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.

One of the unperks of my job.

OK I know unperks isn't a real word, just thought I'd be funny. Yesterday was a bear getting the kids down for their naps because the youngest had another ear infection and kept waking them all crying (I say another because he has had so many I can't even coutn them all!)Also, last week I got the stomach flu. That was just lovely. Now this week I have a cold. All of this while we are trying to get our painting done in our house to prepare for new floors. We have finally decided to splurge and replace the flooring in the entire house, except the full bath. I just can't take it anymore. It always looks disgusting. I suppose I would be more tolerant if it was my own doing, but these carpets have looked like this since we moved in and it doesn't matter how many times I have them cleaned, or how many times I clean them, they just look bad all the time. I'm so excited but so tired of home improvement tasks. I'm ready to be done with the big stuff and focus on the fun stuff like furnishings. If money wasn't and object, we'd go ahead and redo our bathroom but it will have to wait another year I suppose.

I'm so excited and dreading all of this. The daycare will be ran from one wing of the house while the guys work on the other, and then we'll switch. This will mean that the kids will have to eat in the bedrooms at one point. This is going to interesting.

Today I put together an indoor sandbox. Actually it's a rice box. I'm excited to see the kids use it. Yes, it may be a little messy, but at least it will be something different to stimulate them. Having to stay inside all day everyday is getting difficult. They have so much pent up energy it would do us all good to get out for awhile.

I'm planning on getting Kadyn a big wheel and trike for her birthday. I figure we could avoid some toddler squabbles if I get two rideable toys. I would like to clear the garage and make it baby proof so they can ride them in the garage. Perhaps that will help get some of this energy out of them. Kadyn loves trikes, although she hasn't quite figured them. This probably means a lot of pushing for me, but I'm sure it won't take long after she sees some other kid do it.

After our floors are done, we will be working on moving Kadyn to a big girl bed and into a new room. Shortly after that or maybe before (I haven't decided which), we will be potty training. She is starting to tell me when she goes and the time inbetween diaper changes is getting longer, so I think she can hold it for longer. Both are signs of readiness. I think I have also decided to be brave and just do away with diapers all together. Yet another perk of these new floors. Accidents on hard floors is much better than accidents on carpet.

I am looking forward to the month of March so much. My sister and family will be visiting for Kadyn's birthday. Her party just happens to be the day before Easter. So for the first time in years I will actually be with part of my family for Easter. We are planning on letting the kids dye eggs, doing a big easter egg hunt, and letting the girls have a big slumber party. Ironically my sister's anniversary is that weekend, so I will watch her girls that day and let her and her hubby spend a day together in Branson alone. We also have some good friends coming up the week before that we are very excited to see since it's been over a year since our last visit. All in all, the month of March will be exciting for our family.

Well I suppose this blog is getting a bit lengthy so I better sign off for now. Toodles!