Best Buds

On our way to Clay Co.

Twelve Years Old

Grant and his birthday breakfast

It’s Not Even a Monday but Here’s Music

 

New video to one of my fave songs off I’m With You, filmed just a day or two before they came to St. Lou.  This is a short-version of the song which is too bad because a longer video would have been extra sweet.  Plus, the song’s over so dang fast. 

House in the Works--Not

Oh, boy.  Here’s an update on what’s happening with the house and our grand addition. 

The plans that looked like this:

   

Now look like this:

Rolled and banded and forgotten. 

After meeting after meeting with the architect, four contractors, and who knows how many heating guys, paint guys, etc. over the span of a few months, we realized once the bids came back, this plan was too complicated and too expensive, and despite having to put enough money into it that we could have built a brand new house, we were still going to have a kinda crappy house.  Less crappy maybe, but still not ideal.  We made the decision to scrap this whole plan of adding on the three different sides of the house. 

So now, it’s literally back to the drawing board.

 

Current thinking is to sacrifice the current screen porch and deck and add one big, two-story straight, simple addition off the east side that would be a great room/kitchen/dining room with two new bedrooms and two baths, and add back on a new deck and screen porch.  That’s the thought anyway for now.  

Will it ever even happen?  Maybe because it’s not winter with us all crammed in and maybe because no one is at home much these days because, yeah, I feel like I *live* in a van going down Goshen Road, but we don’t feel so bursting right now.  At least I don’t.  But this kitchen of mine is still enough to make me want to run away.  

I did recently find this site and it is great for designing and planning.  At first look, it seems like something to play around with furniture placement but once you get into it, it has everything you need to make full-out house plans with walls, windows, stairs, all the architectural symbols, measurements.  It has choices for pools (!) and hot tubs (!) and even individual plants and on and on.  So cool and I wish I had a few days to spend just on this! 

Before/During/After

       

No more braces for Jack.  Full-time retainers now for 6-9 months and straight teeth forever (we hope). 

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They look great but now that I see a smiling/non-goofy BEFORE from 2010, don’t the smiles look about the same??  Hmm.  What were they doing for 18-20 months?  All those brackets and rubber bands and appointments for tightenings?  Musta been for some good reason but looking at the pics, it’s not that obvious to me now.

The Phone Call You Don’t Want

Tonight as I was driving Jack into town for 6-9pm band practice (to prepare for end of July band camp, oy!), I made the comment that for all the trips I am making delivering everyone around these days, I’m glad it’s not like it would have been a couple of years ago where I had to strap everyone in for every single trip.  Now the younger two kids are at an age that I can leave them at home with one of the older boys and I don’t worry too much and that is nice!

So I had just said that, of course, jinx!, my cell phone rings.  Jack looks at the phone and says it’s from home and answers for me.  He listens for just a second and passes it to me right away and says “The kitchen is full of smoke!”  I grab the phone and exclaim into the phone, “Who is this?!”and now I don’t even know why I asked that but I did, and it was Grant and he says, “The kitchen is full of smoke and I don’t know where it’s coming from!”  My mind goes immediately to the stove, thinking something was set atop a burner and caught fire.  I asked him if he could go to the stove and see if there was something burning and he said no, there’s nothing.  The stove is not on.  I asked, “Is it from the microwave?”  He says the microwave isn’t on, but yeah, he opened the door and there’s charred black chicken tenders.

Whew.  Sigh of relief and memories of this pop right in my head with an internal “Caroliiine!”  I tell Grant not to yell at her or anything, just go outside for fresh air and I’ll be right home. 

Turns out she tried to heat up her chicken and read the instructions as 5 tenders = 5 minutes when it was actually 5 tenders = 1 minute. 

A lesson learned, and she’s gonna wait to microwave again until she’s ten. 

Moving is Fun!

Catching Up: Tuba Dude

I’m falling behind on keeping up with life again.  Such a busy past week.  Long, long hours for Gary at work and tons of stuff going on involving the kids.  Every day something!  Except today.  Just hanging out with family (Hi Mom, Karen, Joe!), helping Ross move…in general, a big yay day for me!

This wasn’t even from this week, but some day this month when Grant marched in his first parades, three spread across two weekends.  I snapped this shot when they performed at Six Flags. 

Mr. Wit! Who Knew?

Sometimes, very occasionally, Sam does something that reminds me he's not such a little boy anymore.

Tonight he pulled his arms up into his t-shirt sleeves and says, "We're a little short-handed around here."

I am not kidding!

Another Funny

I picked Caroline up from a birthday party-sleepover. 

Me:  Tell me what all you did.

Caroline:  We played out in the sprinkler. We ate pasta.  We watched a movie.  We played with her Magic Meatball.

Me:  Magic Meatball?  What's that?

Caroline:  It's this thing that if you have a question, it will tell you the answer.

Me:  Oh, a Magic 8-Ball?!

Caroline:  I don't know.  I thought it was called a Magic Meatball.

Me:  (Ha ha ha ha)