Flashback: Feelin' the Love

They are the best of friends, they are the worst of friends...

Ab and William DO love one another. Occasionally I capture it.

 

Flashback: Halloween 2013

These are too cute not to share.

I'm so grateful for our neighbors who have become great friends. They have a sweet girl, Haley, who is a few months younger than William. The kids and Haley went trick-or-treating together, and Chip was able to join us mid-way 'round the neighborhood.

Yeah. Check out William. YEAH.
He did that during several pictures...

The following Saturday, the kids participated in the neighborhood costume contest. Instead of being an angel and Power Ranger, this time around Abby and William chose to be a fairy and Batman. Sweet Maddie, dressed as a pink poodle, took home first prize, scoring a $15 gift certificate to Toys R Us.

S'no Fun

Yay. It snowed. (Wish there was a sarcasm font.)

We got about 5 inches of the white stuff and lots of ice the past few days. Thankfully, the sun is out and the temps are rising.

The kids went to school this past Monday but were out the rest of the week (today and next Monday were already planned no-school days). We are ready for some normalcy. Thank goodness Abby's gymnastics class is being held as usual today.

WE. NEED. TO. GET. OUT.

Here are just a few pictures of the kids in the snow and of Chip building an igloo.

 

Storm Shelter

Some of my (un)fondest memories from childhood revolve around bad weather. Thunder, lightning, hail and tornadoes are not my forte. So when the skies turned pitch black at 4 p.m. last Saturday, I knew the kids and I were in for a "treat." And Chip was at work.

About an hour into the what-would-turn-into-an all-night storm, it started hailing. The sound of it hitting our windows and the skylight was LOUD. The first thing I thought of was all of our windows breaking. So we packed into the kids' play closet under the stairs.

We crawled out about 10 minutes later, but the kids played in there on and off throughout the night as the weather radio blared warnings.

Ugh. Certainly didn't miss these southern storms...

A Brush with Fame

Chip gave me an awesome gift a few weeks ago: The time to go shopping at Target ALONE. It was awesome. While I was perusing the dollar section, I glanced up and saw a little person pushing a shopping cart.

My initial thought was, "There's a little person. Don't stare, don't stare... Oh, and look, he brought his daughter with him." But it wasn't his daughter; it was his wife! And it was then that it dawned on me that...

I shop at the same Target as Bill Klein and Jen Arnold, TLC's The Little Couple!

 

I tried not to gawk, not at their size, but at WHO they were! After I convinced myself not to run over and ask for an autograph (only because no one else seemed to even notice them), I calmly walked to the register.

 

Dr. Arnold works at Texas Children's Hospital, the same one as Chip. He's told me on several occasions that he sees her riding through the hospital on her motorized chair. But what happened to Chip the morning after my star-struck shopping experience was quite serendipitous.

 

Chip was walking by the NICU and he saw lots of people gathered around with lights and mics and cameras. It was then that one of his attendings called him over, and lo and behold, Dr. Arnold was there talking about a patient.

 

Long story short, Chip was filmed talking about said patient. Then he was asked to sign lots of releases that basically said this clip could be shown in the show!

 

Ah! How awesome would that be? Dr. Hartin making his national TV debut...

 

I will certainly be watching the new season, which starts April 30.

The Time is Nearing

I've never made a countdown chain, but I was inspired to make one two weeks ago.

This time is different: Chip is almost DONE with training!

Hallelujah.

I wasn't sure what Chip would think about this chain, being it was a visual representation of how many days he had left. Would he feel excited or would he be discouraged?

He walked in the door that evening, looked at the chain, and asked, "What's that?"

I said it was a countdown chain. "Each link represents one day, and you can tear one off when you are done with that day," I said, sorta excitedly.

He looked at me, grinned like a little boy, and gave me a huge hug. He loved it.

And I can assure you he has thoroughly enjoyed removing a link each day.

Sixty-six to go...



Why, yes, he IS being goofy. But he is having fun (and that's what it's all about).

Deputy Detector Detective

UPDATE: My dear husband found the chirping smoke detector.  It was, in fact, one that I had overlooked...the one in the basement.  Thanks, honey!

Detector Detective

It's that time of year again.  Snow is falling, noses are runny, hair is static filled, cars are caked with salt, and skies are gloomy.  And if your house is anything like mine, smoke detectors are beeping.  Yep, I admit, I did not heed the age old time-change rule of changing out the smoke detector batteries and now I'm paying for it.

The beeping started last week.  "I'll change the batteries tomorrow," I'd say to myself.  A week of tomorrows came and went.  Finally I could take the beeping chorus no longer.  So, armed with a chair and AA and 9V batteries, I went on a hunt to find the offending chirper.

About halfway into my mission of trying to figure out the offender, I realized that I should probably just go ahead and change the batteries in all the detectors. 

But there was one non-compliant detector.  I changed the batteries, performed the test by pressing the "test" button, and screwed it back on the ceiling.  No less than 30 seconds later the darn thing was beeping again.  "Huh," I thought.  "Must be old batteries.  I wonder how long these batteries sat on the store shelf."  So, I put 3 more "new" batteries in.  Same thing; beeping continued.  I decided to try a different strategy.  "Maybe the batteries in the top row near the front are older than the ones in the bottom row near the back," I reasoned.  After all, the batteries in the back must have been put in the pack AFTER the front ones, right?  Silly logic, I know.

Try three: My logic worked!  The beeping stopped.  But wait!  There was yet another one chirping somewhere else in the house.  Was it coming from upstairs or downstairs?  Which end of the house was it coming from?

I set out on my hunt, dutifully changing out all of the batteries.  The detectors mocked me, however, as I kept hearing a chirp.  If I was downstairs, the chirping appeared to be coming from upstairs, and vice versa.  If I was in the kitchen, the noise seemed to come from the spare room, and vice versa.  I felt like a maniac running around the house saying, "Aha, I got you now!" only to discover that the noise was coming from somewhere else.

Yesterday I was at my wit's end.  There HAD to be a detector I had missed.  And there was!  Somehow I had neglected to find the one in the laundry room.  Surely that had to be the one that was still chirping.  Nope.

I have yet to discover which one is still making that horrid noise.  Heck, maybe they're all in on it.  Maybe they are trying to drive me nuts.  Maybe they are making me paranoid...

Tonight I plan on trying a new tactic: take them all down and place them next to me on the bedroom floor.  Maybe I can determine which one is the bad one.  Either that or the house will burn down because all the detectors are in one room. 

So, think about me tonight as you are snuggled up in your bed.  I'll be armed with batteries and caffeine just waiting for one of those detectors to slip up and beep.  Muhahahaha!