Brian...dear Brian

So with Brian encroaching on his sixteenth birthday this summer, I figured I better start stepping up my game and teaching him more "life skills"....so that has been my focus with him lately. Here are some of the "oh sh*t, he's never gonna make it on his own" incidents:
#1 Pumping gas: We pull up to the gas pump, I had Brian my debit card and show him how to swipe it and instruct him to go ahead and fill the gas guzzling tank up. He swipes the card, "Hey Mom, it's asking what's our zip code?" "Really Brian??? It's 18092..right Zack??? (age 5...knows his address)" "Hey Mom, its asking if you want a (now bear with me and read this out loud..) rahsep-t." "Brian, I don't want a receipt, but I do want to punch you in the head! " : )
#2 Dr. appointment: Brian broke his leg and had a dr. appointment scheduled for 3 something...couldn't remember if it was 3:30 or 3:15 or 3:45...so, since it was Brian's appointment, I told him, "Look up the number, call the office and tell them; Hi this is Brian Moore, I have an appointment scheduled for this afternoon. I'd like to confirm the time please." Ok...easy peasy...I'm in the other room eavesdropping as he makes his call and this is what I hear.."Uh hi, is Dr. Sedicum there? (pause) Ok, can I please talk to him? (pause) " psst, mom...he's with a patient and can't come to the phone..." OHMY!!! I've got my work cut out.

Whew!!! To close for comfort

If you read down in a previous posting, we had a propane gas leak in our house. The "gas man" came and fixed it and joked with me that it's a good thing we aren't smokers. OK, so that's fixed...in that same utility room is our hot water tank and it's been acting up and we knew we needed to get it looked at. Well, Jason came home in the middle of the day for no apparent reason, other than a gut feeling, to check on the water heater. When he opened the door, he discovered that it had been on fire. Flames all up the side. Luckily we had #1 had moved everything (storage wise) out of the room so #2 the gas man could fix our gas leak. How blessed are we that just a matter of a few days earlier...the gas leak was fixed. I shudder every time I think of how close we were to losing our home (and possibly us???) I am so thankful that Jason is a man of god (whether he admits it or not) and listened to his "gut" and we were protected!

Cathing up....

I have been such a slacker this past year with posting. What an eventful year it was. In March we decided to finish our basement. While the house was torn up, and we had construction help (thank you brother-in-law Bob!!!) we thought we would sheet rock and close off our loft and turn it into another master bedroom and bathroom, then since we were getting that done, we needed new carpeting, and then since we were getting new carpeting, we found a great deal on hardwood floor and decided to re-floor the first floor. Then all of the rooms got repainted. WHEW!!! We finished the project (well... there is still touch up to be done) the week prior to Christmas. My parents and my sister, Emily and her husband, Kallen all came to our home for Christmas. It was a wonderful to have them visit. Wonderful to have my home in order! Also this year, we move our business office out of our home and into a rental space on location of where Jason's shop is. It was so nice to have the business out of the house. I hired a babysitter and WENT to work 2 days a week. Jason hired a landscape designer and we added landscaping to the business. It was a sucessful year, but expensive growing pains! I vow to keep posting. We have so many crazy things that go on in our life and so many funny things that the kids say and do. I will keep up in 2009!

Friday

Just another eventful day at the Decker household. Today I have food poisoning, Taylor was up at 3 AM with croup cough, and we have a propane gas leak in our house. Don't light the candles!!!! KA-BOOM! Never a dull moment!

Hot Tub

Our hot tub wasn't heating properly last week. It was low on water, so we thought maybe it wasn't cycling properly (????). So for THREE hours I filled buckets in the sink and dumped them in the tub outside. It was a whopping 10 degrees that day. It had snowed the day before and because we only had Zack's little 2 foot shovel to clear the snow, I didn't do such a good job. So the steps were icy. As I was dumping a bucked of water in, I leaned over to check the water level to see if I was making progress. My feet slipped right out from under me and I fell head first into the cold-hot tub. Not a good day!

What the hell is in our Chimney?

We recently finished our basement!!!! Woooo-hooooo!!!! Jason has a little tool storage room. He went in it and when he opened the door, he heard rustling...he looked around and then WHHOOSH! Something flew up and went into our chimney hole (an extra outlet we built for someday adding a fireplace in the basement)!!! We had the hole just duct taped shut, but this sucker chewed or clawed a big hole and was hiding out. YIKES!!! Jay didn't know what it was he just screamed like a girl "It's big, it's big, it's big!!!" He was the only one that saw it...and couldn't tell what it was other than it was big and flew. We didn't know what to do, I was absolutely paniced and freaked out!!! We duct taped (an entire roll) a plate over the hole and then wedged a 2 x 4 over that. We could hear this sucker clawing at the plate trying to get us. He was mad. It was soo scarry! My dad wanted to uncover the hole and hold a pillowcase over it and catch the critter. OH-NOOOO!!!! Can you picture that image...my dad carrying a pillowcase with this wild mad critter in it, through the house and letting it go out in the woods???? No way Dad!!! I felt like moving I was so freaked by the whole thing.

February 2nd

Those of you that know Zack, know that he is VERY excitable...we have affectionately nicknamed him "Billy Maise" ....ya know, the crazy loud guy on all the info-mercials. So Zack came home from preschool VERY excited that the "brown" hog saw his shadow.

Date Night

Jason and I and our BFF'S (Jim and Jen) went out on a date. It was SOOO nice to eat dinner at a grown up, white table cloth restaurant that didn't give you a prize at the end of your meal. We even went to a non-animated movie!!!! We figured that we hadn't been out to dinner together without the children since our trip to Hawaii in 2005!!!! Too long!!! It was sad that we were all snug in our "dress up clothes". Even Jason's shoes were too small...how do you get fat in your feet???? Anyway, the next morning I asked Zack if he was a good boy, he replied "VERY!" I asked if sister was a good girl, he just held up his hands in front of him (like "talk to the hand") and said, "BEAST!" He cracks me up!!!