Highlights from a bad week

-- Emily had an ear infection this week. The hilarious part is that she called it an ear "confection."

--Even though she only went to school for 2 days instead of 4, she got green cards BOTH days! That means she didn't pinch, hit or fight anyone for two days in a row! Maybe your child is an angel, but mine is not and Matt and I were totally thrilled with her behavior this week.

--I got to see one my best friends thriving in her new surroundings.

--Nathalie calls barbies "Marbies". I ask her specific questions about "marbies" just to hear her say it.

--Charlotte can now get up on all fours and lunge forward to grab something. Still working on the separate limb control though, thank goodness.

--Matt and I sat down and gave each other the funds for a few special things. Him-- an apple cider press and grinder. Me-- a used iPod since Nathalie shoved something into the cd player in our van and Emily "washed" our iTouch so both are irrevocably broken.

--Apple cider.

--Operation: Basement Rescue has begun. I actually started going through all the boxes and random junk we've been throwing in the basement for a month.

--Our computer decided it wanted to work again. Hurray hurray, especially because I was getting a little desperate for the kids to watch a movie.

It's not all the Matt and Michelle Show

So in all the moving and fixing up, I've not posted pictures of our girls lately. Truthfully, on some days, they were left to their own devices as Matt and I built shelves in the basement or put back doors or installed things. The beauty is that we have a backyard they've conquered and so they often play Rapunzel back there. But you deserve to see these beauties.

Nathalie. What do I say about her? She gets into everything. No, seriously. Everything. Should I say it again? Everything. I don't know how to convey to you her level of curiosity. She is busy all the time and can outrun me a lot of days. She is also very loving and often gives kisses, hugs or tells me that she loves me. When she's not drawing on the wall or ripping up my scriptures that is.

So beautiful, my girl with the big brown eyes.

Emily turned 4 in the middle of this whole mess. I only got one picture of her cake, but that somehow got deleted. It wasn't a special cake though, just one with lots of frosting per her request. To describe Emily I would use: strong-willed, stubborn, intelligent, clever, imaginative, active, defiant, creative, determined, leadership (read: bossy) and compassionate. She is all of these things.

Not to mention she has the most amazing hair.

All three girls. This is how Charlotte usually feels when Emily holds her. She loves it when the girls play with her...but not when they hold her. One word? Disgruntled.

I LOVE this picture. Thank you Emily, for finally be good enough with the camera to capture this. I will treasure this always. Charlotte is my beautiful doll baby. And she has the cutest smile.

Emily got this one too. She's pretty good for 4!! Charlotte is 5 months now. She's 14 1/2 lbs and almost 26 inches long!! Apparently she's going to have my build. Charlotte is happy when she's cuddling. She's happy when she's playing. She's NOT happy when she's on the floor or when no one is playing with her. She spends a lot of time in the sling. At least I'm starting to get her out of my bed at night.

Perfect Fit

Matt and I needed a bookshelf for our new house. We knew where we wanted it, what size we wanted it and what color we wanted. So we looked... and looked... and realized that we were looking at something $300-$400!! Waaaay too expensive.
So Matt built one. He made it to fit, which means it'll probably stay with the house when we move someday.

He bought a new router bit (yes, it was a huge sacrifice for him to buy more tools) so that he could make this beauty quicker and easier.

We like the look of pegs instead of screws or nails.

And it's the most wonderful thing in our living room. (Also, in case you're interested, the stain color is "Early American" from Lowes. It's our favorite color, which is why our other bookcases and our table are the same color. It also matches our floors.)

Comments on your comments

Wow! I got so many comments on my chicken killing event, I have to write another blog post to respond to you.

To everyone who commented on my light-colored skirt: Yes, I was wearing a white corduroy skirt. It wasn't planned that way and my father-in-law actually suggested that I change because everyone else had a little blood on them. I didn't change though because I had a very small window of time to do this. I did jump out of the way after slitting the chicken's throat just in case, but the blood didn't spray everywhere like I naively thought it would.

To Angela: Killing chickens makes you think totally different about your food! A lot of our chicken comes from my father-in-law's house. It feels good though, because I know that the chicken I'm eating was outside, eating a lot of bugs with fresh air and sunshine.

To Keegan: I definitely felt pretty sweet to be a skirt-wearing chicken killer. Like a true girl or something. Hard as nails, soft as silk. Not that I'm either of those things, but it was fun to pretend!

Charity: It's totally true about the cleavage. But even if not Matt probably wouldn't deny he likes looking at my minimal cleavage. Very minimal!

Erin: have you ever killed a chicken before? For some reason I always think of you as a country girl because you're from Wisconsin.

Liz: I cracked up after your chicken email today. Gross! I told Matt about chasing people with the chicken's feet pulling the tendons. I hope I don't have dreams about it tonight!

Laura: my father-in-law raises chickens for himself. It's not very hard and a LOT healthier and humane than the chickens we buy in the store. Every 3-4 months Matt goes up to help his dad butcher them. I've always stayed away before, but I figured that it's not every day you get a chance to butcher a chicken!

Amy: I'll admit, it's probably one of the grosser things I've done. But it's a heck of a lot GROSSER to realize how store-bought chicken is raised and killed. Research it only if you're prepared!

Tammy: we should have never moved here! We're turning into hillbillies more and more each day. Just get a load of this picture:

This is my father-in-law's truck we borrowed for our move. And yes, that is a chicken coop perched precariously over the back of the truck! We were taking some of our stuff from his house to our new house. Hickville here we come!

Chicken Killer

I killed my first chicken the other day!! It's definitely not something I'll be making a regular practice...but I am glad to have learned it. Matt documented it for posterity.

Catching the chicken.

Slitting the chicken's throat. You slit it's throat and wait for it to die. It's only a few minutes and the chickens don't really move. Kinda gross.

Then you did the chicken in boiling water by its feet. This loosens the feathers so they come off easily. Matt took the picture so he could see my cleavage, which is why I covered it up. Trust me, it's nothing impressive.

This is a chicken plucker. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-pbRxIlpuw&feature=related to see it in action. Or this site: http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2006/09/whizbang-plucker-story.html on the history and construction. You throw the chicken in here, turn it on and it plucks the chicken for you.

Then here I cut off the head, feet and pulled out the guts. Pulling out the guts was the yuckiest part.

Housing Around

Here are some pictures...none of the house layout yet. We're still incredibly busy and I promise that I'll take some soon. In the meantime, introducing: OUR HOUSE.
Thanks to Tangled, the girls were occupied. They're in the laundry room/ half bath downstairs off the kitchen. Hallelujah for Rapunzel.

The backyard after I mowed it the first time. You would not believe that this tiny lawn took me 1 1/2 hours to mow and 2-3 hours to weedwhack.

Yard again. See our amazing privacy fence? That means the girls can go out to the yard whenever they want and I don't have to worry.

The floors. FYI, if you're EVER going to do floors yourself, check and see how bad they are. Both Matt and I have experience refinishing wood. We didn't realize, however, that the floors were SO bad that we'd spend over $350 in sandpaper AND we would have to use stripper to get the top coat off the floors before we could even sand.

The stairs. We did the top half. We're not even going to mess with the bottom half.

Floors, stripped, sanded, swept and coated. Beautiful beautiful. Also note, if you're going to do your own floors (T.A. I'm talking to you here!!) use WATER-BASED POLYURETHANE. The oil-based stuffed takes 12-18 hours to dry in normal humidity (read: Ohio humidity increases drying time to 24-36 hours). The water-based stuff takes 3-6 hours drying time in Ohio. Seriously. Use the water-based. Also, it doesn't smell as bad.

Matt sanding away. This is one side of our living room. We had a large, red and mostly beautiful fireplace. Can you imagine hanging our stockings from it this Christmas?

Nathalie sanding away. Oh, that's right. The machine weighs more than she does.

Matt holding The Bat in the light fixture he used to catch it. The slightly hysterical smile is because at this point he'd caught it twice in a bucket and it had escaped twice. The picture is blurry because he's so desparate to get it outside. Also crazy, it was super angry and chittering. Matt said the fixture was vibrating from the sonar.

House Adventure #1

So...last night Matt found a bat in our house because it was swooping on him in the middle of the night He thought he got rid of it. But... tonight Matt was talking on the phone and The Bat appeared again and started swooping on him. Conversation went thusly, "Hey, so can you come over tomorrow morning? That sou...AAAAHHHH!!!! gotta go by-aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"

We had to catch it THREE TIMES before we were able to carry it outside without it escaping. Rephrase: Matt almost wet his pants and screamed like a girl while I cowered in the corner whimpering.

Picture to come when I find the cord.