Too cute!

This is the first time Keira has worn this outfit... its a New Balance track suit and its adorable! Its supposed to be a jacket and capri's but of course the capri's are pants on miss shorty. Its has all this cute flower detail all over it! The fun in dressing a girl never ends.... okay I am sure it ends when she gets to pick out what she wears but until then I enjoy it immensely!

Comfort food

Its rainy and dreary so of course I have nothing better to do than make some comfort food....

Mike and I made this peach cobbler on his lunch break.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Southern-Peach-Cobbler-2/Detail.aspx

and I made chicken pot pie for dinner -yum. Hoping I will have time to head to the gym when Mike gets home from work since I just polished off half a fudge brownie and some peach cobbler.

Keira dancing video

More car talk...

So the estimate for the truck was 1000!!!! Mike bought the parts online and him, Hippert and his cousin are going to attempt to change out the fuel tank, fuel lines, and oil pan.. . Hopefully they can do it.... If not I guess the truck will hit the graveyard but Mike thinks the three of them MIGHT be able to do it. We will keep you posted.
Morins was able to check out our jetta today instead of tomorrow. Thankfully the repairs are minor ( only 150) so we will get that fixed and hope all goes well at its inspection next month. Car crisis averted for the time being although I am sure we will be revisiting the whole thing in a year or 2 again as both of are cars are ticking time bombs....and at some point in the next 2 years or so we will probably have another munckin and 2 carseats in the jetta might not be doable AT all.... but we will avoid thinking about that until it happens.

Busy weekend, ugly Monday

Keira sitting by the bck door whining to tell me she wants to go out and play when clearly she is in need of a nap since she went to bed late and woke up at 330 and 545 am..

Mike helped the Harrisons install a hardwood floor all day Saturday and then played Poker till 1 am. Keira loves playing with the Poker chips and since daddy left them laying out yesterday she got into them and made a BIG mess...

Sunday after my Yoga class we headed to Warner where Mike and I spent 3 hours cleaning my dads house and tag teaming Keira, We then make it back to Manchester to attend 5 pm Mass which Keira was happy to remind us why we attend Mass in the morning and not an hour before her bedtime. She was a hyper bear at church!!!!

Keira happily left a trail of corn flake crumbs all over my house this morning.

This morning around 7 15 am we dropped the Truck off at Morin's to get an estimate to do the repairs. Usually the guy there is very nice but apparently the guy wasn't fulled awake yet and when he ( the mechanic) mentioned that parts where probably going to be around 600 and Mike asked if he could bring his own parts the guy went into a fit of rage..... He should be calling us with an estimate sometime today.. meanwhile Mike is annoyed that the guy was less than pleasant with him.

Mike gets to work and realizes he forgot his badge.... (which he needs to get access to most places at work).. he calls me to tell me about the badge and I ruin his day even further by telling him there is water in the basement from the remnants of Hurricane Hanna. Saturday it poured... buckets of water for like 12 hours straight..... The water isn't anything major.. There was maybe a gallon or 2 of water in the basement Sunday that we determined was from the chimney but this water today is seeping in through the concrete at the spot where last year we had a new oil tank installed and they drilled the oil line under the concrete... Just another thing for Mike to fix.

Warning.. expect a long complaining email about car repairs later! Both Mike and I would rather drive cars that are still under warranty that way we don't have to deal with extremely over priced car repairs but we can't afford that at the moment. We are also trying to decide if we trade in the Jetta ( which has its appointment tomorrow to find out the cost of repairs) and the truck if we might we able to afford one good car. Its complicated because we really have the need for 3 cars ( a small commuter car for Mike to take to work, a family car that actually fits a car seat in it but is decent on gas mileage, and a truck) but who wants to pay for insurance, oil changes etc for 3 cars??? We thought about getting a suburban that way we can fold the seats down and it can double as a truck and a family car... but we really don't want to drive a gas guzzling suburban around since we have only one child......

Just a few more

I bought 8 more Indian Pre folds ( Cloth diapers for those of you that don't know the lingo) off of a woman on an online forum. They arrived today. Now I have a total of 20 diapers. Should be enough to do diaper laundry every 2 days or so. Keira wears disposables when we go out anywhere and at night. I am using cloth wipes too. I bought a pack of 10 washcloths at Target on sale for 1.89 and cute them into 4ths ( since they were wayyyy to big to use as a wipe). So I have 40 cloth wipes. I keep an old wipes box on the changing table filled with water, baby soap and baby oil. When I change her diaper I just dip a wipe in the water/soap mixture, wipe off her bum and toss the wipe into the diaper pail. I am not totally convinced that using cloth diapers saves money..... because of the washing, drying, extra laundry soap etc... obviously its better for the environment. But the wipes will save money for sure. I feel like I was always buying a big pack of baby wipes!

Just Keira

Keira had her 15 month check up today. She is so small!! 30inches long and 20 lbs 5 ounces! She is in the less than 10% range for weight but perfectly healthy so thats good!

My lucky day...

Today I got in the Jetta and starting driving down the road and realized that 3 warning lights were lighting up my dashboard..... not 1 but 3!!!!!! The check engine light has been lit up for awhile, but now 2 lights related to my ABS system came on!!!
We have appointments for both the truck and the Jetta ( at Morin's) to be looked at to get price quotes of the work to be done next week. Wish us luck!

Who makes the rules???

Warning- gripe ahead!!!
So if you read this blog you know that our old truck failed its yearly inspection. So in order to get it registered we need to get a few things fixed. The major one being the leaky fuel tank. We only paid 3200 for the truck 2 years ago and it has served us well. We use it often to haul stuff, for dump runs ( all our home improvement projects require dump runs as we can't just throw construction stuff in the regular trash, when we buy stuff at Home Depot ( big pieces of drywall, wood, appliances, windows, siding etc) We really need a truck and don't want to buy a new one. So after the truck failed its inspection we got a few quotes that it would cost aroun $ 800 to fix. Mike took the truck to his cousin to look at since he has mechanic experience.... and looked up the cost of the parts online. To buy the parts alone online would be $300. Today Mike took the truck to Midas to get a price quote for the work .. the guy quoted him $900 and $600 of that was parts the guy said. hmmmm Mike mentioned that he could buy the parts online for 300 and the guy gave him a skeptical look. Mike asked if we could buy the parts and bring the truck in to get fixed and the guy said "Nope... we don't do that. You have to use our parts!! Whatever!!!!


Today I called my eye Doctor to see if I could order a new supply on contacts for a year. I HATE wearing my glasses and would much rather wear contacts. I have had an eye exam every single year since I was in Kindergarten. Our insurance covers the exam.. per say but the Dr. always finds extra "things" they need to do that aren't covered by insurance.. this certain test, these eye drops etc. So we still end up paying a bit.. and then there is of course the cost for the contacts which run about 300 for a year supply and that's not covered by the insurance at all of course. The receptionist on the phone informed me that I was due for a yearly eye exam in July. I told her I was aware of that but didn't want to get one at this time and would just like to order the contacts. "We don't do that " she informs me. All contact patients must have an exam every year. I tell her I am aware that that is the recommendation but because funds are a bit tight and because I am 26 years old and not having any problems and have had the same eye prescription for the past 10 years I would just like to order a box of contacts. " I'm sorry - we don't allow that" she tells me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes I know there are places to order contacts online etc but I have somewhat of a funky prescription and and unusual type of contact.....
Seriously. Who makes these rules up????

Cloth dipe pics

Keira in an Indian Pre fold dipe and a Thirsties cover.
Just the dipe... that red contraption is a snappi- a modern day diaper pin-only its not really a pin.

The diaper before Keira is in it.... a newspaper fold with a fleece liner.

Labor Day BBQ?

So...we originally planned on having a small get together with Matt and Alexis...which turned out to be a smalle get together with Matt & Alexis, My Family, Matt and MK, and the gang that went camping this weekend. The guys that went camping (Greg, John (not Vigneau), Mike H) left their vehicles at our house over the weekend and went 5 hours up to Maine. They came back around 6:00 and there was food left over, so they jumped right in.

Matt and Alexis made some great Orzo Salad and some Great Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Vegan Cookies. Of course, delicious as usual :)

Matt and MK made some Rice Krispy Sushi. They wrapped Rice Krispes in Fruit by the Foot and stuck some multi-flavored twizzlers in the center. Delicious...and ingenious.

We had BBQ chicken, Kielbasa and some pasta salads and green salads.

New Door

Before...

After...disregard the unfinished sections (no molding, unfinished door, shims sticking out). All of that will be taken care of this week...

We gave our spare bed away because it was too big for the room upstairs. So, my friend from work came over to pick it up this morning. He also helped me to install a new bathroom door. The doors in our house are hollow and 1950s style doors. The new door was from Lowe's clearance for only $25 (Solid Pine 6-Panel Pre-Hung Door); normally $160. It was marked down so much because the frame was loose and someone cut it down to 77 inches. Not a deal breaker for me.

Not bad?? :)

Happy 15 months Keira!!!

Keira is 15 months old today. It seems like we just celebrated her 1 year birthday. Since Mike made some delicious vegan chocolate oreo cupcakes for our labor day mini BBQ we let her have one to celebrate. She went to town and dug right into it... so different from her birthday where she just squished it.