Talking to Jack

Just a silly video of Jared and I talking to Jack...unless you've had kids you won't get it.

Multilingual

Tess asked me today how to spell "Utah." After telling her how, she explained why she needed to know.

"I've drawn a bunch of people, and I need to write down where they are all from, and what languages they speak. You know, because in other places they speak different languages."

Noah chipped in, "Yeah, other countries speak other languages. But some countries speak the same language as us, right? Like Utah, and Colorado, and New Mexico."

Tess said, "Yep, but not in Chinese. There they speak Spanish."

:(

Jack at 2 days...

Jack at nearly 2 months (54 days to be exact)...

A Crew in Review...

A friend did this, albeit with better pictures of her three kids each in the same baby tub, and I thought it was a neat idea so here goes...

Here we have a lousy picture of Noah. The only thing worse than the quality of the picture is the camera that took it...but you get the idea. Look how huge his head was!

This is what Tess looked like whenever she was awake, her eyes were always this wide. We used to joke that her whole life was a surprise. She had breast milk jaundice and was that yellow for about six weeks...it sucked.

I hadn't remembered Tate having baby acne this bad but geez...he was the only one of our babies to have hair at that point.

And here's baby Jack. I think he looks a lot like Tate, though I am not sure you can see it here...and I have to throw out there again how much I love his dark fuzzy hair.

Mother's Day

This morning, while Aubrey was sleeping in, I had the kids hard at work making cards for Mom. While they were occupied, I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to write a letter to Aubrey as well. Tess wandered over while I was in the middle of writing and she said, "Are you writing a letter for Mommy? I know what it says. It says, 'Dear Happy Mothers Day, I want to kiss you for fun. Love, Daddy.'"

Aubrey's comment on hearing that? "That sounds more like Father's Day to me."

Care to venture a guess?

The doctor says we're due the 23rd of May, although according to the LMC date we're due the 11th of May. Jack is currently measuring between 36 and 37 weeks and I'm at a 1 and 50% effaced and have been told that I "probably wouldn't go into labor this week. Probably." Sherry won't be here until the 12th and Tess has a ballet recital on the 8th. When do you think we're going to have the baby?

Displaced

Before we got new furniture the cat had claimed the glider in the corner as her own and spent most of her time sprawled out in it. After we got the new furniture we moved the glider back to our room and the cat hasn't looked at it since. She spent about a week pacing around the room looking lost and would fall asleep in the middle of the floor. Poor cat. Made me feel bad. That's also when she started spending a lot of time laying like this...

Which didn't help the kids at all when they were trying to prove to Hayden, our sitter, that this was our cat named Pickles and not our really goofy looking dog named Freckles. (The nickname has totally stuck and now she's our "goofy dog.") Anyways...she spent about two weeks sleeping on the floor before she found herself a new throne.

The only time she doesn't sleep in this chair is when the sun is shining on the floor next to the entertainment center. Or when the kids are sitting in it. And unlike her previous throne the location of the chair doesn't seem to matter. It cracks me up when I come in the living room to find this chair in the middle of the room with a cat sleeping in it.

Green Screen Everything

I was really surprised to see how much they green screen ordinary city scenes.

Not Convinced

This ad bothers me...

This guy does nothing to make me want to go back to school. Will I have to meet him if I go back?

Is he going to kill me in the parking lot? Does he target Moms? Is that his MO?

What was the thought process here?

Dishwasher Replacement

Since I've had a few people mention to me that they were following the saga of the dishwasher I thought I'd give you guys the full story. Maybe it'll come in handy next time...

For starters, on Christmas Eve (right after we went crazy-go-nuts about Christmas baking) our dishwasher gave up the ghost. It was a sucky dishwasher from the beginning, so although we were annoyed, we weren't surprised. Anyways, our appliances and kitchen implements like to break around Christmas time, like that time when the breadmaker caught on fire.

The only symptom we had was no lights or reactions of any kind to button presses. Also, it was filled with water that wouldn't drain. I tried taking it apart to see if something obvious was the problem, but no dice. A lamp proved to us that the plugs worked fine, and inspection of the junction box led me to believe that the problem had nothing to do with electricity, just the control panel. To prevent smells I shopvac'ed out the water and we started doing some research on new dishwashers. We eliminated repairing it as based on internet research it seemed that first, we'd pay somebody $150 just to figure out what the problem was, and then we'd pay another $150 for a new panel, if that was the problem. Cheaper than a new dishwasher, but remember, we didn't like this one to begin with.

We tried to pick a new dishwasher by looking at Consumer Reports, Lowes, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Sears' websites. It was nearly impossible to settle on a dishwasher by using those sites. They all had reviews and ratings and customer reviews and they all disagreed. One dishwasher would have 4 stars at one site, then 1 star at another. There was no consistency, or any way to weed out obvious idiots (the way you can for reviews on computer hardware). So we just went to Lowes.

The guy working there knew lots about all the dishwashers, we asked him a bunch of questions about probably a half-dozen of them. In the end we got one that wasn't one of his favorites, but he did say it was a nice one and that people were buying it at a good clip. For us it had the right blend of features and internal layout that we were looking for.

We got a Frigidaire Gallery model there, price-matched to Best Buy, and it came with a mail-in rebate, too.

That night I disconnected the old dishwasher completely so that they would take it away when we got the new one delivered. Not too big of a deal, just a screwdriver and a 5/8" wrench were all that was needed. Getting the new dishwasher installed didn't have to be too much work than getting it out, so here's my tips if you find yourself in the same position. First, don't go nuts with the teflon tape. More than one layer will make it difficult to tighten the joints enough to prevent leaks. Second, your dishwasher input line is probably a "flexible" copper tube, which works great if both dishwashers have their input in EXACTLY the same place and both have the same requirements for where the tube can wander below and behind the dishwasher. I tried and tried to bend it enough in the right places to work with the new dishwasher, but it was a total pain and I ended up kinking the tube eventually. I recommend you save yourself the hassle and buy the flexible stainless steel hose. So much less work, and the results are perfect in no time flat. Third, on the end of the drain hose, there is a rubber cap that shrinks in steps from 1" to 3/4" to 5/8". You get to cut it off to fit just right over whatever your old drain hose was attached to. I cut it at 3/4" originally and it slid on nicely and I tightened on the worm clamp until I couldn't tug it off. Leaked all over the place. So then I disconnected it, cut it at 5/8" and really had to force it over the end of the tube and tightened the clamp again. The results were much much better. Fourth, when you turn on the water and the power to test out the dishwasher, and it leaks from the input line and then from the drain line when you hurriedly cancel the run, turn that water back off again. You'll appreciate it when you start taking the source line off that it doesn't spray hot water all over you.

Other than that it was a piece of cake. It's level, installed, extremely quiet, and washes the dishes so clean you can eat off of them (believe it or not). While I wouldn't recommend sabotaging any working dishwashers, this was enough of a boost in quality of life (mostly due to the silence) that I don't even miss the money. Well, only a little.