Extreme Makeover: Church Edition

I can't post anything lengthy tonight because my entire body hurts from climbing up and down a ladder for the past few days and I just want to lay down . . . but, before I collapse, I wanted to show you why I haven't posted for the last three days. I was actually legitimately busy (as opposed to being illegitimately busy doing things like taking care of my kids and cleaning my house). So there's nothing really humorous about this slide show, unless you consider the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Woman climbing up and down a ladder funny. The music is Welcome Home by Shaun Groves -- it's a song about the remodel God works in our lives when we invite Him in. So enjoy my last three days . . .

I'll check in with you tomorrow.

I Ha' Dat!

Though you can't tell it from that picture, Mace is really suffering from allergies this week (and Heidi, so sorry, but I tried to get your kids to look at the camera when I was taking the picture, but they were so excited about actually being inside a Mario video game that they couldn't be bothered to turn and look at the camera -- you would think that being children of a real photographer they would have developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of a camera's lens cap being pulled off and would automatically turn to face the camera, but apparently that's not how it works). On Sunday afternoon, he was feeling pretty poorly so we sat on the sofa together and watched Holmes on Homes on HGTV.

In case you've never watched the show, Holmes is a contractor who fixes botched/unfinished jobs other contractors screwed up. It's great -- he walks around a house, pulls down a bit of drywall to see what's back there and suddenly the homeowner is getting a brand new kitchen with granite countertops. The episode Mace and I watched on Sunday involved a new septic system, fixing a crawl space underneath a house, and re-doing a bathroom (all done wrong the first time, of course). I didn't realize until about ten minutes into the show that Mace was transfixed by this show -- he'll watch TV so long as the channel is on Nicktoons, Sprout, or Disney, but he typically doesn't watch other adult-geared shows -- well, with the exception of Cash Cab, which really makes no sense 'cause it's not like he knows the answers to the cabbie's questions and the scenery in the cab never changes. But I digress.

At some point during Holmes on Homes, Mace started interacting with and relating to the activity onscreen:

When Holmes used a drill, Mace said, "I ha' dat."

When Holmes brought out the ladder, Mace said, "I ha' dat."

When Holmes was using big buckets to move dirt around, Mace said, "I ha' dat."

When Holmes used a crowbar to tear out some 2x4s, Mace said, "I ha' dat."

After a few minutes of this completely one-sided dialogue, I realized what Mace was saying ("I have that") and doing -- my two year old was letting me know that he and Holmes were exactly the same -- so long as you were judging by the tools.

Reliving the Remodel

My mom is right. She accused me of spending all my time showering instead of blogging for the last three or four days (since the water's been fixed). I have been taking wonderful stink-free showers. For four days straight I've been chomping on lovely fresh ice with no aftertaste. I love eating ice -- it was especially good while I was pregnant -- don't know why -- but lots of things tasted and smelled better while I was pregnant. The smell of fresh cut wood, for example, could send me into a trance -- mmmmm -- I loved going to Lowes while I was pregnant, which was a good thing, given that I was in charge of supplies during our big remodel project. Our contractor, Jamie, always sent me to Lowes when he needed anything because I was always able to get help (and, of course, I was the one with the debit card). I was 7-9 months pregnant during the remodel, so I was huuuuuuge. I would waddle into Lowes with a list in my pocket and make my way over to the lumber. Eventually, I learned to just grab a salesman on my way in. Salesmen don't typically argue with pregnant women. I tried to play it close-to-the-vest with them at first, "Excuse me? Can you help me with the drywall mud?" I'd ask. "Sure," the poor unsuspecting salesman would say, "how many 50 pound buckets do you need?" "Just 15 -- and these other 17 things on my list," I'd say while I smiled sweetly and rubbed my back with one hand and my belly with the other. I'm sure that the closer I got to my due date, those guys were taking bets on when they'd get to stop helping me.

I was also the one who met the inspectors when they came to sign off on whatever stage of construction we were in. At the end of the inspection, the inspector invariably said something along these lines, "Well Mrs. Flamingo, normally I would want to see an actual wall here where this big blank space is, but I can see you're probably in a hurry to move this project along, so I'll just trust you all to take care of that." I'm not kidding -- this is the reason Grandma still doesn't have a garage door and the new ceiling in the playroom doesn't meet up with the old one.

One of my other favorite memories from construction was Flamingo Joe and I moving our bed around from partially completed room to partially completed room until we finally ended up putting our bed in the breakfast nook for a while. By the time I went into labor, we weren't even able to sleep in the same bed (either because I just wasn't sleeping well and kept him up or because I got the last available bed space and he was sleeping on an air mattress somewhere). Honestly, I can't remember where he was sleeping the night I went into labor. I was in Grandpa's old room (now Mace's room) upstairs and Grandma was in the framed-in, but otherwise wall-less space that was eventually going to become the master bedroom around the corner. Grandpa was sleeping on the porch because he didn't stay in Idaho like we told him to until after the construction was finished (we told him there was nowhere for him to sleep if he came back early and we meant it -- don't push a pregnant woman in the middle of a large construction project or you will end up sleeping on the porch). I woke up at 2 or 3 a.m. with back pains and started pacing. Grandma heard me because she didn't have a door to keep out the noise (and I'm not sure she ever sleeps, actually), so she came in and told me I was in labor. I had never gone into labor with Casey, so it was a good thing Grandma was there. Joe appeared from wherever he was sleeping (the kitchen? the bathroom? under the stairs?) and drove me to the hospital. And the rest is history.

Or it will be history -- as soon as we finish the house.

Olympics Addiction

Casey and I have an Olympics addiction. We bought Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games for the Wii at Christmas, so we've been bobsledding, ice skating, and ski jumping for the past two and half months. So when the real Olympics came, Casey was ready. Unfortunately for him, all the real excitement at the Olympics takes place between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight on school nights, so he gets to watch cross-country skiing and curling during the afternoons after school and then 1/2 an hour of whatever exciting event is on in the evening before his bedtime. After watching 2 or 3 hours of curling one day last week, he was upstairs on our bed at 7:45, waiting for prime time Olympics to start. He is such a fan of the Olympics that I could tell he didn't want to admit that he just really didn't like curling. But that evening, at 7:45, he turned to me and said, "Mom, it's only 15 minutes until the real Olympics come on. I'm so excited." "What's wrong?" I asked, "Don't you like curling?" "No" he said, "I can't figure out what those brooms are for and well, it's a little boring." Poor thing, you could tell it really pained him to admit that there was something in the Olympics that just isn't very exciting.

I'm more fascinated by the fact that all those female athletes knew that they would be on TV broadcasts all over the world and yet didn't take the time to get their hair cut before flying off to Vancouver. Seriously, most of them have long hair that clearly hasn't even been trimmed in a year, possibly longer. They pull off their helmets and goggles and their frizzed out dead ends just fly all around. Would it have hurt to get a fresh cut before they headed out to the biggest moment in their careers? I feel so bad for their poor mothers, who are surely torn between the pride of seeing their daughter on the podium and the shame of knowing all their friends are watching their daughters' dead ends on TV.

Mission Complete: The Great Water Fix of 2010

I need to warn you at the outset that this blog post is highly, highly technical. But first, a song (and a jig, if you feel like dancing, and aren't too worn out from watching the Olympics):

Wee-hee-wix
The water is fixed
Wee-hee-wix
The water is fixed
Yippee-ki-yay
Clean water today
Wee-hee-wix
The water is fixed

We are celebrating the successful completion of Steps 3 through 396 of the Great Water Fix of 2010 -- ta-dah!!!



'Tis beautiful, no? Look -- there's water in them -- and it's not yellow or (bleck) brown. I know you are jealous and want one of these for yourself, so I will walk you through all the various components so you will know how to build one in your front yard.

Ready? Follow me.

First we have the black thing that makes a noise:



And it has pipes coming out of it, so you don't want to forget those when you're building your own. Very important -- pipes. Pick up a few at Lowe's.

And then we have the silver thing that plugs in but isn't connected yet because we are waiting for some black things that my husband assures me will blow bubbles. The children are very excited about the silver bubble machine -- or they would be if I told them that's what it was for, which I won't, because Mace might take it and put it in the oven:



And note that there are more pipes on this side of the bubble machine. You'll want to go back to Lowe's and get some more of those because I'm sure you didn't get enough pipes the first time -- you can return the ones you got on your last trip while you're there because I'm sure they're the wrong size. Oh -- and don't forget that purple goop that holds the pipes together. You'll need two of those if you have a two year old, 'cause the first one will go missing. Which reminds me, I need to check the oven.

Next we have the brand spanking new pressure tank -- it does something with pressure, so if you want any pressure, you're going to need one. I took this picture with the camera under the trash can that was covering the pressure tank. Very artistic shot, don't you agree?



Our old pressure tank never had the pleasure of being covered by a trash can, so I'm not sure why this one needs to be, but overall, it enhances the look of the entire set-up.

Next we have the pipes that connect the tank where we dump bleach in to the tank where we blow bubbles:



So when you go back to Lowe's this time, make sure you get one of those little pipes and a T-shaped thingie to join the pipes together. And don't forget a pipe that bends.

As I was gazing upon the grandeur of the Great Water Fix of 2010 this afternoon, I did have one thought:



Were we supposed to get a permit for this?

Casa Flamingo Drive-In

Last week, Mace became obsessed with the oven. Several times a day on Thursday and Friday he pulled all the pots and pans out of the cabinet and put them in and out of the oven several times.



At some point on Thursday afternoon, we discovered that Mace had apparently been feeding his oven obsession for longer than we realized because he brought me this (which he had just discovered and taken out of the oven):



"Me cooked car."

Since the oven was not on, he clearly had not just cooked the car -- he had to have put the car in the oven several days earlier and then we cooked something without knowing the car was in there. You can't see it, but the windows are all melted out and the inside of the car is completely fused all over itself. The wheels are completely melted.

I have a few thoughts to share in regard to the cooked car:

1. The boy clearly takes after his mother.

2. How horrible are my cooking skills that I can't differentiate between the smell of melting/burning/possibly igniting car and pizza burning off the bottom of the oven? And . . .

3. This poor guy here has no idea what hideous death is in his future:

The Router is Out(er)

I am posting via cell phone (technology know no bounds) because our router is out.  So this is just your notification that we'll be back in touch as soon as we're back online.  In the meantime, let's see if I can post a photo with this.  If it works, that picture is Mace, the first time I took him through the car wash, which was immediately following our visit to the pediatrician, who told me that Mace had the worst ear infection he'd seen that day.  He freaked out in the car wash. At the time, I thought I was multitasking by getting the car washed on the way home from the doctor, but in hindsight maybe it was mean.  If the photo upload didn't work, then I'm sorry you wasted your time here today.