Gotta Love IKEA

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We bought a three shelf paper holder for the new house last time we were at IKEA and Jeanette put it together tonight. Here are the (full) instructions that came with it. Easy as ABC. Sort of..

A. Screwdriver!

B. Huh? Call!

C. Step 1 – Assemble it!

The other side just has a picture of the holder. No step 2.
ikea

Katrina Loses a Tooth

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Katrina pulled her first tooth yesterday. The first one to come out naturally at least, she had to have her two front bottom teeth removed by the dentist several months ago and wasn’t awake for it. She had been wiggling this one for about a month now and it was ready to come out.

I told her the night before while putting her to bed that her tooth has been ready to come out for a while now and she could probably pull it out tomorrow if she really tried. The next day while I was working she came back and asked me if I really thought she could pull it out today. I told her, “yes” and asked if she wanted me to help. She said, “yes”.

We went back to her room and I let her work on it at first and alternated turns. She was excited but also pretty scared so after about a minute of trying each time she’d start getting nervous giggles and tearing up, so we’d take 5 minutes for her to calm down. During each one she asked me “What if a new tooth doesn’t come in!?”, “What if I swallow the tooth when it comes out!?”, “What if my mouth doesn’t stop bleeding!?”, “Does it hurt when the new tooth comes in!?” and about every other potential problem she could dream up. She also made up a complex set of hand gestures to indicate when it was and wasn’t ok to proceed with various tasks.

I tried to answer all her questions and explained to her that Dad is a pro at this and has done this 20 times before. Then showed her all of my teeth and explained I had to pull out a baby tooth for each one to come in. She was really brave and wanted to press on even though she was clearly scared.

With all the breaks it took us about an hour and a half to pull the thing out, but we finally got it. She was SO excited when it finally came out. Probably more so relieved. She wanted to rush out and tell mom, but I made her hold some tissue on her gums until it stopped bleeding first. I was so proud of her for sticking it out. She kept thanking me for helping her every 10 minutes.

Afterwards we showed mom and celebrated with some soup for dinner and ice cream later. That night the Tooth Fairy brought her $1 and Junie B. Jones: Toothless Wonder. Notice the similarity on the cover picture. That wasn’t intentional.


Katrina Missing a Tooth

A Zongker 4th of July!

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Once again, this Independence day, we enjoyed our recent tradition of going over to the girls’ Uncle Jason & Aunt Stephanie’s house for swimming & a barbecue with that side of the family. It was a nice time & the weather was surprisingly pleasant. It rained the night before, on into the morning hours, so we were kind of reluctant about getting into the pool (for fear that the water might be too cold), but when we were finished eating, the adults caught up for a bit, while the kids played together, indoors. Sometime during all the festivities, the sun began shining again & when we got in the pool, the outside temperature was in the mid-80s or so & the water was just fine!

After swimming, we all got changed to go out to a large park/soccer field near where our local fireworks show takes place each year. This has also been part of the tradition/celebration, the past few years. We all got our folding lawn chairs set up & the adults helped the kids set off our own fireworks in the field. I think my girls are just like me — we tend to go more for the sparklers and smoke bombs than anything else! 😉

It was a blast, as usual… then, it was time for the “big show” to begin. We all settled in to watch, but we had also heard weather forecasts of impending thunderstorms on the way… About 10 minutes after it had begun, it seemed the show came to an end. Confused & worried about the possibility of getting drenched (figuring they called the rest of the show off due to rain), even though not a sprinkle had been felt, we all decided it’d be best to just pack up & call it a night. Little did we know there had unfortunately been something wrong with the local fireworks display — either a dud, or misfire, or something caused the show to come to an abrupt halt, we would find out later via the news & other friends & family. But, all was not lost — we had an enjoyable time, with family & we got to celebrate the holiday in our usual way. When we got home, it was about 10:30 p.m. rather than 12:30 a.m. & to be honest, with little ones, it’s probably better to get home earlier, anyway… Hope everyone had a safe & happy 4th! Attached are a few highlights of ours! 🙂

Grove for the Gold!

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The clogging group that I’m a member of decided at the beginning of this year that those who wanted to should enter a national competition in Grove, OK. It happens every year around the same time & although it was last month, I thought I’d go ahead & tell our story. It was a long, determined 6 months worth of practice & hard work, but we were all in it to give our best & to have fun!

Not only was there a competition, but also a workshop. It was an interesting one, held at the Grove Civic Center. On one side, in a large room were cloggers, and in the other half of the building, there was a fiddle workshop & competition going on that weekend. Since both hobbies go well together, I guess that’s why they hold this event for each, at the same time, every year. In any case, the cool thing for me was that Katrina got to come & it was her first ever clogging workshop. She’s not a seasoned enough dancer to compete, just yet, but I figure she’d have fun & probably pick up some moves at the workshop, in any case…

The workshop was also a short one — only 4 hours on Friday. But, we were all invited to go to a camp on Grand Lake for dinner & dancing & enjoying fiddle music in the evening. Since she didn’t want to participate, Kat & I sat out, but there was even a special dance at the end of the evening, where some of the cloggers got to show off their skills to the fiddlers. Katrina’s Nana, Annette as well as a few of the other dancers on our competition team decided to take part in that & they did a wonderful job, showcasing some of the “mountain figures” they had just learned, earlier in the day!

The next morning was the “big day” for us competitors. We had 3 routines to perform, each in a different category. We were all nervous & excited at the same time. Although it was kinda’ “by default”, since there were no other teams in our age division (30+), we actually won, placing first for our category & division, all 3 times! We didn’t take any “overall grand champion” titles; those mainly went to the kids groups that competed, but we all still had a great time & it gave us a wonderful sense of achievement & accomplishment!

I think Katrina enjoyed just being there & getting to stay overnight in a different city — her first “roadtrip” with her Nana & Mama, to go somewhere else & enjoy the new hobby she’s really been getting into lately. I’m proud of how good she was for the duration, as well. And, thanks to all my clogging friends that helped to keep an eye on her, when I had to compete, too! It was a journey worth remembering! Enjoy the photos!

Hey! I Made a Table!

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We picked out living room furniture for our new house a few weeks ago. We have the usual couch, love seat and recliner setup. Our living room is wider than deep so we want the love seat and recliner to be at 45 angles from the couch so that each of them are facing towards the tv. We want two end tables to go in between the three pieces, but square ones won’t really work out because no matter how you turn them, one of the seats have a corner of the table pointing at them. We didn’t really want a round table either, so we decided to go with an octagon.

Octagon tables are pretty hard to find, and it wasn’t looking likely that we’d be able to find one that matched anything else in the house so I decided to try to make them. I’ve never attempted anything like this before so I was pretty nervous. I drew it up first on Google Sketchup to figure out the sizes for everything and went to buy the wood. I had originally planned on just cutting everything with a handsaw and miter box, but very quickly realized that wasn’t going to be practical.

Fortunately, my dad has a table saw that can do the angled cuts so I went over there to cut all the pieces. Actually, he ended up cutting most of them for me. The assembly wasn’t too bad other than trying to figure out how to get it to stay together long enough to get enough pieces assembled for it to support itself.

The tile and stain match the floor and cabinets in our new house and were a bit of hassle to track down. I borrowed a wet saw from my step-father to cut the tile. This was my second time tiling, I put down tile in the master bath of our current house shortly after moving in. It was much easier than I remembered this time.

Thankfully all the trim pieces fit together nicely around the tile in the end. The only part I’m not real happy about is the stain. I had a hard time getting it consistent across the whole table, but all in all, not too bad for an amateur. I’m going to finish up the second table and if I’m not too burned out afterward, work up a design for a coffee table.

Edit: Crud, just realized we changed our tile selection in the house and I used the original tile on the tables. Oh well, they’re pretty close to each other.

Kat’s Eyes!

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We are so happy, I just had to report it, here! Katrina had a routine eye doctor visit/exam yesterday & we got our first good news in a long time…

For those who don’t know, she was diagnosed with Amblyopia, one of the conditions more commonly referred to as “lazy eye”, when she was only 4 & 1/2 years old. In her case, we have come to understand that it has something to do with the connection between her eye & her brain (optic nerves, I think) not focusing quite accurately enough in her left eye. Her right eye has always been fine/strong & in fact, would tend to overcompensate for the “lazy” one… We have gone through periods of patch therapy, since then, upon her eye doctor’s advice. She wears an eye patch over the “good” eye for part of the day, so that it forces the other one to focus better.

We have been “patching” her on & off, for periods of about 3-6 months at a time. In the duration of the last 2 & 1/2 years, her vision progressed from being around 20/70 all the way up to 20/40 or so, which is the range it should be, in order for someone to legally be able to drive (if they are of age, of course), so at that time, her eye doctor told us we could take a break from using the patch & he would see us again in 6 months. However, at her last appointment (a couple months ago), she did not show any progress at all, so he recommended that we have her use the patch again.

It might seem frustrating/annoying, but the nice thing is that since she only had to wear the patch for 3-5 hour periods each day, we let her do it in the evening, on weekdays, so that it wouldn’t bother her (and she wouldn’t get questioned, or worse, possibly teased, by other kids at school) & we could also monitor her & make sure that she wasn’t “peeking” over or around it, etc. On weekends, she got into the habit of putting it on after breakfast, or after church, so that she could get it over & done with & out of the way for the day. She is such a mild-mannered, responsible kid, as well. We rarely to never had to remind her about it, once she got into the habit & she’s never complained of it bothering her, either.

Well, at yesterday’s eye exam, she out-performed all her previous ones! Her vision now looks to be at about 20/25, which is a really good result! Her eye doctor was so enthusiastic & proud of her success! He told us that, “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel” & that even though 20/20 would be the ultimate goal, it’s okay if she doesn’t get there & her vision stays where it is. She has shown such great progress, in the past couple of months alone, using the patches that he told us we could give her a break from it, if we wanted. He said it was really up to us & that it mainly depended on whether or not it was a nuisance to her. Since she’s never had any problems with it & we’re going back to see him in September, we decided to keep it up, for now. Who knows? Perhaps she’ll progress even more by then… And, if not, we can always take a break after that appointment…

I just wanted to thank all of you who have kept her in your thoughts & prayers over the years & to share that we know her breakthrough is a gift from God. It’s amazing what faith can do & we are so grateful to our Lord for all His good works! We plan on keeping a positive outlook & are continuing in our hopes & prayers that that light at the end of the tunnel is reached, sooner than later!

Time for a Trim!

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So, we each got our hair cut recently. In fact, it was Alyssa’s very *first* haircut, so we were a little apprehensive of how she’d act/react, but we made sure to (try to) explain the best way we could. Being only 2 & 1/2, she typically says, “Okay” as an automated response, whether she actually understands, or not, so even when we went to the shop, we weren’t sure if she knew what was going on. Thankfully, she did wonderfully! It was cute/funny, though, how she kept wanting to look in the mirror, even when they were trying to get her to look down. I had to put my hand in her lap, so she could see my pretty ring & that at least kept her attention for a bit, while they snipped the very back/bottom. Katrina picked out her own style & I think she looks like a blonde Ramona Quimby (for those of us who remember those books), too cute! Mine turned out alright. It was not what I expected, nor what I had described, but I still think it’s a good ‘do. They made it the correct length, just not the style I wanted. Guess I need to be more specific, next time around (or go to a different shop; this is the 2nd time they have not done what I asked for)… But, it’s just hair; it’ll grow back & then (hopefully) I can have it fixed the way I want, soon enough! Since Jeremy just had me cut his the same way we always do it, we didn’t take any “before & after” pics of him, but you can see us “3 girls” in the photos below, as taken by Jeremy! Bring on the summer sun! 🙂