The Toilet is Gone!

And so are Rachel's diapers most of the time! She seems to hold things better when she is not wearing a diaper, so I let her run around without one a lot. I was cleaning under the cushions and decided to make her a place to jump. She had fun!

Likes to play under the table a lot and pretend to take a nap. She is doing great with potty training and typically has about one accident a day. Sometimes that accident is in her diaper and sometimes I am cleaning it up off the floor. If we are out, I don't usually worry about getting her to go. A work in progress, but I am really proud of her!

This toilet has seen its last day in my house! With Rachel really needing a toilet on the first floor and this one continuing to break, I didn't have to argue much about replacing it. We just used the toilet that was going to go in our bathroom, so we will just buy another one when we actually need it.

Her new overall jumper! I am such a sucker for overalls.

Running from the camera like usual.

The new toilet

Button on the left for #1 and the right is #2

On a great note, we picked out our tile for the bathroom and shower last night. It is going to look so great and Matt seriously has her work cut out for him. This is the shower tile. It is polished travertine and so shiny!

The floor tile is 12 by 24 and it really close in color to the shower tile.

These smaller pieces are polished marble and the bottom left corner is what it really looks like. The rest has a shadow on it, but it is shiny too. We are going to put these every so often on the floor and in the shower.
These glass tiles are actually shinier than they look because once you wet and seal them, it really brings out the color. They are still neutral, but give a little bit of glimmer and color. Matt didn't want glass tile, but we fell in love with these right away. We are going to use about 4 or 5 rows after 3 rows of the square shower tiles as a decorative border.

This is the bullnose that will go on the top and bottom of the glass tile border. It is called pineapple onyx and was really the only thing that matched, but didn't blend in too much and was polished. It is different but will look great! Matt is going to go for the seamless look with no grout lines, which means there is very little room for error in his cuts and placement. Fortunately, his tile skills have gotten better with every job and I am fully confident that he can do this. I cannot wait!

Rachel is feeling completely better, but I am still struggling with some sinus issues. It is giving me really bad headaches, so pray that those go away.

On the Mend

Rachel and I have been varying degrees of sick over the past 5 days. We spent 3 hours at her doctor's office Wednesday morning with all the fun of ear cleanings, finger stick, getting bagged for urine, and then a catheter for more urine all while having a fever and sore throat. Her strep test came back clean and was put on antibiotics for 10 days. She lost the fever after a day or so, but of course, was still whiny, clingy, and just pathetic. She didn't sleep well at night and after two days, I felt like I was coming down the same thing. We had a garage sale planned for Saturday morning and I made it through that while feeling like crap. I came home and took a nap and then headed to the walk-in-clinic to be told my strep test was clean and was put on the same antibiotic as Rachel. Mine seems to be lasting a little longer than hers because my sinuses are being icky too. Over the last two days, Rachel has taken quite an interest in going on the potty. Hannah and Kate and potty training and Rachel is taking her cue from them. She tells me many times that she needs to go and actually does. She also tries just to get candy. She cannot hold it yet during her nap or at night, but does a pretty good job during the day. Wiping and flushing are also a great incentive for her. I would be so happy to have her potty trained (except at night) soon! I had a late night and not enough rest for the Nyquil I took, so I am off.


Helping me get the clothes from the dryer. She wet the bed somehow last night. I think she might have woken up and needed to go potty, but took her diaper off and somehow put it back on too. Who knows, but I did not like having to change her sheets in the middle of the night and then listen to her scream for about 30 minutes or so afterward. She earned a few spankings from Matt last night.

Getting a Break!

Lauren and I helped in a 4 year old room this last week at Vacation Bible School. This meant Rachel had to get dropped off 5 days in a row for about 4 hours. She did not take to the dropping off/getting picked up part well. She cried, but then settled down and had fun. However, when someone else got picked up, she cried again. Our room was right across from hers, so I could see when she was getting upset and I usually let her come into our room the last 10 minutes or so. I think she had a good time (I know I did!), but we were very tired afterward.

This is Rachel's sexy pose or at least that is what it looks like to me. She likes to play with her gummy vitamins, which she calls "minnies" for whatever reason.




Since we had to be a church at 8:15 for VBS, Rachel got up much earlier than normal. She actually got to see Matt before work, which I think they both really liked.

Plenty of kisses for Daddy!

Watching TV with her puppy


Katie and I are heading to the Orlando outlet malls tomorrow without kids for about 7 hours or so and I am looking forward to it so much. Rachel will spend the day with her great-grandma and Hank. I hope they survive!

Things We Spotted Today!

Rachel and I headed to Busch Gardens without our usual bunch. I promised her we would go and she remembers those kind of things now. All she could talk about was swimming and tigers. We veered from our normal routine and decided to see a bunch of animals today instead of the Elmo show and rides. She really liked this and loved the tigers. They were actually growling at each other. Apparently, one of the white tigers kept going near an orange one that was in the water. Everytime it got close the orange one would just growl and look mean.

We grabbed some lunch and she played in the water for an hour.



She likes to plug up the holes by leaning against it.

She did not want to be in pictures today and she is half whining, half saying cheese for me.

This is the last critter we encountered and she wanted to pet the snake. No big deal for her.

Exiting the park and Mom still hoping to get a decent picture in. Not a chance.

Swimming

Matt wasn't allowed to work on his off day and Rachel really wanted to go swimming. Matt had talked to her about it and she went upstairs and dragged our swim bag from our junk room down the steps and to the back door. She was ready! She had a lot of fun and I had a good time snapping pictures from the side of the pool. She has lost much of her nerve that she had about a year ago and is much more cautious and clinging for dear life. She enjoys jumping from the side and doesn't have to be touching or holding hands for her to actually jump. She almost fell asleep on the way home and it was only 1:15. I guess she was worn out!

Big Victory!

Matt and DJ worked very hard yesterday putting up the backerboard and drywall in the bathroom. It looks so much more finished when you cannot see insulation in the walls. I spent the entire day (about 12-13 hours) doing our closet. There was only one shelf all the way around. Since the closet isn't that big, I wanted to make the most of the space. I thought about it for a while, got some ideas from the internet, started making my lines for the drawer unit and then of course, changed my mind. I really like the way it turned out and I only needed help on a little bit of it. So, I could claim this project as mine. I am getting much better with a drill. I plant on tackling our linen closet next to move the shelves closer together and add one or two.

The left side of the closet


The shoe rack
The right side. Ignore all of the wires. Ugh (I think they are for the alarm system)

So, what did Rachel do all day? She has been so good lately when I have been doing projects. Our DVR is not working right, so we cannot access On Demand to get Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and our Dora movie has mysteriously gone missing. We don't have a VHS anymore, so the only kids DVD we have is a Baby Einstein on shapes, which she likes. She watches that once or twice a day and then has been so good about playing in her playroom or she will come upstairs and watch us work. She likes to play with the flashlight and look at all of the tools laying around. I love her!

We had a great July 4th at some friend's house. They got a bounce house and did fireworks. Rachel had a so much fun, but was a little scared of the loudness that came with fireworks. She loved the colors and kept saying "colors, come out" We stayed until about 10 pm and she did whine or cry once.

Small Victories!

Rachel really likes playing with flashlights. Matt has a larger one that he uses for projects around the house. He was working on hooking up the sinks in our bathroom when Rachel snatched it from him.



I am working on painting our closet and designing some sort of organization system. Rachel has been pretty good about not getting paint on her and staying away from the wet walls. I had just put the tray down and turned my back to start rolling a wall when you whined for a second and I found these footprints. Hhhmmm... I guess she stepped in the paint tray. Fortunately, the flooring is nothing special and I sure didn't care.

Resting with her doll.

No hiding it when she gets into my chapstick. It is strawberry flavored and comes off red. She has done this a few times, but it just cracks me up how it is all over her face.


Onto the small victories... our counter tops got installed yesterday morning and Matt and I worked together to put in the three faucets and hook up the sinks. Matt did about 95% of the work and I did whatever he told me to. I was so happy to be able to use a sink upstairs again. All of the sink plumbing is connected so we couldn't do just one, but had to finish all 3. They look so pretty. We got rectangular sinks for our vanity. Matt wanted them and I really like it a lot.

I recently painted the walls a blueish-gray that I will take into the tub/toilet area (when half of the walls aren't missing).

This is Rachel's vanity. The sink is off centered because of the type of cabinets we had to get to be able to accommodate the laundry shoot that is in the left cabinet. However, I still like it. The granite turned out so pretty.


I went in for my 6 week post surgery appointment and everything looks great. I was released to my normal activities. So, back to the gym I go!