Birthdays and more

Star of the week board

Grace and Aidan when they were both still 4 years old (363 days apart)

Happy Birthday gone wrong!

Hello Kitty Birthday cake

Preschool Happy Birthday time

The last two weeks have been filled with Birthdays, and more fun with the house. On the 14th we celebrated Aidan's Birthday in Ellensburg at a local gym. The kids had a ton of fun. On our way home, our contractor informed us that we also had a leak coming down the pipe of our chimney going to our wood stove. Apparently whoever installed the fireplace 30 years ago, knew about the leak and and shoved a flower garbage can up in the ceiling to catch the slow leak. You wouldn't want to fix it though, right? So now, the bathroom shower floor, that lead to getting a new ceiling because it was leaking has now lead to taking out our wood stove (that was no longer working anyway but we were going to take it out at a later date). So here is a scope of what this project is now:

*Replacing the lower half of our shower with new tile, and a new floor

*A new ceiling downstairs (no more popcorn ceiling)

*Taking out our wood stove, rock wall and floor, and paneling, and replace with new drywall and texture

*Take out carpet and replace with pergo since we would

have to try to patch a big piece of carpet

*Paint the family room walls and ceiling

*Take out chimney, and patch roof areas...this requires a dry day :-)

The goods new out of this, it is one less room to do later. The bad new is, we were not expecting it, but are thankful that David has a job and we can use some resources. It will open our family room up a lot for more usable options, possibly having another couch, or moving a desk downstairs. I am looking forward to getting it done and changing the decorations a little bit in there, since there will be more wall space now.

On the 16th came Grace's 5th Birthday. We had her open gifts and then took her to Chuck E Cheeses to play games, and then Red Robin for dinner. On Wednesday of that week I took cupcakes in to her preschool class. She had a ton of fun being "Star of the week". On Saturday we celebrated her Birthday with family and a few of her friends with a Hello Kitty theme. She loved the day, except for when we sang Happy Birthday wrong to her (without saying Cha cha cha) She began to cry in the middle of the song, so we sang Happy Birthday again with Cha cha cha. She was happy then. The best gift for Grace was probably her very own fish. It is a purple Beta and it is a boy, but she thinks it is a girl so we leave it at that. Her name is "Fluffy".

Now we are on to spring break. I had jury duty yesterday and got out of it since the trial was supposed to last through at least Friday, and that was not going to work for me. The contractors are back and trying to get this project moving a long, with a few hiccups, but I am confident they will get it done soon. They did our summer project and it turned out great. I am waiting for the weather to start improving so we can get some yard work done and start enjoying our great backyard that was completed last summer.

Plumbing stinks

So amidst the normal crazy life stuff, we have come across a leak in our shower. This leak went down into our ceiling into the family room. Obviously these things happen, but sure do stink when they do and are not planned for. We can no longer use our home equity loan because the bank we had it through is basically bankrupt. So today after finding out what they thought was the problem last week, it appears it is another problem. I still don't know the final dollar amount, since it seems to be changing by the minute due to the stuff that they are finding. The good news is, I will get rid of the popcorn ceiling in our family room. The bad news is, the plumbing and retiling will cost more than we anticipated. So there's that....

Grace and I were getting over our bugs last week. I had a kidney infection, Grace had strep throat. She was pretty sick with a fever for 3 days, and lethargic and not eating for almost 5 days. Her Birthday is next Monday. It is hard to believe she will be 5. She is such a blessing and joy to us. We have a busy 2 weeks with the house stuff going on, Birthday parties and appointments for Evan.

Yesterday we had a physical therapy appointment. Since Evan has decreased muscle tone due to his syndrome, we are focusing on core strength. She gave me a lot of new things to try out at home on an exercise ball. I am hoping for cooperation, but there is no guarantee with a three year old. Evan's strength in his mid section could be affecting the toe walking , so we are trying to think of everything we can to help him. His speech is still taking time, as I have mentioned before. Endings of words are coming, but the articulation problem we are having is extreme. He gets frustrated easily right now, especially when I work at home with him. I am trying to stay focused on our goals though, and keep in mind nothing changes over night.

Needless to say with everything going on right now, David in school, slammed and going out of town for work, the kids, the home projects...I am a bit overwhelmed and am so ready for a vacation. We are looking forward to trying to get our Florida trip booked (on 4 free tickets, we think) and enjoy some family time together.

February Fun

Grace at her Valentine day party...with her friends Logan and Riley.
Evan, Grace, Aubrey, and Brady getting ready to bowl at Noah's Birthday party.

Grace playing dress up at Brady's Birthday party.

Evan playing at a friends Birthday party.

Where do I start? We have had a busy February of Birthday parties, Dr. appointments, Valentine day parties, field trips...you name it.

First off, Evan received Botox on Friday the 21st. He currently is walking on flat feet. We will see if this works for any length of time. Last time we had about 4 days of success. Evan will also get new braces next week, so we hope it will keep reinforcing the flat feet. The Botox injections were a total pain again. This time worse, since Evan refused to take the majority of his pre-meds. If we do this again, I think I will just skip it since he fights us so much, and it takes 3 of us to hold him down anyway.

His speech has improved slightly since surgery. The biggest difference so far has been the endings of his words. The beginning of his words sound the same. He can get most sounds out now, but putting the sounds together in a word still proves to be a challenge. I try to not worry too much, and just keep taking him to early intervention and speech at the hospital.

We celebrated Evan being potty trained over the weekend. He wanted to ride the Max train, since he loves watching whenever we are out. Grace thought it was fun too. We are still hit and miss with the night time potty training, but I feel like we are getting closer each day.

We ordered some new bedroom furniture for the kids. The furniture we had was what my brothers used growing up. It has served us well for the past 2 years, but it is not as stable as it used to be. We decided to get Grace a queen bedroom set and Evan a loft bed. It will all be delivered tomorrow. I will post pictures soon when we get everything all set up. Now I have some things to move on Craigslist in the next few weeks. If you know anyone that needs twin bunk beds and a dresser that need some work, please tell them to contact me. Also, I am moving along Grace's twin comforter and sham, and old dresser, and small bookshelf. I hope there will be some takers so I don't have to store this stuff in the garage too long.

This week, I have a kidney infection. I caught it really early, and still feel a bit run down, but I am getting there. Grace woke up with a fever today, so I am hoping we don't all get sick. We have a busy month ahead of us.......more to come later.