I didn't buy the shirt....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    .........Grandpa and Grandma did!

The Continuing Saga

So, here's the rest of the story:

The cleaner came on Monday and had to tear up the carpet to check out the damage.  It was smelling pretty nasty by then.  He ended up having to cut out the section of padding underneath the carpet in the area by where the couch was.  The wood underneath was wet.  He cleaned the wood and the carpet backing and all of the carpet.  He didn't have the right size of padding so he came back the next day to put it in and he sprayed some more stuff to help remove the odor.  It still smells a little.  I think that if it were summer, I could open the windows and let it air out and it would be okay.  But since we have several inches of snow on the ground, that's not really an option right now.  It's not tooooo bad, but hopefully we don't have to replace the carpet.

 

 

 

Here you can see the indent of where the padding is cut out.

 

 

 

 

 

So, a few days later, Carlos gave Jaiden a gallon of milk and said, "Here, go dump this out.  I give you permission."  To which Jaiden replied something like, "No, Papi, NO!  Mommy angry!"    Ya think!?!

Oh, the fun!  I think I'm going to save the pictures and the receipts for future purposes......hmmm.....

I also re-arranged the furniture.  It's makes the living room smaller with the couch that way, but it's actually nice and cozy, so I like it.

Orange Cream Sofas

Readers Beware:  Contents of this post are not for weak stomachs and I can't promise that all will be positive and it may not be for your children's eyes!  It is also a pretty lengthy post.

First and foremost I would like to thank Joel and his latest post for some much needed comic relief at 12:30 a.m.

Second, I would like to say that I am thankful that my children are able to sleep through about anything and that I didn't have to deal with them waking up through all of this.

Third, I am thankful for a wonderful, patient, handy and detail oriented husband.

That said, where do I start?!?!

Maybe with this:

 

Due to incidents to be mentioned at the end of this post, we recently installed a child lock on the top of the fridge.  Last night I apparently forgot to lock it as I'm not used to it yet and actually harbor some resentment as to the fact that we even have to have a stupid lock on it to begin with.

The last couple of weeks have been really pretty good with Jaiden, he has been sleeping in his own bed and has really been good.  I don't know if the following was in retaliation to me making him come in from playing in the snow when it was nearly dark outside or what was the cause of his actions. 

I needed to feed Zach and put him down to sleep for the night.  The boys were being good playing and watching TV, so I said I'd be right back.  When I was about done, I heard what sounded like the boys running and slamming into the front door, which they do sometimes, but thought I'd better go check it out.  I hurried and finished with Zach and put him in his crib.  I walked quietly down the stairs and what to my freaking-out eyes did appear but two little boys dumping a gallon of milk onto the living room chair.  Okay, one dumping and one laughing.  My first reaction of disbelief was to laugh (not so they could hear).  That reaction wore off pretty quickly.  Yeah.

As I started to clean up, I realized that not only was the chair soaking as well as the floor all around it, but so was the couch and the floor around it.  And then I saw four empty cartons on the floor, two from milk, one from orange juice and one from pink lemonade.  They weren't all full to begin with but I think that there was about two gallons total of liquid. 

When I realized the scope of the problem, I had to call Carlos and have him come home from work to help me clean it up and get the kids in bed.  I had the shop-vac out when he got home then I went to the store to get a carpet cleaner while he put the boys to bed.  Wal-Mart didn't have them so I had to go to Allen's. 

Let me tell you how lovely oj and milk go together.  Maybe I'll just show you.

Yes, we had to tear (literally) the bottom fabric stuff off of the chair because after Carlos had cleaned it with the upholstery cleaner I noticed that the sides were soaking on the bottom.  This is what we found.

But hey, we got a free (?) pencil out of it.  It was hidden in the chair, left by those who made it.  Maybe it wasn't really free and was included in the cost of the chair when we bought it?

The deconstruction of the chair:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                               Orange Cream Sofas.

 

Okay, so we finished cleaning the chair, the couch and the floor at a.m.

 

But wait!  As we were moving the couch, which we thought had fared better....

... we saw milk on the floor.  So we tipped the couch and pretty much repeated the process of the chair, although the couch wasn't as bad.

 

The milk was just pooled on top of this fabric.  Until we tipped it and sent it so the front of the couch....so more cleaning ensued.

 

So then it was a.m. and by the time I fed Zach it was 4:00 when we went to sleep.  But it is amazing that the kids all slept through the whole thing. 

We thought we'd cleaned the carpet pretty well and this morning it seemed like it was drying well and wasn't smelling but this afternoon it started to feel wet again and smell like sour milk.  Horribly.  So because Carlos is in the middle of finals and can't lose anymore time on it, we're calling a carpet cleaner tomorrow.  Hopefully it's salvageable. 

Seriously.

Other recent events which led to the placement of the lock on the fridge (all occurring in less than a week's time) are:

On a Tuesday:  Emptying all of the newly-refilled bottle of hand soap and the hand sanitizer all over the half-bath.

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving when I really need to be packing in order to leave town early the next morning:  Getting into the fridge and throwing eggs all over the kitchen floor.

The next Tuesday morning:  Getting into the cupboard and emptying all of the baking soda onto the chair and floor.  Note:  Don't vacuum up baking soda.  It creates an electric charge that is not good.  Just ask Carlos as he's the one who cleaned it up for me.

All of these things have happened when I am trying to quickly take care of Zach's needs or prepare a quick meal.  I really try to not leave them alone for obvious reasons but it's impossible to have them follow me around the house every second of the day.

Austin is an accomplice in all of these events in that his laughter and delight just encourage Jaiden further.

The End.

p.s.  Aren't you so proud that I didn't swear in this entire post!

Zachary's 1st Real Food (not counting the tastes of ice cream and stuff Daddy gave him.)

I finally started Zach on solid foods.  I know that some doctors say you can start at 4 months like mine did but I wanted to wait a little longer.  Then I just didn't feel good and wasn't ready for the commitment and extra hassle.  Well last Monday we finally fed him his rice cereal and he just devoured it.  There was hardly any spitting out of the food at all.  It was great.  He has done really well and loves to eat!  As if you couldn't tell!

                           Here it comes!

 

                                Yummy!

                             Seriously, this is good stuff!

 

                                   My turn! 

 

                        That was hard work!

Thanksgiving

We had wanted to go out to Vernal on Wednesday night but Carlos had to work so we left at about 5:45 on Thursday morning.  Why so early when it's only 2 1/2 hours away?  Dad had to leave for work between 9:30 and 10:00 and we really wanted to see him, especially since he was going to miss Thanksgiving dinner and be gone the entire time we were there.  Every time we travel late at night or early morning I'm reminded why I like traveling at those times:  NO TRAFFIC!  We made really good time and I think met a total of four cars driving the same direction as us!  Anyway...

We had a fun time and a great meal.  We had to leave Saturday morning because Carlos had to work Saturday too.  He had been assigned mandatory overtime and they can't call in to not work the day before or after a holiday or they don't get paid for the holiday.

Here are some of the pics from the trip:

Vernal has a Holly Days Festival on Friday with tons of free activities throughout the community.  We went to a few and though we didn't do everything we planned (due to unhappy kids), I thought it was fun.  Unfortunately I thought my camera battery had died, so I didn't get anymore pics that night.  I need to get them from Mom and Amy (hint, hint).

Austin got a nasty bump on his head when he was pushed down and slammed his head into the edge of a door frame.  So sad!

 

 

 

 

              Before and After

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that's about all folks!

A little diddy...

While preparing the relish tray for Thanksgiving, I began to reflect on Thanksgivings past and as I thought about what was missing from the tray, I came up with a little song.  Anyone who went to the Stewart's for Thanksgiving can identify with me.

Sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree"

O Dilly Bean, O dilly bean.  Oh how we miss our dilly bean.

O Dilly Bean, O dilly bean, Oh how we miss your sour green.

You once were part of our great feast.

But now you're gone. No more. You've ceased.

O dilly bean, O dilly bean.   Oh how we loved our dilly beans.

Maybe I was just trying to entertain myself during the monotony of relish dish preparation!