upstairs renovation

We've slowly been taking out all of the carpets in the house and laying down wood laminate flooring and repainting, etc.. We've been in our house 8 years and it's time for some "updates" around here. We decided that we would turn the upstairs open area (game room for the boys) into a private office/guest room. I suggested putting up a wall and some french doors that would close for privacy..Then we'd have a "cute" hallway at the top of the stairs to walk to the boys bedrooms and bathroom. Well, 2 weeks later, the work has slowed down (we've slowed down..) and it's making slow progress. Most of the hard stuff is done, but we've got to get our "2nd wind" back and get this finished. The pictures will show the "before" and the progress since then...Hopefully I can have some "final/finished" pictures soon..

Birthday Boys

Happy Birthday to my summer babies. We had a combined birthday party for Nathan and Kogan. (Their birthdays are "conveniently" only a week a part). Nathan is now 3, which he loves to show you on his fingers and Kogan is 10! We actually took them to the store and let them pick out a few things for themselves this year. (way easier than sneaking out to buy gifts, hiding them around the house and wrapping them...we took the lazy way this year!) But they LOVED it! Nathan got his "Bumble bee" transformer car and a wide variety of "moving vehicles". (some of them quite loud, of course!) Kogan got a video game and an assortment of Star wars "gear"...I was informed they weren't toys. (a talking helmet and light saber, and a new transformer....toys?) Leo got him a clock/docking station/stereo for his i-pod for his room. Kogan thought that we were buying it for our room and was so excited when we plugged it in and told him to see if his i-pod would fit on it..then we started playing his songs and told him that it was actually his..I'm glad we got to surprise him a little bit. Then we got to the fun part..a.k.a..cake! We got Nathan a cute cake with hot wheel fire trucks, ambulances and helicopters on it..Kogan had a white cake that looked just like a hamburger. The meat, lettuce, tomato and mayo were all colored frosting. It was so cute and yummy! He loved it! We have another surprise for Kogan. Leo is going to take him to the Sprint store this week and let him pick a phone. (nothing nicer than ours though!) He's going over to his friends more, and this way we can call him directly when we need to speak with him. He also informed us that 'all the kids are texting each other'..so, yes, even though he is grown enough to text his friends (at 10?), he still is young enough to play with his toys. (I mean his gear) LOL.. I don't want these boys to grow up too fast!

stitches

Last Sunday we were unwinding from the weekend. Leo was on a conference phone call with his family, the boys were upstairs playing and I was "putting around" doing various odds and ends around here. Michael came downstairs and showed me that he had a small (tiny) cut on his finger. I bandaged him up and scolded him about playing with knives. (he had found Leos small (tiny) pocket knife upstairs and decided to "check it out". About 5 minutes later Kogan comes running down the stairs yelling that Michael was "bleeding all over his band aid". I told him that it wasn't bleeding and that I already had a band aid on his cut. (It's fair to say that I was confused...) Then we heard Michael crying and screaming. Leo and I ran upstairs and found Michael crying with his hand in the bathroom sink dripping blood. (again, I was confused, after all I had just cleaned and bandaged his tiny cut which barely even showed through the skin). I rinsed off his cut and then saw that it was a new (way bigger) cut. I grabbed a towel and put pressure on it and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I even did the old "hold your hand over your head" trick, but no luck, still lots of blood. I knew that this was out of my control, so I ran downstairs and threw on some clothes, grabbed Michael's i-pod and shuttled Michael out to the car. He wasn't crying anymore and put in his earphones and listened to his i-pod while I drove frantically to the E.R.. In the waiting room he said that after he first cut his finger, he went back upstairs to "put the knife away, so that Nathan wouldn't cut himself". **yes, I know, I've raised caring little human beings. It was a good concept, except that he went to close it and pushed on the blade, thus causing his ghastly wound! Leo said that there was blood dripped all over his desk and the floor. THANK GOD we had just put wood laminate floors down, otherwise our white carpet would've looked like a cat had been skinned alive up there! Thankfully the waiting room at the E.R. wasn't very busy (It was 10pm at night by now!) After weighing him, measuring him, taking his oxygen levels and blood pressure (geesh!) they finally put us in a room and the nurse came in to peek. She left and then came in the "money lady". She asked for $100.00 (cash, check or charge of course!). After forking over my debit card, the nurse came back in pushing a cart with all sorts of goodies on it. (thank goodness that they had me pay first, that's very important! blah! ) Michael was so brave. He just watched the Disney Channel on the little TV that they had in the room. The nurse said that he needed 3 stitches and Michael barely even looked at her. She numbed up his finger, and my brave Michael Bug barely even flinched. She quickly stitched him up, all the while complaining about the new "Showtime" cable show about a nurse being hooked on drugs, and how she was going to write to the producers, blah, blah, blah..I was trying not to pass out watching her sew up my baby! She could have been speaking Chinese for all I cared.. Finally we were done and she let us leave. Michael skipped happily out to the car..and I mean literally skipped..It was 11 pm and I was worn out, but laughed so hard at this little boy of mine..I was just thinking how I had a paper cut the day before and was crying (just a little) as Leo "doctored" my finger up..and how much more Michael's cut must have hurt! He came home and proudly showed his bandaged up finger to his brothers. I gave him some Tylenol and sent him to bed. The next morning, I cut off the wrappings to clean his finger and put some neosporin on it and re bandage it. I almost gagged! It looked like he had 3 black spiders crawling out of his finger! (literally!) ewww! he had to go around the neighborhood to show his friends his stitches before he let me bandage him back up. It's now Friday and he's ready to get them out. (The nurse gave me the scissors and tweezers needed to remove them on Monday). Thankfully it's healing and he hasn't had much pain at all. You know, I'm going to start being leery about summers around here now. Last summer Kogan broke his arm the first week of summer, and now Michael got stitches..I guess that I'm thankful that we haven't had stitches before this! People keep telling me that "boys will be boys"..but I sure don't like this part. I'm still very proud of Michael though..brave, sweet boy!

Family bedroom

Leo and I worked hard on "updating" our bedroom. I wanted a more 'grown up' room. A peaceful and relaxing place where I could go and unwind. We are so happy with how it looks..but as usual, the minute that I close the door to have some quiet time, someone is knocking (or meowing) and reaching their fingers (and paws) under the door "dying" for my attention!

Graduation

Congradulations Kogan and Michael.

We're so proud of you.

Welcome to 5th and 2nd grade!

Happy Birthday Leo

Happy Birthday Leo (Daddy).

We love you!

The tooth fairy finally visits Michael

Michael finally wiggled his first tooth out. He just turned 7 and just finished 1st grade. He's been waiting since last year, when all of his friends started losing their teeth. He was so excited to finally get a visit from the tooth fairy, that he put the tooth under his pillow at 1pm! When we finally tucked him into bed (many, many hours later) we looked under his pillow and the tooth was gone! Really, and there was no money there either. He was so upset. So, I did what any good mommy would do. I set up a search crew and went on a mission to find it. It was already past bed time, but I couldn't disappoint him. So, we ripped his bed apart. We started with the sheets and blankets and then ended up lifting and moving his whole mattress. The problem was his tooth was the same color as his carpet. So, I got down on my hands and knees with a flashlight. (I was cursing my decision to put in dim "relaxing" lighting in his room) Finally my hands felt something hard..I had finally found it. Michael was so excited! We got his bed all made up again and tucked our toothless little boy in for the night. In the morning he ran downstairs to tell us that the tooth fairy had left him a dollar, and her glitter all over the bed.. (what a creative little tooth fairy he has). Here's my beautiful Michael with his first missing tooth! Here's to many more!

Silly Kogan (blackmail video)

I walked out of our bedroom and saw Kogan being very silly..so of course I grabbed the camera and had to film him..Future blackmail! Leo said that Kogan must get his "dancing skills" from me not him, but I disagree!

Hurray for Dyson!

I think that I'm going to have to write a letter to my vacuum company Dyson. They claim on their commercials that "they never lose suction". I have had my Dyson for several years now and have always been pleased with it. However, today the poor thing was tested and thankfully it passed. I told the boys to clean their upstairs play room. Of course being a boy, Michael decided to do this task in the most practical way. He turned on the vacuum and vacuumed up everything in his path. (I did NOT know this). Later today I went to vacuum my floors downstairs. It was sucking, but the motor sounded like it was revving. Like something might be stuck. I took it apart and looked for the blocked object/objects. These objects are usually toy parts. I was figuring on finding a piece of a transformer or an arm of a "wounded soldier", or even the occasional band aid that gets sucked up..When I couldn't find anything in the tube, I had Leo take the whole vacuum apart. Thankfully Dyson makes their vacuums with easy snap apart parts. To our surprise (and horror) this is what we found stuck in the little tube that goes from the tube to the vacuum. All I could keep saying was "Oh my gosh! Oh my Gosh, MICHAEL!!!". We found :

1. A white sock *this answers the question of where our missing socks are*

2. a white foam Nerf gun dart

3. Several small empty candy boxes (from Halloween? I hope not!)

4. 2 marbles and rubber bands.

5. An AA battery

and your average variety of kids assorted small trash items!

The amazing thing is that this vacuum still was picking up stuff with all of that junk stuck in it! I guess that I didn't exactly tell Michael that he should pick these items up first and then vacuum...Next time I will be more explicit with my instructions! And if you're looking for a good vacuum? Dyson is the way to go!

Body Art or Tattoos

After Nathan and Michael got out of their bath tonight, Michael
came running downstairs and "tattled" on Nathan. He said that Nathan took a pen and colored on himself. So, here comes Nathan running naked down the stairs holding a pen, just as proud as he could be! Yep, sure enough, the child decided to draw on himself..all over his chest and arm! I asked him why he did it and he said "Michael did it". I asked Michael if he "helped" color on his brother and he said "yes, but just a little bit!"... I guess that Michael wanted to check his skills as a future Tattoo Artist? So, I lectured both boys (for the 100th time) on how we ONLY COLOR ON PAPER! I spoke with Michael and told him that he doesn't do something bad himself, and then tattle when someone else is doing it too..I sent Michael up to his room, and then told Nathan to go on the couch to get his pajamas on..He turned around and then I saw his little hiney...Apparently coloring on his chest wasn't enough, and they wanted the art work to show on both sides. Sort of like a walking billboard, I guess? It was so hard not to giggle at him! Oh, and I found a few more marks on his neck too...I'm not even going to try to wash this off either. I'm going to wait awhile and see if it can wear off a little by itself!

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Oh, and I don't know why his hiney looks red..I DID NOT spank him! This was just a rare coincidence! (I swear!) LOL..