EVERYONE POOPS

Bubba has the cutest little book he got this past December at the zoo (of all places!) named "Everyone Poops". We read it to him all the time, especially when encouraging him to do #2 these days on the potty!! Well today we had some poop drama, but not the potty training kind, unfortunately!
Recently we've been having some issues, and we are on a Septic system out here in the sticks, so for the past couple of weeks I have had a sticky note on my computer that reads "Call Sweet Pea" (the septic guys). Well obviously i am too busy working and stalking blogs to actually comply with that note eh? Grandpa was coming into town to visit from Wyoming, so i decided to get his bedding washed. We have 2 laundry rooms (YES!) so obviously i used the downstairs one in the basement to start the wash. Well 10 minutes later or so, there was water all over the floor. In the closet of the laundry room is our "Sump Pump". Anyone on septic knows what this is, it collects all the water, toilet stuff, etc. and has a pump which pumps it from that holding tank outside to the tank. Apparantly the pump cord had a short, so therefore no pump, just collect and overflow today. It bubbled up soap in the basement shower! (Thank goodness it was mostly washing machine water). So out they came to diagnose the problem. Back to the shop for a part....and came back to fix the float and the short in the cord.(thus the little van)

 

In the meantime we opened the tank lids and WOW do we have alot of "stuff". It was Definately FULL and time for some pump action. So he comes back with the BIG truck to do the fun part. Fun, hahahaha. Got a picture of that too. For those with a weak constitution, you may not want to view all the fun photos we've posted today!! Especially Lynnette. Be happy you are on City Sewer and never see...or smell...the lovely aroma of your stuff. As the book says....Everyone Eats, so Everyone Poops.

 

 

 

What a LOVELY day for all of us.

Danielle stayed inside the door and watched the nice guy pump the tank. Too much fun for everyone. This was not a cheap visit by any means, an hour labor ($75), expensive parts ($78.46), then on top of that the cost to Pump our 1000 gallon tank($250) Do the math, it makes for a $400+ day and I didn't even get like new shoes or a purse or anything exciting for that $400!! Bubba was napping at the time so he missed all the fun. Now some mopping in the laundry room, shower cleaning, and my day is done. Hopefully tomorrow will be far less eventful. I'll be at the office all day so I'm sure it will be peaceful and uneventful here. More on the bathroom tile on the next post, stay tuned........feel free to comment

02272008 Smokey the Bear

 

 

Today Timothy and I went to daycare to see the special guest. Yep, Smokey the Bear! Man he must be REALLY OLD...because i remember him coming to MY school when i was little! Anyway, we had a little lesson about putting out fires, and not to play with matches. Then there was a song and dance and meet/greet time with the bear. As expected, Bubba wasn't having ANY of that! Danielle's K/1st grade class came in at the end, and got to see him and hug him as well. Pretty fun stuff. Anyway, thought we'd blog our cute friend - because even though he didn't have the courage then...i am sure it will be a hot topic for the rest of the week.
Feel fee to leave comments, we always like to hear from our visitors!

02/24/2008 Bathroom Progess..Almost there!!!

As many of you know, sickness came at a very bad time this year. I got sick, the contractor got sick, delays, delays, delays. Well while DeRell was out of town, we made progress! He worked nearly everyday this week and got all the tile FINISHED on Saturday! (So much for a 4-5 day project-we are like 10+ and counting). Which means double (maybe triple?) what we thought it was going to cost us as well. UGH. But FINISHED is a word that is not used very often in our household so I am rejoicing! He will be back on Tuesday to do the GROUT, then 3 days later we can seal the grout, then set the tub back in, the toilet back in, my closet doors back in and put back up the shower glass!! This means in a WEEK i should have a FULL FUNCTIONING BATHROOM. Woo-Hoo!! I've got some pictures below. We decided against the diagonal layed floor tiles, harder and way more cuts=way more $$$ and time. It's fine I love it anyway.

02/16/2008 Danielle's 6th Birthday

Danielle's Birthday was fun this year. We had 13 kids (including Bubba & Danielle) at the Gymnastics studio for a fun day. There was alot of playing with the foam blocks (making a castle), Jumping in the foam "pit" and pizza, cake and presents. Danielle is REALLY inot Littlest Pet Shop and after her Grandma and Aunties , as well as 3 of her friends hooked her up with more this birthday....she now has 32 in her collection. She got a great display case for them that hangs on the wall, and they all fit! Some have to share their dorms with others, but all in all she is a very happy girl!

02/07/08 Snow, Snow, Snow

I constantly beg for it, so it should be no surprise that EVENTUALLY we would get some. In 2 hours we got at least 2 inches! That is really good accumulation for this area! I got the call at 11am that Danielle's school would be closing - as they were worried that by 3:20 parents wouldn't be able to get the kids. I sent DeRell with my Suburban this morning (it's our family's only 4wd) to take her to school and handle his appts. So she is stranded until he can pick her up and so are we. It's fun. I took some video - though it may be hard to tell just how much it's coming down. The snow is blowing sideways. I shot it right out my front door / porch and then also got a shot off the back balcony of the field and stream. If you click on the picture it will play the video (i HOPE, this is my first try and i kept getting errors!)The best part is Danielle also gets a "snow day" tomorrow as the school has already decided in advance that we'll have too much snow and with lots of kids being sick (1/2 the school has been out) they are gonna do a wipe down tomorrow-Lysol everything! I just love living in a small town / kids going to a private school where they can just make up whatever they want and there is no school! I wish i had that growing up...but no...just lots of sunshine!

My Montage 2/7/08
On a seperate note Bubba and I were having a fun mommy/son bonding day. I made my omelet and he ate half of it and then that is what he "ordered" for lunch today. I let him (due to the amt of whinning and pleading) use his safety cutter knife and cut the bell peppers and onions. Yes the boy loves orange bell peppers and purple/red onion! That is what he wanted in his (just like mine)so he chopped it all up and I made it. Got some video of that too-cuz he's so darn cute when he is determined. A mini chef after my own heart <3

02/02/2008 The latest in Construction Zone

So this is the latest. We had a week slow down due to waiting for some materials, and I was sick & not feeling like having someone working in my house. Well as of Friday we had all the rubber underlayment (you cant see it cuz it's covered by the cement board) and all the cement board all in the shower/tub surrounds. So Monday we should be ready for tile. I say "should" because we found out that all the tile we got for this endeavor hopelessly clashes with the exisiting floor tile!

Who cares? What does that mean? Well that means that one more trip to Missoula Lowes so we can pick up the matching floor tile....and all that tile that we layed last summer has to be ripped out. FUN ! FUN ! FUN! The new tile we like so much has a grey hue to it, and the floor tiles that we thought were so neutral and match everything looked really yellow and hideous. That just wont work! The upside is that this time when we lay the NEW floor tile we are going to do it on the diagonal-which we wanted to last time, but chickened out. I think it will look great this time.

Here as you can see (below)begins the daunting task of chipping up each individual ceramic tile. After that, the white mortar that was layed must come out also. So a few hours later, out come the mirrored closet doors, the toilet, the previous mortar and cement board, all ripped out down to the subfloor. More fun. DeRell and Erick get it done in about 3 hours. Not bad for a bathroom thats only like 12' x 12' huh? Ugh.

Now comes the fun part, there are like 2 tiles left after all this and Bubba wants to "help" so daddy gets him outfitted with some goggles (ski goggles qualify right?) and he starts hammering away and I have the camera for the photo op. So I'm trying to zoom in for just the cutest little shot when the tile slips out of Bubba's hand. Well since it was broken it was sharp like a razor and sliced his little finger. So all the camera caught was the screams beginining. Little man was cleaned up and batman bandaged and good to go in a few minutes. I couldn't watch cuz dang there was alot of blood - and to my untrained eye i thought some stiches were in order. DeRell assured me it was not that bad and "he'll be fine". Ugg I hate blood. Why do certain areas bleed sooo much. But oh...the perils of being a laborer on our crew! The work continued and by 11pm they were done.

Sunday begins the even more fun task of taking all the previous materials plus what we ripped out to the dump. The floor will be beautiful but likely wont be installed now until after the shower and tub are complete. So now that means no toilet, sink, etc. during this process, and the world can see into my closet. Fun Fun Fun. I keep telling myself it will be beautiful when it is all done. Every project is worth it. We can't wait until daddy leaves out of town next week to California - more exciting projects are in order. Can't devulge the details, but lets just say no more easter egg greens in the bathroom or the bedroom. Stay tuned for future developments!