February 2017

This post has been sitting in draft for months.  It's time to get back on the blogging band wagon.  Our lives have been so busy lately that I'm forgetting things I want to remember.  I need to do better which means I need to make the time for it.  I have the time if I use it wisely.  Anyway, here's our February nutshell, in an effort to get us caught up.

This little girl at tennis cracked me up!  After doing drills for a while the kids all have to help clean up.  Many use their rackets or ball hoppers to clean up the balls.  This girl got creative with her shirt!  I was laughing and needed the picture!

The Mia Maids in our ward (who I was serving as an advisor for at the time) had a combined activity with the teachers and the teacher were in charge.  So, they had a spaghetti tower building contest--very YM-type of activity.  Our girls worked hard, but ultimately lost.

This little girl has struggled with going to Preschool ever since Christmas (which is right when I was called to YW and started going out on Wednesday nights) but Valentine's Day was exciting for her.  It was her first time exchanging Valentine's with friends and she was so excited to be a "big girl"!

Ahhh....the painting of Kai's room.  It is a dark blue ceiling and a gray wall.  Unfortunately, the wall looks more blue-gray than Kai and I wanted but I'm not up for painting it again, so we're making do.

Finn's room with painting done, but old carpet and baseboards still in.

On an off-day from school we headed to Park Meadows mall.  I love the Disney store and can be brought to tears just standing there at looking at all of the Disney items.  My kids love the screen where they can watch clips of various Disney shows.  I look forward to 30 minutes in this store a few times a year.  

We really went to the mall, though, so the boys could buy some things from the Lego store with their allowance money.  There ended up being a sale on mini-figures that day and so they got 4 for the price of 3 and so they both took a very.long.time building min-figures.  Kai was by far the slowest.  Finn built all of his figures with tennis rackets which made me smile!

While we were waiting for Kai to finish up we took a picture with this lego creation.

Poor Bree saw me from this angle a lot that month as I worked to get Kai's room done.  In the last 14 months I've now painted 4 rooms and I'm feeling burnt out.  I still have to do one more, but I just can't quite muster up the motivation.

Ahhh....February 23rd.  Bree and I were headed to the kick-off event for this year's Great Strides walk.  It was being hosted at a bar down in the Springs and there was going to be pizza and visiting.  It was snowing off and on that day and I had previously been on the roads by my house earlier in the day and had noticed how treacherous they were.  When Bree and I headed out that night it had started snowing again and I had felt like I needed to take my time and just not worry about being punctual.  At the light near my house I was stopped behind a clearly older gentleman (driving a Lincoln Town Car made it more obvious) and I had the impression that I needed to give him plenty of room as we followed in case of ice.  Of course, once the light turned green, that impression was forgotten and I began to follow along like all of the traffic does on that stretch of road.  It's a narrow two-lane road where everyone follows along like ants in a line.  We were no more than a half mile from the house when I noticed that he began to fishtail.  I cautiously slowed down, but did not want to slam on the brakes because he was slipping that wouldn't be a good idea.  I was hoping he would be able to pull out of it and just when it looked like he had it under control, he lost all control.  He veered into oncoming traffic and crashed into a white BMW head on and then crossed back into our lane.  I had, in the meantime, stepped on the brake and was just slightly steering to the right to try to avoid the accident, but there is no shoulder on this road and there was no where to go.  When his car crossed back in to my lane he managed to just clip my front end which ended up propelling the van in the direction the wheels were turning, which was to the right--right into the ditch.  My first thought was that the impact wasn't too bad and we weren't in bad shape.  And then I looked out the passenger window and saw we were headed straight toward a culvert.  At that point I began to pray that the van would stop soon.  I knew the culvert was not good news and would turn an ok situation into a nightmare.  Luckily, the van stopped inches from the culvert.

However, it left us at very frightening angle.  While the other two cars involved were totalled and left sitting in the middle of their lanes completely blocking traffic from both directions, we were balanced precariously on the edge of this cliff and I was not comfortable remaining in the van.  I grabbed my purse and Bree and out we hopped.  It was bitter, bitter cold and I did not want to stand outside with Bree but I did not want to roll with the van either.  Thankfully a sweet woman by the name of Aubrey saw me getting out of the van and she said the minute she saw I had a kid she knew she needed to stop.  She pulled into the grassy field ahead of us and gave us a warm car to sit in while we waited for the police to arrive and tell us what to do.  She was with us for an hour while I tried to figure out how to handle the situation.  It took 15 minutes just for the cops to arrive and then they had to interview everyone, direct traffic around the smashed vehicles, call a tow truck to remove the two cars from the roadway, and gather information.  Because my car was "minor" compared to the rest involved, I did not see or hear from the police much.  Bree and I visited with Aubrey and her 3 year-old Austin and waited.  When the police did come to talk to me they asked for license, registration, and insurance.  I only had one out of the three as the other two were in the glovebox and I did not want to climb to that side of the car to get them.  The police man took one look at the van and agreed that we could skip those documents.  Shewww! Eventually, I had a ward friend head to my house to stay with the boys so that Reid could come out to grab Bree and take her home.  He then left all 3 kids with our friend and came out to get me.  The other two vehicles were towed within 2 hours of the accident but the van remained there on the cliff for another two more hours.  At 10pm when the tow truck finally got back to our van (he had been off at a multi-vehicle pile up that also included a fire truck stuck on an icy road) he needed two trucks hooked up to the van to pull the front and back at the same time in hopes it wouldn't roll.  The police drove by right as the process started and ended up shutting down the road again as they worked to pull my van out of the ditch.  At the first pull the car lurched back and for a half a second I thought it was done for, but they were able to stop it and then jerked fast and hard on both chains and the same time and got it out.  By then they decided that I probably should not drive it, just in case (I had completely planned on driving it away) and it was off to the tow yard.  I spent all day Friday talking to the insurance companies involved, arranging for a rental van, and trying to find a body shop to take my car.  Finally at the end of the day I was able to arrange for the van to be towed to a shop, but due to the weekend, it didn't happen until Monday.  My van remained in the shop for nearly a month.  My kids grew to love our rental van--a Chrysler Pacifica--and were sad to see it go.  I was happy to get my car back, but really it made no difference.  We had a van and were not paying the bill, so it all worked out.

Skipping Ahead (for now)

Last night was a milestone night in our house.  After three months of preparations, our boys finally moved into separate rooms in our downstairs/basement.  During the course of the last three months, I have painted and planned and thought about the little details, and it was exciting to see some of it come together.  This past Monday we had the mudjackers come out to fix the sunken slab issues in Finn's soon-to-be room.  It took about two hours (actually, the front walkway which had a horrible trip hazard took the longest of that time) and when they were done we no longer had a gap between our drywall and our slab for mice to run it.  Then on Friday morning the carpet arrived.  Once again it took them about two hours to get both rooms carpeted and then they were out of here.  After they left we vacuumed the new carpet and ran to Lowe's to grab our baseboads.  We still don't have the baseboards installed, but on Saturday morning we began the move.  While we listened to General Conference the kids ran up and down the stairs with their stuff.  Finn was killing me.  He was trying to move one stuffed animal at a time.  It was going to take forever!  Kai was not much better.  And of course, in the process they found toys that they had not seen in a while and had to start playing with them.

With help from me on the moving end, and with Reid building and then taking apart and building furniture again, by the afternoon session we were about done.  We organized new closets and made mental lists of furniture that we needed.  Bree and Finn enjoyed playing in Finn's room with all of his new found treasures.  Poor Finn has had his stuff crammed into one corner of a closet for the last 4 years and so many things that he would have played with just didn't even get seen or found.  Having his own closet is going to be a huge blessing for him in many respects.  Kai will also enjoy his own closet, but it's not quite as big of a deal for him.  What Kai needed was space.  Space to read, space to be alone, space to have quiet.  He is getting older and needing more personal, private time and having to share a room with a little brother who always wants to play and doesn't understand when his brother doesn't want to play, was getting hard.  And of course, there's the tricky balance that came when one of them got sick.  Finn has been sick this week and there have been several nights that Kai has been woken up by us cleaning up Finn's throw up or trying to help Finn blow his nose to cut down on coughing, etc.  Honestly, it was time for them.

But just because it was time, doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't emotional for them.  Around 8pm last night, as Finn was doing treatments, Finn commented to me that he was remembering staying up in his bed talking to Kai at night and that he was feeling sad that that could not happen anymore.  And last night when I laid down with Kai in his bed at bed time he told me the room felt lonely as he wiped a stray tear from his face.  It's definitely a new chapter for them but I think it will be a good one.  I'm hoping that by giving them their own space that the times they do come together will be more thoroughly enjoyed and more special.  And with their own place to retreat they can also have places to do what they want to do without feeling the burden of having to be with each other.  

Last night when I went to bed, it was strange to stand in the kitchen and see the door to their old room open--and empty.  I went in and found this lone fish tank standing on a lone dresser, with a few random toys strewn on the carpet in an otherwise empty room.  It was nice to rinse some dishes and not worry about the clanging waking up the kids.  (Although watching TV last night before bed was a bit nerve-racking as their rooms are now directly outside of our TV room.)

This morning Finn woke up first and came right upstairs.  He said he slept well.  I was shocked that Kai continued to sleep and found something else I was grateful for--that each kid can have his own schedule now.  No more being woken up when the other wakes up, and no need to keep a tired or sick kid up later than necessary just because we can't put the other one to bed yet.  And then, Finn grabbed Bree and without even asking they took off down to his room to play (in the past there would be fear of going downstairs and lots of begging mom to come but I sat on the couch and watched and then even asked where they were going--I was shocked).  Kai woke up a little while later and said good morning to them and then returned to his room to read a book quietly in bed.  When I went down to give Finn meds, that's how I found them--Bree and Finn playing nicely in Finn's room and Kai enjoying a book in his new room.  It made me happy.

We still have things to do to "finish" the rooms.  We have pictures and decorations to hang on the walls, baseboards to put up, and some furniture to buy to fill it in, but right now these kids are happy with their spaces.  And while it makes me sad that they are growing up way too fast, so am I.

The empty old bedroom, late at night (sorry for the bad lighting)

Part of creating a space for the boys downstairs included making sure the bathroom was an inviting place.  I was surprised by how much a lighter paint color, nice warm large bath mat, and new shower curtain pulled it all together.

The view from the door to Kai's new room.  He has gray walls (which look blue!), and a royal blue ceiling.  He wanted to keep the bunkbeds but because the ceiling is lower in this room we have moved him to the bottom bunk.

The ledge under the window was an oak color that lat minute we decided to paint white.  I really like it.  We will put the dresser on this wall just as soon as we move it.

Kai's closet.  I have a few things that need to be put up on higher shelf still but you can see that also last minute we decided to tray to paint the closet white.  That's another story, but you will notice that no one else in our house has a white closet (they are all the old beige color that our house came in) and there is a reason for that!  Also, see the door out to the TV room.  If you look closely you can see the line where the old carpet ends and the new carpet begins.  The new carpet is so soft and so plush.  I love it!  Hopefully we will eventually put the same carpet, or at least the same style of carpet, throughout the rest of the basement.

One final angle of the room

The view of Finn's room from the door area.  Finn loves having a slide off of his bed and a fort under his bed.  He's not convinced about the stuffed animals being in that fort (and I'm sure he's not happy about the bins of medical supplies I put under there) but I'm sure we can figure it out. And that carpet--can I say heaven?!

His closet.  Yes, it's beige and it will stay that way unless a professional painter comes to our house.

The other wall of the bedroom.  This picture doesn't look great but I actually like this area.  We need some things on the wall, but that will come.  This wall is gray (I know it's hard to tell in the lighting), and one a half walls are "lawn party green".  The half way didn't show up in these pictures but it's the wall his bed is against.  I couldn't get a picture of that corner of the room because the lamp was there and it just wasn't working.  I'll try later.