Fireman James

Lately James has been wearing this outfit everywhere--the store, the library, around the house...Love it! He gets a lot of smiles and comments when we're out and about.

Kitchen Remodel

Crazy House

The past coupld of weeks have been kind of crazy. Against the advice of our realtor but with the advice of Adam's dad, we decided to do a complete kitchen overhaul. We (ok, Adam) ripped out our old cabinets and we have been living in a mess and without a kitchen sink or dishwasher for two weeks now. Adam has been working for a man in our ward for the past month and so work on the kitchen as been sporadic at best. Thankfully, his work is done with our ward member and he has been concentrating on our kitchen for the last couple of days. A couple of years ago, we got a steal of a deal on some granite tiles from Home Depot that came out to be only a buck a tile. We couldn't resist so we bought enough to do our bathroom and kitchen. Adam finished the bathroom almost immediately but we haven't done the kitchen yet due to a lack of funds. That and we hated to put beautiful black granite on top of old, crappy 70's cabinets. At any rate, the kitchen finally feels like it's coming back together. The counters look awesome and I'm really excited to see it completed. We know it was crazy to replace the cabinets but I guess our rationale is that even if we don't sell the house at least we will be able to enjoy a new kitchen. Adam's skills amaze me. He can do just about anything around the house and knows how to operate every power tool known to man. If he doesn't know, he just gets on-line and figures it out. And it turns out looking great. He is a very handy man to have around. That was one of the things that attracted me to Adam, that he knows how to fix things and do things for himself without having to hire out for every little thing.
Of course, in life everything always has to happen at the same time. First, Adam had a vicious stomach bug that lasted for four days. Last week, I think I got the same stomach bug. Now this week I'm battling Strep Throat. It's hard for Adam to get anything done when he has to help take care of the kids. Now Ruby's nose is running live a sieve and is insanely cranky. Such is life.
All in all, things are going well. We are really, really (did I mention really?) looking forward to March/April when we will finally know about a job Adam has been waiting on. In the meantime, the Lord is taking care of us by helping me place exchange students and sending extra work Adam's way. We also found out that Adam's unemployment won't end until the end of March. Woo!
The kids are doing well. Ruby ALWAYS wants to read books and James is very into the classic Disney cartoons from the 40's and 50's. He just laughs and laughs at Chip n' Dale and Donald Duck. Why don't they make cartoons like they used to? Cartoons today are so lame. Which brings me to some things I've been thinking about: Why don't all of the animals in the Disney cartoons talk? ie: Pluto. Mickey's a talking mouse yet he has a non-talking dog for a pet. Why is this?
Also, does Home Depot pipe the scent from the hot dog stand into the store? Because I can walk into that store just having eaten and I will get one whiff from the greasy stand out front and my mouth immediately starts to water. It's a genious marketing tool. I love that smell.