Lily's Speech and an F-16 flyover

Lily has been participating in a Liberty Girls club. Her group has been reading through the Samantha books in the American Girls series, and at each meeting they discuss one book and participate in activities connected with them. Yesterday was their last meeting for this school year, and the girls had each prepared a speech on "Progress in America" (Samantha gave a speech on that topic in one of the books). Lily chose to talk about airplanes and air travel--but right in the middle of the speech an F-16 fighter jet went streaking overhead. She had to wait until the sound of the jet engine died down before finishing her speech. She was upset at first, but after we explained that people go to a lot of trouble to arrange flyovers for special events she thought it was pretty cool. Very appropriate to the topic of the speech!

Bathroom Remodel Part 2

Looking better...

And better! The red behind the tub is not our color scheme (though I actually think it's pretty)--it's a special sealant paint that goes under the tile to keep water from seeping through (hopefully preventing a re-do of this whole thing in 5 years!)

Too bad I didn't take any photos of the bathroom before we started tearing things out--it was exceptionally ugly--20 year old linoleum, very sloppy amateur tiling (seriously, there was grout all over the tiles), and an aweful looking old jetted tub. Maybe I should be grateful for the rotted subfloor since it gave me an excuse to redo things!

Bathroom Remodel

We had a problem with water damage to our bathroom's subfloor (we knew about the problem, although not it's extent, when we bought the home)--so we're doing some remodeling work. OK, we're not doing most of the work--we've hired a contractor, who has been fabulous to work with. The picture above shows the new tub we ordered--cast iron, because Dan wanted something that will last. It's not ready to be installed yet, so the children haved turned it into a boat in the living room. That hole near one end was obviously designed just to hold a mast!

Here's the bathroom with the old tub and half the subfloor torn out...We don't have another tub or shower, so anyone who wants to shower this weekend gets to go to the gym!

So much of the world left to see...

visited 25 states (11.1%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it would be fun. Obviously I'm going to need a couple more lifetimes to see the whole world. Especially given that I've only seen a small portion of each country visited.

New additions to the family

These sweet girls (we think) joined our family a couple of weeks ago. They're beautiful kittens and very tolerant of all the love they get from the kids.
After a drizzly morning the rain sun is shining. I love springtime! Luke and Esther are fighting, I think I'll send them outside.

Walking

Give me more!

Esther caught me sneaking a bite of ice cream while I was fixing breakfast this morning. I decided it was only fair to share what was left in the carton (it wasn't much) so I got out three bowls--one for each of my older children. When she saw me dividing the ice cream into the bowls, Esther protested "I don't think Lily and Luke want ice cream!"
"Oh, I think they do," I replied.
"Well, make sure you give me more!" came the response.

I guess sharing doesn't come naturally at age 3...