M+B=E2O2

Alive and Well Thanks!

Yikes.  I have been going full steam ahead for the last week.  I am definitely feeling better, Thank you for asking :-)  That cold sure did kick my butt.  It also threw a bit of a wrench in my holiday preparing.  I am getting back on track though.  My to do list is about 25 long.  Not all of it has to be done by Christmas, about 75% of it.  *sigh* 

Here's one of  our activities today:

I made the houses a couple of days ago,  they pretty much did all the decorating on their own.  I helped Olivia glop on the frosting, and Emma asked me to help decorate some of hers, Evan too, but I pretty much tried to just glop on the frosting for all of them and have them do the placement of candy.  Olivia ate as much stuff as she put on, Evan too.  They were too cute!

We  made Russian teacakes today too.  It rained all day- great for the county, bad for the windows that have not been completely repaired.  They finished putting up the dry wall and texture over the weekend, and they put a bead of some sort of sealant around the outside since we knew the rain was coming. Todays rain ended up leaking through anyway. Today they were supposed to take out the windows and re set them properly, now it is looking like it may not happen until after the new year.  I just don't want any sort of construction stuff going on while my parents are here. *bigger sigh*

Chaos managed.... almost

Our nifty new closest were installed yesterday.   It took them all day (9-5) but it is done.  We no longer have clothes hanging about our house.  We have placed them on the new hanging racks and have instead hung the more traditional Christmas decorations.  I did take a before picture of everything out of our closest and spread about our room, but I still need to take the after.  Ben and I cleared out our dresser and wardrobe and hung and folded our hearts out last night.  It sure do look perty.  I have yet to tackle the newly built in desk/office area in our side room*, that process will start today.  A drawer was scratched so we have to wait for another one and I noticed a few chips in the front of the shelving so I am going to tell them about that when they call later.  The boys don't know it but they are going to get the large desk that currently holds our office computer.  Of course since they only have use of 1/4 of their room right now,  that too will have to wait.  I am hoping that the contractor will be done with that project sooooooooon.  O.M.G. it is just so sucky having the kids rooms as they are. 

I have also come to realize how much extraneous noise bug me.  I have never been one to put on music or TV for "background" noise.  If I put music on it is to listen to it specifically.  I might be doing something at the same time, like cleaning or something crafty, but I don't put it on and then read a book.  Even classical mellow stuff, I prefer that I can be actively listening to it vs having it on "back there".  So yes if I am cleaning I put on music that makes me want to dance so I can dance about the house and clean and sing at the same time. 

With this whole widow fixing thing going on we have had various noise makers placed in the 3 affected rooms.  Each louder than the last.  The latest sounds as though a small jet plane is ready for take off.  Seriously.  I shut the doors to the rooms, but the whole house still hums.  I am so so tired of it.  We turn off the kids at night of course.  However the downstairs one goes 24/7.  Except  last night. Shhhh please don't tell my contractor, but I unplugged the thing.  I just Could. Not. Take. The. Noise. Any. Longer.  Ok I just plugged it back in out of guilt- and the fact that he should be here any time in the next hour.

Ok all the kids are awake. Must be a parent to them......

I'b sick

I don't know when I've had such a cold.  dang.  Friday I was starting to get a little sniffle.  I had looked over at orgjunkies blog to see if winners had been posted and lo and behold they had.  I was SOOOOOOOO excited to see that I WON THIRD PLACE!!! wooo hooo!  I suppose it is sort of a good and, well, embarrassing thing- I mean it means that my garage was one of the most in need of help- but on the flip side it means I was highly successful in doing it! I am proud of that to be sure!! So any how sniffley as I was, I was able to jump around the house and cheer for myself (which you know I totally did not do because I am not a dork like that....ahem).  I was all excited to blog right away about it, but Ben got home and we had to go a few minutes later.  Lord knows I can not post a blog in but a mere few minutes.  The shortest of entries takes me at least a half hour.  Seriously.

We spent the evening with our dear friends C & G and their kids- we haven't seen them in like a whole month so we were all in withdrawals and whatnot.   We had a lovely dinner at their house and several hours of chatting.  The two big kids spent the night which was way cool for them.  Ben was on call so we actually didn't stay too too late, but once home we went straight up to bed, so no blogging. 

Satuday morning I woke with a head full of cement and a crushing 50lb weight on my chest.   Oh. My. Freaking.  Goodness.  I felt like crapola.  Needless to say I spent much of the day on the couch feebly yelling at the kids to be good, stop yelling, stop fighting, be nice, don't hit, share for gosh sakes,  don't you know mommy is sick?? and other such words.  Went to bed pretty early.  Sunday was much of the same except that I had to take the kids to CCD (Catholic Sunday school- Maria what does it stand for???  I like that your church calls it Faith Formation!).  Evan won't allow me to just drop him off so I had to bring Olivia in (Ben's on call remember- I'm alone all weekend daytime). Load of fun chasing a 2 year old around a kindy class room that she can't touch anything in (the preschool kids use the regular school kindy room).  Once home I continued my therapy of Theraflu Q4 hours (doctor speak for every 4 hours- how lame am I that I say that?) Monday felt pretty much the same.  I had to take the kids to piano (she doesn't do make ups and lessons are too darn expensive to miss because of some as lame as me being sick).  Then we went straight out to Tae Kwan do.  Ben met us there and we went to dinner which was great because I was in no shape to  actually make more than PB & J.  It was nice though because one couple gave us an extra coupon they had for $10 off and another lady who was at the table next to us said to us as they were leaving that it was such a pleasure to sit next to us and to watch our kids eat.  I thanked her profusely and thought to my self what a different tune she'd have been singing had she been in our home a few hours earlier as the kids went berserk and I followed suite in a ridiculous attempt to get them to stop going berserk.   

So today, Tuesday I feel as though I am starting to join the living.  I still can't breath and I can tell when the theraflu has worn off, but I have a smidge more energy so I'm thinking I'm on the mend.  Yay.

bad timing

Our house is in utter chaos. At least my garage is nice.  The contractor started the work on the house today.  Three of our rooms have big, black plastic containment walls partitioning off the window area. Each room is missing about a third of its square footage.  The kids rooms are weirdly arranged, which they think is way cool, but it is awkward and well a huge sheet of plastic + young children just seems kinda wrong.    The destruction of the walls and window removal starts tomorrow.  Good times. 

We also scheduled the closet organizer people to come and do the closet in our bedroom and put a built in desk in the room adjacent to our master bedroom.  They are actually not supposed to come until next week which would be great except that we failed to realize that Ben is on call next weekend so he had to rip out the existing closets, spackle, primer and paint them- yesterday. I was up and down the stairs, moving furniture and rearranging all day yesterday.  I would have slept soundly except that my left shoulder was aching so badly I wanted to cry.  (I have an old rotator cuff injury from swimming)   We get to live out of baskets and things hung up randomly throughout the house until next week.  Last night we  slept on the aerobed on the living room floor. 

Yup, good times here.....