Random Stuff

Charlotte has been studying about the native American Indians called the Coastal Tribe, who live on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. She made her own totem pole that she started in class but finished at home. And for the fun of it, she drew some symbols on her own fake animal skin for the plateau tribes.

She wrote a story with the symbols. The big symbol on bottom she made up herself and calls it "The End".

Jack had a band thing where he performed in an ensemble (the thing we had to reschedule his party for). I don't really know if it was an actual competition or how it worked but they did give advice to each group after their performance. The song they picked out was a difficult piece but they did well.

He's playing the French horn and wearing Curtis's black hat.

Last week I took the girls to the store to pick out Valentines for their classmates. We wanted to get it done while there was a good selection and before we went to Idaho. They found some fun big stuffed animals. I wouldn't buy them, but they wanted a picture all the same. Alice also wanted to pick out a gift for me since Charlotte had got me something the day before. Charlotte picked out a small box of chocolates and Alice picked out a purple orchid. I love that they wanted to give me something.

I did buy the suckers for the girls but not the stuffed animals. 

She knew purple was one of my favorite colors.

Alice finally decided to try brushing her hair for the first time. She did a good job but she hasn't tried again since.

I was teaching her to bring her hair to the side to brush.

After celebrating Jack's birthday on Sunday the 4th, I decided to start my new puzzle. I can't believe how big it is! It went to the very top and bottom edges of my puzzle mat. Because of that, I couldn't roll it up without it falling apart and some pieces falling out. We had it on the mat on top of a folding table in the living room for about a week. I covered it with a sheet to protect it from the cats while we went out of town. After we returned, the girls forgot it was under there and scooted it over to place something on the table. I finally decided that maybe now wasn't the right time to start this puzzle. I feel like I don't really have a lot of time to work on it. I can easily do a 100-500 piece puzzle in a day or two but a 2000 piece puzzle is going to take a lot more time and I feel like there's so many other things that take priority right now. I bagged up all of the edge pieces to put together later so I wouldn't have to dig them out again. Milo tried to eat one piece that fell to the floor but luckily I got it out of his mouth before it got damaged.

Maybe I'll have to take this puzzle on vacation this summer. We're renting a cabin near Couer d Alene and will be going to Silverwood and looking to do other things as well. This will make up for having to cancel our cabin at Christmas.

Jack's 15th Birthday

We celebrated Jack's birthday on Sunday the 4th of February. His birthday was the next day but because Garrett had a thing to go to we decided to celebrate it on Sunday. He actually wanted a cake for the family celebration. He and Curtis went to the store the night before and picked one out. Jack picked chocolate.

Jack was laughing because the box he's holding is a prank gift box. It says the gift is a Nap Sack, a sack you can put over your head and take a nap anywhere, even at church. 😂 The real gift inside was a new hat.

The girls picked out this Squishmallow dragon for him.

Here's his haul from us this year. Two games, the complete MASH series on dvd, mint Oreos, exercise equipment, the Squishmallow, a hat, and a bag he wanted.

Here's the prank box and Jack finally gave Curtis back his hat since he got a new one for himself.

Now they are hat twins!

Alice wrote this note and put it on the fridge about being excited to celebrate Jack's birthday. I thought it was so cute.

Jack's friend, Caleb, shares a birthday with Jack and so his mom and I got together to plan a double birthday party with friends since they basically have the same friend group. At first, we thought of going to a trampoline place but that was way too expensive. And we thought about bowling, but we ultimately just decided to have the party at our house. I was fine with hosting since Caleb's house is kind of small.  We were going to do it on Saturday the 2nd but it turned out that he had a band thing in the middle of the day. Jack had the bright idea to have the party right after school the following Wednesday (the 7th) because it's early release and they get out at 10:30am. We just had the party right after school and most of them walked to our house from school. There were 12 kids there including the birthday boys and Jack was happy that his little sisters were at school during most of the party, so as not to disturb him. 

They started by playing "Secret Hitler", a board game that we learned at Jeanie's over Thanksgiving and he loved it so much that he asked for it for his birthday. That was one of the games he got on Sunday.

Two of the boys sat out and waited their turn.

Food break! Pizza, chips, fruit, veggies and soda.

Caleb wanted pie and Jack wanted a donut. He didn't know it was going to be gigantic though. It was a fun surprise. Caleb's mom, Charlene, told me about this bakery in Pasco that makes big donuts, so I drove over there that morning to get one. They happened to have exactly the flavor he wanted also, chocolate with sprinkles.

I've never seen such a big donut!

Getting ready to sing to the boys.

Light em up, up, up! (I played that song while they did this, ha ha)

He has a good group of friends. They went outside toward the end and ran around playing games out there. Then I asked them to get a group photo.

Silly picture!

He's turning into a handsome young man.

The Cone of Shame

Our snow melted slowly but it is all gone now except for a few tiny patches from bigger piles. I'm glad to see it go! And last Friday was the BIG day for Milo. We decided to get him fixed and originally, we thought we'd have to wait until he was 6 months old, but the vet told us in November that we could have it done any time. After his last shots in December, I scheduled him to get fixed the end of January and last Friday was the day. Just like humans before a surgery, he was not allowed to have any food past 10pm the night before but he could have water. Everything went smoothly. We dropped him off at 9am and picked him up close to 4:30pm. We also decided to have him microchipped, so if we ever lose him, then he can be scanned for our information to get him home again. He came home with "the cone of shame". We actually did not put it on him until after we got home because there wouldn't be much room in his kennel. He looked so sad and pathetic. The post-surgery instructions said that they might seem depressed and he certainly did. They also sent home 3 pain pills that he only took once a day. 

 

Charlotte was good to keep him company and helped him hold his chew bone.

"I do not like the cone of shame".  (The line from the movie "Up" from the dog named Dug)

Charlotte had also put on her own cone of shame from a game that we have (Exploding Kittens) just to help him feel better and like he wasn't the only one. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a picture of her. Alice took a turn with it also and once again, no picture. It was so cute though. It's been a little rough this week because he's not allowed to run and jump or get dirty for 10-14 days. We have to put a leash on him and take him out to go potty. I'm just glad that it's still winter and that he's not missing out on much since it's been raining. If things look good, I think we should be able to remove the cone on Monday but for now he has to wear it 24/7 because he likes to lick himself and we can't have that causing problems.

While Milo was at the vet, the boys had an early release because it was the last day of finals and the semester. Jack's friend Caleb, and his mom and brother came over after school so that we could do some party planning. Jack and Caleb share the same birthday and so we're having a combined friend's party. We originally planned to have it this coming Saturday the 3rd but then we found out that the boys and most of their friends have band stuff going on (ensemble/solo competition). They also have pep band (playing for basketball games) Friday night. The following weekend we'll be in Idaho. Fortunately, Jack had the idea to just do it on Wednesday the 7th because the boys have early release at 10:30am. Their friends will just come over right after school and hang out and play games for a few hours. We'll have the family party and opening of our gifts on Sunday the 4th, so it works out perfectly.

Here is a picture of the two hand warmers that I made as testers for our activity days activity. The yellow one was made out of felt and the other was cotton, I think. The felt was just a little too thick and you have to warm it up more to feel the heat, so we decided not to use anymore felt. But I gave it to Charlotte since it's her favorite color. The gray one I wanted to see how it would go with hand stitching it together around the outside. It took too long and I liked the look of the machine sewn better, so I let Alice keep that one. She decided to give it to a friend. These two were the original size from the pattern I found online but Sister Gale made a slightly bigger one that we did for the rest of them.

Charlotte wanted to make some for friends and so she got to do a little practicing at home before the activity. We also went to the store to pick out a color for one of her friends, Wesley, because he wanted green. She ended up picking out a dinosaur pattern because he likes dinosaurs.

Finally using her machine again!

Monday was the activity and I think it was a hit. There were 13 girls there, but we had 3 machines going. I helped with my two machines and Sister Gale had hers. She also sent the girls home with a fleece scarf that they had the option to cut the ends of it or not. She left that up to the parents to help if they did want to cut them. Sister Gale got pictures of all of the girls after they finished their hand warmers. She sent me the ones of my girls.

While we were shopping for the dinosaur fabric, Charlotte saw some wooden cutouts that you can paint and she really wanted to get a cow and paint it for her teacher because her teacher loves cows. I told her she had to promise to actually paint it and give it to her if I were to buy it. And she did!

She did a pretty good job all by herself!

I know this next picture is late, but I had Curtis send it to me since he took it on his phone. Sometimes I have a difficult time finding the pictures that people send me when I go to copy it to my computer, but I finally figured it out. This is from my birthday, but I love it and had to share.

We had our final weigh in on Sunday for our biggest loser competition. I did not make my goal but the fact that I still lost weight over the holidays and all of the birthdays is a big success. I lost about 7 lbs. It was a very close race between Curtis and his brother Ricky but Curtis came out as the winner by 0.3%. They both lost 26 lbs though, which is amazing! My mother-in-law lost enough weight to be able to stop taking insulin, so that was awesome to hear! It was a good competition and we all lost some weight (about 120 lbs combined). Unfortunately, Stillman and Michelle had to bow out early because they just had too many things going on to think about it, with their son Alex going on a mission and other stuff. We talked about taking a break and maybe doing another competition later this year. And we're going to check back in 6 weeks to see how everyone is doing. The competition ended up being between us, Ricky & Jenna, Gaya, Shauna and Aubrey. It amazed me that Ricky and Jenna could still do so well when they were busy moving from Alaska down to Boise and had to live with my in-laws for a little bit. They were both committed and both of them met their weight loss goals. Curtis and they were the only ones to reach their goals. Overall, it was a positive experience and it helped us to keep ourselves in check, especially over the holidays.

Leaking Again!

The weather has been above freezing and slowly melting, so the roads are nice and clear, except what's piled up on the sides. I noticed a wet spot at the bottom of the fireplace bricks near the front door. I got lower to see up close and the floor was wet also. I looked up at the ceiling but didn't see anything that looked wet. I called Curtis and while on the phone I checked Jack's room and the family room to see if there was any water leaking through the foundation. There was a lot of water melted from the snow in the front yard the day before, but it had soaked into the dirt. I also checked under the stairs but didn't really see anything that looked for sure wet. After going back upstairs again I looked at the ceiling above the wet spot and then I saw a drip come down about 5-6 inches away from the corner. We thought we had gotten this fixed last year. Ugh! Curtis had to come home from work and cut a small piece of ceiling out to air it out and check how much had gotten wet. He also got on the roof outside to check it and it looks like it might be coming from the North end of the fireplace by a valley. I don't think anything was done in that area when it got fixed last year. Fortunately, we caught it early and we didn't have to cut out a huge piece. It's weird because it's fine when it rains. It only leaks when we have a bunch of snow.

The spot on the bricks. I was so confused as to how it got wet before I saw the dripping.

Made a little mess.

He pulled out the wet insulation and broke off wet sheetrock. It was piled on top of a towel. 

And now we have a hole in our ceiling again, but at least it's small.

There isn't much else we can do until the weather warms up but at least it can air out and dry now. I haven't seen any drips since Curtis cut the ceiling. The snow on the roof is pretty much all gone today and Curtis had cleared it away from the chimney while he was up there yesterday.

After I cleaned up the floor, I decided to use the rag I used for the floor to go finally wipe off the speckles of texture that were still on our bedroom door and bathroom door in our master bedroom. There's still some on the closet door as well but my arms and fingers were tired of doing that after the other two doors and doorways. One reason I thought to do that was because Curtis keeps talking about needing to paint those doors. I haven't quite got in the mode of wanting to paint again yet, but wiping it down is a step in the that direction. February seems to be the month to start painting the last two years in a row. Painting our house in Idaho and then painting our basement here a year ago. I'm looking forward to relaxing a little more this year.

Curtis had mentioned his concerns about the weight of the heavy snow damaging the pool canvas cover by stretching it and that the pool has too much water in it already. So, I decided, even after doing my morning workout (before Curtis came home to check the leak), and then wiping the doors, that I was going to go scoop as much of the snow away from the pool as I could. I was able to scrape some of it off of the cover as well, carefully. That snow (or should I say slush) was so wet and heavy and it made me pretty tired, but not as tired as I thought I would have been. It took about 1-1 1/2 hours. I think my exercising might be helping, even if it's not that much. I made sure to stretch a lot after shoveling as well. It felt good to get that done. These pictures were taken yesterday and today it's nice to see the cement around the pool starting to look dry. The pool is still very full and maybe after the snow finishes melting, Curtis will drain some with a hose. He had to do it once already. To think, last year when we opened our pool, there wasn't enough water in the pool for the pool guy to vacuum it up in one go. This year we have way too much water. There's been a lot of rain and snow this year. We don't want to leave it too full because we're already worried about the liner in the pool that is peeling up in a couple of places. Hopefully it won't cause too much damage. We can't afford a new liner this year.

I was almost halfway done when I took a break and got a picture.

All done and cleared away.

Our next activity days is on Monday and Sister Gale had said the girls wanted to do some sewing. The problem is trying to do something simple enough that we'll have time in our 1-hour slot for so many girls to finish the project. I looked up ideas for simple sewing projects for kids and found a cute heart shaped hand warmer project that uses fabric and rice. There's also a little tag that comes with it that says "Hand Warmers, warm hands, warm heart (Heat in the microwave 30 seconds)." Sister Gale liked the idea and so we're going with it. She texted me this afternoon to see if I could come help cut out the hearts. I was over there for a couple of hours. It feels good to be helping more since I'm one of the leaders now. It's getting me excited to try more crafty things with my girls here at home also.