My kids really ARE listening to me!

My three kiddos are in the other room taking turns playing Wii. I heard some whining from Courtney and the Ben lecturing Johnny: "Johnny, you don't need to take the remote from her. Use your words." That's a phrase I use with the kids all. the. time. Go Ben!

Thank goodness for warranties...

This is what I saw when I went in Johnny's room this morning:

When we were negotiating the terms for buying this house, at the recommendation of the home inspector, we had the owners do a roof upgrade with a 2 year guarantee on the roof. The roof guy just came and said that even though this was caused by the swamp cooler, it is still 100% covered. I'm not sure if they fix the interior walls, too. Here's hoping! I was a little worried because Kyle and our friend Bryce hooked up the swamp cooler a week ago (directly above Johnny's room) and being their first time we hoped they did it right. The guy said everything looked fine, but there was some condensation or leakage problem or something. But all I care is that it is covered. Phew!

Zero Desire

Bettie sorta tagged me to do this 10 things I have zero desire to do or be or try or whatever. She sorta tagged me because she told me in person I had to. I don't usually do the blog lists, but this one seems like fun.

I have no desire to....

1. Have a pet dog or cat or anything else except a fish. I have 3 kids...who needs pets?

2. Own a business. Not my kinda fun!

3. Run a marathon. Good one Bettie...I'd have to agree with you on that one. My knees and lungs are thanking me already.

4. Be famous. It's hard enough for me to know what to say when I get a compliment now...can you imagine people always hounding you and telling you how wonderful you are? Ugh!

5. Run for office. I hate making big decisions. Isn't that what politics is all about?

6. Be a chef. Um, no. I'd rather eat it than slave over cooking for everyone else.

7. Go scuba diving...and for that Kyle, I am so sorry. I know you love it. But telling me how cool it is to have fish swarming around you is NOT the way to convince me to do it!

8. Eat tripe. Or tongue. Or any other non-normal animal part. I've tried liver (Mom made us when we were kids), chicken toe (just a bite in Spain) and pig cheek (again in Spain). That's as crazy as I get.

9. Bungee jump. Or skydive. Or paraglide. I have this thing for heights. And edges. And safety equipment possibly failing. Yeah, I think I'll pass.

10. Be a doctor. Bodily fluids, gross wounds, looking at body parts that aren't meant to be looked at, trying to remember all the names of said body parts or sicknesses or medicines to prescribe. So many reasons to not do this!

Beginning the process of painting our house

The whole house is white. It could be worse I guess. When we were looking at houses we saw one that had pastels all over the house done with faux finishing. In every room. So at least white gives us a blank canvas. We aren't in love with painting, but it is kinda fun. Mostly it is my project. Apparently, Kyle would rather let me do the bulk of it than risk making a mistake and facing my wrath. Hmmmm. That's ok. I enjoy it. I especially enjoy that we don't have to remove painted over wallpaper borders, or any other wallpaper. Ugh. So, without further ado...here is the almost done (it's done now, but I don't have pics) master bathroom. The window in the bathroom is frosted and the way the light comes through at different times of day makes the wall color change all the time.

This first is what it looks like a lot, mostly blue. There is grey stone tile on the floor and bath surround and it is a good complement.

And this color is more what I was going for. But it's all good. I like it!

Now the kids are excited to get their rooms painted. Ben wants black, Johnny wants bright green and Courtney wants polka dots. We'll see what actually happens!

How we stopped our child from finger sucking in one easy step...

Johnny always sucked his two middle fingers. Perfect strangers would see him and tell me that their child sucked their fingers like that until they were 11. Great. We had never had a finger/thumb sucker so we wondered how were were going to deal with this. We took him to a gastro doctor because we were worried about the sucking and the rumination that came with it. No, thinking isn't a bad thing. I mean rumination like a cow ruminates...chewin' their cud, so to speak. We tried some medicine for awhile, but didn't stick with it.

So anyway, we started to notice that he was always holding his blanket when he was doing this. So we wondered which came first: the chicken or the egg. I mean--the blanket or the fingers. Which was triggering which? The answer came to us rather quickly. About a year or so ago, I don't really remember when it happened, Johnny stopped taking his blanket everywhere. Then he started forgetting it when he went to sleep. (This happened to be very good timing, by the way, because we were down to two blanket burp cloths and apparently this specific fabric is no longer sold in stores...and no other fabric was good enough for his tastes. But that's another story.) We realized that the finger sucking had all but disappeared, along with the rumination. Turns out the blanket had become the trigger for the finger sucking--when he found his blanket after a few months he picked it up and stuck his fingers in his mouth to pretend to suck. We could tell he did it automatically but the sucking was no longer a comfort and was just for fun.

So, how did we stop the finger sucking? Throw away the blankets and never look back!

Wow...that was a quick change of plans!

I got a call today that Johnny made it onto the class roster for the fall. Yea!!!! His class will be held from 7:30-10:30. That seems awfully early, but I can drop all three kids off at the same time so it will work out well. That is the second time in the last few month when I have been given time to get used to a difficult situation only to have a resolution to the situation after I decided to accept it and be happy about it. I guess I must have problems with change!

A lesson I need to learn again

So just yesterday I did a scrapbook page about one of life's little lessons. Here's an exerpt:

I'm not in charge of what happens in life. I know that. Mistakes happen, cars break down, people die, houses don't sell, pregnancies fail. I've gotten pretty good at trusting in the Lord that it will all be for the best. But I've still got a lot to learn. When I got my mission call I was disappointed that my start date was a month after my birthday...meaning I was going to get home a month too late to start school in the fall. But, there was a purpose to these things. Kyle's first semester back at school ended up being my last semester of school. If I had gotten my wish, I would have graduated without meeting him. I've always remembered this as a prime example of trusting in the Lord's timing and decisions.

Fast forward to this morning and the phone call I just received. The kids' school is going to have a small preschool next year with just 32 spots. They were using a lottery system to choose who got in. There were about 45 kids signed up. We got the phone call today to let us know that Johnny is #4 on the waiting list for the morning class. Joy. That means our name was one of the last chosen. She said not to hold out too much hope of getting in with that place on the list.

Ever since we found out about the preschool, I have been saying that if he didn't get in I wasn't going to worry about getting him in somewhere else. There aren't many free preschools in town. But now that this has happened, I'm feeling let down and distraught. I'm forgetting what I just figured out yesterday. The Lord is in charge. It is up to me to be a wise steward of what I am given. If Johnny needed school that badly, I'm sure he would have gotten in. Perhaps he and I need more time together. Whatever it is I need to find the faith that this is what we need. But can I just mope for a little while first?