Friday, October 28, 2011

October 28th 2011- First snowfall





















Kids were so excited last night when it started snowing and even more so today when it was still on the ground in the am. We were outside at 8 am ( yawn!) playing in the snow. I got my first taste of what its like bundling up 3 kids plus myself to play outside and we didn't even do snow pants- just winter coats, gloves and boots and a hat for Nairi. Thats definitely more of a chore the more kids were have! It was fun to see the joy on their faces walking through the snow though. Israel said to me " I LIKE it!!!!"

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Always a weekend project or two



They unexpectedly closed a Lowes store around here last Sunday. They are also closing the Lowes in the next town over. Before it closes they are doing liquidation sales - currently everything in the store is 20% off. So we spent a small fortune there this past weekend buying a few faucets for the eventual bathroom remodel x3, a new gas stove with double convection ovens, and loads of misc stuff. Among them new outdoor lighting. The current lights were motion detecting lights and I want lights that I can leave on all light long as a well lit house at night is a major crime deterrent. Not to mention the current lights were ugly and used low voltage bulbs. We got these lights for 14 a piece. The above pic is the new light



New lights on both sides of the door. Also we added a number plaque as there were no numbers on the actual house, only the mailbox.




a close up



old ugly lights




the front entry with the old lights and no house numbers




Mike has also been spending any available minute working on the basement. He is half the way done with electrical and the next phase is dry wall!

We have a plumber coming to run the gas line for the new stove ( the current stove is electrical) so once that is done we can get the new stove/oven installed. We are also getting a new water heater installed. Thats all in the works for the next few weeks.

AND... we have borrowed a wall paper remover steamer thingie so that the ugly wall paper can start to go. I will be so excited to see that go!!!!









Friday, October 21, 2011

How sleep does NOT happen in our house





Cool truck sheets should be sleep inducing right?




We moved Israel into his twin bed and got rid of his crib.




We noticed a crack in the crib recently. It was hand me down that we got when I was pregnant with Keira. It has been used the last 4 years successfully. But, it was ready to be thrown out.




The first few days/nights went fabulously. But of course Israel has realized he has alot of freedom to get in and out of bed as he pleases and thus has boycotted his naps. I set up the pack and play and he has napped in there a few times but mostly just stands up in the pack and play and says " I dont want to nap about a millon times."




We gated his room but he can open the door and then just stands at the gate and whines. He has been sleeping through the night since he was about 12 months old unless he is teething but now he wakes up in the middle of the night and at 5 AM. For your entertainment purposes this is how bedtime/nighttime goes in our house:


6:30-ish - nurse Nairi to sleep and put her in her crib


7pm - Keira and Israel go to bed


7:30 - Mike had forgotten to close the gate in Israel's room. We find him sitting at the bottom of the stairs declaring "I not tired." Mike puts him back to bed.


8 pm Nairi wakes up and starts crying. Mike gets her and I nurse her again while we watch some TV


9 pm Nairi is still nursing, hanging out with us.


9:30 I put Nairi back in her crib and we watch TV till 10.


10:15 lights out. Good night world


11 pm Just as I am getting into deep sleep Nairi wakes up. I drag my exhausted self into her room, sit in the rocker and nurse her again for another 15 min


11:30 Im asleep again


1:30 Israel wakes up, opens his door, stands at the gate doing the "mommy?? Mommy?? Daddy??? Mike gets up with Israel and goes and snuggles with him in his bed. Israel starts to fall asleep. If you have never slept with a toddler consider yourself lucky. They are the worst wigglers in their sleep. Mike decides that it is just easier to spend the rest of the night in Israel's bed. But as soon as he thinks that Israel rolles over onto his face.


2am Mike comes back to our bed.


2:30 am Nairi wakes up. I do the get up, retrieve baby, sit in rocker, nurse baby, put baby back in crib, drag myself back to bed deal.


4:30 Nairi wakes up YET again- get up nurse her AGAIN.


5:30 am Israel wakes up, stands at the gate and whines.... Mikes gets up and goes into his room and spends the rest of the early morning in his bed.


5:45 Nairi wakes up. I go in to get her and think I'll just grab her and bring her into our bed and hopefully if I nurse her she will go back to sleep as I can't even get my eye lids open. Upon picking her up I realize she has peed through her PJ's (Maybe because she eats every 2 hours all-nignt long???). I have to change her diaper and clothes and after that she is awake of course and its 6 am. Too late to go back to sleep.


Another restful night of sleep in cozy Vigneau Chateau. In the past few weeks Keira has pretty much given up on naps too so suddenly no one is napping except the baby but she mostly takes 20 -60 min catnaps and Nairi and Israel have decided to shatter any sleep stretch longer than 2 hours. To say we are all a bit tired around here is a major understandment. I know we went through a few rough weeks of sleep depravation when we moved Keira to her twin bed but Israel always causes more touble than Keira in everything so I except the transition to be a bit rockier. I also have no clue what Nairi's deal is. Even Israel who was the worst infant sleeper in the family was sleeping long stretches by 7ish months. Nairi is teething but I dont think that is her problem. She just MUST wake up EVERY 2 hours at least. Now you can understand the coffee habit.




While I write this, Nairi started crying after "going to bed" for 2 hours.

Keeping them busy is a full time job




Especially when its raining ! A rainy day picnic lunch kills some time.


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A new haircut






Us moms tend to neglect ourselves. So since I hadn't had a haircut in 6 months and I had a coupon for a 6.99 haircut at Great Clips I headed out last night at 730 pm for the sacred alone time. Our course Nairi woke up and proceed to be a pain the you know what for Mike but hey I got my haircut so its all good! I know what you are thinking, "Great Clips????" Don't knock it till you try it. I have had a few bad cuts and a few good cuts and last nights haircut was a great cut for 6.99. I'm turning 30 in a few weeks so I need to look ya know.." Thirty, flirty and Thriving" I got my hair cut and thinned out so I feel like I lost 10 lbs. Speaking of poundage, Mike and I have been low carbing it for the past 3 weeks ( trying to keep our carb intake around 150 a day) and we have each lost 2 lbs. We both want to lose about 10 lbs so hoping it continues to work. Of course exercise would help the weight loss but you all what happens when I try to exercise so low carbing it is where its at right now.


ohh and here is the pic of what I was hoping to look like post haircut http://beauty.about.com/od/hairstylephotogalleries/ss/roundfa_3.htm/




gotta lose the big Armenian nose! :o)




Monday, October 17, 2011

Project fire wood


Mike's homemade wood rack for the garage. So we always have a super dry stash for an impromtu fire.



beautiful stacked wood

We ordered a cord of wood but I am pretty sure this is more than 1 cord considered it filled 3 large racks to and above max capacity.
Notice how nice it looks stacked? ( that's 3 racks there)


Remember that it looked like this before???
Mike and I spent over an hour outside in the dark at 8 pm in mosquito proof gear stacking wood ( because we all know its impossible to get anything done with the kids around so we had to wait till they went to bed). Two days later we wake up to see that the wood rack has fall over on the fence. The feet had sunk in the gravel. So Mike had to take all the wood off the rack, stablize the legs of the rack on wood and then we had to restack the whole darn pile. I think I'm starting to get why people like gas fireplaces better..... but I'll stick with my story that there is nothing quite like a real wood fire blazing in the fireplace.

The darn thing!


Its not good when your garbage disposal ceases working at the beginning of a weekend. It leaves you unable to cook ( kitchen too messy), clean or put away any kitchen mess. We still have to eat of course so the kitchen looked like this for a day.


This is the second time the stupid thing stopped working. The first time it was my fault as I did put a peach pit down the poor thing and clogged the blade. We were able to remove the peach pit and continue on our merry way. This time I did nothing. Mike took it apart and put it back together but it was leaking and the blade wasn't working so we chucked the whole thing and spent $180 on a high horse power new garbage disposal. We had no idea how old the current disposal was and it was pretty smelly and disgusting.

Have I mentioned how much I hate plumbing projects??



Fire Station Open House



 These first 3 pics are random that were on Mike's phone that haven't been posted yet, but are super cute.

The rest of the pictures are from yesterday's Open House at the Fire Station.  Mike took Israel and Keira to the Londonderry Fire Station because they were having an Open House.  It was great!!  They were able to get on the extension ladder, climb into fire engines, fire trucks, ambulances.  They also had free pizza, cake, water, soda and hats.

Israel definitely enjoyed it more than Keira did, although Keira had a good time as well eating Pizza and such.



They enjoyed getting on the extension ladder.  They called the ladder rungs "monkey bars"

 There was a remotely controlled "Sparky" Dog in a fire truck that was talking to the kids and had a microphone so he could actually interact.  Israel loved it and Keira enjoyed it as well.





Israel didn't want to get out of the fire truck.  He kept telling Mike to "close the door and take a picture"!! 





Since they love water, they wanted to keep using the hose to spray water.  They did it twice and kept wanting to go back.




 Mike was able to actually get a picture with both of the children in the fire truck.  Israel had to stand up otherwise you wouldn't be able to see him over the steering wheel.

Sitting in the ambulance.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Our new geeky key holder









Yes my husband is a computer geek. No he did not think this up himself. He saw the idea on line.