Silly Kitties...

Snuggled up:

Puma is our more social kitty and wants to play with anyone and anything that will play...even Henry:

Curly Q...

Emma has been growing out her hair for sometime. She has hopes at some point of donating it. Right now she is enjoying having it in braids. On Saturday evening I covered her hair in braids in hopes that she would have some fun curly hair for church. Here are the braids:

 

 

And here they are right after we took them out:

And after we did a little styling:

At some point I need to try curlers or rags and see how it goes!

This weeks happening...

This week started out a little different for our neck of the woods-rain!! Not much but enough to make everything feel clean and new. It was such a welcome change from our normal sunny and clear weather. The wind made it slight less enjoyable to actually be out in, but when Mo and I saw this rainbow, it made up for it:

Henry has battled naps his entire almost 18 months of life. I generally drive around a bit after picking Mo up from preschool and he falls asleep. But on this day I happened to run into Walmart. He didn't make it. (I got many strange looks for letting him sleep like this, but I could not get him to slump forward!!).

Mail is a commodity here at our house. We have daily fights over who's turn it is to check the mail and the to check who got mail that day. Today brought a lot of excitement with the mail. Emma and Mo ran in to tell Bud that he had a letter. It was from Grandma and boy was he excited!!! She sent him the comics!

I was excited for the mail today because I got my 2011 blog book!!

The kitty tree...

While we were in AZ visiting my sister she offered us her old cat tree. They had gotten a new one for Christmas and their old one was just on the back patio. I knew that Puma and Paqo would love a cat tree and we figured out how to fit it into the trunk.

Here is what it looked like before.

After a few hours and many staples here's the new and improved kitty tree!!

They have really enjoyed it. To make the recovering easier I left the original carpet on the bottom and I made the two platforms flat instead of boxes. Unfortunately that has also made it easier for Henry to climb it!!

A re-warming trend...

On Monday evening I warmed up a hot dog for Henry in the microwave. Not more than 10 minutes later I went to reheat Emma's dinner (she had taken too long to eat and it was now cold). When I pushed start, the light came on, the turn table turned and I heard a TERRIBLE noise! A loud grumbling. after about 30 seconds I opened the door and the food was not any warmer. We tried warming up a cookie with the same results.

Since it was Monday we decided to make our FHE an outing to Home Depot. We challenged Bud to find the microwave that was the best "deal". We had printed out a Consumer Reports list of microwaves so we could make an educated choice. Unfortunately I didn't like any of the choices there and Sears had already closed. So we went home.

On Tuesday morning I headed over to Sears and found a microwave I liked and was rated well. They don't really keep anything in stock, so we ordered it and I was told I could pick it up on Thursday afternoon. After school Thursday we headed over and picked it up.

Now this morning I emptied the cupboard above the old microwave and we uninstalled the old one. Pretty easy, no more than 5 to 10 minutes. Our only difficulty was removing the old bracket. This screw was basically holding the whole thing up!

 

 

Then we brought in the new one. Mo helped me get the box open!

We figured out the new template and got our holes drilled. It took a little bit for us to figure out the toggle bolts, but we did it.

 

Then we drill new holes in the cabinet above for the new screws. Once we lifted the new one in place N8 started screwing it in and we heard a small clank and the screw would not thread into anything. We had to bring the whole thing  back down. I unscrewed about a dozen screws and pulled the top off the microwave. We had somehow "unhooked" the threading for the new screw. We got it put all back together and up!!!

N8 headed over to Home Depot after that to get something figured out for the venting. Lucky for us we already had the venting tape because he had to use quite a bit of it!!

I am grateful for a working microwave again!!!

Metal Mouth...

Yesterday was a big day, Bud got braces! Neither N8 or I had braces growing up, so this is a new experience for both of us. He basically has 2 brackets on the front since his other teeth haven't come in yet. He also has a cross-bite, so in the back he has a rubber band pulling is top jaw over. He has to take the rubber band out when he eats and then put it back in when he's done.

So, here is a before shot:

And the after:

A Slow Start...

I can't believe that it's already January 10th and I haven't blogged!! This is a bad start to the new year! Well I wouldn't say it's because things are slow. Life hasn't slowed down since we got back from Arizona.

Last week we finished up the paperwork for refinancing our house. N8 figures we'll be saving about $100,000 in interest over the life of the loan from our previous loan! Too bad I can't just choose to spend that money somewhere else! On Wednesday I taught preschool. We talked about farm animals and I didn't take a single picture.

Lucky for us it was a flex weekend. N8 spent a good part of the weekend finishing (FINALLY!!) our home server. That a fancy name for a new computer! This one in particular is connected to our TV and is a central saving spot for all of our mutual files, pictures, videos, etc. We also got a webcam for the TV and can talk on Skype while lounging on the couch!!

This week hasn't been any slower. School projects, homework, visiting teaching~just to name a few. But there is still more week to come. I'm spending my free time working on my 2011 blog book with Blurb and I just finished up a slideshow of all of the pictures from our Phoenix trip. Tomorrow brings a change to our family-Bud is going to be getting braces put on. I'm sure that will have some pictures to go along with it!!