It's a Tough Life

The Bus

The first day of school went off without a hitch.  Here's a snapshot of the parents on the street waiting for the kiddos to get off the bus.  All of us had cameras.  All of us were super excited to see our babies and hear all about their first day of school!

And there she is!!  Ms. Charlotte pulls around the corner and the crowd erupts!  Can't wait to see the children make a mad dash for us.

And the first 2 off are my boys running at full speed in the 105 degree heat.  Come to Mama!

Here's some of the court kids. From left to right: Payton (K), Caleb (3rd), Jeremy (4th), Adam (K), Carter (K), Ethan (K), Dylan (3rd), Julianne (2nd), Hayden (1st), and Lander (4 year old brother of Hayden)  We're missing 7 other kiddos, but these are the ones at Heritage.

And then they run to the house.  Wait for me!!!

First Day of School

I sent 2 boys off to school this morning!  Caleb is in 3rd grade and Carter is in kindergarten.  Unlike when Caleb went to kindergarten, I was super excited for them this morning... no tears, no worries.  Carter insisted on his multi-colored socks and bright shoes this morning.  Well, that's just him.  The boys were up and ready before 7am this morning.

Mom and the big boys.  Love them so much!

Dad and the big boys.  Love these guys!

Caleb marched right into 3rd grade self-assured and ready to learn.  I'm so proud of this boy!

Mrs. Jackson is his teacher this year.  She was awarded teacher of the year and is a favorite at the school.  We are so lucky to have her this year.  She loves music- playing piano and singing.  From what I've heard she loves to put all her teaching to music.  She sounds like my kind of lady.  In fact, she had some 50s music playing in the room this morning as the kids were getting settled.  I think Caleb is going to LOVE 3rd grade!

Here's little Tart!  He was so excited to go to kindergarten today.  Once we got to school we had to wait in the cafeteria until the first bell rang- apparently we got there a little bit early.  While waiting in the cafeteria he whispered to me, "Mama, I'm nervous."  Oh, it was so cute.  I told him it would be OK and tried to hold his hand.  He didn't want any part of that.  He just wanted to stand really close to me.

His buddy and neighbor, Ethan, is also in his room.  Ethan and Carter have been friends since birth.  It was easier to leave him knowing he had a buddy sharing his locker and sitting across from him.

And here's the easiest reason to leave him- Mrs. Larkin.  She loved Caleb through kindergarten and now she gets to have Carter.  These 2 are going to have so much fun together!  I've forewarned Mrs. Larkin that Carter and Caleb are 2 very different kiddos!  I think it will be a fantastic year.

Here's my parting image.  My boy playing with playdo.  Cant' wait to see these boys come running off the bus this afternoon!

Summer Babies Turn One!

The summer of 2009 was a baby boom amongst my circle of friends.  I hosted a party for the moms and babies.  It was so fun to get together and celebrate our one year old miracles.

Brenner was loving all the little people in his house and sharing his toys.

Some of the time the babies played together, but they mostly just crawled over each other getting to whatever toys they wanted.  They were all so cute together!

Group photo!  From left to right: Brystol, Tate, Brenner, Jacob, and Addison.  Jacob is chewing on Elfy's dog bell.  The babies loved her bell.

Time for cupcakes!  It didn't take long before the babies were diving right in.  Yum!

Here we are: Jenny/Brenner, Amanda/Brystol, Randi/Tate, Emily/Jacob, and Angela/Addison

Next we made stepping stones with hand/feet prints.

They turned out so great!  Happy Birthday to all our babies!  What a quick and wonderful year it's been!

In the Pool

It's official.  We're in the pool.  Carter did a forward flip while Caleb opted to jump in feet first.  Steve did a cannonball off the board and I just stepped in through the shallow end.

The Pool: Day Twenty-Four

The pool has chemicals and is running!  Tomorrow morning we can swim!

Here's some lirope and English ivy I bought to plant in the shaded areas of the yard.  (BTW, we have extra stones and brick from our original path.  We'll have our landscaper just take them unless someone wants them- feel free to drop me a comment if interested.  Otherwise they'll be hauled off on Monday)

Asian Jasmine and some bushes for the sunnier side of the yard.

And I found a Pride of Barbados- Birds of Paradise 50% off at Calloways.  My father-in-law was very excited for me.  This is one of his favorites.  I'm hoping to have success with her.

The Pool: Day Twenty-Three

8:30 this morning- almost entirely covering the light in the deep end and halfway up the bottom step on the shallow end.

11:30 this morning-halfway up the second step.

2:00 PM- almost to the top of the step- about 6 inches from the bottom of the tile.  Steven, the pool service guys stopped by with some pool equipment.  Notice anything different in this photo?

FULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  32 hours with 2 hoses and 24,750 gallons of water.... man, I don't want to see my water bill this month.

Pool guy will stop by in the morning to start it up with chemicals.  The chemicals have to run 24 hours.  Then we swim on Sunday! 

The Pool: Day Twenty-Two

This is my view at 7am!  Early bird catches the worm!  Plastic guys arrived before the utility crew so they got the primo parking spot.  The utility guys had to wait to start their dig until the plaster guys were done.

The plaster guys do one pool a day since it's so hot.  The plaster hardens quickly so they got to move fast.

You can see the utility guys watching the plaster guys.  They can't do anything until they can get their truck up close, so they are just watching and waiting.

Here's the view from Carter's room.  It just gets sprayed in a lot like the gunite.  The guys are wearing shoes with tall spikes to walk around in the plaster.

Once the spraying was finished they started smoothing it all out.  They also installed the umbrella holder, the fountain, the rope hooks, the drains, and all the other plastic parts of the pool.

They also switched their shoes to these socks-taped-on-foam things.  Looks fun, huh?

Everyone is smoothing out their area.  The plastic has blue flecks in it, so once the water is in it will give it a deeper blue appearance.

The boys love watching.

Plaster was done at 10am.  Two hoses started filling the pool.  The guys taped water bottles to the end to make the hoses float with the water.

2:30PM- we have about 2 feet in the deep end.

6:30 PM- after a freak rain storm blew through.  You can see the line of dirt sitting in the water.

8:30PM- almost all of the pool floor is covered.

The Pool: Day Twenty-One

Here's the view from my neighbor's yard looking back toward our house.  You can see the lighter colored board added to the middle of the fence.  It's installed at a 45 degree angle so it makes it hard to get footing to climb over.  This is what was required in order for us to pass.

The city inspector came by this morning.  After about 8 minutes he gave me the golden ticket!

And here's the utility guys.  I swear, they should just move a trailer onto the court.  They've worked 6 whole days and still have not moved the power line.  Today they dug a line from the front of our house to the back.  It's 4 feet deep.  I still have a massive crater in my front yard.  The machine in the photo above is what drills the hole for the power line pipe.  They were finally able to make it to the backyard.  Then they started manually pushing the pipe through the hole.  They got 30 feet of the pipe in and they got stuck.  So, 7 guys had to use all their strength and pull the pipe back out.  Can't tell you how frustrated I am.  I'm just ready for them to be off my property.

On a good note, the plaster/quartz will be done in the morning!  Yeah! 

The Pool: Day Twenty

Here we are ready for inspection.  See the nifty door alarm.  It's obnoxiously loud.  Little did the pool guy know we had 3 doors to the backyard (and that's not counting the future sliding glass door).  So, he made a second trip for more alarms.  Well, I thought we were all ready, but apparently we weren't!  I learned this morning that both our next door neighbors needed boards added to the sides of their fence that border our property- part of city code.  These boards go in the middle of the fence at a 45 degree angle to prevent children from climbing over the fence into our pool.  Well, getting that done with the Raburns is an easy fix, but my other neighbor just installed a super fancy (expensive) fence and only wanted his fencing company to make the fix.  We would not pass inspection until this was done.  So, they cancelled the inspection for today.  With lots of phone calls I was able to get hold of the fancy fence company and convinced the guy to come out and make the necessary repairs at the same price my pool guy was going to do it. Yeah!  Now, in the morning they should fix the other neighbors side and HOPEFULLY (knock on wood) get inspected tomorrow afternoon.

The yard was looking so good and then the sprinkler guys came and tore it all up.  But, I guess that's part of installing sprinklers.  This was actually kind of a sad sight to me after seeing how great everything looked yesterday and the fence fiasco I was in the middle of fixing.

And then my front yard looks like this.  Ugh!  This made me even more sad.  I can't believe after 5 days of digging they still have yet to move my power lines.  Seriously?  These guys must work for the government.

At the end of the day the pool yard was put back as it should be.  We now have working sprinklers everywhere.  The good news is that it cost about half what we were originally quoted.  The bad news is the front yard is a complete mess.  I'm really praying for 2 things tomorrow- utilities finally moved and we pass inspection.  It's crazy to be juggling so many projects at once.  I just got to keep focusing on the finished project!