Today

Jaren as the photographer

Today was one of those days. My poor boys have been pushed to the limit these last few weeks. I do have to say, that they have been really good, mostly helpful, and a lot excited to have a new place.

This morning, the only thing I had planned was to go to the middle school for a planetarium exhibit, which we were all excited for. Then I got inundated with phone calls about something we are trying to sell on craigslist, last minute plan to get the carpets cleaned at the rental, and needing to stock up on groceries. While the carpet guy was at the house, we went to the store. Standing in the checkout line, Devon was just close enough to the eggs to grab the top, pull up, and all 18 eggs fell to the bottom of the cart. Thankfully, only a few of them cracked open enough to leak all over the floor. He then screamed the entire time while checking out. He was hungry, which is why we went to the store in the first place. The carpet guy finished early and was waiting for me before we even got everything loaded up at the grocery store.

We get back to the house,  I pay the carpet guy and he leaves. Everyone needs to go potty, so we get out. I fed the kids some snacks in the garage since it was raining, and someone knocked a bagel with cream cheese onto the freshly washed carpet while they were sitting in the doorway. Great. Trying not to panic, but it came right out.

Then we headed back to the new place, where we were all glad to be home for the night. (starting to feel like home, anyway)  Picked up some pizza on the way home from Papa John's. They were donating their proceeds from the day to the Oso Mudslide victims. It is so heartbreaking to hear about the lives lost. Everyone that I know, either knows someone who died, or knows someone who knows someone that died. Very sad.

A couple of weeks ago at church, a lady in our ward was speaking about journal writing. I have treated this blog as a family chronicle, or funny moments blog. I am going to try and be more regular about just writing. There may not always be pictures, but I do need to write more often. Thinking about posting on here lately is daunting, mostly since I think that it has to have lots of pictures and updates. But it doesn't have to be that complicated.

Some good news that I'm excited to share! The railing is missing one baluster, which is right at the top of the stairs. Devon thinks that it's funny to lean through it and say "Maa!" or just shout. Only because I come running! I called around to a couple of places to figure out how to find the style of the baluster, but I wasn't having much luck. One of the guys I talked to told me to go to a local hardware store and ask if they had recommendations or ideas. It seemed that I had finally found a company that could point me in the right direction, so I called them. But their main guy was out for the day. That evening, we were looking at some pictures that we took during the inspection. Tyler had taken some of the attic, and in one of the photos, I noticed some extra trim next to a box. I thought maybe we should see if, by chance, there were any balusters in there. Highly doubting it, but hoping. We didn't have the ladder at the new place yet, otherwise I would have ran out there and checked right then. Tyler brought the ladder home the next day and checked up there while I was bathing the boys. He came upstairs singing, "Happy surprise to you! Happy surprise to you!" Carrying THREE balusters! What a relief!! I was not looking forward to paying about $100 for one baluster. Now to just get it installed...