Potty Training

We started potty training Jude last week.  So far we have had very mixed results. We are trying to go slow and have him wearing big boy undies or pull ups when we are at home.  We have a piece of poster board on the wall and we have him pick out a sticker to add to it every time he uses the potty.  And at least half the time if not more, if you remember to ask him every thirty minutes or so if he needs to go to the bathroom he will successfully do it.  But the rest of the time he flat refuses or gets upset and won't even let me put the underwear on him.  He has had a few accidents and a few times of pooping in the big boy undies that was not fun.  So pull ups for the day until his morning poop, lesson learned.  Next week Jude starts a moms day out sort of program two half days a week and I'm not sure how this will effect potty training.  Anyone have any good tips?  

-Liz 

Kitchen Before and After

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I have been a painting fool the last few weeks.  And my main focus has been painting the kitchen and the kitchen cabinets.  I thought I'd share the before and after pictures with you guys.  It's been a ton of work but I love how this house is turning out!

It wasn't too bad before, just not my style, especially the wall paper, yuck!

Scar Face

Jude got his first stitches last weekend.  Not a milestone we were looking forward to.  It happened Friday night about five minutes before bedtime.  He was running around the living room being silly with S.  We were having a dinner party that night with three friends and I was sitting at the table talking when S started screaming Liz, Liz! we have to go to the hospital and Jude started crying.  He had fallen down and hit his head on the corner of a low windowsill by the front door.  And he hit is just right so that it gouged a big cut right above his eyebrow.  There was a lot of blood at first and we scrambled to get shoes on and figure out where the closest hospital was.  

We went right to the ER and got in pretty quickly, but things slowed down from there.  They took one look at his cut and said real stitches would be necessary, no glue, and they would need to put a numbing gel on it for about thirty minutes before they got started.  Of course it took over two hours for them to come put the gel on and then another hour before they came back again.  Then it was stitches time.  They uses a big sheet to swaddle him and a tech came and held his head.  I pinned down his body and S held a cotton pad on his eye closest to the cut and tried to keep him calm.  He was naturally terrified and screamed and cried like I have never heard him do before.  At one point he changed tatics and asked to go bye bye, which made us all laugh for a second.  By time they were done putting in four stitches he was bright red all over and a sweaty mess from getting so worked up.  The whole ordeal took over four hours.  Luckily he was tired by being up way past bedtime and we had our ipad with us, so he was really good with all of the waiting.  It was after midnight by time we got home.  Here he is, with what will be a Luke Perry style scar.  Picture isn't god enough to see the stitches, but they are there :( 

He has really enjoyed getting to use the monster band aids we got.  You can see in the above picture how bruised his poor eye is right now too.  Poor baby.  Here's to hoping we don't have to do that again any time soon!

-Liz 

99 Problems But a Yacht Ain't One

Yeah,so, the yacht.... As you all know, we bought a new house recently.  What you probably don't know is that the house came with a yacht.  When we were first looking at the house we saw from the pictures that there was some sort of boat in the backyard and thought, weird but whatever, because the listing very clearly said "boat does not convey".  So when we went in person and saw this giant thing in the backyard we weren't too worried, it was obviously a very expensive boat at some point and it was on a trailer and the back of the fence was built to be opened wide enough to get the boat out.  So we didn't think much of it.  I mean after all, it was winter and storing a boat is expensive.  Fast forward to the week of closing and we come to the house to do the final walk through.  The yacht is still in the backyard.  Hmmm.  That's weird, it was almost a 60 day closing, so they had plenty of time to go get it at this point.  But we don't close for a few more days, so our realtor makes some calls and we get assured the boat will be gone by closing.  Here is the "yacht" in question.

Looks nice, right?  And this picture does not do it justice as far as the sheer size is concerned. This thing is 30 feet long and that ladder hanging off the back starts about three feet off the ground so you really need like a chair to get up onto he ladder.  

Anyway, the day before closin S drives by the house to see if the yacht is still there because it's clearly visible from the road, that's how big it is.  And the stupid thing is still there.  Our realtor tells us, oh they are elderly, as if this was any sort of good reason for this boat to still be in the backyard.  At this point I start to get worried that these people are planning on storing their boat for free in our backyard till spring and I was not having that.  So we have the realtor draw up paper work saying that they had until Sunday to get the boat or the boat became ours (closing was on a Thursday).  I thought, this will motivate them, they lose their expensive yacht if they don't come get it.

Saturday night rolls around and the yacht is still there.  It's become obvious that they aren't coming,  and we explore the boat more and realize how trashed it is.   All of the electrical is ripped out, the boat has sat uncovered for what looks like years.  Below deck is a bedroom and bathroom, but is smells weird and looks scary.  The wheels on the trailer are all flat and the side of the yacht not pictured only has 2 flat tires instead of three.  Oh boy.

Then we talk to the neighbors, the boat has been in the backyard like that for TEN years, never once moving.  Also, when the boat was back in Florida before here the people who owned it built a dock that blocked the water access for their neighbors.  This apparently really pissed the neighbors off so the guy swam below the boat in a scuba suit and drilled holes in the bottom of the boat and sunk it.  And to top it all off, apparently the boat was famous in our neighborhood for being the place all of the local cats liked to give birth in.  Yeah, yuck.

So we were basically tricked into dealing with the old crappy boat and I'm sure the original owners had a good laugh after signing the papers we stupidly thought would motivate them into getting their boat. But, this story has a happy ending.  I spent some time last week calling around to all of the local boat places and finally after lots of people telling me it was worthless and I was going to be stuck with it forever, some used boat guy gave the me the name of Capitan Mac, who runs a boat salvage yard.  And sure enough I gave him a call and sent him a few pictures and he was interested.  So he came out and I managed to talk him into buying the yacht for $800.  It took him and his assistant (his first mate??) about two hours that day to get it out of the yard and then another hour the next day to get it all of the way gone.  And while they were looking it over the first mate went below deck and his foot went right through the floor board and into six inches of nasty water.  Gross.

Once they moved the boat I was looking around at all of the snail shells and stuff that had collected under the boat over the years when I saw the body of a seahorse!  I was so excited I ran to get S, who was talking to the guys.  They were all like, really?? a real seahorse?  And I said, yes, come see!  And they ran over only to see the fake plastic seahorse I thought was real because it was so dirty.  Embarrassing.  

As the Captian and his first mate drove the boat out of the yard our next door neighbors came outside and clapped and cheered to see it leave!  Other neighbors stood outside watching open mouthed as the ugly boat they had been staring at moved for the first time in ten years.  I think everyone will love us now for getting rid of the thing in less than a week of living here.

So the yacht is no longer a problem, though we do have a boat shaped area of dirt in the yard where it once was.  And even if "Captian Mac's" check bounces, at least that yacht is no longer our problem.  

-Liz 

Whew! Moved!

This weekend was an epic weekend of moving. And I'm happy to say it is done!  My mom came and helped, not only physically but also helped out by providing her SUV.  We hired movers but because we had three days between getting the keys to the new house and the day the movers would come it seemed to make sence to move as much as possible ourselves.  It's about a 30 mile drive from one house to the other and with traffic it takes anywhere from 40-90 minutes to do the drive.  I think between our two cars and the SUV we took over 30 trips back and forth.  Now the process of unpacking has started.  The kitchen looks pretty good and is mostly unpacked but pretty much nothing else is yet.  I'm drinking my second cup of coffee right now in hopes of getting going on that.  S's mom came down this week to help watch Jude while I unpack, which is awesome.  We have great moms!

Speaking of Jude, he seems to love the new house.  He has been a hyper little fool ever sence we got here.  He loves having a play area and lots of new rooms to go In and out of and trying to get into the boxes, etc.  But sleeping isn't going that great, which we expected.  With everything going on his naps have been all over the place.  He is going to bed ok but has been waking up at 5:20 everyday on the dot, and last night he was up in the middle of the night too.  And even brining him into our bed doesn't get him back asleep, even though he is tired.  I'm hoping this will sort it's self out as he gets more used to living here, but until then, I'm one tired momma!

One last thing about the new house, every door knob in the whole house is a lever knob, which Jude can open, and he loves to do just that.  We have been doing a pretty good job of keeping all of the exterior doors locked, but it's annoying.  We thought about switching out the knobs but it's expensive and I think it won't be long til he can open round knobs too anyway.  And the child proofing stuff for the lever doors is almost as much as replacing them would be.  First world problems, right?

Here are a few before shots:

Kitchen!

Giant living room

Jude play room!

Hopefully I can post some "after" pictures soon!  For now we are loving our new house!

-Liz