Trying to look on the bright side

Okay I'm gonna try to find the bright side of this story but first I need to tell you the nightmare the story. Our master bathroom sink had been running slow starting this summer. The bathtub in the main bathroom & only tub/shower in the house also started running slow. I decided to do the powerful drain cleaner, but not sure I used enough & was afraid to use more. Used the little snake & punched a hole in the drain of the sink. So that sink was out of commission. I bought a replacement part & Chris replaced it but it was still leaking. Since he's no plumber he told me to call the plumber. I called the plumber we've used for years & was recently out here to clear out our backed up washer drain. Fast Forward to the day he causes a huge mess puts the facuets & sink in......he broke 3 tiles in the tub around the facuet & popped a 4th loose. Also I just discovered he burned/scroched the floor in the coat closest. Which is where he had to cut through the wall to get access to the pipes. He left that night & left the water turned off too. When he was going to do the bill I asked him if I was going to get a discount for him breaking the tile. He said he'd have to ask the owner, I said "please do". They discounted the bill $10 an hour & took off 30 minutes of time. I think he forgot to charge me for the previous day. The day he unclogged the slow running drains. The facuets were dripping so I had decided to replace them. WHY I had to call the company back that night to tell them the tub facuet was still dripping & he had left his caulk gun & had left the water off. Not sure how it was brought up but he said that the guy told him he didn't break any tile. I told him he had to & he could come look if he wanted to. Of course he's not showed up! He told me that they discounted the bill & that should cover it. Right & we're out another $80 bucks an hour for no telling how long for them to fix that guys mistakes. Other than paying for a lawyer I think we're better off doing it ourselves. Chris's dad knows how to do tile stuff & has been over the last 2 nights working on the big gapping hole in the wall. Once he got the tiles out he discovered the drywall needs to be replaced. So last night was working on rigging up some wood to screw drywall into. Thank goodness for Wallace! We love him! Chris can do electrical & computer stuff but not the plumbing & woodworking stuff. So trying to find the bright side of this mess is that we know his dad loves us & is willing to help out & that means a lot to both of us. We know he loves us but when you have issues like this going on & trying to figure out a way to pay for another repair you'd never planned on in the first place. Thinking about your sons birthday party you are having in a few weeks for friends (his last big birthday party) & just having paid $1100 for doctor tests & the expense of school starting & all those supplies it's just hard to deal w/. So thank you Wallace. And it doesn't end there like you think. The drywall ended up being to thick so off I go on another trip to Home Depot to pick up the back board for tile. Okay not sure what I was thinking, I have both kids w/ me & I buy a like 5x7 piece of back board. It does fit into my car if I lay both back seats done thinking to self in panic mode where am I gonna fit both kids.....maybe Logan won't mind riding on top of car think to myself hum both kids are gonna have to just smush into front passenger seat. They didn't think kindly of this since the seat belt was digging into Logan back & Steph was half laying on her side so Logan could have the seat belt thing dig into his side. But being mom they did have their seat belt on. Like that would really help if we got pulled over. Can you hear it now "do you know why I stopped you?" me "well really officer not sure if Chris you know, my hubby who can't do tile work & your co-worker had me call a plumber &....................." don't think that'd flied. But even though I had ordered pizza for dinner, because Chris was late getting home from work & we saw at least seven officers on just Dixieland Rd. along we made it home safely w/ tile back board & pizza in tow.
Bright sides~getting to see father in law every day, having a father in law that is willing to help out his neighbors & kids in need, having a non drippy faucet w/ nice newly grouted tiles & it looks better than it has in years.

So major kuddos to Wallace! You are the BEST father in law ever thanks again!!

This one took a bit more work to pull

Logan had another tooth come out tonight. Dad had to get in on the act on this one to help him out since it was hanging by a thread & he wouldn't pull it. I decided to video & see what happened. He still has one more that is loose, so you'll be hearing from me again soon I have a feeling.

Another one bites the dust, & Toothfairy Times Take 3

Logan lost another tooth last night, the most unusual way. This was a top one & not even one of the 2 that we know are loose. We visited my parents over the weekend for my dads birthday. Logan came home w/ a large zip loc bag of Toothloose Rolls Tootsie Rolls. He was happily munching away, stopped & had the oddest look on his face. Needless to say that chewy chocolatey yumminess stuck right to his loose tooth. It actually buried the tooth right into the middle of the chewed up chocolate chunk of slimy Toostie Roll. At first we thought he swallowed the tooth because we couldn't find it. After we get him into the bathroom to spit I got the job of smushing the Tootsie Roll & sure enough stuck right smack dab in the middle was the tooth. Nothing like brushing chewed up Tootsie Roll off a tooth before you leave it for the Toothfairy. I also think she must have our home address saved into her Fairy GPS. She must also know Hadlley because other than the first visit the $2.00 from each visit has ended up ALL OVER his bed & EVEN under. Dollar bills the first & third visit. Quarters the second.

First Day of School

First day of 5th grade for Logan.

First day of 9th grade & high school for Stephanie.

Logan had a good day he said.

Stephanie didn't get lost even once so she was happy. The pep rallies was very peppy. And apparently their lemonaide & I quote is the best ever.

My first day back to work with kids at school was today. We had a new lunch schedule & it was hetic. Normal deposits are about $100.00 & todays was just over $2900.00. Not to mention a new computer system that wasn't working right this morning. We all survived though :)

Back to the real world

Back to work & school. Actually I had a couple half days Monday & Tuesday. But I got to sleep in some even though I had work those days. Tonight it's back to setting the alarm to a time that it'll actually go off while I'm still sleeping. I can't say I'm looking forward to it either. The kids aren't either. Logan doesn't want to go back because he had a great summer. He's only told me this about 14 times in the last 2 hours before he went to bed. Stephanie is very nervous about getting lost & has studied her map of the school since she got it last Thursday evening. So she's also not looking forward to going back. She keeps telling everyone that if she's never seen again she'll be somewhere in RHS. LOL Logan's teacher this year was his teacher from 2nd grade & Stephanies in 4th so that puts Logan at ease since he already knows her. He was jumping up & down when I called to tell him this morning Steph told me.

Last summer activity before school starts

Logan earned 2 free tickets to a Naturals baseball game on Sunday afternoon. He had to be one of the first 100 kids to read at least 20 hours & he did it. He was really looking forward to going & so I took him even though I'm not a sports fan. Stephanie enjoyed it also since the teen section didn't give out very good prizes this year. Other than sitting in the last row & not in the front row where they had a chance to get a ball or a t-shirt they had fun. We sit beside a couple Girl Scouts from our troop that were there & they had already choosen seats. I didn't take my camera becasue according to the radar it looked like we might get rained on. These pictures aren't good quality because I use mine & Steph's cell phones for them, lol. Better than nothing I guess.

Another one bites the dust.

Logan pulled another tooth this morning. Do you think he's figured out that he gets mucho dinero? A lot of money, do you think Chris will be proud of my Spanish? Granted I did have to look up to see how to correctly spell dinero. This tooth wasn't very loose either. And the loco (crazy lol) part is that he has 2 more loose. If he keeps going at this rate he'll be entering 5th grade w/ no teeth & poor parents toothfairy. The one that came out this morning is the opposite side of the one lost a couple days ago. So he's got matching gaps now.

Time to go fix lunch for the kiddos, my toothless boy is hungry. Not sure how he's gonna eat w/ all the missing teeth though lol. Knowing Logan I'm sure he'll find a way.

Pop-Up Pancakes

I subscribe to a yahoo group that sends out recipes occasionally. cammipea@yahoogroups.com I'll be honest & tell you I've never made any.....til this morning. If you know me at all, you know I'm no chef & never claim to be. I did have everything on hand for these & thought w/ 4 food critics here today since I'm babysitting it'd be a good thing to try out. School starts in a week so we'll see how well they freeze for a quick school morning breakfast. It says that it makes 24, I only ended up w/ 18. I do think I overfilled the muffin liners though because they really popped up. But as we know what goes up must come down, & they sure did. They fell big time & are ugly but they were still good. Here's the food critics & their opinions.

Allison ~ 4 stars Really unique & give the recipe to my mom.

Jenni ~ 4 stars They were fluffy.

Logan ~ 5 stars They were really good.

Stephanie ~ 2 stars They weren't really that great.

Ingerdients:

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

6 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

dash salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients in blender, & blend until smooth. Pour into extremely well greased muffin tins (makes 24). Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown "pop" them out of the tins, & top as desired.

Thanks again to Cammi for this wonderful, easy recipe.

Tooth Fairy Times

Logan has had a loose tooth for a few days. He's been saying it's bugging him. When he eats pizza it's the topping & then the bread. Apparently the bread was pretty sticky on this particular frozen pizza he had for lunch today because it pulled his loose tooth that wasn't even that loose! He was eating in Stephanie's bedroom & came running out saying "I got it" My first thought was he killed a spider because he doesn't like spiders & was proud of himself. Then he gets around the corner of the hall & I see he is holding something between his thumb & first finger. My thoughts now turn to WHAT DID HE GET. I know at this point it's not a spider. I ask what before he reaches me in case I need to run, lol. He says "my tooth". I'm in total shock. Now we are going to have a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight. I realize the picture isn't real good, but for some reason I was getting blurry pic's in the house & so we went outside. He was more intrested in the cars driving by & the bicycles than mom getting the perfect shot of the gapping hole. It's the red spot on the left side (his right).

Spur of the Moment day trip with the kids

I saw in the paper Saturday morning that Missouri was doing the tax free weekend.
Don't get me started on how stupid insane AR is for not having our own tax free weekend.

Since the kids have stained outgrown most of their winter clothes I thought it might be a good idea to drive up to MO to spend save some money. I had planned to take them to buy shoes anyways (in AR). I checked online (love store locators) & saw that Joplin has a Shoe Carnival. Buying shoes is no "Carnival" more like just put a bullet in my head & get me out of my misery but oh well, the kids & I needed shoes. Joplin is just over an hour (10 min's over to be exact) away. That's basically like driving to my parents in Huntsville so I could justify it to "save" some $'s. I call Retha to go & find out Wallace didn't feel good & then call Deena, then my mom, who is saving money for a Tulsa trip w/ some online friends of ours in just a few weeks. I get a text from my sister saying her boyfriend was off the whole weekend & she didn't want to go either. So feeling pity for myself that noone wants to go w/ me I decided to go by myself w/ the kids. I'm glad I did, we really did have a good time & no bullets needed during the shoe store or any store. After a fairly easy shoe buying time we are all getting hungry so using the trusty GPS we look up a food place. Taco Bell was the choice so off we go .4 miles down the road. Glad we chose Taco Bell & not Burger King carbon-monoxide filled restaraunt. A guy that worked at BK sat eating his tacos & called all his friends that answered the phone about 5 people to inform them that corporate wouldn't let his manager shut down the place. It got really funny & I couldn't help being happy when his gripe session break was over.

Off to Northpark Mall which happened to be right across from Shoe Carnival. Sears & Old Navy was on the list of stops there. Both happened to be right beside each other. Then over to Target, which was just one parking lot over. I mean every store I wanted to go to was within sight of each other. Logan ended up with new shoes & a couple long sleeve shirts. Stephanie ended up w/ 3 polo shirts & 2 layering tees. She even picked pink, can you believe it?

I know this is long & rambling but it lives up to the name of my blog doesn't it?

Tulsa Zoo with Grandma

Retha took the kids to the Tulsa zoo one hot Tuesday. Stephanie begged & begged to go & finally Retha decided it would be a good idea. Earlier this year both Retha & I got door hangers for free zoo tickets. So they got in for free. Not a bad deal. Since I don't like zoos I skipped out on this outing.

Doesn't this monkey looked relaxed?

This ostrich photo Retha took makes me smile everytime I look at it. Looks like he's saying "hi"

Notice Logan's reflection in the lower left? That's really cool Retha. Two thumbs up on this shot.

And last but not least, both kids posing for more photos. Grandma is as bad as me when it comes to taking photos. But even with not so great vision in one eye I think she did pretty well capturing the day.

Are you serious?

Are you serious?

WHAT?

Are you kidding me?

I'm not sure what Steph is thinking or just said, but I laugh every time I see this picture. I just love the expression on her face. It just make me smile.