TMI

There is a strange phenomenon occurring in my house.  Some of you may consider this to be sharing a little too much, but it's so strange that I feel I should record it for posterity.

The strange happening is that I cannot go to the bathroom without someone discovering me there.  It's a serious thing that is partly mystifying and partly annoying the heck out of me!

I can be left alone all morning, but Las Vegas could thrive on the probability that within minutes of entering the bathroom, someone will come disturb my solitude.  It's as if they sense I'm not nearby and they must make sure I haven't escaped out the back door.  (The temptation has been there.)

I am anticipating the start of school so that I'm assured it will only be the dogs tracking me down.

Tub Time

Saturday night means BATH TIME. Can you believe we can still fit 4 kids in a tub? It's not easy and Leah doesn't usually get to climb in the tub, but she got lucky tonight. Do you know these faces well enough to know who's who?

(That dark grout on the wall is NOT moldy. Must just be wet.)

Bathroom Floor

Our bathroom remodel just made a gigantic leap yesterday.

We went from this:


To this:

I love it!

I don't understand why anyone would put carpet in a BATHROOM...unless it was a special bathroom...without toilets or water sources. Fortunately, we do not have a special bathroom like that. And unfortunately, that carpet was pretty gross. When Chad ripped it up, we found a track of black mold running along the wall about 8 feet out from the tub. I know we didn't do it (I am a little crazy about water getting out of bounds). But someone before us must have REALLY love bath time. Not to mention it was a jetted tub, improperly installed.

Anyway, things are looking so much better now. Maybe this will help our house sell. (yeah, right)

P.S. I've had those runners about two years now, still in the plastic, waiting for such a moment as this! We also had the hallway carpet restretched, so that feels like an upgrade, too.

New Tub

Perhaps you remember the demolition of our old tub area. It was quite a big, messy project. Chad's brother was out this way and gave Chad a hand. The boys also pitched in, though I'm not sure how helpful they were. All of this started on 25 June.



We sold that monster tub for $25.

While Chad's brother was taking care of some business during the day, Chad took some time off work to clean up and build in some shelves/wall. (The replacement tub was not as wide as the original and the tub was too far away from the original wall. Unless we didn't mind that the drain didn't line up. But we did mind.)

That night, they hauled in the heavy cast iron tub and eased it into place. I got a bath at 11 PM that night! And it was nice to be able to confirm that the drain was indeed lined up.

As the days slowly passed, Chad found small snatches of time to work in the bathroom. Meanwhile, I took baths...sometimes cleaning out the tub first.

After several weeks, the tile job was nearly complete. This picture was taken just before we left town for our family reunion. Chad's elbow was all that made it into the picture.

And here is the finished tub! I have been able to shower for two whole mornings now...after 6 weeks of quickie baths. Wow...a shower is SO MUCH more convenient than a bath! I love a bath, but it's hard to take those extra minutes when there are so many little ones that need you elsewhere.

And what are the remaining plans for the bathroom? Well, Chad wants to put in a pocket door to make the toilet a private thinking spot. We are going to install and lamp/fan over the shower, the room will need painted after all this work, and then it's time to get rid of that nasty carpet. It's only gotten worse with the construction.

Breakfast cracker

Sarah and I were up first this morning. Actually, Sarah wanted to be up and so I had to get up.

Because of a slight addiction, I wake up at the computer. It gives me a chance to get the brain moving without having to use it too much. And I find out what happened during the night (which is usually nothing).

This morning I got a graham cracker for Sarah and sat her down on the floor. How do I deserve such beautiful babies?


Oh, NOW she decides she's not quite awake! That little girl has a birthday in 1 1/2 months. Crazy!

An update on the bathroom project. Here is our current situation. We got in a few hours of work this Saturday. And this time I can honestly use "we" in the description. I cut the tile (a lot of it), and Chad slapped it on. I am really going to appreciate this shower when I can use it!

I did shower upstairs Saturday morning. It did not help my feelings of frustration to see that bathroom in such a nasty condition. I really don't understand how toothpaste gets on the opposite wall.

For Now

I just finished watching the latest episode of Persons Unknown. It's an NBC mini series and I'm quite fascinated. Of course, they switched the viewing time on me and I missed it on Monday. That's annoying, but at least it's available online to view later (which is what I did this evening). What would I have done 10 years ago? I would have been more than annoyed and out of luck, too.

Chad is working in the bathroom. He's putting up the cement board tonight. Little by little, we're getting this bathroom in shape! And little by little the kids keep coming out of bed. The boys went to Cub Scout Day Camp today. I would expect that at 10 PM they'd be in a deep sleep!

I've been working on cutting out our traditional matching shorts (kids only) to wear with our 4th of July t-shirts. I got the final two pair cut today. The fireworks are in 3 days. I should be sewing...not blogging.

It was HOT, HOT today. All the kids were red in the face at dinner and we had to bring in a stand fan. When I looked at the temp on the thermometer we keep in the back room, it said it was only 84 degrees outside. Good grief! We're going to have to toughen up around here! Or just play in the water a lot.

That reminds me. Sarah played in the baby pool for the first time last week. I scrapped it. Here it is. She's a cute bundle of rolls!

I went to a friend's house to introduce her to the addicting world of digital scrapbooking. She had the program right at her fingertips all along. Now she's on her way to hours and hours of sitting at the computer, letting the creative juices flow. She said her husband will be mad at me now. She may be right! ;)

Joseph is talking more and more each week. Sometimes it seems he comes up with something new each day. He's been saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" for quite a while now. He's picked up a lot of single syllable words. Recently, he's learned how to yell out the window at the dog. With all the other kids doing it, I'm surprised it's taken him this long. But now he gets up on the chair and puts his face right up to the screen and yells, "Maw wee!" (Molly) It's very cute! And this week Joseph finally started calling the older kids by name. Well, only Rebekah actually. He calls her Bocky. It's funny. I think she feels honored. :) Maybe by the end of summer, he'll have names for everyone. Little Sarah is still "Baby" for now.

We are 1/3 through our summer now. This year, the summer seems to be longer than last year. Maybe that's because the sun didn't come out until after the 4th of July last year. And this year we have a lot more to do outside because we have upped the animal count. We did have the lambs and chickens that you should know about already. We incubated some eggs and got a few chicks and then got more from the mill to make the flock big enough. We also have two turkey chicks. They'll be a nice feast in November if we can keep them alive that long. I have pictures of all that, but I'll save that story for another post.

We recently acquired a goat. She was free and we occasionally put her to work on the weeds.

We also took a deep breath and got a horse. Yep. We own a horse. Or she owns us. She's 5 and hasn't been through much training. I guess we're the least qualified to train a horse, but we're trying. We can get on her, with some effort, but she's not really very interested in doing what we want her to. She chases the lambs around the corral sometimes. She's been a bit spoiled, I think. Meet Dandelion. :)

I have a lot more to catch up on, but that's all for now. I need to get up and get something done before bed. It's 10:15. It feels like midnight.

I haven't showered since Thursday last week.

I thought that title might get your attention. It's the truth, too.

Last Thursday, Chad's brother (we'll call him 'Greg') came to town. He needed a place to stay while he was here and offered to help us do any projects we had going while he was available. He may never offer again!

We bought a cast iron bathtub 2 - 3 months ago and it has been sitting in our garage since then. The task of replacing a tub is really best tackled with more than one guy. So we decided to take Greg up on his offer.

I showered Thursday morning...

...they ripped the tub out that night.



You can see that I jumped right in there to help out. I did help move some stuff out of the way after taking the picture, but my biggest job was to keep Sarah out of the way. That was not an easy task!

The tub spent 2 nights in the front yard before I sold it to someone for $25. What a bargain!

While Greg was busy with meetings on Friday, Chad stayed home from work to prep the area for the replacement tub. I took the kids out for the day. (That's how I helped on Friday.) The two of them (I don't know who to really credit) came up with an idea to build shelves into the wall of the tub surround. Chad did that. You can see them if you look for the red-papered insulation. The blue paper is the original wall. That little hole in the bottom of the wall on the left is the old pump access from the jetted tub. That is going to need to be patched up. Talk about a privacy problem!


By Friday (late) night, the 'new' tub was in and holding water. More specifically, it was holding water for my bath. It was a little strange to sit in the tub and look through the wall straight ahead of me to the toilet. And it was difficult to not splash any water out of the tub. I never even thought of that hole behind me. Good thing the kids were in bed by then!


We do have a 2nd bathroom with a shower stall. It's the kids' bathroom and I haven't been able to lower my standards far enough to use it, yet. I only used the toilet 3 times on Thursday because it was covered in drywall chunks and I didn't want to to go upstairs. Petty, I know.

Their bathroom is so disgusting and a total waste of time to clean, that I try to pretend that it doesn't exist. Why can't they keep the toothpaste with a foot of the sink? Even two feet would be a huge improvement. What is so hard about getting the pee IN the toilet? And again, why do people carpet bathrooms? Yuck, and DOUBLE YUCK!

Chad has not been as snobby about it as I have. He has had no baths. I've had 4.

Last night, he got all the plastic up and is ready to nail up the cement board. I would love if he got it done by the weekend, but realistically, next weekend would still be something to be grateful for.

I'll post pictures of that when it happens. :)

ALERT! ALERT! It's no big deal.

I'm trying to get the kids ready to leave the house. You'd think it was Sunday with all the problems we're having.

Anyone know where Joseph's sandals are?

I sat down to feed Sarah real quick and Daniel starts shouting, "It's flooding!!" My first thought is the canal's flooding. Of course, he doesn't offer the info. I have to ask. Nope. Not the canal - the toilet. He comes all the way down the hall to sound the alarm. I tell him to get back in there and start plunging. "But it's flooding!" Yes, and that is why this is a GREAT time to be plunging! Get in there and start plunging.

Then I don't hear anything more.

He comes out from the bathroom and walks into the kitchen. I see the back hems of his pants are wet. Is there water on the floor by the toilet? "Yes." Then get back in there and clean it up!

Wait a minute, Mom. He needs a drink of water. WHAT? You're taking a break to have some refreshment? Did all that water make you thirsty? Are you really thinking there's nothing more for you to do?

When I get in there to check on the clean up progress, I see A LOT of water. He's tracked it from the toilet to the bathroom door...at least 12 feet...across carpet. (WHY in the name of sanitary conditions do people carpet the family bathroom?) And he's now soaking up water with hand towels. When he gets out of the shower, he's 90% drier than the floor is right now and he uses over-sized bath towels for those moments! It's like lighting a single match to roast your hotdog.

I stepped in and demanded bigger towels (which became immediately soaked) until we were nearly out of anything dry. Then I noticed that the little hand towel on the wall was a bit damp. "Did you stop to wash your hands while there was water on the floor?" Silence.

Seriously. Didn't he...? Seriously. *sigh*

Checking in

I feel like I haven't posted for a while. It's been busy around here. AND COLD!

It's SIX BELOW right now. I have an errand or two I'd like to run, but I have no desire to take 3 small children out in this weather. It's sunny, but frigid. Ugh.

It's also stopping me from running our Christmas gifts around the neighborhood. We got almost half delivered Sunday night and haven't gotten back to it yet. The ward choir is going caroling next Friday. I wonder what the chances of a decent warm-up by then are? Weather plagued us in June when we were trying to have our summer picnic. We must be a cursed choir!

Our tub situation has not really improved. Since Daniel gets to have braces, our tub fund has been hijacked. Now, the only way to fill the bathtub is via the shower head. Why does it seem that the water builds up really fast around your ankles when the drain is plugged, but when you're actually TRYING to fill it, things take forever? We've got the holes covered with a shower curtain liner and the trusty all-purpose board. The plastic is billowing from the cold air currents flowing under the house. It makes me long for a heated toilet seat! Maybe I'll plug some of the holes with washcloths the next time the tape comes off.

I am done with Christmas shopping (except for Chad's stocking). I am not done with Christmas sewing or Christmas cards (though the letter is written). I have to finish Christmas pajamas so that I can get pictures for the cards and my December calendar page. I am looking forward to being able to sit in front of the Christmas tree BEFORE Christmas day and do nothing while soaking up the twinkle of colored lights.

We've started sleeping Sarah in her crib. So the trips to the crib every two hours are starting to take their toll. Ugh. I am tired. I hope she can sleep through the night before too much longer. I can't remember what it feels like to do that.

We were in Hagerman this past Monday for a special FHE. We picked up the boys from school about 2:45 and arrived about 5:30. The kids had fun with their cousins and I was sure they'd be sleepy in the car. This is good and bad. Good because they'll sleep, bad because when they do wake up, they'll be monsters. Between the snow plows and the screaming kids, I nearly crashed the van. I did have to drive onto the median once, but the kids slept through that. Often, there were 3 kids going at it at once. Daniel didn't cry at all...probably because he slept through it all. I was crying; mentally.

Chad and I must have been playing "good cop, bad cop" because while I was making threats and counting to three (I used to be able to count higher than that, before I had kids), he was talking kindly and trying to find things that would make them happy. I was just looking for the biggest telephone pole to wrap the van around. We got home just after midnight.

So while we love visiting family, I'm really DREADING making trips to anywhere over 100 miles away. I think we have to set a ban on driving in the dark. And not at the same time that the murderous snow plows are out. They don't just plow snow, they plow you!

And now you're caught up. :)

We like to Say It, Say It

While I was in the shower this morning, Leah, and then later, Rebekah came in to use the toilet. *I so miss having a master bathroom.* As they are sitting there, taking care of "business", they BOTH said "We like to move it, move it."

(I realize that this could be a really good line for a laxative commercial, but that didn't even cross my mind until I sat here typing this.)

I found it interesting that they would be such slaves to this tiny bit of a movie that we don't even own. The kids must have all been saying it in some other room. Maybe I can make a movie that tells them to clean their room, brush their teeth and only lay hands on each other in kind ways. It may be the only way I can reach them. I need a catchy song to go with it.

I vote for the library

This morning I was in the bathroom with the girls. I was cleaning off the high chair that has a year's worth of garage grime on it and the girls were playing with tub toys.

(For those of you who have never seen our bathroom, it's quite LARGE and carpeted, so it's not uncommon to find the kids playing in it.)

Soon, Leah had to go to the bathroom. While she was sitting there, she said, "Sometimes I read books when I'm in the bathroom."

That didn't seem like a crazy thing. I read in there, too. Volume of books are marketed just for those who linger. (I've gotten so desperate for things to read that I've pulled toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles out. But maybe that's sharing too much.)

Then she finished her statement, "...to Rebekah." OK Now that's a little strange. Whoever heard of story time in the bathroom? What a place to "gather 'round!" And how is it that I didn't know that was happening? If I were to picture a story time setting, it would be in a grade school classroom or a back corner of the town library.

So if you chance to stop for a visit and need to use the bathroom, be sure to check the story time schedule first!