So I finally took Duncan to get his haircut! Surprisingly he did an awesome job! And it turns out there was a handsome little boy underneath all that hair ;)
Friday, April 18, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A Double Rainbow?
Yes, we caught the most amazing double rainbow last week after those horrendous storms blew through! It was sooo beautiful! Two little boys from down the street were outside looking at the rainbow and were all excited about it. Then we told them there were 2! And then they were screaming "Look look there's TWO rainbows! There's TWO rainbows! It's a DOUBLE RAINBOW!"
So after we took the kids out to see it and took some gorgeous pics of it, I put Beatrice in her rainbow sleeper to celebrate ;)
By the way - Ally had her baby on Monday, April 14th at 11:54, Reese Elizabeth Miller weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 19 1/2" long! She's a beauty just like her big sister. To see pictures of her go visit Pete's Blog
And Mike had his picture in the Meskwaki newspaper! :)
And this past weekend we went over and played with cousin Riley :) Beatrice loved her little people dollhouse! They had lots of fun playing together. (Notice the climber in the background?)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Kidstuff
Beatrice started clapping! I was doing patty cake with Duncan and she watched and then started clapping! It's so cute :) Of course catching it on camera was a little challenging since I had to clap first - that's why you will see the camera shake ;)
And I caught this cute number on video....
We finally got the living room set up. The new bed was delivered on Thursday, so we finally got our old bed out of the living room, got the couch set up and got it all situated in there on Sunday. It's finally starting to feel like a house. It's coming together room by room, little by little...
Soon after I played catch up big time with the laundry, the dryer was taking absolutely forever to dry things. I was really hoping that it didn't get damaged in the move... Mike had said that the vent hose thingy was a little dirty, so maybe that was the problem. We went and got some new vent hose stuff yesterday and found this when we took the old one off:
Mystery solved. The birds must have liked the warmth...
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Maria Turns 11!!!
It's official. Maria is now a tween! :)
OK, so we cheated a little bit and celebrated her birthday last night. It was all her idea ;) No, we all thought the cake looked so good that we couldn't wait until tonight :) When she found out that she could also get her presents last night she readily agreed to celebrate her birthday a day early.
Duncan loved the cake! Especially the frosting.
Where's my cake?! Why is it I get prunes while you all are eating cake?
OMG it's DC shoes!!!
OMG! Heeleys!!!
OMG! Heeleys!!!
Happy Birthday Maria! :)
Friday, March 21, 2008
DeMarr's Series of Unfortunate and Some Fortunate Events
We have gone through some times here... the past couple of weeks have been quite challenging and stressful.
Moving in itself is challenging and stressful enough. We thought we were quite organized and had a good handle on everything. Of course we were busy packing last minute while the truck was being loaded, and still had a little packing to do on the morning of the move. It was pretty challenging getting packed with the two little ones. I was really limited to how much I could get done with no one else around. I think Mike ended up doing most of the packing. He would pack about 10 boxes to my 2.
Anyway, so the actual packing, loading and 8-hour road trip was a little overwhelming.
Imagine the dismay when we finally arrived at our destination to find a house that was very much not ready for occupancy. I don't even know where to start with that. As soon as we got there, I went up to the door, opened it and saw tons of junk still laying around in the front room. I just closed the door and lit up a cigarette.
The lady we were renting from had done very little to the place since we had looked at it (almost 3 weeks before the move). She had painted most of it, and had carpeted the 2 downstairs rooms and one of the upstairs rooms. She had not touched the kitchen, bathroom or the dining room. They were all disaster areas. I can't even describe how filthy the kitchen and bathroom were. Of course we had no alternatives at that point, so we unloaded the truck. I guess we didn't quite realize exactly how filthy the place was until we started to clean. I guess even if we had, we wouldn't have had much of a choice because the family members we paid to help us move were in a big hurry to get us unloaded and leave.
We ended up staying in a motel for 5 days. The place was so filthy that we didn't even want to eat there or sleep there, let alone use the bathroom. The first couple of days we spent trying to clean the bathroom and kitchen. Mike spent hours cleaning the bathtub... more hours cleaning the rest of the bathroom... we had thought the walls were yellow – turned out they were white. I spent at least an hour on one cabinet in the kitchen. After 2 or 3 days of cleaning we called the Lutheran church in town to see if they had anyone who could come help me out as Mike was going to have to start work.
For some reason the landlady had poured some kind of cleaner or deodorizer in the place. In trying to figure out where the smell was coming from, Mike checked out the basement and noticed the walls were full of black mold... So when the people from the church came over we had a discussion with them and they agreed with us, that we just had to find someplace else to live. It wasn't worth us cleaning the place – especially with the black mold.
We called people all over town to see if anyone had a house to rent. No one had anything. We left messages for a few people. Finally someone called back and said that they had a tenant who'd just given his 30 days notice, but he'd probably be out in a couple of weeks... which we didn't have a couple of weeks... she called back a couple of hours later and said that he'd already moved out! So we got really lucky and got to start moving in right away. The lady was so nice! And completely sane :) The landlady for the first house had offered to take $100 off the rent for our having to clean. The new landlady gave us half a month off rent for cleaning (and the place was not even dirty!!). She came in and shampooed the carpets, painted and stained some shelves and even said she had a trailer we could use for moving!! She has been extremely helpful and just wonderful! And she even brought me some daffodils! And the next day made a special trip to bring me a little jug to put them in.
We have been so appreciative of the help we have received from the community here. The people who came over from the Lutheran church helped us bring a few loads over to the new house one day last week. Unfortunately they were all out of town this past weekend, otherwise they certainly would have helped move the rest of our stuff over. But they helped us out quite a bit. I wouldn't have been able to get much over by myself. And they have offered much emotional support during this difficult situation.
This has all been the short version of a long and trying few weeks we've had... but now we have all of our stuff moved into the new house, and so begins the process of unloading!
Moving in itself is challenging and stressful enough. We thought we were quite organized and had a good handle on everything. Of course we were busy packing last minute while the truck was being loaded, and still had a little packing to do on the morning of the move. It was pretty challenging getting packed with the two little ones. I was really limited to how much I could get done with no one else around. I think Mike ended up doing most of the packing. He would pack about 10 boxes to my 2.
Anyway, so the actual packing, loading and 8-hour road trip was a little overwhelming.
Imagine the dismay when we finally arrived at our destination to find a house that was very much not ready for occupancy. I don't even know where to start with that. As soon as we got there, I went up to the door, opened it and saw tons of junk still laying around in the front room. I just closed the door and lit up a cigarette.
The lady we were renting from had done very little to the place since we had looked at it (almost 3 weeks before the move). She had painted most of it, and had carpeted the 2 downstairs rooms and one of the upstairs rooms. She had not touched the kitchen, bathroom or the dining room. They were all disaster areas. I can't even describe how filthy the kitchen and bathroom were. Of course we had no alternatives at that point, so we unloaded the truck. I guess we didn't quite realize exactly how filthy the place was until we started to clean. I guess even if we had, we wouldn't have had much of a choice because the family members we paid to help us move were in a big hurry to get us unloaded and leave.
We ended up staying in a motel for 5 days. The place was so filthy that we didn't even want to eat there or sleep there, let alone use the bathroom. The first couple of days we spent trying to clean the bathroom and kitchen. Mike spent hours cleaning the bathtub... more hours cleaning the rest of the bathroom... we had thought the walls were yellow – turned out they were white. I spent at least an hour on one cabinet in the kitchen. After 2 or 3 days of cleaning we called the Lutheran church in town to see if they had anyone who could come help me out as Mike was going to have to start work.
For some reason the landlady had poured some kind of cleaner or deodorizer in the place. In trying to figure out where the smell was coming from, Mike checked out the basement and noticed the walls were full of black mold... So when the people from the church came over we had a discussion with them and they agreed with us, that we just had to find someplace else to live. It wasn't worth us cleaning the place – especially with the black mold.
We called people all over town to see if anyone had a house to rent. No one had anything. We left messages for a few people. Finally someone called back and said that they had a tenant who'd just given his 30 days notice, but he'd probably be out in a couple of weeks... which we didn't have a couple of weeks... she called back a couple of hours later and said that he'd already moved out! So we got really lucky and got to start moving in right away. The lady was so nice! And completely sane :) The landlady for the first house had offered to take $100 off the rent for our having to clean. The new landlady gave us half a month off rent for cleaning (and the place was not even dirty!!). She came in and shampooed the carpets, painted and stained some shelves and even said she had a trailer we could use for moving!! She has been extremely helpful and just wonderful! And she even brought me some daffodils! And the next day made a special trip to bring me a little jug to put them in.
We have been so appreciative of the help we have received from the community here. The people who came over from the Lutheran church helped us bring a few loads over to the new house one day last week. Unfortunately they were all out of town this past weekend, otherwise they certainly would have helped move the rest of our stuff over. But they helped us out quite a bit. I wouldn't have been able to get much over by myself. And they have offered much emotional support during this difficult situation.
This has all been the short version of a long and trying few weeks we've had... but now we have all of our stuff moved into the new house, and so begins the process of unloading!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Packed in...
Amazingly, we have had several productive packing days! We probably have about 70 boxes packed. Most of the important stuff is ready to go. We just have to pack a couple more boxes of important stuff and then go through some of the junk that's left ;) The kitchen is full of boxes!
This is how Duncan relaxes after a long day of packing
Beatrice chilled out by watching a little Wallace and Grommet
It's hard to believe that we've been here almost two years. It seems like longer. It seems like forever ago we were trekking that U-Haul up here from Iowa. And it seems like so long ago that we were moving into this house. I was looking for pics of the kids from when we moved up here, but of course we packed up the desktop already - and that's where most of my pics are... but I did find one on the family photo site of the kids from our first night in this house. It will be sad leaving.
This is how Duncan relaxes after a long day of packing
Beatrice chilled out by watching a little Wallace and GrommetIt's hard to believe that we've been here almost two years. It seems like longer. It seems like forever ago we were trekking that U-Haul up here from Iowa. And it seems like so long ago that we were moving into this house. I was looking for pics of the kids from when we moved up here, but of course we packed up the desktop already - and that's where most of my pics are... but I did find one on the family photo site of the kids from our first night in this house. It will be sad leaving.
It's unbelievable how much these two have grown since we moved in here.
Hopefully this move goes a lot better than the one here from Iowa!!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Exhaustion...
We're all still a tad under the weather here... Duncan is still pretty whiney ;) which makes for a really long day! at least he's been taking his naps and going to bed at night good.
Luckily it didn't hit Maria too hard. She didn't feel well for maybe a day or so, and she must not have felt that bad since she still ate seconds at dinner. It's kind of crazy how people all over got this strange strain of the flu. She spent a large part of the weekend practicing her saxaphone. Probably to avoid packing :) she's got quite a bit done though. And she's gotten really good at the sax! The good thing about that is the new school will be having solo performances in April! They weren't doing any solo performances here. I'm so happy that we will be living about 7 blocks from the school! She won't be riding the bus for 2 1/2 hours a day. And she'll be able to do some after school activities.
With being sick we've all been pretty tired lately. Caught Beatrice in some pretty funny sleeping positions today! Here she is sleeping this afternoon with one of her legs up in the air. How can she sleep like that?
This morning was the best though... She fell asleep bent over in her swing! Of course I laid her down in the basinette after I took pictures. I don't know how she fell asleep like that!
Here she is playing in her swing. She was really digging the rabbit slippers, and kept trying to get them to chew on the ears. She's probably getting close to teething - she wants to chomp on everything! She's been eating veggies for about a month now. Loves sweet potatoes and carrots. Still not too sure about the peas though. I'll probably try some squash tomorrow. She loves her fruit! Tonight I fed her before we all sat down to dinner, but she still was smacking her lips the whole time we ate!
Duncan pulling his trike backwards... is that kit-kat all over his face? Man does he need a haircut! The ladies at the grocery store thought he was a girl today. Even though he had a camoflauge coat on...
Now who does this remind you of? Notice he's taken one bite out of each piece of meat?
Luckily it didn't hit Maria too hard. She didn't feel well for maybe a day or so, and she must not have felt that bad since she still ate seconds at dinner. It's kind of crazy how people all over got this strange strain of the flu. She spent a large part of the weekend practicing her saxaphone. Probably to avoid packing :) she's got quite a bit done though. And she's gotten really good at the sax! The good thing about that is the new school will be having solo performances in April! They weren't doing any solo performances here. I'm so happy that we will be living about 7 blocks from the school! She won't be riding the bus for 2 1/2 hours a day. And she'll be able to do some after school activities.
With being sick we've all been pretty tired lately. Caught Beatrice in some pretty funny sleeping positions today! Here she is sleeping this afternoon with one of her legs up in the air. How can she sleep like that?
This morning was the best though... She fell asleep bent over in her swing! Of course I laid her down in the basinette after I took pictures. I don't know how she fell asleep like that!
Here she is playing in her swing. She was really digging the rabbit slippers, and kept trying to get them to chew on the ears. She's probably getting close to teething - she wants to chomp on everything! She's been eating veggies for about a month now. Loves sweet potatoes and carrots. Still not too sure about the peas though. I'll probably try some squash tomorrow. She loves her fruit! Tonight I fed her before we all sat down to dinner, but she still was smacking her lips the whole time we ate!
Duncan pulling his trike backwards... is that kit-kat all over his face? Man does he need a haircut! The ladies at the grocery store thought he was a girl today. Even though he had a camoflauge coat on...
Now who does this remind you of? Notice he's taken one bite out of each piece of meat?
Reminds me of mom and donuts!
Beatrice playing in her bouncy seat
Just had to throw in some pics of boxes to prove that we've actually done some packing!
8 days and counting!!
Beatrice playing in her bouncy seat
Just had to throw in some pics of boxes to prove that we've actually done some packing!8 days and counting!!
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