The Saga of the Slab

The slab of our house is wet and has been since July of last year. We have had three plumbers come out and say we have no pipe leaks and have been at a loss as to what to do about this problem. It is a problem because it caused my wood floor to buckle and you can see water stains in the edges of some of the planks. I don’t want to fix it till I solve the problem.

Well, I was chattiing with a neighbor (three houses up) and it turns out that she has a huge pond in her back yard that looses a foot of water each day. Her DH fills it back up each day and it looses all that water again. Add to that, my next door neighbor (one house up) has a spa that also leaks. We are getting inundated with water from these two peoples leaky pond and spa! I am almost 100% certain that is what is causing our problem. We are going to see if we can put some sort of barrier and drainage in on that side of the house.

Is it just me, or wouldn’t you fix it if you had a pond or spa that was leaking like that????

Kayli’s Two Front Teeth

Kayli’s top two teeth have been loose for quite sometime. We have been trying to get her to let us pull them out since before Christmas. One of them was twisted behind the other and it looked just horrible! Kayli had her expander removed a few weeks ago and now needed to get a retainer. I have been telling her all week that the dentist was going to pull those teeth, but every time we went to touch them she screamed like we were killing her! Today she went to the orthodontist to get her retainer. The orthodontist took one look at those two teeth and said they had to come out. She only wimpered a bit while the orthodontist pulled out the teeth. Her permanent teeth are already coming in, so it is a very good thing the orthodontist pulled them out. The receptionist was saying that we were lucky the orthodontist took them out because the regular dentist charges to do that! She got this cute little treasure box to put her teeth in. I’m not sure whether she will want to give them to the tooth fairy or not tonight.

Cute Things They Say

I was thinking today about some of the cute things that the twins say. They have come so far with their language in the last few months. The speech therapy has helped them so much. One thing that Jared says that is so cute is “Oh! Thanks!”. He says this whenever you give something to him, his milk, food, his toys, blanket, anything. It is so adorable!

Another cute thing that both Jared and Riley say is “Owie, that hurt!” whenever they get a boo-boo. It’s never just Owie! But always “Owie, that hurt!” I don’t have any idea where they picked that up. It is so funny!

They both call their blankets “bank” and blues clues is “boo”. Riley says “popy” for open. It took me a while to figure out that was what he was saying.

Happy New Year!

We had so much fun ringing in the new year last night. My nieces, who are staying with my in-laws while their parents go to Russia to adopt another child, in-laws, and SIL all come over. We played games, watched Star Wars, had snacks and were outside at the stroke of midnight to ring in the new year. There must have been 20 kids outside! We had some fireworks and sparklers and our next door neighbor had fountains saved from the 4th of July. I sure hope no one in our neighborhood was trying to sleep! It seemed like almost all the nieghbors were out there. The twins had gone to sleep hours before and managed to sleep through all the noise. It was so much fun watching the kids run around with sparklers and streamers. We had a ton of party poppers and noise makers and horns too. We spent about 1/2 hour outside having fun before going back in to watch the end of Star Wars. It was after 1 am before we got the kids in bed.

Twin Trouble!

Jared and Riley have managed to get into a lot of trouble in their short life. They have dumped a full can of comet all over the floor, they have poured syrup all over the stairs and all over the living room table, carpet and entry-way floor, they have dumped hundreds of my CD’s on the floor and mixed up all the discs and holders, they have climbed up the outside of the stair railing to stand on the entry-way table, they have climbed up on the dinning room table and grabbed onto the chandelier. If I take my eyes off of them for more than 2 minutes, they find something to get into! I can’t even go to the bathroom without them getting into trouble! Today they managed to get the fire extinguisher out of the supposedly locked cabinet (locked with “child proof locks” ), somehow got the safety ring off of it and sprayed it all over the den. All of this happened while I was out of the room for less than 2 minutes.

Of course, while I was cleaning up that mess, they managed to get into the pantry, open a box of pop-tarts, rip open a package and grind pop-tart pieces into the floor in the kitchen. While I’m cleaning that up, they are ripping to pieces magazines in the den.

This was all before 10 am this morning. Thank goodness there was a twins club playday at a park I could go to at 10:30! I think getting us all out of the house may just have saved my sanity.

Congratulations Mr. President!

I am thrilled that George W. Bush was re-elected our President. Talia and Kayli asked me who won when they got up this morning. My response was the Bush won but Kerry wouldn’t concede. They then wanted to know what concede meant. So I explained to them that it meant the he admits he has lost. I was pleased to see that he did come to his senses and concede this morning. Listening to some Democrats talk and you would think it was the end of life as we know it because Bush won. I hear threats of “I’m moving out of this country” coming from come of them. If that’s what they want to do, then by all means go ahead and move!

I spent a good deal of time last night tracking the results online vs what the broadcast media was saying saying on the TV. I kept sawing them call states for Kerry with 0% of the precincts reporting in and not calling them for Bush till 80-90% were in. It got really ridiculous with Florida. Bush was up 300,000 with 97% of the precincts reporting in and none of the networks would call it! They wouldn’t turn it red until after the Kerry camp admitted they had lost it! Since when do the networks need the permission of the loosing candidate before calling the state? It got really ridiculous when they refused to call Ohio, Iowa and New Mexio when it was more than obvious that Bush had won them. The network bias was really showing last night. It was clear that they were sad to see “their guy” loose. It is also clear that you can get much better information on what is going on online. Being able to pull up each states results with a move of the mouse without having to wait for the broadcaster to get around to that state again, clearly showed how much easier it is to follow the race online.

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween. There were many more trick-or-treater this year than last. My girls hit every house in the neighborhood along with their friends. (They were out for over 2 hours!) They came back with way to much candy. Luckily, I was able to send about 10 pounds of it to school with Kayli this morning. The girls school collects candy the day after Halloween to donate to a local childrens hospital. I took the boys to a few houses. They had a lot of fun. I think Aidan liked passing out the candy better than trick-or-treating.

Carving Pumpkins

Today we carved pumpkins while the twins were taking a nap. The kids really had fun. After being confronted with the opened pumpkin, Aidan decided he would rather paint one. Talia did her pumpkin almost entirely on her own this year. I only had to help her scoop it out a bit, she did all the carving herself. After they finished with the pumpkins, the girls wanted to roast pumpkin seeds. The turned out really good and everyone enjoyed eating them.

I’m Having “One of Those Days” Today

We all have them, days where everything seems to go wrong. Days where you just want to crawl back in bed and stay there till the next morning. Days where you find yourself raising your voice at your kids way to often, because you are worn out from all the things that haven’t gone your way that day. Today is “One of Those Days”.

It all started when I woke up and my back was hurting. It has been hurting all day and having to get 35 pounds toddlers into and out of their cribs and up and down the stairs all day has only made it worse. In the hustle of trying to get the kids all fed breakfast and the girls to school on time, Talia can’t find her school library book. It isn’t due today, but she really wants it. I’m also getting upset at the girls for the mess their room is in, despite it supposedly being cleaned last night. The cleaner comes today and she doesn’t need to be straightening up the girls room! She finally finds the book and we manage to get the girls to school on time. The cleaner arrives and starts working. A bit later she brings me the vacuums cleaner, because the little brush thingies on the bottom are not moving. I start to help her out and find that Jared is spraying the windex in his face. He must have gotten it out of the cleaner’s supply bucket, which I pick up off the floor and put on the counter so they can’t get into it again. I go back to help out the cleaner with the vacuums and see that the brush rollers are very much stuck and we need to take off the bottom to get at them better. I go to the garage to get the screwdriver and see that the twins had also gotten a bottle of 405 cleaner out of http bucket and had sprayed it all over the coffee table and leather chair in the other room! So, I had to get that all cleaned up, get then get the screw driver and take off the bottom of the vacuums cleaner. We still couldn’t get the rollers off to clean them and had to take out 6 more screws to get at them. Finally we get them off and see that one was totally stuck and get it all cleaned up. We put it back together and it worked! (Much to my amazement.)

I then take the boys outside to play so the cleaner can clean downstairs. Everything outside was wet due to all the rain we got earlier in the week. I dried of the slide and swings and other equipment, but they twins kept finding other items with water in it that I had to keep going and dry out. Then it is time for a snack, so I go in to get them graham crackers and find that someone had put the box back in the cabinet empty. I found a plastic bag with a few crackers in it, so I give that to them. Once those are gone, the twins start throwing a fit that we don’t have any more. They eventually stopped screaming and by then the cleaner was done and it was time for lunch. I turn on the oven to reheat the left over pizza and then go to check the business email account, since I haven’t checked it all morning. I hear the oven beep that it is preheated, go in the kitchen and see the twins dumping sand all over the floor. I just about lost it! There was sand on their high chairs, sand on the floor in the kitchen and sand on the floor in the entry way. I was so angry that they had dumped sand all over the floor I had just paid someone to clean!

I swept up the sand, I vacuumed the sand and then I swept about 5 more times and got most of it cleaned up. I then tried to calm down Then I fed the boys lunch and put the twins in bed. After J&R went to sleep, Aidan and I made chocolate chip cookies. I hoping that the rest of the day will go better. But if it doesn’t, at least I have home made cookies to binge on!

Why I vote Republican

I posted this earlier today in response to a thread asking people to post why they are voting one way or another. I wanted to save my reponse so that I can add to it later on.

I have been a republican all my life and have never seen any reason to change that. I don’t always agree with everything they stand for, but I do agree with all the major platforms.

I am very pro-life and against any policy that cause the unnatural death of any individual – unborn, sick, disabled or aged. I see this as a very slippery slope. I was reading an article about how in the Neatherlands it is now okay for a doctor to kill a sick child in the hospital without the parents consent. I hear all the liberals says “that could never happen here” – I’m sure a lot of people that lived in the Neatherlands 50 years okay would have said the same about their country then.

I am against same sex marriages. Marriage has been defined for thousands of years as being between a man and a women. I find no compelling reason to change that now.

I am for a strong national defense. The best defenses is a good offense. In this current world climate dominated by irrational terrorist, you have to be on the offense all the time. I do not want to see the USA bow down to the influence of other countries. This is our country and only *we* can decide how best to defend her.

I believe it is much better to spend tax dollars to help train people so that they can get good paying jobs and support themselves. The latest changes to the welfare program are doing just that. The culture of sustained welfare only served to create entire generations of people that were enslaved by welfare. It is far better to teach these people how to help themselves rather than continue to give them a hand-out for doing nothing.

I am for school vouchers. The public schools have lots of problems. Why should it only be the people that can afford private schools that get to send their kids there? What better way to help them than to give them a good education at a private school? If the public schools can’t do a good enough job of educating our kids, then I see no reason not to use tax dollars to send them to private schools.

I am against socialized medicine. I do not want the government telling me what doctors I can go to and when. When I want medical care, I want to be able to choose when and where I get it. I do not want to get stuck in a wait list and end up dying because I couldn’t get seen by a doctor soon enough. I do not want all the good doctors to quit because they can no longer get the salary that they currently enjoy. I do not want good young people to decide not to go into medicine because it is not worth all the effort due to the small governement dictated salaries.

I am for less government, not more. It is rare to see the government get involved in anything and actually do a good job of fixing things. Government bureaucracy is such that you can not achieve any sort of efficiency that can rival the private sector. Besides, I would just really prefer that that the government stay out of my life as much as possible.

A lot of my positions are based on my morals, which are founded in my religious beliefs. Nothing is going to change that. I believe laws should be based on morals. Long stand morals that have been in common to diverse groups of individuals over many, many generations.