Tiny Snippets

Michael and I take turns reading with Spencer before bed every night.  Last night I pulled out a Thomas book that we haven't read in years.  On a whim I handed it to him.  He read the entire thing as fluently as if he'd been reading for years.  There were two words he didn't know at first- slow and catch.  As soon as I told him he remembered them every time.   Looks like we have a reader.

I taught my 2nd Art Masterpiece lesson today.  It took me a solid hour to set everything up, an hour and 20 minutes to do the actual lesson with the kids and another solid hour to clean everything up.  I've looked ahead to the next 2 lessons and neither of them are nearly as time intensive.  Thank god.

My parents paid for all of my undergraduate tuition at the University of Arizona.  When I went to graduate school my grandparents paid for 2 semesters, my parents paid for 2 semesters and then I paid for my last 2 semesters.  To pay for my part I took out loans.  I made the very last payment for those loans on Monday.  The picture has nothing to do with student loans, but it is a speech therapist joke, which is what I became because of those loans.

I didn't really decorate for Valentine's Day last year.  We had moved in November and the minute we finished unpacking we decorated for Christmas.  Even by February I wasn't recovered enough to feel like hauling out bins and moving around knick-knacks.  But this year is a different story.  All of the Valentine's Day decorations are up and I will be doing a post about them shortly.

Spencer and I are going to see The Fresh Beat Band in concert tomorrow night.  We first heard about the show last January and have been waiting an entire year for this night!  It's going to be totally awesome!

 



Monday. Oh, Monday.

I have had a hard time getting back to my exercise routine after the holidays.  I had a minor surgical procedure done the week before Christmas and wasn't allowed to work out for three weeks. I was given the OK on January 9th and did my first work out on the 10th. I nearly died. 

 

I have also been working 3 days a week instead of 2 days a week this month.  That means I lose my work-out time on Fridays.  I've got 2 more Fridays to get all caught up (I got an insane number of evaluation referrals after Christmas break) and then I will get back to my regular work schedule which will help.

 

So anyway.  I bought 2 new DVDs last week.  I did levels 1 and 2 of this today. 

While I was doing this Elliott SHOULD have been sleeping.  He wasn't.  Let me repeat, he should have been.  He apparently didn't know that.

 

He got a haircut in the morning that was one of his worst haircuts ever.  Not the actual haircut, but his behavior.  He acted like beavers were trying to gnaw through his limbs.  He totally wore himself out with his kicking and screaming.  I was totally expecting deep, blissful, quiet sleep but instead he varied between crying, calling for me and talking to Elmo for 2 hours.

 

So you can imagine what our afternoon and evening was like.

 

This was the result of me telling him he couldn't take forks and spoons out of the drawer while I made dinner.

He also threw himself on the floor and cried, in a very similar manner, when I went to pay for the haircut.  I just didn't take pictures.  But just imagine this kid (in a different outfit) in a public place with lots of people watching.

Simple carbohydrates for dinner made everything better.  The rest of the family had grilled chicken and roasted cauliflower, but that wasn't agreeable to the delicate prince.

 

He also insisted on dinner on daddy's lap.  No high chairs for this over-tired child.

Spencer was in good spirits because I bought him new pajamas today.  His eczema has been horrible and it doesn't help that he keeps taking his pajamas off during the night because he says he is hot.  Then all his creams just get rubbed off and absorbed by the sheets.  I thought some new, light jammies might help. 

After dinner I asked Elliott if we could take a picture of his outfit.  I bought this outfit for Spencer when he was 2 and he only wore it once or twice because he had been recently potty-trained and insisted that anything with snaps in the crotch was for babies.

We played outside this afternoon and it was warm enough that it was almost hot, so the shorts were totally appropriate.

 

2-year old Spencer in the same outfit. 

Elliott and I went to Kohls before his haircut which is where I found Spencer's pajamas.  I didn't notice until we got home that the top is a Size 6 Angry Birds Star Wars print and the bottoms are a Size 8 Legos Star Wars print.  Oh well, they were $6 and he loves them.

Right after this last picture we stuck Elliott in the shower, dried him off, stuck him in pajamas and stuck him in bed.  He screamed and cried and fell asleep in less than 2 minutes. 

 

Here's hoping for a better Tuesday!

Weekly update and a spending report

After we got back from Tucson last Monday we had a very busy week.  It didn't help that it was a short week because of the Monday holiday.  We had so much to do every day.

 

I went to work, Michael went to work and Spencer went to school on Tuesday.  Dorothy was here with Elliott.

 

We ran out of Ginger's food when we fed her breakfast and neither of us wanted to drive to Petco to buy her new food for dinner, so we fed her cut up hamburger and pasta. 

 

There were no complaints.

Wednesday morning Spencer woke up sick.  He didn't have a fever or an upset stomach, but he was coughing a lot, he felt achy and he actually said he didn't want to go to school.  He has never said that before.  He even gets upset when he doesn't have school for holidays, so him saying he wanted to stay home was a big deal.

 

We started the day with a little cartoon watching while I did stuff like dishes and laundry.

I made Spencer lay down when Elliott took his nap.  He never fell asleep, but just resting was good for him.

 

By that afternoon he was feeling a lot better.  He felt good enough to even play with Elliott.  They were running up and down the hallway and then collapsing in the kitchen, rolling around and saying whoa, whoa, whoa.  Seems like a weird game to me, but they both had a blast.

I should interrupt myself here to mention that we sold my grandma's house in November and we closed on it 2 weeks ago.  The profits of the house were split between me, my 2 brothers and my 2 cousins.  Before you go getting all excited about how I'm a millionaire now, I should mention that the house was 60+ years old, on the smallish side, not updated and not worth all that much.  We are going to put a big chunk of our part into savings and pay off a lot of debt.  We're on the verge of having no car payment!  We wanted to do something fun with some of the money though, so we decided to get a few long-desired things for the house.

 

On Wednesday afternoon I took the kids to Home Goods to buy coffee (yes, that is where we buy all of our coffee) and found this bench.  It was perfect.  We have been wanting a bench to go at the foot of our bed and the size and color could not have been better.

 

Spencer wanted to pose for photos in our bed,

 

and on top of a pile of pillows/blankets.

This is our entertainment center in the living room.  It had belonged to my parents for about 25 years until they bought all new living room furniture and gave it to us.  They had it custom built for their house so it would fit perfectly on their wall.  It might not fit perfectly on our wall, but we love it because it has so much storage space.  The biggest problem is that it was built before flat screen tv's were invented.  After much deliberation with my father though, we decided we could cut back the center divider and by not removing the whole thing the top would still be supported.

We bought a new TV on Wednesday so on Thursday, after I got home from work, Michael and I got to work on partially removing the center divider.

 

This is the before.

Our intense woodworking session was interrupted when we left to go to the art and science night at Spencer's school.  We spent $5 to have his art work framed.

This is the artwork that I created with the kids when I taught my first Art Masterpiece lesson a few weeks ago.

After art and science night we went to Walmart to buy an anti-tip cable and HDMI cables for the TV.  Elliott made himself very comfy in the cadillac of carts.

We caused a little bit of damage to the bottom of the TV part of the center removing the divider.  There was just no way to get it out of there without making some scratches.  So we also bought some black felt to cover the cut part of the divider and the bottom.

 

This is the after.  We love it.

 

On Friday night we went to Lowe's and bought a carpet for Elliott's room.  This is the before.

Before

This is the carpet.  His room is 11 feet by 12 feet and the carpet is 8 feet by 12 feet, so it covers most of the floor but leaves just a little bit of wood on the sides.

 

This is the after.

It looks really nice.  I think we're all going to enjoy it since we spend a lot of time playing in this room.  It's nice and soft but not very plush so you can still build blocks and towers on it. 

I also decided to do my first monthly donation on Saturday.  My goal is 1 box of stuff each month for 2014.  I think I went above and beyond that.

At the very last minute we ended up not donating these toys because my mom said she would take them for when Nathan and Kendra come to visit with baby Isabella.

I just want to mention how proud I am of myself for having this dog xylophone for 6-ish years, through 2 kids and 2 moves and having never lost the bone.

On Sunday we went to Lowe's for the 5th time in 4 days to buy more outlet and light switch covers.  I started working on this a few months ago and have now replaced all of the visible ones in the entry way, living room, dining room, hallway, kitchen and family room.  The ones that are hidden behind curtains and furniture will remain white.  I'm crazy, but not crazy enough to worry about the visual appeal of something that is totally hidden.

 Now I just have to convince my dad to replace all of the white parts with black parts.  I think that will look better with the bronze.

 

So that's it.  To recap the spending report, this is what we bought with my grandma's money:

red, tufted bench

plasma TV

anti-tip cable, HDMI cables, black felt

brown carpet

light switch and outlet covers

 

I'd like to buy a carpet for our room too, but I don't know if we can buy a premade one that is big enough.

 

It's enough that my need to shop is satisfied and I am content with being a responsible adult and doing responsible things with the rest.