Another thing that started this week was the re-tiling of our bathroom. I found water underneath the tile in our shower a couple of months ago and since we were going to have to re-tile the shower, we decided to go ahead and re-tile the entire bathroom. We hired a contractor and Jennifer used her discount at Pro Source to get the tile. It’s looking good. First they spent the first couple of days this week tearing out all the old tile. Then, they spent the past two days putting the new tile in. Once it’s all in, I’ll take some pictures and post them on the site. Won’t the home improvements end?
Abby and Emily are getting pretty restless, but it’s their last week of freedom. She goes back to school on Monday and she is going to start going every day Monday through Friday. Emily is also going to start going to pre-school, but she is only going to be going on Mondays and Wednesdays. Jennifer can’t wait.
The girls were on the verge of busting down the back door with anticipation this morning, wanting to go out on the play gym. Once I was at work, I called back to Jennifer to see how they were doing. She said that they had been out there for a couple hours just running around and playing. The next problem is containing all of the sand which is starting to get tracked into the house. Also, the girls are complaining that Austin is playing too rough. He will run around and nip at their heals while they run away giggling. Their only escape is to climb up into the play gym. Today’s picture is from last week when Austin was playing too rough with Abby and scratched her neck. Emily is not injured, but because Abby had a band aid, Emily had to have one too.
I read today on my friend, Tom’s, blog that one of his stories was quoted in a news article. He had a rant about how CNN was blowing the hurricane coverage out of proportion and apparently the CJR Daily thought it was good enough to quote and write an article around. That’s pretty cool, but then also a little scary that all of a sudden something that you are writing in your blog is being quoted in a news article.
It’s been a very busy week for the French household. First, Abby and Emily attended Vacation Bible School at our church each day this week. It was pretty tough because we had to be up and out of the house by 8:15 each morning. It’s not so hard for me because that’s around the time I leave for work, but for Jennifer and the girls, it’s quite a chore to get them up and going that early in the morning. They had a great time up there and we are going to hear Abby sing at church tomorrow.
The sand arrived for the play gym this week. Abby exclaimed that it was like being at the beach and they ran to the garage to get all of their beach toys. So, the play gym is still in pieces and there’s a ton of beach toys in the sand pit. Unfortunately, they didn’t bring enough sand to make it entirely level, so they are coming back this week to put more in. On Thursday, the other guys are coming back to put the play gym back together. The end is in sight for the play gym installation. (yippee)
Our next project is getting the tile replaced in our bathroom. A couple of months ago I discovered water underneath the tile in shower of our master bathroom. (I have a knack for finding water underneath our floors.) We pulled up some tile and discovered that water was getting underneath and the shower needed to be “re-floated”. So, we’ve hired a contractor and Jennifer ordered some tile. We are going to go ahead and get the whole bathroom re-tiled since we are at it. We’ve never like that tile, so we thought it was a good opportunity to go ahead and get it done.
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted my last updated. Between Isabelle and work, my plate has been full. At work, this weekend is the end of our Production period as we entering Alpha. This is the time where we switch our focus from creating new features for the game and just fixing the bugs in the features we’ve been creating for the past several months. So, this past week and this weekend are pretty busy for me at work.
Very good news on the play gym front. Our homeowners’ association has approved our play gym for the full height of 11 feet 3 inches. That means the whole this will be going up intact! Yea! Last weekend was spent buying big crape myrtles to block our neighbor’s view of the play gym once it goes back up. I tried to pick them up with our Sequoia, but they wouldn’t fit. I would have been dragging them all the way home. So, that was no good. I had to borrow a friends, truck in order to haul the home. I dug giant holes to bury them in and all was good. We also bought some plants to put along the fence line in order to grow into a hedge row. Next, we’ve hired someone to bring in sand and put it into the sandbox that I made. That will happen on Thursday, weather permitting. After that, we will call the play gym people and they will set it back up.
Last weekend I also bought a friend’sPlay Station Portable (PSP). I rented a few games from work, but I spent most of the weekend trying to get videos to play on the device. I bought a case and I’ve been mainly using it as an MP3 player until a really good game comes out for it. So far I’m really enjoying it. I’m going to try and get into some Podcasts which are out there. Podcasts are radio broadcasts recorded to an MP3, which you can download and put on your player and listen to them any time you want. The main one I’ve been listening to is This Week in Tech, which is hosted by some guys who used to host a show called The Screen Savers which was on TechTV before it got sold to G4 and was shut down. I think I’m going to search for some other similar Podcasts once I get some time.
Isabelle has been doing well. However, Jennifer and I are running low on sleep. Me because of work. Her because of Isabelle getting up at 3:00 and it taking her two hours to get her back to sleep. We are surviving, but it hasn’t been easy. Between Isabelle, the two other girls running around the house, and Austin, we really have our hands full right now. Abby and Emily are going to be going to some Vacation Bible School next week, so hopefully that will get them out of Jennifer’s hair for a while so she can get some peace. Even if it’s only for a couple of hours.
Rough Isabelle night last night. Jennifer was up with her most of the night and I was even called into duty a couple of times last night.
Good news: Today our fence was completed. Bad News: Austin can slide between the bars and get out of the back yard. Fortunately he’s still a growing puppy so, we just need to feed him more and that should stop his escaping.
Today Abby and Emily went to the doctor to get their check up before starting pre-school. They are both in perfect health. Abby is tall for her age and Emily is short. They both had fun getting their blood pressure checked because they had seen Jennifer get that done in all of her baby doctor appointments recently.
Abby has been trying to help out with Isabelle when she can. Today, Isabelle was crying and Abby offered to hold her. So, she sat down in a chair and I handed her Isabelle. She was doing a pretty good job comforting her, but after five minutes she was clamoring for me to come and get her. Hey, at least she’s trying.
Meanwhile Emily is getting more and more like a two year old every day. Lately she’s been collapsing into a crying puddle on the floor if she doesn’t get her way. It can be as simple as she wants more milk and isn’t willing to go into the play room to find her cup.
Another rough Isabelle night. The girl is definitely more awake at night than during the day. During the day she’ll just sit in her bouncer or swing and sleep away. The occasional cry for more food will go out, which will get fulfilled and back to sleep she goes. Apparently at night is when it’s time to look around. At night the cry will go out and food will be brought to her. Then, I will sit in the rocking chair with her for about an hour while she just looks around at nothing in particular.
Sitting up with Isabelle wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t have to get up at 5:15 this morning to take Nana and Poppy to the airport. It was poring down rain as the outer bands of Tropical Storm Arleen were hitting Central Florida. Nana and Poppy made their flight and made it back to Shreveport with their luggage this time. Thanks Nana and Poppy for coming to visit and watching Abby and Emily while Jennifer and I took care of Isabelle.
Today’s picture is from the big bike swap a couple of days ago. Emily is happy to be up and going on Abby’s old bike.
It was another rough night last night. I was up several times and ended up rocking Isabelle for about an hour trying to get her to go to sleep. Then, I was up at 6:00 when Isabelle’s crying woke Abby and Emily up. So, not much sleep is happening in Frenchville.
After lunch Poppy, Abby, and myself headed out to The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D. It was a pretty corny movie, but Abby seemed to like it. The 3D effects were fairly lame, with only a few good areas. Also, after a while, the 3D effects were giving me a headache. After the movie, Abby and Emily ran around the house with the 3D glasses on pretending they were Shark Girl and Lava Girl.
After dinner I took Nana and Poppy up to my work so that they could see the new building we moved into at the beginning of the year. They were amazed at how much we had grown since I gave them a tour a year and a half ago when they were here last.
Today’s picture is from when we were in the hospital the first day when Isabelle was born and Nana and Emily were visiting.
Last night Nana and Poppy brought Emily and Abby up to meet their new sister. Abby was very interested in taking care of the baby, but Emily could really care less. She was more interested in jumping on the bed.
You can tell Isabelle has her days and nights mixed up. She’s doing a lot of sleeping during the day and then she’s up looking around at night. Last night I did a lot of walking around to comfort her while Jennifer tried to get some sleep. We had a horrible night last night, but not because of Isabelle. The walls in the hospital were very thin and between the new parents next door with the baby that cried every fifteen minutes and the guy on the other side of us that was snoring, we got no sleep. Isabelle was great. Our neighbors were horrible.
We kept insisting to the nurses and doctors that we were leaving today. With Emily we were in the hospital for four days and with Isabelle, it was only one day. Almost exactly 24 hours since she was born and we were headed home.
Meanwhile at home Nana and Poppy have been taking care of Abby and Emily. They went to the store and bought a Slip and Slide. They had fun getting all wet in the back yard. They’ve been doing a lot of swinging on the new play gym as well. Today we decided to switch bicycles between the girls. Emily’s legs have been too small to reach the tricycle’s pedals, so Abby took Emily’s big tricycle and Emily started using Abby’s bike. Emily took to the bike like a fish to water. She was pedaling down the street like a pro. The only problem was that she didn’t like wearing her bicycle helmet.
Five days and counting. Jennifer is going to be induced on Monday, if she doesn’t go into labor before then. I can’t believe it’s already here. My parents are flying in Sunday to help us out with Abby and Emily while we are at the hospital. This week has gone by fast and Monday will be here before I know it.
It’s been a pretty busy week. On Thursday, Jennifer took the girls to the beach in order to get their picture taken by a photographer friend of ours. She gave us the pictures digitally, so Jennifer will be putting them up on dotPhoto or one of the other picture sites so that anyone who wants one can order a copy.
On Friday, the play gym that we ordered arrived and they started to install it. They ran into a snag while installing it: our back yard isn’t level and they had to use brink pavers to set part of this up. We weren’t comfortable with that, so we are gong to get that part of the yard leveled and they are going to come back and set the play gym back into the leveled area. So, even though it’s put together in today’s picture, there’s more work to be done.
The last two days Abby has been going to gymnastics in order to get her out of the house. She’s been really liking it and she’s been telling me a lot about her exploits on the “high bar”. She told me today that a clown came and painted their faces.
We’ve had great success on the Emily potty training front. She’s been dry for two days now. She gets up in the morning and goes right to the potty and tinkles. She now will tell us that she needs to “go poop on the potty” and runs off into the bathroom. I’m pretty impressed that she’s caught on so fast. Hopefully we won’t have a relapses once the new baby arrives.
Frenchville 