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Gabby sang a solo today during sacrament meeting (our main worship meeting.) She was asked after the ward music chair heard her during the talent show. She did a fabulous job! At least, I think so. I get so nervous when my kids perform that I have to leave the room. I went to the nursing mother’s room (taking Dylan, because he tends to be loud and distracting) and fed Reese and talked with Dylan. Unfortunately I could still hear her so I plugged my ears while saying “la-la-la”. When I knew she was done, I walked out into the hall and heard a few compliments, and sat down with the kids again. Zach passed me a note that said “Gabby made 2 people cry!” (I assume this was a good thing!) Indeed we got lots of compliments on her voice. Gabby is also starting piano lessons on Wednesday, and we are both excited!

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(The title is referring to one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems ‘Spaghetti, Spaghetti, All Over the Place.) Anyway, we went and ordered the carpet today. Actually earlier this week we went with a budget in mind, picked out something that we were fairly happy with and came home. But I kept thinking back to the last time we picked out carpet and put economy above durability, so we decided to skip getting the children’s big play set this year, and get a better quality carpet. And we are really happy with what we are coming away with now. We’re house poor again, LOL, but at least we’ll enjoy our basement (sans furniture!) space. We have baseboards and trim to purchase and put up in the time that it takes for the carpet to come in (2 weeks). Oh and the carpet is a darker than light tan-ish beige-ish color called ‘Oars’ that is somewhere between a plush and a frieze. Clear as mud?

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Gabby and I went to a Mother-Daughter tea party at church, and I had to bring Dylan and Alisabeth with, as Mark was at work. They had it in a room separated from the nursery only by an accordion door, so I felt comfortable leaving them in there to play during the party, while I could peak through the crack in the door. Things went well up until the end, when we had the closing prayer. All of a sudden we (the entire group of mothers and daughters) could hear Dylan saying at the top of his lungs “Alisa, look at me! ALISA LOOK at ME!.” It’s not often you hear chuckles througout a room during a prayer. This is, of course, par for the course. Dylan often says things like “There’s my Dad” during sacrament or “Don’t pick your nose!” to some embarrassed child just when it gets quiet.

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Dylan had a fun day today. (*Snort*) For some reason he was very contrary, and had arguments for everything we had to say. If he didn’t like it he would say “That’s not true” or if we said something like “If you don’t pick up your Legos, you can’t have juice” he would respond with “Yes have juice!” (Gabby has a game called Pixel Chicks where you have to virtually play, feed, send to school, bed, etc. an electronic girl, and if you don’t do well it dies or moves out or gets sick. Dylan LOVES this game. But she says things like “Would you like to play a game?” or “Should we order out?” and Dylan answers “Yes play a game” and “Yes order out!” He spend a few days with this speech pattern, just to explain why he said “Yes have juice!” Anyway, I digress. Apparently he had enough of us because after arguing with Zach about something he stood up and said “That’s It!” and started a pillow fight with Zach (one-sided of course!)

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Yay! We are so excited. The drywall is done. The mudding and taping are done, and the texture on the ceiling is done. The ball is now in our court. 1700 square feet of priming and paining. We’ve picked out the colors, as you can see below. $400 worth, I think. You’ll notice that the playroom and the school room don’t have colors. They will, as tastefully as possible, have the choice of whatever colors we have leftover. Anyway, re: the colors. The first two are for Gabby’s room. She is using them for either stenciling or stripes on her wall. The colors aren’t exactly true, but they match her bedding. The third is her wall color. The blue is for Zach’s room. His room, his choice, LOL. The green is for Mark’s ’sitting room’. It photographs a lot darker than it really is. The last is for the family room. It’s pretty true, a warm golden yellow. (The white is just spaces.)

We got the sheet-rockers for fairly cheap, considering the amount of work to be done. But for that price, we had to haul the drywall leftovers upstairs and discard them (insult to injury, after bringing down (60X110 pounds) or drywall ourselves. And then vacuum up the dust and wipe down the walls. A little elbow grease is worth it the cheaper price though.

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I’ve decided that Dylan has too many gems to not have a few posts devoted to him. If you are a Senfield fan, you’ll appreciate this one. There is an episode devoted to ‘Bad’ and ‘good’ naked. Dylan hates clothes *(unless they are on inside out or backwards.) So we have plenty of opportunity to see lots of examples of ‘bad’ naked (looking under the bed for something, doing a summersault, etc.) Yesterday before church he woke up, took off all his clothes, and ran around the house 3 times screaming over and over “Bad naked, Bad naked!” He the proceeded to calmly get his church clothes on and eat breakfast.

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Uh, no way can I possibly Mom to a *whisper* teenager! I think it was just about yesterday that I was a teenager, wasn’t it? Or at the very least laboring and delivering a person that changed my life, taught me about unconditional love, and has been a good son and friend ever since. I am honored to have him as my child. He makes this world a better place just by being in it. I’m just so sad that his time with me is passing so quickly! Happy Birthday Zachary!

The ‘worker dudes’ as Dylan calls them are finishing up the last coat of mud and tape. Depending on the snow storm, we’ll be picking out paint and trim this weekend. We are not looking forward to all the paining. Drywall absorbs it like crazy, and then the colors on top of that. But everyone is very excited around here for the finished project!

We all have colds, starting with Dylan (they always seem to, so it probably starts in the church nursery.) They are fairly mild however. Just in time for our alleged snow storm. I have updated Reese’s web page, and put on a montage of her milestones as well. Her page has given me trouble in the past, so hopefully it will work for you. Gabby had a nice birthday, though she did have the cold during it. She is getting a bike from us, and the Enchanted soundtrack from the kids. Zach got some kind of knife from us, and a book on lizards from the kids. He is going camping this weekend and getting his swimming merit badge. Dylan is being his typical self, and all that entails. The other day he asked for a piece of cheese, so I got it for him but it ripped and started yelling “You killed it! You killed it!” until I got him a new piece, at which point he threw the other one away saying “I won’t eat that wonky piece!” And I will end here, as my drama queen Alisa is having a meltdown with Gabby over playing with Reese.

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So the drywall contractors are here. It is 4:00 PM. They’ve been working since about 10:00 AM. That is 6 hours, yes? An hour ago they went outside to breath fresh air and have some coffee/water, and I had the kids run downstairs to see how much had been done. Apparently they drywall pile is almost gone (Mark and I hauled in 40 sheets of it, at 55 pounds a sheet, and have 20 left in the garage that they said they’d bring in when they need it) and they have the place almost done. What? We took 6 months to get 1 room done, with the help of a friend? Apparently in 1 week it will be ready for paint. Then trim and doors, then carpet. WOW!

Easter went well for us. We had a good time. I wrote about Reese’s first Easter on her page, which a link can be found by clicking on the tab at the top. The other kids had fun, with the typical coloring of eggs, finding of baskets (Gabby had a pineapple in hers) and eating of candy. No outdoor eggs this year, due to the snowstorm that hit Friday night.

Zach’s front tooth has been looking weird lately, like it was dropping. We knew he had a bracket loose, and it was to be fixed at his next ortho appointment. But we wondered, because it was at least 1/4″ lower then the other teeth, if the bond was broken off the chipped tooth. We took him in today, and the bond is fine, he just needed the bracket fixed. Within an hour it was back in place. I remember the same thing happening on a lower tooth of mine too.

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