Sharing my adventures as a wife, mom, teacher, avid reader, and wannabe crafter.: the mommy express

Backyardigans

Filed Under : House,Success! by Steph

Jan. 16

2012

Long story short, our pool had a number of cracks on the edges, one of which became pretty serious this fall and caused a massive leak. Fixing the pool (and the appointments to get estimates, figure out what we wanted, etc.) turned into deciding that we should also probably replace the concrete around the pool, as that was probably the cause of the cracks. Fast forward three months and it’s done! And here’s the process.

Meet Papa Crack.

Not sure why I chose this angle, but you can see that while he’s not wide, he is fairly tall, and continued to grow. Water just drained out, and the water level was below the skimmer and that meant we couldn’t run the pump which meant this fairly not gross water (except for the pile o’leaves in the deep end) would soon turn to swamp water.

We decided to get a quote on the concrete from the same company that did our driveway and after changing things up a bit, we decided to do a larger part of the backyard. Not just the pool skirt, but also the patio and the side yard.

Here’s the before:

And here’s after the first round of jackhammering. It seems our concrete (and narrow backyard which did not allow space for the bobcat to enter and help move things along) was much thicker than normal in spots and these pictures show the results of a day’s work with three guys working on it.

Half of the pool.

Nate decided to help the guys out and so he and Ava worked one afternoon on moving all the pavers located under the pergola-which was also getting the heave-ho.

We were heading into a time crunch because Christmas was coming along with our trip to Oklahoma. There was probably a week or two-week span between the first try at jackhammering and then the second day of demo. When Papa Crack became a lot bigger. (You can kind of get an idea of the time-lapse because of the color change of the pool.)

Yeah, I had my doubts at this point as to whether we would actually have a working pool at this point. No clue (first typed as glue, HA!) as to how that would get repaired. But have faith!

The next day was a crazy amount of work-getting-done-a-palooza, also known as December 17th, and two days before we flew to Oklahoma. The last of the old concrete was removed, new concrete poured and stamped – all in one day. I don’t even know how many workers ended up on the job that day, but it was crazy busy. And started with the arrival of the Putzmeister. I have no idea what it was for (and maybe Nate told me, but I forgot) except for my enjoyment.

And then it was ON. I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the process, partly because I didn’t want to make the guys feel weird, because let’s face it, it’s weird that someone was taking pictures. Nate told me to man up and go outside, but I was fairly certain I would get in the way and so I chose to cower inside. With my camera. And wave when they looked at me. Awkward.

I loved seeing how the concrete was actually poured and can only imagine how heavy that hose was.

The stamp used on the concrete was massive and super cool to watch in action.

This crew knew what they were doing and wasted no time getting it done. You’ll see more of the finished product below–it kind of loses the effect with the swamp water.

Ava was as impressed with work/process as I was, because she ended up pouring and leveling her own concrete. (Lily really does live with us, she just also really loves her naps, which thankfully still happen, and usually during prime work time.)

After Christmas we returned to California and spent a few days recovering. I was back to work (January 3rd) when I finally called about getting on the schedule for the pool to be refinished. There ended up being an opening the next day. Sweet. Thank you lady who kept changing her mind on the color of tile she wanted.

And so our pool was drained.

Ew. I’m sorry for showing this, but you can also see that Papa Crack was now under control. I didn’t get an after shot of the concrete, but it seriously all worked out in the end. You would never know that there was such a cracktastical issue happening there. It seems my method acting of Scarlett O’Hara saw me through that one, and sans an ulcer.

As I was saying, it was drained, then sanded

You’ll note that the work happened during the school week, and I just couldn’t get home much before dark for good pictures. But here’s some reinforcement of Papa Crack. (So I call him Papa Crack because there’s a Mama and Baby Crack in the two corners of the south wall of the pool, but of course I never got good pictures of those. They are the white patches in the corners of the icky picture.)

I also shockingly didn’t get a picture of the “after” fiberglass spraying–mostly because it was a terrible smell and because I wasn’t sure if it was dry and/or if I would cause harm to my family, etc. so no pictures of that. The next step included adding tile, allowing that to cure. Then more fiberglass sprayed on, everything sanded and then all sealed up with a finishing smooth coat. And here she is as of Thursday. We had no frame of reference for how long things would take and so a week and a day worked for us. Especially as we have no more leaks, cracks, and it’s all one color again–excepting the tile, but that part was obviously on purpose.

Mama No-Crack.

Papa No-Crack.

Shot of the side yard and the leaning fence of Milpitas.

And here’s the pool filled up. It took about 30 hours (and 18,000 gallons) but she’s filled. Nate said that water’s COLD but we have no plans for jumping in for a few months. Our pool is not heated and doesn’t usually see action until around June. Which is funny because when I visited Nate before moving out here, I used to hang out at the pool – and swim – in April. Yeah, no way I can do that now.

You can see the stamped concrete better here:

We’ve got a lot of work still left to do to pretty things up back there, but it’s nice knowing that this part of the backyard job is DONE. And we’re pretty pleased with the results.

Christmas 2011 Wrap-up

Filed Under : Family,Holiday by Steph

Jan. 01

2012

January 1, 2012. 2012!!! How is this possible? HOW?

I also ask how am I down to only 1 1/2 days of vacation left? Where did the time go? I feel like I’ve spent the last three days vegetating and now the reality of things are smacking me in the face. Grading, <sigh> yes I know you are there. Lesson plans? Yes, I’ll get to it. <sigh>

So here’s a look back at our Christmas vacation. I decided not use my instagram photos, mostly because I posted a number of them on facebook and chances are extremely high that you already saw them. And this post is already going to be picture heavy.

We arrived super late into Tulsa on Monday, December 19th and were more than happy to take things easy on Tuesday. The girls were super excited to get to spend time with Grandma, and they had fun getting to know their cousin Kaiden.

Capie planned a trip to the local historical museum to view a doll exhibit.

I took a few pictures before Nate informed me that I was being illegal, as the “very large sign clearly says ‘no pictures allowed’.”

The highlight of this exhibit was clearly this doll missing her pupils.

I also learned a lot about the Boy Scouts of America, which was founded right there in Pawhuska. I learned that in the 1980s Oscar de la Renta redesigned the Boy Scout’s uniform, a piece of information that was very useful during a game of Fact or Crap.

For the past few Christmas’, Ava’s wanted to carol and in the crazy end of the year holiday madness, I thought about trying to entice some friends into some caroling fun, but it was just too insane. Also knowing my daughter, I felt that singing in front of people would probably turn into Ava only singing the first few lines or not singing at all, necessitating a large group so I didn’t end up in a solo gig. When Ava heard that Grandpa was going to carol at a nursing home on Wednesday, we jumped at the chance to join him. Ava was a trooper and sang the songs she knew, and listened intently to the songs she didn’t. I know the residents enjoyed the carols and were excited to see a youngster in the carolers midst. We came home and she and Grandma made cookies and we all had fun decorating them. (Lily was napping during this activity–she and I both fought of a cold/sinus infection while we were there, so the more naps she could get in, the better.)

Thursday we hung around home waiting for Nate’s brother and girlfriend to arrive, and then made a quick trip to the city to finish Christmas shopping. I’m very thankful that we do not have a DVD player in our vehicle, because I couldn’t handle being asked 100 times by Lily to turn the player on. Homegirl is addicted. We were very excited when it started to lightly snow on our way home and we woke up to this:

I needed to get up earlier because as you can see, it had already mostly melted by this point, but it was exciting to see flakes in the air!

Friday we traveled back to Tulsa to visit the zoo, and we enjoyed seeing the changes made to the zoo from the last time we were there–which was when Ava looked like this:

Now Lily wears the jacket:

A number of the exhibits were going through restoration/remodeling, but we still had a fun time. I think the play area was the biggest hit (just like last time).

And Grandma and Grandpa surprised the kids with a special treat at the end of our visit. Ava chose a lemur and Lily chose a chimp. I was shocked that Lily was okay with wearing it around her neck, because usually anything strange does not come near her.

And here’s the best picture I could get of all three kids.

Ava refused to stand still, Squinty McGee is back and Kaiden is just humoring me.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and we attended the candlelight service that night at Grandpa’s church. We woke Lily up from her nap and she was a very happy girl through the service and afterward greeting people. Again, my usually shy girl was high-fiving like a pro, smiling, winking, and sharing her snacks with all.

Grandma read The Night Before Christmas before bedtime

and before we knew it Christmas morning dawned. Ava and Lily opened one gift before church and then once we got back from church the rest of the family joined in for gift opening.

Nate and his Dad put together our gift to Kaiden and it was enjoyed by all kids.

Lily looks forward to when her LEGOs arrive here in California. She asked me at least twice a day where they are. Soon LilyBug, soon.

And the rest of the time we hung out around home. One afternoon we made a quick trip to the park across from Nate’s parent’s house.

Ava also helped Grandma at the local soup kitchen. They served about 70 people and Ava helped served the tomatoes for the taco salad. Capie said that one little boy came up for seconds and said that the taco salad, “was the best food he’d tasted in his whole life!” I’m really glad that Ava got to experience it, even if she might have been fully aware of how important the soup kitchen is to those it serves. It was a very nice trip and the girls loved being with their grandparents. Ava’s already planning out activities for their next visit together.

Thank you for a very merry Christmas Grandpa and Grandma Woodhams! We love you!

Is this a joke?

Filed Under : Life,Travel by Steph

Dec. 29

2011

I have lots of pictures from our Christmas trip to Oklahoma, but wanted to write about the travel drama while it was still fresh in my memory. Or to try to begin the healing process.

The Dallas airport is not my favorite place. At all. It’s not really the airport’s fault, but I’d be okay with never flying through there again. Both times I was in tears and while although no one witnessed it, in both cases I was a second away from a very ugly cry fest. Like a la Work of Art.

Why the drama? It honestly was just usual airport drama and nothing that we haven’t experienced before, but I guess traveling with older Lily, and on later flights meant for a more emotional feeling Stephanie. We were delayed flying out of San Jose because of thunderstorms in Dallas. Our delay was pretty short, only an hour or so, but when our schedule only allowed for an hour layover in Dallas before heading to Tulsa, we knew we were in some trouble. Luckily we were in the front of the plane, although we were behind the slooooowest family in existence. I had visions of vaulting over them with Lily in my arms while screaming “MOOOOOOOOVVVVE!!!!!” but sadly that didn’t happen and it would have been wasted energy. Because we had about 13 minutes to get from Terminal C to D.

Those happy blue lines appear to say “hey, look how close you are! No need for the Tram!” but the reality was much different. Uggs + a heavy backpack + a two-year old and her backpack does not equal speed. Once I reached the middle of the final gianormous escalator, which was a welcome relief from the walkways that never ended, I saw a happy, waving, thumbs up giving Ava and was so relieved at knowing we did not in fact miss the last flight to Tulsa, that I started crying. Once it was all said and done, we reached his parents house around 1am, but we had made it.

Yesterday, on our way to the airport to travel back to California, Nate’s mom said “well, everything should go smoothly because there’s no weather issues in Dallas.” I had actually just been thinking the same thing. I was unhappy about the fact that we had over two hours to hang out in the Dallas airport, and that we wouldn’t get into San Jose until 11pm, (or 1am Oklahoma time). This is where I learned that my mind is a powerful thing, and me thinking something, can make things happen**.

There were no issues with our flight out of Tulsa to Dallas. We were early enough to introduce Rebecca to the jetway

and look at pretty decorations.

We arrived at DFW in time to get food, use the restroom, and watch the RidicuList. (HOW HAVE I MISSED THIS? The Silver Fox is HILARIOUS)

This is the original version and not the countdown that we saw, but it’s the same story and his facial expressions are comedic gold.

I digress.

Our bellies full, humored by the love of a 16-year-old girl and 51-year-old man, we boarded our plane on time. We weren’t seated together for this last flight, but it worked out because at least we’re paired up. Seated, buckled and ready with everything stowed, waiting for the usual “arm doors and cross check.” Around 9:10pm we’re told that there’s an issue with a “panel” and that maintenance is waiting for the arrival of a part, and then we should be on our way. The part arrives, but then we are told that in order make sure it’s in working order, they need to pressurize the cabin and we need to deplane with all of our belongings. The delay should be only about 45 min, but they will keep us posted. It pretty much went downhill from there. This was the last flight to San Jose, there was a flight to LA but there were no seats available, and they’ll keep us posted.

We hung around the gate for two hours, being told that we might have to get a new plane and then yes, were actually moved to a new gate and new plane. **In my mind I think, “if I were a flight attendant, once we are all on board, I would say, ‘I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, but there seems to be an issue with *this* plane, so you will have to–I’m KIDDING! Too soon?’ I actually start to explain this scenario to Nate, and no sooner do I get to the “I’m kidding part” WHEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS. We hadn’t boarded but still, not cool.

Again we’re told that they are looking for a new plane for us but it’s looking like it will be 12:30am before we head out. Lily had not napped all day, and was at the crazy-tired point where she is shaking her head back and forth and laughing maniacally. Our fellow passengers were super kind about all her shenanigans and we were even entertained by a WhatNot for a while. We heard a lot of “these poor young kids” and “you’re doing a good job Mom.” There were quite a few young kids on the plane who really should have gotten a medal for not losing their s*&% because I wanted to stand on a chair and scream. Instead, once we finally got on our third and final plane, I took this picture of crazy girl:

She was happy for about five more minutes, but once we actually started moving, she lost it. I thought screw it and while we were taxing I unbuckled Lily, picked her up and held her on my lap, shushing her, telling her it will be all right, as I did my own version of the ugly cry in the dark. I was so tired by that point and just felt so bad for her and her extreme exhaustion. She fell asleep fairly quickly, and stayed asleep for most of the 3 hour+ flight. She cried again during our descent when she woke up, and lost it again when Nate took her to get our vehicle out of long-term parking. Ava stayed with me to help with the luggage, and was barely hanging on herself.

We arrived home to a very happy Grace (who also, TMI left us some special treasures in our bedroom, so there was some 3am vacuuming and spot mopping. Ah Grace.). Ava spent too much time around a tiny kitten because she was freaked out by the size of Grace. “Mommy, I think something is wrong with Grace because she’s A LOT bigger.” To the point where she started to cry when she had to walk past Grace. It was 3am, or 5am Oklahoma time, and she was crazy exhausted. Not exhausted enough to sleep past 8am, but at least not up at her usual 6:30am. Nate and Lily woke up after 10am, and all we have planned for today is restock our very bare fridge and nap. Oh and open the gifts under our tree, which I keep forgetting about, but Ava is quick to remind me.

Christmas Crafting

Filed Under : crafts,Holiday by Steph

Dec. 18

2011

Today is our second day of vacation and I am loving it. In my head I had a number of things that I wanted to accomplish, but the reality was I just wanted to hang out. Yesterday’s advent activity was watch a Christmas movie, so while Elf played, I worked on a new hat for Ava (pattern purchased here about two years ago) to go with her new super cute jacket. I ended up frogging it (rip, rip, ripping it apart, those clever knitter/crocheters) and trying it again with a different stitch, this time while watching White Christmas. Here’s the finished product

We were kind of just hanging out because there was a bustle of activity outside our home, while about a dozen workers removed concrete from around the pool, replaced the skimmer, added an autofill, and readied the area and poured concrete, all yesterday. I took covert pictures–okay, was totally obvious and I should have just gone outside and owned my weirdness–and will share later. I’m a little concerned you may call the CDC because it looks like our pool is full of toxic sludge. Definitely necessary work, but looking forward to seeing blue water again.

I had every intention in giving these adorable matryoshka dolls (pattern in this book) out for gifts at work, but that didn’t happen.

Oh well, there’s always next Christmas. Instead these will adjourn gifts.

One gift that I did want to make I saw on Pinterest (found at this site) and searched a little more until I found the perfect font for Ava’s kindergarten teacher. While watching the season finale of Boardwalk Empire (!!!!!) and Once Upon a Time (don’t judge, I’m a sucker for fairytale shows. And this one is involved. Involved I tell you.), I cut and hot glued the crayons on and was quite pleased with the final product.

Nate came in at one point and said, “I know it’s Christmastime when I smell hot glue.” And then told me it was going crooked. No Nate, that was just me not accounting for uneven crayon ends. Such is life. My dad would say it gives it character. It’s still really cute and Ava came home with a thank you card from her teacher and told me that it’s hanging up by her teacher’s desk, wavy J and all.

I had visions of gifting infinity cowls, slippers, more hats and maybe a few angry birds (not happening for Christmas Nate, maybe by your next birthday ), but,I’m okay with it. Just means more crafty goodness to look forward to in the coming year. We were able to fit in another ornament activity from the advent calendar. Behold, The Snowmen:

One guess as to which is ~~our budding Picasso~~ Lily’s.

Our Trip to Bethlehem

Filed Under : Church,Family,Friends,Fun,Holiday by Steph

Dec. 11

2011

Our friend Scott was a machine this weekend. Not only did he plan a wonderful 5K event to raise money and food for needy families (and I mean PLAN: sponsors, t-shirts, route, food, music, prizes, volunteers, signs and chalk arrows to guide our way) but he also organized our group trip to the live nativity, (or navity, according to Ava) that we enjoyed so much last year . This year was cold, but it was dry and just as fun. Perhaps even more fun, as we (okay, me) were able to avoid being screamed at by Roman soldiers, although that was a truly memorable event. Nate was able to witness a soldier yelling at a person in a wheelchair for being “ALWAYS IN THE WAY!!!”

Prepare for picture overload.

Arriving at “Bethlehem” – you can see all the sand they bring in for this event best here, or rather the contrast of it. When I set Lily down to walk she was so confused and then excited about how the ground felt.

We joined the census line and Ava signed in.

(you’re going to see a lot of back of the head shots)

We arrived right at the end of the first cycle of the story, so we took some time to visit vendors. Ava and Mary helped to make wine by stomping grapes with their feet. These grapes were realistic enough for me to be a little concerned about actual grape juice. Silly Stephanie.

I stopped just behind a tree in order to see the Three Kings, fire dancers and shepherds come through on their way to the stable, but it wasn’t a super great spot for Ava, as she had difficulty seeing. Lily was on Nate’s shoulders and they went into the Nativity area and he said she was mesmerized by it all and said “Baby Jesus” over and over.

Here’s the inn keeper and his wife:

Afterward Ava made a brick,

and really wanted to visit the wool store, so we went there next. Mary was a master spinner of yarn.

We then visited the toy store where the girls received a dreidel, and then to the food booth where Ava touched some honeycomb and saw a variety of other food and ate some bread.

We visited the blacksmith and helped with the fire

and the jeweler where Ava chose pink and purple beads (and I struggled to thread them)

and then she made a clay medallion at the potter’s booth.

This woman – well really all the people – were wonderful, but she especially. So kind and patient, especially with Lily who wanted to participate too.

Lily watched a teacher and student learning mathematics,

and she loved listening to a woman play “We Three Kings”

(I didn’t get a picture of the toy booth, but you can just make out Lily’s dreidel in this picture.)

We had such a nice time and were there for close to two hours.

By the end the girls were tired but happy and so ready for bed. It was a lovely day and I’m so happy that we were able to do this again as a family!

Marshmallow World

Filed Under : Fun,Holiday,Life by Steph

Dec. 04

2011

Okay, I wish it were a marshmallow world, but it’s definitely looking like Christmas inside our home. Because of the bubons we were slow in decking our halls. Nate put our tree up Sunday and there it remained, lit, but undecorated, until Friday night. I still ~~need~~ want to put up the little tree in the living room, but the big tree is ready to go.

All week Ava’s wondered if we could please decorate the tree. Monday was out, even though I was home with Lily and we picked Ava up from school. I took a nap while Lily slept–we were both trying to catch up on the early morning wake-ups Lily had given the family the past few days. I did manage to cut out red and white circles for our garland and finished sewing them together after the girls went to bed, but that was about all I could manage. Tuesday night we had a meeting with a company that checked the energy efficiency of our home, Wednesday night we met with our concrete guy, and Thursday night was a PTO meeting. So yeah, no decorating. I was proud that cooked actual meals those nights.

So when Friday arrived and I was able to confirm that the night had indeed finally arrived, there was much joy in the Woodhams household. I posted some pictures on facebook of the process and here’s a little more

You’ll note the row of white balls hanging at Lily-level. But that’s not all.

Homegirl was able to put five letters on one branch. Most impressive. And you can see how proud she is of her skills. I jokingly said that I wouldn’t be able to resist rearranging, but I’m proud to say the tree remains unchanged. They put the wood and non-breakable ornaments in the spots of their choosing and I placed the other ornaments. It’s the first tree they decorated together and they were so proud of their efforts. They didn’t need an obsessive Mom saying “don’t put them all in the same spot!” to ruin their fun. Okay, I may have said that once, but then I let go and let them had fun, which I guess is the whole point of this.

Here they are with the (almost) finished product, striking a pose.

Ava feels the need to pose in any picturewhile Lily was able to resist her Winky McGee move, but you can see her warming up for it.

The advent calendar started on time and I’d like to say that I have the entire month fully planned out, but that is not reality. I believe after yesterday’s shopping I’m all set though. I’m mixing in more activities this year, and I know Ava loves it. Lily loves the idea of opening the door, and in order to keep the peace we’ve worked out that one child opens the door and the other turns on the tree lights, alternating each day. Lily doesn’t quite get the rotation though, and wants to do both, but thankfully Ava sees this as a fair tradeoff. I’ve worked it so the item (candy, small token, activities) are once the can enjoy together.

Yesterday was “make a Christmas ornament” and so with the awesome ornaments that Santa (Uncle Josh and Aunt Liz) had in our stockings last year, we went to town.

I made sure to put the plastic tablecloth down because I thought there was going to be a lot of gluing but there was very little. The felt was adhesive-backed and the only gluing was the eyes, nose and hat decoration. A few things I learned about this:

1. There’s really no need for any prep work with this. Yeah, I’m a teacher, back off. I approached it as everything had to be separated and ready to go, when all I needed was to punch things out as we went. My brain works in a “lay everything out way” which doesn’t really go with an instant gratification brain like a 5 and 2 year-old. Eager Ava and Lily wanted to hold all the pieces at once and it was during my screech of “stop grabbing them, just wait!” that I saw Nate looking at me. Ah, right, not the point and definitely not an ideal mommy-moment, but like I said, I learned.

2. Lily is awesome with her hand-eye coordination. I knew this already, but was really impressed with how well she did. I think if I had let her, she would even have been able to peel the paper off the back of the felt. She did lay everything down herself (I assisted with the girl because she was ready to put a death grip on that glue bottle. So thankful that I hadn’t taken out the little stopper.) and I have to say, I love it.

3. Ava could have made this ornament by herself. My girl is wicked smart and knew the order in which to place things, just by looking at the picture, as there were no directions. I think my perception of her “grabbing” was really her way of saying, “move Mom, I’ve got this.” There’s another set of ornaments set to decorate this month and I am excited to see how it goes.

It really was fun and the finished products are fantastic. The girls are so proud.

Lily’s (the left) was modified because in a space of 10 seconds she lost one of her eyes (later found by Ava, but we had already swapped out for new eyes). Nate appreciates the Picasso-esque mouth, as do I. Lily also knew to look at the picture and started to do things on her own. I didn’t even have to tell her where to put the belt or the buckle.

Ava’s has two pupils in one eye. I asked if she wanted to swap out for Lily’s extra eye, but she said no, and I’m glad she didn’t. He’s already adorable, and this gives him a little character.

Today was Christmas movie and hot chocolate day. Ava chose Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and either I’m way too sensitive to what I perceive as bully-like behavior, but every year I become more appalled by Santa and the reindeer’s douchey-ness. Yes, I used douchey, Santa and reindeer in the same sentence. Santa should be on the naughty list for his behavior. And yes, I get “used to laugh and call him names…never let poor Rudolph, join in any reindeer games” means they were not nice, but Santa? What’s his excuse?

ANYWAY…we’re having fun. Ava and I planned out her teacher’s gift, and we can hopefully start working on that this week. Once again ~~I think~~ I’m going to have to forgo giving out Christmas cards. (Glad I bought Forever Stamps.) The girls have an exciting surprise Wednesday and we really only have 10 days left before winter break. Weeeeeee!!!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Filed Under : Family,Holiday,Life by Steph

Dec. 04

2011

We hosted Thanksgiving for my side of the family this year. Mom and Dad arrived November 18th and Josh, Liz and Lauren arrived on the 20th. Excitement was running high in our household. Ava could hardly wait to see everyone and while I was looking forward to their visit, I was really looking forward to the help my mom would lend with a PTO (yes, it’s the PTA, but they call it PTO and believe me, there is no paid time off) gig. I attend the monthly meetings and have been hesitant about spearheading anything because 1. I am a teacher myself and I don’t want to take a lot of time out of my classroom to run a fundraiser, especially when I, said teacher, am already running a fundraiser at my school. And 2. because when they say “Teacher Treats” and then proceed to tell me it’s a MEAL, I’m not too excited.

But I volunteered. And it went well. And I didn’t lose my mind, but only because my mom was there to set up and clean up for three of the five days. I won’t go into all of it, but no joke, without your help Mom, I would have been a wreck. Thank you so much for all the extra work that you did on this vacation. I really appreciate it.

Nate and I worked Monday through Wednesday. Grandma, Aunt Liz, Lily and Lauren walked Ava to school (and she LOVED that). Grandpa and Uncle Josh might have joined in a time or two, but I’m not sure about that and don’t want to discount their addition to the walk. There was lots of playing and even a trip to the library for story time on Wednesday. The only off thing was that Lily had no interesting in eating. We chalked her lack of appetite up to her excitement about being with family. Oh how wrong we were.

Thursday was lovely–I was the most prepared of any previous Thanksgiving and that was awesome. There was watching of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, football, and we even had time for crafts. Ava, my mom and Liz made our napkin rings.

Ava wore a festive Pilgrim bonnet. I hats for Lily and Lauren but they were less than enthused by them.

Lily made it to dinner, but before eating a bite said she wanted to go “night night.” So to bed she went.

This pretty much conveys her mood and while she’s reaching for food, she only had a little mashed potatoes that night, and that I think was the only food she had in about two days. Her color looks too pink here, because believe me, she was PALE. Poor girl woke up around 3am needing to be sick, but willing herself and physically stopping herself from doing so. I felt so bad for her. We spent the next 6 hours hanging out on the couch (my poor parents had to leave their fold-out couch in the living room and hang out in the family room, felt so bad about that). Lily wasn’t sick during the day, but wasn’t really our Lily either. She stayed home with Nate and watched princess movies while the rest of us went to Happy Hollow.

We parked in the new lot so Ava could “FINALLY” walk on the cool new bridge.

Ava had fun introducing Lauren to the park and I think Lauren (and the rest of the fam) enjoyed the day.

Not only did Lauren ride her first amusement-park ride, she also got to speak to a very friendly fairy. Lauren decided she didn’t have much to say to her.

Lily was a little peppier when we got home, but was sick again early Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and then again Monday morning. Yeesh. Let me just say, I am a firm believer in the flu shot, but this bug was more than it could handle. Knocking on all manner of wood, the rest of us— no, I’m not even going to say it. I will not tempt the flu to unleash it’s fury upon our home once more.

We were quite concerned that family would have issues–health related–on the way home. Luckily that did not happen. However, my poor parents had travel issues. Their 10am San Jose flight was delayed due to fog, so they missed their connection in Phoenix, and were told they would not get to Grand Rapids until noon–THE NEXT DAY. Ugh.

Here’s a little of my mom’s email to me, once they finally arrived home:

After 27.5 hrs later, we have finally arrived home. Tried to rent a
car last night around midnight once we flew into Chicago. We tried
various companies and would only get recordings to call back during
regular business hours. They offered to put us up in a hotel for 50%
reduction but since we would have only been there about 3.5 hours we
decided against it and hung out w/the homeless people at baggage
claim. Had we stayed on that floor that’s what happens so we went up
to the next level. There were probably about 40 people in the same
predicament as us so we had company. The direct flight from Chicago
to Grand Rapids today for some reason was canceled so we flew out @
6:00 a.m. for Cleveland where we then went to G.R.

No.bueno. Mom said she’s thankful that it didn’t happen to us or Josh and Liz because of the kids. I’m just thankful they finally made it home.

Thanksgiving 2011 will definitely go down as a memorable one. Thank you for visiting Lehnerts! We love you!

Ketchup

Filed Under : House,Life by Steph

Dec. 04

2011

Ava: What did the Papa tomato say to the little tomato that was going too slow?
Me: What?
Ava: Ketchup, Tomato Sauce!

This was Ava’s go-to joke for a long time, but is the perfect title for this post. I foolishly thought that I’d have some extra time on my hands now that homework is over, but yea, not happening. I posted once in October and once in November. What.is.up.with.that!?!

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I’m struggling with teaching two preps again. I taught 7th and 8th grade for five years, but just two years of a single prep has made me a pansy when it comes to the work involved with lesson planning and grading. I don’t have more of it to grade, I just always seem to have something to grade. Bah. I’m also switching up the pacing, materials, etc., and that all adds up to more work.

I am (hopefully) going to be a serial post-er today, and give you three installments to help “ketchup” to the happenings in our life. First up, home improvement projects.

Here’s our driveway and yard back in October:

This was not the most ideal of days to take pictures. It looks like the “before” of a magazine makeover, where the person isn’t smiling, is wearing the most awful color, etc. Our driveway has been on The List for a while, and by chance a salesman/representative knocked on our door one Sunday afternoon, offering us a free estimate for our driveway. I decided what the heck, and two days later, we met with the owner who made us SUPER happy.

Not only were we going to say goodbye to the horribly cracked concrete, but he also recommended removing the juniper bushes, which Nate has wanted to do since we moved in. I really didn’t care if they stayed, I neither hated them or loved them, but knew it would make Nate happy, so we said “adios” to the bushes.

Here’s day one of the job. You can see they removed the bushes (to the road in front of our sidewalk) and the layout for the concrete. We were a little surprised that all of our plants on the right side of our stairs were gone (except for the one plant–the fern/palm thing that we didn’t like), but that just means we have room to plan something even more lovely, and hopefully something with more color.

Lily and Ava weren’t quite sure what to make of it all, but had fun climbing over the mountain of dirt. The demolition happened VERY quickly. Salesman spoke with me Sunday, we met with the owner Tuesday. Wednesday he called Nate and said they had an opening in the schedule, did we want to have this done Thursday/Friday and we said yes. So in less than a week we went from this:

To this:

Okay, maybe not within a week. The reality of this picture is that I took it yesterday. The driveway was sealed about two weeks after the concrete was poured, and pretty much all the time our vehicles are either parked in the driveway, or blocking the view. While Nate ran an errand yesterday, I quickly moved my vehicle to take these pictures. The yard also didn’t go from gaping holes to smooth mulch overnight. Nate, still healing from a BROKEN BACK , spent a weekend smoothing out the ground, adding/fixing sprinkler heads, etc. We went with mulch for now, until spring comes and we decide what we want to plant there. Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

You can get an idea of the color/texture that we went with here. The color on the left is the border of the driveway, as well as the path and stairs. The texture on the color concrete is a granite stamp and we’re happy with it. The concrete in the driveway has little pock marks all over it, created after spreading rock salt over the newly poured concrete. The next day a worker came and watered down the driveway, and what was left in its place were these little marks. The owner suggested going this route and again, I’m very happy we did. It helps to make the concrete less slick in the rain, and it gives the driveway a neat texture.

I apologize for the wicked glare, but it gives you an idea of the stairs

And here’s a better, less pink view of the empty dirt pit.

The fun doesn’t stop here though. Our pool suffers from cracks (crack IS whack–and I guess should have been the theme of the post) and one of the cracks is now quite major as our pool recently started leaking a crazy amount of water. We’ve decided it’s time to have it refinished and have spent the last few weeks making appointments for estimates, and meeting with people. Of course this has turned into, “we might as well deal with the pool skirt and lose the 1977 concrete” (that’s how long this pool has lasted). It looks like we are loosing sand, causing the cracks and obviously that needs to be dealt with. And now that the concrete is going to be removed, “we might as well replace the skimmer and add an autofill”, and, you guessed it, that meant more phone calls/appointments. Nate met with the plumber (who will install the latter items) yesterday, and he asked about our pool pump, wondering how long we have to run it. He said that we can keep it, but that our pool really should have a larger one, as the current one has to run for a long time, which is a waste of energy. And we want him to look at the fixtures because we do not want to go through all this renovation, only to have something fail a year or two down the road because of old fittings.

This is the project that hopefully will have an end. Before pictures are ready to go and I think demo on the concrete starts this week. We will wait a few weeks for the concrete to set until the pool goes through her own makeover, but we’re pretty excited to once again say goodbye to cracks.

Halloween 2011

Filed Under : Life by Steph

Nov. 05

2011

Halloween is a time that I love and am glad when it’s over, only because emotions run high. Excitement, anticipation, tiredness, etc. For months (yes months, someone thinks about this holiday a lot) Ava’s said she wanted to be Rapunzel, so I thought we were all set, but a few weeks before the big day, she decided she wanted to be Coraline again. Fine with me. Lily wasn’t sure what she wanted to be. I convinced her to be Trixie from Mo Willems Knuffle Bunny books as we’ve been reading those books a lot lately. The festivities began on October 30 with a trip to Happy Hollow with our friends,

Later that night, Lily, who HATES to wear things on her head, wanted to wear Ava’s Coraline wig and was not happy when I put it up for the night.

Perhaps we’ll get more milage out of this costume. I convinced her to take it off by telling her we needed to carve our pumpkins.

I thought it would be fun for the girls to create pumpkins using this kit. Ava picked the cat and by the time we were ready for Lily to chose her’s, she was pretty much done with the whole pumpkin carving session.

In her defense, Lily did a great job of picking out pumpkin seeds–Ava even helped this year with scooping some of the guts out, but quickly said, “okay Mom, I’m done.”

(ignore the no longer white posts and lovely metal brackets. They’re on the list.) Ava liked the finished product, but both she and I were a little sad that we wouldn’t have a lit jack o’lanterns this year. Considering we can’t really carve the pumpkins too early, especially if it was warm like it was this year leading up to Halloween, it’s always a short-lived amount of happiness when measured with the effort involved.

Monday Ava got to wear her costume to school. There was no Halloween party Ava, but Nate and I were able to attend the Halloween parade at her school. Here’s how Ava looked when we got there:

My careful administrations before heading off to work were undone in very little time (or so I was told). Oh Ava, I love you. So after some wig readjustment, she was back in business and ready with her class to take a walk around the parade route. She did not wave until the end, when she decided to cut loose and dance.

That’s her dancing, and you can kind of see that she was skipping along with flashing some faux jazz hands. (Side note: It was SO NICE to be able to enjoy something at my child’s school without being blocked or pushed around, etc. High-five R parents. You need to teach M parents how to be considerate.) Shortly after I arrived Nate said that when he and Ava arrived at school a woman came right up to Ava and said, “I’m going to be the Other Mother! I’d like to get my picture taken with you!” I was so excited that I could be there to see this

Ava left her Coraline doll in the classroom <sigh> but it was pretty cool that she got a picture with her real Mother and her Other Mother.

And what was I? A den mother like all my students guessed? No, I was a Pawnee Goddess with a super cool vest a la Leslie Knope

I’m quite proud of my vest and felt that it was almost an Anne Shirley kind of test for the adults I encountered.

After a quick switch in costume for Lily (consisting of a prop change because, “I want to be a Mommy!”) and then a switch back (“I want to be a Trixie Mommy!”) We were off for some trick-or-treating. Lily held her own, insistent on walking the entire time herself (and very unhappy if I picked her up to catch up to Nate and Ava) and wanting to stop and inspect the goods. Ava was the navigator, struggling to wait for Lily and I who were going at a slower pace.

We came home, Ava helped to pass out some candy for a bit and both got to sample some of their loot and then it was time for bed. We’ve taken the decorations down, and are looking forward to Thanksgiving and our visitors. Adios Halloween 2011, you were fun!

Done…like two months ago.

Filed Under : House,Success! by Steph

Oct. 17

2011

Once again life took over and you are getting very belated pictures. I took pictures of the completed master bath renovation about a month ago, and never got around to posting them. This past weekend I purchased the cute bike in the above picture, so perhaps that’s all I was waiting for. We’ll say that was the “master” plan. Heh, heh.

So here’s the finished product. We love it. From the lovely floors that make me happy to look at, to the subway tile and niches in the shower (and no flaky ceiling threatening to drop upon the shower-ee) I am so happy that we decided to check this home improvement project off our list. We certainly lived with blah for a long time and we are now enjoying the pretty.

I was very close to taking video of the cabinet doors closing, because they have super hinges that close s-l-o-w-l-y (but not too slowly) and do not make a sound. Instead, take my word for it, and admire with me the crazy amount of shelving we now have. I love that we were able to install an outlet inside the cabinet (I guess it’s hidden behind the toothbrush base, but trust me, it’s there), so our toothbrush is out-of-the-way. It was one of my must-haves and I’m so happy that it’s a reality. Seems like a little thing, but it’s wonderful having the open space on the sink.

The vanity cabinet is roomy too, and I love the drawer. All three doors close with the aforementioned super awesome hinges. Nate no longer hear’s the melodious sounds of doors closing in the morning(or not, since I guess I tended to leave old medicine cabinet doors open, did not realize that) and I love opening the doors to behold the lovely, lovely space.

I’m still very happy with the color, the fixtures, etc. You can see from the photos that we are at a loss as to what to do with Ye Old TP, as space is still super tight and not sure that we actually want to buy a TP stand. Originally gave thought to drilling into the cabinet, but that was vetoed by the contractor. Obviously from the last picture, it’s not a deal breaker for us. And man, I love me some green Kleenex in the bathroom.

So, we went from this,

to this.

Ahhhh.

the mommy express