January Blahs...

It's January, what more needs to be said? We're either dealing with the horrible inversion or the terrible cold. Of the two I would rather have to cold than breathing in that yucky air. So, how to deal with the cold, when no one wants to be out in it?
Yesterday I just happened to stop at the mall. I really don't like the mall, but a payment needed to be made. I stopped in at Childrens Place and happened upon their Monster Madness Sale. What a madness it was! All of their winter clothes and coats were marked down to $5.99 (older kids stuff 4T and under were $4.99). I really don't like to shop, but who can pass up such a bargain? I got some GREAT deals. Nice dressy knee length coats (perfect for church) lined in fur (fake of course) regular price $59.50! I got jeans for all four kids, fleece jackets and pants, and numerous long sleeved shirts. 99% of what I purchased I bought the next size up to save for the next school year. Talk about an early start on back-to-school shopping. :)
So, today I clean out the girls closets and dressers. Taylor has 30 dresses! In her defense she loves to wear dresses, but does she really need 30 of them? I have one bag of clothes set aside for our neighbor girl, one for a past neighbor and another bag for a cousin. Goodness my girls can dress at least three other girls, and they still have more than enough left for themselves.
From there I moved on to my youngest closet and filled up another bag of clothes that he had grown out of. It felt so nice to get all of that done. Next maybe the infamous toy boxes......

I figure it like this, if John see me motivated to get things cleaned and organized, maybe he can find the time to finish the girls bedroom downstairs, so we can turn our focus on moving them down and then repainting our upstairs. One can dream right?

Life

So, its been a couple of weeks since I have made any type of an update. Honestly I kept thinking, not much is really going on or has even happened lately. Then I sat a gave it a little thought and realized more than what I had thought has gone on.
First my oldest Ethan started playing JR Jazz this month. John is his coach, and seems to be enjoying the time he gets to spend with Ethan. They have practices every Wednesday afternoon and games every Saturday. Their first game they lost by quite a bit and the second game we had to miss, for a prior engagement.
Second, we survived Ben's fourth birthday party that we had for him on January 10. I can't believe how big he is getting! He loves Star Wars and Batman, well all that boy stuff. It's like Ethan all over again. He had so much fun. One thing we had given him was a camera (yes, a real working on but its one of those kid tough ones) and he was so excited to take a picture of everyone. So cute! He was spoiled and loves all his presents, the only thing he keeps asking is wheres Spike the Dinosaur (that is another story)?Our next event was last Saturday, January 17. We had the opportunity to go to the Draper Temple open house. Our ticket time was 12:20p (reason why we missed the Jr Jazz game). You had to park your car at your designated LDS church house, where you would watch a short film then shuttled by bus (the nice kind not UTA) to the temple. Since it was so busy we ended up having to park on the road outside the church. No big deal really (until later , more on that in a minute). The temple was absolutely beautiful. You could feel the spirit the minute you walked in the doors. Ethan described it best, warm and fuzzy feeling. The kids were all so good. No complaining, crying or whining. The spirit was broken for a moment when another child had an absolute meltdown inside and was screaming at the top of his lungs. What a nightmare for his parents (this kid has to be at least 6). I was even more grateful for my own kids at that time. The tour, that was suppose to last a hour and a half, ended taking almost three hours! Still with no complaint for my kids! When we got all settled in the back of our car, John had noticed that someone had hit our side view mirror (it bends forward). We really didn't think much about that until later.....Yep, someone hit our car. The scrape goes clear up the car, over the door handle too (the picture doesn't quite do it justice). The dent is deep and have paint chipping off. So it wasn't only the mirror that got hit (luckily no damage to that) but they hit the whole side of my car. You got to love honesty. Who ever hit it left no note or anything, so we are left with the damages and repair ourselves. I was kind of mad at first (surprising not as mad as I thought I would be)but I was not surprised by the lack of honesty, even at a church sponsored event.

That brings us up to yesterday when Taylor had to get a cyst removed from her forearm. She was so brave, held my hand the whole time, surprising me and the doctor with no crying or tears. He told us that even older kids than her don't do as good as she did. So she has a few stitches that will dissolve on their own over time. She is doing really well and we are alternating Tylenol and Motrin for pain. She went off to school today in good spirits too.
So that pretty much brings us up to date (other than the Science Fair and getting all of Ethan'sreceive the Arrow of Light Award from Cub scouts. More on that at a later time:).
requirements to

Ben turns four!

Ben then (2005)

I can hardly believe that my "baby" is four. Where did the time go? Four years ago today, Ben was born. He was born cesarean due to complications (he was breech, and refused to move even though my doctor had tried to turn him). I was only given one hour to come to terms with a cesarean section. My recovery was long and hard, but Ben was perfect. Now four years he is still perfect to me and as sweet as can be. The time has gone to fast and unfortunately it will continue to do so. All of which is a reminder to us all to slow down, take the time to "smell the roses", enjoy the time we have with our kids especially while they are still young enough that they want to spend time with us. Which brings me back to this "Happy Birthday Ben! I love you very much"!

Ben now (2009)

Frozen Water Pipes!

So, if you were ever a non-believer (or think this would never happen to you), when it came to letting your water drip over night so your pipes don't freeze, please learn from us. It can happen no matter how well you think your pipes are insulated.

We woke up this morning (first day back to school after Christmas break)to NO water. No even a trickle could be found anywhere. Now,apparently John knew of the no water as early as 5:30am, but forgot to let me know before he left off to work. He was making a peanut butter and honey sandwich for Ethan's lunch and spilled honey on the floor,went to clean it found no water so he just wiped it with a dry paper towel (should say smear it). Now the rest of us get up about 7-7:30am, kids went to use the bathroom and lo and behold no water! Katie who likes to shower EVERY morning, was wondering "how am I suppose to shower"? I told her going one day will be fine. Then she came up with the brilliant idea of using wet wipes (and even though Ben is potty trained, we still has those useful things still around). So off into the shower (why you ask, did she need to do it in the shower? Well she is 8 is my only response)she went with a wet wipe.

In the meantime, I call John and find out he knew we had no water (could have smacked him if he was closer!)for hours. I then call my neighbor to see if they have water, to see if it could be a main water leak. Well, they had water so we knew it was most likely just us. Call was then placed to the public water works department, they would send someone right out. He actually got here quite quickly, but to my dismay we are told that our pipes were frozen somewhere on "our side", and we needed to call a plumber.

Six more calls later to various plumbers, I finally find a place that can come within two hours and will do a free estimate. While waiting, John comes home to see what he can do to help. Of course there really isn't much he can do. He does though get some water from the water heater to dump into the toilet tank so we can have one more flush.

Finally, the plumber comes! He needs to see where our water comes into the house. Of course this is located in the messiest room in the house, Ethan's room. There is where he finds the frozen pipe, but doesn't know how far it is frozen up unless he cuts into the wall.Plus, being that our house is only 6 years old we have pex pipes and he can't heat them the traditional way,he needs to use a blow torch at the metal coupling's. We (the plumber and I) call John to tell him what was going on and what we needed to do to fix it. John doesn't like the idea of someone cutting into our walls wants me to go by a space heater and point it at the wall and hope that will take care of the problem, until I remind him WE HAVE NO WATER! Even the plumber admits that a space heater may not do the job and if it does, there is no guarantee how long it would take. Thank goodness John had a change of heart and lets the plumber do his work. 25 minutes later, and a huge cut in Ethan's wall plus the price tag of over $200 we now have water. Believe me I am not complaining, it could have been worse. We are luckily that no pipe had burst in the process of the whole adventure. So like I said I am not complaining, but a FYI if you want to make a lot of money and have probably the best job security become a plumber! Oh yes and about the honey? Well I stepped into it without knowing about it and ended up with some VERY sticky socks and when I mentioned my annoyance of the kids spilling and not cleaning up John then confessed what it was and that it was him. Thankfully I hadn't gotten mad at the kids for it by then.