First Piano Recital

Xela and Aurora have been taking piano since January and their first recital was Saturday May 8. We sat in the back as we had three small children with us and we didn't want them to distract others, so I didn't get any good pictures. I didn't get any pictures really. Just a video of their duet called Knock on Wood.

The video is not great because Xela and Ro are so small (no zoom on the camera) but you can hear their song. I also came in about five seconds late.

Thanks Grandma Hibbert! They absolutely love playing and they rarely complain about practicing!

Neta Sings

Neta loves to make up songs and sing. She doesn't care who, if anyone, is listening and the songs are about everything and anything that pop into her head at that musical moment. Today she was in some dirt in the front yard, laying on her back singing about her birdies.

Here are two videos the beginning of Neta's magical music career. The first one is on the way to Aldi before picking up kids from school, sometime in April would be my guess. The second one, I can't remember if it is from our St Louis trip or some other time in the car. Neta started singing so I turned my cell phone video on, while driving (I didn't really just admit that in case you were wondering), and recorded it. Nate also makes a small contribution.




She also has her own version of the ABC's.

New Floor Features

Two weeks after the appraisal that we stayed up two days straight to prepare for, we put in the kitchen floor. I wouldn't recommend bamboo, if you want my opinion, but it's pretty and slippery. Last week while waiting for kids to finish getting in jamas and brushing teeth, Nate and Dad started a little game. It didn't take long for Graigry and Neta to slide on into action.

This Old House

I think it was two weeks ago, the very beginning of May, Eric and I pulled nearly a 48 hour day. We had an appraisal of our house. We thought it was going to be a driveby, so I had spent three days sanding and priming and painting window trims and porch trims. My arms were so tired. I was priming a window when the appraisal called to schedule the appointment, I asked if it was drive by or a walk through. It was a walk through. CRAP! This was Wednesday afternoon.

The point of doing the painting, when we first started looking into getting a refinance on the house (we currently don't have a mortgage and are wanting to restructure some debt) we thought it was going to be a driveby like another one we had done. NOPE! So I quickly finish the windows I was working on and then Eric and I spent Wednesday from Eric coming home from work, all night long, Thursday for the majority of the day and until 3:30 Friday morning working on the house.

We got a lot done. When we went to bed Friday morning I made the comment that we wouldn't hear our alarm and I was right. Xela came down just before 7:30 to tell us it was time to get up. I hadn't made their lunches, like I usually do, so Xela and Ro had hot lunch that day. I woke up Graigry and Ro quickly and helped them strip and dress quick enough to be ready for their ride. After that, Eric and I finished working on the ceiling in the family room and then I started cleaning so the appraiser wouldn't know that we'd been cramming the last two days.

Here is a picture of the partially finished ceiling and the hallway. The door look into the kitchen and the bathroom (which hasn't been updated) is on your left.

I still need to mud, sand and paint, obviously. We also made a wall and sheetrocked it, the open space that was under the stairs is now closed in. I don't know if you can see it in your mind. Sorry I don't have a picture of it.

The kids got into the action as well. We were going to buy some new flooring for the kitchen (which was purchased by not installed in time for the appraisal), so we let them "help" with nails and hammer.

We now do have a new kitchen floor, which was another all nighter (at least until four am in the morning) because we had to pull out the cabinets and rip up the old floor that was still under them. We put in a bamboo floor, which is bright and beautiful, but scratches fairly easily. It's a high maintenance floor, but it sure looks pretty and make the room brighter. We've all had fun sliding around on it in our socks.

Our old house is emerging from it's obvious construction zone appearance into a cosmetic needs status. It's kind of exciting for me. Oh, and as for the appraisal. We purchased our house eight years ago for $34,900 and it appraised at $47,000. Not to bad for a house in the hood and one that is an ongoing project!

April Hot Tub

I'm trying to catch up a little on the blog. We had a really warm couple of days and the kids wanted to play in the pool, but we still don't have our big pool ready, so the kids pulled out both little pools. We didn't have a hose hooked up to the outside, so Eric detached the laundry machine and hooked up a hose to the hot water and filled them up. The kids LOVED it, a hot tub in the drive way.

Since then we have a hose connected to the spicket outside and now they just get cold water. They've lived a moment of the high life, now it's back to reality of cold water that you have to wait for the sun to warm, but it seems like the sun hasn't been out since this beautiful 10th day of April.