Bad Mom and Heavenly Protection

Have to write about my scare of the day. George and Spencer were playing out back "building a space ship" according to George. Spencer was helping with the decor by piling dead grass on the "wings". George came inside and I continued to check on Spencer every few minutes. Our back has been broken for a few weeks. I propped it up to keep the kiddos corralled, but a big wind storm blew it over.

At one point I couldn't see Spencer and as George was going outside, I asked him to check. He went the other direction and I went out the back door to find Spencer. That's when I heard the first honk. I ran around the pool, hoping to see Spencer near where I had last spotted him running with his big Tonka dump truck. No Spencer. Then I hear the second honk. I run around the house to see a car in the middle of the road, Spencer crawling onto the curb, my neighbor picking him up and his dump truck stuck under a parked truck on the other side of the road.

My heart racing, I ran to grab him (thank goodness for my neighbor), waved a thank you to the lady in the car and went to retrieve the dump truck. That's when the police officer approached me.

"Had an escapee?"

I explained that I he had been in the backyard and I had just seen him back there a couple of minutes ago. The officer asked for my I.D. and for Spencer's name. I gave him both and told him that I really had seen him in the backyard two minutes ago.

"I think it was more than two minutes," he said. And he was probably right. Spencer was heading away from the open gate the last I saw him, I was busy making dinner and didn't think he was going to pass the blown down fence on the other side. I may have been three or four minutes. But it could have been the last three or four minutes of my little buddy's life.

I cried for the next half hour until Adam got home. The first thing he did was screw the blown down fence into place. It won't open now, but at least I won't have to worry when the kids are out back. I was just waiting for CPS to knock on my door. I am so thankful that Spencer was protected. And not just this time. This is his fourth time venturing out in the road, always when I have stopped watching him for more than a minute. I think today was Heavenly Father saying "Okay, I've warned you, now the police have warned you. Get it right or it might not work out so well next time. You're not being a very good steward. Now, stop cooking and watch out for your kid!"

No excuses. I will do better - anticipate the worst and hope for the best. My kids might never see the front yard again.

Construction

Okay, so Adam is working overtime tonight, so I don't have anyone telling me to go to bed. Thought it might be good to catch up on the blog.

As some of you know, we moved into a new-to-us house in January. In April the remodel began. We planned on combining two bedrooms and a bathroom to make our master suite. Over the next several months we removed a bearing wall (thanks to engineer Allen for helping us "suspend" the roof), ripped down the other walls leading to the baby's room and an extra small room that had been set up as a sort of sitting room, moved tons of insulation (I know insulation doesn't weight that much, but Adam has shoveled his way to the east coast and back with as much as he has moved up in the ceiling), redid plumbing and electrical, rebuilt two walls, gutted the bathroom and rebuilt the shower, installed can lighting in my new walk-in closet and put "exploratory" holes all over my dining room wall.

Here are some before pictures:

This is the ceiling of my bedroom. The big beam running from the top left hand corner down to the right is what is helping to support the roof since we took down the bearing wall. It also helps that we are building another wall just three feet from there. No worries on the roof caving in... this thing is solid.

Here is the wall of my bedroom. Adam had to put in extra supports in the walls to hold up the new beam. Can I just say the remodel takes twice as long because you have to destroy stuff before you can put up new stuff. Adam has become the master of destruction. Anybody need to borrow a crowbar or a maul ax?

Looking into my new bathroom. You can see the new Pex plumbing for the shower. There were only a few leaks while we were testing to make sure everything was hooked up all right.

THE MAN. Did I tell you he has spent every weekend for the past month working on this. And that means working from 8:30 in the morning until around 7:30 to 8:00 at night. He is standing in front of the wall that will lead from our bedroom into the closet (on the right) and the bathroom (on the left).

As of today the sheet rock has been hung and taped and the first layer of mud put on to try and patch up the mess we had to make above. We are on a time crunch now because I don't really want to have a baby in the tiny room we are living in now. I keep giving Adam and his AWESOME dad a count down -- only five more weeks, guys! Hopefully I will be sleeping in my new master suite and bathing in my newly tiled shower by the end of the month. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Summer Randomness

Summer is officially over. But I thought I would post some random summer pictures just so I remember how great it was.

Spencer has discovered the greatness of farmer's market corn. He's also graduated to the table and out of the highchair.

As mentioned in the last post we went to the Seattle for the weekend in July and of course had to go to the Pacific Science Center. We really could spend the entire day there, but four hours was enough for me. It also helps that with our $35 pass to our local "science center" we get in free over in Seattle. SWEET!

Spencer is a budding musician.

George thought this was awesome. "Just like Harry Potter, Mom!"

Spencer's not afraid of anything - - bring on the T-rex!

I think Phin is supposed to be a circus bear. In any case, you can't help but want to hug him.

We've also spent the summer doing the normal things. This is movie night, our new Tuesday night tradition. Had those boys a bowl of popcorn and pop in a Scooby-Doo movie and they won't move for an hour and a half.

George dressed himself for church the other day. He did loose the cap and the boy scout bandana right before we went in. I do kind of like the orange and blue plaid with the black and white shiny vest. Sassy!

Adam reads "special stories" to the boys every night. It is usually from the Book or Mormon or Old Testament readers. This night must have been special because they were reading from the Book of Mormon coloring book. Adam and George have added all sorts of commentary to the pictures, including blood on Laban's sword after Nephi has killed him and something about "Give us the drugs, Laban," when they are asking for the gold plates. I just like to sit and listen to Adam's version of the story. It makes it new again.

Finally, (drum roll please) George lost his first tooth! I thought he was too young, but one day it was loose. We ate pizza for dinner one night and after he was done eating I noticed his tooth was gone.

"Where's your tooth?"

"I don't know"

"You must have eaten it."

So George wrote a letter to the tooth fairy: "Dear Tooth Fairy, I ate my tooth. From George Gaul" Luckily the tooth fairy was a good sport and left a dollar in exchange for the note.

Summer has been great, but can you blame me for relishing in Tuesday and Thursday mornings when George has Kindergarten and Phin has preschool and it's just me and Spencer for two hours?