Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Catching up!

I have been horrible lately about blogging! Of course, we were out of our house for a month due to the toilet flood...so that is a good excuse I guess! Anyways, we are back home!! We moved back in on December 23rd. Christmas was at home, all be it hectic! We did Christmas a day early this year, since I had to work on December 25th & 26th this year. )-: So, the evening that we moved back in was our "Christmas Eve". I was up til 2am finishing all the wrapping of gifts! We had a great Christmas day on the 24th! Here are a few pics.....





On the evening of the 24th, we went to the annual gathering for Shane's side of the family at our brother-in-law's golf cart shop (plenty of room for all the people & presents!) We had a great time!!





On Saturday, Christmas Day, I got a call at 5am from my work saying that my name was drawn to work a split shift, so I got to sleep in & not go in to work until 1pm! So, I worked 1-7pm on Christmas Day...not too bad! That evening at about 10/11pm we had our first snow of the season! By Sunday morning when I left for work at 6am we had about 5 inches of snow! I was able to take a few pictures of the house (in the dark!) as I left for work...unfortunately, I didn't get any others during the daylight! Except for one that I took through the window at work!!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Vote for Isabella!!!


Ok, sending out a plea for votes! LOL! We have entered a contest that a local photographer is having. The winner is the child who can gather the most votes. The prize? A free photo session and photos worth $250! I would LOVE to have this opportunity to get beautiful, professional pictures!! The contest is being held through the photographer's Facebook page. So, all you facebookers...my friend or not....please go to the Photographer's page & "like" it. Then go to her photos and click on the 1st album called "December give-away" or something like that. Isabella is picture #16. "Like" it and that is the vote!!! It's pretty easy!
Here is the photographer's page:
HERE

And here is Isabella's picture:
HERE

If for some reason these links don't work for you, just search for Dimples and Curls Photography on FB!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Santa!

Here is a picture that hubby took of the kids about a week & a half ago while I was at work! )-: Good thing is...I am off until Christmas Day!!!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Tired.

I am fighting off a cold and am just oh so T.I.R.E.D!!! Living in a hotel is really starting to suck, especially with Christmas right around the corner. Honestly, I really do not even think about it being Christmas time because we have no tree, no decorations. )-: Boo hiss! I just sat down & calculated how much extra mileage & gas expense that I am accruing here. I feel like I LIVE in the car. In a nutshell, I used to drive about 145 miles a week...at a cost of about $26/wk in gas. My oldest daughter rode the bus to & from school everyday, so I only had to take Peyton to & from his preschool 3x a week and then myself to & from work 2x a week. NOW....I drive 474 miles per week and spend $89/week in gas. I am about to fax in these details to my insurance company and see if I can get reimbursed the extra $63/week in gas money. I wish I didn't have to spend so much dang time in the car. I feel bad for Isabella, who is such a trooper and so good about it....but I feel bad that we are always rush, rush, rush & then back into the carseat she goes...back into the car...ugh!!!! Today after we took Meghan to school and dropped her off at 8am, Peyton, Isabella & I headed over to the house. I do this a lot on Tue, Wed & Thurs when he has preschool b/c we have an hour to kill essentially..... So, today, we go in real quick, check the mailbox, change Isabella's diaper on the couch (they finally started packing our stuff up yesterday into boxes etc)& as we were leaving, the painters arrive. I am glad I was there! I had no idea they were coming. It would have been nice to have a heads up so I could have colors prepared. I am not wanting major chnges, but slight color changes here & there would have been nice. First of all, they had not been told exactly HOW MUCH painting there was to do! But they called the main contractor & got the ok for it all, but still!!! I ask them what colors they had & I think they just thought they were painting the ceilings only (white). But there was also my laundry room (medium tan color), the front hallway (pale yellow), the one wall in my family room (light tan/beige), the stairwell (medium tan) and one wall in our upstairs hallway (sage green). Not to mention the ceiling in the laundry room, hallway & the entire family room/kitchen area since its an open floor plan & all connected. They were very nice though & left before me saying they were headed to Lowes to get some paint...they had samples of the colors from each wall & would have to have it color matched. The movers also arrived along with the woman from "Kleen Pro", the company in charge of the clean up & restoration. So, when I left, they were getting set up to take out all of our belongings & put them in storage. Hopefully, things will now move along MUCH faster!!! Our spare bedroom was not affected by any of the water damage, so it is not being touched. We put a lot of our stuff in there & I had an extra carseat in the closet in there that I had wanted to get out & let my brother & his wife use it for their baby on Friday when they fly in from California. I opened that bedroom door today & the room is PACKED with stuff! Extra furniture from the master bedroom etc, there is no way to get in there to get to the closet. Which brings me to dilema #2. If the house is NOT finished by Christmas I am SOL, because I have all the gifts for my inlaws and some for my mom in that closet!!!! Thank goodness I hid Peyton's gifts in our attic, which is easily accessed from our bedroom! I plan to stop by there at 3pm today after I pick Meghan up from school....hopefully the painters will have made good progress by then! That will cheer me up!
Oh and did I mention that Shane ran into our neighbors at the mall the other day (they live 2 streets over & we know them b/c our daughters used to be friends) & their oldest daughter who lives with them (she is like 21) apparently told the mom one day "Guess what!!?? Karen & Shane got foreclosed on & are no longer living in their home! There's a lock box on the door!" So, that's nice, people are thinking that!!!! How embarrassing!! Shane gave her the real scoop...maybe they will spread it around the neighborhood...our neighborhood is not that big & so everyone is very gossipy! NICE!!

Monday, December 6, 2010

6 month Stats

Height: 29 inches
Weight: 18lbs 7 oz

She is a giant!!!! (height-wise!!) LOL!

I did inquire about the back of her head which is a tad flat, but not as bad as it had been...it IS improving! The Dr. agreed that it was a little flat but that her face and ears and eyes etc look very symmetrical & that usually if it is improving, it will be fine & no helmet will be needed. To be on the safe side, he is going to set us up with a consult with a specialist who will use lasers etc to create a diagram of her head and determine if any intervention is needed. The earlier the better of course, since their heads are still very pliable right now. Granted, we are hoping we will not need to go the helmet route..... but I would feel like a bad parent if I didn't at least make sure there is nothing we can do to help it out (aside from tummy time and keeping her off her back as much as possible!!!) She just hates tummy time, so she does spend a lot of time on her back! She does like her Exersaucer, but not for LONG stretches of time!!!

Friday, December 3, 2010

6 months today!!!

Isabella is 6 months old today! I feel bad that I have not posted in a whole month!!! Bad, busy mommy! We have our 6 month check up on so I will update then with stats!! Here is a quick picture that I JUST snapped on the phone....



There is so much to catch up on...life has been crazy! Let's see....

Monday, 11/22/2010

I worked all weekend and woke up at 5:30am on Monday, looking forward to a quiet, relaxing day. I had planned to do some laundry and a little tidying up around the house. I went to the bathroom and then went back to bed. I noticed it was 5:30am and that DH had already left for work. Some days he does have to leave at about 5/5:30! Well, at 9am, Isabella started to stir & her voice coming through the baby monitor woke me up. I rolled out of bed and when my foot hit the carpet....YIKES!!!! Cold, soaking wet! Water! In my carpet! I look up to see water just flowing out of my master bathroom! There was 2-3 inches of standing water in there!! I run in, soaking my Pajama pants & manage to turn off the water at the toilet bowl. Yep, the bowl itself was just steadily overflowing!!! I am in panic mood now! Peyton was still soundly asleep & Isabella was happily cooing in her crib. I peel off my wet pajama pants...and am running around in a tank top & underwear, like a chicken with its head cut off! LOL! I think I called Shane 1st...not sure how I even described the situation...something like " House is flooding, water everywhere, 3 inches at least, carpet in bedroom soaked, you have ro leave work NOW!" and then, as i went downstairs.... "Oh my goodness! Water is running down the wall on the stairwell, through the ceiling! OMG! The wood floors down here are covered in water!!" Then I round through the family room & go to the front hallway downstairs...I flip on the light...the hallway is flooded...2-3 inches of water & the light fixture, which is kinda like a hanging bowl...filled with water, over flowing with water! I quickly turn the light back off! So, our laundry room, bathroom, hallway & garage...all under our master bedroom & bath, are flooded and leaking! The garage is BAD!! I called our awesome insurance company...State Farm...and they quickly refer me to a cleaning/drying/restoration service. They were not going to be able to come out for like 1 1/2 hrs. I spent the rest of that time running from room to room panicking more & more by the minute as i saw more & more damage. I finally pulled myself together & put on some jeans & a shirt, fed Isabella, got Peyton up & dressed. Shane never did leave work...they were short handed that day & he couldn't!
They brought in about 5 million heater/fans...cut holes in the drywall, tore down the ceiling in the garage, tore out our carpet upstairs in our bedroom, the hall, the loft/rec room & Isabella's room and they plan on tearing out all the hardwoods downstairs and replacing them! Craziness! Here are a few pics...






So, 3 days before Thanksgiving, at 10pm, we had to put our dogs in a kennel & move into a 2 bedroom suite hotel. Fun times! The 1st hotel was in Southpark, a nice area, but 40 minutes from home and the kids schools! We stayed there until yesterday when we decided enough was enough...and requested something closer to home. So, now we are here....a tad closer to home and schools...definitely an easier drive. They say they hope to get us back home by Christmas eve....I am not too sure yet. The guy has almost finished redoing all of the drywall in our garage but thats it. Nothing else has been done. Supposedly on Tues & wed next week, they will pack up all of our furniture etc & move it to storage so they can get busy on fixing the inside drywall and repainting walls and laying new floors.....

By the way... Shane admitted to me that the whole debacle was probably, ok, WAS, his fault...he clogged the toilet at 5am, but was in a hurry & just LEFT it!! Left it for me to unclog later!! NICE!! Well, at 5:30am when I got up to pee, yes, just pee!!!, I didn't notice anything odd about the toilet. I guess when I flushed it & went back to bed, that is when the water started to flow.....

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