itch?

So I went back to my old stand by. The waist cincher. I got this one at Walmart, for, $12 I think. I'm not nursing anymore, so that isn't a big deal. And, I seem to have gotten my bladder under control, so that isn't a big deal either. But, I like that it helps control my muffin top, and holds my gut in and doesn't make my bosom uncomfortable, or anything. (Sorry I just said the word bosom, but it was an important deciding factor for me....)
Am I technically a fake? Well, yes.... technically. But, do I feel better about the way I look in my clothes. Absolutely! Does it help my back not to hurt? Sure does. I guess hubby will just have to deal with the reality.... :)

The Basement

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a young family moved into a new house with eagerness and much anticipation. They have everything planned out, budgeted, selected, measured, and scheduled. Then, on the first weekend they moved into the house, it rained. And it rained. And it rained. And, when the family went down into the basement, they found that it was, well, just a little bit wet. How extremely frustrating! But, the family figured it was just bad luck, did their best to stop the water, called the home owners insurance, and dealt with it. Imagine their frustration, when the water extraction people left, after 14 days of de-humidifiers, special mold proof paint, and fans going, to have the basement flood again, 2 days after everything was "dry". At this point, the family starts to think, hey... maybe this is more than bad luck. Maybe this was a preexisting condition. However, not knowing what in the world to do with that knowledge, the family again, said "Maybe its not so bad. Maybe we are over reacting. We'll just pump it out, and deal with it."

No, we didn't call the water extractors or home owners insurance every time. We bought sump pumps, and, when the water came in, we pumped it back out. To date, the basement has flooded 16 times. You tell me: do you think it might have been something the previous home owners were aware of? After much deliberation, and I do mean much much muchiness, we went to see a lawyer. He seemed to think we had a case, and we proceeded from there. In the course of lawyer-ness stuff, and 4-5 months later, we have finally decided to drop the case. I won't go into much detail over the WORLD WIDE INTERNET, but we were unable to prove, without a doubt, that she knew about it, and decided to not keep spending money without a better chance of winning (our lawyer only gave us a 40% chance). Do I think she knew about it? Absolutely. In my heart of hearts, and my brain of brains, and my conscience of conscienceness, there is no way she could not have. However, I can't prove that she knew about something by proving that she didn't not know about something. Does that make sense?

So, now what? We have decided to fix the problem, still renovate as much of the house as possible, and just live with it, and hopefully, enjoy it. Amazingly, since dropping the case, we feel much better, and now we get to do the fun stuff (as well as the manual labor). Do I regret spending the money, time, and effort on the lawyer? No. Do I wish I had that money to spend on the house? Um, yeah, now that I have to fix the basement. But, I have come to grips with it, accepted it, and now, we are moving on....

The first thing we have to do, and I do mean the first thing, is fix the water intrusion issue. That way, when we go to sell the house, we can honestly say "Yes, we had water issues, but it has been dry for X years". We had several professionals come and quote us, and after deciding not to spend $12K+ on it, we are doing it ourselves. We are basically putting french drains on the interior of the basement walls, so when water comes up through the foundation (which we later found out it was) it will be funnelled out of the house.

Step 1: Hubby borrowed a concrete saw and cut the slab 12" from the wall.

Step 2: Jack hammer the stew out of those 12".
*Note the concrete slurry on the floor. Yeah, laundry was not a pretty picture :p*

Hubby had to re-plumb the hot water heater so we could continue the drains into the laundry room. It's so nice to have a handy hubby.

*Yes, that is a sweaty shirt. It was hot in the basement with no a/c* More cutting around the perimeter of the basement. Pop came to help. What a trooper! Thanks Pop!

Getting ready to cut in the other room.

There is the concrete saw. Ready for action. Down in the bottom left corner.

The girls and I stayed up stairs most of the time. But Dylan wanted to see what was going on.

Silly boy.

Course, this is just the first few steps. There is much more work, many more trips to the dump, and hopefully lots more pictures to follow. But, that is a good start for now....

There are worse things he could do

Grease comes to mind :)

We had to take a load of concrete to the dump this morning before hubby went to work. All the demo going on in the basement (I know I promised to tell you all about it. And I will.... maybe next time) and we needed a place to put it. Thankfully, a load of concrete debris at the local landfill is only $6. So, I was obliged to wake Dylan and take him with us. Like the wonderful boy he is, he sat quietly in the truck, holding his blanket and just waited for us to finish. But, that meant, instead of being able to do my workout while he was asleep (and usually while the girls watch their morning cartoons- but they aren't here....) I was compelled to do it while he was awake. For the first little bit, he sat quietly in his high chair eating his banana and toast (for whatever reason, he didn't touch the egg this morning....). But, for the second half, it soon became clear that sitting in the high chair and watching just wasn't gonna cut it. Most of the time, he walked around and played with my water bottle (which, thankfully, was closed). However, every time I got on the floor to do some sort of exercise, he would toddle over and cuddle. Now, never having had a cuddly baby before, this is far from something I will complain about. I also think it is funny, because he is a spooner. He gets to the floor, then rolls over, and puts his back against you. If it isn't the sweetest, cutest, cuddliest thing I ever saw, I might be upset that I wasn't able to do my work out properly. But, hey, I helped throw 2 cubic yards of concrete off the trailer this morning... I guess I can call it good :)

But mom... I wanna cuddle! (and no, that isn't his first prepubescent pimple. Poor kid gets eaten alive by the mosquitoes every time we go outside)

Ooo! Something shiny! The end.

Random Dylan

My fabulous in laws, whom I love and adore, have taken my girls with them back to VA. I have been left with Dylan, hubby, and a dirty basement (which is a post in and of itself). It has been a whole 24 hours at this point. I must admit, it has been a bit strange. Dinner was quiet, filled with non food spitting (or spilling) conversation. We called to say goodnight (they were still in the car driving at that point) and put Dylan into his bed. And.... That was it. No 30 seconds later "Mommy, I have to potty." No, "Mommy, can you cover me." No "Mommy, Kaitlyn is playing with toys." It was, well, weird :) But in a good way. Dylan is a fabulous "going to bed"-er, generally, and it was no exception last night. And what did we do on our first night alone? Watch TV and go to bed. I know, right?!?! It was fantastic!!!

You can tell Dylan like the attention though. Poor kid has never really had his parents to himself. He walked back and forth between us, and around and around hubby's ankles. He just thought it was great. However, I think he is a bit lonely. There is no one here to play with him...
For whatever reason, probably because it is just him and me right now, this post is just a few random pictures of Dylan. Pictures I couldn't ever really find a place for, but that I wanted to share. So.... here they are, in no particular order :)

Dylan. With a block on his head.

"Everyone wants to be a cowboy."
Playing with the magnadoodle on the fridge.
Um, don't remember, but its cute :)

His "come hither" face.

Playing and giggling with daddy.

This is how he used to say daddy. It was pretty cute :)

And that's it. I think I am going through noise withdrawals- I can actually hear myself think. I don't know what to do with myself if I am not constantly being pestered with requests for juice and reffing toy fights. I'm sure I'll think of something. (And yes, I do miss them )