It has been nearly a week since I left my house. Saturday the older kids and I took down the Christmas tree while the little three napped. Let me tell you, pine water does NOT clean like pine-sol. We tossed the tree over the back deck and the plan was to take it to the dump the next day. I ended up not going because I had someone coming to buy some furniture from Craig’s List. When Liam woke up from his nap, the moment he saw the tree was gone, he burst into tears, poor little sweetie was so sad his tree was gone. That night we got some snow, not a lot, but enough that I didn’t want to leave the house, as I need new tires.

By Monday it was a huge mess, we kept getting more and more snow. They canceled school on Tuesday, and the kids were so happy to have a four day weekend. Wednesday we got a huge storm and had over a foot of snow. For this area, that is a lot. I had the boys shovel the walk, in case it iced over, and it did. Thursday morning I heard my sleep number bed clicking, which told me we had lost power. And indeed we did. I knew we were running low on staples, and the only gas in my home is a gas fireplace that we did not have the gas key too, and that has never worked. We had enough cereal for that day, and we had stuff for sandwiches, but none of my meat was thawed, so I BBQed some potatoes in foil and we topped them with cheese, sour cream, and bacon chunks. The sun had set, so we were enjoying dinner by candle light, with plans of all the kids and I sleeping close in proximity, when the lights came on.

Now, we were excited, but not convinced they would STAY on, because they had been flickering on and off all day. One time Austin said “I hope we have lights by bedtime” and I said “I hope we have lights right. now.” raising my hands to my ceiling… and just then the lights turned on! But were off almost immediately. As soon as it was clear the lights were on to stay, we sprang into action. One kid heated up leftover meatloaf and green beans to go with our dinner. Another kid plugged in all portable electronics, cell phones and the space heater. I turned up the furnace and made sure the pilot was on. We did not have high hopes it would last. 200,000 people in this area were without power, and could be for up to a week, so I did not think we would be one of the lucky ones to get lights within 12 hours. The new housing development behind us was not as lucky. A full 24 hours later, their windows are still dark.

In the night we lost most of our tree branches on our shade tree in the front yard, all barely missing my car. My neighbor was also fortunate that her large tree, that lost its largest branches, also missed her cars. Our enormous tree in the back yard was leaning, and it was clear it would probably come down. There were concerns it would take the fence with it, but my neighbor and I watched as it tipped, and then broke off, landing a few inches from the fences. Until the ice melts and we can move the branches, I will be stuck in my driveway. The kids have had a full week without school. Power flickered off again this afternoon, and I let out a string of profanity, but thankfully it came on before I could add a 6th word to my diatribe.

I also got a nice long nap this afternoon which was MUCH needed as I have been sick since earlier this week with a cold that has now settled deeply into my lungs. Christopher and Matthew have also been sick. Between the three of us, I think I have lost half a bottle of Tylenol, and most of a box of Kleenex.

For the last three days, I have been haunted by a dream. Not the events in the dream, but the house in the dream. It is not a house I recognize, it is not even a house I can picture myself in (it appears older, and run down). But for the last several years, I see this same house. Only the back yard, and very specific details. A converted unattached garage at the back left corner of the property, the garage has been converted to a mother in law apartment with access to an alley in the back, and into the yard on the side. It is a small studio with a bathroom, and kitchenette. On the very back of the property is a chain link fence, and a garden that spans the entire back of the property, but is only about 8 feet wide with a small rock path from the garage to the back yard. In front of the garden is another fenced in area, this one not as long, just as wide with a worn out wire fence. Half the yard is flat, then it inclines leading into a walk-out basement. On the main floor of the house there is a large deck, and one more floor above that. The house is blue, or green, and barren of any sort of foliage. I cannot tell what area this house is in, although it has green grass, so we can rule out Texas or Colorado. LOL

The dreams itself vary, and usually don’t stick with me, as much as this house. I have very briefly seen the inside, but it seems that the back yard is the most significant element. The last dream I had involved finding out the mother in law apartment had been broken into, and a mother, father, and toddler were living in there unbeknownst to us. We ended up finding out they were legal immigrants who could not make ends meet and had recently lost their home. We agreed to let them stay and furnished the home with stuff we had in the house, allowing them to stay rent free and feeding them meals, in exchange for help around the house in the evenings. I babysat the little boy for a few hours while they worked to get some money saved to get a place of their own. This part of the dream seemed sort of injected into a dream that focused mainly on the back yard. I just wish I knew what it meant.

So instead of moving the kids into the room with the bunk beds, I left the loft portion of the bed in the playroom and removed the latter, and put the bottom bed into Sophie’s room. We got two large bags of clothes out of dressers to go to Goodwill, and packed up NINE totes of toys, each tote holding 11 gallons, which will be stored in our storage room until we rotate them in, and move other toys out. It was hard to let go of a lot of the clothes. In the process I also donated the last of my scrub sets. It was a hard decision, I always thought about going back to nursing school, or working as a nurse aide again, but it just does not make sense to store them any longer, especially when I can easily get more at places like http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ so easily.

I am tickled at how well the two rooms look, and it will be very easy to move Liam’s crib into the play room once he is ready to leave our room. Bedtime has not been as seamless, 6 days later we are still struggling with them falling asleep in a timely matter. We are still dealing with fighting and tattling, but either in time I will grow immune, or they will chill it out. Another perk, I now have a “guest room”, so as long as you don’t mind literally climbing into bed, or sleeping in a room filled with toys.

Next on the agenda, is going to be going through my kitchen to get rid of dishes, and appliances I no longer need. Taking a trip to the dump, and getting my storage room back in control.

Last night, it looked like we might be clearing up, so I decided not to wash diapers and to wash and hang them in the morning, so I can sun them in the afternoon and dry them in a couple hours vs. overnight, and naturally bleach them. Mistake #2. I KNEW the forecast wasn’t calling for sun this week. I had one clean cover left, and he had already had a big poop earlier, I would be fine. I washed and hung his diapers and I noticed him turning red. I guess the poop earlier was just a warm up, and this was the main attraction. I cleaned him, got him nice and doubled up, went to grab a cover and none was to be found! I looked on the rack and four were hanging and I just put the 5th into my soapy bucket so I could wash it too. So if I really was without a washer and dryer, today I think I would have run screaming to the laundromat or to a friends house. Since this was an emergency, I decided to think of a way to rapidly dry the diaper that the average family home and the only thing I could think of was the hair dryer. I may have been cheating, but while the baby happily chewing on his feet in a diaper sans cover, I was washing the newly pooped in diaper and had the hair dryer angled to blow on the dryest of my 4 covers. It got done just in time too, after he nursed, Liam was exhausted and went to bed.

Overall though, I still wish I had known about flats when I was a new mama. My hubby had just joined the Army and we were struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. I remember letting him wear his diapers an extra hour or so because I knew how expensive they were. I remember counting change and hoping we could scrape together enough for a small bag of generics because we were a few days from payday. Even if I had cloth diapered part time, it would have really stretched our budget. However, in 1997, I didn’t know anything about cloth back then outside of the diapers my mother used one me. Even back then, I would have had options outside of the rubber pants my mom used on me. That is a picture of my mom and I in 1980. I was 15 months old.

I was also feeling sentimental, so I sent Austin’s birth mom a text message thanking her for allowing me to be his mommy. She called me right back and we talked for about 30 minutes. It was nice to hear that she had no regrets, I have always worried she consented to the adoption out of desperation, and not because she truly wanted the best for him.

On Sunday, Austin turned 15. This is why I did Mother’s Day early. I knew he would make a fuss about it, and I didn’t want anything to distract him from his birthday. The little stinker still did, he made me breakfast in bed, and made eggs and bacon for the little ones. For his birthday dinner, he wanted me to make him BBQ Ribs on the grill. I also made corn bread and green beans. It was delicious. He played with his friends most of the day, he literally came home when the street lights came on. It was glorious. Our gift was delivered on Monday, a trampoline! The “t” was partially obscured on the package, so now the kids call it “the rampoline”.

For three days Austin and I built the rampoline together. Christopher helped keep the little three busy. I may or may not have taught Austin some new words as we stretched springs, and pulled safety nets tight. On the first day, I took a break for dinner, and just when I was about to put the last 5 of 8 safety net poles up, I asked Austin “do you smell something chemically??” He looked downstairs, and I looked in my bathroom, and I do believe my head exploded. That is a full bottle of deep purple nail polish, and some bare minerals face powder. I scrubbed on that thing for probably 6 hours (I was up until 3am) and I managed to lighten it to a lilac color, but it didn’t come out. I will need to replace the carpet in my bathroom. Right now it is half vinyl, half carpet, and I am hoping our landlord will let us rip out all the flooring in the bathroom and replace it with coordinating vinyl.
Liam is growing so fast, too fast. His new name is Mr. Grabbyhands. He has learned how to play with the toys on his bouncer to activate music. He has also learned how to make mama yelp in pain by grabbing onto a huge handful of hair and yanking really hard. He also can roll from his belly to his back, and most recently his back to his belly.

After her visit, my MacBook died mid sentence again. The battery was almost fully charged, and it wasn’t just sleeping, it just shut off for no reason at all. One call to AppleCare and it was decided I would drive to the closest Apple Store, 40 minutes away, and they would take a look at it. My battery was swapped out, the inside was cleaned and I was sent home. I am letting it drain the battery after a full charge and it is down to 85%, dipped into sleep a few times, and seems to be working better than ever.

My third victory is that my maintenance guy stopped by this evening to install my new water heater. I had been having a leaking issue for months now and a couple weeks ago I decided to get to the bottom of it. A quick release of the pressure release valve convinced me the water was from the tank. Maintenance replaced the PRV, and my back patio was still suffering from Chinese water torture. He suggested that maybe my 23 year old water heater was dying, but we would need to wait for approval for it to get fixed, etc. New one is in and I have hot water. However I didn’t know that when you replaced the water tank, the pipes would drain, and water would need to be pushed out. If you want to simultaneously convince the toddler, baby, and cats that the Apocalypses is here, run air through pipes. My daughter ran to her room screaming, the cats had to be peeled off the ceiling, and the baby’s eyes about popped out of his head and he screamed bloody murder.

Cherry on top was Skyping with my husband. I love him.

Hopefully you never know the feeling of wondering why your shower is not hot anymore, checking on the pilot of the water heater, and finding that it has failed. We have had that happen twice on us, but luckily it only burst the one time, and we lived in a house without carpet. However, if you are not so lucky, it is important to have someone you can count on for cleaning up water damage Austin, it is especially important that they offer around the clock service, 24 hours, 7 days a week, because the longer you let the water sit, the bigger the problem, and then you would need carpet mildew odor removal Austin.

Since Sophia is so tiny, she transitioned into a toddler bed, and it was so much fun looking at New Girl Crib and Toddler Bedding, there are so many adorable colors and designs out there! Because she is such a girly-girl, it is simple to find beautiful feminine bedding that would accentuate her bedroom so well.

Because her old bedding was so feminine, I ended up browsing for a new set for Liam, since I just cannot put him into her old set, which was a Dwell Studio bird print that was dusty pink. I would have loved to get him New Crib Sets by Kid Funktional. I especially love the Savana Rana frog set. I seriously considered choosing an aquatic theme of turtles and frogs for him. I ended up finding some of Matthew’s old bedding I had forgotten about that I got on clearance years ago, and purchased the coordinating crib skirt on eBay. I think if we were planning on him having his own bedroom I would have gone all out, but as it is, he is in our bed and by the time he transitions into either Sophia or Matthew’s room, he will be too old for a diaper stacker (which probably does not work well with cloth diapers anyways), or crib bumpers.

I do know we need to get her some window treatments soon. Her bedroom is so light during the day that she gets woken up bright and early by the sun, and in the summer her room is the hottest in the house, because her window gets no protection from trees like the other bedrooms do. I love the bright colors of the New College Window Treatments , which would coordinate so much better into a child’s room, and I especially love the black out feature, which would keep the room darker in the morning, and cooler in the afternoons. Now I just have to decide if I want to go with lime green, or purple, to go with her Tinkerbell themed room.

Part of why Bobby accepted the hardship tour overseas is because of the chilly economic climate. We own a home in Colorado that we cannot sell, and because of a second mortgage on it, we owe more than it is currently worth. We have so far gotten lucky with great tenants, who’s lease won’t expire for another year, but I worry if they decide not to renew the lease, if we will be so lucky a second time. Part of our plan is to pay off the second mortgage with his overseas pay, so we can eventually sell. Unfortunately, websites like Zillow, do not have me too hopeful. Some websites however do suggest the market it starting to turn around, like this article on the Denver real estate market.

Part of the problem, is that we purchased our home with a zero down home loan and took out an equity loan, when our home was at its peak value. Now, even with the market starting to stabilize a bit more, we still have not built our equity back up. Once our second is paid off, we should at least be able to sell for what we owe. Next time, we will listen to Dave Ramsey’s advice and put at least 20% down on a 15 year loan and spend no more than 40% of our income on housing costs.

Until our Colorado home is paid off, we will not even consider buying a home here in Washington, which is so sad because I really loved the freedom of home ownership. I still have not hung any of my paintings in the house because it never has felt like a home.

However, we may have to have Sophia and Matthew sharing a room for a year or so until the little one sleeps through a noisy sister in the room. I can imagine using so many different kinds of cute feminine kids beddingadorning the twin bed if she uses it, instead of transitioning to her toddler bed she inherited from Matthew. Excuse me while I hop up on this soap box, because I am about to sound like my mother.

Nothing grosses me out more than sleeping on a bed without a mattress pad. If you spend money on a mattress, get a quality mattress pad. Mattress pads are an inexpensive way to protect the bed from sweat, drool, and any other body fluids you encounter when you have kids (urine, vomit, etc). I don’t care how good you cleaned after Junior peed the bed, don’t expect that the next person is sleeping on a nasty mattress covered with only a thin layer of fabric, ewww. I will judge you if your beds lack mattress pads. And for kids, have several on hand. Matthew has three for his bunk beds, Sophia has two for her crib… both theirs are waterproof. I have one that I spent a fortune on, because it is waterproof and does not crinkle. We often have kids climbing into our bed at night, and that pad has paid for itself 20x over with how many times it has saved our bed. Austin and Christopher have one each, they were just cheapies, but they will tell you, I will get mad if I see a naked bed.

It is almost 4 months later and we still have not settled in completely. We have to organize the garage and have about a dozen boxes out there we have not touched. We have only hung a couple pictures and still have to build some shelves in the storage room. We have a good excuse, but more about that in another post.

When I said the location here is perfect, I mean it. I love the schools, I love how close we are to a neighborhood park that is just gorgeous, and huge. We are a couple blocks from a 22 mile trail that runs miles through the county, and will soon be expanding to be 48 miles long. We are minutes from walking to lakes, ponds, streams, etc. On our back deck, we can sit outside and listen to a chorus of frogs at night. I have never been happier in any other city. The plan is to keep renting here until we sell our home in Colorado and then consider buying, but I have no desire to do that for another 5 years or so.

Ok, more updates to come, I am going to break them up by major events instead of backdating them to when they happened.