Is it Friday yet?

This week I've been helping out at Noah's Ark, where I worked before I had Blake. I've been doing that along with watching Michael. So as you can imagine its been a crazy busy week for us and feels like it should already be Friday night, not only Wednesday. I forgot how exhausting it can be to take care of 8 babies!  I've been able to take Blake with me which has been great. I think it's been good for him to have to share me. And he has loved playing with all the kids too. 

Working at Noah's this week has made me realize how blessed I am to be able to basically be a stay-at-home mom. I love my normal work schedule of only 10ish hours week and the ability to take Blake with me and to only watch one other kid. I don't think I would spend the time to cloth diaper or make homemade baby food if I was a working mother (to working mothers who do do those things, you are a-ma-zing). I am thankful I'm not so I can put time into doing those things for Blake.

Don't get me wrong it has been great to fill in at Noah's, but it has opened my eyes to how luck I have been the past (almost) year, (shed a tear) to be a stay-at-home mom. Wouldn't change it for the world :)

Easter weekend

We had a nice relaxing weekend here at home. Saturday mainly consisted of yard work, and a trip to Costco. Sunday we went to the Easter service at church and then had a nice lunch/dinner, or what I like to call linner, at the Hammagren's.

Saturday was beautiful here. (FINALLY!) Blake was up way earlier then normal Saturday morning which worked out good because it made us get up and get going. We were at Home Depot by 8:30am, way before the, its-the-first-nice-Saturday-of-the-year crowd, it was great! Russ spent most of the day working out in the yard. I spent sometime time pulling weeds and Blake even got to enjoy the sunshine playing in the pack n play while Russ and I worked on the ever ending weeds. We have a lot of yard work to do, but I'm glad we have started on it now so hopefully this summer we can enjoy it.

 I worked on weeding this path. It was weed free by Sunday evening. (And man was I sore, I didn't know how much of a workout weeding can be, or I'm just in really bad shape haha. Maybe I should start weeding more...)

 Russ spent the better part of the day Saturday working on this mound (it doesn't really look like a mound in this picture but trust me it is). By Sunday it was mostly weed free! We are thinking of planting a couple arborvitae trees along the fence to create some privacy and also maybe a nice ground cover. 

Blake did really well hanging out in the pack n play. I can't wait till he can walk so then he can run around the back yard!

Sunday morning Blake had fun checking out his Easter bucket (although I think mommy might have had more fun buying things for it :).... 

He even crawled to it on his hands and knees! 

(he still prefers the army crawl, so this was pretty exciting)

I think he would have been happy with just a bucket full of "grass"

After church we headed to the Hammagren's for a nice Easter lunch with lots of yummy food :)

 We tried to get a picture of Blake and Luke together since they looked so cute in their Easter clothes but all Blake wanted to do was grab Luke's face... 

Then we thought maybe if we held them we could get a good one... 

this was the best, can you see how I'm still trying to hold Blake's hand down. 

We did mange to get a somewhat decent one of the three of us. Although Blake looks like he's being tortured. He is so hard to get him to sit still these days!

Thank you Hammagren's for hosting Easter. It was fun! 

You LOVE me anyway.

The question was raised
As my conscience fell

A silly little lie

It didn’t mean much

But it lingers still 

In the corners of my mind

Still you call me to walk

On the edge of this world

To spread my dreams and fly

But the futures so far

My heart is so frail

I think I’d rather stay inside

But You love me anyway 

It’s like nothing in life

That I’ve ever known

You love me anyway

Oh Lord, how you love

How you love me

It took all of my strength

To simply be still

To seek but never find

The reasons we change

The reasons I doubt

Why do loved ones have to die?

But You love me anyway 

It’s like nothing in life

That I’ve ever known

You love me anyway

Oh Lord, how you love

How you love me

I am the thorn in Your crown

But You love me anyway

I am the sweat from Your brow

But You love me anyway

I am the nail in Your wrist

But You love me anyway

And I am Judas’ kiss

But You love me anyway

I am the man who yelled out from the crowd

For Your blood to be spilled on this earth-shaking ground

I turned away with this smile on my face

With this sin in my heart tried to bury your grace

Alone in the night I still call out to You

So ashamed of my life, my life, my life

But You love me anyway

Oh God how You love me

But You love me anyway 

It’s like nothing in life

That I’ve ever known

You love me anyway

Oh Lord, how you love

How you love me

You love Me
You love Me
You love Me
You love Me

How You love me
How You love me
How You love me

By Sidewalk Prophets
[you can listen here]

On this Easter I am so thankful that He loved me anyway.

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. " Mark 16.4-6

He has RISEN!

Hope you had a blessed Easter! 

MS Walk

This weekend we went down to Medford to participate in the MS walk. Russell's uncle Allan was diagnosed with MS a few years back and raises money and participates in the walk every year. This year we were able to make it down to support him and walk with him! Russell's Grandma Zelia (aka Grandma Z) was also able to come up from Arizona to surprise Allan and walk with us all! (Grandma Z hadn't seen Blake since he was 2 months old)

 Allan was so surprised to see his mom!

 Allan sharing his story and giving and encouraging word before the walk.

 The group!

 Russell and Kacie with Grandma Z

And we're walking.... Blake only made it about half way through the walk. He was tired and hungry and just wouldn't fall asleep in the stroller. Thankfully we had to walk by the car so Russ and I stopped to change his diaper and give him a bottle. Then we put him in is sleep sack and turned on the portable sound machine and in a matter of seconds, he was out like a light...

Later saturday evening we had an early Easter dinner with the Russell's (almost) whole side of the family and my parents. 

 Blake playing with Grandma Z

 Checking out his Easter bucket

 4 generations!

What a great weekend it was!

10 months [and one week]

Blake is 10 months! In just 2 short months he turns one! I can't believe that! It seems like he has grown and changed so much in the last month. It's just happening to fast!

Blake stats:
I put him on the scale at home today and it read 18.5lbs.
(I'm not sure if I believe that but I would guess he's hit the 18lb mark!)
Right now he loves playing peek-a-boo and so big, clapping, pulling up on EVERYTHING he possibly can and reading stories!
 He's been eating more finger foods lately which is fun! But still no teeth. Not sure when those are going to decide to come in.
Today he started saying ma-ma! I love it! I'm sure he doesn't realize that I'm ma-ma but it's fun to hear him say it!

Praise the LORD!!!

We have water again! I have so much cleaning/laundry/dishes to do I don't even know where to start. But I've never been happier to have that problem!

Going almost 5 days with out water was not fun. You don't realize how much you use WATER. EVERY. DAY. This experience has really taught me not to take water for granted anymore. I think of all those people that don't have water or have to walk miles just to get water. It makes me want to do something to help these people. We are so lucky to live in a country that has clean water and plumbing and toilets that flush. And to go to a restaurant and drink water (for FREE) that we know is clean. We are so BLESSED!

So today when I go turn that faucet on to take a shower/do the dishes/wash my hands or even when I flush the toilet I will say a prayer of thanks, to God for the the blessings in my life, even clean water and I will pray that somehow I can help those who need water.

I know it's not Christmas time but I thought of this video after going through all this. Watch it. It's powerful. Even not at Christmastime, it's powerful.

Oh Monday.

I forgot to mention in the last post that we were still able to turn the water on in the morning to shower and fill up buckets and water bottles to have water throughout the day. Sunday and Monday morning we were able to shower at home. Tuesday morning we weren't, here's what happened Monday....

Monday morning I woke up hopeful that before the day was over we would have running water again, um not so much. Not only did we not have water our house smelled...

Monday morning Russ went to get Blake out of bed and thought he smelled natural gas in his room. I couldn't really smell it and thought maybe it was the dirty cloth diapers that haven't been been washed in 4 days. I moved the diapers into the garage and we went on about our morning. Around 9am I went to lay Blake down and I noticed the smell. I called Russ at work and he called NW Natural Gas. The gas company was here by 10am. The guy checked all our gas lines and determined that everything was in good working order and there was no leak. He thought we possibly had a dead rodent rotting under our house and that was what we were smelling. We kept the heat at a minimum and closed the vent in Blake's room and the smell somewhat went away. Today (praise the Lord!) it's pretty much gone. But it grosses me out to think of something rotting under our house, YUCK!!

Now (Monday morning) our house stinks like a rotting rodent and we have no water... fun!

Back to the broken pipe....

Around noon the Plummer showed up (is plummer suppose to be capitalized? it says I'm spelling it wrong if it's not capitalized, electrician doesn't have to be capitalized. So why plummer, if someone knows, please explain:) (sorry for the tangent). He got to working and by 2 was finished. He knocked at the door to tell me he was done and I said "so we have water now?!" he said "no" :( I wanted to start crying. He explained that since our pipes were so old that as he was putting on the new pipe he made a leak in the main pipe that brings the water into the house (this wasn't his fault, we were warned this could happen). This meant now we couldn't turn the water on AT ALL. So I wrote him a big fat check for what felt like nothing (although he did replace a pipe and he did work for 2 hours).

The plummer left. We got some quotes from other plummers (ridiculously expensive quotes, now I wanted to start crying even more). One of the options was to dig the trench ourselves and then the plummer (the same one who was here before) would come replace the rusted out 60+ year old pipe. This was by far the most affordable option. We talked to our friends who graciously offered to come dig the trench for us.

Brandon was here this morning at 8:30am and Drew came around noon and Russ was off by 2 and the trench was dug by 4:30!! We are so grateful and appreciative of these guys to do this for us! Such a blessing!

The plummer will be here tomorrow morning to lay the new pipe. I hope and pray that we have water tomorrow afternoon and that nothing else goes wrong.

Here are some pictures of the trench...

The start

Yay! I see pipe!

 They had to dig under the sidewalk

 and under the house

Thank you Brandon and Drew for helping us out! We appreciate it so much!

A broken pipe and a garage sale

Wow, what a weekend/Monday it has been. I'm not even sure where to start. Today has definitely been "one" of those Monday's. I guess I will start from the beginning...

Friday was a beautiful spring day here. The sun was shining and it actually warmed up into the 60s which was so nice for a change! My friend Megan and I had been planning on having a garage sale Saturday so she came over in the late afternoon to help set up for it. Russ was off work a little early and made it home in time to get the yard mowed which was much needed considering our front yard was beginning to look like a jungle. While Russ was mowing the lawn he notice an unusual puddle next to the side walk by our main waterline. When he saw the puddle he was pretty sure we had a leak but since the daylight was coming to an end he didn't want to do anything about right away. 

That evening he called his parents and told them about the assumed leak. Don and Pam were going to meet Russ halfway to give him Raven (another long story, they have had her for the last week) on Saturday. Once Don heard we might have a leak they decided to just come all the way up to help figure things out. Friday night had pizza from Papa Murphy's (if you haven't had the Herb Chicken Mediterranean deLITE you must try it, it is so good!) After we ate pizza we tried out the new frozen yogurt place in town. It was really good!

Saturday we woke up bright and early to get the garage sale going. Don and Pam arrived around 10:30.

While the garage sale was happening the guys worked on trying to figure out if there was a leak. They went back and forth probably four times, is there a leak, is there not a leak. At first they thought it was just ground water (since it has rained so much) and our water bill actually went down last month. But then they would turn the water on but have no water running in the house and the meter would still spin. So they I mean Don kept digging.

 And digging

(Thank you Don for your hard work!)

And Don found the leak. You can't really tell but there is a leak.

The leak wasn't horrible. Russ and Don tried to put a temporary patch on it but that didn't work. But since the leak was somewhat minor we were able to turn the water main on and off. 

 We filled up some pots and buckets. We were still able to flush the toilet.

Back to the garage sale... 

 Blake and Megan

We were so thankful the sun was shining!

Megan's mom, Teresa, even joined us for the garage sale. I would say it was a success! I went from having about 7-8 totes full of stuff to now only 2! I love the feeling of cleaning things out and getting rid of things and its even better when you make a little money off of things you don't need anymore! It was great to have Pam here to help with Blake. Thanks Pam!

Sunday we didn't do a whole lot. We tired to do some yard work but with no water that was harder then you would think. I did start working on this... 

Before...

After...

Hopefully I can get it sanded and maybe stained by this summer. It would not only make it look better but then Blake could touch it and not get splinters. (This is all the further I got on Sunday)

Oh and this is how I found Blake after his afternoon nap on Sunday...

Even with the sleep sack on, he was so proud of himself!

Therefore we dropped his crib down. I now almost have to stand on my tiptoes to lay him down.

 He is growing up too fast.

This post turned out longer then I thought (and its now almost 10:30 and I'm tired) so check back tomorrow to hear about Monday... just so you know we still don't have water and it's even worse now... we can't even turn it on till its fixed or there would probably be a geyser in our front yard...