Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Frost Bite

Yesterday morning school was canceled due to the fridgid temperatures. When Brett and I came in at 12:45 am (Monday night/Tuesday early morning) from working on the house, it was negative 22 degrees, not including wind chill. Well by 8:30 Tuesday morning it was still in the negative temperatures, but the wind had picked up, so was super cold. I went out to feed Angel and when I opened the kennel to give her a drink, she pushed right past me and took off. I was so concerned since she ran to the street and was running up and down the road then into my neighbor's property, into their fields, scaring their horses, and NOT listening to me one bit!!!

I was outside for about an hour before I finally caught her and was so happy to get back inside the house and warm up. Later yesterday I happened to look in the mirror and noticed that my cheeks were super red and had all these white bumps all over. I later found out, when Brett came home and was so suprised to see the condition of my skin, that I had gotten frost bite on my face!

It's looking much better today, but I've learned my lesson. If Angel gets out again, I'm leaving her out until she decides to come back home! We absolutely love her, but I do have to say, "DARN DOG!!!"

Monday, January 26, 2009

First Lost Tooth!!

Yesterday morning, while we were getting ready for church, Austin was wiggling his tooth and it fell right out!! He was so excited! We have been trying for so long to get him to pull it out and he's just been too scared. But when it came out yesterday, he realized that it wasn't so bad, especially when he woke up this morning to find some money under his pillow!!

Friday, January 23, 2009

House Update

I've had lots of people ask what's been going on with the house. So I'm doing a post with an update. Though it doesn't look like a whole lot has been happening, Brett's been working on lots of the detail things, mostly trim and moving electrical outlets. We've hired out the rest of the siding and the painting. There are people here today working on filling nail holes and caulking. YAY!! But siding won't get finished until our ordered siding comes in. So here are the most recent pictures that I took last night and this morning.
Entryway

Part of the Family Room
Another part of the Family Room
The kitchen
Formal Dining room (it's not quite done yet)
The Formal Living Room with a coffered ceiling (I am WAY excited about that! That's my favorite part of the house!!)
Into the Mudroom

Kids' bedrooms

Shelving in the kids' closets

Master bedroom trim done!

The little sitting room in the Master


Brett is working on the dresser and shelving in the Master closet. I am so excited to not have dressers in any of the bedrooms!!


Siding is almost done!

Just a little more to do!

The garage doors are up and we even parked the pickup in there last night. It was so great to be able to go out this morning and not have to scrape windows and the windshield! We just need to get garage door openers now.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

What An Adventure

Everyday's an adventure here! Yesterday morning at about eight o'clock, our power went out, just as I had started to warm up Brynnlee's bottle. I asked my neighbor if they had power and they did. After checking all of the breakers, in our house, outside of the house, and in the new house, everything seemed fine. So I called the power company and they said they would come take a look at it.

I packed up Aubree and Brynn and took them to the church where I knew I could find warm water and a warm place to hang out. We stayed there until Brett called to tell us that the power was back on and we could go home. (By the way, thank you, Mom, for the cell phone! That was the only way I could call for help.)

Later last night, I was cooking dinner when, all of a sudden, it happens again! Dinner was ruined so we resorted to PB&J sandwiches and we even tried cooking hotdogs over our candle flames. Fun, but it didn't work. Bedtime rolled around and still, there was no power. So I bundled up the kids and put them to bed with 3 or 4 blankets on top of them. Finally, at nine o'clock the lights came back on and the heater went to work.

After about an hour, I noticed that the heater hadn't shut off. It was still blowing air, but it wasn't getting any warmer. By that time I was freezing! So I called Brett, who was outside working on the house, to have him fix the problem. He couldn't. Instead we rounded up as many space heaters as we could get a hold of and spread them throughout the house. Since space heaters are the number one cause of fires in mobile homes, I decided to sleep out on the couch to make sure everything would be alright.

Hours later, as I lay on the couch thinking every noise I heard was a spark or a crackle and not getting an ounce of sleep, I suddenly heard all of the heaters turn off. Once again, we were without power! So at two o'clock in the morning, I call the power company to tell them that we had no power again and that it was quickly getting cold. About thirty minutes later, some poor guy, who was woken up at 2 AM, came to fix the problem. And finally we had some heat.

This morning, we had four utility trucks and eight guys in front of our house to fix the problem. Apparently, the transformer box (I think that's what it's called) was too small to run power to our new house (which we have to constantly keep warm now) and our trailer where we're living. So they put in a new, bigger one. We also had someone come to fix our heater and found out that due to the power being turned off and back on, there was a power surge that blew the heating switch. But that was a much easier fix than a whole new transformer.

I'm sure glad to have things back to normal again. After an experience like this, it makes you wonder what each new day will bring.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Our New Addition

This is our newest addition. Angel is a six month old white german shepherd. My sister, Nicole, told me about her when someone brought her into the animal shelter/vet clinic that she works at. Well, we decided to adopt her and Nicole brought her over this last weekend.
It's so much fun to see her run around and move like a puppy, even though she is almost full grown. She's not too coordinated yet. But she loves to play with Austin. It's amazing the connection the two of them have. As soon as he gets home from school every day, he's right to her kennel to see her. He has a quick lunch then runs out to play with Angel.
We still need to get Aubree used to her, but Brynn LOVES Angel as well. Living in a new place with new things to see, she likes to go check everything out and not listen when we call her. So I'll be looking into dog training classes that we can take. Other than that, she is a super sweet and playful puppy. We already love her to pieces!!
Being all white, we thought it might be a good idea to put a jogging vest on her so she doesn't completely blend in with the snow.

Thursday, January 8, 2009