House Update #2

I can finally say that I have ONE room in this house DONE! FINALLY! Ian's room is finished!




Some BEFORE shots. Yes, that is a giant bull head and yes, that is ORANGE paint.





Here are the AFTER Pictures



















We had to put two coats of primer and two coats of paint to cover that orange paint! We chose a nice blue and Michael put up beadboard paneling and new moldings, that we painted bright white. We also put in a ceiling fan and new curtains. Ian is so excited to have his airplanes back up on the ceiling and I'm excited to be done with one room! The rest of the house is another story! We'll keep you posted--one room at a time!

House Update #1

We finally have our mold and rot problem solved. Yes, a month later, we no longer have a hole in our wall! The stucco guys came and were able to patch the area instead of ripping off the entire back of the house, which was the initial plan. They were able to replaced the wood, redo the stucco, and put in a kick plate to divert the water from the roof into the gutter (where it's supposed to go) instead of pouring on to the house, like this:

Part of The Rot

The New Wood

The New Stucco

INSIDE

The New Wood

New Insulation

New Drywall

Tape and Mud

Michael has done a fantastic job inside! He only has to texture the wall and we will be ready to paint! FINALLY! Good Bye RED and GOLD Walls! We will finally have a FAMILY ROOM! Yay!

My Dear Husband

I got this off of Heather Shepherd's blog today and loved finding out more about her husband! Then it dawned on me--I don't think very many people know ANYTHING about my wonderful husband, Michael! So here goes:

1. What is his name? Michael Troy Otis

2. How long did you date? Dated 3 months, engaged 3 months

3. How long have you been married? 10.5 years

4. Who eats more sweets? I eat more sweets--Michael eats more chips, snacks, salty stuff

5. Who said I love you first? I'm not sure who said it first--we both knew it after the 1st date

6. Who is taller? Michael is much taller than me

7. Who is a better singer? I'm a better singer--he is Cliff's son, so I believe it's genetically impossible for him to be a good singer! Although his mother, Trish, has musical talent so maybe there's hope!

8. Who is smarter? Michael is so much smarter than me sometimes I wonder why he married me!

9. Who does the laundry? He wears it, I wash it, he sometimes folds it, but not the right way.

10. Who pays the bills? Michael takes way too much pleasure in doing the bills, so I'm not allowed.

11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I sleep on the right

12. Who mows the lawn? Michael loves yard work!

13. Who cooks dinner? Me and only me--Michael can do cereal and tomato soup, but that's about it!

14. Who drives? Michael always drives

15. Who is more stubborn? I'm pretty stubborn, but Michael is passive aggressive--I don't know which is worse!

16. Who kissed who first? He kissed me, on our first date--which I'm still not happy about!

17. Who asked who out? I did! He was the first person I had ever asked out! And it's a good thing I did or I think he would still be single!

18. Who is more sensitive? Me. Michael lets everything roll off his back--a quality I wish I could have!

19. Who has more siblings? I have 5, Michael has 3

20. Who wears the pants? Our kids. REALLY!

Now you are all tagged! Copy and paste it to your blog!

Emma's name should be Grace

So as I said before, we had a crazy week. School started, the stucco guys finally came and started to fix the whole in my wall, and then Friday hit. I was getting ready for my first activity as the new Enrichment leader for our ward. Michael heard Emma screaming outside and rolling his eyes, because this happens more than once a day from her, went out to see what she did this time. As he approached her sitting in the middle of the street he saw the blood. So he scooped her up and ran inside, yelling for me to come help. I'm rolling my eyes, again because of the hourly occurrence of Emma screaming, but go downstairs to see what's going on. Then I see the blood, massive amounts of blood, oozing out of her mouth.

Emma's shirt is soaked and she is screaming so loud we can't hear each other talking. I get her in the bathroom and start washing the blood out of her mouth, so I can see what is going on in there. I can't see much but I can tell her tooth had been knocked back and her lip was swelling like a balloon right in front of my eyes. We couldn't get the bleeding to stop, so I officially start to freak out!

So we call Jacqui to watch Ian and Sophia, and rush Emma to Instacare. We carry her inside and immediately the nurse comes out to us. She takes one look at her mouth and with both hands lifts her lip all the way up. I almost screamed! How could she do that to my bleeding baby! After 3 seconds, the nurse then says she'll be fine. FINE, I'm thinking! Do you not see the blood?! But I guess she didn't penetrate to the other side and they don't do stitches in the mouth anymore, so from her stand point, Emma was fine! The nurse recommended we get her tooth looked at but then sent us home. So all was well. But man, she gave us a scare! When you see that much blood coming out of your child--you kind of lose it!

So the dentist said both her top, front baby teeth are loose and should fall out on their own. No pulling! Thank Goodness! This kind of stuff always happens to Emma! We should have named her Grace--because at least she would have something graceful about her. My poor girl!

Just for Fun

We are trying to plan a trip to Disneyland for the girls birthday--money permitting--and I came across this! It makes me so excited for Jedi training and Disneyland! It's the best place on earth! So hope you all have a good laugh and enjoy!

What A Week!

We have had quite the week at our house!(Stayed tuned for more!)
First, Emma and Sophia started kindergarten on Tuesday. They love their new teacher, Mrs. Jones, and their new school. They are so excited to go everyday and love being a "big school kid". They are now saying "Now I'm a kindergartener, I can do this..." or "I'm a big five-year-old, I can do this...". It's kind of sad to see them get so big and grow up so fast but I'm so proud of them. This has been a big year for them!

They have afternoon class and so do all the other girls in our neighborhood so it's been great to have all the girls going at the same time. They have so much fun together and get along pretty well for 5 year old girls!



I love how different they both are. I'm so glad they have such distinct personalities and they know who they are. They want everyone to know they are twins but they also want they own identities. They love to dress the same but sometimes have different opinions on what is cute and what is comfortable. Emma's all about the cuteness factor--who cares if it comfortable! Sophia would wear pajamas every day if I would let her! Emma usually picks first and then Sophia just wears what Emma's wearing! So Emma decides she wants to wear a skirt for the first day of school and Sophia wanted to wear pink, so they picked these outfits to wear. But Sophia said she could not play in that skirt so she changed to shorts. Emma wanted to wear her new black mary-janes but Sophia wanted flip- flops! It's so funny to watch this process every morning as they get ready! They will usually compromise with each other or they will wear something completely different--it just depends on the day. Anyways, I thought they looked so cute in what they picked out!



Mrs. Jones asked them to make these self portraits to hang in the classroom. I think they did such a great job with these and they really show their personalities! They had to have the same patterned dress but they accessorized it so differently. I just love these! My girls are too cute!

Fun on the 24th

We had a full house for the 24th! John, Sarah and their girls came up with their friends from California. We had a BBQ and then went up to "The Circle" for fireworks and fun!







They really got into the poppers--I think Sophia did 5 bags herself! This was Ian's first time with poppers. He was a little too gentle with them and couldn't get them to pop. So he just stomped on them! Emma liked the sparklers the best.






Sadie and Ian in deep conversation, with cookies in hand:

Welcome To Our Nightmare

MOLD and ROT
Two things you don't want to have in your new house!

So here is the whole story--we were painting the office and had taken all the boxes out and piled them in the corner of our living room. When we finished painting we finally unpacked the boxes and found a big black spot on the carpet where the boxes had been piled. At first we thought it was my art supplies leaking out of the box but that box was filled with my scrapbook paper not my art supplies! So then we realized it was mold. We called our homeowners insurance and they came out to take a look at it. The guy was really nice and said it was no big deal--just cut out the carpet in the corner and seal underneath it and we'd be okay. Whew! So we cut out the carpet and saw it was on the wall, so Michael cut a little of the dry wall off and the wood underneath was wet! So we cut a little more and found the insulation was wet. We cut that all out and found the wood crumbling all the way to the stucco!
So we called our insurance company and they came out again and said it's worse than they thought and there was an obvious leak from the stucco and that they don't cover stuff like that. So we are left with an enormous, expensive mess and no one to help us fix it. The insurance company said it's a pre-existing condition, a builder defect, and the previous owners fault for not fixing it when it started getting wet inside or even disclosing the problem to us when we purchased the house. So, yes, this is our nightmare!