Kitchen Day Four

Well nothing new to report. He just did some prep work for the tile and the rest of the counter top. The glich with the counter top has really caused a dealy. But nothing we can do about it. Just wanted to update.

Kitchen Day Three

Today he put in the fan over the new oven and the filler for one side of the oven. The other work is just leveling up the counter top and preparing the wall to tile.

Kitchen Day Two

Today they made the new cabinet. The area where the oven use to be is now a big cabinet. This will be good to hold every thing that used to go under the cook top. Which has been ripped out. So the storage will be nice to have. More updates tomorrow.

Life without a kitchen

Well life without a kitchen has proved to be interesting. We should all be about 100lbs more when it is done. There is a lot of eating out. I have set up a make shift kitchen area in the toy room and the landing of the stairs. Ella is enjoy having picnics on the living room floor for all of her meals at home. I bet the rest of you do not have a toaster and microwave in you toy room.

Our landing is the new snack and drink cupboard.

Ella having a picnic for breakfast. It is like a dream come true for her to eat a meal in the living room and watch T.V.

More pictures to come today after the contractors and done for the day.

Kitchen Day One

Well it is official they started today. Some of the new counter top went in and it looks really good. The fabricators that made the counter top cut a piece of it wrong, so they left early today to take it back to them and have them fix it. So far the floor sounds like it might be an easy fix. Here are the pictures from today.

This last pictures is a close up of the new counter top. It really looks nice.

Kitchen Kitchen Kitchen!!!

I am finally able to post about the kitchen. The remodeling will begin tomorrow. I can not wait. Here are a few pictures of it as we are living in it.

Now many of you may know that I am not the best housekeeper. This I do not deny. However I do try to clean up when others are coming over. I know that there are a few of you out there who would do the same thing. Over the last few days Luke and I have been packing up the kitchen. Well when we were done I had him help me scrub the counters, cabinets and sink. Yes the very items that by tomorrow may be torn out of the kitchen. I just could not bear to think of the contractor coming in and seeing the place like that. So here are the pictures after the cleaning.

Hopefully by tomorrow night I can post some pictures of the demo work. Stayed tuned. I will be cooking turkeys by the end of the week.

The only problem we have come across so far is that we are having trouble with the flooring. We bought a laminate flooring, but the installer will not put it in until we replace the sub floor but he does not do that. So we are dealing with that. More to come on that.

Just for fun. While I was cleaning we found the wish bone from Thanksgiving. Ella and Luke broke it. Ella wished for a purple princess dress Surprise Surprise. Well when the bone broke it shattered and she did not like it. So the two pictures are of her happy at the beginning and not so happy at the end.

What a week

This has been the strangest week.


This post is a chance for me to kind of make sense of it all if I can. I will be asking for your help, not for me but for the others that I will be writing about.

First off our updates. Ella had a little trouble at school the other day. The substitute assistant informed me that at gym class Ella had to be sat down, because she told the teacher three times loud and clear that she sucked. I was applaud. They told her that she needed to apologize and she refused to. Now the assistant told me this in front of all of the other parents and very loudly. I was less then impressed. I did not address it with her, because I was so angry about the whole thing I was not sure if I could do it in a civil way. So when we got home Ella had a time out and then we talked about what happened. She told me that she could not catch the ball and then she said a bad word to the teacher. I asked her what the word was, because she has never used suck before, but that is the word she told me. She did however say. "I said sorry and that is like apologizing and now I am not a bad girl". I explained very sternly that I did not ever what to hear of her talking like that to her teachers again. I told her that on Thursday it was sledding day at school and that Luke had taken the day off from work to go with her, but that when we got to school we would talk to Miss Mary(the gym teacher) and apologize and if she did not we would go back home and Luke would go back to work.

Now I am not a proud Mom. Ella can have a real attitude problem. I see a lot of it myself. But she has never been like this at school, and the head teacher even said to me that she was very surprised by the event. She said that Ella has never done anything like that before. This sub assistant was very confrontational with everyone that day. So I have to wonder how much of this is due to how she handles things, but none the less Ella should not be talk like that to anyone.

Now on to Thursday. We went to school and I had a chance to talk to the lead teacher about how this situation was handled. She told me that she was very upset and that after the parents had left she had a talk with the sub. She said that I was not the only parent that had a situation like that with her that day. Then we went off to see the gym teacher. She was very nice. She really did not seem to understand why Ella was there to apologize because she did no Tuesday, and said that it really was not a big deal.

So now I am really ticked off. This sub not only talked about my personal situation in front of all the other parents and in front of Ella, but then lied about the apology and Ella has been totally stressed out by this for the past few days. I apologized to Ella for not believing her and then we went to class. I talked to the teacher again and told her about the apology issue. I also spoke to the director of the preschool. She told me that she would be talking to the sub. From now on when I drop Ella off at school if she is there Luke or I will be at school for the specials when she is alone with the children.

On to the sledding. Ella, Luke and I had a great time. Ella loves to sled. One time she was walking up the hill and another little girl was coming down. I could not get her out of the way in time and Ella was taken out by the sled, but just kinda of sat down on the other girl and then they both went down the hill together laughing. Fun was had by all. After we went back to the classroom and had hot cocoa and the kids played for a while.





Tomorrow is basketball #2 wish us luck!!!

My friend Cammie has a blog also. http://polanks.blogspot.com/ it is a great read. She has documented their journey through adoption from Guatemala. On her site she has many links to other adoption journeys.

One of these is http://adoptingariana.blogspot.com/. This week this family received the worst news. They received a call telling them that their 3 1/2 month old daughter had died. It is just tragic. I ask that you keep this family, the foster family and the birth family in your thoughts and prayers.

Another family with an adoption journey at http://journeytocaylee.blogspot.com/ has also had a family tragedy. There niece was abducted from her home in Florida. You can read all of the details on their blog. Again please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers.

Another blog that I have been keeping up on is called Confessions of a CF(cystic fibrosis) Husband http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/. This is a very inspirational story. It takes a while to read the whole blog, but it is worth it. Please take time to take a peek, and again another request for thoughts and prayers.

As I was reading this blog for the first time. Ella came and asked me to get her something in the kitchen. I got up and was leaning over a drawer and felt her push on my back and a hot blast of air on my lower back. I turned to ask her wait for a minute and there was no one there. It is one of the wiredest things that has happened to me. I know that people can be with you when they really are not there. Ella has shown that to me many times with my Dad. I just have not had it happen to me before. I am not sure what it meant. Maybe it was the little baby that I have been reading about, or maybe it was God letting me know that he really is out there. I have not made sense of it all yet and I may never. But It was a cool experience.

Thank you for keep these families in you thoughts. Having been through times when others have done it for me. I can tell you that it does not go unnoticed. It really means a lot.

So even though I am not directly involved with these families. It has been quite a week to hear of all of these things happening. It sure gives you a new insight which we all can use once in a while about what is and is not important in life.

Ella tries Basketball

We signed Ella up for a 7 week basketball league at the YMCA. We thought she would have fun and it would give her a place to run around and give off some energy which she needs. We got there and the coach needed them to all come and sit down, she would not go I had to go with her. They talked for a few minutes and then had to run two laps around the gym to warm up.

This is Ella standing in line getting ready to run. She did really well with this part. She likes to run. Then they split them up into four groups and they got to meet their coach. Well they were all men and she does not do the best with men. Her coach is Jason and he is really nice, but Ella would just not talk to him.

Poor Jason he really tried. Ella can have a real attitude at times.

Then they started to play the game. Ella's team had to wear the pinnies well that was the first problem. We finally got her in one but she would not go out on to the floor to play. She then had to use the bathroom, a stall tactic I think. Well we got back and it has her turn to sub in and she would not go in. So Daddy came over and went out with her. She practiced a lot of defense and used her arms. She did well running from one end of the court to the other and blocked one girl form making a shot, and even got the ball and tried for a shot. Jason told her she was really good at the defense.

Daddy trying to get her out on the floor.

Daddy teaching Ella defense.

Ella on her own.

All in all it was an o.k. day. Hopefully we can get her back there next week and it will not take as long to warm up.

New Years Day at Grandma Fran's

Ella got a camera for Christmas her photographic skills need some work, but she loves it. While visiting Grandma we made a snow prince and princess and she took our picture with it. Not bad.

A few funny stories from the last couple of weeks.

Ella got a lot of clothes for Christmas that needed to be returned. When we took them back we tried on the new ones to make sure that they fit. Well she comes out of the dressing room in just her panties and socks and announces that the outfit does not match because there is too much green. I was pretty sure that I would have a few years before I started to get comments like this.

Then later that day shopping. Ella had to use the bathroom. She needed to poop well we had off to the bathroom and all the way through the food court she is yell POOPY EMERGENCY. I wanted to die. Then in the stall she went well with the medicine it was very loose. She then yells out OH NO DIARRHEA. I again I wanted to die.

Yesterday we had to see the doctor and need him to check her. She did not want him too look at or touch her. So I told her that I would be the one to touch her, but that the Doctor would have to look at her. We made a deal on that. Then she says I will be brave and then you can take me to McDonald's. Well I did what I had to so we had lunch at McDonald's.

I am telling you she is giving me a run for my money.