Update...sort of

This is our old duct work....yeah it's supposed to be a tube coming out of there. That would be the reason it was all changed out

So I got the basics of a blog figured out, then this semester got CRAZY! I'm teaching a class on 2 days a week. Each class period is just under 3 hours, that's a lot of prep work. I'm interpreting 2 other days a week, and taking a 3 hour long class for myself Wednesday nights. The Wednesday night class has a ton of reading and 12 essay assignments invloved in it. I don't like writing for a grade, I'd rather give an oral presentation any day. It has to happen this semester though, so I'll be missing in action till December. The kids are still wild and crazy; Stephen is and has been awsome with them so far this semester. I am SOOO blessed to have him leading me when I'll follow, by my side when I need support, and behind me pushing me forward when I'm in a stubborn, exhausted, ready to throw in the towel kind of mood. Putting a pregnancy on top of it all is really not condusive to a functional, nice Mommy, good thing it's a temporary thing.

About that I have to write this down so I don't forget.
Gabriel loves to head-butt with that little boulder of a head he has. One night I finally told him that he can't head-butt Mommy anymore because there was a baby in my tummy. The head-butting has lessened. A couple nights later I asked if he was excited to have another brother. ( We haven't found out what it is yet, but history says it'll be a boy) The following conversation happened.

Gabriel (very serious tone and face): Mommy it's a sister.
Me: What if it's another brother?
Gabriel: I already have a brother, I don't need another one, I need a sister.
Me: Sometimes Jesus sends lots of brothers.
Gabriel: No, one brother and 5 sisters. (That many sisters scares Stephen)
Me: We don't have any girl stuff.
Gabriel: Go buy girl stuff.
Me: It'll all be pink.
Gabriel: Oh, I like pink mucho grande. (He has always loved pink, as soon as he could reach the racks at the store I had pink stuff getting thrown in the cart)

Funny boy. He's been talking about his sister since late last spring. We hadn't even started trying at that point. I got lots of funny looks, and confused congratulations because I wasn't even pregnant yet.

Garrett's funny new habit:
Garrett will eat everything he wants off his plate, then quickly switches everything he doesn't want to Gabriel's plate and announces that he's done. We'll call him on it and he holds his empty plate up so proudly, and says, "empy". How young they start. Yesterday he put all of his carrots on Gabriel's plate then stacked his empty one on top to "hide" the evidence. He's gonna be a scary teenager.

In addition to our cunning boys we have had the summer of home repairs.
Early summer we finally landscaped our front yard. It has been the UGLIEST unlandscaped piece of dirt for 6 years, I was ready for it to change. Stephen had drawn up a design with his pool software a while ago, and we finally installed it this summer. That was supposed to be the one big project of the summer. Wellll, we all know how plans go...

In July I noticed Gabriel's room smelled funny. I just explained it as sometimes boys smell funny, and I'm pregnant so my nose is on overdrive right now. Come to discover his carpet was wet, the toys on the carpet were wet, the books were wet, and the sheetrock was squishy. Grrr a leak in the wall. The pipe to the hose spigot outside had a weld let go. Stephen cut all the nasty, moldy, stinky sheetrock out, hired a plumber to re-weld the pipe, sanded and treated all the yucky wood studs in the wall, replaced the wet insulation with much better insulation, installed new sheetrock....and then realized there was no way he'd be able to match the texture over the patch. Luck would have it, he ran into a guy at Home Depot that had the machine needed to match the texture. He came and did a great job in Gabriel's room and on the large hole behind the front door. Garrett helped "create" that hole behind the front door. The texture guy said this was one of the few jobs that he didn't have to do over again. Good job Stephen...you did a fantastic job.

A couple days later I noticed moisture around the base of our front toilet. I was not excited about what this repair may lead to, Stephen wasn't excited either. It got worse and worse, so we couldn't ignore it anymore. Stephen pulled the toilet up and EW...I'll spare you the details. This repair would not be easy. After Stephen studied a how to build it book, a contractor, and the depths of his engineer mind, he came up with a plan. Our quality home's foundation didn't go all the way to the pipe that comes up from the sewer. Stephen had to pour additional concrete, install a new flange, while making sure that all the bolts were in place while it set up. However, I did get my new TOTO one piece, 10 out of 10 flush rating toilet. One piece was important with little boys potty training. Now there is no space between the tank and bowl for boys to pee in. :-)

Our last repair of the summer was a big one. All summer I thought I was going crazy because the house felt much hotter than in the past. I would check the vents and didn't feel any air coming out. Stephen climbed into the attic and discovered our duct work was fully detached from our cooler. Yeah, the cooler was blowing cold air into the attic, not my house. Grrrr! I knew I wasn't crazy. So a couple weeks ago, we hired someone to replace all the duct work in the entire house. This is one time I'm glad our house is small. My vents are now little mini wind tunnels. AHHH, cold air.

I hope that we can wait a while to save up and replace the leaking roof and finish our the block wall around the back yard. Both are crazy expensive and we want to have the money in hand first.

This was a super long post, I have pictures to accompany all the "fun". Those probably won't be posted for a long time...but someday I'll get them up. :-D