Friday, January 27, 2012

Garbage Disposal

When we first started living in our house, we knew right away that we would be putting a garbage disposal in. I guess it is one of those things that if you've never had one, you don't know what you are missing....but believe me, if you've ever had one, you definitely know what you are missing when you suddenly don't have one!!! Kristoffer was very eager to get it installed at the beginning of this month. All along I thought we were going to hire the job out, but he decided it was a project he thought he could do himself....he did work 2 summers in construction, so I somewhat trusted him to do the job! If all else failed, we thought we could get someone to come in if he got stumped...but he did the job amazingly (sorry I ever doubted you babe!!)!




Step 1: Unhook the dishwasher to gain access to the wall behind it.



Step 2: He played around with the electrical wires and split them.


Step 3: Run new electrical wires for the disposal. Does he think that cute smile of his is making me feel more comfortable with the wire mess he has going on there!?



Step 4: Unhook the drain and install the disposal. This step was a little tricky and I had to help unhook the drain. After years of hard water, the drain was very stuck!!



Step 5: Trim the pipes to fit and hook them all back up!



Step 6: USE THE DISPOSAL!!!




There were a few hiccups along the day and it may have taken much longer than we originally thought, I am extremely proud of Kristoffer for his hard work on this project!



I even got the honors of flipping the switch for the first time!!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Monday, January 23, 2012

Random Recap: After Christmas - Present

The day after Christmas we loaded up our van and headed to the west side of the state to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. It started out with gifts and lunch at Mom's....who had more than enough help passing out the presents!






Our handsome nephew, Jonah and our very stylish and accessorized niece, Olivia!



After a day of practice, Kaden was finally into opening his presents!



But was still pleased to play with one thing at a time.



Big brother on the other hand was not very patient and wanted every new thing out as soon as he opened it!


Christmas at Mom's is very different (but much more fun!) with 4 kids 4 and under running around!!!




This is the only picture I took at the Miller Christmas at Grandma's, but we all thought the big boys sitting at the "kids table" was super cute!!



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A few days after Christmas Jake and his gang came to visit our house for a few nights. One day for fun we took the kids to the Children's Museum in Muncie.















Of course, the big hit was watching the model trains go around!



The new "Tot Spot" was open and all the kids enjoyed the slide.





Karter wanted to practice helping Papaw in the garden!



That evening I had a little bit of helping making (or tasting!) some cinnamon bread for the next morning!



Rub-a-dub-dub 4 babies in a tub!



Mmmm...our cinnamon bread turned out wonderfully! It must have been all the little hands that helped. :)

Jonah wanted to help make some cookies...so Karter let him borrow his whale apron.





This one is all about the tasting!

We had such a wonderful time with the Tomaw family and were so sad to see them go!

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Uncle Jake and Aunt Joscelynn gave Karter a box of 4 12-piece puzzles for Christmas. The first day we opened them, we went through them together once and after that he was putting them together so fast by himself! He catches on quickly, and loves doing puzzles!

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We are slowly turning our new home into our own and adding our personal touches. I have a thing for monograms and have made 2 already for our house with a couple more on my radar. I made this jute covered G and a 4 for our mantel. I love doing different crafts to add a bit of us to our new space!

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Karter and Daddy having a standing 7am date every Sunday morning...my two hunks make us delicious pancakes for breakfast! For Christmas, "the boys" gave Daddy a perfect pancake maker. Karter loves to help his Daddy!!

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We haven't ever had a TV in our bedroom and we really don't watch it very much, but it came with the house so we kept it in there. The ones who us it the most is the boys! A couple times a few weeks ago, Karter woke up way to early. So while I was busy doing something else he crawled up into our bed to watch a "Karter show".



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Karter is so sweet and innocent. The other day he told me he needed a pen and paper so he could write a letter. When he was finished writ ting he read it to me so I could write down what it said...I just simple wrote what my sweet boy said!


"Dear Lord, Thank you for making everything. For making the plants and all the food we eat. Amen."



"Dear Lord, Thank you for making all the children. And for blessing all the cars. Thank you for loving me. Amen"



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Last week I was working on cookies all morning and suddenly I noticed that the boys were WAY to quiet. To my surprise, when I found them they were just reading books to each other!!






I think we are pretty much up-to-date now...thanks for being patient with us! Hopefully tomorrow, we will be back to regular posting. :)

Friday, January 20, 2012

Smarty Pants

Karterman never ceases to amaze me with the new things he is learning. Wednesday night I was making dinner while we was playing with his puzzles at the table (something he has done all day for the past week). When he told me he was going to do his state puzzle I told him to let me know if he needed help putting some of the states in their spots.

I got busy in the kitchen and didn't hear a peep from him, and then the next time I turn around he is putting in some of the last pieces! I was totally shocked that he could do it all by himself!!

He was so proud of himself, and I was so proud of him too! He not only knows where they go, but he knows about 90% of the names and can recognize the spelling.


This is a little long video I shot yesterday morning of the boys playing with the puzzle. Karter was a bit distracted with Kaden "helping". He is getting much faster...in the time it has taken me to type this post, he has already finished the puzzle once this morning....he will only do approximately 99 more times today!! Enjoy...


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Random Recap: End of November - Mid December 2011

This news is nearly 2 months old and I am sure most everyone already knows, but the day after Thanksgiving, Kristoffer and I made the ultimate Black Friday purchase...a new car! The weekend before he was driving the Tracker home and all of a sudden he lost all ability to steer it. I'm sure every wife does not want to hear the words "it feels like one of the tires is about to fall off" about the vehicle your husband drives over 100 miles a day to and from work. We have some amazing people in our lives who are in the car repair business, so we slowly drove the Tracker there and waited for the news. God was definitely watching over Kristoffer, and thankfully he wasn't driving on the interstate when it happened, because the cross member (part of the alignment that hold the front two tires in place) had rusted into two pieces and the wheels were basically just flapping around in there.


The Tracker had been a great car for us and made many long trips with us, but was old and had a lot of miles on it. We had been hoping that it would last "one more winter" for the past couple of years, so it came as no surprise when they said it would be more to repair than it was worth. Not pleased with the timing, but happy to find Kristoffer a safer car we set out on a quest for a cheap, fuel efficient commuter car for him.


Our search took us to a local Chevy dealer, thankfully it was close enough to home that we could leave the boys with some loving family while we did the initial leg work of buying a car. While they were finishing up the detail work on the car, we ran home to get them so they could ride in Daddy's new car!

The Tracker had definitely seen better days, but it was a bit emotional seeing it go! It had been Kristoffer's car since the day I met him, and I knew what to look for when I was waiting for him to get home. More than anything, we had really just enjoyed the luxury of not having to make a car payment for it for all these years!


It is definitely not our family car, but is the right size just in case we all need to ride in it.


source Google Images

We purchased a 2012 Chevy Sonic. Every day on Kristoffer's commute, I used to wait for him to call and say he was stranded somewhere (that's how unreliable the Tracker was!), but this new car offers a piece of mind that is priceless!!


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When we decorated the rest of the house for Christmas, Karter was super excited to have his nativity set out too.


He is so precious, and every day he called me in to see all the people that were coming to see baby Jesus!!


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My MOPS group had a cookie exchange for our last meeting of the semester. Each member was to bring 4 dozen cookies.








4 dozen Christmas cookies! This platter has drummed up quite a bit of business!!


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My boys!!!


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Back in August, Kristoffer took over as the teacher of our Sunday School class. He is an amazing teacher and I love to watch him grow in his faith. Our last two sets of curriculum have been video series, Karter loves helping Daddy prepare for class!


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The week before the big move we moved our TV into the house and had Dish come out to set up our TV. Our two very curious little boys kept wanting to "help" the guy set up the satellite, so I rented a movie on the iPad for them to watch.


When he was all done, the boys were just as excited as Daddy to have our TV set-up! Karter kept showing me our "new" TV...he didn't remember this one from MN.


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Kaden is NOT scared of anything, this boy grabs life by the horns and goes. He gave us a few scares when he was still in his crib and started climbing out. One time he climbed/fell out and we thought he had really messed up his leg and he hobbled around for a few days. After that accident we knew we had to move him into a big boy bed. The transition has gone great and he sleeps better than he ever did in the crib!!!

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We packaged up some of our raspberry jam we made this summer to give to Karter and Kaden's Sunday School teachers.


For our Sunday School class I made some Christmas tree cookies.






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The boys have loved the unpacking process and rediscovering some of their old toys.


This old Elmo has provided a lot of entertainment...



...and belly laughs!!



If you are still reading, thank you and congratulations!!! We are just about caught up on our lives and very close to having regular posts again!!