Cute conversation

Ryan entertains us with the cutest conversations these days. It's so fun to see how his little mind is thinking about things. As we were leaving the house today, Hannah asked me not to go too fast because she thought she would get carsick. Ryan said, "No, the car won't get sick!"

A little later Nikki was talking about how excited she was for October to almost be here. Ryan asked why she was saying that, so we explained to him that October has Halloween in it which means we get to dress up in costumes. Ryan popped in with, "Yes! I'm going to be a train tracks, and Daddy will be Thomas!" OK, well, we'll see what Daddy thinks about that. :)

Then somehow he and Nikki were talking about how old they are. Ryan said, "I'm three and four." Nikki corrected him and said that he will be turning four next year. Ryan's response: "Yes, then I'll be baptized."

He really is a cute little boy, and when he's talking at the top of his lungs in church or begging to not have quiet time in the afternoon or demanding his oatmeal at just the right temperature at breakfast, I just have to remember these moments!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

Here is a video we made for Nate's dad who is turning 80 in a few days. We're so sad we'll miss his party, so we wanted to tell him we love him even though we won't be there. This is a good representation of what Ryan is usually like during family night, but we did the best we could!

Lack of Blogging

It's not that I don't have anything to blog about. It's just that I used to be lazy. I had more time than I knew what to do with. I had discretionary time. I had a few hours of my own most days, well at least a couple of hours. For someone who is laid-back and kind of a go-with-the-flow type of person, being busy all day everyday is a little shocking. And it is also really great. Don't get me wrong. I'm just finding that since I don't seem to have as much downtime these days, when I do I don't want to get sucked into the computer. And when I do get online it's a lot easier and quicker to check a few blogs than to write my own post. Life is good, busy, challenging, and I'm happy with it. Well, I'm not happy that our van window got stuck half-way open and it's raining tonight. We knew it was going to rain, so we pushed our uninstalled kitchen cabinets to the back of the garage so we could pull the van in at least half way and keep the window dry. Our neighbors must get a kick out of us.

Insanity

If Nate ever wanted tangible proof of how crazy I am, this picture is it. I'm getting new cabinets for our anniversary this year. What does that say about how romantic I am that I would rather have kitchen cabinets than the amazing vacation we could pay for with the same money? I also want new wood floors, so that means we get to install and stain our cabinets ourselves. Here comes another adventure! Getting the cabinets down was Nate's job. Those 23-year-old screws were so insanely hard to get out, I couldn't believe it. I also was surprised that the only thing holding up the cabinets are a few screws. I thought for sure they would be liquid nailed to the wall or something. We put a lot of weight in there!

We got a quote for custom cabinets, but I just couldn't do it. It feels like I'll never get my floors if we put that much into the cabinets. I've lived with broken cabinets for a year and a half, and I am just done waiting. So, I'm crossing my fingers that we can make it look nice and that we don't end up eating out for the next month because I can't find my kitchen!

By the way, last week was a great first week of school -- until Friday. I think it's kind of funny that we didn't even get five days in before complete meltdowns. The problem was piano lessons, and I think I'm done. They are going to someone else for lessons this Friday whether they want to or not. If they tell me I do a crummy job teaching grammar that won't offend me because they're probably right. But fussing at me over piano just gets a little too personal for me when it's something I love so much. I can't take it, and I just don't have to. It's really more about me than them.