1. James finished laying the flooring in our basement. THIS IS HUGE. This project has been lingering all summer. Maybe even back into spring. There is still lots to do, like emptying out the closet and laying the flooring in there too, laying down quarter round (the trim that goes along the floor) and then of course PAINTING and picking out furniture… Notice how that one step about the furniture is the very LAST thing.. and yet when I awoke this morning, I was dreaming about where to put the kids toy nook and where to put my craft nook and what kind of rug would look best… Yeah. Me = jumping the gun a bit. Very exciting. We are going to have a few boxes of flooring left over, and I said, “It’s costco, they’ll take them back.” And James said, “Or we could do another room!” Which is tempting, and while I’m always surprised at how nice the floor looks whenever I go downstairs, I think for the rest of the house I would like to go dark. I’d love to get chocolate wood floors. (Yum!) I foresee this blog turning very design oriented in the upcoming months! Here’s the same flooring in James’ office:

   

   this is the same stage that our basement room is in now

   

   This is james’ office, looking through the door into the big basement room that now is also laid with laminate! This is the “done” picture of the office, the quarter round trim all put up. Please note, that laying floor on a diagonal like this is, in a word, INSANE. It takes SO MUCH MORE WORK. We didn’t do this for the big room. I don’t suggest you do it either.

2. Jocelyn dairy watch: She confirmed that she ate ice cream on the ride home on Friday. Saturday went ok. Sunday she woke up with a little scratchy voice and an occasional cough and sniff. I wrote it off to typical morning congestion. Her voice improved after she was up for a while, but by the end of the day her voice was getting seriously hoarse. No real coughing though, but still, I took it as a sign that she’s got some post nasal drip irritating her throat. This morning, still pretty hoarse and some minimal sniffing and coughing. I am still looking on the bright side because there is no visible snot leaking out of her nose. I hope that’s not waiting for tomorrow.

   So to sum up, I think the milk intolerance is still there, but if this is the worst it’s going to do, then it has improved quite a bit. It could still take a turn for the worse however, and I will lift my phone every time it rings the next few days with trepidation that it’s school calling because she has a fever.

3. My mixing bowl did arrive a week or so ago, and I decided to christen it in a variety of ways, one of which was making cinnamon rolls last weekend. Yum. The other of which was to make chocolate zucchini cake yesterday. Except I couldn’t find a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake so decided I’d just use the recipe for zucchini bread and toss some chocolate chips in there except that after cake bread was completely mixed and just waiting for the last minute addition of chocolate chips, I was shocked to find that there were none in the house. So now we have zucchini bread in a cake pan that tastes nothing like cake. It’s still pretty good. And now I don’t have a gargantuan zucchini on my counter anymore. yay!
4. Since I’ve been carting my mixer in and out of the cupboard above the microwave periodically lately, I’ve taken note of several items that I have and never use and therefore must go. In fact, I’ve been taking note all over the damn house. Our garage has slowly pushed our cars out of being able to park inside, and I’ve taken note of stuff there that must also go. And since our toy collection grows and I always say stuff is GOING already and then neglect to actually get rid of it and then the kids find it and it gets put back into the toy mix, that’s out of control as well. And lastly, our son has outgrown his britax Marathon carseat(!!) and I purchased him a booster this past weekend, so there’s another thing that can go. My point is, I foresee a post about how dumb people are on craigslist in the near future. Possibly more for my own benefit than yours (although if you’re in the dc metro/no va area and are interested, feel free to contact me, as the friend price is always better than the craigslist price), here is what needs to go:
   • pampered chef cheese grater
   • pampered chef apple slicer corer
   • diaper genie (hardly used, therefore no stink)
   • Britax Marathon (close to 5 years old – probably shouldn’t be used after 1 more year, freecycle?)
   • old dresser from kids’ rooms (possibly freecycle)
   • little tikes work bench
   • ball popper
   • should we get rid of one of the slides?
   • weeble wobble village
5. My son. My tiny baby boy. He is going to be in KINDERGARTEN. He has outgrown the seat we bought him when he was too big to fit in the infant carrier anymore (at FOUR MONTHS). He is going to continue at his school in their private kindergarten program, and they have a certain dress code they must adhere to. Khaki or navy pants, white, red or navy shirt. Red or navy sweatpants for PE, with red, white, or navy t-shirt to go with it. For some reason I just hate this dress code, because it seems like kindergarten is a little young to alleviate the problems dress codes/uniforms are supposed to alleviate (designer jeans and clothes envy and what not). I guess I can understand though, there is probably still envy about what another kid is wearing at that age, but still, I am somewhat irked by it, probably mostly because he has a MOUNTAIN of clothes that he’ll now not wear much and grow out of before next year.

   BUt oh well, right? I’ve tried to get behind the dress code and the school has even asked parents of past kindergarteners to donate what they dont need anymore, and offered those donations at $1 a piece. I spent a whopping $12 dollars and walked home with a pile of stuff. I finally sat down with Ethan this weekend and made him try everything on. Surprisingly, he was very adamant that nothing go back to the school to be exchanged – there were only 2 questionable items, a shirt that was too big for him, (“I’LL GROW INTO IT!”) and a pair of pants that were not only too small, but were girl’s pants (had the bootcut bottoms that you can’t avoid in girl pants nowadays) (“WELL THEY’RE MINE NOW SO THAT MAKES THEM BOYS!”)

   He was so enamored of a pair of red sweatpants and a longsleeved red polo shirt that he insisted on wearing it all weekend. “Look at me, mommy! I’m ALL RED! I’m wearing my KINDERGARTEN CLOTHES!” Cute, but annoying when we wanted to go out into the very hot and humid world and do anything. That boy loves his long sleeves and pants, he will be so happy when fall comes and he can wear them every day.

   I just can’t beleive this boy is so grown up. It’s shocking, really.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Probably more than enough for one monday. Ethan also ran around the house taking pictures of everything with our old camera yesterday (and this morning), so I’ll try to get those downloaded and post them for tomorrow. And FLOOR PICTURES! WAHOO!!

Hope you all had a good weekend!