Santa Clause is Coming to Town!

Oh what fun we had! The ward had a family Christmas dinner/dance. It was a blast. I'm going to let the pictures of Little E with Santa speak for themselves.




























Yup, Santa was not a huge hit with our little guy. Poor Santa! The dinner was awesome, and the dance a blast though. We stayed until about 11:30pm, by then Little E was beyond tired!

The next weekend we took some family pictures...here's one or two for you...





























We'll definately take more when the little B arrives. Now for the pregnancy update...I go for another ultrasound this coming friday, and hopefully I get some new pics from that. I have had to do a 24 hour urine analysis (which is a fancy way of saying - pee in this plastic container with a small opening for 24 hours), followed by a blood test which will tell them if I really did get ALL the pee in there for the 24 hours. (Sheesh...I think I can handle instructions like, pee in this for the next 24 hours- not that hard.) Anyway...I started this morning at 9am. It is now almost 11pm and the only worrying thing is that this container only has 1 1/2 inches in it. We'll see what they say, but that's not usually a great sign. Well dear reader, it's time for bed. Keep your fingers crossed!

Before I get into what a wacky weekend we had, here's a picture of a beaded Big E. :) Doesn't he look handsome? He looked darned adorable as a homeless guy in the "Forgotten Carols". He mused for a bit about keeping it, but finally decided that he couldn't take it any longer and shaved it off. We took the mug shot right before he had his run in with the razor!





What a weekend! I got sick (that's never a good thing), and we decided it was now or never to get to our bathroom floor. We knew there was damage to the wood under the toilet from a water tank bursting. (That happened prior to our possession of the property.) We had been putting off ripping up the linoleum. We knew there'd be a fair bit of work, and we weren't sure what it was going to end up costing...so like the smart cats we are, we just waited. We waited until we could wait no longer! I took a close look at the toilet and realized that it was sinking at the back...badly. So, this weekend we ripped up the linoleum to see just what we were dealing with. Oh boy, what a mess...what a smell!
I'm amazed neither of us dropped through the floor while sitting on the throne. It was that bad. Even the pictures do not do it justice. Big E spent most of Saturday ripping out all affected wood (lovely particle board stuff), removing the toilet and cutting plywood to replace the floor.

We went shopping at the Habitat for Humanity store. It's a wonderful place full of great deals. All kinds of renovation materials at a fraction of the cost...they are donated to Habitat and they sell things they end up not needing. We bought a few pieces of plywood there (no more than $2/board...of course they weren't all the same size...but it was cheaper than buying one big board), glue remover ($5), glue for the linoleum ($5), and two pieces of linoleum to cover our newly repaired floor ($25 and $15 respectively). We also bought a bag of nails ($2), and a glue spreader (50 cents). The price of the new floor??... $60, not falling through the floor while sitting on the toilet??...priceless!
Then Big E got everything ready to put the toilet back....only to discover that the bolts weren't long enough. How this happened, we have no idea unless perhaps they weren't the right size to start with. So, we had to wait until Monday to get new bolts. Now it's in, and it works, and we are HAPPY! It's funny how not having a toilet for a couple of days really makes you appreciate having one that works! A pee-pot is just not the same.





So, everything works, and it's all cleaned up...we just haven't laid the new floor. When we do, the pictures will appear! :) Until then dear readers, enjoy the season!