We made it!

The kids had their last day of school on Wednesday. Up until today, it seems like we've been sprinting to some imaginary finish line, and somehow we've finally made it!

After years of hearing about Ashley's class parties and wishing he could be a part of them, Alex was finally able to experience the excitement and anticipation that being in school at Christmas time brings. Ironically, this was Ashley's first year to NOT have that experience. Middle School comes with it's privelages, but also has its drawbacks. She did give out little gifts to all of her friends and recieved many herself, so that made the week a little more festive, but I still think she missed elementary a lot this week.

Alex had so much going on at school this week it was hard to keep up with what to bring, and where to be. On Tuesday his class made Gingerbread houses in the morning and in the afternoon they had their class party where they made scarves, snowflakes and handprint wreaths. Periodically, one of the kids would break out a Christmas song and before long the whole class was singing and working on their creations. It was so fun to be a part of it all. Mrs. Ayala made it so special for the kids. It's so obvious how much she loves her children. She has the patience of a saint and the biggest heart you can imagine. She's been teaching Kindergarten for over 20 years and it's obvious that she brings the experience of all those years to school with her each day. This week was all about FUN. She made sure of that. There was no rushing, and she made her best effort to keep the day as open as possible so the kids could just enjoy. They spent well over an hour making their little gingerbread houses and she was right there encouraging them to eat their candy and lick their fingers and just have fun. She is so awesome!
Wednesday was pajama day and OF COURSE sweet Mrs. Ayala was dressed in her Christmas P.J.'s and houseshoes to boot!



The Dad's Club opened car doors in Santa Hats:

Doggie Heaven

Sweet Mandy went in to be spayed and to have her cherry eye surgery this morning. Unfortunately, she didn't make it through her surgery. She left us and went to doggie heaven. From day 1 she had our hearts and she always will. She will be missed dearly.

Fa la la la la, la la la la

When I was a kid, Christmas was so, so special to me. That feeling of togetherness, and family was something I cherished, and Christmas was a time when we, as siblings were able come together and appreciate what we had together. We could put our squabbles aside and just enjoy being together. Now, sometimes our bonding wasn't exactly pure in spirit, but it was bonding nonetheless. Laughing at the Meme gifts, and watching Jason sneak the "adult" egg nog to name a few. Now that I'm a mom and watching my own children celebrate this special time of year I'm learning to appreciate the little things that my parents did for us when we were kids. And I'm learning that those little things are not necessarily "little things".

For example, putting up Christmas Lights - Dad, holy crap, now I know why you cussed like a sailor and heaved such large ridiculous sighs when I begged you to put up lights. WHAT A ROYAL PAIN IN MY BUTT. So far I have spent approximately 7 hours on this task and I'm not even done. I have cut myself on broken glass, shocked myself twice, had at least one near death experience while atop the ladder...while pondering how if I do fall, how on earth I will ever be found considering Mark is out of town and the kids are not home. I have been tangled up, chewed up and spit out by these demon lights and continue to ask myself WHY, oh WHY am I doing this!!!???
And then I remember.
Hearing Alex tell me how this is so "special to him" and reflecting back to how special it was to me is all it takes. And I remember with a smile.
Annnnnd I keep going...attempting to find that one damn light bulb that's messing up the entire chain of my 5 to 6 strans of lights...which are now beginning to smell like smoke...or is that a neigbors fire place burning because it is so damn cold out here?
So I've had my "lightbulb moment" (haha) and can now thank you, Dad, for all those years of putting up lights. Now if I can just figure out how to get them as straight as you always did!

I want a Charlie toilet seat NOW DADDY!

Anybody happen to be in the market for a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Toilet Seat? I know someone has to have the matching shower curtain and toothbrush holder....riiiiight

Meet Mandy

Hi, my name is Mandy, and I'm a young Cocker Spainiel with big floppy ears, and fluffy little feet that don't make so much as a sound as I glide across the floor in my new house. My new family found me on a cold, dark night on their way to a softball game that happens to be right next to an animal shelter. My new family tried to find my owners and even left their phone numbers at the shelter, but no one has called for me. They're pretty sure that the people I lived with before decided they didn't want me. You see, I'm not perfect on the outside, because I have Cherry Eye, but on the inside, I'm just as fluffy and sweet as can be. I'm so, so excited because now that I've been in this warm cozy home for over a week, they've decided I can stay! So far, I have done pretty well with my new family, even though I'm still sort of a puppy and can drive my four legged family members crazy. When they finally give in and play with me we have soooo much fun and that's when I know they like having me around. We went to another house this weekend, where I met my new cousin Wendel. OH BOY! Me and that Wendel, we're like two peas in a pod! We both like to play and that's pretty much allll we did for FOUR days straight! Now that we're back home, I'm missing my new cousin, but I know we'll be together again soon.

So that's me in a nutshell. I can't wait to meet all of my new extended family and friends, and I know my new mom an dad can't wait to show me off.

Chow Ciao!

Gobble Gobble

Today is our first official day of the Holidays! We arrived at Dad's this afternoon with all four dogs and two children in tow. (Yes, I said FOUR dogs and will explain later) A cold front is on the way, but at the moment it's a whopping 92 degrees in Seguin, Texas. Tomorrow at about this time, we'll be about 30 degrees cooler. Certainly a welcome change.

We'll have our turkey dinner here at dads on Saturday and I will do my Turkey dinner at home with the whole family in about 2 weeks.

I hope everyone has a thankful holiday!

"Guided Math" rant

Guided Math by Prentice Hall

Ashley is in 6th grade GT Math, which basically means that she's doing the 7th grade math curriculum. She has always done very well in Math, and before this year had only ever received one "B" on any report card ever in Math. Since beginning this new curriculum, she has struggled to learn the material. Her grade this 9 weeks was not bad, an 88 (her second ever "B"), but after doing homework with her time and time again, I'm not convinced that she's learning what she needs in order to be a successful Algebra student in the coming years and that is primarily because of this new "Guided Math" curriculum. She brings home work that Mark and I struggle to help her with. And it's not necessarily the simple math problems, it's the way the questions are asked, and lack of instruction within the text. Like I said, we've been struggling with this text since August. I've talked with her teacher briefly about it and she dislikes the curriculum as much as we do. She told me that a conference wouldn't be much benefit because she has no idea what to tell me. She's just as put out with the curriculum as I am.

So last night I get to digging. I'm trying to find something that can help guide me through instruction, maybe a teachers guide for the text, something. What I found has me more up in arms than I can even begin to describe. Here is a quote from the material I found that comes to the teachers with the curriculum. This is a block of text that stands alone:

“Connected Mathematics may be very different from curricula with which you are familiar. Because important concepts are embedded within problems rather than explicitly stated and demonstrated in the student text, you play a critical role in helping students develop appropriate understanding, strategies, and skills. It is your thoughtful engagement with the curriculum and your reflections on student learning that will create a productive classroom environment.”

I read this paragraph probably 5 times in hopes that somehow I could wrap my mind around why important concepts are NOT explicitly stated and demonstrated for the students. While I do understand that there is a "bigger picture" that the students need to see, why on earth do they need to DECODE! These are middle schoolers. These are not adults taking a math class because they have an overwhelming desire to learn. They're trying to learn what they NEED to learn. TELL THEM WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW! Tell them HOW to do a problem! This text is designed so that students can NOT miss a day of school, can NOT be anything but an auditory learner, and can NOT have parents at home that are uneducated. The role of math teacher has now become ours. And don't get me wrong, I WANT to help my child learn, but without a text that expicitly states and demonstrates important concepts, how can I fill that role? We have questions that are extremely difficult to decipher and decode, with NO examples given. These questions that have "embedded" concepts. GRRRRRR! I can research all I want on how to an algebra problem, but with this text it's not as simple as that. Most of the time spent on homework is trying to understand WHAT type of answer this text is looking for. It's extremely frustrating.

For example, here is a snippit from the guide I found online:

The role of the teacher in a problem-centered
curriculum is different from the curriculum in
which the teacher explains ideas clearly and
demonstrates procedures so students can quickly
and accurately duplicate these procedures.A
problem-centered curriculum such as Connected
Mathematics is best suited to an inquiry model
of instruction.

What this means is that instruction is reverse. The students are assigned problems for homework, (GRADED homework I might add) and it is not until the homework is being graded in class that the students are taught how to work through the problems. I have confirmed that this IS ACTUALLY the way it's done. So, now we have this "guided math" that "best suited to an inquiry model of instruction", yet the inquiry begins at home, where there is a terrible lack of material provided for instruction.

My negative interpretation of this curriculum is that little time was spent on developing the text, and the justification is that this is "guided math". This leaves way too much ambiguity. Lets hope our teachers are all well trained in Connected Mathmatics and that they are supporters of this curriculum (which so far, from what I'm hearing they are NOT). With this curriculum, expect big problems, HUGE problems. including complete frustration and disinterest in mathmatics from even the sharpest students.

This will NOT be our classrooms next year, and I will make sure of that.

Halloween 2007

Yes, the Urben's DID celebrate Halloween this year. I'm getting better, only one week overdue!



I took this one before school. Ash can't dress up in costume at her school, so she came up with this adorable festive outfit. She's so creative!

The kids at Alex's school did a parade around the campus for all the parents, followed by a parade through the main areas of the nursing home next door. What a treat! Later on Mark and I went up to Alex's class for his class party where we made our witches brew (the same concoction from Alex's birthday party) complete with the dry ice and molded hand. This time we had each child add a spider to the mix, which later we ladeled in to their cups for them to keep. Each kiddo got a turn at stiring the witches brew. That was a huge hit with the kids. We also did a pumpkin craft with pumpkin seeds and ate graveyard cake and other goodies. Everyone had such a great time, including myself. I love, love, love being in his classroom especially now that the kids have warmed up to me. Last week I subbed for his class and Mark was able to come help for a short time. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that more often.

Back to Halloween! Ashley dressed up as a pirate and Alex dubbed himself "The Unknown Phantom". I learned a lesson about costumes this year. I don't so much like the ones where you can't even tell your son is the one underneath. I'm setting up to take pictures and thinking how silly it is that I can't even see who it is! I could have picked a really awesome costume from the internet and just cut and pasted it in. No one would ever know! Seriously though, the kid in black in my pictures IS Alex, promise. (NEVER AGAIN!)

Kel, Savannah, Ciara and Matthew came over and we made the rounds in the neighborhood. The weather could not have been any more perfect. Daddy and Brian stayed home to hand out candy and scare the few children we actually have around here out of the neighborhood. He kept the the door open with just the glass storm door closed, and when the kids would ring the bell he would jump out from around the corner and slam himself up against the door. I think found himself a new Halloween job.

Rub a Dub Dub, we have a TUB!

The plumber finally made his last trip out to install the tub fixtures yesterday. Lastnight the kids got to stay up late and enjoy their very first jacuzzi bath.



The tile surround for the tub was finished today, but other than that, nothing has changed. Thursday will be 10 weeks since the first day of demolition.

"I'm STILL six"

After singing Happy Birthday to himself everyday for a week and anticipating this special day. Alex is SIX! This weekend we had Alex's 6th Birthday Party (which I'll get to shortly) and according to him, he turned six on the day of his party because "why else would we put a big 6 on the wall??" After debating and explaining, I finally decided to just leave it alone and let him be 6 a little early because even though I know he gets it, I refused to argue with this FIVE year old. Fast forward to this morning. Daddy and I wake him up singing Happy Birthday, we finish singing and I sit down on the bed in the dark and give him a big hug and ask him "how old are you?" I'm thinking how exciting it is to finally be able to say you're a whole year older right? That's how it always is, they get so excited to hear themselves say it, what better way to start the day. This headstrong little booger replies "I'm STILL six".

On Saturday we did a Halloween costume party complete with pumpkins, games, ghoulish treats and witches brew. It was a big success and probably one of the most laid back, fun parties we've had to date. I guess I'm finally learning how to ENJOY the party as opposed to running around like a mad woman trying to make everything perfect.

As soon as most everyone had arrived, we all got to work on our witches brew. The kids had a BLAST helping with our concoction. They especially enjoyed adding the hand (a frozen rubber glove makeshift mold) and dry ice.


After snacking on witches brew, fingers, spiders, and apple bites Mark told the story of Hal O Ween.After each gooey part of the story, the kiddos would go reach inside the box and feel the gooey parts of what was left of Hal. Ashley did an awesome job of preparing each body part and making sure no one looked inside the box. This turned out to be one of the most exciting activities of the day. The kids got a really big kick out of touching the gooey body parts and trying to guess what each really was.






After that we moved on to pumpkin decorating. Everyone decorated a baby pumpkin to take home with them with stickers, glitter glue and whatever else we had in our craft box. The kids all did a super job and managed to keep their costumes mostly clean. Hmmm....no wonder the costumes were so clean...lets take a closer look at Mr. Matthew. Hey buddy, you're off juuust a tad.



And then there was the haystack scavenger hunt, and cake cutting. Most of the kids stuck around for quite a while playing in the backyard since it was an absolutely gorgeous day.

A great outlook on life...

This is so touching to me. This reminds me of all our sweet angel pets and how special they are. Just today I was thinking about how short our pets lives are. My brothers best friend and cat Omar passed away a few weeks ago, and last week we got news that our"other" dog Allie has lymphoma. Fortunately, after further testing, lymphoma may not be the correct diagnosis afterall, but we're still unsure.

Thanks for sending this to me Tiesa, it couldn't have come at a better time.

A great outlook on Life…
A Dog's Purpose (from a 6-year-old)

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound, named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, a nd their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.
I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the Family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform The euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.
As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would Be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt As though Shane might learn something from the experience
The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's Family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.
The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any Difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's Death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are Shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, Piped up, "I know why."
Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation.
He said, "People are born so that they can learn how to live a good Life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?" The Six-year-old continued, "Well, dogs already know how to do that, so They don't have to stay as long."

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:
~When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
~Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
~Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
~Take naps.
~Stretch before rising.
~Run, romp, and play daily.
~Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
~Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
~On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
~On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
~When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
~Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
~Be loyal.
~Never pretend to be something you're not.
~If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
~When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!
Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly

Every evening just as the sky is beginning to darken, and dusk has settled in, just up the road from home, a massivie congregation of birds make their way to Georgetown. Hundreds of birds start their evening off with a little conversation near the post office, and eventually, make their way to the corner Jack in the Box, some 200 yards West. They settle in for the evening on power lines, trees, and even the stoplight crossing the main road. On those evenings when we happen to cross paths, one thing is always for certain. The windows MUST come down. Whatever your mood, to hear their sweet conversations inevitabley give the corners of your frown a slight lift. This is one of the few times that a red light is welcome. After I dropped Ashley off at Cotillion Saturday night, I noticed more than just the sound, but the beautiful sunset in the distance and had to rush home and arm myself with the Nikon.

Bathroom Remodel Day 1,573,984

WE

FINALLY

HAVE

A

SHOWER!!!


And shower fixtures, and rugs, and towels, and a half hearted attempt at decor that will only be around for the weekend. Monday, it all comes out for more construction, but for now, we will enjoy!

Don't forget to click to enlarge!

Living La Vida Loca

La vida es muy loca! Pero, la vida es muy bien, tambien!

I have so much to update!

First of all, I haven't updated about my trip with a group of my girlfriends to Canton. We took off on a Saturday morning at 7 am and had a weekend full of relaxation and shopping. It was an all around awesome trip. There were 6 of us, and we were all such a perfect mix of friends, we had an incredible time together. We're already chomping at the bit to get back. What's Canton? Well, Canton is this teensy tinsy town of about 5,400 that holds "Trade Days" or as it was formerly known "First Monday", on the weekend before the first Monday of each month. I like to refer to it as a flea market on steroids. It's the oldest flea market in the United States and I'd have to say it's probably one of, if not THE, biggest as well. You could shop for 3 days straight and still not see it all. Here's an interesting little tidbit I pulled from Wikipedia: "In the past, due to the success of First Monday, the city of Canton had no property tax, however, as of 2006, that is no longer the case." WOW!

Right in the heart of all the shopping is a what we Texans call a "mountain". Its literal definition is probably more like: large hill, but here in central Texas, it's a mountain. The Mountain is a well known hot spot in Canton, with the cutest little shops and Bed and Breakfasts ever. When you're on the mountain, you're back in the early 1900's and occasionally you'll hear gun shots, or see a reinactment of what it was like back then. We stayed in a little Bed and Rest right in the heart of it all, called Flat Creek Mountain Bed and Rest. This place was A-Dorable!!! After we got done shopping, we all sat out on our covered deck that looked down the mountain, and right on to a little stage where they had live music and dancing at night. (And a mens wet T-shirt contest that was in full view, but I'll skip that and leave it to the imagination) The trip was a blast, and I'm so, so anxious to go back. Nana, you would LOVE this! Next time we go, I'm kidnapping you and bringing you with!

As for miss Ashley, she's doing great in school and staying busy with more homework than you can imagine, which means *I* now how more homework than you can imagine. We sit together each afternoon and do math homework together. We sit at the table with a book between us and we both do the homework together. Ashley really enjoys this one on one time, and I am REALLY enjoying that she's not up until 11 struggling to stay focussed. She actually looks forward to doing her math homework now!

Last weekend, Ashley went to her first overnight camp with her good friend Ciara. They were at Camp Penielall weekend, where they swam, rode horses, learned some archery, and they even got to ride a zip line! When Belinda and I went to pick them up on Sunday, neither were ready to go home. After hearing all about it from Ash, Mark and I decided that we're going to go do the family camp in the spring.

Mr. Alex is trucking right along in Kindergaten, loving every minute of it. His teachers adore him *almost* as much as I do, and have done an incredible job of keeping him interested, and stimulated. He's the teachers "helper", and has done a super job helping the other kids in the class to read. He has a love for reading that I truly believe has come from the encouragment from his teacher. Before Kindergarten, reading was not at the top of his priority list (understandably so), and just last week he came home from school telling me how much he loves to read. I'm so proud of him! Alex is not participating in anything exracirricular right now, which is just as well considering all the changes he's gone through with starting school. I think we'll probably just wait until spring and sign him up for baseball again. He still talks about baseball alot, and tells me he's going to be a baseball player when he grows up.

Mark is continuing to work his rear off at work. As if working 50 hours a week wasn't enough, he is also running some sort of community involvment group at work. Right now he's working on the Susan G. Komen race. Although I'm not sure what exactly his group is doing just yet. (Sorry Mark, we'll have to talk later) He's still doing Meals on Wheels once a month, which is also part of his community involvement at work. On top of all that he's joined the Dad's Club up at Alex's school. This group of dads is such an amazing group. They used their big guns to help unload and distribute the cookie dough from the fundraiser, they held a family game night where familes could come play all sorts of PE type games like kickball and basketball. And each Friday the dads open car doors for all of the kiddos being dropped off, and after they're done with that they collect all of the recylable paper from each classroom and take it to the recycle dumpster on campus. Mark is really enjoying being involved up at the school, and of course watching him open car doors with his "dads club" badge makes my heart go pitter patter.

Mark and I just finished our 2nd season of coed softball, and have just signed up for another season which starts in about 2 weeks. Most of the people on our team have kiddos, and they all look forward to Friday nights up at the field. Most nights we have to DRAG them home.

As for me, I'm doing great. I volunteer at the kids schools on a daily basis, and serve on the executive board for both PTA's. I run the student store at Ashley's school on Monday's, which is a lot of fun. Ashley has been right there with me EVERY Monday, helping me. We really enjoy that special time together. I am so, so fortunate to have a husband that works so hard for us, and a job that allows me to make my family my priority.

The job is going well. I work with an awesome group, whom I learn from everyday. I go in around 10, and get off around 2:30. Perfect hours, perfect job, who could ask for more!

Oh, and one more little thing. I'd like you to say hello to my little friend the Palm Trio 700wx. As soon as I get use to this thing, I have ZERO excuses for being forgetful. Scary thought.

The bathroom is coming along nicely. We're SO close to being done. Yesterday, the plumber installed our shower head, and we got to take our FIRST SHOWER!!!!!! All that's left to be done is texture, paint, a few light fixtures, a few plumbing fixtures, a toilet, and some small touchups.

The wood floors came in, but unfortunately, they were not the ones we ordered, so we're back to playing the waiting game again. We've been told that they will have them here Monday and will be able to begin. I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, we're living in a construction zone and have been for waaaay too long. We're more than ready to be done with this.

Canton

Here's the ONLY picture I have from Canton this weekend. I cannot believe I left my camera at home!!! There were so many things to take pictures of that I was just ill thinking about all of these missed shots. We're going to make this a regular trip though, so I will definitely get a redo.

Yin and Yang

I've said it probably a hundred times, but this morning I received yet another confirmation that these children are about as different as two people could possibly be. Our fashionista Ashley spends each morning primping in front of the mirror, making sure that the outfit she picked out the night before is the right one for the day...and it usually isn't, and neither is the next two or three that she tries on. She makes sure each hair is in it's proper place, necklace and earings match properly. Belt and other sparkly accessory must reflect light in the proper direction in order to acceutuate each article of clothing. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Aaaand then there's Alex.

I made the mistake of pushing the snooze button one too many times this morning. As a result, I had no time to spare and Alex did not wake up to a coordinated outfit laying on his dresser ready to go. Instead, I left the task up to him....with slight hesitation I asked him to pick out his own clothes. From the bathroom I can hear each article of clothing in his drawer being either unfolded, pushed aside, or strewn across the floor, in attempt to find whatever it is that this boy is searching for. A few short minutes later he yells that he's ready. Great! No fuss, no hassle. Ha, I wish. He walks in to the bathroom where I'm fixing my hair, dressed in a long sleeved shirt from last year, possibly the year before, which is fine, except for the fact that it's so short that his little belly is peeking through the bottom, and the sleeves are an unintentional 3/4 length. And for shoes, he has on the famous brown leather slip ons that have created more than their fair share of arguments due to the fact that they can NOT be paired with shorts because of how absolutely ridiculous they look. They are a semi-dress shoe and just don't work with shorts. Of course, they also aren't working with the 3 inches too short wind pants he's chosen today either. Had he not been on his way to school, I probably would have let him get away with his choices, afterall, he did look pretty cute in a "that's my precious little boy" sort of way. However, I decided to forego the phone call from the school counselor telling me how to obtain assistance from the local clothes closet charity and asked him to change. He put up a small fight, and showed me how he could "do this all day"... as he pulled his sleves down over his palms and held them with his fingers in effort to make the sleeves appear long enough. No, no, no honey that just won't work, you have to write and play and use your hands, right? So reluctantly, he ran off to change clothes while I continued fixing my hair with a little cloud of guilt looming over my head. He's 5. I love his innocence and how he doesn't care what he looks like. He's just the way I wish the rest of the world could be, carefree.
So anyway, he comes back, this time a tad better. He walks in straight faced, wearing jeans, another long sleeve shirt (that actually fits), the good ol brown slip ons AND five (yes 5) hats stacked on top of his head. I just didn't have the heart to object and sent my little boy off to Kindergarten looking like a clown dressed for winter. It was an interesting walk down the looong hallway full of moms and dads walking their perfectly primped children to class. It was hard for me to keep a straight face, and I'm sure it was even harder for them. So today our little Alex is sitting in his Kindergarten class 1 foot taller, in more ways than one.

I can't wait to see each chapter of this guys life unfold...there's just no predicting what's going to be on the next page.

Bathroom Remodel Day 5 and beyond

We're moving along slllooowwwly, but we're getting super close to being DONE!

Here's Day 5....most of the tile is in place, we're anxious to see what it will look like once the grout and trim pieces are in place:








And here we are after days 6 and 7.... a wee bit more tile and grout later and now we're talkin':

And after day 8 (Friday Sept. 28th), Mark and I are getting more and more impressed with our design! It's actually starting to look like a bathroom! We're getting so close





Since the last pictures were taken, the only change is the arch above the opening to the water closet is back. Now we'll contiue to wait for the plumber and electrician to show up, and after that all that's left is patching, taping, floating and texturing the walls, and getting the glass enclosure installed around the shower. That's IT! We are now in to week 6 of the remodel.

As for the wood floors...nothing has changed. They were supposed to start demo this morning, but it's not much of a surprise that I came home to an empty house with no changes. PLEASE LET ME KEEP MY PATIENCE with these people!!!!!!

I'm hoping to find some more time to update with all of the recent happenings at the Urben house as soon as possible. Right now, I'm off to the dentist AGAIN, but this time for some relief. I'm pretty sure I have dry socket from the molar I had pulled last Thursday. I'll be feelin' good in no time, I'm sure!

Bathroom Remodel: Day 4

Friday, Jeff framed up the tub and shower, and added a couple corner seats in the shower as well. We originally planned on "bench" spanning the entire side of one wall, but Jeff got creative and thought up the corner seats to allow us more clearance in the middle. That proved to be an EXCELLENT idea, and now we haven't really lost any shower space by adding the corner seats.

In the last picture you can see where he came out from the wall about a foot to give us some extra room in the shower, which will also give us an area for shelves on the adjacent wall. We might end up using the space for free standing furniture in lieu of built in's. We have a lot of decisions to make!

We've purchased all of the electrical and plumbing fixtures, so all that's left is finding the perfect vanity mirrors.

Bathroom Remodel: Days 2 and 3 along with an update

Two weeks since deomlition, and yes, we're only on day 4 of actual work. So far the water closet has been framed in and the plumber has been here twice and done no actual work. Right now Jeffrey is framing in our tub surround and shower.

As for all the new work that we're having done on the hole in the wall and replacement of our wood floors, we're still where we were 2 weeks ago. The adjustor came out last week and we're waiting to hear what the numbers are so we can start picking out flooring.

Even though I intended on having more free time now that the kids are in school, just the opposite seems to have happened. With being on the PTA Board at both schools, volunteering, and my new workout schedule, I'm completely overcommitted (who me??) and up to my eyeballs in To-Do lists. AND, I haven't even started my job yet! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle everything once I'm working, but hopefully, things will calm down and I'll have more time for whatever else it is I'm forgetting to do. (housework maybe, keeping up with my family and friends???)

The kids are doing great in school, they've already completed their first two weeks and seem to be adjusting to their new schedules well. I talk to Alex's teacher everyday, and have already begun to hear the stories about Alex's silly antics. Fortunately, his teacher and I are very like-minded and she just adores him, and appreciates his sense of humor. Yay! She quickly discovered his ability to read and has him "teaching" two other boys to read. He is so, so proud.

Ashley is working super hard on her daily homework assignments, and I've been so proud of her determination to be neat and organized. Ever since she was a toddler, she's always been extremely particular about making sure things are all in the right place and neatly organized, and it's proven to be a very helpful trait! Everyday, Alex and I walk to meet her afterschool and walk home together. Alex asks about her day, she asks about his, and they are just so sweet to one another again! Summer had it's moments, so I'm so, so thankful that they are back to their old selves again. Distance DOES make the heart grow fonder, that's for sure!

Day 2

DAY 3