Awww . . .

I've been waiting for this picture. I didn't expect it so soon! Polly has chilled out quite a bit with Kelsey, but has still had some violent moments (Where she will pounce on her, bite her neck and not let go until we make her - sweet kitty, right?). The growling and the hissing has stopped, and I'm glad for that. Just a few minutes ago I picked up Polly and put her on my lap. Kelsey was asleep on the other end of the couch. Polly humored me for a minute or two, then went to see Kelsey. She licked her on the head a few times, sniffed her, then curled up next to her. They aren't exactly snuggled up together, but I'll take it! Sweet girls!

House Update

We made it back out to the house this evening. We're supposed to be getting some pretty major rain over the next week, so we thought we'd get out there while it was nice out. Once again, we felt surprised at all that had been done. All of the windows are in. The sliding glass door is in as well. Our front door is in the garage, waiting to be hung. Concrete has been poured in the garage, basement and porch. All electrical appears to be done and awaiting inspection. We even have a furnace!

Basement (notice the beautiful floor!) with egress window.

Furnace!
-

No more gravel in the garage!
-

Master bedroom windows!

Meet Kelsey!

We've been on the hunt for Kelsey for a few weeks now. We have been thinking that we would like Polly to have a friend. At first we thought we'd wait til after we moved, but then decided that this house is more conducive to acclimating a kitten. We have a bathroom in the basement that can be her room until we're ready to give her more free reign. That worked great for Polly, and we won't have that in our new place.

So, we started our hunt . . . and quickly found that kittens are scarce this time of year!! Bummer. Thankfully we hadn't told the kids. Today we called the Humane society again, and they had two female kittens (the Patton family has no use for boys!). This time it was Emma's turn. Daddy took her out on a date and she got to pick.



When Aaron called to say he was on the way home, I took Meg downstairs to let her help me set up the kitty's room. She was very excited, but it felt pretty intangible.


Ali was napping when Aaron and Emma got home. She is still very sick and napped for 3 hours! So we woke her up by bringing Kelsey to her bed. She blinked a couple of times as though she couldn't believe her eyes.


Next, it was time to wake Julie up. At first sight Julie said "It's Xander!" (Xander was the Alligood's cat who was white and orange.) We corrected her, and she's now saying "It's Cow-sey"

And last, but not least . . . we have Polly. Let's just say that as of now, Polly is less than pleased with our choice. She is keeping a close eye on little bits and is doing lots of growling and hissing. We've been trying to love on Polly some, but she's not interesting in any affection from us. Even shaking the treat bag isn't working at this point. It seems that she might be chilling out a little. I guess we'll see.

Toothless Wonder . . . Times Two!

We had the Alligood kids over last night. Karis has been working on a tooth for a little while now, and Emma therefore decided that she needed to also. Karis popped hers out while watching The Island Princess . . . then Emma started working even harder. Her tooth wasn't even that loose . . . but that's one thing about little girls - they like to do everything in pairs! : ) Finally, right before bedtime, she yanked it out. For Emma this is her first top tooth to go (though you really can't tell that in this picture). I'll have to take another one later - she looks so cute!

Polly's Favorite Pastime

If there's water in the tub, you can always be sure where Polly will be! I thought that cats weren't supposed to like water. Two sounds that Polly will always run to . . . the shaking of the treat bag, and the running of the bathtub. When I'm in the shower she will climb up on the side of the tub and stand between the liner and the shower curtain trying to bat at me. She has also been known to jump in the shower with Ali (though she didn't stay there long.) She loves to play with the water when I take baths. Once when she was a kitten she even climbed onto my tummy (yes, while I was taking a bath) and curled up and went to sleep. What a riot.

Sweet Sisters

I love this one. Yesterday morning Emma was coloring some pictures in her history notebook and I walked into the kitchen to find her letting Julie "help." Julie was so proud of herself, and Emma loved being able to let her help. As of now, I have to say that Emma is Julie's favorite sister. If she's upset b/c Mommy and Daddy have said "no" . . . she cries for Emma!

What Happens When You Put Your Yogurt Bowl on Your Head

The other morning Julie decided to do just that. Nothing like a baby with dried yogurt in her hair. Ali was in the shower, so I stripped Jules down and did the old fashioned sink wash. She was certainly less than pleased with that . . . though she did enjoy playing in the sink!

Tolerant Kitty

She puts up with so much! Leave it to Meg to treat her like a baby doll . . . though Polly doesn't seem to mind!

Siding

We haven't been out to the house much this week, but here is progress as of Monday. We've had rain on and off all week, so I don't know how much progress they've been able to make.

Birthdays and Easter

Time to catch up on some blogging. For a while now my mind has been so filled with our new house and the possible flooding of our old one, that all of the photos of everyday life haven't felt like much of a priority. So here we go . . .

As previously mentioned, we spent Easter with 3 sick kids. Emma still went to church with Daddy and then went to celebrated Easter at Grandma House's house, but the other three missed out on all of that. We had plans to go to my parents' house for dinner to celebrate Easter and Ali, Austin (my nephew) and Julie's birthdays. (Ali and Austin were both born on April 11, Julie is April 13 - so they all get celebrated together, and are usually lumped in with Easter.) We decided to go ahead with plans at my mom's house. Ali basically spent the day on the couch or in bed - but I didn't want her to have to miss her birthday with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here we have Ali showing off one of her gifts - home made Dorothy dress and Ruby slippers from Grandma - she was very excited about those!!


After school gets out we are taking a weekend vacation to Chicago to do the "American Girl Experience" They already knew about that, but they didn't know that Grandma and Grandpa Klarner were giving them spending money for the American Girl Place. Ali and Emma both opened their envelopes at the same time (watching each other, of course.) It took them a minute to register what they had opened, but they were very excited. They have each told me about 50 different ways that they plan to spend that money! Here's Emma opening her envelope (and watching Ali the whole time!)


We can't forget Easter festivities. The kids all found their Easter baskets, and later hunted Easter eggs. We came home with ridiculous amounts of candy!!




Julie pulled in quite a haul for her birthday, including a new highchair and food for her Bitty Baby, 101 Dalmations DVD, new panties, new dresses and some Polly Pockets. I'm glad that they didn't all come home with so much stuff!

Just to Give You an Idea . . .

My brother-in-law just sent us this picture and I thought I'd share it. He teaches at Eureka High School (pictured in the upper left hand corner above) and sent this out to show how much water there really was. I must note, that this wasn't even taken at its high point. The highway that you see in the center of this picture did flood out. The reason that I'm posting it is b/c the lower right hand corner of this picture shows our subdivision. In fact, the last house that you see before the picture cuts off, on the left side of the street, is our neighbor's house. (If you click on the picture you can see it larger) Have I mentioned that I'm SO glad this is over with??!!

Enough Excitement to Last a Lifetime

We have had a whirlwind of a weekend!

All danger of flooding is over (for now at least). I hope to never live through that again. Having to just wait around to see what happens can be very draining! I am also not a center of attention kind of person . . . and all in the sudden our street became a tourist attraction. It was like the fourth of July. Mobs of people we coming to check out the water. It was really weird. Thankfully, the river crested earlier and about 3 feet lower than what they were calling for . . . you can't imagine how thankful I am for that!

On Saturday night we went over to Jason and Amber's house to hang out. It's been a long time since we've done that, and it was a real treat. Unfortunately, while we were there, I discovered that Meg and Julie had fevers . . . which means no church for me on Easter. That night I was awakened probably 7 or 8 times (that's worse than having a newborn!). Once Meg woke up b/c of her fever. Once Ali woke up with a 102 temp (Great! 3 sickies now!) Twice Julie woke up calling that she needed to go potty (Just an FYI - I DIDN'T take her . . . sorry, that isn't a valid excuse for waking your mom up at night!) On top of that I had a nagging cough that woke me up several times. When Aaron woke me up at 9:00 so I could get Emma ready for church, I thought I was going to die!

So, yes . . . Easter was very disappointing. I want a redo.

Julie is fine now. Meg still has a fever, but it has been easy to control. Ali is burning up . . . her meds just aren't doing the trick. I guess they did bring her from 103 to 101.5, but she is still miserable. Unfortunately, I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck. Thankfully we're off school today b/c of Easter, and I really hope we're all better by tomorrow.

Trying to Stay Afloat

So, I must admit . . . I am less than pleased with how close these flood waters are to our house!! We have a huge field down at the end of our street. It's the same field where we go to fly kites and where our kids ran their mile run in the fall ("The Royal Race") It is way down hill from our street, so naturally that is where water is going to start filling up. We live on a dead end street, and this is just beyond the end of the cul-de-sac. Well, yesterday I got out to take some pictures and talk to some of the people down there, and it threw me into panic mode!! They have Uhauls and are evacuating their basements. One guy said that in 1993 the water almost reached the house and then the river level was 36 feet. The projected water level at it's crest (expected tomorrow afternoon) is 43 feet. They are expecting it to break the previous record of 42.9 feet. Yikes . . . that just doesn't sit well with me. I'm not worried about the house itself . . . but my concern is that we'll end up with water in the basement. So . . . we came inside and started preparing ourselves. Thankfully, we're getting ready to move anyway, so we're really just getting a jump on that. We had some friends come over last night and help get some things packed and get things off of the floor as much as is reasonable. So, now if we start getting water in the basement, everything is ready to come upstairs. It was a long evening, but at least we feel prepared . . . and if we don't get any water, then we're just one step closer to being ready to move!

As I type, Aaron is down at the end of the street helping with sandbagging on those houses that back up to the water.

The field yesterday (3/20)


That same field today:


This is looking at that field from afar. Those houses that you see in the distance are our subdivision.


I don't' know what idiots decided to build the local public high school in a flood plain . . . but they did! Eureka High School is basically right across the highway from us. Here are some yesterday vs. today shots:

The ball fields yesterday


The ball fields today:
(This one is taken from the other side of the highway, as most of the parking lot is now covered in water.)


The parking lot today:



Sandbags from yesterday:

The last I heard, the water still hadn't reached the school building, but it won't be long now!

Here is a shot of highway 109 . . . not far from being flooded out. The water on the right is the ball fields at the high school. One the left is the field that leads up to our subdivision. It won't be long before the highway is flooded out.

I'll keep you all posted on news around here. We did get out to the house today (pictures to come) and there is no water anywhere near it (we couldn't even see water from the highway on the way there). I have to say that I'm thrilled about that . . . and right now I'm feeling like we can't possible move out of Eureka fast enough!!

Flood Waters Rising

No matter where in the US you live, I'm sure you have seen Eureka and Pacific on the news sometime in the past 24 hours. Due to 2 days of monsoon rains, the Meremac River is wreaking havoc on our community.

Yes, Eureka is where we live right now, and Pacific is where we're building our new house! (Sounds like fun, doesn't it?) Thankfully, neither home is in a flood plain. (Though I looked at a Eureka map last night and realized how close we really are - like 4 or 5 houses away!) They are calling for record highs (if not, near record highs) for the Meremac. We are hearing lots of references to the Flood of '93 - though this isn't nearly as extensive and won't be nearly as long lasting, it's still a mess. The news is full of rescue operations, sandbagging efforts and evacuation notices. I can't help but to think about the Great Flood - Yes Noah and his family and the devastation that ensued. Yikes. Seeing these massive waters that are really on such a small scale make me thankful for God's promise to never flood the entire world again!!

The river is expected to crest in Eureka on Saturday . . . until then we'll probably have to deal with limited access to different areas due to flooded roads, but hopefully that's the extent of it for our family!

Windows

We had quite a rain shower yesterday morning, and therefore didn't know what kind of progress would be made on the house. Even though the roof is done, we still have these major holes in the sides of the house, and we were curious to see whether they'd fill them or not!

We found the windows were in in the girls' rooms and in the living room. The fireplace is also closed in now. That leaves the master bedroom windows, the slider, and the regular doors before it's entirely closed in.


It's funny, because the girls have started asking to go out to the house on a daily basis. At first that was completely uninteresting to them, but as it looks more and more like a house, it's quite fascinating to them. They were especially excited to find that bathtubs were installed!

The master bath! It's a big tub . . . I even got in it . . . I couldn't resist. So exciting!


Here we have the big girls in their tub (Julie missed out on this pic b/c she was going potty)


I tried to pose one of her lying in the tub . . . obviously she was less than pleased!


The wall dividing the kitchen from the dining room (as well as the necessary plumbing) is up!

And a picture that I won't see again . . . My girls standing in the fireplace! : )

Back to School

Well, spring break is officially over. This morning we are back to the grind. Unfortunately, it is dark and gloomy outside . . . it's supposed to rain all week. That always makes it hard for me to motivate myself. It would be so much nicer to just curl up with a good book!

Our spring break was great . . . nothing too eventful (which is what made it so great). We slept in every day (helped along be our recent changing of the clocks.) I've been able to get myself to bed early these past two nights to help my body adjust . . . but all four of the girls slept in this morning. The fact that it's so dark and cloudy outside was a major factor there. We made it out to the house every day this week, and really enjoyed seeing progress there. (Side note - The roof is now done . . . next we are expecting windows, doors and siding, but that might have to wait a week b/c of weather.) We were also able to get together with Amber and her kids a couple of times. It was great to be able to just hang out with them. Usually we get together for school related stuff . . . so it was a real treat to just hang out. The kids were in 7th heaven!

So yes . . . now we're back to normal life. Unfortunately Spring Fever is starting to set in for all of us. I'm sure we'll have to deal with more wiggles and distractions, but the end is in sight . . . 9 weeks to go!

Tar Paper and Shingles

The builders are still making fast progress on the Patton home. Yesterday we went out to find them finishing up the tar paper, with the packs of shingles waiting up on the roof.


Today we met Angie out there to talk to Ray about where we want our bathroom roughed-in in the basement. While talking to him, we also decided to put a ridge vent in the attic rather than the standard louvers. We also asked him to take down 2 trees . . . and he agreed to do it for free!!

The shingles on the front of the house are now done, with plans to finish that tomorrow. The windows are in the garage, waiting for installation, and the egress window is completely installed. It's wild how we've gone from joists and half of a subfloor to a fully framed and roofed house in 6 days! Moving right along . . .

One Step Closer to a Roof

Yes, the trusses are up. As the girls put it, "It's really starting to look like a house now!" We supposedly have some rain heading our way . . . hopefully it won't be bad and they can get the roof up this weekend like he said yesterday.

More Progress

Tonight when we went out to the house we were greeted by our trusses lying in the neighbor's yard. All put together and ready to go up!

Our builder was actually out there tonight. He had a few questions for us about how we want things and we were able ask him a few things too. It turns out that the trusses are going up tomorrow and he's hoping to put on the roof this weekend. He was very sweet and humored all of my annoying curiosities. This is all new and exciting to me!

The garage walls are all up now, with several support beams. It was actually hard to get in through the kitchen b/c of those beams, but we managed. We let the kids go in again tonight . . . they are starting to think this is so awesome! They wanted to run around the place like wild hooligans . . . too bad for them! They were also asking questions about where there beds will be etc . . . I think this is finally becoming more concrete for them.

We also got to meet one of our neighbors. His name is Jeff and he lives with his wife, 2 six year old boys and a twelve year old girl. He seemed like a nice guy.

Too Stupid to be Here

That's a favorite phrase of mine here lately. I picked it up from my good friend Jodi. Unfortunately, today it applies to me . . . I am officially too stupid to be here.

Last night I logged into my St. Louis County Library account to request a book for school, and it wouldn't let me do it. It said there was a problem with my account. So, I go and look at it . . . and I have $45.00 in library fines!! I almost wet my pants. I am always on top of our library stuff . . . but apparently not this time. I had 39 books that were 9 days late (Some that each of the girls checked out, plus a few school items). That adds up fast.

I wish I could blame my husband or my kids . . . I could be sympathetic to them. But no, I only have myself to blame . . . like I said . . . too stupid to be here!

Rooms . . .

We made our daily trip out to the house this afternoon. Aunt Lydia was wanting to see the place . . . and so (lucky her) she became our first visitor. We found the left garge wall up, and all of the interior rooms are studded out. Once again, it's amazing to me what these men can accomplish in one work day.

Exterior View:


This one is tough to make out from the picture (let's face it - they're all tough to make out from the pictures) The doorway on the right is the door to the master bath, which turns left into an L shape. The larger opening on the left is our closet, which will have a pocket door.

-

This is the Great Room, looking into the Dining Room and Kitchen. To the left you can see the half wall separating off the stairs.

In this one I'm standing in the Master Bedroom looking throught the hall bathroom and into Ali and Emma's Bedroom. Clear as mud, right?

Here I'm standing in the hallway, looking through the door of Meg and Julie's Room.


While I realize that this isn't nearly as interesting to everyone else as it is to us . . . I still can't resist posting it all! : ) More to come tomorrow!

Walls!

We're supposed to have pretty nice weather this week, and we are hoping to make it out to see the house daily . . . We don't want to miss a thing, and at the rate they're going, missing one day will be missing a lot. We were just there yesterday, and were excited to see joists and subfloor. Today we went and found most of the exterior walls were up. We were all very excited to see that. We even let the girls go up and get their pictures taken while looking out of their bedroom windows.

Here's looking at the bedroom side of the house (with Meg and Emma looking at the "swimming pool" in the basement.)

Looking through our kitchen and dining room to the hole where the sliding glass door will be.

The hole for the fireplace flanked by two windows.