No power, no blog

We are visiting friends in Martin today to reconnect to the outside world! We are recovering from an ice storm that crippled the area for the last few days. We are hopeful of having power restored, but have no idea when that might be. We were warned yesterday that it could be up to 30 days. We are hoping that was an overly conservative estimate. The city has power and water so Tim will be back at work next week. We will let friends and family know when we have phones, power, etc. Keep us all in your prayers. We are very thankful for a gas fireplace and stove that have enabled us to be fed and warm over the past few days. We have taken pictures and will post those once our access is restored.

Sleepwalking

Last night Matthew scared me to death when he walked into the living room at 9:00. He couldn't tell me who he was nor did he know who I was. His eyes were dilated and he was not responding to my questions with coherent answers. We have dealt with night terrors, but we have never seen this calm but uncommunicative behavior. After a little while he seemed to come around and was able to talk to me and go on back to bed. I, on the other hand, was totally freaked out about it. Tim came home after class and told me he used to do the same thing to his parents. Hopefully Matthew will grow out of it as his Daddy did. I just hope next time his Dad is around to experience the weirdness.

The horrible, no fun, worst of the worst, bad day

Some days the teacher needs to learn a lesson. We had a bad day. Its that simple. Everything sort of just went wrong all day. Piano practice this morning was awful, school was chaotic, and the afternoon ended with Matthew and I both in tears at piano lessons. Time off our normal school work earlier in the week for a field trip has us behind so I felt pressure to get it all done. As Matthew and I were blubbering in piano I realized I had created the day that I work to avoid. We missed out on a beautiful day because I had the focus on the wrong thing. It is contrary to everything I am trying to accomplish in our home as their teacher. Thankfully our piano teacher was understanding and encouraging, so we are going to take a more structured, yet less intense approach. As far as school goes, two science experiments tomorrow, books for me to read to them, and a math game. All fun stuff to make up for a miserable day. We are all going to bed early tonight and hoping the memory of today will fade quickly. The next time it is beautiful day I promise we won't miss it!

Basketball Time!

The kids are so excited about basketball. Carter, Matthew, and Laurel are all playing in an Upward league. We were able to get them on two teams so we are happy about that. They left this morning to play their first game. We had to document the time (notice the clock).

We aren't early morning people- we can get up and go when we have to but generally the day begins around here at 8 am. Carter's ballgames will be at 8:00. That means the kids have to leave by 7:45 am each Saturday morning. Today we did well. Hopefully we won't be scrambling on Saturday mornings to make it.

So it was worse than I thought

This afternoon further consequences of Katey's "water play" surfaced. The living room ceiling began leaking water from the seams in the drywall. Not good. Thankfully it appears that the drywall tape is all that is damaged. We have someone coming by later this week to see about repairing the mess once it is all fully dry. I remind myself there are people dealing with much worse, however Katey will find herself on a very short rope for a while.

This girl has gone wild

Katey is a challenge these days. Yesterday she flooded my bathroom floor by "bailing" water with a cup from the sink and dumping it on the floor and counter. Today she did it AGAIN and also stripped all the bedding off our bed and crumbled styrofoam packing all over our bedroom floor. Today I took pictures so there would be evidence of her tornado like tendencies. When I walked in my room to check on her and found the mess her immediate response was "I want Daddy!!!" She knew Mommy was not happy. She will be spending the afternoon with our shop vac.

Mattress in a Box

Laurel's new mattress arrived- the Mattress in a Box. Here are some pics and a video clip of us unpacking it. It is amazing to me that you can get a decent mattress this way. The reviews were great so we took the plunge and on the advice of some of the reviewers documented the unpacking process. (Actually, the reviewer suggested inviting friends over to watch, but we didn't go that far.) I don't know if it would work for two adults, but for a kid is awesome...how cool is it to watch your mattress literally spring forth from the packaging! Here's some photos and the You Tube Link to a short video we made while unpacking it.