Lessons About Scissors

Last Monday, E and H came up to me, and in a very proud voice, E said, "Mom, look how we did H's hair!"

I turned and looked and I saw a very pretty headband with a flower on it in her hair. I was about to say how nice her hair looked, when I realized that something was missing.

 It took every ounce of energy not to yell at E.  As I calmly fished out the details of what happened, I discovered that H had asked E to do it. She had seen everyone else getting their hair cut, and was feeling left out. So that night H and I had an impromptu mommy-daughter date. We went to the mall and got her hair fixed, and then we got dinner at Sbarro pizza, and took a ride on the carousel.

She is loving her hair now, and only cried about it when she learned that she couldn't put it into a ballerina bun for dance class. I'm getting used to it, too. I think she's pretty darn cute.

More Joys

Look at what I discovered in our yard. We have a beautiful hibiscus. 

 I thought these only grew in Hawaii :)

First Day of School

E started school 2 weeks ago. Here are the pics of his first day. Being the frazzled mom that I was, I forgot to check the pictures when I took them to make sure they were good, so this is what I got.

On the front porch

Waiting for the bus

Getting ready to board the bus

Getting on the bus

Later, getting off the bus after school.

He had a great time, and he said that he wasn't shy or scared while he was in class, which he had been worried about before he went.  I didn't do quite so well. After he left on the bus, I went home and cried. It was hard to send him off all on his own for the first time, wondering if I had done enough to prepare him for the big world. That night in his prayer he thanked Heavenly Father and Jesus for being with him at school. Jared had given him a fathers blessing the night before, and it was really special to see E recognize that he wasn't alone, and it eased my worries, too.

The next day, H started preschool. We are doing a co-op with several other families in our church, so I'll be teaching it in a few weeks. I was better prepared to take pictures this time, so I have a decent one of her on the front porch.

Here she is talking to Daddy about her first day of preschool.

"Mom, back off. I'm on the phone"

They grow up too quickly.

The Joys of Homeownership

For the past several weeks, we have been battling our sump pump. The previous owner had installed a backup pump, (which we are so grateful for) that starts beeping loudly when the water level in the sump gets too high. Well, about 3 weeks ago, we heard the beeping for the first time, and discovered the rising water. Having never had experience working with a sump pump, I wasn't sure what to do. Jared called up Rick, the previous owner, and he graciously came over and looked over everything with us to try to find the problem. We discovered that both pumps were working fine, although the backup pump needed a new battery. So he thought that maybe the valve was bad. We replaced it, and turned on the pump, and it drained the sump, although a bit slower than I had anticipated. All seemed fine, till about 4 days later when the backup pump went off again. Feeling more confident knowing how it all worked, I disconnected the pump from the pipe and discovered that the pipe was blocked with sediment. I went to home depot and got a plumbers snake and tried to clear out the pipe. I was able to get in about 2 feet into the pipe, but couldn't make it go any farther. I hooked up the pump again, and it drained the sump faster that in had before, so I thought, maybe that was good enough. Not so. 3 days later the backup pump was going off again. I repeated the process with the snake and got a bit farther. I hooked up the pump, hoping to have it be good. 3 days later we were back. Well, I was tired of playing in the mud, so I decided to cut out a 2 foot section of the pipe to see what was going on in there. Sump pump pipes should not look like this.

 7 feet of pipe was clogged like this. 

Here I am cleaning out the upper portion of the pipe with the snake. 

All put back together. And now we can remove this section of pipe every year or so to keep it cleaned out.

Maybe I should clean the mud off the wall.

Side note: The previous owner had said that he'd had trouble with the sump pump before, and had a bit of flooding. I decided to peek under the carpet near where the sump is, and guess what was found. Yup...mold, and lots of it. We now need to rip out our basement floor. That will be fun, especially moving the pool table. Wish us luck!

New York

Right after we moved to Michigan, Jared's mom and sister, Jessica, came out and watched our kids while Jared and I took a much needed vacation to celebrate Jared's graduation. We decided to spend a few days in NYC. Here are some pics of our trip.

We went to a Yankees game our first day with Mike and Kristen, Jared's brother and sister-in-law. (A big thanks goes out to them for letting us stay at their place for a few nights to ease the hotel costs, and for the maps they gave us so we could navigate the city without a problem.)

Our second day we went to see the temple.

 Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Times Square.

That evening we saw Wicked. We loved the show.

Here we are on the train and at Grand Central Station. 

For all you National Treasure fans
"Heere at the Wall. Wall St. and Broadway" and Trinity Church.

At Federal Hall, where George Washington took the oath as the First President of the United States. Also George Washington's Pew at St. Paul's Chapel, where he worshiped every Sunday.

Jared at the American Stock Exchange and the New York Stock exchange. And of course he had to get a picture with the Bull.

At the Empire State Building.

  We had a great time navigating the city's subway system, and we only got on the wrong train ONCE! We had a blast seeing all the things we've only seen in movies, and it was great to see some of our nation's history. We can't wait to do it again sometime.

Kids Sleep in the Strangest Places

Seriously, how can anyone sleep like this?

New Hobby

Back in February I picked up a new hobby. I was wanting to make some fun Valentines Day cookies, and stumbled accross a tutorial online for decorating cookies with royal icing. Here are some pics of cookies that I've done since.

Valentines cookies

 Easter cookies

I did these for the Relief Society birthday dinner in March. 

  

Purdue's mascot is a train, so I did these for a party that we had.

I need to find a hobby that doesn't involve food and tons of sugar :)

P.S. Heres some pics of the kids in their Easter Bunny Ears