A Reason to Celebrate

I only have a minute to do a quick post as I'm packing for my girls' weekend in Colorado, but I have exciting news to share....

Our newest niece, Sophia Grace Takenaga, was born on Monday. She weighed 7 lbs., 2 oz. and was 19 3/4" long.

Congratulations to Ryan, Nancy and Dylan. We can't wait to see you, Sophie!

New Beginings

There are no words to describe how I'm feeling right now on this first day of school. I'll update in a few days. Right now it's time for Momma to regroup and rest up after a Summer with very little sleep. I'll leave you with a few pictures in the meantime.....

Seriously???

On Saturday, Aug. 16th, we had some family over for dinner and to visit with Kiki. After our guests left, I started the dishwasher, listened to the water fill and then......nothing. So I called my good friends over at Home Warranty (HAH! If you don't know why I said that, take a look at this post). No one was able to come out until Friday the 21st! To make it worse, we had more family come over on Saturday for dinner and despite using paper goods wherever possible, there was still a ton of dishes to hand wash. I couldn't even use the dishwasher as a drying rack because the inside was dirty from the dishes I had loaded in the night before.

The very nice repair guy came out and said he had to order a new motor. At least he was kind enough to schedule my follow-up appointment right away so I wouldn't have to wait even longer. So I went out and bought a dish tub and settled in to hand washing the dishes.

Then.....the metal that wraps around the goose-neck faucet started to separate. This actually started before the dishwasher incident but it got much worse after. I knew what was coming next and guess what happened tonight??? You got it.....the metal punctured a hole in the rubber hose and it sprang a water leak! So now I have no dishwasher and no faucet! Really, this is a true story. I could never make something like this up.

Off to figure out a way to patch the faucet together until we can get that replaced. Looks like we'll be eating out for the next few days.

Wish me luck.......

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Phil found a snake tonight while mowing the lawn. Good thing he found it before the lawn mower did! He had a ton of fun trying to pick it up and toss it in the garden while the snake was striking at him. Seriously, if you know Phil, you know he was having fun! Too bad I didn't get any pictures. Yet another adventure in the land of cornfields........

A Day For Fun

Today is going to be a cool day. It's not even supposed to hit 70 degrees. There's a bit of a breeze...just enough to keep things fresh. It occurred to me that Summer is half over. The kids start swim lessons next week. They're signed up for two sessions but if they take a third session like they did last year, then school will start the day after they finish swim.

Today we're just going to have fun. No worrying about laundry, sorting through papers or other chores. Malia has been wanting to go on a picnic in the worst way. We even got a beautiful picnic basket at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I think we'll make a picnic lunch and go to a park....or two....or three. Maybe we'll practice T-ball....or frisbee....or riding bikes. Maybe we'll read books or lie on the ground and look at the clouds. We'll just have to see where the day takes us.

Guess we better start by going to the store....we don't have any bread to make sandwiches for our picnic!

I'll leave you with a few fun pictures I took of the kids the night Malia found the toad. I was just lying in the grass taking random pictures of them running around. Hope you enjoy them!

It's Not the Heat.....

......it's the broken air conditioner!

Our A/C has been having some serious issues. I turned it on and it hummed away. Cool air even came out.....but not much. Two hours after turning on the air, the house had gone UP several degrees! So, I call home warranty and they eventually sent someone out. And he replaced the coil because it was leaking freon. But, what do you know? This wasn't covered and that wasn't covered, so on top of the $100.00 deductible, we had to pay another $250.00! And we have to dispose of the old coil ourselves.

But, at least we had air again, right? Wrong! That very night, the fan had trouble starting up and the lights dimmed when it finally did go on. Called the A/C guy back out and he returned three days later to "fix" the problem by putting a "hard start" on our compressor. The next day, the fan started making loud noises and the next day, it wouldn't start at all. And surprise, surprise, the A/C guy didn't call me back.

So I called home warranty back and they sent someone else out who said the motor was burned out. That will be another $100.00 please because now it's a new claim. Are they kidding me??? The fan was working fine all winter and all the way up until the day the first guy replaced the coil and I'm supposed to believe it's just a coincidence??? All the guy from home warranty can say is that it's a new claim so we have to pay again. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same claim, they just gave it a new number (that was their idea, not mine!). Now I'm waiting (still) for a supervisor to call me back so we can discuss this. Advice anyone?

And of course, we've been having a heat wave. Temps in the 90s with one million% humidity. Nothing like sweating while sitting on your couch doing nothing. Before the coil was replaced, at least I could run the fan. To top it off we had a few storms so I could only have the windows cracked to let in the hot humid air and rain.

Well, at least it's fixed.....for now anyway. Wish me luck convincing home warranty that I've already paid them enough!

Edited to add:

Of course, now that the A/C is fixed, it's only going to be in the 60s for the next two days. Figures.....*sigh*

A Different Kind of Before and After

No, I didn't finish the coffee table. I'm still waiting for Phil to change the sand paper on my sanding block. Pathetic, I know, but I just HATE touching sand paper. My mother taught me not to use the word hate, but seriously, I can't stand the stuff!

So, here's a before:

And after:

My hair had gotten ridiculously long:

It was definitely time for a change and I
missed having short, low maintainance hair

This is after I "styled" it myself.
A little more unstructured, a little more "me":

So what do you think? Honestly. Brothers and fathers who don't like short hair need not reply! LOL!

Voles and Bunnies and Toads, Oh My!

Living in the Midwest is still so bizarre in so many ways! I already posted about our adventures with the Bullfrog. If you didn't read it before, you can click HERE.

Back in April, I was looking at one of our fruit trees when something ran past me, low in the grass, really quickly. I figured it was a baby chipmunk since those are at least somewhat familiar to me now. I also noticed that we had damaged tracks in our grass surrounding the trees and the swing set. They looked a lot like this:


So, a few weeks later, we decided to clean out the disgusting sand box that was under the swing set. It was cracked and flooded and weeds were growing out of it. UGH! I started by bailing water out and some of it must have gone under the sand box because all of a sudden, this tiny little furry thing went scurrying past me. Then another.....then another.....then another. We had at least six of these little guys running across our lawn:

They looked like small, squat, very furry mice

Well, after screaming and laughing with the kids, I went inside to do some "research." I tried looking up Dormouse (because that was all I could think of) and eventually saw the words "See Vole." I had never even heard of a vole! Seriously, have you??? When we eventually pulled up the sandbox, I found a nice little nest of dried grass underneath. The thing that worries me most is wondering where those little guys are now!

We also have a cute brown bunny that visits our weed vegetable garden. I never got around to planting vegetables this year and sadly, there are a lot of thistles in there. And if you have ever read Watership Down, you know that Bunnies love thistles. Or is it dandelions? Hmmmm...I'll have to go find my book. Anyway, he loves something in the garden and hopefully, I'll get a picture of him soon.

And lastly, Malia got a shock of her own when she went to turn on the hose about two weeks ago. This little guy was waiting for her:

Of course, we had to do a photo shoot:



Then we let him go in the neighbor's yard so Lola wouldn't bother him.


So, there are some more things to file under "Things that never happened to us in Long Beach!"

Just A Couple of Pictures

I know it's been a while since I posted. There has just been so much going on lately and blogging has been on the bottom of my list. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few pictures until I'm ready to get rolling again.

Kai and Malia share responsibility for emptying the dishwasher and it is Kai's least favorite chore. He asked if he could wash the dishes instead so we gave it a test run tonight. He was very serious about doing a good job. It was so cute! I can't believe how fast he's growing up.

Rinsing the dishes

Loading the dishwasher

All with a smile!

He even washed the big cutting board

Malia wanted to help out too, so she cleaned the chairs and the table.

What a cutie!

Here are some pictures of Kai playing with our remaining mouse, Poggle. What has happened to the rest of our pets? That's a post for another day......

Kai calls Poggle his "Pirate Mouse"
when he sits on his shoulder

Bath time
(Yes, that's mouse poop on my floor)

Procratinated Project Progress

Well, the Procrastinators' Party officially ended today. And, no, I didn't finish my coffee table. I did get a lot done, but unfortunately, we've had even more adventures (or should I say, misadventures) since my last few posts. Let's just say it's been a rough two weeks, but I'll update on all of that later.

For now, here is the progress I've made so far. If all goes well, I should be able to finish in the next day or two. Remember what the coffee table looked like when I started?


Well, it has been sanded, filled, sanded again, primed and the painting is almost finished (just two legs to go).


I started distressing it a little bit, just to give you an idea of where I'm going with it. When I'm done distressing, I'll rub in some stain to give it that aged look. Wish me luck!

A big thank you to Melissa for getting me motivated to get started! You're a doll!

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

Jay (standing, second from left)
with family members at Easter

Jay passed away very early Thursday morning. The following is from his prayer blog:

Thursday Morning Update

1:00am

Jay received well over two dozen visitors in his room throughout the day, Wednesday, as friends came by to bid him farewell. His nurses commented to me how privileged they felt to be able to hear such loving friends talking to Jay, praying over him and telling funny or touching stories about him. One nurse told me that in 28 years of working at Methodist Hospital, she couldn't recall ever seeing such an outpouring of love from an almost endless procession of well-wishers. She felt blessed to be there and said it did not even feel like she was working.

At 9:00 in the evening, over 50 family and friends gathered in the hospital chapel, filling it to standing room only and into the lobby for an informal prayer service to send Jay on his final journey. Pastors Paul and Dick led us in prayers, and several in attendance prayed aloud as well. A number of people shared joyful remembrances of Jay. We closed in singing Amazing Grace.

Jay's family and pastors then gathered in his room for prayers, a final farewell, then a benediction as we gave him over to the Lord.

Our prayers for a quick and peaceful transition to heaven were answered, as Jay was gone within minutes after his ventilator was removed.

At 11:05 PM, Wednesday, May 6, 2009, John Arthur "Jay" Denison was completely healed by The Great Physician as he stepped into the presence of our Lord Jesus, who surely hugged him saying, "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant" while the angels and saints sent up a thunderous cheer of welcome.

And a quote from an unexpected source on Kiki's blog:

Who’d have thought that a Lemony Snicket quote could feel so appropriate at a given time?…

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”

It is so strange to think that when we take our trip to California in less than two weeks, that Jay won't be at Kiki's graduation party. If you know anything about my family, you know that if you spend any amount of time with us, we will make your "ours." Jay is definitely in that category and there is a hole in our family now.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers for my family. Please continue to pray for God's peace and solace.

Kindergarten Roundup-Part II

OK, so there was never a Kindergarten Roundup-Part I because I wasn't blogging when I signed Kai up for Kindergarten. ;-D But, if I had been, there would have been. Got it???

It's unbelievable! Today, I signed Malia up for Kindergarten! In a few (very short) months, my baby will be in elementary school.

She's still too little to go to school, don'tcha think?

(9 months old)

OK, OK, so I exaggerate....just a little bit. Here's a more recent picture:

With Kiki, in January

A Sad Update

I am sad to say that Jay's condition has only worsened. His family has made the very difficult, but very loving, decision to let him leave this world and go be with God. Two things I know for certain about Jay: He has a thing for birthdays (I think he knew the birthday of every person he ever met!) and he LOVES God. The family believes that, due to Jay's faith in God and his independent nature, he would not want to live hooked up to machines and not knowing those around him. If you want to know the details, or want to leave a message for the family, please click here. They will be having a service, and saying their final goodbyes, tonight around 9 PM PST.

Thank you for your prayers for Jay and for my family.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Coffee Table Makeover to Tell You About Our Really Icky Weekend

I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them...What??? You already know that about me??? Oh....
Well, part of that bad habit is that I buy supplies for these projects that I don't finish. I've had to start sneaking my yarn home so that Phil doesn't know that I haven't quite gotten over that addiction yet (to my credit, I have been buying clearance yarn). My storage areas are filled with scrapbooking supplies, fabric, frames, paint, ribbons etc. So, in honor of the Procrastinators' Party, I not only bought the things I need to fix up my coffee table, I actually got started on the project!

After work on Thursday, instead of my normal two hour nap, I stopped at the hardware store and then spent four hours sanding and filling gouges with wood putty. I was super tired that night but really excited to keep working on my table. Unfortunately, Kai's lungs had other plans for me.....

Around 1 AM, Kai woke up with a horrible cough...a croupy cough. So after spending some time outside in the cool night air, Kai and I spent the rest of the night on the couches with the window open. Not the best night's sleep. Fortunately, he has an inhaler now and it worked wonders on his cough. No ER/Urgentcare visit this time around.

Saturday morning, we woke up to the terrible news about Julie's brother, Jay (see post below). On Sunday, we went to my cousins' house to celebrate Mia's First Communion. While we were there, Kai was playing around on a rocking chair, flipped over, and cut open the back of his head!!!

Sophie brought Kai and Malia to me (both crying) and told me that Kai fell off of a rocking chair and landed on Malia. I noticed that Malia's chest was a little red and that Kai had what looked to be a tiny smear of blood on his forehead. I wiped away the blood and didn't see any cut or scratch so I checked both kids mouths to see if either of them cut their lips in the "collision." Kai kept saying that he hit his head but I couldn't find a lump anywhere. Then, I looked down and saw that Kai and I had blood on us. I looked at his head, but because of all of his hair, I couldn't see where the blood was coming from. Phil took a look and finally found the cut and decided that we should take him to the emergency room.

When we got the the ER, Kai's head was cleaned and checked out. Everyone who looked after him was terrific. After the aide cleaned his wound, Phil asked if they would be able to fix him up with Dermabond. As Kai was asking what Dermabond is, the guy said that he was going to need staples. Of course, Kai heard him and the idea didn't go over so well. Phil and I finally got a good look at Kai's head and Oh My Goodness! It was worse than we realized! It was a good thing I had eaten at the party or they would have had to pick me up off of the floor! Anyway, Kai was a such a trooper! Three staples (we opted to forego the Lidocaine because it would have required two shots in addition to the staples) and he hardly cried. We were so proud of him.

So, he'll have to go see his doctor on the 13th to get his staples out. The nurse at the hospital gave me a "staple remover" to take with us since the doctors' offices usually don't have them. I'll have to hide it from Phil because he wants to remove them himself! UGH!!!

And now Kai has a new loose tooth. At least he's excited about that. Yeah!

Prayer Request

Probably everyone who reads my blog already knows about this, but just in case.....

Jay is the brother of my sweet sister-in-law, Julie. He is in the hospital and things are not great.
Here is some information from the blog that Christy set up for him:

John "Jay" Denison was admitted to the ICU at Arcadia Methodist Hospital on Friday evening (May 1) with a serious infection in his body. We were told to expect that he would be in the hospital for a few days to treat the infection with IV antibiotics.

About 2:30am Saturday morning, his condition collapsed and he went into cardiac arrest twice, as the overwhelming infection was attacking his entire body. If he were not otherwise healthy and relatively young (51) he would not have made it back at this point. He is heavily sedated and on a ventilator. His liver and kidneys shut down and his heart has been seriously damaged, but it is doing the job right now. His brain was probably oxygen deprived when he suffered the cardiac arrests. The extent of that is unknown, but there’s a couple of positive indicators in that when they reduced his sedation he does respond to pain and occasionally moves his body with intentional movements.

Currently, it is very critical that they get his kidneys and liver working again so that he will have a chance at surviving. If they are unable to get his organs working again, there is not much else they can do for him.

Sunday night they brought in the best vascular surgeon in Southern California to insert a catheter to start dialysis. Dialysis is necessary to clean the toxins out of his blood which will set the stage for his liver and kidneys to hopefully restart. The procedure was quite dangerous because his blood is very thin and he could have bled out. The procedure took an hour (though it normally takes 5 minutes) but it was successful and he has been on dialysis since late Sunday night. It will be another day or so until they will see any signs if the dialysis is working or not. There is nothing they can do to "jump start" the kidneys and liver. They have to restart on their own.

I ask all of you to pray for Jay and for the doctors who are caring for him. Also, please pray for his family, Parents-Betty and Kenny, Sister and Brother-In-Law-Julie and Victor, Nephew and Niece-Kenny and Christy and for all of his extended family and friends. If you are interested in updates, you can check out his website at PrayforJay.blogspot.com. If you visit, please consider leaving a message of support for the family.

Thank you.

It's a "Project Procrastinator's Party!"

So, Melissa at The Inspired Room is hosting a Project Procrastinator's Party. I figured this was just the motivation I needed to get going on one of my numerous projects. I wanted to do my desk or Malia's new headboard but I finally decided to fix up the pine coffee table that I picked up from Freecycle, oh about a year a half ago. ;-) I plan to sell our existing coffee table at our upcoming yard sale so I figured I better get going on the "new" one.

So here are the "Before" pictures:

Here is the true before picture. Note the Godzilla toys, Captain Underpants book, the box of Polly Pockets and the stuffed bear in the doll carrier! As soon as I dragged the table up from the basement and dusted it off, the kids made it their own!

Gathering the necessary supplies.
Yes, coffee is a necessary supply!

Ready to get started

A close up of the damage

Yes, the table is a little bit of ugly, but a whole lot of potential......OK, maybe it's a lot of ugly, but I still believe it has a lot of potential! I love the shabby look but this is just plain abused. I plan to fill in the damaged areas with wood putty, sand it all down, prime and paint it white, then distress it. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to paint the whole thing or just the top. I'll have to see how it looks as I go.

If any of my fellow procrastinators drop in, please leave a note and say Hi. I would love any advice from anyone who stops in and I expect my family and friends to keep me accountable for getting this project done!

Happy project-ing everyone! I'm off to start sanding and filling!

RITA

Funny Malia

Last night when Phil went to check on the kids before going to bed, I heard Malia yell out. Phil told me that when he kissed her goodnight, she yelled, "Stop that!" He said, "I'm just giving you a kiss" and she told him, "Oh, I thought you were Kai." That's really funny considering that she is always getting Kai upset by wanting to kiss him and sit really close to him on the couch and he can't stand it!

Go figure!

Time for a Change

So I finally figured out how to personalize my blog. It's still a work in progress but I'd love to know what you think. Any suggestions would also be appreciated.
Thanks!

Edited to add:
A special thanks to Lena at Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates for making this new look possible.

Blog??? What Blog???

Yes, I know, I know. If my blog were a child, it would have been taken away from me due to extreme neglect!

It would be an understatement to say that things have been crazy lately. And we are all adjusting to the major change in my job schedule. Can you say tired, with a capital T???

Instead of trying to catch up today, I'll just share some a few things about the kids with you. Yesterday, when I picked Malia up from school, her teacher told me that she really loved the worms and spent most of the day playing with them. It was raining (again) which brings out the worms, and I guess they put them in the sensory table! I've never known of a preschool to give the kids worms to play with. I LOVE that school! I told Malia's teacher that she's been playing with (and squishing) worms since she was a year old.

So, on the way home from school, Malia informed me that when she's a grown up, she's going to live with her friend, Hannah......in Hawaii! Kai then informed me that he's going to live at home when he's a grown up! ;-) We won't have to worry about missing Malia, because she told Phil that she'll visit us two times a week.

The kids are growing so fast. Kai can ride his two wheel bike pretty well now and Malia is trying very hard to learn. Kai is really taking care of himself now. Getting cereal for himself and Malia this morning, getting ready for school, doing his homework, etc. He doesn't want ANY help when he takes his showers any more (he didn't even want me to hand him his towel the other day!) and he no longer wants to take a bath with his little sister. He doesn't even complain about going to school now and he's learning to read and spell and he's really good at math (adding and subtracting).

Malia is just Malia! She's very loving and great at sharing but she still has her temper....however she doesn't seem to use it as much anymore (she mostly saves it for Mommy!). She is learning to write her letters and it really good at rhyming words and understanding what words start with the same sounds. She loves working on educational workbooks.

Well, I leave you with a few pictures from Easter. We had a great time at Wayne and Rita's, including an Easter egg hunt.

Malia searching for eggs in her slip
dress and jacket!

Kai and Meghan

Don't ask!!!