Country living.....

When we moved last February to the "country", we are 30 seconds from a grocery store and restaurants, we discovered new things like a well, septic system, generator, gas stove, gas hot water heater etc. etc. When Mike came home with a generator less than 2 days after we moved in I thought why did you go and buy that? We have never had one before why would we need one now? If the power goes out because of a hurricane or whatever we will just use flashlights, we can build a fire in our backyard or light a candle. I was quickly informed by one of our friends if we lost power and wanted water we needed to have a generator....WHAT??? If you didn't know wells run off of electricity who would have known? I guess I just took for granted all the years we had city water, we pay the bill and someone else had to worry about it. I told Mike that we should probably have a someone teach us, more importantly me, since he travels all the time how to hook  up that generator in case of power outage...I still don't know how to do it. 

On Thursday night I was baking and enjoying the nice cool weather with the windows open. Cody and Mckenna were playing nicely in the family room. It was just what I had been waiting for all day! Cody decided on his own that he would go and take a shower. (Notice I said on his own and no prodding from me) About 3 minutes later he comes out and says "Mom what happens if the water just turns off?" At first I thought he was kidding until I turned on the kitchen faucet...nothing. The first thought that ran through my mind was did I pay the bill. Oh yea, I don't have a bill. Now what! Mike is out of town by the way. So I quickly called my friend and said what do I do? She's like why are you calling me? Call the county. That would be great but remember I have a well!!!!  Her husband got on the phone and walked me through what could possibly be the problem. After turning the power off, going out into the dark, chasing a lizard out of the box that I needed to be in and don't forget the ants that love to live near the well.....it still didn't work. He informed me that we probably needed a pressure pump from Home Depot that closes in 20 minutes!!!  It's 15 minutes from my house. In a panic, mostly because our teenage daughter would be home from a long day of school and band and would be wanting a shower and honestly I really didn't want to "rough it". I made it to Home Depot and back to our house in 23 minutes! I know that time really does stand still when we need it to! 

As I was pulling in our driveway our friend was pulling out. He had fixed the problem. He came back to show me what I needed to do in the event that this happens again. There's contacts that get dirty and need to be cleaned.  I did learn a couple of things that night....how to clean contacts on a well and that we need to have a couple, ok at least one pressure pump in our food storage in the event that we need to replace it in the middle of the night. 

The Evolution of Mckenna's hair

On Thursday Mckenna finally got a real haircut! After many many requests by Mike and Jessika I finally caved and got her hair cut. I am not sure why I wouldn't do it I guess it was because it was her baby hair and after 3 1/2 years I was kind of attached. Not because I did cute things to her hair all the time, in fact she usually wouldn't let me do anything with it other than wash and brush it.  Sometimes she would tolerate Jessika braiding it but that usually would come out in less than 5 minutes after her big sissy would spend almost an hour trying to get a 3 year old to sit still. 

3 months

Before going in to have her hair cut....she was a little confused as to why I took so many pictures of the back of her hair...aren't you supposed to take a picture of my face???? 

"Finally mom takes a picture of my face!!!"

I will admit that I should have done this sooner.....She loves her new hair cut and if she didn't have sassiness and attitude before she sure has it now! She shakes her head side to side and just laughs as her new shorter locks hits her face. 

Sunday afternoons

Life doesn't get much better than this......

I obviously didn't realize that I was technology challenged.....so the post that goes with these pictures is entitled "The Jessikca's"...one day I will figure it out! 

Our ongoing saga....

Can someone please explain how our darling 3 year old can write her alphabet but can't use the bathroom????  This past week Mckenna has shown more interest in writing her letters.  She has been doing a great job writing them, yes only on paper....if only she would show this much excitement in using the potty!!!  

Last week when it was that dreaded time again to buy diapers I thought why should I spend $18.94 to get Pampers....let's try the Wal Mart version at only $10.97 because it was obvious the Pampers were much too absorbant. Mckenna very quickly announced that we had the wrong diapers. I heard all about it through Wal Mart. When we got home and I tried to change her diaper she told me that those weren't her diapers and she wasn't wearing them. I said fine you can wear big girl pants....well she wasn't having any part of that. When I finally convinced her they do the same job, come to find out even better, as her old diapers she reluctantly let me put one on her. I wish I would have been able to get the camera to catch the look on her face. She so didn't believe me. I'm still a little irritated that I have spent so much on Pampers all this time and could have spent half as much on the Wal Mart version.....I don't even want to think about that one.

When Jessika changed her diaper later in the day she announced to Jessika "Mom bought me these stupid diapers they are the wrong ones you know." She obviously was traumatized by not having Elmo on her rear after all this time. Are you kidding me?!?!?? That just makes me want to just tell her that we are no longer buying diapers so get over it and just wear big girls pants. I'll try it and let you know how that goes.....

The Jessikca's

The Jessikca's, as we sometimes refer to them in our house, had an exciting weekend with school events. We will start with the oldest....

Jessika plays the flute in her high school marching band. On Saturday they had the annual FBA's which is a competition for all of the high school marching bands in the county. Her school has the largest marching band in the county (246) with the next biggest being 147. They earned a superior which is the highest score. Her school has earned a superior rating for over 20 years.

Jessica is on her swim team at her high school this year. She has been on a city team before and decided that's what she wanted to do in high school. She had a swim competition last Saturday and placed first in the Relay and second in the Fly. There was a ton of high schools there competing and she is competing right now as I type. She placed third in the Relay this morning so she will be staying for finals tonight.....so stay tuned! 

Ok so I can't figure out how to post the slideshow of Jessica swimming so it's in the next post......

Introducing....the ballerina

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Y and saw that they offered dance 

classes for preschoolers. I thought that would be a great 

opportunity for Mckenna to have some activity and interaction 

with other kids other than my workout time at the gym. 

So we signed her up. She so loves it! She is so excited to go to

her dance class and is eager to show anyone who will watch 

what she has learned. Poor Cody had to endure criss 

cross apple sauce on his square of the carpet and standing on his toes with his hands over his head....he was a good sport though and he would 

die if he knew I repeated that!