It’s been a good week and a half since I last wrote. I guess I should update you all. We are completely out of the old house. We spent the mornings last week at the old house. I found baby sitters for the younger kids and told Jaime and Alix if they wanted to earn some money they could come and help me. They were very excited about that. We spent about 2.5 hours each day scrubbing bathrooms, floors, baseboards, cupboards (inside and out) and anything else you can think of (except walls, they said they were going to repaint). I even went one day by myself and cleaned the carpets. All in all, I think it may have been in vain. You go into the house and it just doesn’t “feel” as clean as it should. I’m sure they are going to hire a cleaning crew. But that is ok, we did what we could with what we had. I’m very pleased with my girls and how hard they worked and scrubbed.
The rest of the week was spent on the phone with various companies and people trying to change our address and dealing with the internet company (that battle is still not over…..). I spent one whole morning on the phone with the bank. My new landlord cashed the check too soon. I paid him a couple of days before the 1st to make sure he had the payment for the first. He didn’t wait though. Lucky for me the bank did not bounce the check but did a courtesy payment and charged me a huge fee. After pleading my case to three different people, they had mercy on me and gave me the fee back. They are a good bank and this made them even better.
Friday was our first real clean day here at the new house. We scrubbed the bathrooms and floors, vaccumed etc…. It felt nice to clean our own house and the kids even felt like it was more of our routine. They are great cleaners and helpers.
Saturday was spent watching General Conference. We stayed home and streamed it over the internet. The kids even listened a bit and were quiet when they weren’t listening. In between sessions, Scott went over and mowed the lawn for the last time. Between the afternoon and preisthood session Scott hung pictures for me. While he was gone I got all the kids showered and dressed. We ran a couple of errands and then headed to Joey and Gayles house. We had dessert with them and enjoyed some visiting and then we watched “Trouble with Angels”. It is a 60’s flick about these two teenage girls that get sent to Catholic School and all the trouble they get into. It was a very good movie.  After the movie we all sacked out.
We woke up the next morning, cooked breakfast together and then watched conference. We went for a walk and ate lunch, then everyone sacked out for the afternoon session, well, not Scott and I. We had dinner with them and then left.  We got home around 7 pm. It was a fun and spiritually uplifting weekend. We really enjoyed it.
Monday was a “normal” day. I got my school shevles cleaned off and all my school stuff out and we did school. It was a great break from the cleaning and organizing. It felt more “normal”.
Tuesday we had planned a trip to the zoo because it was $1 Tuesday. Except it wasn’t. My friend and I had gone together and so we just had a picnic in the park with the kids, and visited the nearby Japenese Friendship Garden. While my friend and I were taking some pictures with our babies (she has a little boy 3 months older than Afton) the older kids went running off on an “adventure”. A few minutes later I see a ranger holding Niah’s hand and walking around. Niah is just covered in mud and looking happy as can be. I walked over and the ranger smiled at me. She told me that it looked as though Niah slipped in some mud and was in the pond trying to wash herself off. The ranger told me that when she approached Niah, Niah informed her that she was just trying to clean herself off. I thanked the ranger (who was VERY kind) and took hold of Niah. Niah kept telling me she needed to wash in the water. It was very cute.
I forgot to mention the biggest news of all…..Niah is out of diapers. On Monday I decided to take the plunge. I put panties on her and she peed on herself all day. However, she insisted that we sit on the toilet every five minutes. Once Scott got home it was his turn. She finally peed in the toilet in the evening. She was up every ten minutes until 2 am when I finally suggested to her that we just put a diaper on her for the night. It worked and she slept till morning. Tuesday she had no accidents at the park and even went to the bathroom there. Once we got home she had an accident, but was fine the rest of the day. She was up all night again. Wednesday was Jaime and Alix’s P.E. class. She had an accident there but only because the bathroom was a mile away (not really but it seemed like it). She was fine the rest of the day and she was only up till 11 pm. Today, she hasn’t had any accidents and has asked to sit on the potty only 2 times. She even goes poo. It’s been fun and easy. She is just so matter of fact about the whole thing, and I’m sure I can consider her potty trained during the day (however, things change fast around here). Starting next Monday, we’ll work on night time training. It usually only takes a couple of middle of the night clean ups and the kids are dry all night too. We’ll see how Niah is.
Also, Afton has four teeth. Two top and two bottom. She has been getting one new tooth every Sunday. I figured she’d get her last top tooth on Easter Sunday, but it didn’t want to wait that long. She got it on Wednesday instead. I hope she is done for a while. We have had some pretty rough nights the last two weeks.
I guess that is the update. We have about 8 boxes left. Most of which are craft supplies and desk supplies. We still have not taken the time to solve our organizational problems, but will. I hope to one day have “the counter” cleaned off and kept cleaned off forever.
Love to all.
