I do believe my brain is oozing out one ear at this point.  And it's covered in plaster dust.  But, Josh has one new wall up.

New wall?  you ask.

Well, last weekend, we were going to put down new flooring in the new living room.  No big whoop.  We did have to take out the closet that was built in.  No problems.  We have sledgehammers.  And I thought "Well, we should paint before we put down the new floors, so we don't get paint on them."  Josh agreed that made sense.

Now we both believe I am a moron who should have kept her mouth shut.

Painting meant tearing down wallpaper.  Which meant scraping 7 layers of painted over, plastered over wallpaper.  Which meant the old plaster was coming down as well, as apparently it was held up by the 50+ years of wallpapering.  So we decided to just rip it all down.  Plaster, lathing, the works.

And Josh thought "Well heck, now that we have the walls open, I might as well run a couple of new outlets in that wall, for lamps and laptops and such."

The good news is that only two walls need to be redone.  The outer two are drywall.  Oh sure, it's drywall over the old plaster walls, but we don't care anymore.

Did I mention we have to redo the ceiling as well?

Today I should be sitting in my pretty new living room with the nice bamboo floors.  Instead, I went to Lowe's yet again for paint remover for the baseboards. 

woo. fun.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 2:02:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

I was joking to my friend Sue about how locked up our house is these days because of Maura's tendency to escape.  And laughed about the fact that we have baby gates in the girls bedroom window.

Sue told me I should post about that, as it might help someone else out.  I agreed.  So here it goes...

The girls bedroom windows are low, just a few inches off the ground, and open both from the bottom and from the top.  This wasn't an issue the first summer in the house, as Maura didn't have the strength or know-how to open the windows wider.  As long as I kept them staggered to a degree, we could have the windows open.

Last summer however, Maura nearly gave me a heart attack one day.  I was outside doing yard work as she napped.  I heard her cute little voice, looked up and saw her standing on the windowsill, having pushed the top part of the window down, and she was banging on the screen.

I grew up in Chicago.  There were always stories about kids falling out of windows.  Heck, my cat fell out of my second floor bedroom window when the screen popped out. 

Yes, I ran upstairs and got Maura and then started looking up window safety gear.  But it was going to take a couple weeks to ship, not to mention pinch the finances as that stuff is expensive!  Josh said "Well here, let's put a baby gate up for now."  Then stuck one of the adjustable baby gates in the window to block her a bit.

Hmmm...

The next day I went to Babies R Us and found really big baby gates.  I bought two and stuck them in the window.  They're great because they're tight enough that Maura can't move them, but if there's a fire, an adult or even Miriam, will be able to pop them out if need be.  They don't cover the entire window, but enough that the windows are no longer a danger to Maura.  And it allows me to rest a little more easily at night.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:16:20 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Okay, so I have established that I am a 10,000 Maniacs/Natalie Merchant fan.  So it's been playing in the car a bit.  I love this song, and now Maura loves this song.  At least the Mtv Unplugged live version.  But I couldn't find that one.  So this one will have to do.

Song of the Week - "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs

Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:31:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Sean and Mim were outside and I went out to check on them.  I told Collin to keep an eye on Maura, who was watching Spongebob and therefore, not really going anywhere.

Chatted with my neighbors for a bit, shooed kids inside for dinner.  Maura met me at the door....where I noticed she had something tied around her waist.

Collin decided to put a "tracking device" on her - aka some of the spy gear Sean was playing with today.  He tied it on with some holiday garland, which I'd been making fun little headwear for the girls with.  Since he didn't have scissors, she had it trailing behind her.

In a sense, it was quite ingenious.  All he had to do was push a button and she'd start beeping.  But I don't think he's quite up to actually babysitting her yet....

And for the record, she thought it was great.  A fun accessory that made noise.  As the second picture shows, it made her giggle. tee hee!

Monday, June 23, 2008 10:57:55 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Only the adults get to use such things as the chainsaw and the sledgehammer.  We are thrilled you children want to help with renovations, but we'd like everyone to come out of it at the end with all their limbs and digits.

Sunday, June 22, 2008 1:53:35 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Okay, you know by now my love of Great Big Sea.  Well, they posted a thing about how they were looking for pictures of  accomplishments/acheivements/etc for their upcoming video.  I sent in one of each kid, hoping one of them would make the cut.

I got to see the video today and got to see my Seanie Boy in their video!  He's the boy at the first minute mark going up the rock climbing wall.  FYI - he was seven years old in the picture.  We were at the neighboring town's fall festival, they had this rock climbing wall and Sean really wanted to try it.  Of course we let him.  And of course, he did great! And I got a couple great shots of him...one good enough for the video!

I don't know if the embedding worked, so if it doesn't, just click on the link.  The link does work, I checked.

Anyway, the Song of the Week is Great Big Sea's "Walk on the Moon" - which is bound to become one of the best videos EVER!  LOL!

http://canwest.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/canwest-canada-com-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=entertainment&maven_referralPlaylistId=87c93c73111553f5a56f8c6a758198113760163d&maven_referralObject=1615504

Friday, June 20, 2008 5:08:14 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Maura can open the patio door all by herself.

Maura likes to let herself out into the unfenced yard all by herself via the patio door.

Maura can be very quiet and sneaky when letting herself out into the unfenced yard all by herself via the patio door.

I can see Maura standing in the road, after letting herself out into the unfenced yard all by herself via the patio door, from my bedroom window.

It's very hard to run and shout that Maura's out in the road with a mouth full of food.

Josh understands what I mean when I yell "Maura! Road!  Outside!" as I go running for the door.

A high chain lock works well to keep Maura from letting herself out into the unfenced yard all by herself via the patio door.

However, the high chain lock only works well if you remember to use it.

Yes, there's been a common theme to this week's lessons.  On Tuesday, while we're close to it, I shall stop at Babies R Us for those door alarms.  Until then, I think I'll tether Maura to me, so I know where she is at all times.  It's either that or never blink again.  Because that girl has gotten fast!  Sure, the other three have all gotten out by themselves here and there but A) they also understood that one shouldn't wander out onto the road and B) they understood when they were told that they were not to go outside without asking first.

Meanwhile, I shall thank God once again that Maura went out onto the dirt road, that has about four cars a day go down it slowly, instead of the paved road, that people come speeding over the hill on a consistant basis. 

Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:13:50 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

The kids (and the parents, we'll admit to it) enjoy watching iCarly - a show on Nickelodeon about a girl, Carly, and her two friends who have a web show and all the wacky fun things that happen.  To add to the humor is Carly's older brother (who she lives with) who quite frankly, makes me look like quite the normal person. 

I'll admit it - I like the theme song.  Miriam and I go around singing it.  It gets stuck in my head...but in a good way.  Not in a bad way...oh, say...like the Dora the Explorer theme song, which makes me want to take a metal bat to my head. 

So here is the full version of the iCarly theme song - feel free to get it stuck in your head as well!

Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:49:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Summer has indeed arrived here.  Kids are out of school now, the temperatures have shot up, and we keep getting thunderstorms.  Not that we have anything to complain about - the worst of the storms have missed us.  We've only had a few downed branches and lost our Internet for a day. 

Last weekend was one of those interesting weekends.  Josh spent all Saturday building a pen for Lucky the Duck only for Sean to accidentally set Lucky free, who of course raced into the woods.  Sean was horrified, terrified for Lucky, and was so heartbroken, I had to promise him we would find the duck.  Amazingly, we did.  Collin spotted Lucky hiding and grabbed him.  All those years of grabbing a racing little hamster have paid off.

Right now the children are supposed to be working off the stuff I bought for them at Target yesterday.  This of course is involving lots of wandering back and forth, some drama on Miriam's part, and minor whining.  Ooo fun. 

Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:30:28 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]