April 30th

It's been twelve years today since my mom and dad and Granddaddy White died in a car accident. Twelve years? I can't decide if it feels like longer than that or shorter. It's just the way it is. So much has changed in those twelve years, in my extended family as well as for me individually. Just this past Sunday I was looking at some family history on the computer and Hannah asked me what I was doing. So I got out some old photo albums and tried to show her pictures of the people whose names were on the pedigree chart. I had a lot of fun telling her about my parents and grandparents. They really were fun people. I have a picture of Granddaddy in the middle of one of his really loud laughs, and I could just pictures him in my mind and hear that laugh. There were also like three pictures of mom dressed up in costumes -- not on Halloween. I don't even know what she did that for, but she got people laughing. We also looked at a picture of one our Sunday dinners at Hayes. You would think it was Thanksgiving, but it was just our regular Sunday lunch with Grandma & Granddaddy. There was some venison and gravy on the table, and I don't think I've had that the way he cooked it in twelve years. It looked so good. Then there are the pictures of dad. I have a few of him with hair, which makes it obvious where the curly hair in our family comes from, but I don't remember him that way -- just bald looking for a toboggan because his head was cold. Hannah asked what cancer was, and it made me so grateful that Nate and I are healthy. What must that have been like for mom and dad to try to explain to their kids that he was sick. I was so little that it was just a way of life for me. My dad was a little different from everyone else's dads, but that's just how it was. I would love to hear him tell another story. Anyway, Nikki needs some attention so I guess it's time to stop reminiscing. Back to life in the present.

Another Tooth

This tooth has needed to come out for quite a while. It's actually amazing that it stayed in so long. Hannah has hit her front teeth so many times that they have become discolored, and this tooth that came out was crooked. The last time Mike took an x-ray of her teeth, you could see that her two front ones have been traumatized so much that they don't even have any roots anymore. So you would think pulling it would have been an easy job. Even though it was really loose, Nate still had to do some work to get it out. Hannah had started to not brush her teeth very well because she didn't want to hurt this tooth, so I was glad she let him pull it. She did a great job.

My Sympathetic Family

I think my pregnancy symptoms are rubbing off on the rest of the family. Nate has been sleeping with an extra pillow, and this morning just as I was getting ready for my second breakfast (I'm usually looking for a snack about an hour and a half after my first breakfast) Nikki came and asked for some eggs. She had eaten a bowl of cheerios with me earlier. She did a great job scrambling her egg. I hope Hannah's feet don't start swelling.

Zoo Pictures

We took a really fun trip to the zoo last week with my sister-in-law Sherrie and Lydia, Eliza, and baby William. All of the kids were such troopers. I know William had to have been hot in his stroller, but he did so well. And the girls all had to walk the whole time, and they did such a great job. Our first sight was the flamingos, and I think the only thing Hannah and Nikki remember about them is that they were stinky.
Nikki & Lydia

The misting tree was the perfect spot for a rest and a chance to cool off.

A wet Lydia & Hannah
And a wet Nikki & Eliza. What you don't see is that just after this picture was snapped, Eliza just about pulled Nikki down on top of her she was hugging her so hard. They are so funny.
These were the biggest ice cream cones ever, but the girls went to town on them. It was amazing how these little girls polished them off.


It was a great trip. Thanks for coming with us, Sherrie!

Some pictures

Nikki always wants to be a part of what Hannah is doing, and riding her bike was no different. She's been riding without her training wheels this week. They weren't really staying on very well anyway, so I wasn't too nervous about taking them off. She is doing so well. She can't quite get going all by herself yet, but she is getting really good at making turns.

We were trying to get a few updated pictures of the kittens this morning, but they were playing so hard that I couldn't get a good shot. This one of the black one is really cute, but the other two were just too busy to stop and pose. All of their pictures came out fuzzy.

Chores

We've slacked off recently on getting the girls to do their chores. Last Saturday I realized that Nate and I cleaned the whole house while they did nothing but play all day! So on Sunday we sat down as a family and agreed on what the girls were going to have to do each day around the house. The girls helped set the consequences of what would happen if they didn't get them done, and they decided on a few rewards they could choose from if they go all week getting everything done. So yesterday was the first day putting the new plan into action, and Hannah happily collected and took out all of the trash. Nikki's job was to vacuum, which she is proud of herself for being able to do because Hannah still says she is scared of the vacuum (something she's going to have to get over this week because she's going to have to do it). Nikki got the vacuum out, and the poor thing vacuumed over a toy ring that made a terrible sound as it got sucked up. It scared her to pieces, and she didn't want to finish so she said, "Mom can I just do two chores tomorrow?" I know it really freaked her out, so I might have given in to her except I can't ever give in to this child. If I do, I will never get anything but whining and begging out of her over it for the next several months. I've learned that the hard way. So, I had to be a mean mom and make her finish it. She got lucky though because Nate got home from work early and went with her to do it. Over the sound of the vacuum I even heard her say, "Daddy, this is fun!"

We're Almost Done

The work on our house is almost done, and it was so nice to dust and vacuum and mop today (okay, Nate mopped). All the construction dust was driving me crazy, but I was actually very impressed with how neat the guys kept everything while they were working. They just have to replace the laundry room flooring and tack down the carpet in the living room by the new wall and they'll be done!

This is our piano room before. It's too bad you can't see the awful chandelier we changed, but then again it really wasn't worthy of a photograph. How do you like my dad's painting with dead trees? I think it's neat that Dad painted it, but no it's not going back up.
Here is the piano room now. Even though the picture is fuzzy, I still think it looks better. I really like the color. I'm going to need new curtains, but they are staying for now.

Here is our weird wall with 3 doors before. They took out the 2 closets and extended the laundry room behind this wall, so that we didn't lose the closet space.

And this is what it looks like now. Notice the red foyer that is now not. I actually liked the red, but I really like this a lot better. Now the trick is to figure out what to decorate this wall with. It may stay empty for a while because I'm not putting anything up unless I really really like it.

And this is just a shot of before with my dad's stormy sailboat painted on styrofoam ... cool, but not pretty.
And we just hung up some pictures of the girls. I think it looks a lot better. If only I could pick out some greenery or something to go over the TV cabinet. Oh, this decorating is so hard!!

Well, there it is. Our new house. Any decorating tips anyone? This is so not my forte.

A Day of Doctors

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. The girls and I took two of the kittens to the vet to have their eyes checked out. They have conjunctivitis, and I am sure the medicine the vet gave me is the same stuff people use too. So, for two weeks we have to put some ointment in their eyes, but they'll be fine. They each weighed one pound. He also said that they are big enough to start introducing hard food to them, but they really weren't interested in it yesterday when we tried. Maybe soon. They are so cute running all over the garage.

Then, Nate and I took a trip to Greenville to have an ultrasound for our baby. At my last ultrasound with my doctor they heard an irregular heartbeat, so they sent me to ECU to have a little better testing done. On the way there I was telling Nate that I really haven't felt anxious about it at all, and it turned out that everything appeared to be normal on the ultrasound. He looks to be a very healthy and active boy. It was kind of fun because a student started the ultrasound and tried to take a few measurements and pictures, and then the real sonographer came in and took a look, too. So it took a really long time, and we got to see the baby from all kinds of views. It makes it seem so much more real that we're really going to have a baby when you can see fingers and feet and his heart beating.

And this has nothing to do with doctors, but the guys started the work on our house yesterday!!! I'm so excited. They already took out the closets and built the wall and will put a second coat of mud on today, and they will start painting our piano room. The girls loved watching them tear out the wall yesterday. They thought that was pretty neat. It's going to look so much better when they're done.

Our Most Recent Photoshoot

Before and After

Here are pictures of some changes we've made so far in our house. More will be coming this week. The lighting in the first picture is bad, but that's what you get when you take a picture of a bright window and don't have any great photo software. So, here's our kitchen before...

And after... Don't forget to notice the change in chandelier. Hard to believe we just accepted that old monstrocity for two and a half years.
I also changed out the light fixtures in the halls and bedrooms and bathrooms. This is what was in the bedrooms before ...
and after ...
It was so hard to pick out new fixtures. Maybe I didn't get the best option, but there is no doubt that at least this is better. My problem was that we have all brass knobs, which is very outdated and nothing matches.

Yea for Hannah!

We took Hannah's training wheels off the other day, and today she got on and got going all by herself. She was riding all over the neighborhood. Great job, Hannah!

Pearl & her babies

Nate went out to take some pictures of the kittens yesterday. He said he had a hard time getting them to cooperate, but I think these are pretty cute.



Pretty soon they're going to be climbing out of the box, so it's getting close to time to take a closer look around at what they'll be able to get into around the garage.

Science Project

Hannah and I watched a neat video from the library about plant structure and growth. It was really interesting, and Hannah was proud of me for not falling asleep through it. =) It showed this neat experiment that Hannah wanted to do. It kind of worked for us. We put a stalk of celery in a glass of water with red food coloring. Then we took a flower and split it's stem down the middle so we could stick half of it in red water and half in blue. On the video they had a white carnation, so I wasn't sure how the yellow daffodil would turn out. They also had a carrot with its greenery still on top of it to stick in blue water, but I didn't have one.
As the plants soak up the water, the leaves on the celery were supposed to turn red, and the flower petals should have turned colors too. The carnation in the video ended up half blue and half red, so I thought our daffodil would be orange and green. When it's finished you can cut through the celery and see the xylem, the tissue of the plant that carries the water from the roots to the rest of the plant.
The celery worked pretty well. It took about a day before we could see any changes in the leaves, and at first I just wondered if they were turning brown. =) But, as you can see, the daffodil didn't really work. It was already starting to wilt when I picked it out of our yard, so maybe that was the problem. You could see where the red and blue did travel up the stem a little, but it just didn't make it to the blossom. I think I may actually buy a carnation next time I'm at the store. It was a neat experiment.

(Speaking of experimentation, notice the color change in my kitchen. Picking out colors is so hard for me, it's all guesswork as to what will actually look good on the walls. I'm going to put the second coat of paint on when I finish this. The color looks nicer on my walls than it does in the picture on this computer. At least I hope it does. We're having someone come in next week to paint the living room and formal dining room and do a little remodeling in the living room. I'll post some pictures when it's all done.)

My Take on American Idol

Alright, I'll admit to being an American Idol fan, and I feel it is time for me to weigh in with my opinion of this year. I like more contestants this year than I have in years past, and I actually don't know who I want to win yet. I think Chikezie got voted off too soon -- Kristy Lee Cook and Ramiele should have gone before him. Other than that, I think those voted off have been the ones who should have gone. I was hoping it would be Ramiele last night, which it was. I like her voice, I just haven't ever really liked anything she sang. And what on earth was she wearing last night?!! That was the worst outfit. I agreed with Simon about the fashion issue with Carly Smithson. I was really happy to see her wear something with sleeves last night. Maybe the tattoo on her arm shouldn't affect whether I like her, but honestly I can't help looking at it and wondering what kind of a picture it is when she wears sleeveless tops every performance. I think I would most likely want to listen to albums by Jason Castro and Brooke White. I like their musical style. I don't know why Jason has been in the bottom three so much when I actually like the way he sings. I knew Syesha was going to do the Whitney Houston song when they said it was Dolly week, and I knew they would chew her up for it. You would think from past years the contestants would learn not to sing a Whitney or Celine Dion song. The judges will never say the contestants measure up to them. I really like David Archuletta's voice, too. And I like David Cook, but I don't really like watching him. I don't know, last night he admitted to being a slob and that's kind of what he looks like to me. It's always interesting to see what he's going to do with his songs, but I don't know if I would actually buy an album of his. So I guess Jason Castro, Brooke White, and David Archuletta are my favorites. I do wonder if I cheer for Brooke and David A. because they are LDS. I don't know, but I do like their singing, too. So there you have it, my waste of time on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. =)