Other Collin "news"...when he is tired, we'll put our head to the side on our hands and say "nigh-night?" and he just giggles. Almost every time. Even if he is super tired and a little cranky. So cute. He has also become very attached to his blue blankie. He wasn't initially but now, he loves to grab it and sort of attacks it. He buries his head in it and laughs. He squeals when he sees it. Again, so cute, but with his cold and love of bringing it downstairs now, I'm entering the "how in the world do I keep this remotely clean and still have it available for his two naps and nightime?" zone. Moms have to be so sneaky!
He is definitely our climber! Still trying to climb and darn it if he isn't growing and getting smarter so that he is actually succeeding now! In the sunroom, he'll move or turn over a toy to step up on it and reach something higher. He's trying to climb up on the couch, climbed up on Kate's purple chair and my step stool in the kitchen. I am so scared of if/when he climbs out of his crib! Kate never did that. and don't they just fall? Ahh!
The big news with Kate is that we have 4-year old Kindergarten registration tomorrow at New Lisbon Elementary. She has been attending a preschool/daycare in a church in New Lisbon for three days a week and in the fall, she will go to the "big kid" school about the same amount of time. Right now, she is excited and honestly, so am I (okay, I'm a little emotional too:) Being somewhat new to the area and not being plugged into any school district, I feel out of the loop about so many things! It is fun to do all these new things with Kate - but she certainly is our "learner" baby/child:)
One of her favorite things these days...beltin' out the songs of Frozen! (I need to get some video) Oh yeah. She knows them. All of them. If you ask her...she likes Elsa cuz she has snow powers. She likes Olaf, obviously. Okay. I'll be honest here. We all like the movie. We all belt out the songs:) We just bought the movie, so I'm sure we have a lot of movie watching in the future. Might be nice on all these cold days we are having instead of a normal spring! When we have had a little snow lately, she says she likes it but she'll also say, "Oh no....Daddy will be so sad. He wants to drive the boat." :) Yup.
So...owning a home is awesome. Yep, most of the time. I had been smelling a yuck smell for about a day and I checked the normal culprits...Abby's bed, the diaper pails, etc. I didn't find anything and Dave was thinking I was crazy. Then yesterday, Dave smelled it too. It was driving me more crazy and finally after we had the kids in bed, we started walking the house to try and figure it out. We noticed it was worse near the vents, so Dave opened up our crawl-space hatch....oh.shit. Literally. Sewer backup. Why? Why?! Ugh, of course it was 10 p.m. at night. Dave called a plumber we have used before and he agreed to try and fit us in the next day. We called ServPro to come clean it up. We surveyed the damage - not bad at all considering the potential. We couldn't use water, flush, etc. which is always so fun.
I have pictures. I won't post them. :)
This morning Dave was able to stay home and coordinate some of the clean up/repair, then he had to go in to the hospital, so I was here when the workers were here. First ServPro and boy was I impressed! Amazing and the crawl-space is like new. As soon as they left, the plumbers showed up and they set to work on figuring out what happened, the guess was a blockage from something that went down the drain. Turned out that the grinder pump had so much grease that the floats had adhered to the pump and therefore stopped working. Good news - not replacing the grinder pump! Bad news, they told me to not put as much grease down the drain. I don't put grease down the drain! How is this happening. Honestly, we don't eat salads for every meal, but we eat pretty well and I don't use margarine (the guy mentioned it) make bacon, etc. very often. When I do spoon off grease or whatever, I dispose of in the trash after it cools. How am I supposed to make sure it doesn't happen again? The grinder pump is only one year old, this happened in one year. Grr. Oh well, we are very happy to have it all fixed, it all clean. And here's the takeaway: don't take flushing and washing for granted! And make sure you have water backup coverage under your homeowners insurance:(
We had a similar situation 13 months ago (yes, Collin was 10 days old) It was worse in that we had to replace the grinder pump ($$$$) but better because the alarm sounded and we didn't have water and such backed up into the crawl-space.
Oh my gosh, I almost forgot! In exciting and frustrating news:) I am Kate's soccer coach for the next two months! I was very excited about her trying a team sport. The local soccer league is pretty big and just once a week, so we were going to try it. They had a pretty extensive web site which I was happy about, however, when I tried to get her signed up , it was super confusing and I ended up needing to email the administrator, blah, blah, blah. I spoke with someone and got Kate signed up. They have posted everywhere that they need parents to pitch in and volunteer. I told them I'd be happy to help out in some way. I received some emails from some board members saying they would really like it if I could coach.
Well, I went to the big meeting and of course, they are still in need of coaches. I check the roster and of course Kate's team is the only one in her 3/4 age group that still needs one. A couple days later, I get a call from Mary on the Board and she convinces me to become a coach.
I am actually really excited about it. I have wanted to coach youth sports and know that I would eventually do this. I am quite passionate about it and almost wrote my senior paper on youth sports and the crazy parents (ended up writing it on childhood obesity). However, I never thought I would coach soccer! I have never played and know nothing about it! Luckily, it is a 4-year old team:) I also don't like doing things at the last minute. Our first practice is Tuesday. Nice. Nothing like being prepared. And, I am new to the area and the soccer club. If we had done a year already or something and knew anything, that would help, but I didn't even know what equipment they needed, where the fields were or how long the season was! So...though it is not exactly as I imagined it, I am happy to start coaching!
 |
| Playing soccer last summer...:) |
Oops, looking back at some pics, looks like I forgot some things...
 |
| Dressed up for church |
 |
| She was sick this day, but found the the energy to pick out her outfit and find some glasses (not sunglasses, she says) |
 |
| Favorite spot - gate open and just hanging on. He'll chatter pretty loudly right there, telling us how it is:) |
 |
| She is WAY faster on the bike this year, she kept telling me to run and hurry up! |
 |
| She likes climbing walls, so fun! |
 |
| First time trying the rope ladder and got all the way to the top! |
 |
| Coming down the slide... |
 |
| She was too scared to do this slide last year, each year we conquer new things! |
Oh! We also had a wonderful day down in Madison recently - highlight was going to the botanical gardens, my favorite place in Madtown! We also were so thrilled to be asked to join the Huinker/Hoden clan down in the Dells when they came over for a little vacation. Our new extended family is just too fun and we very much appreciated being invited down for the day. The kids played, we had an adult dinner (how often does that happen?!) and we got to see the kids, once again, grow a foot taller and a lot sillier/smarter since we last saw them. I also have to say how much I appreciate talking with Beth and Amanda - I love commiserating with other moms that GET IT. Pat and Roger are like additional awesome parents, a special thank you to holding and watching Collin while we ate:) Dave was able to do laser tag with the guys and I know he had fun. Favorite part of laser tag for me was watching Max chomp on carrots to improve his vision right before he left. And ask Tony via FaceTime for some advice! (be very, very quiet). Love 'em all!
Here is the link to our pictures from March...
No comments:
Post a Comment