Finger Paint and Homemade Pizza

So many women have done it before me, women everywhere are doing it right now, and there will be many more women that will do it in the future. I truly believe that it is the most difficult and challenging job out there. It comes with more responsibility than you can possibly imagine, the hours far exceed 40 a week, and there is NO paycheck! There is little to no recognition for the hard work that you do, yet you are always expected to do more. For anyone who has ever been, is now, or plans to be a stay at home mom, I have more respect for you than I can put into words. Mom, I don't know how you did it, but I am sorry if I have never expressed how grateful I am for it! Currently this is my summer job, but it looks like I may be taking it on full time. I think I may need a training manual.

This week has been a true test of my ability to be a stay at home mom. With the unbearable heat and scattered rain, we have been forced to stay indoors, and my ability to entertain is not looking so good. Did you know it takes about 30 minutes to create a scavenger hunt, and about 5 minutes to follow the clues and find the treasure? Homemade pizza was a hit, but the cheese burnt in the oven so no one would eat it! Finger painting was fun, but not something that I want to clean up more than once a week. As you can see here, Kendall does more of a "hand" painting and she painted much more than the paper...but she had fun!

Speaking of Kendall, I have put a lot of work into "Project Kendall" this week. I would say she is winning by a landslide of 99-1. The big girl bed is working about as well as I expected. The freedom to get in and out of bed is such a thrill to her that she refuses to fall asleep. She has always been such a good sleeper, but I think that the boundaries of the crib played a large part in that. If I was keeping data (for all of my special education teachers out there) I would say that I have spent about 70% of my waking hours trying to get the little stinker to stay in her bed for nap and bed time. I have given up a few times and put her back in the crib until she falls asleep, but I only do that when it takes over two hours to get her to sleep. I am trying so hard to win this one, but I guess I am going to need a new strategy!

I am trying not to get too discouraged with potty training. I know that she will do it when she is ready, but it sure would be nice to only have to buy diapers for one! She loves her panties and wants them on almost all the time, but she will also stand in the middle of the room and yell to me "I'm peeing!" Yesterday she woke up dry so I offered so many great rewards for sitting on the potty, but she refuse. Five minutes later she looked right at me, squatted a bit and said, "I just pee pee in my diaper now." I sure hope that her stubborn attitude will benefit her one day!

The only project that I am winning right now is the pasi. We have limited use to nap, bed time, and long car rides. This was a bit of a fight the first few days, but I held my ground on this one. The first day she spent most of the day lying in her bed just so she could have it:) Now most days she will leave it in her bed before she gets up. I take great pride in this one little success!

I have considered all of the things that we are putting our poor little girl through. This is her third home in the short 28 months that she has been with us. When I say we are going home she has started to respond, "which one?" This breaks my heart! We have taken her out of her crib, limited the pasi, trying to potty train, and will soon be bring home a new baby. I guess I can understand the occasional meltdown...I have them too:) So I have decided that we will have a Kendall and Mommy day. She wants to go get her nails painted blue and green. I know, not girly colors, but a very girly activity, so I'm in!

Not much to report on Bradley right now. He has done such a great job entertaining himself while I try to get Kendall to sleep. Probably watching a little too much TV, but school will start soon. For all of you Toy Story fans, he reminds me a lot of Andy. I love watching him set up his toys and have them all talk to each other. He has a great imagination and I can't wait to see where it takes him!

So we did our finger painting and made our homemade pizza. Good thing it's Thursday because I am fresh out of ideas for this week. I'll keep waiting on the call from the Harlan Co. School District, but until then I will work on doing better with my current job!

Our next adventure...finding a vehicle that will fit our family of 5!

When it rains...

Rain can be nice from time to time. It can make for a calm, relaxing day. I love this picture that I got of the kids. It was a rainy day and they went out on the porch with Grandad. I was so excited that I was able to grab the camera before the moment was lost! Rain, when speaking figuratively, is not quit as nice. We have had one of those "when it rains it pours" kind of weeks and I guess it all started about two week ago...

We currently have three cars, Steven's maxima, my escape, and Steven's brand new company car which is a 2012 Nissan altima. We have been keeping the maxima in Louisville and the escape here so that we can go back and forth in Steven's new car. About two weeks ago Louisville had a big storm that brought a lot of rain, which flooded my parents driveway and Steven's maxima. Not too much damage, thanks to the hard work of my mom and dad who spent many hours vacuuming the water out. I'll call this a "rain on our parade", but it wasn't all that bad. We are planning to get rid of the car soon anyway. The kids and I ended up having a great week in Louisville!

Fourth of July weekend was wonderful! Steven's sister was in town with her kids and we spent Saturday at the Lake. Sunday morning church service was perfect. After lunch we picked up Bradley and Kendall's new bunk beds. Steven and I got to have some alone time while we put them together. The kids played with cousins and friends all day! Monday was a lazy day and it ended with a great fire works show.

Tuesday morning we faced a bit of a bump in the road. Not literally....it was actually a deer. Steven called just after 10:00 to tell me that he had been in an accident. While driving through the mountains of eastern Kentucky a large deer decided to jump over a guard rail and right onto the hood of his beautiful new car. Luckily the deer was the only one hurt. The windshield was broken and the hood flew up, but the air bags did not deploy, leaving Steven without a scratch. The car will be fixed, so this too shall pass. I am just so very thankful that Steven was okay.

The day continued with a trip to the dentist office. The most challenging part of that was getting a shower before we left. Do you have any idea what Kendall can get into during the 10 minutes that it takes me to shower? Chairs were turned over, the refrigerator door was open, her clothes were off, and she had three pieces of gum in her mouth. I would bet that she probably accomplished that in the first two minutes. I got that all cleaned up, got us ready, and we were out the door. As I was putting the kids in the car I noticed the undeniable smell of dog poo, which I spotted on the bottom of Bradley's shoe. I quickly ran back in to get him another pair of shoes, stepped in the poo myself, went back in to get a clean pair of shoes, broke my nail while shutting the door, then finally we were on our way. The dentist appointments went great, no cavities!

Wednesday morning I got a call from a very good friend of ours who delivered the news that was the "thunder and lightening" in our storm. I am going to do some backtracking so that this will all make sense. When we moved out of our house in northern Kentucky almost a year ago we were having trouble with a leaky pipe. A construction company came in to fix the pipe, which ran under our kitchen. We do not have a basement or crawl space, so they had to bulldoze through our kitchen floor to fix it, which wasn't so bad because we got a new kitchen floor out of the deal. After fixing the pipe Steven asked them to winterize our house because we would not be turning the water back on since we would not be living there. Now back to present time...Our friend recently sold his houses and needed somewhere to live for a while, so we offered our house, but told him that he would have to have the water and power turned on. The water company came to turn the water on and apparently nearly every room in our house began flooding. We are not sure the cause of this or just how much damage we are looking at. Steven is going to head that way this weekend so that he can make some phone calls and get to the bottom of this.

So by now I am at my breaking point. I know that things could be so much worse, but at this point it just feels like one bad things after another. Steven was working in Lexington at the time and was going to have to be there again today so he had thought about just staying the night there. When he heard how upset I was he asked us to come to Lexington. We would get a nice hotel, let the kids swim, and have a nice dinner. That sounded like such a great idea, so the kids and I got ready and loaded up for the three hour drive...what was I thinking!

The drive started peaceful. Bradley fell asleep while Kendall watched a movie. This may have been nice for a while if I didn't suddenly have to use the restroom. So I had to wake up Bradley to take him inside. Now he was up and cranky because his nap was cut short, Kendall was cranky because she needed a nap, and I was now cranky because I needed a nap. We continued driving and finally Kendall fell asleep, right about the time that Bradley told me he had to use the bathroom. I pulled over to the side of the road to just let him go in the grass, but he then informed me that he had to poop, so we were off to the next gas station. Now Kendall was awake and cranky because her nap was cut short. Finally we made it to the hotel. In our first 5 minutes there Kendall had found both phones and attempted to make phone calls, pulled all the papers off of the desk and dresser, turned the TV on and off, unpacked most of our things, and unrolled both rolls of toilet paper. This is when we decided to go for a swim. We then enjoyed a nice dinner and headed back to get ready for bed. With short naps and swimming I just knew the kids would crash. Our night ended with Steven driving Kendall around Lexington until she fell asleep.

Our drive back today was so much better. I guess they were tired:) It was so quiet and peaceful that I was able to think back to the message on Sunday. The Preacher reminded us of the story of Sarah and Abraham. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son he was prepared to do it, because his faith in God was unquestionable. For that, God spared his son and gave him and Sarah more children. "God will provide for all that we need."

The amazing thing about rain is that, if the sun is shining, you just might see a beautiful rainbow paint the big blue sky. I know that the Son has been shining on our rain, I better keep my eyes open so that I don't miss out on the rainbow!