Panic Button

Our new home has a nice, fancy alarm system which we didn't hook up. It was just one of those things on my "To Do List" in the midst of December craziness of trying to get the house finished before we had to be out of our rental, relative visits, school events, Christmas, two daughters birthdays and moving that got a pretty low priority ranking.

Right after we moved in the carbon monoxide alarm in the basement went off. I called the company who had installed the alarm but since we had not yet contracted them for monitoring they were completely unhelpful. The guy on the phone said it was "probably a mistake." I told him I wasn't super comfortable going to bed with my kids while a colorless, odorless, tasteless, fatal gas could be filling the house. He told me if I was worried I should call the fire department - which I did. As soon as they saw the name of the alarm company (on the sticker on the control box) they groaned and told me that alarm company is terrible. I asked who I should go with instead and they said "Anyone but them." (They cleared out our carbon monoxide issue and left.)

I did some research, got some quotes and we had the alarms all hooked up and ready for monitoring. As the guy was leaving he handed me a small device that looks kind of like a garage door opener. "What's this?" I asked. He told me it was the "panic button" - something I could press even if I was far from the key pads, the alarm wasn't armed, etc and it would automatically set off all the alarms.
 I instantly thought what a dangerous thing that is to have in a house full of kids. I decided NOT to even tell the kids it existed but to squirrel it away where I would have access to it and they wouldn't ever even see it. That was Friday at 5pm.

On Sunday I was in the kitchen when suddenly the alarms started to go off and the loudspeaker repeatedly blared "INTRUDER. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, THE AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED."

Yep, Jacob.
We didn't even last 48 hours before he found it - and what else do you do when you find something with a button on it?

Tuesday night as I went to bed I told Rick "The alarm is on, remember to turn it off before you leave in the morning." 6am the next day the whole family woke to the alarm going off again. Brother!

Maybe we are not the right family to have an alarm system.

Kid Packers!

We had movers for both moves (I highly recommend it if you are planning on moving twice in 5 months) but we packed ourselves. The kids were really great in helping with the packing and packed most of their own rooms and almost all of the toys and DVD's & stuff from the playroom.

The drawers for our entertainment center finally came in last week & the guys came down and installed them. I'm excited to get the last few cardboard boxes out of here, so pulled out all the movies & video games and started sorting them into their permanent home.

It wasn't until I carried the box upstairs with VHS tapes to giveaway, that I noticed how the box was labelled.

Nice.

Of course, they mean "adult" as in "not Disney" but those movers sure might have wondered why we had such a huge box of them!

Where Have You Been All My Life?

A few years ago my friend Melissa raved to me about the Sargent Steam machine & it's amazing abilities. I was fascinated because I LOVE a good cleaning product. However, it was expensive, so I didn't really give it that much more thought.

Over the past few years the benefits of steam cleaning have become more widely known and several steam cleaners have come on the market. My washer & dryer clean with steam, the dishwasher sanitizes with steam ....

As we were building the new house the comment I most often heard was "How are you going to clean it?" I wondered myself. In our last house we had 1 full bathroom & 2 1/2 baths. Here we have FOUR full bathrooms and FOUR half baths. Also lots of wood floors, marble and other things that are "delicate" to clean. Then I remembered the steam cleaner. I looked into it & did some research and decided it was the answer to keeping up with cleaning the house.

I ordered one and it came 2 days before Christmas. With moving and unpacking I hadn't had a chance to use it but today I watched the instructional DVD and started to use it. I am already totally IN LOVE.

I started by cleaning Rick's grubby slides that we keep by the door to run the dog out or take out garbage and recycling. They had grass satins and dirt all over them and I figured if I did something wrong and melted them they were more dispensable than my wood floors!

Within seconds they looked brand new! I could NOT believe how easy it was and wished I had taken a "before" photo! Then I cleaned the mudroom bathroom, floor and cubbies. WOW did I get a lot of dirt up. It was very easy and efficient and I got lots of bits of "construction" stuff like drops of glue, splatters of paint, spills of caulk, etc off the floor. The part that made me the happiest? Not only was it clean - it was SANITIZED. The steam is 298 degrees, so sanitized instantly. It's like autoclaving your house!  Also, the only "product" I used to clean was water - so no chemicals hurting the earth and no chemicals left for my kids to come into contact with.

I was getting such a kick out of using it I barely wanted to stop cleaning and go get showered so we could meet friends for dinner! Seriously, this and a powerful vacuum is all I'm ever going to need to keep this place clean. I am sure I will use it everyday. Definitely my new favorite toy!

Hooray!

Our builder sent this to me today.

Under normal circumstances I would be sad to see trees being cleared - but when it is to make way for our new house to finally start being built - I find it quite delightful!

I think he sent me a photo from his phone because I needed to see it to believe it.

TWO MONTHS after we closed on the land & signed the contract with the builder (which was 6 weeks after we were ready & planning on closing on the land), we finally have the permits & are ready to get going. So, we are just beginning and already 3 1/2 months behind schedule ..... looks like this will be on the same schedule as all the renovations we've done to our current house!

Don't worry, there are still tons of trees all around and we'll be planting more after the house is built.

Our "House"

Today we stopped by our land to check out the tree clearing and look at where the house will be.

The girls running up what will eventually be our driveway.

Jacob & the stream.

Jacob after jumping the stream asking if he can go through the woods.

Jane & her BFF Ruth dancing in the meadow.

The very back (the shiny strip in the background is the river.)

This is NOT our ribbon, or the builders. He couldn't get it off when he was there but plans to cut it before they start clearing. I think this oak is almost as big as the one in our backyard - it's off to the side of the property and will be a great shade tree.

We love all our space.

 The road.

The "meadow" a view from the road.

At least we already have a fire hydrant.

Laundry Day (again)

To My Darling Husband,

Thank you so much for the break. I really needed it. Marrying you was the best decision I've ever made! Now I feel ready to get over the denial that summer is over & get this house (& family) whipped into shape and into our new routine.

You are the most wonderful Dad. Thanks for taking such good care of the kids, and for taking them to soccer & the zoo. They had so much fun with you.

Maybe I could just make one suggestion. Vanilla ice cream is ALWAYS better than chocolate - because you know only half of it makes it into their mouths!

T.

Summer so far!

I really cannot believe that summer has flown by so fast! We are leaving for our trip on Friday and when we get back, there will only be two weeks until school starts! Why is it the school year seems torturously slow, yet summer is over in an instant?

For the past 10 summers, I had but one goal - get the heck out of New York!
It's really hot here in the summer, but that's not what kills you - the humidity is unbearable. So we've always abandoned Rick to his sweaty commute into Manhattan and headed for Utah and the waters of Cherry Hill & playing with cousins in the cool of the evening after the sun goes down (which NEVER happens in NY, it's hot and sticky all day and night.)

This year would be different, Rebekah is old enough for a summer job & would be taking drivers Ed. and Emily would do summer swim team. My kids are growing up and our days of taking off for 5 or 6 weeks in the summer are over. I knew this was coming, which is why we took our big road trip last year.

At first I thought I would be bracing for it, but as the summer drew near, I was excited. There's no room at my parents house for us to have a long stay right now anyway, and it would be fun to stay here. We always abandon our garden right after all the spring effort I've put into it. We wouldn't have to leave Rick for so long. We'd save money not flying the 6 of us somewhere and my kids probably wouldn't get sick breathing airplane air & adjusting to time zones. We could really get our money's worth out of our pool membership, and explore some of our outlying areas. We could use more of our zoo membership & go the the 5 zoos & aquarium that it covers. I'd join the Children's Museum. Yeah - it was going to be great.
There were skeptics - my sister Sara said "You say that now, but wait until you're in humid August, then you'll be sorry." (Sara has been here in the summer!)

Actually, the past school year kicked me in the rear! I was exhausted the whole time, and felt like I was always playing "catch-up." The Little's had pretty much the same schedule the bigger girls had when they were that age (which worked beautifully then), but I think the combo of that & the big girls (read: early morning seminary + a bus for Emy 20 mins after we got back from it, and late night activities for bek) just caused me to struggle. All. Year. Long.

So then it rained 26 days in June. In case math isn't your strong point - that's only 4 days the entire month that we didn't have rain. Poor Emily was swimming in the cold rain for swim team every afternoon. I was wondering what I had signed myself up for. Then July hit. If ever there was a year to stick around NY in summer, this was it. There have been only a few humid days, and I can think only 2 that felt truly miserable (we went to the aquarium on one of them!)

Knowing we were going to stay here we wrote up summer goals, and I asked Emily's piano teacher to give her lessons during July (we're still taking August off.) I envisioned lazy days with early nights & me finishing lots of projects, and I could make it to the gym on a regular basis. (what could be better?)

Because I like structure and LOVE lists, I made up a schedule for our summer days.
(Really, it's also because my memory is shot and I can't function unless I write everything down.)

7am – 8:30am
Rebekah to get kids up and dressed, make beds, eat breakfast, scripture & A of F memorization, breakfast clean up. (Mom to gym)
*Rebekah free for day after this (drivers ed, summer job, personal progress, summer theater.)

8:30am – 9:30am
Morning cleaning jobs.

9:30 – 9:45
Pack bags for pool & leave.

10am – 11:30am
Swim team practice for Emily (Mom, J & J to play & work on swimming.)

11:30am – 1pm
All play at pool & eat lunch. Go home. (Hang towels to dry, etc.)

1:30 – 2:30pm
Quiet time.
I gave Emily a summer job. She has a huge list of American Girl stuff she wants to buy, so I told her I would pay her $2 a day to spend ½ hr each with Jacob & Jane - working on alphabet, reading etc. Whichever one of them was not working with Em could look at books, do puzzles, play on starfall.com, etc.

2:30 – 5:30pm
Free play (sandbox, trampoline, crafts, play with friends, etc)
Work on summer goals.

Specially assigned free time days -
** Wednesday is gardening day
** Thur, Fri, Sat; may take trips to zoo, aquarium, Children’s Museum, beach, etc.

5:30 – 6:30pm
Dinner
(the lettuce and tomatoes for our vegetarian taco salad this day came from our garden. yummy!)


6:30 – 7:30
Baths, brush teeth, read story & scriptures. Family Prayer.

7:30
Bed for Jacob & Jane
Piano practice for Emily.

(Don't you love that he' sleeping with his light-saber. Lately he's also been taking his Book of Mormon to bed with him, which I love even more.)

8:00 – 8:30
Reading time for Emily, then bed. (Personal scripture study for Mom.)

8:30 – ? (Tania Time)
Mon - finish laundry
Tue - finish cleaning
Wed - ironing
Thur - Crafts / projects
Fri - Time with Rick / date night
Sat - Primary / Sabbath preparation / earlier night!

Here's how it's gone down - overall surprisingly well. Even though we've had to deviate from the plan on MANY occasions, just having a plan has been great.
This is mostly what we've had to change; Rebekah dropped summer theater in favor of working more. Getting her to & from work has definitely been a spanner in the works of the plan - but for a good cause, so that's been OK. I thought drivers Ed was at the high school, which she can walk to. It is there every other day, the in between days I have to drive her and we need to leave at 8:15, so most of those days I skipped the gym. I know, I could have gone at 6:30 and been back in time but I get up early all school year - I wanted to sleep a little later.

The beginning of the summer was heavily stacked with swim meets, team photo's, the team BBQ, exhibition meet, etc. There was one week I thought we should just sleep over at the pool to save travel time! It cut into learning & free time, and Em missed several piano practices - but we only had to reschedule one lesson, and her teacher has been great about understanding if she isn't practicing 6 days a week (her usual practice is every day except lesson day.) Plus, it's for swimming, and we'll do almost anything for swimming.

I had imagined that I would have "quiet time" during that hour too - and get some of my projects done, but I have had to be around to supervise a little more that I thought. The one not working with Emily, generally wants to be included. Sometimes Jacob (who is not a big fan of quiet activities) would tire of working on the what I set up for them, or Emily would get frustrated with him and I would need to be around to intervene. I didn't get projects done then, but I did usually work on folding laundry, ironing or cleaning up in the basement while they played.

We've had some fun outings, and our days have gone relatively smoothly. The kids have accomplished many of their summer goals - and still have time to finish the remainder when we get back from our trip. Really, my only complaint this summer is how quickly it seems to be ending!

Sandbox

For some time I have been considering building a sandbox in our backyard. It really came down to Jacob's happiness versus mine. The boy loves to dig, but I couldn't stand the thought of sand strewn hither and yon- including in the house.

Two factors swayed me his way -
(1) I cannot keep him out of my vegetable garden.
(2) One day Rick was out of town and Jacob was recounting his fun day to him over the phone. He told how we had gone to the zoo, and on a play-date and then out to dinner. Then he ended with "But I didn't have a very good day, because I didn't dig today."

OK, the digging thing is serious.

One reason I love & appreciate Rick is that he goes along with all my schemes, and is super patient with all my plans and ideas - even when they inevitably go awry.

Since we didn't have plans over Memorial Day, I proposed that building a sandbox in the backyard would be a WONDERFUL Memorial Weekend project. We'd buy all the lumber & dig it out on Saturday, and then build it on Monday. Simple.

I found plans online for a big sized one, and we went & bought all the lumber (3 times the price quoted in the article - but we weren't surprised - we're building it in NY and everything is more expensive here.) Oh, we also bought a pick axe to dig out the space. Since our yard is sloped, we'd have to dig it in on one side, and build it up on the other.

Getting started, aka the official "before" picture.

With Rebekah helping us, we actually made pretty great progress. We gave a bunch of the grass we cut off the top to our neighbors who filled in bare spots. Perfect.

We also had some other stellar helpers.

By the end of the day we had dug it all out -

and sorted the lumber ready for Monday
(we had it all pre-cut to length for a small fee at the lumber yard.)

The work might have gone a little faster if I didn't keep stopping to take pictures of the garden whenever I picked up the camera to record our progress!
I couldn't help it, everything is filling in so nicely, and it's great to see the rewards for my efforts!

We stopped for dinner & got the kids into bed, and then left them with Bek to go and buy the gravel for the drainage in the bottom. If you have to go to Home Depot for 33 heavy bags of gravel, I suggest going at 9pm right before they close - we were the only one's there.

The next morning we read the instructions more carefully, ready to start building & realized that we had dug the hole WAY too big on one side. Bummer. All that wasted effort - not to mention filling it back in was no fun.


That day we got it framed.

(Only because we completely ignored the kids.)

In the evening, I fed the kids & got them into bed while Rick built the cover for the end (to store the other cover pieces) and the toy box lid.

And we started to fill in the side that needed to be built up.
This sure would have been a lot less work on flat ground! Too bad we don't have any.

The end of day two. (Um, yes the end of day 2 was when it was supposed to be finished - but what can I say. There was a lot of digging.)

The following Saturday we started in on day 3 of the sandbox project with measuring the tarp.

We filled it with gravel for drainage, then stapled the tarp in all the way around.
Then poked about 100 small holes in the tarp for more drainage.

Emily was pleased with our progress.

It sat like that for some time. The pattern called for cedar for all but the side benches, and pine for the sides. I wanted to use cedar to make it all match & be nicer - but we had to special order that size and it took two weeks to come in.

The cover keeps out animals, and will double as a stage if the kids want to do little plays or dance performances (which they often do.) They lift off and store in the end closest to the fence. The other end has a hinged lid and is a place to store sand toys.

The big cedar pieces came and we put them on. (When I say we, I mean Rick.)
Finally it was finished and ready for sand. This is where we came to another screeching halt. I started looking online to figure out how much sand I would need, and discovered that play sand is actually dangerous! It has been banned in California because it's carcinogenic.
Great, I just built my kids a giant death box.

I figured out we needed 45 cubic feet of sand. That's 1.67 cubic yards - or 3375 lbs of sand!! I found some that was "Safe" in California & they would ship it to me, but it was about $1 a pound. I could just see me explaining to Rick that I needed over three thousand dollars for sand!

The girl at the safe sand place told me that the "unscientific" way to make sure it doesn't contain silicates (that cause lung cancer) was to stick your hand in the sand, swish it around and pull it out. If there was a powder on your hand, it was dangerous. If I could find riverbed sand, that would be safer, or anything that has had lots of water going over it to wash it. She also said that since it's an outdoor sandbox, rain washing through the sand would be helpful, as long as we have good drainage (making all that gravel seem worth it.)

It took a little effort, but I finally found a place that had sand from the beach in Long Island. I went and checked it out - no powder. I ordered it, and it was only $150 (+ $75 for delivery.) Bargain!

The closest we could dump it was on the driveway. We'd have to bucket it down to the backyard.

Waiting for the sand.

So on the morning of June 27th - over a month after we started our "2 day" project, we filled the sandbox. Jacob & Emily both wanted to do the 1st bucket - so they did it together.

Dad's wheelbarrow loads made the work go faster.

Before you knew it - we were done!

Jane & Stella played happily in the pile on the driveway while we worked - making me wonder why we hadn't just dumped a big pile instead of building a sandbox!

Ready for kids!

The sandbox is 5' x 6' x 2' deep.
As soon as it was finished, my 3 and the two kids from next door got in it, and
I thought "We should have made it bigger!"

It will be fine, I doubt that all 5 of them will ever be in there at once again
- it was just a novelty, since it was new.

Good work Daddy! Thanks for the sandbox.

We still need to slope the ground nicely away all around it, and grow grass - but there's no way I can keep the kids off it long enough to establish seed, so we're going to wait until fall to do that.