Advent/ Christmas 2011

So excited to have a place to hang stockings now. We used to just put them on the floor or the couch at our old house.


Pine branches from our yard.

Keira did most of the decorating this year.

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving at my brother's house. We were so busy eating we forgot to take any pics!

We usually put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving because Mike is home and its a good day for the family fun of tree and house decorating. Last weekend we put up some Christmas lights on the outside of the house. We didn't get to do as much as we wanted as at least 3 sets of lights failed to work! Our neighborhood is awesome about decorations. Most people go all out with decorations for Halloween and Christmas. The kids love looking at the Christmas lights and the blow up snowmen, turkeys and Santa's. Eventually we want to get a huge real Christmas tree for the family since it has vaulted ceilings and can accommodate a huge tree and use our artificial tree in the tv room as a decoration. That way I can have one gorgeous looking tree and one for all the kids decorations. Keira likes to paint those cheep wooden ornaments from the craft store. But this year the family room is a mess due to wall paper removal and funds are tight so we are decorating with what we have on hand.

A new appliance is a beautiful thing! :o)

5 burners, convection oven, warming drawer... It has lots of bells and whistles! I think dinner will taste much better cooker on this Cadillac than on our old almond electric cheapo oven/stove. Or maybe my kids will think so anyways.

Our Latest Saga

Our latest saga is bigger and more expensive than we ever anticipated! 
When we bought this house we knew that the water heater was 13 years old.  So, we got a quote from the same plumber that did our irrigation system.  We wanted it replaced before it burst and potentially destroyed all the drywall I just spent 3 weekends putting up in the basement for my workshop.
Since the plumber was going to be doing the water heater, we figured it would be convenient and cheaper to have him run a gas line (yes he has a gas license) for the stove.  Since we heat the house with natural gas we wanted to upgrade our old almond electrical stove to a new gas stove that we purchased at 30 % off from Lowes. The stove is original to the house (1993) so the new gas one would save us monthly on our electric bill. 
And since I am anal retentive and forward thinking, he also noticed that the furnace was drawing air from the basement instead of from the outside.  Not a problem when your basement is unfinished, but since spray foamed the workshop side, we eventually would spray foam the entire basement and build a couple of rooms down there (TV Room, Craft Room, etc...).  Again, killing 2(or 3) birds with one stone (plumber) seemed to be convenient. 
Pretty simple and straight forward?  Run gas line to new stove and install new water heater; quote $2300.  I don't mess with gas, plus NH requires a gas license and inspection and permits, we wanted it done by a licensed plumber.  Check, check, check.
This was last week. Water heater is installed and running great.
In the process of doing the intake on the furnace, they notice that the combustion pressure switch was bypassed!  They replace the switch and still the furnace will not fire.  Looking at the manual, the exhaust requires a 3" PVC pipe, but the original installers only used a 2" pipe.  Not a big deal.  During their 2 days of troubleshooting and taking tons of measurements and checking out the system, they find that the furnace is hitting the high limit and setting off that high limit switch.  This means that the temperature is going too high for the heating element and shutting off the element as a safety.  The blower continues running, but then only circulates cool air.  This will not work when the temperature outside is 0 degrees.
The plumber said the furnace is too large for the duct work or the duct work is too small for the furnace (however you want to slice).  Oh and the A Coil (Air Conditioner coil) is too small for the furnace as well.  No matter how you slice it all of these problems equals $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ that we weren't intending on spending!! 
The manual states that the supply duct work needs to be 390 sq in and the return needs to be 440 sq in.  Our supply is 231 sq in and our return is 264 sq in.  Only about 33% smaller than it needs to be :(
The plumber is looking into the least expensive option.  But may require a new furnace, a new A Coil, more duct work (with drywall work upstairs) or any combination of these things!!!
So, the original contractors mess up and now it is our problem!

My "project"

The other thing I have spent hours on lately is school research for Keira. She will be going into Kindergarten in the fall and we are started the process of trying to figure out where we would like to send her. We have decided that she will go to private Catholic or Christian school. Problem is there is so many choices around here!
There are 3 main schools that we are focusing on but there are at least 3 others that would fit the bill of private Catholic or Christian schools. Being my typical self I spend hours emailing friends and church members with their kids at these schools, asking principals questions about their schools, and looking up every thing from how often they have recess to what the publisher is of the theology texts. There are so many decisions to make. I know that she could probably get a great education at any of these schools but some of the questions that haunt me are:
Full day or half day kindergarten?
Weekly Mass at the school yes or no?
Is there enough play incorporated into the Kindergarten curriculum?
Is there enough recess / outdoor time?
Is foreign language a neccesity? ( she will be at these schools through 6th or 8th grade)
How important are extras like sports, art, PE, and music?
How important is location?
If we stay within the city limits she could ride the bus home ( first grade and up) and then I wouldn't have to worry about disrupting the younger kids nap routines. So is the ability to bus important to me?
The school identity... whats the school family like? What are the other kids she will be hanging out with all day like?
I could go on and on. We are scheduling school tours and hanging out at the schools during a school day to see what things are like.
So I research it all, find the answers, share my findings with Mike and discuss discuss discuss!
We will keep you posted!

Its raining leaves!

Nairi loves to look up at the sky and see the leaves floating everwhere. Its very entertaining for her!

She also enjoys eating the leaves!

Project backyard leaf clean up

Israel is always in on the mowing action

Mike wants me to point out that he is wearing my hat as he seems to have misplaced his own 2 hats.

Nairi gets to watch all of us work. Speaking of Nairi she now has 2 teeth and has had them for about a month. They appeared around 6 1/2 months. She is now pulling herself up to standing as well!

Looks like next weekend will also be devoting to leaf clean up. We have bagged around 10 bags of leaves last weekend and this weekend with plenty of leaves to fall yet. So different from our last house where we had MAYBE 2 bags of leaves all fall!

leaves everywhere

Passed Out

I put Keira's ballet movie on for the kids while I was upstairs nursing the baby to sleep for her nap and came down and found this. Israel passed out from boredom. He NEVER falls asleep when watching TV. TV is a treat for them so its always fun and exciting. Except when you are Israel and you are watching a ballet movie apparently.

Another easy and cheap project!

The knob on the left is the new one and the knob on the right is the knob circa 1993. We bought a bunch of new knowb on ebay and Mike has been busy switching them out.

This have 1991 written all over them

Just some random cute kids making a smoothie and eating frozen berries.

There is hope for the wall papered walls...

The ugliness is all over this room!!! This wall paper HAS. GOT. TO. GO. Its so ugly!!!

We started taking it down. Its going to be slow going as wall paper removal always is but so excited to see some wall paper less wall! We already have the paint for the walls so this is the first step to the room make over.

Up close and personal with the busy ugly wall.

Fall

Nairi loves eating leaves as much as she loves eating paper.

Israel loves his trucks

And Keira loves playing in the snow with no coat and no hat and no mittens. Kinda weird to be outside playing in the snow when its 60 degrees outside! Overall its been a warm fall ( other than the freak Halloween blizzard ) and we have spent every min we could outside before we get cooped up for the winter.

Happy 7 months Nairi!

She can hands and knees crawl now and yesterday pulled herself to standing for the first time.

Snowtober

The local media called the storm event snowtober. We lost power for about 20 hours. Which was nothing compared to the thousands of people without power for days. Over 300,000 lost power. We spent one night camped out on the floor in front of the fire with all the kids. It was one giant family bed. It was kinda fun and kinda not fun. We were very happy to be able to sleep in our own beds the following night. Mike was awesome at keeping the fire burning even all night. We roasted hot dogs over the fire....

Watched lots of Franklin on the Ipad...

Hung out bundled up in fleece jackets and sleep sacks...

And were very thankful when power was restored. Lights, electricty, power. Its a beautiful thing!

The highlight of the storm for Israel, getting to use his beloved snow shovel again. Remember last year? He was the kid that took his snow shovel TO BED with him! He is a funny kid. This past summer he could often be seen sleeping in his crib with his toy mower. He is a manual labor kinda guy

Trick or Trick 2011

First time ever trick or treating in a blizzard. Yes it was a real blizzard. We got over 12 inches of snow. It was nuts. We set records for snowfall in October of course. There was no point in costumes as it was freezing and blowing snow everywhere. Oh well I don't think we will ever forget trick or treating this year!

Broken

We have lots of exciting stuff to post. Trick or treating in a blizzard, our first Nor'easter, our 24 hours with no power ( or camping in the living room as the kids call it) but alas my camera card reader is broken. We have ordered a new one and are waiting for it to arrive... should be here soon!