A Long Post

Last Sunday I started to write an update for the blog and I had to take a break from writing in the evening to get some stuff done and then feed Courtland. I must have been tired, since I fell asleep holding the baby while he drank his bottle around 8pm and I slept in the rocking chair until Michael woke me up to go up to bed that night. So anyways, here’s what I started to write last week:

We’ve been so busy and gotten quite a bit accomplished since I wrote last. We closed on the house, and besides the fact that I got lost and almost didn’t make it to the bank and the lawyer’s office for the closing on time, it all went very smoothly. We are pretty close to being done with all of the unpacking – we just have a handful of boxes left in our room to unpack now – although we still haven’t found our can opener yet (it was quite the sight to see us trying to use a pair of scissors and a hammer to open some cans we needed for a dinner we had planned last week).

And the house is pretty much all the way furnished now (mostly thanks to craigslist). We already had our dining room table and chairs and our washer and dryer delivered from the store last week, and we got an entertainment center, an antique dresser with a mirror for our bedroom, two couches, a china cabinet, a little folding table, and four matching bookshelves all off of craigslist. I was very disappointed when after spending quite some time cleaning and polishing the dresser and replacing the knobs (since one was missing when we bought it) we moved the dresser into place in our bedroom and the mirror fell off the back of the dresser and crashed into hundreds of tiny pieces. Luckily the frame for the mirror wasn’t damaged so I got a replacement mirror on craigslist too and I’m planning on trying to use some stained glass cutting tools to cut the mirror to fit the frame – we’ll see how that goes, although I do have my doubts that I can do it without breaking it.

When we drove out here we came through Omaha and we stopped for just about an hour to see our friends, the Hymases, who recently left Milwaukee and bought a house there. The boys were excited to play on the swing set that was in their back yard. So not long after we arrived at our house one of the boys informed me that our back yard wasn’t any fun. We had planned on eventually getting a play set for our backyard, but things like a washer and dryer and a table to eat at were a little higher priorities for us. So I went on craigslist and posted a wanted ad, saying that I was wondering if there was anyone who was getting rid of an old playset or selling one for cheap. This very kind person wrote me back and offered us their swing set for free – her kids were all teenagers and they weren’t using it anymore. So we just got that set up the other day and the boys have really enjoyed playing on it (we’ll see if the novelty of it wears off after a while, but at least for this week they have really used it even more than I thought they would). And it’s in pretty good shape for a set that is a few years old. So that is really nice.

We’ve also started painting. I’ve learned that the taping and cleanup take more time than the actual painting. We painted the family room and the hallway by the front door a neutral tan color. We got a 5 gallon can of paint in that color because we’re planning on using that for the most rooms in the house – the family room, kitchen, both bathrooms, the hallways and stairways, the basement, and the master bedroom (I haven’t decided what color to do the study yet). And we were thinking to do a slightly darker shade of that same tan color below the chair rail in the front hallway and the kitchen area by the back door. Then the plan will be to paint the living room a darker brown color (the color of the study in my parents’ house), the dining room a dark red (the color of Mels’ dining room), Eli and Isaac’s room a blue color (I think I’m going to match a really pretty color from one of the airplanes that I’m planning on hanging in their room), and Kolby and Camden’s room a green color (I think I’ve decided to match the color of green from the baby quilt that my mom made when Kolby was born, rather than the darker green color I was thinking of before). So, that’s the plan. Right now we are waiting because we are going to borrow a wallpaper steamer from a friend of a friend, because I think the kitchen is the next room on the list.

We’ve also finished a lot of little projects around the house. We . . .

And that’s where I got before falling asleep last week. Since I wrote that, we have had several opportunities to get together with some of Michael’s coworkers. On Friday evening the Houk family from church kindly offered to babysit for us so we could do a little splurge and go out to see the new Harry Potter movie with several of the other derm residents. Then this weekend there was an SHA (Strong House Staff Association [Michael works at Strong Memorial Hospital]) ‘meet and greet.’ There were residents and their families from all different specialties and we met a lot of new people (many of whom I will not remember their names, but I’m sure we’ll get to know them a little better if we start going to the many activities they have organized). And then we had a picnic at a park not far from our house with the dermatology residents and doctors who Michael works with and the doctors in the community that they work with too, and all their families. Although the boys kept us very busy at that picnic, it was fun to see everyone. Michael and I both like the group of residents that he works with, and I was glad to find out that it seems like they get together pretty regularly outside of work, which is a nice change from the group last year (who were just all too busy and had conflicting schedules so it didn’t work out to get together very often at all). So, that was nice. Plus some of the girls at church are starting up a summer playgroup tomorrow morning, so that will be really nice too. The way they have the playgroup organized is they usually have it at a park, and then someone who lives near that park is the backup to have it at their house in case it rains. In another week I am the backup, and I almost hope it rains so people can some over to our house, but either way it will be a good opportunity for us to get to know people.

So, at church today Courtland tried a sippy cup for the first time. When we packed the diaper bag before church this morning, Michael thought I grabbed a bottle and I thought he grabbed it, so we ended up without one. Michael and I were asked to substitute for the 7-year old primary class at church this Sunday and next Sunday. So, when we realized that we didn’t have a baby bottle and Courtland was getting fussy I went out in the hall and walked around to see if there happened to be any other moms with babies out in the halls that I might be able to borrow a bottle from, but no one was out there. So I finally decided to mix up his formula in a sippy cup. I took the valve out of the cup so the formula would come out easily, but that made it flow too quickly, so I had to keep taking it out of his mouth every few seconds so he wouldn’t choke, which he was not happy about. Anyways, I spent a good amount of time out in the hall today with the baby while Michael taught the primary class, but at least the kids in the class were well behaved and so that wasn’t too difficult.

Oh, and Michael and I both have callings at church now. He is the new ward scout committee chairman, and today they asked me to be an assistant achievement days teacher. Neither of us are totally sure yet what our callings entail, but Michael’s calling sounds like he will be dealing more with the scout leaders and volunteers than with the scouts themselves, but he will be doing boards of reviews and eagle scout courts of honor and stuff like that. And the achievement days program in our church is the program for girls ages 8 to 11. They hold activities twice a month during the school year. And I was told that the teacher I will be working with has some health problems, so I may just be assisting her or I might end up being in charge of everything on my own if the other teacher isn’t able to. So, we’ll both learn more about our responsibilities as time goes by, but both of those callings sound like they should end up being good experiences once we figure out what we are doing.

Oh, Grandma Faun and my brother, Aaron, were here for several days last week. When each of my siblings and I turned 13 my grandma took each of us on a history/church history trip to the east coast and some Midwest states. She decided to delay Aaron’s trip a year (since he’s 14 now) so they could come out and see us here at our house after we moved. So we enjoyed having them here with us. One night we all went to the Hill Cumorah Pageant together, which is a big outdoor show of several of the stories from The Book of Mormon. I was surprised that all of our children did very well, except that Isaac was not interested in sitting still after very long, but Kolby, Eli, and even Camden sat and watched the entire show intently. It was a very nice night out. Aaron was so good to play with the boys while they were here too – they all had so much fun with him! The last day they were here we went downtown and got a season pass to the children’s museum. I guess the museum here is the 2nd largest children’s museum in the country, and we were there for about 3 hours and we only got through maybe 2/3 of the museum. So that will be really nice to have a pass and be able to go back anytime we like, especially in the winter. After we spent the day at the museum, I asked Aaron if he had fun and he has such a good attitude – he said, “I always have fun playing with the boys.”

Speaking of good experiences with our brothers, Michael got a long phone call the other day from his brother, Alan. Over the last year while we were in Utah we were barely able to see Alan and his family at all since they didn’t want to do much with the family. I think it really made Michael feel bad that they didn’t want to do anything with us while we were there. So we were really surprised and pleased when Alan called the other day and apologized and Michael said that it was like Alan was back to his old self again. I’m really glad that they were able to repair that relationship and am hopeful that things will continue in this direction.

Oh, and Courtland is doing well. He started rolling over a few times from his back to his tummy while Grandma and Aaron were here (Aaron was patient enough to wait and finally caught it on video the day after Courtland started doing it, so I’ll have to post that soon). He also started eating solid foods this last week. When Camden and Isaac were babies they both hated baby food – feeding them involved us holding them down and forcing it down their throat while they screamed and sputtered (which, as you might guess, didn’t last for very long before we gave up on feeding them baby food and just waited until they were a little bigger before they just switched to table food). Fortunately, Courtland is not like his two older brothers. He loves his daily rice cereal meal, and I’m assuming that he will enjoy it when we start the vegetables before too long also. Oh, and his torticollis seems to be improving on its own too. He doesn’t hold his head to one side as much as he used too. We are going to set up doctor’s appointments for the kids as soon as the new health insurance cards arrive in the mail, but we’re wondering if he’ll even need physical therapy by then or not. So that is good.

So, when I was writing last week I was starting to tell all the little projects we’ve been working on before I fell asleep. So, we’ve been quite busy getting lots done around here. Michael and I painted the family room. Then I painted the hallway that leads to the front door. And I removed all the wallpaper from the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom (now we just have a border to remove from the study upstairs and we will be totally wallpaper free). Then I painted the kitchen, which took forever since there are so many little areas to paint around the windows and cupboards, but I finished that (except we want to paint a slightly darker shade of paint below the chair rail, so we are waiting to decide on the exact paint color for that before we’re totally done in there). I polished the dresser we got, which made it look really nice. And since the dresser turned out so well, I decided to polish my cute little six-legged table that I got at a garage sale a few years ago in Milwaukee, and it turned out really nice too. (Our camera stopped working a week or so ago and we are waiting to send it in to be repaired, so I just took photos of it with the cell phone, so we’ll have to see if you can really see the difference in those little poor quality cell phone photos or not). We have gotten almost all of the furniture moved in and put in place (except for one couch that is still in the garage that we are waiting to move inside until we decide exactly where we want it. We got the computer all set up with wireless for the laptop. I got some long screws and screwed the top half of the new china cabinet to the bottom half and then got a stud finder and attached it with some child safety furniture straps to the wall behind it so it won’t be easy for a baby to tip over. Last night we got a shelf set up in the closet that we are using as a pantry, so now we’ve been able to clear all the groceries off the kitchen counters. We have emptied every moving box (now we’re just down to a few random bags of odds and ends that we need to find places for, and pictures that we need to unwrap and hang up). We found the cord for the digital piano so Kolby has been able to practice again – we still need to find a piano teacher out here. We sold the old dirty fridge that the previous owners left, so that cleared up a little more space in the garage. We have started on some of the yard work, including some weeding in the front yard, in a flower patch on the side of the house, in a corner of the back yard, and in the planting area right behind the deck – plus I dug out the grass next to that planting area so it now runs the entire length of the deck. The boys caught a frog one day last week in the back yard, and we kept it to show daddy before letting it go down by the stream in the woods across the street. I got all of the china set up in the china cabinet. Michael got the tv and movie players all set up. We organized the dishes in the kitchen and the things in the linen closet. Michael has mowed the lawn a couple times, and we are making plans for where the vegetable garden will go next spring. I got a replacement chain link from home depot and fixed the one swing on the swing set that had come down on one side. Oh, and when you walk through the woods here there are these beautiful ferns and moss growing on lots of the rocks, and on a couple of our walks through the woods I’ve tossed a couple of those mossy rocks into the bottom of the stroller and brought them home and placed them in the yard. I figure that eventually I’ll collect enough mossy rocks from around our yard (I keep finding more as I weed out different flower beds) so that I can have some nice little borders to the planting areas. We got some of our old rugs set out in the basement so that we have some temporary flooring down there until we finish the basement. I got Aaron to help me and we hung the airplanes from the ceiling in Eli and Isaac’s room. They look really nice, and that room will look even better once we paint the walls and if I can find a couple more planes. And we’ve picked out some rugs that we like for the family room and living room, we just need to wait until we’ve got a few paychecks before getting those. We also got the study all set up – there is a couch, four bookshelves full of books, a little folding table, and I am repairing the chair that my parents gave me when I was in high school and hopefully it will be sturdy enough to be used again and it can go in that room. The boys really like taking turns sitting in the study and reading or coloring – it’s a special thing that they get to take turns doing one at a time.

And yesterday at Home Depot we picked up a couple sample paint colors for under the chair rail in the kitchen and hallway, and we got the paint for the dining room. I am excited to eventually do some nice white wainscoting panels in the dining room. I also need to touch up a few spots in the kitchen where the paint peeled off when I took off the painters tape for some reason. We also got some dirt to fill in a low spot on one side of the house. And we got a fertilizer that will kill the weeds that were growing all through the grass when we moved here. So those things should keep us busy for a while longer. But we are getting pretty close to finishing our first goal – the downstairs. Once we get the painting done and get the rugs in downstairs and we get the chair rail and the trim around the kitchen counters replaced (the previous owners didn’t use real wood trim, they used this fake stuff that snapped into pieces when I tried to take it down so I could remove the wallpaper), then the downstairs will be pretty much done. Oh, and I will probably want to go through the house and touch up the white paint on the trim that needs it, and on a few places on the ceiling where we accidently got paint. But that will get the downstairs basically done for now. We are also planning on replacing all the light fixtures except the one in the downstairs bathroom. After we get the upstairs all painted, we will eventually want to redo the tile in the upstairs bathroom and finish the basement. And I’d like to plant a few new plants in the yard too – some lilac bushes and some more clematis vines.

We’re surely not lacking for things to do, but it is fun to have our own place and see the gradual progress that we are making. Well, sorry this was such a long post, but I’ve been feeling like I was neglecting the blog since we moved so now I’m caught up. I’ll have to try to get some photos posted before too long also.