Fixing the Truck

Kimball has watched a little Handy Manny of late and decided that he needed to work on his dump truck. I found him and Cita in my bedroom banging and hammering on the truck. Shortly after that, Kimball announced that his truck was all better.

As you can see, Rebecah was all smiles for the pictures while Kimball was concentrating on fixing his truck.

New Carpet

We are installing new carpet and I love it! Our old carpet was the original in the house so that means it was builder's grade carpet that was 14 years old. I read online that most builder's grade carpet is meant to look nice for 6 months. Our carpet was nasty and we didn't realize quite how bad it was until we started taking it up to install the new. The previous owners had a dog...enough said.
We have a friend from church who does construction contracting for his profession who is helping us install our carpet. He is helping us "after hours" so it is slow going at times. He and Joseph work together and Joseph is learning a new skill.
Joseph and I, mainly Joseph, remove the old carpet and pad and then install the new pad so when our friend comes he only needs to help with the actual carpet installation.
We carpet style we picked is the frieze which is quite popular right now. It is lush and so cushy!
We still need to do 2 small rooms and the hallway but we are close to being finished.

Here are some pictures.
Our old carpet. At the very bottom of the picture is were the couch was and that carpet is essentially new carpet but the rest of the floor is worn and matted down.


Joseph and Kimball hard at work prepping the floor.


Rebecah can a couple of run-ins with the carpet tacks and after that she was afraid to venture over the tack strips. I can't say I blame her. She would just stand on the safe floor and peek her head around.



The new carpet in Kimball's room.


This last picture has nothing to do with the new carpet, but Rebecah makes the best smile face these days! I just love her scrunched up face when she sees the camera come out.

New Responsibilities

Joseph was called last week to serve on the High Council for our Church. This means that at least once a month he will visit other congregations in the area and speak in that congregation. He is excited about this new opportunity. It will be a lot of driving as some congregations are over 3 hours away. He'll also have bi-monthly meetings on Thursdays. He is also assigned a Spanish speaking congregation to advise. This congregation is quite small and about 45-50 minutes away. The children and I will attend Sunday meetings with him as we are able, but we'll probably attend our own ward in Russellville when he has long distances to travel.

Fast and Brave

As most of you know, I have a strong dislike for spiders. I have never been fond of them, but when 2 large spiders joined me for my showers, twice, when we lived in Alabama, that sealed the deal and I avoid the 8 legged creatures at all cost.

Saying that, I don't want Kimball or any of my children to be afraid of spiders. We have had quite a few spiders in our house latel, so Kimball took it upon himself to become the spider killer. Joseph told Kimball if he was signing up for the job he had to be fast and brave so the spiders wouldn't get away. Kimball is great! He finds a shoe and kills it...sometimes it takes many attempts to actually kill the spider, and then he'll get a tissue and clean it up. I do still kill a spider now and then if Kimball isn't around, but for the most part all we have to say is "Fast and Brave" and Kimball comes running. Kimball told me today that he is "The best spider killer!"

Rebecah has even started to participate. She will frequently grab a shoe and hit the floor and pretend spiders.

It must have been a fluke...

So, we are thinking that Kimball's run in with the hives was just some unexplained occurance and not related to peanuts at all. About two weeks ago we started Kimball on peanuts again. First it was just foods processed in the same facility as peanuts. Then we progressed to peanut oils and then to an eigth of a peanut butter sandwich, and then on to a full blown sandwich. He has done just fine with no itchies. We are all relieved that it wasn't peanuts. That wouldn't have been fun. As it was, Kimball still asked for peanut butter sandwiches multiple times a week even though he knew it might make him itch. I never gave in until we were ready to try a small sandwich.

Bring on the peanut butter! I had to stop myself many times from making desserts that had peanut butter in them because I knew I couldn't make something and not share with Kimball.

Mother's Day

I had a nice Mother's Day. Joseph had all of his church meetings before and after church canceled so he was able to spend so much time with me and the kids. It was nice. I made white chocolate cranberry scones for breakfast and they are tasty. Joseph offered to make them, but I knew I could whip them out faster than he could and I didn't mind.
I also made my own dinner...I didn't mind that either. I wanted a nice dinner and am willing to work for it. Joseph did help cut the meat for our dinner and then the cranberries and nuts for our dessert. Kimball helped with the nuts and cranberries.


Our tickets to see Les Mis and babysitting fees were supposed to be my Mother's Day present, but Joseph didn't really follow the rules and bought me a watch, too. I have decided that Joseph rarely follows the rules when it comes to buying me presents.

Les Miserables

We went to Fayetteville over the weekend to see Les Miserables. After seeing Wicked in November Joseph really wanted to see Les Mis or The Phantom of the Opera. We lucked out by having Les Mis come just 2 hours from our house.



It was a long day away from the kids, but they did great with the babysitter. We were told that Rebecah only cried when she went down for her nap and hurt herself. No complaints there.

Seeing Les Mis in person was an eye opener. There were a lot more sexual gestures that we weren't anticipating so that left us uncomfortable on more than one occasion...the song Master of the House being the worst.

The performers weren't the Original London cast quality, but they were pretty good. We weren't disappointed in Bring Him Home.

Now we just need Phantom to come to our area...Currently, it only plays in New York and Las Vegas.