First night was a success!

Kadyn had her first night in her new room and in a big girl bed. It took her body awhile to shut down but she managed to sleep pretty well. She woke once and cried but went right back to sleep after I went in and told her to go back to sleep. She was unable to nap yesterday at all. She just couldn't shut down. I think it is taking her body awhile to realize that this new bed and new room is where she is actually supposed to sleep.

Anyways, to my surprise she didn't try to get out of her bed once. I did tell her that she would have a time out if she tried to get out. Either that worked, or she is just so used to being confined in a bed that it really didn't cross her mind. I was glad that we put a guardrail up since at one point I found her sleeping upside down in the bed. As I type this she is taking a nap in it without problems.

I have to give Jeff some credit for pumping up this room to Kadyn. As I was laying in bed with her yesterday to try to help her get in a sleepy state she looked at me and goes, "Cool room!" She was very excited to finally be allowed to sleep in it. She also calls it the "P room" for "pink room."

I'm so glad this has gone over as smoothly as it has. A month or two of adjusting to this change and then I think I may adventure into potty training. Woohoo!

Our fish have names, who knew?

I see the light

A little bit of humor from Jeff.

Calming down

Things are finally calming down. Thank the good Lord. He has gotten all the kids healthy again and given me back my patience. It's weird, but 4 kids are really manageable when they are all happy and healthy. However, when one gets sick, they all get sick. Sick kids are miserable thus making me miserable. I still don' t know how I escaped catching it. I needed this period of rest. Thank you Lord.

We are almost done with Kadyn's new room. Pics coming soon.

I finally managed to get some old videos off of my camera. Here's a few. Our flooring in them dates them back to before our entire renovation.

Almost done!

We are so close to being done. All that is left is our little half bath flooring and Kadyn's closet. Then the floors will be done. This has been a long 2 weeks. We probably have one more week to go with a few other additional problems that have to be addressed. I just about had a breakdown part way through this whole process, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's just say that running a daycare in the midst of all of this has not been easy.

We are also having an ice storm AGAIN! Thankfully we still have power unlike some unlucky 4,000 people in Springfield. One of our lines has snapped, but the main ones are fine. Therefore, we still have power somehow. It will be fixed in a couple of days. We have lost a couple of big limbs but had our trees trimmed last year after the ice storm of 2007. Therefore, they faired better this year. The weather in Springfield is for the birds! I would much rather snow than ice.

Kadyn is sick with a bad cough currenlty. Jeff and I, however, are fine for the moment. Jeff has her at the doctor as we speak. We are looking forward to getting her room done. We still have to put together her new big girl bed and armoire. Jeff also has is eyeball on a little bookshelf that looks like a dollhouse, so he can put her big pink piggy bank on it that he insisted she have. It has a tierra and a tutu on. I can't believe Jeff is getting into the girly stuff for Kadyn more than me. It's so endearing.

Well here are a few pics for now. Sorry I couldn't get them to load right side up. I don't know how you all make your entries and pages look so neat and professional. Every time I try, mine ends up looking worse. Toodles!

Pictures to come

Our floors are almost half done and it has been the slowest week ever. The first three days the kids and I were pinned up in the back half of the house and were practically on top of each other. At one point Liam and Kadyn ran into each other and Kadyn got a bloody nose. Once the kitchen area was done we gated them in there and have been there ever since. There is so much more room and I kind of feel like things are slowly getting back to normal. The living room should be done tonight and the bedrooms will be finished next week. The floors look soooo good. It feels like we're living in someone else's home. I'll have to post pictures when we are done.

Our computers have been down for several days and are just now up again but we will be disconnecting them again next week so updates until that time will be nonexistent. Jeff and I are exhausted. We've been staying up way to late every night trying to get all of our painting done before the floors were laid. We had painted the entire house when we moved in but wanted to redo a room for Kadyn, one wall in the kitchen had to be painted that we had never gotten too, and we had to redo a wall that got damaged during Jeff's drywall installation. Now all we have left is all the baseboards for the other half of the house and my little half bath that we never got to when we moved in. When we paint this much my hand almost gets stuck in a claw shape and really hurts. I'm ready for this to be done. It will all be worth it, but it is exhausting.

I have ordered Kadyn's big girl bed, mattress, and we will be getting her an armoire as soon as her room is done. Her walls are very light pink on top and tan on the bottom. I really don't care for pink much so doing a half wall with the pink being very light has actually turned out very pretty. I'm excited to see how she does in the big girl bed. Somehow I think she'll do fine. We'll find out in a couple weeks I suppose.

Kadyn is now able to count to three and identify all her vowels and a handful of consonants. She really digs alphebet letters. She is adding to her repertoire of songs: Jesus (Gigis)Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Wheel's on the Bus go Round, The Barney Song, Green Apples and Bananas, Itsy Bitsy Spider, If you're happy and you know it, and more I can't think of. She is obsessed with airplanes and seems to think any noise she hears outside is an airplane which she calls "Arbons." I adore hearing her language blossom and know I'm really going to miss this phase when she finally gets it all figured out.

OK this is a boring blog so I'll sign off. Hopefully I will have some pictures to post next time.

Toodles for now!

1/3 of the way there.

We are half way done with our home improvement projects until the floors are installed. Done painting most of kitchen. Jeff did a great wall installing drywall to close off a second doorway from the kitchen to Kadyn's new room. All that's left is painting Kadyn's room, painting our half bath, painting the new cabinets we discovered behind some paneling in our kitchen, and moving a few things. Still seems like a lot but the drywall installation is done and we were most worried about that. Jeff really ought to give himself more credit for being a handyman. He always complains and worries that it won't come out right and then when he's done it usually looks pretty decent.

Kadyn is still exploding with her vocabulary. She can identify all her vowels and a few consonants. She can count to 5. She is just about able to attempt any word we ask her too. There have been a few that have taken awhile to figure out like: arbon (airplane), doo doo pa (doodle pad), eyeball (eyebrow), pio (pillow), and a few more that I can't remember. She also loves playing Rosies with daddy (aka ring around the rosy). Once she figures something out she likes to repeat it over and over again like when I was painting on the ladder and she stood at the bottom repeating "high mama, high mama, high mama" and "mama paeeeeeent, mama paeeeeeeent" I'm not sure how she wants me to respond because I will acknowledge what she is saying and she just keeps saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.......

However my all time favorite was when she was in trouble for hitting me. I asked her to repeat after me after she did her time out and it went something like this:

Mommy: Kadyn say sorry
Kadyn: Shawee
Mommy: I
Kadyn: Ieeee
Mommy: hit
Kadyn: Sh!*

I just had to laugh and thank her for her oh so sincere apology. She is definitely a source of humor around our house lately.