What a week!

So it's been busy and interesting around here lately. Did you all know that Time Warner makes service calls on Sundays? Who knew? We've been having trouble with our modem, I think mostly because it's ancient, but they couldn't just bring us a new one without coming to test it first. They still claimed it was fine but we ended up with a new one anyway. Jason must have given the guy one of his looks.

Lucky us, last Sunday wasn't our only day of waiting around for a service call. On Wednesday our refrigerator decided to break. It had been making a weird noise, but we chalked it up to it being the ice maker. Afterall, a refrigerator less than three years old couldn't have anything wrong with it, right? Joke's on us. It happened of course when I was out having dinner and shopping with my mom for her birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!!!). We had to wait four days for a service call and when the tech called to say he was on his way he asked some questions and determined that it was the compressor, which of course he couldn't just show up and fix. So today was day seven of living out of our coolers and a mini fridge. Luckily we have a freezer in the garage so we were able to salvage all the frozen food that was in the house. Aside from buying ice every other day I'm actually getting used to the cooler system. Drinks in one, condiments in one, produce in one and leftovers in the fourth. I'm kind of feeling like a waitress....I ask who wants what to drink, I disappear behind the door (into the garage), I pour drinks and then I come back. The new compressor came yesterday and was installed today. Now, 10 hours later, it is 76 degrees in the refrigerator and -6 in the freezer. Supposed to be 38 and 0 respectively. We called but we can't get a service call scheduled until tomorrow because we had an appointment today and it shows up as pending until the next day. Oh the joy.

On the upside, Jason won this month's poker game with the guys from work. Gotta love an extra $80. I also got a new cabinet for the toy room. It's my happiness. Xander's occupational therapist suggested picking up toys so he can't dump them out all the time when he's angry. Obviously they don't all fit in there, but most of the loose ones do. And so does the Play-Doh. So now if we want a new toy we have to pick up what's already out. It's pretty sad that I find this pretty exciting. I even took pictures.



The kids had a fun week also, as it was sunny and warm most days, so we spent some time outside. They were really excited about the new bubble machine Jordis got for her birthday (thanks, Megan!) It puts out a TON of bubbles and was a huge hit.



Jordis also got a new tricycle this week. She's still not quite able to ride it properly, but she loves it just the same and wants to ride it all the time. She calls it "my own bike." We've started calling her Nomey (the "y" is so that it doesn't read like gnome). Anyway, she wants to do everything herself now. EVERYTHING. If you get too close to her or try to help her, she screams, "No, Me!" So that's her new nickname. Here's Nomey on her new bike.



Let's see, what else? Xander and I have some strawberry plants we're trying to grow in containers on the deck and they started to flower this week. So he's excited about that. He's taken to talking to Jesus, which is quite cute, so he thanked him for the flowers. Then at the park Friday he asked him to make the wind stop because it was blowing our napkins around. I told him maybe he should talk more politely and not scream at him if he wanted him to stop the wind, and he replied that he had to yell at him because he's way up in the sky and might not hear him from down here. Made logical sense and I'm all about logic, so I told him maybe he was right.

On Saturday we had our neighbors Dena and Dustin over for a cookout. Between the two of us we were able to come up with some food spur of the moment, which impressed me since I had to get creative without a fridge. We had hamburgers in the freezer and I was able to make deviled eggs, escalloped apples and peanut butter cookies. Dena had hamburger buns, hot dogs, hot dog buns and she made pasta salad. Then she tried to tell us she didn't know how to play poker, but she ended up taking all of our chips, so I'll have to think about whether or not to invite them back. Dena is teaching me how to grow vegetables though, so I suppose I can keep her around at least through the summer. (Ha, ha, just kidding, Dena!)

Sunday was Xander's very first fishing trip. Jason was up during the day this weekend so he and his dad took Xander out to see how he did. My mom and step-dad got him a Cars tackle box for his birthday and he's been dutifully organizing it with his rubber bait or whatever you call that stuff. I don't fish, so I don't know. It's not that I don't like fishing, just only been twice in my life. Anyway, he had a great time even though he kept pulling his line out of the water and thinking his minnows were fish that he caught. He lost his SpongeBob stopper, too, but PawPaw bought him a Happy Meal for lunch so I think he's okay.






I guess that's about it from here. Sorry to put over a week in one post. Hopefully I can keep up more frequently in shorter spurts. You know, when I'm not digging around in my various coolers looking for food.