A little bit of everything

So I had all of these great or funny stories that I was going to tell about each one of my kids. I had plans  to write them out when I had the time, but of course now I can't, for the life of me, remember them. That's the way it goes when you are a mom, I think. But I do remember some, so I'll share those.

Liam, talking about the linoleum flooring (out of the blue, we had not had any previous conversation about it) that is in our house, "So it's like a big roll of plastic-y paper that they just put on the floor?" Yes. Yes, that is exactly what it is. I don't think I could have put it better myself.

Fox is potty training this week. He has done awesome even though I wish potty training was just me saying, "okay, you poop and pee in this toilet now," and then that was it. They got it. And I never had to change wet pants or clean up..."stuff" off the floor. But really he is doing very well.  Just like I did with my other kids, I let him go to the store and pick out a treat  that he can have as a reward after using the potty. He picked out M&M's and Halloween pumpkin and candy corns. We call them "potty treats." Unfortunately, Fox decided to take it one step further. While walking through the store Fox asked (quite loudly, mind you. I don't think that boy has any volume except for loud), "Mom, I have a potty M&M?" "Mom, I yike my potty pumpkins!" We got some really weird looks.

Last week, (before potty training), Fox had a stinky diaper. I asked him if he did and he emphatically denied it. Even as I laid him down and started wiping his bottom he cried and squirmed and said he didn't poop.

 Me, being the awesome parent I am, swiped a wipe across his bottom and held up it up and said, "Then what is that? Is that poop?"
He nodded his agreement.
"Did you poop in your diaper?"
"No."
"Well then who did?"
"A bug."
"A bug crawled into your diaper and pooped?"
"Yes."
"What color was the bug?"
"Red, with red yeyes."

 I questioned him a little bit more about the bug, and he had all the answers and really who can argue with that? Fox-1 Kira-0 (Okay let's be realistic, it's more like Fox-439 Kira-2, but who's counting?)

Tony has been bugging me to write this story.
Remember how my post about the house we are living in I said that I had a few things that I didn't like about it? Well one of those things is that we have been getting eaten alive by fleas!! EW! I know! This property is suppose to be a no pet property, but I don't know if the people before us just ignored that or if all of Ames is just infested with fleas (really I'm starting to wonder, there are quite a few people that I've found out are getting bit by them also!). We have no animals. We are clean people. Between Tony and the professionals that the property owners paid for to come out, our house has been sprayed 4 times for fleas and yet still they are getting us. I really, really don't know how. (So if anyone has some awesome tips I would love them!)

Anyways that's not the story....

While racking our brains, trying to figure out how these stinking bugs are still living we came to the conclusion that they had to be on other animals (aka mice or rats). So that night Tony went out and bought poison traps and sticky traps and set them up down stairs. The next several days I didn't go downstairs. Laundry got neglected. If we needed food from our food storage for dinner, I changed what we were eating. I avoided downstairs like the plague. I knew that some rodent would be stuck on one of those stupid sticky traps and I would be the one to find it.

Finally we ran out of clothes and I had to do laundry. I almost cried (just kidding...no, no I'm not). In all sorts of anxiety I told Tony that if I even heard anything I was coming back up and making him go down instead. He agreed. I grabbed my laundry basket and cautiously headed down the stair. When I got to the bottom step I heard it. A high pitched squeaking/squealing! My heart stopped. My body stopped. I dropped my laundry basket and hightailed it out of there.

"TONY!!" I screamed, ready for him to come to the rescue.

I was answered by laughter.

Remember that awesome laundry shoot that I told you about? Well, evidently it also works as a good way to make noise from up stairs to downstairs. Tony, seeing my uneasiness about going downstairs, decided to help me get over that fear by making squeaking noises down the laundry shoot. And he's good at them.

He laughed hard for a good half an hour afterwords. I cried a little bit, hit him a lot, and made him do the laundry.

It's been a couple of weeks and we have yet to catch anything but a few spiders. I think our idea of critters living down there is incorrect, but it made for one horrible prank for Tony to play. (He did it 2-3 more times after that and got me every time. Darn boys)

EDIT

I remembered the story about Emma!!

A friend of mine bought Emma a cute new outfit. It was adorable, with plaid shorts and blue shirt that said "smile & laugh" with a big smile face. The day she wore it we were out and about going to 2-3 different stores. When we got home I smiled at her and said, "It love your new outfit!" She grinned then  quizzically looked down at her shirt and said, "It says 'stinky' right? Liam told me it says stinky." I laughed out loud and told her "No, it says 'smile.'" She shrugged, said okay, then walked off to go play.

It took me a little while to realize that Liam must have read the shirt as saying "smelly" instead of smile (darn 1st grade phonics reading). My favorite part is that Emma was totally cool with going out wearing a shirt that labeled her as "stinky."

Back to School

3 of my kids/husband started school this week (well Emma starts Monday, but she got to meet her teacher). 

This hansom man started school on Monday with 3 ridiculously hard classes and 1 "show up and you pass" class. Pray for him...Pray for me that I can deal without a husband for the next three months. ;)

 I told him I was going to follow him around and take pictures just like I do to the kids on the first day of school. That's where the peace sign came from :). And while I took this outside pictures classmate where walking down the street and giving us weird looks/smirks. I thought maybe he'd get made fun of/beat up at school, but so far nothing yet...at least that he's told me...(maybe thats why he been quietly sobbing in bed at night...)

Here's my ridiculously adorable kids in there new school finest.

Liam started second grade today! He's so stinking old! And cute :). He's shirt is a scratch-and-sniff and he was very proud of it. His teacher is Mrs. Boeding, and I think she is going to be fantastic for him. He wore a shirt that said "big kahuna" on it on the "meet your teacher night" and she called him big kahuna the whole time. :)

 He has his own hook in the hallway (Emma has her own locker, which Liam may be a little jealous of, but we won't discuss that here.). Hansom kid!

Emma got to go to her classroom today and meet her teacher. Her teacher is Mrs. Maahs (pictured below). Emma has 2 guinea pigs in her class (named Pig and Goo. Seriously made me laugh out loud when she told all of the kids at "rug time." The other parents gave me dirty looks....but best guinea pig names ever!), and she is very excited about them.

Emma starts school on Monday and then I will be a one child during the day Mom! Holy Smokes! This is what Moms all over the world dream of! (At least I do) It's going to be super sweet! 

Happy Back to School Everyone!

( I know it makes me happy :))

Ames

So we've done it! We moved to Ames, IA, and are getting use to the town and excited for school to start.  We were lucky enough to find a lovely house to rent, and I knew that my mom would want to see pictures, and I would want them later on down the road :)

This is it. I love it (even though there are many things that have not been so good, but I'll save that for another post). I really do love it. It's big, all the main rooms are on one floor, and we don't have to worry about upsetting neighbors with crying or yelling kids. 

Our front room. The door in the top, left corner is the front door, the middle door goes to the bedrooms and the right door goes into the kitchen. Both the middle and right door have pocket doors that can be slid closed. The flooring is cork tile (the area rug is new especially for this house), and was horrid, but once again I'll focus only on the good for this post and do all the...not so good for another post. :)

Just off the living room is this little gem. We turned it into a computer/reading room. Yes it has a wood burning fire place!! I may be a wee bit ecstatically excited for Christmas and having a place to hang our stockings!! And it has awesome built in bookshelves!! Yippie!  

 I don't know how a picture of the dining room didn't get put in here, but right off the computer room is the dining room, it has our table and piano in it and a sliding back door that I'll talk more about in a minute. 

This is our kitchen (with Tony making dinner). Can you feel the 70's awesomeness!?! It's fantastic! It has more cupboard space then I know what to do with. Seriously we have empty cupboards and drawers. I'm sure they will get filled some time, but for now I have nothing to put in them. 

The boys room. It's big enough to have the slide attached to Liam's bed!! They are going crazy over it!! 

Emma's room. :)

Mine and Tony's room

Now on to some of my favorite things--

See that little door? It's in my linen closet. Guess what it is....

A laundry shoot!! Yippie!! The kids are all excited about putting their clothes down it, so all of our laundry goes downstairs and out of my way!! It's really made the house stay clean! And it's small enough that no children can be shoved down! Bonus!

My other favorite part prefaced by my not so favorite part. The landlord decided that now what a good time to till up the backyard, add better drainage and reseed. I'm grateful that the yard will be good, eventually, but I'm kinda bummed about losing our backyard. But the good part? Directly behind us we  have a Lutheran church (who also happens to be the people who own our house) and they told us our kids could play on this. 

 A built in playground. And playhouse. In our backyard. This picture is taken out my sliding back door I was talking about. I love it! Fox always asks to play at the park, and since I can send him out and watch him from my kitchen window, I say yes. :) Which is a big change from our previous place.

We also have a basement. But I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll post about it later, when it doesn't make me want to cry. :)

Things I love about our new house
-the playground
-you can hear the bell tower
-the library is Amazing!
-it's on a quiet street
-room!! tons of it!
-Separation of children at bedtime. I'm pretty sure Emma was the instigator of all the naughtiness at bedtime. Now they just go right to sleep. :)
-Windows! Light! Tons of it!
-The laundry shoot
-A dish washer
-A garage
-The fireplace