The Joys of Home Ownership

So...we got a letter from the water company saying that we have used way more than our share of water in the last two months and that we should check for a leak. We weren't sure exactly where to start so Keven posted something on a handy social networking sight and someone gave us some direction. We contacted a leak detection company and they came out and listened for a leak. After an hour and a half or so, they "thought" they had found it, so they put a square of tape on the floor of the piano room and told us to call a plumber. Well, the plumbers were here for about 4 hours today and this is what our piano room looks like:

They did not find any water. They did not find a pipe. They did not find a leak :(  All they found was an old rotten root. So....the leak detection company is coming back tomorrow to see if they can hear the leak more clearly. Kaitlin thinks it's cool that there is a hole in the floor and she decided to study the hole after school. We measured it and discovered that it is 31 inches long, 17 inches wide and 30 inches deep. There are rocks in the bottom and there is a large pile of dirt next to the hole. Here are her notes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ethan's 3rd Birthday

I really can't believe Ethan is already 3 years old!! He is growing up so fast! We had a fun day celebrating his birthday. We started it off by having grits for breakfast, followed by a second breakfast at the Waffle House with Daddy. I took cupcakes to his class at school which was lots of fun. He was upset when I left, so his sweet friend, Sydney, brought him a book and sat with him. Who knew a three-year-old could be so thoughtful! Then, we ate lunch with Kaitlin at her school. For dinner, we ate at the kids' favorite restaurant, Moe's! They were very excited that our friends Trent and Sarah joined us for dinner and then came back to the house for chocolate cake. Ethan even got to open a few more presents :)

Ethan's Dinosaur Party

Here are some pictures from Ethan's birthday party: Ethan decided that he wanted to have a dinosaur birthday party this year so I went to work making some decorations. I put the first few dinosaurs on the mantle while Ethan was napping. He noticed them right away and asked if we could put more dinosaurs up there! We ended up with a very colorful Dinosaur parade! We got a really cool dinosaur cake at Publix. When Kaitlin and Ethan saw it, they both said it looked like Elliot, the dragon in Pete's Dragon. Ethan has been slightly obsessed with that movie since Christmas, so he loved it! I put brown butcher paper on the tables with some crayons and dinosaurs for the kids to use as stencils. It was a big hit! Ethan wanted his friends to go outside, so he yelled out "Hey, everybody, come outside!" and everyone got up and went outside. It turned out to be a beautiful day and everyone had fun playing outside on the zip line, the playhouse, and the sandbox. When the party was over, Ethan told me that he wanted to take his dinosaur shirt off. When I asked him why, he said "because it's not my dinosaur party anymore." He is such a funny kid! I hope he enjoyed his party!

Ethan's Checkup

Everything went well at Ethan's 3-year check up this morning. He was as usual, his charming self. He let the doctor examine him without any problems and told him all about his dinosaur birthday party. When we went to Disney over Thanksgiving, we thought Ethan must have been standing on his toes when they measured him for Goofy's roller coaster (you have to be 35 inches to ride), but the nurse measured him today at 35½ inches! He weighed in at 28.4 pounds. Poor little guy is in the tenth percentile for height and weight. What he lacks in size, he makes up for in personality!!

Space Adventure

So, yesterday, Kaitlin decided she wanted to make a space helmet out of this Huggies box. So, Keven indulged her and made it into a space helmet. Of course, then she said that she needed a space ship! So this morning, we were just hanging out after church and she found two boxes and came up with a design for her spaceship. I really did not want to build this, but I was so impressed with Kaitlin's idea for a space ship, that I could not deny her! The only thing on the spaceship that was my idea, was the tail!! I love her creativity and enthusiasm! This also happens to be one of the last pictures I took of her before she lost her first tooth!

Snaggletooth

A couple of weeks ago, Kaitlin came to me and told me that her mouth hurt behind her bottom front teeth. I took a look and could see her new teeth under the gums. One of the teeth had a tiny wiggle to it, but nothing major. A week or so later, she came to me again and said the same thing. The tooth didn't seem any looser though. So tonight,  about an hour after she went to bed, Kaitlin came out of her room and announced, very excitedly, that she had a loose tooth. It was bleeding a little and the new tooth had come through her gums. It was looser, but not dangerously loose. She was super excited and said that she wouldn't be able to sleep until it came out. we tried to explain that it could be a few days before it came out and she should try to think about something else so that she could get to sleep. About 30 minutes later, Keven went in to check on her and she was still wide awake messing with that tooth. I went in and we talked about Ethan's birthday tomorrow and how she really needed to go to sleep so that she wouldn't be too tired to go to Moe's for dinner and Skype with her cousins. The whole time she couldn't keep her tongue/fingers off that tooth. She just kept messing with it, twisting and wiggling it. We encouraged her to go to sleep and left. Within five minutes, she had come out of her room, tooth in hand! She was so proud of herself! She was also so worked up, she still couldn't get to sleep!! She kept sneaking out of her room and finally fell asleep in the hallway outside her door about 3 hours after we first put her to bed!

Truth in the Tinsel

Last year, I wanted to do something with the kids at Christmas time that would teach them why we celebrate Christmas. I ordered some advent materials which turned out to be way over their heads (and boring) and then someone directed me to a great little booklet called Truth in the Tinsel. Each day has a devotion as well as instructions to make an ornament related to the scripture. I purchased the booklet, but never got around to doing it. As we got closer to December, I started seeing stuff about the booklet again and decided that we were going to do it this year! I gathered all the materials to make the ornaments and I even made a special trip to the book store to buy a new kids' Bible (We already had a Storybook Bible, but I needed something with numbered verses).

We kept up pretty well for the first nine days, and then, like I usually do, I slacked off a bit. Both kids got sick, Keven got sick, I got sick, and we just didn't quite do all the days. But we did complete 14 of the 24 devotions which isn't too shabby! I'm not sure I did a great job with the devotion part and explaining how everything we read relates to Christmas, but at least we got to spend some time together and read the Bible.

The kids really seemed to enjoy making the ornaments. I was very surprised at how much Ethan got into it. He really liked gluing things, especially with glitter glue! He would often ask me in the morning if he could make his ornament. I always told him we needed to wait until Kaitlin got home from school and then I felt bad on the days we never got around to doing it. Kaitlin enjoyed it too, but not quite as much as Ethan! Most of the ornaments probably won't hold up for more than a year or two and I couldn't bring myself to throw any of them away, so I decided to take some pictures of them. My labels don't show up that well in the pictures unfortunately.

Day 1: Light, Day 2: Kingdom, Day 3: Zechariah, Day 4: Gabriel, 

Day 5: Mary, Day 6: Mary & Elizabeth, Day 7: Song 

A couple of notes: The top row of ornaments is Ethan's and the bottom row is Kaitlin's. Each day, you are supposed to get a clue from your advent calendar and when you hear the clue during the scripture, you cheer. The kids really got into this on the third day when the clue was "Zechariah." They would cheer really loud "Zechariah! Zechariah! Zechariah!" Actually, one of them may randomly bust out with the Zechariah cheer at any moment! On day 6, Kaitlin made Mary and Ethan made Elizabeth. The instructions were to glue the circle on top of the dress so that it looks like a pregnant belly. Kaitlin glued her circle under the dress because "bellies are private."

Day 8: Sun, Day 9: Joseph, Day 12: Census, Day 13: Bethlehem, 

Day 15: Manger, Day 16: Cloths, Day 18: Angels

Kaitlin was sick with strep on Day 8, so she wasn't very enthusiastic about making her sun. I thought it was cute that they picked the same colors for Mary, Joseph, and the angels. I offered them 3 different colors of felt for Mary and Joseph. Kaitlin picked purple for Mary and Ethan followed suit. Ethan picked orange for Joseph, and Kaitlin picked a purple button for her angel. You can also purchase printable ornaments that go along with the book. I decided to use the printable ornament for Day 15 because the craft was a little too difficult for my kids. 

A Christmas Scavenger Hunt

I think the kids' favorite gift this Christmas was the new zip line that Keven hung in the backyard. We knew the weather was going to get ugly, so we made them open it first. We thought it would be more fun to send them on a scavenger hunt! After a few rides on the zip line we went back inside to open more presents. When we were finally done, we went back outside to play some more before the rain started. The kids also got a new doorbell for their playhouse and bubble guns. It was lots of fun ringing the doorbell and listening to it play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and blowing bubbles at the zip line as someone zipped past. Here are some other pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning:

Snow Mountain

Since we don't really get much snow here in Alabama, we decided to head over to Stone Mountain to play in the [artificial] snow there. After a warm fall, the first days of winter actually felt like winter. It was quite a shock and very cold! We had a great time tubing, making snow bricks, throwing snowballs, and roasting marshmallows. They also had a neat show in the evening with a snow angle, snow flurries, and fireworks. I didn't get a lot of pictures of us playing in the snow because it's hard to take pictures and make a snowball at the same time! (Plus, I didn't want to risk getting my new camera wet.) We got a few pictures taken at "photo spots" in the park, but they apparently hadn't been downloaded when we left and we weren't even able to look at them. I was very irritated! I guess we have been spoiled by the wonderful photo pass service at Disney World. Here are some of the pictures I did get.

First Day of School

This year is definitely a big one! Kaitlin started kindergarten! She was so excited for her first day of school. We really thought that she would be shy and clingy when we dropped her off, but she wasn't at all! She seemed a little nervous when we first got to her classroom, but after we took some pictures, she walked right in and started talking to her teacher like she had known her for years. We insisted on taking Kaitlin to school the first day, but she did not want us too! Our girl has become Little Miss Independent! Ethan started back to preschool at our church the same day Kaitlin started kindergarten. He was a little grumpy about it! He still tells me every school day that he doesn't want to go. I know he has fun while he is there and some days when I pick him up he gets mad at me because he is not ready to go home!