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March 26th, 2012 | by Jessie | 
Here is an entry for The Naughty Files, just for old times’ sake.
Today I was heading down to our basement to work in my quilting room while the older boys were in school and Jace was napping. I was snacking on a string cheese stick and at the bottom of the stairs I tossed its wrapper into a small trash can. It was then I noticed the frightening contents of said trash can:
That is what it looks like: copious amounts of broken glass.
No one had informed me of any broken glass and I had to find out why not. Josh was home from work so I asked him if he knew about it. He said no, but he had noticed a picture frame that was off its wall hook in the basement.
Upon further investigation, I found that two pictures had been taken off the wall. One frame had its glass removed – and was intact – on the table next to where the pictures previously hung. The other frame was on the floor and had no glass, save for tiny particles sparkling under the artificial basement light.
Instead of a bare wall where the pictures used to be, I found this, one very important clue:
If you’re having a hard time making out the writing, it reads “Do not open until 2015”. A time capsule of sorts? Oh, now would be a good time to mention that we’ve recently introduced the kids to Back to the Future. I’ll assume that you remember the part in the movie when Marty writes a letter to Doc Brown warning him that he’s going to be shot by terrorists in the mall parking lot. On the envelope containing the letter he writes “Do not open until 1985”. Yeah. I’m guessing that was the motivation behind this little project.
A few problems: I believe they meant for this to be secret. I believe they were trying to hide the note in a picture frame and when they couldn’t get one frame back together they tried the other one. When that one broke, I think they became distracted, quietly picked up the glass and forgot about their big, secret note. Another problem was the envelope was precariously hanging from the wall with tape holding one edge. AND the bottom of the envelope was completely open. I’m thinking this wouldn’t have lasted on the wall for a week, much less 3 years. Here’s a view from the floor looking up:
The big, secret, important note!!
What – oh what! – could it possibly say?!?
Oh wait, what is this? Jude and Jett’s name with (what I’m told is) a trophy! Huzzah!
Maybe this will all make sense in 2015.
Thankfully no one was hurt, although Josh remembered seeing a little cut on Jett’s finger a few days ago and wonders if it was from this incident. How Jett summoned enough courage to go on without making a big deal out of getting a Band-Aid is beyond me, perhaps the task at hand was far too great to worry about his personal safety. Anyway, the frames have been removed and extra vacuuming has been done to make sure they are safe, so crisis averted…
for today, at least.
February 14th, 2012 | by Jessie | Happy birthday, Mom! Happy birthday to our nephew Jackson!
Happy Valentime’s Day to the rest of us. Yes, I know it’s really Valentine, but it’s always Valentime in our house. Just to remind us of how funny it is when people say it wromg. I mean wrong. See how easy it is to comfuse n’s and m’s? It’s the hardest job I have.
Yesterday the older boys were both honored at school for being Star Students. Spoiler alert: every child gets to be Star Student at one point in the school year. But, it’s the biggest deal to the kids and gives us a chance to show our love and support for them. It’s a fun thing. My mom came to watch the assembly and both of Josh’s parents took off work to come. The boys were so excited! Jude was announced first but he got the biggest delight out of seeing his brother also receive the Star Student award. Very sweet stuff.
Today Jett and Jude got to take the valentines “we” made for their classmates to school. I pulled the idea from Pinterest… it’s a good one:
Those are foam paper lips for the ladies and (of course) mustaches for the gents. They were pretty fun to make; I hope the kids have fun with them.
The boys in their new valentines (shirts) from Abba. Angry Birds kind of rules in our house these days, but Jace is a fan of “Icky Mouse”.
Oh, one last thing… here’s a little video of Jace rocking and rolling:
Don’t mind the other voices in the background, they are just reacting to the basketball game that was on last night. =)
February 13th, 2012 | by Jessie | In December, I was having a hard time getting the older boys to behave in the car ride to school in the mornings and as a result I implemented a “Gold Stars for Gold Fish” program. If the boys did a great job getting ready in the morning and behaved their little selves on the car ride to school, I awarded a gold star for the day. If they reached 11 stars (it was as many gold star stickers as I had), they would be rewarded with goldfish. They had been anxious to become pet owners and having goldfish was my idea of taking the cheapest, easiest way out.
Or so I thought.
It took a month (or maybe a little longer) to accumulate 11 gold stars, but they did it. Last Friday we went to the pet store as a family. I peeped the price of the gold fish: 13 cents each. Yes, this plan is going to work perfectly. Since we were completely new to the fish world, we needed to get a tank (or a bowl). Well, we talked to an employee who informed us that the goldfish we were interested in would get big and they recommended a 20-gallon tank. The 20-gallon tank kit was nearly $100. No thanks!
We did settle for a smaller tank kit, but had to add a few other add-ons like gravel for the bottom of the tank and a heater. Yes, a heater. Oh, and they wouldn’t actually let us buy a fish that day (after dropping $60+ on supplies). No, we had to get the tank set up and cycle the water for 24 hours through the filter after a water conditioner was added. For real! For fish!
The boys went back yesterday to pick out the fish and came home with 2 orange-ish red ones and 2 black and white ones. I don’t know the species. The boys named them Fishel Grievous, Angry Fish, Mc Donalds, and Hot Dog.
And a mere 19 hours after they came to live with us, their ability to survive was tested. Big time.
The orange parts of the tank is fish food. Jace thought they needed to be fed for a second time this morning, pushed a chair over to the tank, opened the hatch and dumped half of the new container of fish food in.
I knew that it probably wasn’t good for the fish to be overfed, but a quick google search showed that it was definitely toxic (the food when it dissolves releases too much ammonia or some such thing into the water). So, I had to do an emergency cleaning. At one point as I was scooping the fish to and from the emergency holding bowl, one of the orange fish jumped straight out of the bowl and was flopping around on the counter top. I swear a part of its fin rubbed off on the counter, but it didn’t seem to affect its swimming ability, so I’m not sure if that was what happened or if I imagined it.
The fish are still alive at the time of this posting. I’m really hoping they’ll pull through in their unconditioned, not-previously-filtered tap water. But it is warm, I’m not heartless. And the fish food has been moved to an undisclosed location so as not to tempt the littlest care-taker.
November 14th, 2011 | by Jessie | Since it has been awhile since I’ve written about my kids, here is installment #2 of catching up with the Zeigler boys.
Jett is now 5 1/2 years old. He is in kindergarten. He likes school. A little too much, I fear. I don’t know if he’s completely into the learning aspect, but socially speaking, he’s “all in”.
After fall conferences, we came away with the mental picture that Jett is the stereotypical class clown.
He’s the kid who when sitting on the carpet at story time will be poking the other students around him, making goofy faces, trying to get a laugh.
Jett loves Cars 2 – with an undying passion. When I came back from our local coffee shop/bookstore with an armload of used books, he literally burst out in tears that there were no Cars 2 books. Oh, I should also mention that at home, he’s displaying bursts of intense emotion – a phase that is already fizzling out – but, oh boy! Spare me, son.
While we’re on the Cars 2 subject, here is good sampling of books he’s written at school this year:
All about Cars 2!
At home, I can’t avoid the fact that he’s my middle child. Jude naturally (for reasons I may explain in more detail later) requires more attention on a regular basis. It’s inevitable. Jace relies on us for so much, too, being the “baby” of the family. We have to be very intentional about spending one-on-one time with Jett. It’s good for all of us. Besides that, he’s a fun kid to share quality time with!
I wanted to get a current picture of Jett for this post and to further illustrate his personality right now, I’ll show you everything that unfolded over the course of 2 minutes and 15 clicks of the camera. With absolutely no creative input from me, I might add. This is just Jett.
Class clown? You don’t say!
I should have seen this coming, this photo was taken just before Jett turned 2 and it remains a family favorite:
November 9th, 2011 | by Jessie | Jace turned two in August which makes him… just over two years old. Math was never my strong suit. But I do know cute when I see it!
Jace is getting really good at being two years old; the ladies at Fareway could attest to that today. When we first arrived, he discovered that it was not the grocery store with the small carts for kids and had… a moment. After that, he was fine.
Jace loves the Cars guitar that he got for his 2nd birthday and plays it regularly. In fact, just before he got his tummy virus a few weeks ago right before our move, he’d developed a fever. This was a goofy fever, though. It made him very playful and NOT tired. After being put to bed at the regular 8 pm time, he woke up around 1:30 am wanting to play. I stayed up with him for an hour or so and finally got him back to sleep. That didn’t last too long and by about 3:30 am, Josh and I decided that we’d just let him watch tv in the living room so I could come back to bed. At about 4 am, he slipped into our bedroom, grabbed his guitar and slipped back out again. Around 4:30 am, I went out to check on him and sure enough, he was watching tv and jamming away on his guitar. It was the funniest little thing!
I love how he tilts his leg up to support that thing. On his own, he took the strap off one of the Rock Band guitars and attached it to his guitar. His daddy’s guitar has a strap so he knows all about such things.
Another trick he has is opening Mommy’s guitar case to swipe a pick for himself. He’s very resourceful. And he uses it correctly.
Emerging independence: perfect buzz words for a two year old. He has recently starting putting on his socks and shoes BY HIMSELF, thankyouverymuch! And here’s the thing, I have not once witnessed him putting these shoes on the wrong feet. He has got the world pretty much figured out by now.
Except talking. The boy can’t articulate many words. He’s got maybe 10 words that are on heavy rotation. Mostly it’s “uh” with accompanying pointer finger. We try, but honestly, I don’t think he even knows where to begin. Sometimes I clap the syllables of words to break them down for him. He’ll just smile politely and clap along, but at this time he just.can’t.do.it.
He is so much fun and my #1 helper.
November 8th, 2011 | by Jessie | Jude walked into the house after getting home from school yesterday and vomited all over the kitchen floor. To get caught up on our illness drama click here –> (but I wouldn’t do it without a face mask on).
It does worry me a little bit that all of this is happening after we move into a new house. I’m 98% sure that what we’re experiencing as a family is a nasty stomach virus that is going around. Probably two different viruses, which is why we’re seeing it twice within two and a half weeks.
There is that 2% uncertainty that makes me wonder if it could be anything related to our house or even a food product that we’ve had in our house that is making us sick. We discovered last night that we don’t have a carbon monoxide detector in the house. We’ve ordered two that will be here soon. I highly doubt that it is carbon monoxide poisoning as Jude was away from the house all day and got sick within a minute of coming home. Also, Jace and I were home all day long and didn’t experience any of the nausea*, fatigue and headaches that are consistent with poisoning even at low levels. Jace was the first one of the family to get sick and that was while we were still living at our old house.
The “good” news is that it appears that other households in the area have been sick and fighting similar symptoms. It’s most likely just really poor/confusing timing.
*Catching vomit into a person’s cupped hands will automatically make one feel slightly nauseated, but that feeling did pass.
November 7th, 2011 | by Jessie | It’s probably no surprise to you that I’m leading off the virtual home tour with what I hope will be one of my favorite, most lived in rooms of the house: my sewing room!
In our old house, I had a sewing room for the first four-ish years that we lived there. It was a tiny bedroom, but it was mine. I love that my husband did not care one bit that I took up an entire room of our already small house to dedicate to making quilts. My love of quilting was born there in that house – in that room – shortly after the birth of our oldest son. I was a 23 year old stay-at-home-mom with a need to create, a need to distract myself from housework – which really is my first love and skill of greatest proficiency. On my 24th birthday, Josh gave me a very romantical $200 gift card to Target, and I turned that into a Brother sewing machine. It stands as one the best gifts I’ve ever received, children included. I KID!
Speaking of children, when my littlest Jace came along, we needed the space in the quilting room, so I packed up all of my sewing stuff, moved our older two sons into the room, and attempted to turn the room they left into a nursery/quilting room. That room was smaller than the first, so after I short time, I had to face facts: I moved all of my sewing stuff to my in-laws’ house. For a very long time, I didn’t have so much as a needle in the house. I know… tragic.
Now that you get where I’m coming from, here is my new sewing room:
It’s in the basement. The previous owners added onto the kitchen and when they did, they added this room beneath. They used it to make and store wine. They left the shelving that I am now using for quilting books and magazines, fabric yardage, fabric scraps (in the totes), yarn, thread and my iron. This is the view from the doorway.
The walls are all poured concrete, which means I haven’t gotten around to hanging anything on them! At least they are white, it doesn’t feel too dark and drab in there. Someday I would love to finish this room and make it just a touch warmer. Install more lighting while finishing the ceiling perhaps, but really, this room is ultra functional as it is. I have my sewing machine cabinet tucked in the very corner so that if I have to work on a large quilt, it won’t spill over the edges.
This shot is looking toward the doorway – which has no door. But you do get a view of the cabinets that were also left behind by the previous home owners. I’m sure that these are the old kitchen cabinets and countertops before the remodel. They are very handy to have in this room!
There is a utility sink, which also may come in handy. In this shot, you can see a little bit of paint chipping/discoloration to the left. This is the external wall where old foundation meets new foundation, and there has been some water seepage in this corner in the past. We are hoping it won’t give us too many problems, and for this reason especially, we can wait to add the finishing touches. I would hate for newly sheet-rocked walls to sustain water damage! We really don’t completely know what we’re dealing with here. When we had the home inspection, we were told quite frankly that this might always be a minor problem area and were given ideas to best mitigate the problem from the outside. To the right, you can see the storage room. In that room is the furnace/AC, water heater, water softener, & deep freeze. It’s unfinished; you have to go through the storage room to get to the sewing room, but do you even think I care about that in the least? NOPE!
The last picture I have for you is the treated flooring. It’s better than than a plain concrete floor. I think I’ll use a rug eventually, or maybe even carpet squares to add some needed warmth. It’s a concrete jungle, I’m telling you.
Last night, Josh brought one of the recliners we’re not using down to the sewing room. I was important for me to have a cozy place for him to come hang out with me when I’m sewing so that we can listen to music together.
I have room now for a long arm quilting machine, too. That’ll be another down-the-road type item, but I’m so excited for that to be an option now!
I haven’t done any quilting in this room yet, but I have started to formulate some project ideas and look forward to get crack-a-lackin’ in here sooooon! And when I do, I’ll share my projects in the Arts & Crafts section of the blog.
November 4th, 2011 | by Jessie | One of my favorite finds from stuff that was in storage: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELELMENTS software. For some unknown reason, Elements crashed on our our old computer way back when. Actually, that was the beginning of the end of my blogging. I was really comfortable with editing and organizing my pictures using Elements, and when I lost it, it really took my desire to edit – heck, even take pictures – with it. I looked and looked for the software so that I could uninstall and reinstall it, and never could find it. It turns out that I packed the installation disks away when we de-cluttered our home when we got ready to sell. And that, my friends, was February of 2010. YES IT WAS. Twenty-one months ago.
So, whilst unpacking totes from storage, I FOUND IT! I was so excited! Yesterday I installed Elements on our new(er) computer and it’s working beautifully. It’s too early to tell, but I feel like I’m back now.
I will leave you with two photos and hopefully they will explain just how I feel about our new house.
I know, I know, I should have done some wildly creative edits on these photos… because I can… but I feel they stand on their own.
Happy Friday!!
November 3rd, 2011 | by Jessie | Hello from the Land of the Living!
We moved a week ago from a house that we’d outgrown (several years ago) to a house approximately three blocks away that is the perfect house for us. We’re just so excited to be here!
The move itself was pretty uneventful: no major catastrophes and lots and lots of great help. It only took us a day to get everything from point A to point B, allowing the couple that bought our house to move in ahead of schedule. It was great. Thank you to our fantastic helpers!
And since the move? Well, that’s a different story. Actually, I have to back up to two weeks ago – I was packing for the move.
Thursday: Jace vomits in old living room (sorry, new owners!), is sick during the day and that night.
Friday: Jace is feeling better, having yucky diapers but is acting more like himself.
Saturday: Jace vomits that night at Abba’s house after being “better” for a good day or more.
Sunday: no incidents.
Monday: no incidents, packed a moving truck with almost all of our belongings at the old house.
Tuesday: closing on the new house, unpacking in the new house.
Wednesday: no incidents.
Thursday: Jett home from school early, vomits that evening: new house broken in!
Friday: Jude has a stomach ache too, both boys home from school.
Saturday: both older boys lie around all day, Jude opts not to trick-or-treat, Jett is out trick-or-treating with Josh for a short while before wanting to come back home.
Sunday: both older boys vomit.
Monday: no school for either, Jett vomits that afternoon in the car while running an errand (more than 24 hrs after his last episode).
Monday night: Jace begins to vomit at 10:30 pm and is up two more times getting sick, Josh and I vomit around 1:30 am in different bathrooms, we are up the rest of the night alternately getting sick.
Tuesday: Zeigler lockdown. No one comes or goes. Misery.
Wednesday (yesterday): Jude & Jett are back to school and everyone finally feels better.
And today is a new day! Like I said, Land of the Living! I hope no one gets sick from just reading this. I suppose we were due, we hadn’t been group-sick in awhile. We’ll “remember when” these crazy weeks someday and wonder how we survived the move AND the sickness.
More on the new house later…
August 17th, 2011 | by Jessie | I’ve been thinking about this day for a long time. I’ve been eagerly anticipating it and it’s finally here! Yay Jude & Jett! Yay me!
Introducing Jude, the six-year-old FIRST grader:
And now, for the first time ever, please join me in congratulating our five-year-old KINDERGARTNER, Jett:
And not to be left out… our very own… ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the lone homeboy, Jace!
And now in order of wake up times today, we have Jude in first place at 3:53 am. He promptly went back to sleep on the floor next to my side of the bed, which woke me up… for good, putting me in second place. I eventually got out of bed at 4:30 because I knew I had too much to think about to go back to sleep. I began writing furiously on the handout that needed to be turned in to Jett’s kindergarten teacher. The question on the handout was an open-ended one and pertained to ‘how your child is unique’. I obviously had a lot of ground to cover, so it was just as well that I got busy writing and hoped that I might go back to sleep when finished.
It didn’t work that way. Jude bounded down the hallway at 5:20, up for the day. Josh got 3rd place as he started getting ready for work at 5:45, but then again, that’s his normal daily routine. Jett took fourth place at 6 am – a good 2 hours earlier than when he’s used to waking, and finally Jace awoke at 7:20 for 5th place.
The older boys scurried around and did all of their jobs in record-breaking time, I packed a lunch, wrote a note to a teacher, ensured both bags were ready to go, got myself showered and ready for the day, took pictures of the gang and FINALLY drove them to school. It seemed like I had hours to get everyone ready today. Oh wait, I did!
We parked a block away and then we all walked up to the school’s playground together.
Jett accosted about 3 different children on the way to the playground, excitedly demanding with neck-veins popping that they look at his new Cars 2 backpack. And, have they seen Cars 2?! And he has! And Francesco Bernoulli wins the first race! And he’s right here on my backpack! Oh wow – take it down a notch, kid, you’re about to strain something.
And right after I took this picture, Jett darted off. I tried to keep up with him, asking him to come back and wait for me, but then I realized he was running right for his teacher, who I didn’t even see, so I figured he was alright.
I walked with Jude to find his teacher. He greeted her and then immediately wanted to give her some things I’d sent for her in Jude’s backpack. She told him she would take them when they got inside. He was cool with that and took off for the new play equipment.
No hugs, no tears. I keep telling myself that maybe next year I’ll cry, then never do. I’m just so excited for them and excited for myself about getting more alone time with Jace and some quiet time every day when he naps. Hallelujah! And hello? I have a clean house now and time for blogging?! What is that all about? I’ll take it. Sure Jace is forcing various Mr. Potato Head pieces onto my face while I’m writing this, but it’s ok – I can multitask.
I can’t wait to pick them up later on this afternoon and get the scoop. I’m hoping every day will be this easy to get them ready and off to school, without the EARLY rising, that is.
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