Kitchen

It has been quite a week at our house. Each child has gotten sick youngest to oldest, fever, throw up, and diarrhea for some. Last night Pantera came down with this 36 hour bug and I thought I was going to lose it. After a week of this and few nights of decent sleep my patience I fear is wearing thin. So I thought I would recount a wonderful blessing that happened last year to lift my spirits, plus I've been meaning to post this FOREVER!!!

 

The night before Sandy was supposed to hit, I opened one of my kitchen cupboards to find it full of water. Now I had already been stressed trying to prepare for this huge storm that never made it to us (thank goodness), then to find a disaster in the kitchen was not the happiest surprise. We had hoped to remodel the kitchen the following spring using our tax return money to help the project along, but with the extent of the damage it could not wait. I put in a call to my Dad as soon as I saw the water and he being the awesome superhero type that he is, he already knew what he wanted to do the kitchen. He made a quick layout (seriously, who can just do that?!?) and we put in a HUGE order to Lowe's.

 

That weekend Jess and my Dad ripped out the old kitchen to find a pipe had burst in the wall. I had to take the kids somewhere else because it was so nasty, the menfolk were barely keeping there lunches down. Here is the before:

 First tender mercy was of course this happening after my parents moved near us. My dad does AMAZING work that I can't even imagine what I would pay full price for. Second was paying for it all, I stress so bad about money. I hate big unexpected purchases and get sick to my stomach at even the thought of one, so forking out several thousand dollars for a new kitchen out of the blue was difficult to say the least. Jess' parents came to visit near the completion of the project and his dad happened to mention that a friend had something similar happen and the insurance company paid for it. I had never even thought about that, insurance doesn't actually pay for things right?

I decided to make a call to nationwide that day and they sent someone out shortly thereafter. He looked at the damage, took some measurements, then wrote me a check that covered the ENTIRE kitchen cost! The nationwide guy was probably a bit overwhelmed as I stood and cried in front of him, but I was so shocked and so very grateful. Here is the after pic:

Doesn't even look like the same space does it? I love my new kitchen and love the feelings of gratitude for the Father's in my life that it is a constant reminder of. I am truly blessed, there I think I can go back and face the crabby munchkins now:)

Good morning Doctor!

Miss Katurah woke up with a fever this morning, poor little girl. I hate it when she is sick, but she does let me hold her a little more then usual and at this point I take what I can get. She is babbling a ton still, I think maybe she picked up on the language from some ancient indigenous tribe and when she does finally speak English I will maintain that she is bilingual. She loves to play duck, duck, goose. If anyone is sitting on the floor she will hit them on the head with a "Duh!" Maybe she just loves to hit and has found a way to get away with it...that child is a genius I tell you!

 If Zeke is looking strangely older to you, it may be because he lost his front teeth. The ladies in Kindergarten are going to go nuts over him, so mature. If you look back on my blog long ago, I documented Zeke getting his 4 top front teeth crowned. About 9 months ago one got knocked off while he was goofing around with his siblings. I took him to the dentist right away and was told not to worry about it. I had him in 3 more times since then and kept telling the dentist I really didn't like the way it was looking, the tooth was completely gone! Again he was not worried. He bit into something 2 Sundays ago and said "Oww!" First thing Monday morning I am on the phone with the dentist, sure enough that tooth and another one are infected...GRRRRR!!!!! Onto antibiotics and Dr.Doof says we have to remove 3 of the 4 teeth they crowned and they have to put him under the following Wednesday to do so. I keep going back and forth between being happy it's over and he's not in pain to just plain pissed that he didn't do something to begin with and now my kid has no front teeth for a couple of years. The downfall of where we live, no other options.

I explained what was going to happen to Zeke several times before the procedure. At one point trying to sound upbeat and happy about the whole thing I told him he would "have Pumpkin teeth!" I then heard him explaining to Amari "The Dentist is going to make me sleep, then take out my teeth that hurt and put in Pumpkin teeth!" Ooops!

He was such a trooper about the whole thing this go round. He has been put under 2 other times and is usually a bear when he wakes up. This time he woke up and said "Good morning Doctor!" All the staff was cracking up, they said they have never heard anyone wake up like that before. You are such a brave boy Zekie!

 Amari is currently obsessed with things being dead. We will play with her toy animals and she knocks them ALL down and says "Pretend they are dead." It is a really fun game. It's interesting how they process things that happen through play, our cat caught a baby bunny a couple weeks back and hurt it really bad. I heard the cries of the bunny and took it from the cat, hoping it would be alright. I put it in a popsicle box (the only thing I could find) with a blanket and set it next to Jess and I as we watched our shows for the night. Well Amari gets out of bed and asks for a popsicle, to which I reply "There are no more popsicles, please go to bed." She's a nebby little one and asks to see what's in the box. I said "no." So she just opens the box and is thrilled to see a new pet bunny! Here we go!!! I explain that it is likely going to die and it does the next morning. We bury it in the back yard and Amari helps put the dirt over it. About 5 minutes later Amari asks "Where is my bunny?" "It's dead Amari, you just helped us bury it." "Oh, can I get it?" Then I overhear her telling people at a BBQ that she has a pet bunny...a dead pet bunny.

The other day she said "Mom, my butt hurts." Zeke replies "It's probably just dingleberries Amari."

 Pantera performed "Reflection" from Mulan on Saturday at our ward talent show, she sang amazingly. She still has to wait a few years to do choir in school, I hope she still has the desire when she is old enough. The other day she was eating something and said "I love American comfort food...sometimes." Alright Captain Random. Jess has been teasing her about boys lately so she and I came up with a good plan to get him back. I told her to set up a fake person in his spot of the bed and it will scare him when goes to sleep. She was so excited, but has some work ahead of her if she ever wants to be a serious prankster. She came downstairs after it was all set up and gave me a thumbs up and a wink! Rookie mistake, but it cracked me up! For the record, Dad was TERRIFIED, you nailed it!

 Amari was teaching Zeke how to blow bubbles today.

 "No just a little bit softer." Zeke and gentle don't really go together.

 Finally after about 20 minutes he got it and she was pretty happy for him!

 I finally redid my kitchen table, it was really bad. Before:

 After:

I only kept the legs the rest built myself. Ok, so I couldn't have done it without my Jessiboy, thanks for the help cutie!

No More......

 These days Katurah loves to spend alot of time on her own, sometimes she reads, sometimes she finds a leappad, but she always ends up on Zeke's bed relaxing. This is only funny because his is the only bed in the house that is constantly covered in very hard cars toys, uncomfy is the new comfy. She must be teething again because she has started waking during the night out of nowhere. She is super cute but kind of creepy at 3 am, just when you think she is asleep she will randomly stand straight up in bed and just stare right at you. Her favorite books at this moment are the How does a Dinosaur series and Brown Bear, just like Zeke when he was her age.

 Amari has HUGE news for all the world...please be seated if you aren't all ready as this will knock your socks off and likely throw you off balance in the process putting you at risk for a terrible fall *we are not liable for any bodily injury occurring during the reading of this post* Amari no longer uses a...wait for it...LALA!!! Yes that's right after over 3 years being completely hooked on her pacifier she gave it up cold turkey this past Tuesday. How did she do it? I'm still a little confused myself on that one, but it involved a sticker chart, maybe she will put out a self help video. Two days after she quit she said "Remember when I was a baby and used lalas? Now I am big and cool." She has entered the "Why?" phase that most kids go through. It is really annoying Pantera, which is really making me laugh...payback.

 Zeke is "doing good." At least that's what he will tell you if you were to ask him. He has been playing more with his siblings, but still makes plenty of time for his cars and collectors guides. He loves the game "What time is it Mr. Fox?" And is so fun to play with. I love to drag it out and lick my lips and rub my belly when they get close, he gets so nervous it's hilarious. He came up to me the other day and said "I would like to buy my cars carrying case from Toys for us. I will do many chores, then you will buy it for me." His speech is so cute and mechanical! So taking his suggestion, we started a chore sticker chart for him, how could you say no to that?

 In my last post Pantera was sick and was going to miss her school track and field day. She had a fever through Monday night and the big day was Tuesday. She was so sad, but kept saying "Maybe it will rain and they will have to delay it." I was trying to make sure she wasn't giving herself false hope, as we didn't see any rain in the forecast and told her she needed to be prepared to accept that they will likely be doing the Olympics without her. "I am going to pray that it will rain." Tuesday morning at 8 am I get a phone call that the field day is delayed until Friday due to rain! It poured from 8 am to around the time the bus would drop her off for the day. She was so thrilled and was able to participate on Friday. Pantera, never forget that Heavenly Father loves you and listens to your prayers, even if it is for elementary school track and field day, if it's important to you it's important to Him.

 Summer vacation has already had a few rainy days, so we have been trying to stay busy. One day we made cupcakes. Amari piles the sprinkles on, while Zeke is a minimalist, and Pantera is somewhere in between. They are so great!