Our Barnwood Floors

Way down in much earlier posted pictures (Halloween time) I mentioned Rob was remodeling our downstairs floors. He actually ripped down an old barn, and ripped out our downstairs (14 weeks without furniture). Through a trial and error, grueling experience (we are stilled married) the floors are in. They look fantastic. I love the wide planks. I love the chocolate color. Of course. It has transformed our downstairs and it looks a zillion times better than white carpet with 4 kids. Now we are in the midst of painting Crew's bedroom. Then we are putting tile in the kitchen, then Robs building bunk beds, and then end tables, and a then the wood up the stairs, and well I think you get the point. The floors look great, and we love our house, projects and all.

P.S-After renting houses and apts for the first 9.5 years of marriage my opinion of owning a home is that it is slighty over-rated. I have fond memories of calling the landlord for things like, "hey our hot water heater is not working", and "hey our garage door opener is broken", and "will you pay for the grass seed to replant the backyard?" etc. etc. etc.

Let it snow, Let it snow. Let it snow......

What a great way to start the day. We were all so excited to have snow. Not just your token usual Willamette Valley flake or two, but real, Mt. Bachelor, snow for hours, white everywhere, deep enough to actually eat some without dirt on it, snow. We threw on our snow clothes, headed outside, and went up to find our neighbors the Lesh Family to have a snowball fight with. It was great. We went back and celebrated with hot cocoa after.

Crew, you are really cute!!!

I couldn't help take a bunch of pictures of him with his tie on. Doesn't he look so cute. He is totally kissable and gets a ton of them with 4 women surrounding him at all times. We love this little guy. It helps that he is not only totally adorable, but also so easy going.

Seriously mom are you really putting green hair products on my head? 3 girls weren't enough for you to do this morning? I mean I am the 4th kid, I am a boy, I really don't think its necessary do you?

So in case you were wondering I did successfully end my chocolate craving the other day. I made a yummy ice-box cake with chocolate wafers, and cream that I whipped mint extract into, then shaved some really good dark chocolate over the top. I ate at least half of the cake, then shared the rest with Rob and the kids while I went to the gym for 2 hours to burn it back off. Thank goodness for treadmills, and eliptical machines.

Strep Throat

So the other day Grace was not feeling well. Her voice had been "funny" for a few days, but she had not complained at all about feeling sick. Then she woke up with a fever and was noticeably not well. Crew on this same Friday was also uncomfortable to say the least (like you couldn't put him down at all) so I called the doctor and got them in for the last appointment of the day on a Friday. Paige was at piano, Rob was still at work, so Whitney, Crew, Grace and I all went in for the appt. After the doctors initial exam of Grace she really just thought it was viral, however, she did decide to try a throat culture for strep. Thankfully her office has the ph test that take all of 2 minutes to tell you if you are positive for it or not. Grace was. The doctor then proceeds to check out Crew. Which also appeared to be viral. I was suprised when she said he didn't have ear infections (mainly because I wanted it to be something fixable so I could sleep at night again). She mentioned his throat was also red. So I asked her to do a throat culture for Crew. She said, "it is very rare for a child under 3 to get strep throat", and "in all my years of practice I have only had it happen about 5 times". Regardless of this I still wanted his throat cultured, which she obliged. Hey its my insurance anyways right. So when the timer went off 2 minutes later and the nurse who was doing it dropped her mouth open, we were very shocked that Crew in fact had strep throat also. We (the doctor and I) instantly turn our heads to look at Whitney, who hasn't been the slightest bit sick at all, and who has been reading a book to herself and singing in the corner the entire time. The doctor says we better check her to. Guess what, yes, really Whitney to tested positive for strep. She also wrote me a prescription for Paige, who did in fact come down with a fever the next day. So this is a picture of 1 of 4 bottles of antibiotics we were so lucky to get to pour down our kids throats twice a day for 10 days. The pharmacy tech. got quite a laugh when she used every last drop of Augmentin that they had in stock for us. Yippie.

hmmmm!!!! I am hungry

So this would actually fit better as a post into my personal blog, if in fact I had the time to actually navigate 2 blogs. I can't seem to part with wanting to update things relating to my kids especially when they are of course adorable and cute. But I find myself wanting to post things that just pertaing really to me, myself, and I. So as I am sitting here looking through some pictures that I will post potentially right after this I find myself hungry. Hungry for something sweet (of course) yet without having to do any baking, driving, walking, moving at pretty much any pace other than reaching in the cupboard. Ugh. Where does that leave me???? I can't seem to keep any really good treats in the cupboard longer than 2 days max (because I don't have that capacity to eat just 1 or 2 or 10 for that matter). I don't know if any of you can relate, but for lack of anything better I find myself eating peanut butter chocolate chips. This is where the hmmmm comes in. I know I could do better. I know I could at least make cookies, whip up some cake batter, for heaven's sake I could have Rob pick me something up on his way home (he already called and is on his way), but I haven't, didn't, and alas am sitting here eating them while drinking OJ with ice in a green Nalgene bottle. hmmmm well now that I actually talked about baking I feel a little more motivation, maybe I will go bake, peanut butter cookies.....hmmmm

Book Meme

OK so I was tagged today (whatever that means Margaret) with something called a Book Meme. So I am obliging my friend of course in fear of disappointing, and because she also mentioned something about taking away my chocolate. This was an incredibly motivating factor for me. I do not honestly know the last day I went without chocolate. I am sure however if there has been in fact a day that I went without chocolate I most certainly substituted something else that required a large amount of sugar. Anyways the point being I am going to respond and do the, "Book Meme". Here are the rules etc. etc. I am doing a copy/paste from Margarets Blog.

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Little did Margaret know, or maybe she did, I don't know, but now you will know. I am in the midst of reading a book for my SOC 455 class (Poverty, Race, and Gender in the U.S). The book is Domestica, Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring In The Shadows of Affluence by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. Yes the title is a mouthful you should see the book. So here goes,

"I felt despair, because to so suddenly be told that there is no job on Monday-well, it's awful." For Celestina, the emotional trauma was compounded by having to part abruptly from the two-year old toddler for whom she had cared since his birth, and whom she had grown to love. Her live out position had been Celestina's first job in the United States, and nothing in her life as a middle class woman in El Salvador had prepared her for this incident. She responded to the entire experience with the kind of vows commonly recited by nanny/housekeepers who undergo a blowup or are, in quieter voices as she was, abruptly fired. "I said to myself, 'I'll never work in house again, and I'll never take care of a child again.' "

The incident referred to is the family she worked for wanted her to become a live in nanny/housekeeper. They asked her in person, on the spot, and she said she couldn't because she attends night school. They fired her right then and gave her a 1 weeks severance pay.

Not necessarily a light subject, but it honestly is what I am reading right now at the moment. My next step is to tag 5 people. I will add that tomorrow.

Crew's Birthday

We celebrated Crew's Birthday. Finally. On his actual birthday Crew and mom went to San Francisco to visit friends. Then our family went to Sunriver for a week and then it was Christmas so he had a 13 month old birthday party. It was a little bit anti-climatic since he really didn't like the cake, however, he did love his toys. He is pretty handsome don't ya think?
Happy Birthday CREW!!!

Crew