No Doggie Breath Here

Timmy has decided the past couple of nights that he wants to brush his teeth like mommy and Daddy do. Here are some pics of his first time brushing his teeth at the sink. He turned on the water and did everything himself. What a big boy:-)!

"Mommy buys me good tasting kids toothpaste. Yum!"

"Now to rinse my toothbrush off."

My little Armageddon star

For those of you who have never seen the movie Armageddon with Bruce Willis you won't get this post.

Timmy: "Yeehi, Ride 'em cowboy."

Daddy: "Get off the nuclear warhead."

Timmy: "Alright, just wanted to feel the power between my legs."

Feeling Hot Hot Hot....

Timmy went outside when the chimney guys did. He had fun watching them climb the ladder to put the cap on. I'm glad we have gates to lock him in on our deck because he would have climbed that very tall ladder with them. He was only outside for about 15 0r 20 minutes and this is how he looked when he came back in. It was a 100+ degree day out if that tells you anything...lol.

Our Chimney Adventure

About a week or so ago I heard what I thought was a bird in our chimney. I told Scottie that something didn't sound right. You see, every spring since we've been married I have always heard birds in the chimney. So hearing birds in the chimney is nothing new for us but this just didn't sound right. After a few days I stopped hearing the bird. And a few more days later there started to be a dead animal smell. Just got to love that, right? Not! Anyhow, we were told to burn a fire and it would help to get rid of the smell which it did but then we started seeing these guys:

You guessed it. Maggots. YUK! Those of you who know me know that I hate bugs and these were on the floor by the fireplace. When I saw them Scottie was out in our rug cleaning building so I called him to come in quickly. He came in and cleaned them all up. Praise the Lord for husbands who take care of that kind of stuff for us women who hate it. After that we only saw one or two here and there.

The next day after seeing those guys I started calling around to chimney sweeps and found one that could come and clean the chimney, take away the dead animal, and put a stainless steel cap on the top of the chimney so that we never have this happen again. For those of you that don't know what a stainless steel cap looks like this is it:

In this next photo you will see a hose going into the chimney just behind our woodstove. Where the hose is laying is where the dead animal was. Any of you guessed what it was yet? I can tell you it wasn't a little bird like what we thought it was. It was a duck. That's right a full grown duck.

The chimney guy was very nice about it and got it out fast without my having to see it. He had told me on the phone that it was probably a duck but I didn't believe him. I do now...lol. Now where was Timmy you might ask while all this was going on? Timmy was right there with Daddy watching everything they did and wanting to play with their equipment:

Paying for them to take care of that was worth the service call. Who knows how much worse things would have gotten had we just left it there and not called them. PTL for Chimney Sweeps!

I just got to wear shades...

This weekend we helped move my mom to her new place and Scottie got a pic of Timmy wearing his shades. It was very sunny and hot...lol.

"Yeah, I know I'm cool!"

The Water Heater Journey

Thursday evening we turned on the hot water to find that we had none. Scottie gets his tools and his meter to go see what's wrong. He took the meter and checked the voltage and it was getting plenty of juice. So, Friday Scottie goes and gets one element, (those units take two - an upper and lower). He drains the water out when he gets home from work Friday evening and goes to replace the lower element but can't. Out of all the tools he owns, and believe me when I say he has lots of them, he didn't have a tool big enough to screw the new element in. So Saturday he goes and buys the tools he needs for the job. Bang, we are back in business. In no time we have really really really hot water!!! Scottie has to go back under our house to adjust the temp on it because #1 we don't want to get scald but #2, and most important, we don't want our little man to get scald. Even with turning it down it still gets quite hot....lol. After a couple of cycles of using it the things goes out again. Oh brother!!! This was late Saturday when it went out again. My son and his cousin got their baths and Scottie was able to get a Shower Saturday evening but when I went to get in the Shower there was no hot water. So off I go to my moms to take a shower. I wasn't going to church Sunday morning without one...lol. Sunday after church Scot gets back under the house to find out what the problem is and a wire had come loose. He reattached the wire and now we have hot water again. A $10 part and $20 in tools got us back in business. Praise The Lord!!!! $30 to fix vs. $200 or more to replace. We are so thankful to God! I'm thankful for several reasons, #1 For God giving my husband mechanical skills - he can fix most anything, #2 For it only costing $30, #3 For having hot water again. We will be married four years in November and the hot water has never worked as good as it works now. Scottie figures we've been getting heat from the upper element all these years and it finally burnt out. There's no telling how long the lower one had been out. I was able to take a shower this morning and shave and still have plenty of hot water when I was done. Before the shower would always run cold before I could finish. Amazing!!!! Thank you God for hot water! I've included some pics. The first one below is of Scottie under our house taking the covers off to see what is wrong with our 1984 water heater.

These next pics are of the old lower element. The black stuff on it is sediment that had built up on it over the years (we have well water - need I say more...lol).

The upper element has just as much sediment. With all that sediment built up on the elements I'm surprised we were able to get the hot water we were getting. Pretty impressive to say the least. Don't take for granted the little things. Not having something for several days has made me even more thankful for what we have been blessed with. God is so good to us!

Sesame Street Live continued...

Here is a short video clip from the show tonight.

Sesame Street Live

Timmy and Tristan got to go see Sesame Street Live tonight. My mom won free tickets to go see the production off one of our local country music radio stations. I took lots of pics of the event. The boys were so excited to be there and we were right up by the stage. Have fun checking out the pics below.

The boys before the show began with their Sesame Street toys.

The boys watching the show and the serious expressions on their faces when Elmo came on stage.

Iris was mesmerized by the show.

I did, however, get her to look my way for a moment.

Do you think Timmy was having fun???

Tristan too???

This one kept going around honking his horn at everyone.

This was taken near the end of the show. I didn't get any pics of the end of the show because they blasted streamers and the popping noise freaked Timmy out. It made me jump too though. Being up at the stage it was really loud when those things popped. The boys and Iris had a blast. As for mom and myself we were quite tired by the time it was all over with...lol. But we'd do it all over again for those little ones. They are so precious.

Lightning Bugs

I wish I had a picture to show you but Timmy has discovered Lightning Bugs. He had so much fun out in the yard tonight looking at them. I caught a couple of them for him to have a closer look at. He just went around pointing after that and saying, "Lightning Bugs". It was too cute.

Watching him tonight made me think of when my siblings and I were kids and how we used to catch them and take their lights off them and put them on our fingers and ears like they were rings and earrings. We were so cruel to those bugs.

Now I'm showing Timmy how to be gentle with them even though he is a rough little man with just about everything...lol.

Timmy's well check and more

Timmy had his two year well check on May 25th. It went great. He is 34 1/2" tall and he is weighing 27 1/2 pounds. At well checks they have a list of questions we have to answer so they can have an idea what stage Timmy is in his development. He meets all the levels he should be at for his age and there are some that he is advanced in. We are so proud of our boy.

Timmy is talking more and more everyday. He said I love you Daddy and I love you Mommy last night for the first time while we were putting him to bed. That just excited Scot and I so much. It seems Timmy is more active with each day that goes by. As if he's not already active enough...lol. I am, of course, Timmy's jungle gym. He loves to climb and play on Mommy.

We are working on his numbers and ABC's. If you are a mother and trying to teach your young one their ABC's I recommend using King's Kadets God's Alphabet Soup DVD/CD. Timmy really loves it and is learning to sing with it. It's a great teaching tool and has been awarded the family approved seal by the Dove Foundation.

On top of doing that we have been doing the Your Baby Can Read program. Timmy is learning to say and recognize the spellings of words. It's another great teaching tool. I'm not as consistent with it as I should be. It is true though that the more you use the program that they do learn. You just have make time for it.

Our business, A Clean Solution, had a big commercial carpet cleaning project this past weekend. I helped Scot on it. It's been a long while since I've worked a project like that and every muscle in my body has been telling me about it...lol. Even though I'm sore from working a big project it was good to be able to help my husband. It also showed me how much I really do love being a stay at home mom. I soooooo missed being with my little man and was so glad to see him when we got home after working a long day.

We went to Lundies Photography on Timmy's Birthday (May 11th) and had pictures done and we will finally be going to check out the pictures and pick what photos we want at some point this week. Lundies does such a great job on our photos and this time we did an outdoor session at their farm so I'm very excited to see how they turned out. We got our dog, Dexter, in some pictures as well. We will do a post on them as soon as we get them. If you are local and are looking for a photographer check Lundies out. Candia is a great photographer.

It is such a blessing to be a wife and mother. My husband is an awesome man of God! I'm very thankful for him and all that he does. He takes such good care of his family. I know that he loves it when he comes in after working that his son and I are there to meet him and welcome him home. Timmy would probably go to work with Scot everyday if it was allowed. God gives us such great gifts and He gave me the greatest gifts of all when he blessed my life with Scot and then with our son.

I'll end this with saying, "Have A Great Memorial Day!"