The Puddles

Normally this would not be a problem, but my car died as soon as I turned the keys off to the car.  The kids were trapped inside and had to climb out the driverside door.  It was truly bizarre.  To make it worse I didn’t even have my cell phone with me.  The cell phone didn’t have anymore minutes on it.  My debit card was stolen several weeks ago and when I cancelled it I cancelled the ability to update the minutes on my phone.  So I was stuck at Target.  No problem I have a purse full of quarters.  Except there were not any pay phones any where in that strip mall.  Luckily, the Target manager let me make one phone call to my sister to come and rescue me.  She came with Gordon.  Using Debra’s cell phone, I called Chris to see if this car issue was something that he could just walked me through to fix it.  No it was not.  Someone at the National Youth Gathering (where he is at) knew someone in Conroe who could come and help me.  So this total stranger came to the Target parking lot, scrubbed the contacts on my battery, and started my car right up.

He are the things that I have learned:

1.  When something goes wrong on your car the first time, nag your husband until he looks at it.  2.  My mother’s rule to always have two quarters in your purse for emergencies mean NOTHING in this day and age of cell phones!!!!  3.  Do not tell your children that the car may have to spend the night in the parking lot, if you are not prepared for the monsoon of tears that will follow.

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The day started good.  Up and ready to go at a decent hour.  The kids had a majority of their chores done by lunch and they even went outside to play in the ungodly heat of Houston.  Then by lunchtime the cat had vomited, Ben had vomited, and Ainsley had an accident.  Nasty stuff.  Because I don’t know why exactly Ben vomited (at least he made it to the trash can), all afternoon and evening activities were cancelled.  I think that it was a one time event, but we will see how the night goes.

Ainsley officially celebrated her birthday today with leftover cake and sloppy joes.  All of her favorites.  We didn’t get to go help with the community garden at church tonight but we did get out of the house for fifteen minutes while Madie fed Simon the cat (a cat that she is helping to take care of this week).  We are all beginning to feel major cabin fever or at least mommy is.  She has been on mommy duty for nearly 2 weeks straight (with the one exception of going to see the Harry Potter movie with Chris).  I think that my testiness is partially due to no breaks.  I am relishing quiet time in the afternoons a little too much.  My only true peace comes when I step outside and it is too dang hot to do that.

We have playgroup at church tomorrow.  As long as he doesn’t get sick tonight we are going.  Gordon is coming tomorrow for the day, so we will enjoy his very early delivery (6:30am) and hopefully get a boatload of work done.

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Today we celebrated Ainsley’s birthday.  She picked the menu (after all it was her birthday!) . . . sloppy joes, baked beans, fruit salad, and freetos.  Tasty!  The day was good.  She had a great day and didn’t want to go to bed.  I can’t believe that she is already four years old.  They grow up so fast.  She goes to preschool next year five days a week and then she gets to go to kindergarten.  I am so sad that I think that I want to pull her out of school so that I can spend more time with her.  My baby!!  She is ready, but mommy is not.  She has a year to prepare.

Aunt Debra took this picture today.  Thank you Aunt Debra.

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We came home yesterday from Grandma and Papa’s house.  Chris had wanted us to stay a few extra days, but we were ready to see Daddy again.  When we arrived home, I understood why.  I have no kitchen, no place to eat, no place to cook.  The backyard is set up as an outdoor workshop and filled with scraps of tile of other material.  What a mess!  Plus the tiling was not done yet (but not from a lack of trying on Chris’ part).  So I came inside. Sent the kids upstairs to watch some tv. Then I took a deep breath and praised the progress of the backsplash in the kitchen.

Chris and I worked until 2am, but we finished.  My hands are blistered from cutting the tile, but all we have left is the grouting and the rewiring of all of the electrical boxes.  That is Chris’ area of expertise so I let him play with wires.  It will be nice to have that project done.  One down and 100 more to go!

Ainsley’s birthday party is on Saturday so I went tonight to buy the supplies for the party.  She wants a princess party!  When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said princess everything.  She is so funny!  We asked her what she wanted to eat at her party and she said ice cream cake.  I said “cake and ice cream?”  No ice cream cake.  For weeks I have been planning the special cake that I was going to make her and she doesn’t want me to make it.  Of course, Chris reminded me that this party was not about me and that Ainsley should decide what we will have.  So the menu is . . . sloppy joes, cheetos, fruit salad, baked beans, and ice cream cake.  Exactly what Ainsley wants.   There is beer and pop for all of the adults.

The whole family is coming, so this should be a lot of fun.  Hopefully it will be a time that we can sit down and enjoy friends and family.  And I am hoping that they will ignore the kitchen remodeling mess.

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We have been married for 13 years as of today!  In honor of our anniversary, I am at my parent’s house hanging with my grandpa while my parents take a mini vacation and my husband spent the day putting up tile for the backsplash of our kitchen.  I didn’t even think about the significance of this anniversary until Chris pointed it out to me.  We will hopefully go to dinner and a movie later this week.

Coming up with an interesting meal every night this week is hard.  I wish cooking came easier.  I can feed you, but it is not promised to be fancy.  We all ate well tonight.  Even Grandpa said my meal was a keeper (I tried a new recipe.).  Trust me.  He is a hard one to please.

The kids and I went swimming again tonight.  We had so much fun and it was hard to come home, but home we came.  Tomorrow Grandma and Papa come back and the kids are excited to see them.  Grandpa Himes is excited too!  I am sure that the conversations at dinnertime will be much better when more adults arrive onto the scene.

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Sshh!  Don’t tell anyone.  We didn’t go to church today.  I feel terribly guilty.  This is the first time since we moved here that I didn’t go to church (usually I miss church to stay home with a sick child).  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  We checked the Sunday ads and then hit the school supply sales at Target.  I had an entire speech set in my head if somebody admonished me for not being at church (although, honestly, who would?).  We used another one of our free meals from the library at Cici’s Pizza.  The kids filled up on pizza and enjoyed some time out and about.

We rested during the afternoon and then went swimming after dinner.  Ainsley insists that she can swim and kept jumping into the deep end and swimming to me.  Ben put his whole head in the water and was jumping in by the end of the time.  Madie learned to do under water flips yesterday and is trying to do backward flips today.  The kids are having so much fun, and so am I! 

We miss daddy. The kids were upset yesterday because he wouldn’t sing their night song to them.  Of course, he was in the middle of Home Depot during the request.  He offered to go to outside and sing, but I really wanted the tile that he was standing in line for.  Tomorrow is our last day before Grandma and Papa Grace come home.  Then our short vacation will be over.  We will have to return to our normal life.  But we will be with Daddy again.  Yea!

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Grandma Grace signed us up at her library for the reading club.  We enjoyed participating in it last year, and this year was no different! We turned our reading log in today and received a huge prize bundle.  Free meals at Luna’s, Chick-fila(?), whataburger, Ci-ci’s pizza plus tickets to Moody’s Garden in Galveston, an Astro’s game, Jump and Jungle, and a Gymnastics class.  We could spend our entire time here rather busy.  Of course, we plan on taking it easy while here for the next four days.  Lots of swimming in either the neighborhood pool or the backyard pool is in our future!

The best prize of all was the trophy that all three earned!  They were so excited!  We can’t wait to take them home and share them with Daddy.  Daddy is working hard and holding down the fort while we hangout with Grandpa Himes.  By eleven this morning, we had done our morning routine, played outside for an hour, walked down to a garage sale at a neighbors house, spent an hour working on summer school, and even got to watch tv for a while.  Busy morning!

The kids have settled down for some quiet time and I am preparing to start making dinner (so that it actually arrives on the table at a decent hour).  I can only hope that tomorrow is just as successful as today!

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A minivan full of people + 100 degree heat + a day full of shopping = children who are cranky and tired but are so wired that they don’t go to bed until 10pm.  That was our day yesterday.  Aunt Debra and Gordon went with us to go school clothes shopping.  We found really great deals at Once Upon a Child (both Houston stores) and came home with an armload of clothes and shoes.  Ben even got a new pair of cowboy boots for $3.50 to play outside with.  Ben’s prefers to just wear cowboy boots and shorts outside all summer long.  Now that he has outside boots he won’t tear up his new good boots so quickly.  Got to love Ben!

Aunt Debra took Madie to her section to look for clothes.  Mom may not like all of the clothes (Debra reminded me that Madie was not me or a little girl any more) but they were all appropriate and Madie swears that she will wear them.  I tried to put the Hannah Montana shirt back on the rack but Madie got upset  (she already has three other Hannah shirts).  I told her that if she wanted it that she had to pay for it.  She came to me this morning with the contents of her piggy bank counted out to give to me.  I didn’t even have to prompt her for it.  Very good Madie!

We are spending the day cleaning the house, washing clothes, and packing to go to Grandma Grace’s house for four days to hang out with Grandpa Himes so that Grandma and Papa can have some away time for just themselves.  We are going to have fun while we are there, so I hope that they have some fun too.

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After a full morning playing with our friends during playgroup at church followed by a picnic lunch, we (really me) decided to spend the afternoon running errands.  We managed to hit several really good sales at the Carter and Oshkosh stores and got everyone an outfit for the first day of school.  Our little ballerina/princess/cheerleader, Ainsley, says that she is only willing to wear dresses to school.  For those of you who do not know Ainsley’s personal dresscode, she will only wear bathsuits, dresses, princess costumes or ballerina outfits.  She has a dozen pairs of pajamas but refuses to wear them because they are not dresses.  She wears cheerleader outfits to bed and bathing suits under EVERYTHING!  It is an unusual dress code but it makes Ainsley special.  And she changes her names according to the outfit that she is wearing.  If you ever meet her, it would be best to ask her what her name is.  You will make a much better impression then calling her by the wrong name.

Ainlsey is taking dance lessons.  She loves to dance and has been looking forward to taking dance all summer.

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The kitchen counters have finally arrived and were installed yesterday!  I am so excited.  I am one week away from a working stove again.  I have been without a stove since October (due to me starting a small fire and trying to arc weld my skillet when it made contact with exposed wires underneath my stove top).  Chris and a friend from church are going to install the new gas stove next week.  We are waiting to paint the cabinets until the weather cools off in October (hopefully), so we can paint them in the garage.  We have a lot of tile to install this summer for the floor and walls, but we are assured by others that it is not that hard.

One day the kitchen will be complete and our historically accurate kitchen from the 70’s will be brought into the modern era.  Then onto the rest of the house!   My temporary vinyl covered plywood counter. My mother even loaned me a accurate to the decade electric skillet to cook in.
Thank you, Gene for helping us remove the rest of the counters.  It was nasty work!

The new countertops and the new bathroom sink.  Chris dearly wanted a vessel sink.  I ran the water to prove that it all works!

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