My Handyman Husband

It's a good thing these projects are finished because I was starting to resent furniture with how long it was taking. The Strouds gave us their table (we still have to pick up 4 chairs) I wish I took before pictures. He sanded both them down. The table was a light oak color and he stained it this pretty dark brown. The piano was a dark stain and he painted it "chocolate" brown. He isn't completely happy with the piano, but I think it matches our couch well. So, mission accomplished... no more furniture refinishing for a LONG time!!! :)

Like Father Like Son

I have always thought that Luis likes some pretty nasty things... for example, green olives, mushrooms, cottage cheese, and... sauerkraut!!! He loves it on his hotdogs. I think it's disgusting! We were having hotdogs and french fries for lunch today and Jake said he wanted to try some sauerkraut. He liked it! He asked for some on his whole hotdog! He ate the whole thing! NASTY!!! :)

Favorites

On the way home from work I decided to turn off the radio and talk to my kids... that sounds weird but sometimes I forget that I can have real conversations with children... things like radio and tv distract from conversation. So I asked what they did in childcare. Then I asked them what their "favorites" are. Here are there answers. Jackson: Movie- Despicable Me Song- Veggie Tales Color- Pink Food- Spaghetti Os (Probably because he just ate them...) Book- Lightning McQueen Friend- Chase (in his primary class and he sees him in childcare at the Y all the time) Jacob: Movie- Despicable Me Song- "If you like to talk to tomatoes" (also Veggie Tales) Color- black and yellow Food- Peanut butter and jelly Book- Mater Friend- Eliza (he pronounces it "yayiza" I was totally shocked by this answer! He has a little girlfriend!!! Eliza is in his nursery class!) It was really fun to hear their answers! On another note, I found out that St Louis is one of the most dangerous cities in the US... one website even had it ranked #1 based on crimes per population size. Yikes! Didn't know that! Good thing we live across the river... although East St Louis IL has a very bad reputation as well and that is somewhat nearby. Oh well, can't be worse than La Joya :) Can it?

Lonely for the next week

Luis left for Scout Camp tonight. I hate it when he's gone. I can't sleep when he's not with me. So this next week will be filled with late night movies until I am so exhausted I fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. Tonight's feature... Hope Floats, since Luis never wanted to watch it with me. And of course, I am enjoying some Twizzlers during the movie... :)

Bike MS

Luis is very excited to participate in Bike MS this year. There is a girl in our ward who has a type of MS. Luis will be working with her to get the word out about this fundraiser. We made a goal of $25000... which is a lot, but if we raise enough, Abbie and her parents will win a trip to the National MS Society's annual convention. That would be so cool for them to go to. So we are going to do our best to get the word out. We know there are a lot of worthy charities out there where you could donate, but even if you can donate a few dollars, it helps! The local scout troops are getting involved and so are the YW. We are asking our friends and family to post and email about this event. If we are going to raise enough money we need people to help us get as much exposure as possible. Please help Luis and Abbie! Luis has created a website, www.helpingcurems.com, go check it out!!! Thanks everyone!!!

Veggie Tales

My boys are really into Veggie Tales right now. We ave some cds from Chick FilA that they like to listen to. This is their favorite song... Jacob puts on this really deep "bluesy" voice :) It's cute! I'm glad they like this song because it reminds me of something Dave would sing! I got a root canal on Friday. It was wonderful... I guess there is a reason specialists charge so much... they really know what they are doing! Luis was able to get a bike so he is officially ridig in Bike MS, which is a fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis. We are really excited about that, he has some really big goals! So we will do a post about that another day. He has spent a large part of the day over at the Bike Surgeon aving them do work on his bike. They are donating a lot of time and supplies which is so kind of them!!! My boss is gone this week so I will be busy at work. I gave my official notice but we haven't set a date for me to leave yet. Just sometime at the end of summer. Lots of changes coming up! We will keep you all updated!

"Deuces" - Jacob funny

I just read Liz's blog and she reminded me of this... While the boys were in Chicago with her and Silvia, she taught them to hold up 2 fingers and say "deuces". Well Jacob walked around the other day doing that again... and then he walked up to me and held up his whole hand, fingers outstretched and said "Five deuces"!!! :)

Jackson funny

I was starting the dish washer in the kitchen and I rammed my little toe right into a jacobs chair in the middle of the room! It hurt!!!! So I yelled out in pain... really loud, "AHHHH... Mother!!!" Jackson yelled back, from the other room, "I don't see your mother!"

4th of July Fun

Luis had a great idea for the 4th of July. We took the Metro into St. Louis to watch the air show! The boys loved the train! They were so excited by the idea and they behaved so well the whole time! We got off the train right by the arch and walked around for a bit. The airshow started at noon and we watched it from several different spots... trying to keep the shade! It was 100 degrees... but we had a backpack full of water and CapriSun... so we were good! We were there for about an hour and Jake started to get really whiny so we knew it was time to go. On the way home, Jake was looking so tired and I kept asking if I could hold him, but he wanted to sit in his own seat. Well, he fell asleep... in the seat. So I laid him down across my lap and he slept half the way home :) We made a few trips to Walmart to get last minute things... the boys watched Toy Story while I made dinner! Hot dogs, chips, potato salad, fruit salad with snickers (Luis' idea, thanks to BYU-I). It was pretty good! We had fudgesicles for dessert! After we watched Daddy play some cars (PS3) we went outside so Luis could finish staining our table... which looks awesome by the way. I put on the sprinklers for the boys, but they weren't really interested. I think they were both really tired. I asked them several times if they wanted to go to bed and they both said yes!!! How often does that happen! So they had an early bedtime and Luis and I watched Sherlock Holmes 2 :) It was a great day! I loved spending so much time as a family.

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insurance... just in time!

A few months ago I went to the dentist about pain in a specific tooth. He did a full workup with xrays and everything and told me there is no decay and nothing visibly wrong with the tooth, so he couldn't do anything about it. He is the second dentist to tell me the same thing about that tooth! Insurance through Luis' work was active July 1... which was yesterday. And guess what? While at church yesterday I realized a large painful bump on my gum right over that same tooth!!! It looks exactly like what happened with another tooth down in Texas, and I ended up with a root canal. So I have a dentist appt tomorrow and I am pretty sure I will end up with a root canal again. Hope not, but probably. I wish I could have gone to Mom's old dentist because she really liked him but he is not part of Luis' insurance. I think I made a good choice anyways, I guess we will find out tomorrow!!! Luis' car which has been sitting in our driveway unused for at least 2 weeks is finally in the shop! We are praying it isn't the worst case scenario... because we have gotten several opinions from friends and it might be pretty bad. We will fix his car and worry about the axel on my car later. I have been working out everyday, except when Jax went to the doc. I am going to the Y closer to my house, not the one I work at. That has really helped because I hated going to my Y to work out... it made me feel like I lived there! Anyways, I feel great! I remember why I love fitness! Jackson is healing very nicely. Our home teacher came over on Friday to change Jacksons wound dressing. I dont handle stuff like that very well, expecially with it being so fresh. The dressing is supposed to last 2+ days but there was just so much fluid because they couldn't put in the stitches. Aaron is a med student and he was so great with Jackson! I think he should go into pediatrics! I am very thankful he came over to do that for me! Luis changed the dressing on Saturday and I finally braved up and changed it myself this morning! I really think it is healing well, but Jackson is starting to get annoyed by all the dressing changes. But he realy does like showing people his cool "band-aid". Hope you all are staying cool! We are getting through our 100 degree weather with a lot of AC :)