Solana's Appliance

And we have a orthodontic patient in the family. Solana was pretty excited to get her new appliance in January. Is it just me or does she look really little in this picture?

As they placed it she kept licking the icky glue stuff they used to cement it in there. It made her gag. Here she is a little worse for wear but still hangin' in there.

Meet Solana's new expander.

The first couple of days were a little rough. She was sore for a bit but didn't complain too badly. I think I had the hardest time handling all the slurping and slurred speeech. I swear, I have this weird thing about mouth sounds. They are so annoying to me! LOL! But we made it though and she's now about to speak normally again.

We even went for a checkup a couple of weeks ago and you can already see the changes in her mouth. The only bad part about the expander is that there's a space between the roof of her mouth and the appliance where food can get caught. She got a popcorn kernel stuck in there once and couldn't even get it out with the water pic! Poor thing.

Gingerbread Houses!

I wanted to try something new this year - homemade gingerbread houses! I was a little nervous but did my research and picked out a gingerbread house recipe and template from the web. The only problem is that I'm now writing this blog post 6 months later and realize that I didn't save the recipe! Woe is me! I have no idea which one I picked and I know that I picked the dough, icing, and templates all from different websites. LOL! Ahhhh! Ah well. Holiday craziness strikes again! 

My friend, Donna, came over to help us build them. She and Solana worked on one house while Chloe and I worked on another. Our competitive spirits kicked in and we decided to make it a contest with Daddy voting on the best house when he arrived home. It was all very exciting.

We all worked hard and loaded down those houses with as much fancy candy as possible. A few pieces didn't quite make it onto the houses and ended up in little mouths, instead...

Donna and Solana made the house with the brick work. That won it for them. 

We'll have a re-match next year. :-)

Chloe is 4 Years Old!

Our big girl woke up to her much anticipated number 4 pancake. Look how big that thing is! But in true big-girl style she ate every bite. One of the things I love about Chloe at this age is her genuine appreciation and excitement for everything around her. She gasps and exclaims when something is new and wonderful to enjoy and I pretty much melt every time she does so. I was a puddle all birthday weekend. Chloe enjoyed everything as much as any parent could possibly hope and I'll cherish these memories forever.

I wish everyone could have seen her opening their presents. It's fun to see a little kid get excited over the gift you sent them and she would not have disappointed anyone. You'd think she received a real rainbow in every package.

Chloe got this car from her Grammy and Grampy. She LOVES IT!!!

She had her first school-friend birthday party on Saturday. Dave rented a bouncy house and four little classmates came over for an hour and a half. They had a fantastic time playing between the bouncy house, the playground, and Chloe's new car.

The girls played hard in the bouncy house. They even ripped down all my streamer decorations from around the yard and decorated inside the bouncy house. Solana headed up the mission and wanted to make sure it was a surprise for Chloe so they worked fast and furiously while Chloe went for a joy ride in her car. When she came back to the bouncy house they all yelled, "Surprise!"

The girls enjoyed some snacks and a much needed hydration break. It wasn't tremendously hot but warm enough for a break in the shade.

Chloe's just chillin' with her friends. Check me out with my hands on my hips. I think I'm a big fan of the free-style birthday party. (Quite the contrast from Solana's unicorn-pegasus party!) Just let the kids play I say! I didn't even bake the cake, if you can believe that. We got an ice cream cake!!!

Chloe's riding with her friend, Lydia. 

Chloe Bea - 4 years old!!!

(This little blouse used to be mine. :-)

Sick Monty

You may not want to read this if you're easily grossed out. But this absolutely MUST go on the books. This was one illness to remember! Monty caught some kind of dog virus. We think the dog sitter brought it over because another dog she cared for that week had a similar illness the week she cared for them both. He got sick the week after we returned from Georgia. Long story short he had bloody diarrhea and didn't eat for 6 days. Our vet came over and gave him subQ fluids and some meds. We ended up at the clinic for blood work and more meds before he got better. It was super scary on days 3-6 when he refused to eat or drink and we couldn't figure out where the bloody runs could possibly be coming from. His rear end was a constant slick of blood and I couldn't keep up with the mess so we ended up putting old towels down in the four seasons room and just leaving the sliding door open for him to let himself out. I felt so bad for him.

But I also felt bad for Dave. All the rear-end washing I did couldn't compare to the 7 hours he spent cleaning the kitchen and fireplace room floors after this overnight poop extravaganza. Before we set him up in the four seasons room and not realizing how bad off he was we locked Monty in the kitchen overnight. Poor guy had no choice. But really poor Dave. He mopped several times with hot water, then vinegar, and finally pine-sol. Then he vigorously scrubbed the grout with oxy-clean until it was white. On a positive note, our grout has never looked so good. Who knew it was supposed to be light grey?

A few days after Monty recovered Bluebell had loose stools. I panicked and gave her gorilla butt. There's no way I was even going to TRY and wash that rear end after constant pooping! Fortunately, she wasn't sick but she was humiliated...

Dude, you are so lucky you're cute...

Skunkfest

We got hit by a skunk and we got hit hard. I've heard of dogs getting sprayed by a skunk and how awful that is. I had no idea that the smell would overtake our house for almost a week. Here's how it went down. 11pm Wednesday night (the night before Valentine's Day) I let the dogs out front for their bedtime potty break. When I opened the door to let them back in I noticed a skunky smell outside. It didn't startle me because we have a skunk that frequents our house and leaves his aroma outside on a fairly regular basis. I hadn't smelled him much this winter, though, so it caught my attention. Did I take note of the fact that I didn't smell skunk when I let the dogs out? No. Did I even consider the possibility that one of the dogs could have been sprayed by Pepe le Pew? No.

The dogs came in and Monty appeared to have something in his mouth. "Monty, what do you have? Drop it!" The lights were out and it took a moment before the smell hit me. As it turns out, close-up skunk smells very different from dead skunk on the road as you drive by. It's sort of like a super strong burning rubber. Monty was foaming at the mouth and doing his best to shake the Eu de Skunk out of his mouth. He flung skunk foam all over our entryway as I froze cursing, "Sh--! Sh--! Sh--!" Dave frantically asked, "What?!?" and I cursed a few more times before I could answer him. And then, instead of taking him back out the same door (because maybe the skunk was right there) I ran him all the way through the kitchen, fireplace room, and four seasons room to the back door. Stupid. Inexperienced. Clueless. If I knew what I know now I'd have acted a lot smarter from the get go. Well, maybe. Quick thinking under stress is not one of my strengths.

Here are some anecdotes to demonstrate how badly our house smelled:

• Day 2: I apologized for being late to Chloe's class party and started to explain that I was cleaning when another class mom interrupted me, "Oh yes. We figured. We could all smell skunk and then realized it was coming off of Chloe's backpack.! It smelled so strong!" At the end of the class I opened Chloe's locker and was smacked in the face with skunk. I felt bad for the kid who shared Chloe's locker. That kid went home smelling funky that day.
• Solana's teacher said that various people entered her classroom exclaiming, "What is that smell?!?"
• Day 4: I entered the house of a Pampered Chef hostess to give a cooking demonstration. I had washed all my cooking tools that same day to try and remove the smell but I couldn't get it out of my bag. I sprayed the bag multiple times with vinegar and water. When I opened the bag in her house it reeked. I was horrified. What to do? Pretend like nothing's wrong and hope that she doesn't notice? I was forced to tell the tale and just hope that I didn't stink too bad. I had planned to make potato chips on our Microwave Chip Maker but, as it turns out, silicone absorbs odors and a simple wash in the sink doesn't take them out. We went without potato chips at that party.
• Day 6: We took a 40 minute drive to eat lunch and go shopping in a quaint town of Yellow Springs. After two hours there we headed toward the van and stopped when Dave declares, "I smell skunk. And it isn't coming from us!" Woohoo! We did a little happy dance. Then I realize we're downwind and one car length away from our van. Sure 'nuff. The skunk was coming off the van! And why would the van even stink? Monty never even went near the van?!? Unbelievable.
• After 7 days I think we're finally getting a handle on the skunk. I still smell it here and there and Monty still has it on his snout but at least it's no longer the overwhelming smell of our house.

Here are all the things we've done to get rid of it:

Dog Cleaner:
We did this the night Monty got hit. It seemed to work well but then the smell came back. We can't figure out if our noses were just tricking us (our whole house smelled so maybe we just couldn't discern the smell on Monty) or if he consumed a bunch of the skunk oil spray causing it to slowly release from his body over several days. We've bathed his head 5 times in all.
1 Quart Hydrogen Peroxide
1/4 Cup Baking Soda
2 teaspoons liquid soap

Closet Deoderizer. The coat closet is very close to ground zero. I washed what I could but was concerned that everything would be super saturated in the smell. I put some baking soda and used coffee grounds in the bottom of the closet and this actually seemed to work really well. Every time I opened the coat closet I was greeted by a pleasant smell of coffee.

We covered the floor, carpet, and furniture (especially close to the entryway) with baking soda nightly. The smell seemed to have saturated into the fabrics even if they weren't touched by the skunk foam. This was my best effort at pulling it out. We're currently on our second Sam's Club size bag of baking soda and I'm crossing my fingers that our Dyson isn't getting too mad at us for all this abuse.

Limes: I heard that limes absorb paint fumes. Maybe they'd work with skunk fumes, too. So I cut up about 8 limes and placed them in every room of the house. They didn't help.

Bowls of vinegar: I read online to place bowls of distilled white vinegar around the house to absorb the smell. I used all the bowls we had and placed one in every room. It didn't seem to help.

I mopped the floors with straight vinegar. It's supposed to absorb odors. The vinegar smell goes away pretty quickly. But who could tell amongst the thick skunk smell?

I put off doing laundry as long as possible but I'm starting to wash clothes now. The washing machine will do double-duty as each load will go through one cycle with just vinegar and then a second cycle with detergent.

Fireplace: Dave had a fire going for two full days. I think this really helped to cycle air out of the house. It was difficult to air the house out considering the temperatures were in the 20's and low 30's all week.

Crock Pot Potporri - By day 4 we decided that neutralizing the smell wasn't enough. We needed to cover it up.  I set up two crock pots with sliced apples, limes, cinnamon sticks, and whole cloves. In combination with the fireplace these seemed to work well.

Incense: By day 5 we were ready to bring out the heavy hitters. Dave thought of incense and pulled out our old box. I do declare! Those hippies know a thing or two about covering up natural odors! That incense is much preferable to skunk and I'd rather smell like a hippie than a skunk! This box has been working overtime since Dave's great idea. I've never burned so much incense in my life!

Box Fans: With day 6 came the one day of warm weather we'd been waiting for. The temperature rose to a balmy 51degrees and we opened all the windows. Dave bought two of these box fans and we faced them toward the windows to try and circulate air out of our house. We left for Yellow Springs and returned about 3 hours later to the freshest smelling house we'd experienced in days! Of course, some of the smell came back after everything was shut up again but that 3 hours helped trememdously. 

Monty, you are so lucky we're not the kind of family to get rid of dogs. Between this and the almond butter incedent he has made us question our decision to get a second dog many time. He's lucky he's so adorable...

Thanksgiving 2012

We enjoyed a wonderfully laid back and delicious Thanksgiving this year. Our friends, Dave, Ann and little David joined us. They live about 40 minutes away in the middle of nowhere and we don't get together with them nearly enough. Dave has been Dave's best friend for 15ish years. They've worked together in California, Germany, Colorado, and now Ohio. We met Ann when she and Dave first started dating and they've known Solana since she was just a wee lass. Solana adores Ann and always insists on being next to her. I think it hurts Dave's feelings a bit because she used to be more smitten with him when she was smaller. Ann took over as the favorite Fay sometime in past couple of years.  When we found out they wouldn't have any family in town for Thanksgiving we quickly decided to celebrate together. I was so glad they joined us. I prefer Thanksgiving with a group. It's much more fun cooking all that food when I know other people will enjoy it!

Dave bought flowers and I just had to get one picture with them on the table. Check out that beautiful turkey! It was a doozey. I signed up for a 12 pounder at the farmer's market a couple of months ago but their turkeys grew much bigger than expected and I ended up with a 17 pounder!!! Ann brought yummy green bean casserole (to the dismay of my Dave who doesn't eat mushroom-tainted dishes). I also made the best rolls of my life, corn bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and spinach salad. This was the first year I left off the sweet potato casserole with marshmallows but I had to pull back at least one of the carb dishes. Next year I think I might actually try decorating the table...

4 adults and 3 kids barely managed to finish off one side of the turkey breast!

Solana sitting next to Ann. Solana chowed down on a roll before we even got any food on her plate. The rolls were definitely a hit and probably the kids' favorite part of the meal.

Dave and soon-to-be big brother David. David is a popular name around here!

I was proud of my pecan pie but the girls loved Ann's grasshopper pie more. Hmph.

After dinner we were all very full - or at least the adults were full. David ate two rolls and was done. Chloe took three bites and was done. At least I was able to get most of her food down by chasing her around the house with a fork and shoving fork-fulls of food in her mouth as she played. It's one of my new tricks. Oh the things we do to get our kids fed! We decided to walk off our full bellies and make room for pie. 

Ann was cracking up at Chloe telling everyone, "FOLLOW ME," as she trailed behind.

We have much to be thankful for.

Fall Picnic

I'm so glad I felt sick today. Normally when Chloe comes home from school I make lunch and we eat. Then I start cleaning or doing other chores around the house while Chloe plays. Sometimes I join her but not always. My stomach is pretty weird today so I decided not to do any chores. I agreed to have a picnic with Chloe and we're just sitting on the blanket enjoying ourselves. These moments make me especially thankful for being able to be a stay-at-home mom and for feeling sick.

100th Day of School

Solana's class celebrated the 100th day of school with a field trip to a nursing home to sing. It was a nice experience for her - the kids are experiencing the joy helping others. They took gifts and she presented hers to a woman who couldn't see so she got to help the lady open hers. She was pretty proud of that. Then she came home and sang all the songs for me.

We decided to have a little 100 celebration at home, too. Great after-school snack!

Fortunately for Solana and Chloe, I forgot that Dave was coming home with S'more supplies. He'd promised S'mores to Solana the day before so we got double treats on her 100th day!

It was 38 degrees outside so we bundled up before heading to our little fire pit. It's on our deck. Not much of a trek.

The s'mores were yummy. They always are.

Chloe got deconstructed s'mores minus the chocolate (since it was right before bed time).

Indoor Slide

The winter lasts a long time in Ohio. I got home from doing a Pampered Chef show yesterday afternoon and the girls were both grumpy, bored, clingy, and generally not happy. I could tell it was a case of the winter blues. During the rest of the year we go outside to play almost every day. But once the temperature dips into the low 40's and below I don't really want them outside playing for any significant amount of time. It's been weeks since Chloe really played outside and Solana's only been out a handful of times.

I decided to bring the outdoors in and their moods brightened immediately. I guess this is what you do (and what becomes of your living room) when you have little ones and live in Ohio...