Progress

I took this picture a few days ago. It's of the floor joists that hold up Lizzy's room and is right above our kitchen. Do any of you see the ghost living between our floor boards?
Ok, ok, so it's no ghost. It's really James' feet! He crawled all the way in there to do some wiring. He's crazy.

This picture shows James wiggling out of that tight space.

This was taken yesterday. James' friend from work, Jed (behind James, sorry you can only see the back of his head) has built houses before, so he was our main helper. He helped James put up the floor joists and lay the floor yesterday. Our friend Rob and little Logan are also featured here. Rob came over to see if he could more fully grasp how crazy his friends are.

This bottom picture is what it looks like from our living room looking up. They did all of this yesterday.

This is the view of the new bedroom from upstairs. Right below that new floor is our living room.

James will be sad that I posted this video. It is when he was doing the wiring and was stuck between floor boards. Actually, the video is of him trying to get out. It was quite the trick for him. In his defense, he had no idea that I was taking the video, so please excuse the interesting view of James. :) It's less than flattering, but it really was difficult for him to maneuver.

A Fly

I just finished reading one of my sister's posts about a fly. It made me think of my own strange experience last night with a fly. I had just finished showering and there was a fly in my bathroom. Towel in hand, I took a swat at it. It floated lifelessly to the counter where it landed feet up. I celebrated my victory with James. He was excited that I had managed to kill it because it had been bothering him all night. I walked back over to it to dispose of it's dead body when I realized it was gone! I looked around and saw it on my mirror, very much alive. I picked up one of those little medicine cups that comes with your cough syrup and trapped the fly underneath the cup. Again I was amazed at my quick skills, not killing it this time, but capturing it. James scooped it up between his hand and the cup and gave it a good shake, thinking this would kill the fly. When he released his hand from the cup, the fly took off flying! We managed to capture it alive again and this time James threw it into the sink and turned on the water. The fly managed to hold on to the drain with all it's might! Thinking we had drowned it sufficiently, James turned off the water. The fly started crawling up the side of the sink! We turned the water on again, pushed the fly into the drain and plugged it! Hours later we unplugged the drain fully expecting the fly to come rushing out at us. We never saw it again.

There is another fly in my room this morning. It's probably the same one.

Can you Feel It?

Before I get to the point of this particular post, I jut wanted to share one of our favorite pictures with you. I was actually digging for other pictures from last year to share when I came across this one. I especially love the one shoe. Moving on...

It's almost OCTOBER! It is, hands down, my favorite month of the year. I'm not sure why exactly. I love the change in weather, and I love the Halloween decorations. I love that it means that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. I anticipate October the way kids anticipate Christmas. I've already been to Target specifically to scope out Halloween decor. I do it the first week of every September. I already have cute Halloween outfits for Lizzy and Logan, and they have already worn them. Did I mention that I love October?

Do you see the creepy man hanging out in one of the upper windows? We know the decorations are cheesy and amateur, but the kids give us lots of compliments when they come trick or treating!

Stop by our house October 1st to check out this years Halloween decorations!

Self Fullfilling Prophecy

Last night was our ward enrichment night. We had an activity that I'm sure sounded less than desirable to many women, including myself: sewing school bags. (Thanks to all that came!) I tried my best to make it known to all that were there that I was the last person that should sit in front of a sewing machine. I do know what I'm doing, kind of, but I'm notorious for breaking any sewing machine that I've ever been allowed to use for any extended period of time. The activity had been going for over an hour and I realized that not many people were that anxious to use the sewing machines, so not much was getting accomplished. I sucked it up and sat down in front of a brand new sewing machine, owned by the church. I was feeling encouraged that I got so much sewn while sitting there! I did run out of bobbin thread though, so under the instruction of one more knowledgeable than myself, (Christina) I was able to refill the bobbin and put it back in the machine.

Nothing else was sewn on that machine for the rest of night. I broke it. Somehow.

Cheerios and Demos

You may think that this is a picture of James modeling his work outfit. (He works for a company called Pioneer, a Comcast contractor. Now you know their motto.) Anyway, this picture is really just proof that we live with a baby. While James was on the computer I noticed a cheerio stuck to his shirt! It gave me a good laugh.

This video was taken last night.

After we put that massive hole in our wall Logan was obsessed with hanging out up there on the ledge. For the rest of the night we kept telling him, "don't fall"! Every night around 10:00 we wake him up to go to the bathroom one last time. When I got him up last night the first thing he said was "don't fall"! I guess we got the message through to him.

Don't worry, we've blocked the ledge off so he can't fall.

I Think I'm Saving Money

I try to do my part to save money. Actually, it's not really "doing my part" since I am the only one in the house spending the money. All of the responsibility is on my shoulders! I admit, I have some work to do, like learning how to do the couponing thing. (Really Mary, I'm coming over soon!) When it comes to saving money on kid things, here is what I do. I buy almost all of their clothes from KidtoKid. If I don't buy them there, then you know for sure they came off of the clearance rack somewhere else. Since Logan was born, I've made my own baby wipes. I estimated that I only spent around $20 on wipes for the WHOLE time Logan was in diapers. I did look into cloth diapers, but really, I just haven't embraced doing laundry. (But seriously, I researched them and everything. ALMOST bought them.) I do buy store brand diapers though, does that count for something? Anyway, my last money saver with kids is making my own baby food. I bought enough baby food at the beginning in order to use the little baby food containers to store and freeze my own concoctions in. (I did it with Logan too.) Ok, now my story is about it get really random, so if you're not interested, just scroll down to the pictures.

Last night I was confined to my kitchen for a couple of hours. See below video for a small clue as to why. Anyway, during my quarantine, I made a big batch of stew. As I was making my stew, I thought to myself, "I wonder if Ryan Castro would like my stew. I know he doesn't like vegetables, but really, who doesn't like stew"? Luckily, his wonderful wife, Christina called me an hour later. She confirmed that Ryan would indeed have enjoyed my stew. (I told you this was random.) Moving on....I ate some stew for lunch today. It was yummy. While I was eating it, I thought again about Ryan enjoying my stew, if only he would be so lucky to get some. Thinking about him liking my stew made me wonder if Lizzy would enjoy my stew. So, I fed some of the peas to Lizzy. She enjoyed them. Then I suddenly remembered a wonderful little gem in my life. A baby food grinder!
Food grinder on the right, ground up stew on the left, cutest baby in the world back left.

Yep, she likes it!

Arghh....I can't believe I forgot about our food grinder until now! When I make baby food that usually entails cooking squash or yams in the oven, letting them cool off, throwing them in the blender, dispersing them among their own little containers etc. I still like to do that for when I need a quick meal for Lizzy. However, the stew is totally baby safe.

The grinder has re-earned it's right as a permanent fixture on my kitchen counter top.

If the mysterious blue wall confuses you, keep on scrolling down to my previous post. Not that I explain anything there, but you might piece the puzzle together. :) Enjoy! Oh yeah, and the video is of Lizzy eating peas from my stew....the night I made it.

Do You See It?

You know that saying, "now you see it, now you don't"? Well, right now you don't see it. Hopefully soon, like in the next month, you will.

This was taken standing by my front door.

This was taken from my stairs.

This was taken from the "loft".

Taken from my bedroom door, towards the "loft". So, now you can visualize where I was standing in the previous picture. ;)

I'm sure a lot of you are thinking to yourselves, why the heck is Alicia showing us random pictures of her house? Well, I can't go into specifics just now, but soon, like in about a month, I will! Some of you already know what I'm talking about. Good for you. :)

Exciting and scary!

Sorry to be vague, but I did this for my own journaling purposes.