Molly's pictures

From Mom:

My best friend Molly came over to take some pictures of us as a family for the shower invite and for keepsake. They were all AMAZING. Here are a few of my favorites:

Mail time!

"Here's mail, never fail. Make me wag the tail. MAIL!!!"

(for you non-Blue's Clues fans, that generally how the Mail Song goes,

at least when I sing it)

Mom and Dad let me open some of it.

I LOVE it.

I even pass it out so my friends Curly and Dona can join in.

MAIL!!!

Grandma Janice's Birthday Party

After nap today, Mom and Dad told me we were going to a party for Grandma.

I love a good party, especially a birthday party.

After dinner it was time to sing "Hap Bird-day" and blow out the candles.

Grandma let me help.

I'm getting really good at this!

Yes, those are tea candles on the cake.

Aunt Mandy got to know Fred.

And then we all retired to the living room for some hammering.

A good time.

It's never too early to start...

Daddy left out his razor this morning.

I thought I'd try it out.

I'm going for that babyface look.

DISASTER!!!

Perhaps I should preface this with the fact that our pipes had frozen in my bathroom and Mom and Dad's shower and toilet (they did last year too). But earlier in the night, water started flowing freely in all of them, so Dad turned them to a drip and felt like we were in the clear.

BUT...

Early this morning, while Mom was still on-call at the hospital and Dad was asleep on the couch, there was a sudden loud rushing sound in the house.

He jumped off the couch and ran around the house, but everything was dripping peacefully as he had left it.

Everything, that is, except the garage.

There was now a large waterfall in our garage.

So Dad turned off the water in the house, moved some stuff around in the garage and thought we were sooooo lucky it was only the garage.

Until the next morning...

When he and I came downstairs for breakfast, I started complaining my feet hurt as I walked across the dining room floor.

That's because the hardwood was now horribly buckled.

The water had run from the garage, under the dining room, and into the basement.

A few pics:

The dining room floor

The ceiling in the garage

A plummer came out that morning and fixed the pipe.

The smallest 1cm hole you have ever seen was in the pipe just above that spot in the garage.

Then the clean-up crew came.

They put the LOUDEST suction machines ever all over the floor, trying to soak up the water and get them to unbuckle.

But alas, at the end of 3 days, 20 dryers in the garage, basement, and dining room,

the floors were considered a total loss and they have to be replaced.

Did I mention they have to rip out the floor, replace it, sand the rest of the downstairs floors, and restain?

Oh, and replace the dry wall and ceiling in the garage and repaint?

(The basement dried nicely--thank goodness we hadn't finished it yet!)

All this requires we move out of the house for 2 weeks.

Fun, huh?

Thank goodness for insurance.

Some pics with the Big Boy Bed

This Big Boy Bed is really pretty cool.

My new favorite thing is to strip off my clothes before bath and hop into bed to "'nuggle" (snuggle).

First, all the Friends have to hop in.

Then me.

Then you have to "cuber up" (cover up).

"I lub my bi' boy bed!"

Snow Take 2

There are several things that I like better the second time around.

Snow seems to be one of them.

Daddy and I got all dressed up to head out into the snow for a second try.

"I'm so 'cited!"

Daddy tried to teach me about sledding, but I wasn't so sure.

And I really thought it was ridiculous when he laid down to make a snow angel.

But we had a really good time all the same.

The Big Boy Bed

From Mom...

We decided to move Jack to a toddler bed yesterday--well, actually, we took the front off his crib since it is one of those "forever beds" that becomes a toddler bed and then a full-sized bed.

The first attempt (Saturday nap) didn't go very well. We put him in bed and walked out. For about an hour, he continued to get out and play in his room (never leaving his room though). We could hear him happily playing with Elmo on the monitor. We put the side back on (much to his disappointment) and let him get his nap.

The second attempt (Saturday bedtime) went a bit better. Dad sat on the floor in the dark for 15 minutes to keep Jack in bed. You have never seen such testing of boundaries. After dropping Fred, Worm, and Fish out of bed multiple times and picking them up without leaving the bed (he did fall out on his head once and quickly scurried back in), all the Friends were taken away and he laid down with some tears. Once the Friends were given back 10 minutes later, tears subsided and he went to sleep. About 30 minutes of work. Not too shabby.

This morning, much to our surprise, there was no noise from his room and no little man at our bedside. At around 8:30, we heard him stirring so I went to his room. He was sitting happily in bed reading a book to Curly. He looked at me and whispered "Curly got it"--I'm assuming he meant the book that had previously been on his shelf. Hilarious.

As for nap and bedtime today? I sat on the floor for 15 minutes at naptime (one attempt to get out quickly stopped with a "get back in bed") followed by a 3 1/2 hour nap (he waited in bed for us to come get him). And bedtime, I sat on the floor 3 minutes (no attempts to get out), covered him up and he's been asleep ever since.

Could it really be this easy? How much trouble are we in for with Number Two???