Montesoirre

Tonight was the kids' school's biggest fundraiser of the year, the Montesoirre. We went for the first time, and we had a good time! They have a dinner, dancing (ha! I didn't see any dancing), a silent auction, and a live auction. Each class makes a quilt that gets auctioned off. They were all SO cute!! Each class also had an amazing photo collage that I really wanted! I hadn't planned on bidding on anything, but the quilt for Hannah's class wasn't going for very much so I bid and won it! The elementary class quilt went for $1200!!!! I got Hannah's for a mere $150.


Here is Hannah's class quilt. Hannah's bird is in the top right corner.


Here is Elijah's class quilt. His 'firefighter' is the first square in the 3rd row.


Our table mates for tonight's dinner were, Zack's parents (aka Ted and Tammy)


and Walker's parents (Suzanne and Bill)... Hannah's future in-laws!!

We also sat with Seamus' parents but I guess they weren't at the table when Pete snapped the photos! I think Ted got a picture of Pete and myself, so maybe he'll email it to me :)

The tooth, it is history!

Hannah first noticed her tooth was loose way back on January 8th. It has gotten progressivly looser and looser. We had tried pulling it a few weeks ago, but it wasn't ready. Today, when I checked it, I wasn't sure what exactly was keeping it in her mouth! It was super loose. Hannah was dying to be the second kid in her class to loose a tooth, but Zach lost his yesterday... Walker has lost about a half dozen at this point. After dinner, I was determined to pull the darn thing, and Hannah was determined that I wouldn't. She was afraid it would hurt and bleed.


This was Hannah's response to me wanting to pull her tooth.


After, oh an hour, of trying to pry her mouth open, I found a bribe that worked!! If she let me try now, we'd have time before bed to read a chapter in the next Ramona book.


Here is the dental floss tied around her tooth... then YANK! The floss came away with nothing attached, but the tooth was laying on Hannah's lip.


Hugs and kisses!!!!


One less tooth (kind of, because the new tooth is already halfway in!!)


baby tooth


Leah announced to me that she needed to go, and she was right!!!!


I put the tent up for the kids on Saturday and they were very pleased!


Elijah showing his kitty


Miss Leah with her kitty.

Our first Leah-isms

Leah started saying 'Elijah' this week, and her version is amazingly close "Ewijah"... not bad for a 19 month old.

Today, she started playing with an old Dora figurine of Hannah's, but she doesn't (yet) know who Dora is. When Elijah stole it from her she was lamenting the loss of her "Elno baby" and "monkey". I'm not sure what Dora and Elmo have in common, but Leah sees a resemblance!!

Because pictures have been lacking!!

Hannah played in the snow for a little while before she got too cold.


Here's the walk I shovelled. At the time I felt compelled to shovel the front walk even though we NEVER use the front walk... but after the power went out and we couldn't go through the garage, I was glad I'd shovelled the walk!!! There was still 2 inches of ice, but I'd removed 6 inches of snow...


The happy family enjoying their snow day... before the power went out.


The kids eating lunch after the power went out and the house was cooling off.






Our poor tree!!!


The damage that caused all the problem. We never thought THIS would cause us to be without power for 17 days!


Hannah hogging the other kids' Valentine gifts.


Elijah tickling Leah


Elijah trying to escape the flash on the camera


A natural light picture... I wanted a picture of his hair. Everyone at church went crazy over it today :)

The Best Friday the 13th EVER!!!

We got our power back today!!!!! We are very, VERY excited :) This morning, after checking my email at Pete's office, I drove past the house. There was a backhoe digging a trench!!! I've never been so excited to see an earth moving machine. After I picked up Elijah from school, I drove by again and the work men were gone, so I checked everything out. The trench had been dug, the line put in it, and it was filled back up. I could see a long coil of line resting against the electrical pole in our backyard... not hooked up to anything. Before I picked up Hannah from school, I checked back one more time. Everything was connected!!! But nothing was working. I called Pete, and he suggested seeing if the breaker was turned off which it was, of course. That darn switch was nearly impossible for me to push. It's over my head and I had to push with both hands with all my might, but I finally got it flipped on. I checked the lights in the garage... nothing. Hmmm... then I realized ALL the breakers were off, so I flipped all of them. I heard the heater turn on YAY!!!! I reattached the garage door to the automatic opener (it's easy, but I always forget how to do it!) and I checked to make sure the thermostat was still set. After I picked up Hannah, Pete came home, so I left the kids with him and moved all of our stuff out of the condo. I'll be cleaning it tomorrow. Our house is a wreck, but at least I decided to (finally) wash the sinkful of dirty dishes yesterday... Now it's time get caught up on the laundry!
...I can't believe I almost forgot this part!! As soon as Pete got the word that our power was on, he called the cable company so they'd come fix our cable/phone/internet line that caused this disaster in the first place. Now, you have to understand that this company is not known for their speed. Typically when you call with a problem, you get an appointment for the following week. The repair guy was here in 30 minutes!!!! It took a couple of hours, but it's all working, and they are going to bury that line as well... in a month. For now, it's sitting on the grass :)

Two Weeks and counting (but who's counting?)

We have had some progress, so I guess I should be thankful for that. The brick mason did his work in a couple of hours last Friday. Nothing happened over the weekend. On Monday and Tuesday the electrician did all of his work to get our power underground. Now we are just waiting on Vectren (power company) to come out and finish the work which included digging a 70 foot trench (which we get to pay for by the foot) and laying the electric line. We had hoped that would start yesterday, but we had a massive storm roll through instead. We had two 30 minute bouts of the strongest rain I've ever witnessed along with sustained 40 mph winds gusting to 50 mph. It was a blast, let me tell you. As I was going to pick up Elijah I noticed some of the stop lights were out (not flashing, but totally out) and I wondered if the school had power. Nope, Montessori had lost power, so I picked Hannah up at 1/2 day as well. Thankfully, the condo still had power, because that would have just been a cruel fate! Hannah had art lessons at 4:30, so I dragged the kids out into the wind (the wind alert was supposed to end at 5pm, so I thought it should be dying down a bit). It was a little rainy, so Hannah and Elijah had on their raincoats and Leah and I were under the umbrella. I instructed Hannah to hold Elijah's hand while we walked to the car. The next thing I knew both kids were sprawled on the parking lot because the wind had literally swept them off their feet!! I was fighting the wind while holding Leah and the umbrella (brilliant idea that was) and I encouraged the kids to get up quickly and get to the van. Then Elijah lost his shoe... We did finally get in the van which felt like it was going to topple over in the wind. Thankfully, once we started driving the wind didn't seem too bad.
We are hoping that Vectren will start working today or tomorrow at the latest because we are beyond ready to move out of the condo. Our benefactor will return on Monday, and we really need to be out and have the place cleaned up for her (an all day event I'm sure!!).

Let's See... Day 10 (I think) of our power outage

When I last blogged we had just moved into the condo...

Our insurance agent told us that they would pay for a temporary power line to be run so we could have electricity until our brickwork could be repaired. However, when the electrician came out he had about a dozen reasons why he couldn't run that temp line. We got a recommendation for a brick mason and Pete gave him a call. We learned that you can't lay brick unless the temperature is above freezing... good to know. We had temps in the teens for several days, and today is the first day that we are having warmer weather. We also had a live power line running to our house, so we had to have the power company come out to take that off the house before the contractors could safely work. They came and took down that line yesterday, and the electrician took down the conduit so the brick mason would be able to do his job. The brick mason should be doing his job as I type!! We don't know how long the brickwork needs to dry before the electrician can do his part. However, I think at this point we would be willing to pay him extra if he can work over the weekend!! Then we need the power company to come back and reattach our power line...

Life in the condo is good, but the kids can not seem to grasp the concept that when they jump on the floor they are jumping on someone's ceiling as well. Oh, and the fact that Elijah apparently does not have an 'indoor voice'.

The saga continues... day 5!

On Saturday afternoon we went back to our house, and on the way we noticed that some houses had LIGHTS on and our neighbors' generators were off. We were very excited. As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a note on on our door. I figured Vectren (power company) left it saying our power was restored... Well, that's not exactly what it said. It said something like "power off, not Vectren problem, damage to mast". I almost cried.
On the second day of the storm a large branch fell and pulled our cable line out of the house (and we can't even get on the list of 20,000 people who need repairs until our electricity is back... oh, and our cable also provides our internet and phone). Well, apparently it also pulled our electric meter out of the wall. We've now learned that we are responsible for that... Yesterday, Pete called for an electrician and we are supposed to hear back today with an estimate for when they can come and fix it.
So, on Saturday we headed back to Vanessa's house for the 4th night. They were excellent hosts and we appreciate all they did for us, but we were ready to get back to our own stuff!! Sunday the kids and I went to church and after Michael (Vanessa's husband) planned on hauling his generator to our house and hooking it up with his special cord that would run our furnace, fridge and some lights. Our next door neighbor also offered his generator. So, we got the neighbor's generator and Michael's cable and we were ready to make this thing work. Well it didn't. Michael's cable wouldn't connect to neighbor's generator because one was 12o v and the other was 130 v. So, we were back to hauling Michael's generator to our house, but we decided to check our dryer plug first (I don't understand exactly how this works, but Michael was going to take us off the electrical grid and run the house on the generator by plugging into our dryer plug). His cable wouldn't fit our dryer plug... We *could* still run a couple of space heaters (which we don't own), but that didn't sound terribly appealing to me... When I was at church I was offered the key to a 2 bedroom condo, but I had declined. I quickly made a phone call and went and picked up that key!!! The condo's owner is currently in France, and when she heard about the storm she called and offered it for anyone who might need it. We would be the second family to stay there (their power had come back on so they didn't need it anymore). So, we spent our 5th night in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo with power, heat, and cable!!! The kids' bedroom is decorated in Hello Kitty and Littlest Petshop, so Hannah is in little girl heaven :)