Chloe's Tooth

Chloe lost her second tooth on May 2nd. As you may recall, she tried to save her first one, but lost it before she was ready to give it up to the tooth fairy. This time we talked about how she probably shouldn't wait so she wouldn't have a chance to lose it. That first night she put in under her pillow, the tooth fairy was all set, and then she came crying to mom that she couldn't find her tooth. I asked why it wasn't under her pillow. She explained that she really wasn't ready to give it up, so she had put it somewhere else, and had now lost it. After a little searching she remembered where she had placed it, so all was not lost. I told her if she wasn't ready to get rid of it she didn't have to put it under her pillow. Several days went by and she started getting worried again. She finally told me she just needed a picture of her tooth so that she wouldn't forget it. So, that night we went out and took a picture. Then we put her tooth in a baggy and put it under her pillow -- again. But as you can guess, she still wasn't ready. Now she's telling me she just wants to print out the picture of her tooth and give that to the tooth fairy. I'm not sure the tooth fairy pays for pictures, but we'll have to see. Too bad our printer has gone kapooey. One of these days we'll get a print and give it a try.

Kitchen Floor

A couple weeks ago Brandon and I got real ambitious and cleaned out our garage. We threw out a ton of stuff that did not need to be there. Among some of our "treasures" we found were all the flooring remnants the previous owners had left for us. We had no use for them (because we're hoping to replace our floors one of these days, ok years), so I listed them on Freecycle. Someone came and took all my tile, but the vinyl used in my kitchen is still available. I had taken this picture to send to someone who requested it, wanting to see if it would match her stuff -- see my pretty kitchen floor?

Yeah, and then Friday morning I woke up to Brandon screaming. I finally found out it was because our kitchen floor no longer looked like the picture above. It had exploded (as one of our neighbors put it, it looked like a volcano). After some investigating we found a leak in the hose that runs to the ice maker in the fridge. We got it turned off and cleaned up, then Brandon drilled some holes in the floor to try to let the water from underneath dry up. It didn't help; it only got worse. I had a friend in town for the weekend, so she had her handy husband stop by and he explained why this type of subfloor wouldn't dry up. He also pointed out how the previous (idiot) owner had just put the subfloor on top of their existing linoleum. I suppose that might have helped the water not leak into the basement ceiling, but I still don't understand people that can't just do a job right. So, we got to spend our Memorial Day pulling up the kitchen floor.

Chloe was a super helper. I think she would have done the whole thing, if we'd let her. We had several neighbors stop by to offer help and suggestions. My visiting teacher brought over cupcakes. Now doesn't that make the whole ordeal bearable? I think so (but only because they were chocolate!)

Here you can see a little bit of the old linoleum sticking out. We're just going to leave it until we decide exactly what we want to do with it. Yes, it's ugly, but it's not THAT bad. However, Chloe is so funny with it. She won't step on it. She tried to just walk around on the counters to get to the fridge, but since I don't allow walking on the counters it's done well to keep her out of the kitchen. We're going to survive, but I still hope we find a good replacement sometime in the near future. Anyone want to trade me homes? Lately, renting sounds pretty good to me.

Girls Bedroom

I thought it took me forever to get my girls room painted, but it's honestly taken me even longer just to post the pictures I took over a month ago. But here they finally are.

The first picture just shows the two different colors we did. I went back and forth on so many different ideas, but had to settle on this one simply due to the layout of the room. The way our roof pokes out over their bedroom makes it so the wall above the window isn't as tall as the rest of the room. It looks cute, but posed some decorating challenges. So, we just did the wall with the window this hot pink (my interior consultant was much more willing to accomdate Chloe's request than I was), and the rest of the walls are yellow -- the same color we had in their room in Cheyenne.


This is their closet. We put the moulding around it. It was much easier after doing the window and learning from our mistakes, plus this one didn't require any angle cuts. This was pretty simple, and makes a huge difference (to me). Yeah, the closet door still needs painted (it's not quite as white as we painted the moulding), but that's just gonna have to wait until I feel like torturing myself again.

And here you can see the window. This was the biggest challenge. My "interior consultant" (as I call her, aka a visiting teacher) had told me I could just cut the pieces straight across. I had seen her windows she had done that way and they looked really cute, but our base board was a lot different from hers so it just wasn't the same. It looked awful, so we had to redo it. This time we cut them at 45 degree angles, and it did the trick. We weren't sure how we were going to do the top moulding since it had to be cut in half (lengthwise), but we used Brandon's Skil saw and for the first time since purchasing it, Brandon was happy with what it did. That made it all worth it. Chloe's not happy that she didn't get a pretty header for the top (like on the closet and the window we did in our bedroom), but it just wouldn't work with the window touching the ceiling.

Chloe's 7th Birthday

It may seem as though I have stopped working on this project. I'm not giving up yet, just trying to find something to motivate me to get it done. We've had a couple full weeks. I have tons of things to post, but I'm going to start my "catch up" with Chloe's birthday.

She wanted to go camping for her birthday, and after looking at several different ideas we settled on staying at a cabin in Star Valley. We went up there Friday night. Grandma, Grandpa, and the gang met us up there and brought pizza for dinner. After they left we got to relax in the hot tub before going to bed.

Saturday morning we left the cabin and went to Grandma's house. We stopped at the store she works at and checked it out. Chloe had requested (at mom's suggestion) going to The Red Baron for her birthday dinner. It's a hometown drive-in in Afton with some really good food. And the fact that it's only open during the summer makes you long for it all winter long. Luckily they opened the Monday before. Chloe requested a cake AND pie for her birthday, and that's what she got. We bought her cake from Target (did I mention they forgot to make it!), but we got one done in rush and then Brandon made her an apple pie.

Annie Get Your Gun

I've got to tell you my exciting news. We took a tour of the Hale Centre Theatre with a group of homeschoolers several months ago. They gave all the kids a free ticket. Unfortunately, Chloe and I had gone to see "The Secret Garden" there just the night before. I've been waiting for another play that we would like to see. Merrill Osmond was staring in "The Civil War" last month. I really wanted to see that, but we just didn't make it. I knew "Annie Get Your Gun" was coming up, so I was saving the free ticket for that (I thought Chloe might like it better). With Brandon's church calling we don't have a lot of free evenings anymore so I knew I was limited to a Tuesday night. I looked at tickets a week or so ago, but they were selling out fast. There were very few good seats left, and I needed to confirm with Brandon what night we could go. April is my month for a date with Chloe (we switch every month), so without it running into May I was limited to the 22nd or 29th. I was still frustrated that there were no good seats left and I didn't want to end up on the back row, but I also knew things weren't going to improve.

Thursday night we were in the middle of playing Cranium (a game that was just not meant to happen), when at 7:10 our home teacher calls. He asks if we want to go see "Annie Get Your Gun." This production was being put on at our local theatre by the junior high. There were about 6 kids from our ward performing in it, so he had gotten tickets for the young men to go. I guess 4 of them flaked on him, so he thought of the Nicholls. The play started at 7:30, so we didn't have much time to think about it. We just left Cranium on the table and ran to the theatre. It was a good show, but now I had to decide if I still wanted to take Chloe to see it at Hale Centre. She said she wanted to, so I decided I better get the tickets.

Yesterday I got online to see what I could get. I noticed that April 22nd was sold out, which left me with only the 29th if we were going to be able to go in April. So I decided to look in May (thinking I could just push our date back). There were much better choices, but just for the heck of it I checked the 29th again and that's when I noticed two seats right on the front row. I was so excited (I guess it doesn't take much)! I called the theatre and asked the lady if I could have those two seats (I couldn't order online since I had this free ticket). She gave them to me and I was one happy girl. I ran to tell Chloe the news. I'm not sure she was quite as elated as I, but she seemed happy. Maybe just a hint of "why is my mom acting so crazy?"

Babysitting Eli

We had the pleasure of watching Eli today while his parents went house hunting. We gave him a piano lesson, fed him, fought over who got to hold him (or push him in the stroller), and we took a few pictures. Chloe is heartbroken over the fact that she thinks once they move she will NEVER get to babysit Eli again. I tried to assure her we'd still see them, but truthfully it will probably be a lot less.

Spelling List

Sophie brought home her first spelling list today. I recalled the lack of challenge there was when Chloe brought hers home last year, so you could say I was a little less than enthusiastic; however, Chloe made up for what I lacked. She grabbed the list and immediately started quizzing Sophie. Soph got them all right on the first try. I'd love to brag about her accomplishment, but really, how hard is it to spell I, a, is, to, and go? Then Brandon gets home from work, and Chloe decides to give her dad a shot at it as well. He's occupied washing some dishes (yes, he's a great husband) when she gives him his first word, I. He says, "I don't know what you're talking about." So, she gives him the next word. Again, he's still a little frustrated and doesn’t answer correctly. Chloe then goes over to Sophie and says, "You’re a lot smarter than dad." We can't argue with that.