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Monday, April 13, 2009

Stories

We had a VERY busy week and weekend. Here are some of the highlights. I'll post pictures soon:

- started a new workout program
- had a BUNCH of appointments (ended up canceling one and rescheduling one)
- discovered a leak in the hot water heater (Thursday)
- bought and installed a TANKLESS hot water heater (Saturday)
- dyed 2-dozen Easter eggs with homemade dye
- took the kids to 2 Easter egg hunts
- had friends over for dinner and games (Saturday - unfortunately, Derrick wasn't able to participate much since he was working on the water heater)
- made a meal for the pot luck breakfast we had at church on Sunday morning
- visited with friends Sunday afternoon

We were so busy over the weekend, that when we got up this morning there was NO milk in the house for cereal, NO bread for toast, NO granola, and NO eggs (well, except the hard-boiled ones, which I forgot to put in the fridge overnight, so I don't even know if it's safe to eat them). Those are the things we usually have for breakfast. Today, Derrick had cheeseburgers for breakfast. The kids had dry cereal and juice. Alyssa had half a hamburger bun with peanut butter on it. I had oatmeal and poured a little apple juice over it instead of milk - that was actually pretty good. I kind of felt like I failed because it's my job to make sure there's food in the house and everyone's fed. Then I realized, there WAS food in the house, and everybody GOT fed. Just not in the traditional way. I didn't fail. We just had a crazy weekend and I didn't have time to get to the store for eggs and milk. No big deal. I went today, and everything's ok again.

I'm pretty exhausted today, but I have pictures and some more stories.

The water heater - yikes:
When we discovered the leak, we started looking into our options for replacing it. There are tanks and tankless, there's gas and electric. We had talked in the past about switching to a tankless, because they're supposed to be very energy efficient. We've also talked about gradually making our house all electric (no gas). We ended up going for the gas tankless (it would have been WAY too much work to set up what we would need for an electric water heater - since we already had a gas one, all the set-up was already in place). The installation was still a lot of work, but after about 12 hours on Saturday and 3 or 4 trips to Menards, then one more trip Sunday morning, and about 15 hours without water (on Easter weekend, no less, which meant sponge baths for the kids on Sunday morning) - we have water again, a new water heater, and we're looking forward to saving big bucks on our gas bill!

The Easter Egg Hunts:
Saturday morning I took the kids to a community Easter egg hunt. It sounded so fun, but I probably won't do that again. I thought it started at 10, but when we got there, we found out it started at 11. So we went home, and I made the kids play outside for a half hour before we went back. On the way there the second time, I tried to explain in 2-year-old terms the "real" meaning of Easter, and that we talk about eggs and bunnies just because it's Spring. So, when we got there, there were hundreds of kids there, we waited about 10 minutes in the parking lot (Me, Alyssa, Sage, Jayna, and R) for it to start, then they split the kids into different age groups, walked us to our area, said "GO" and - I'm not exaggerating - in about 5 seconds, all the eggs were gone. We only got 6 eggs, and that's because Jayna picked up 3 on the way to our area, before it officially even started. Then it was over, and people started going inside, so we followed. We stood in line for about 15 minutes - we didn't even know what we were standing in line for. I thought they had some kind of activity or something - turns out, they had cookies and a little craft project, but the room was small, and it was SO FULL of people, that I just grabbed the supplies for the craft and took them home. With all the chaos of the weekend, we never even made the craft. So we spent about 2 hours of our Saturday morning on a 5-second Easter egg hunt, and a cookie.

Sunday after church we were invited by our favorite friends ever to join their family for their Easter egg hunts. This time there were hundreds of eggs to find, and probably less than 20 kids. They separated the "big" kids (Alyssa's age) from the "little" kids, so everyone had a really good time. The kids were able to find probably 20-30 eggs each. Some were real, hard-boiled eggs, and some were the plastic kind filled with candy. It was a GREAT way to end a busy, stressful weekend.

The Workout:
Derrick and I started the P90X workout last week. It's supposed to whip us into shape in 90 days. It's about 1-1.5 hours a day. It takes a lot of time, but it's been fun. It's something we've been doing together, we're both working hard and making progress, so it's kind of a good "relationship thing" too. We took "before" pictures, but fortunately for you, I'm not going to post them. I might post "after" pictures when we're done, but we'll see.

The Family:
With 4 kids in the house, and one of them new, there's been a lot of tension around here lately. And we've noticed that there's been a lot of yelling. From everybody. Which only increases the tension. At one moment, I found myself YELLING at one of the kids "STOP SCREAMING ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING!!!!" Woah. That made me stop and think for a minute. So, Derrick and I instituted a new "no yelling" policy. For everybody. Nobody (including parents) is allowed to yell. For any reason. We will talk nicely to each other. No matter what. It's been work. I've noticed a couple times, as my temperature starts to rise, I've had to tell myself "Stop. Take a deep breath. Talk nicely. Don't yell." It's made for a much more peaceful atmosphere in the house. My prayer has always been that our home would be a place of peace for our family, and also for others. We've gotten a bit out of hand in the last few weeks, but we're turning it around.

And on that note... I'm going to stop now. The kids are waking up from their naps. But stay tuned for lots of fun pictures.

4 comments:

  1. We have a tankless water heater (also gas- everything in our house is gas) we love it... no running out of hot water and it does save a lot of money! I think that you are going to be happy with it!

    Good luck on the work out! You go girl!


    Fawnda

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  2. I need to implement a no yelling policy in my house. Is it really that easy?! I don't know if I can obey the rules!! It's a great idea. I'll give it some thought:)

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  3. so I'm confused about the 4th kid...did i miss a post or something? who's R? I'm glad to hear you being disciplined along with the kids!That's a good rule!

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  4. i'm with cassie. who's this cute little R? and how did he find his way into your home? :)

    i'm loving the no yelling rule. we really try not to yell at our house either. one thing that helps ben and i is that when there is a problem, we need to get down on the kids' level - physically (kneeling down) - and look them in the eye while we talk about what is going wrong. it takes time to get to where they are and make eye contact. and who yells at a little person when you are looking them in the eye? not I. :)

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