Item not sold

When your item doesn't sell on eBay, they send a helpful little email telling you. Like you didn't know and didn't refresh your auction page every second.

The helpful email says: eBay Item Not Sold, blah, blah, blah.

It should say: eBay Item Not Sold You Loser. Who are you kidding? You thought someone would want that? Ha, Ha, Ha. You can relist it and give us even more of your money thereby draining your bank account and wrecking your day.

Okay - off to get my kids ready for a walk. At least they like me. ;)

Tact? What's that?

Home Depot/Lowe's get lots of our money now. Fixing up an old home is expensive and we would much prefer to shop at say Restoration Hardware, SchoolHouse Electric and such but we don't have the $$$.

We were going to Home Depot/Lowe's every night after Brian got home from work. (Lowe's built a store right next door to Home Depot. They share the same huge parking lot). Ava dreads going to Home Depot but likes Lowe's. Go figure. Lauren and Maddie could take it or leave it but Elllie loves it. She is our little shopping girl.

So on a recent trip Ellie and I were walking down the plumbing isle waiting for Brian to pick out some plumbing stuff. I saw two men looking at parts and one of them had long hair that was in a braid. I really didn't think anything of it until Ellie (2 years old), yells out "Boys don't have braids." I looked at her and she repeated herself. The men were really close to us but didn't seem to notice Ellie's admonishment. She started to say it again but I threw her in the cart and jogged over to Brian. She was still shaking her head and saying "they don't."

I gently explained to her that some boys do have braids, why I don't know, but they do. She still is not convinced.

Happy Birthday G-man!

This year has been a long one. It's been all about getting to the next day, week, month...

Imagine our happiness at finding out we were expecting you, a boy, after 4 girls. I had so much fun shopping for new boys clothes, blankets and toys. You decided to make your appearance only 2 hours after I knew I was in labor, 52 minutes after arriving at the hospital and only 2 pushes.

2 weeks old

You've been such a blessing but also such a frustration. Unless you were being held or nursed you were so fussy. Not colic fussy but "why aren't you holding me" fussy. So hold you I did. And walked. And bounced on the balls of my feet until my calf muscles rivaled any body builder.

The reason why I was the most frustrated was because I had so much to get done during the day. Not only did I homeschool your sisters, do 3 loads of laundry a day, make meals, clean the house but I also had two websites going which involved lots of my time.

6 weeks

Through all of this though, I have always called you My Sweet Boy. Your one redeeming quality was that you were so cute that I had to snuggle with you. Your soft breath on my neck as you nuzzled in for a nap. I loved you sleeping beside me and waking up to your smiles every morning.

Now you are a year and walking, talking and making trouble for your sisters and their lego creations. You say "gook" or "this" when you want something to eat. You can say Ellie "eda" and banana "nana". Of course "Mama" and "Dada", "bye bye", and "hi". You will dance to anything. The blender humming, the vacuum cleaner or simply Ava tapping her pencil on the table or when you see the Wiggles DVD. You yell out "dance" and then start rocking back and forth. It's really cute.

13 weeks

So happy birthday G-man. You have been worth all the trouble.

Pictures from his birthday party.

My keyboard is driving me crazypp!!!

For some reason my laptop kepyboard types "Pps"Pp randomly. I haven't edited this post at all to show you what I'm dealing with. If I press the upp arrow, "p's" show up. If I do a capitol P a small Pp sometimes shows upp. PIf I typpe a lopwercase pp then sometimes it doubles it. See.

Hard to read? I wrote a press release for Journal Modiste and sppent almost as much time editing out the p's as I did writing it.

I want to find an answer to this. We bought this laptop one year ago at Costco so it shouldn't be dead yet. My husband's answer is to buy a new one ;)P, however my life is on this lapptopp and I don't want to transfer it all over to a new one.

If anyone has a solution to this pproblem, it would be greatly apppreciated. We have a Compaq Presario V4000.

Thank you and Namaste.P

Uh-oh

Uh-oh, I'm starting to have that feeling again. It's been happening more frequently and the idea isn't so abhorrent to me anymore. I look at those sweet pictures and those tiny clothes and think - just maybe. When all the kids are in the room with me I still look around for the missing child. Brian admitted he did it too.

Up until a few weeks ago I didn't want another child. Graedon has been a hard kid to deal with. Very needy and whiney. I didn't have as much time to just devote to him as I had home-schooling, housework and three websites to keep up. So I felt a little resentful everytime he wanted me to carry him around. Yes - I do feel guilty about it. Now that he crawls off to play and squirms when I pick him up to smother him with kisses.

So I'm working out again and trying to lose the last 15lbs so I can be a my pre-pregnancy weight. I always gain 50lbs with each pregnancy and always lose it within the first year. Not this time, lol. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30's. At least that is what I tell myself.

So maybe one of these days our "phantom child" will be a reality and we will be the proud parents of 6 kids. Better start saving for a new bus van.

If bugs aren't your thing - DON'T LOOK

Brian, my darling husband, decided it would be cool to get our 8 year old daughter a pair of praying mantis cocoons for her birthday. I thought he had flipped. I can think of nicer things to get our daughter than that. She however was delighted and started planning on how she would house them upstairs in her bedroom. Um - no. Maddie wasn't going for it and neither was I.

Well, hatched they did this week. I was wholly unprepared for how many of them came out of that little cocoon. It was fascinating in a totally disgusting way.

Here they are - don't look if you are squeamish.

The proud mama.

Just saying...

Have you ever tripped your child so they would fall down and cry so you could have an excuse to end a never-ending phone conversation? You haven't. Oh, neither have I.

Overheard at my house today...

Lyrics courtesy of Lauren (my oldest).

Sung to the tune of Disney's Beauty and the Beast "Be Our Guest".

Be our feast
Be our feast
We will cook you for the beast
We will cook you up and eat you
And the next day he'll reheat you

For his supper tomorrow
Now my darling do not sorrow
For you are going to be our dinner.

I'm so proud.

Our bathroom after (or is there really an "after")

4 months after we moved in our bathroom is almost finished. We still need to finish building shelves in the closet behind the door and get some art work or decor in there. But here it is so far.

We added beadboard to the walls as well as some really great mouldings. The bathroom is painted a nice blue color [FYI don't paint your bathroom green. It makes you look ill. Not that we would know ;)]

This mirror is by American Standard - the Standard Collection and it was a splurge. But we loved it and no other mirror would do. The middle section is a recessed medicine chest and the side mirror swivel. The pedestal sink is by American Standard as well as all the fixtures. We really like the quality and they were reasonably priced.

The hanging pottey seat is temporary until our little one can use the potty on her own.

Art noveau/deco shower curtain from Pottery Barn. Found on eBay.

Our favorite thing in the bathroom - our hex tile floor. Brian and I did it ourselves with no tiling experience whatever. We consulted a lot of websites. It turned out really nice and adds a warmth to the room.

Our bathroom before

The bathroom when we moved in was ugly and not functional at all. Our house was a rental and the previous tenant was wheelchair bound. The landlord ripped out the nice vintage cast iron tub and replaced it with a roll-in shower. Fortunately they left the tub in the garage (probably because it was to heavy to move anywhere else).

The bathroom was completely covered with wood paneling. They added this lovely built in sink/cabinet. We knew that it had to go.


I had plans to paint the walls and remove the cabinents. We didn't really think we would have to gut the whole bathroom. Just remove the shower insert and plop in the old tub. Easy right? When we pulled the shower insert out we discover lath and plaster. So we kept removing plaster and then realized we would have to remove the ceiling as well.

After Brian pulled out the sink and took down the mirror, we discovered a space for a recessed medicine chest and built in shelves. Pretty neat! It was also obvious that there had been a pedestal sink at one time. Perfect as we were intending on putting one back in.

Down to the lath and plaster walls.

The ceiling. When we pulled back the vinyl flooring we found really neat pink/peach tile with a black border all the way around the bathroom. It was Hermosa by Gladding McBean & Co and was probably laid down in the 30's. Really high quality tile. We really wanted to keep the tile but it was in bad shape.

The parade that never ends....

Okay - so it did end but only after I saw 14 tractors, 25 convertibles, 1 billion cub scouts and old ladies wearing fish net tights and bikinis (see pics below-if you dare).

I like parades just as well as the next person but there are only so many cars, scouts, trucks, etc that I can stand. I like the marching bands, the local stores and restaurants and of course the candy.

We invited our friends from church, the Neimans to come with us. They have two cute kids and brought along their 6 1/2 year old niece. Bri's parents and grandma came too. The weather man promised us great weather but as we were walking to our spot we noticed lightning in the not so far distance. Great - oh and were those dark rain clouds too? We were all dressed for weather in the 80's, not for rain. Bri packed our beach umbrella so would could stay reasonably dry should the heavens open up. Bam - there was the thunder. Big drops of rain started falling but weren't that impressive.

Ava was waving her flag high up in the air and I moved away and told her that if she got struck by lightning that I didn't want to get hit. She got a worried look on her face and immediately put her flag down. Then she noticed me smiling at her. She knew I was kidding but didn't wave her flag as high for awhile ;) I am a nice mom.

Thanks be to God the "rain" lasted about 10 minutes, the sky cleared up and we got to use our beach umbrella for shade instead of for a rain cover.



Grae found the joys of collecting candy that was tossed like a bullet to him. He didn't want to put it away in our "community" candy bag.

Starbucks had an float in the parade but they didn't give out shots of espresso or even a coupon. That's okay because we prefer Coffee People.

This band is hilarious. It's called Get A Life and their motto is High Stepping and Out of Shape. Basically it's a bunch of old band members that get together and play in parades. They have a color guard to but we didn't get pictures of them (you may thank me now).

Dad and Grae

Are you ready for the finale? As promised....

All in all it was a fun parade but was missing our favorite band - the bag pipes. We LOVE them every year and they weren't there.

After the parade everyone came over to our new house for a bbq. It was a really nice time. Now the girls are cleaning up our mess and Bri and I are relaxing. It's nice to have daughters....

Horse riding lessons

Ava received riding lessons as part of her birthday present. She turned 8 on June 7th. I *think* she had fun but I couldn't tell with all that smiling.

Her teacher's name is Mrs. Gould and she lives across the street from Ava's Grandma Tina. Ava said she was really nice and has been a fellow horse lover since her childhood.

Ava: Mrs. Gould is showing me the horse, Mere Miracle. I already knew what the bridle, bit, horseshoe and frog were. A frog is a part of the foot the grows large.

Ava: Here I am mounting the horse. I was really excited.


Ava: I was walking around with the horse and Mrs. Gould was showing me where to put my foot.



Ava: I liked my lesson and I can't wait for next week.