Not As Advertised

When Liz decided to marry Ben, he made it abundantly clear that he was a nerd - not a handy man. Well, lately he has performing duties that go against his advertisement claiming to be useless at repairing things. Not only did he fix the kitchen sink, but today he replaced the garage door opener.



Now he just needs to figure out how to dismantle the old set-up so that it will actually fit in the trash can instead of taking up space on the garage floor.

The replacement of the garage door is the first step in ridding ourselves of the mother cat and her kittens, which we spoke of earlier this month.

Calling Charity

Analeigh is enamored with her new cousin, Charity, whom she has never before met. She's only seen the birth announcement.

However, this has not stopped her from telling us to name our soon-to-be-born baby Charity too (which we have no intention of doing - much to her disappointment!).

Also, she spends a fair amount of time "calling" her new cousin on her play phone.

Today's conversation focused on what Charity wanted to eat today. According to Analeigh (and David), Charity wanted to eat macaroni and cheese. Coincidentally, Analeigh and David wanted to eat the same thing - they and their cousin must just think alike!

Father/Son Campout

This weekend was scheduled to be our ward's father/son campout. Sadly, the backyard of the members' home we were going to campout was turned to a mud pit by the combination of being on a riverside and having a recent downpour of rain. So the camp was cancelled.

However, this presented us with a bit of a dilemma as Ben had promised David the opportunity to go camping with him. So Ben pitched the tent in our yard and David and he spent the night yesterday camping in the tent.

David was so excited he couldn't get to sleep - he just kept waking up Ben to go to the bathroom inside. Ben suspects that David's real motivation was the chance to use the flashlight over and over again! Finally Ben just had David sit with him on the couch until he passed out - then Ben carried him to the tent where he slept soundly.


Maybe someday we'll get to do some real camping when the father/son campout is rescheduled... eventually.

Our Graduate

Okay, so David hasn't technically "graduated," but he has completed his first year of preschool. So, that's kind of a big deal, right?! And what would completing a year of preschool be without a graduation (i.e. - end-of-year) ceremony? It almost reminds us of a clip from The Incredibles:

Helen: I can't believe you don't want to go to your own son's graduation.
Bob: It's not a graduation. He is moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen: It's a ceremony!
Bob: It's psychotic!

Regardless of your opinion about the trend of having graduations for every moment of life, David's was a lot of fun. Since we had to arrive 30 minutes early, Analeigh got a little antsy in her seat, so Ben held her high so she could "fly" and entertain the people in the rows behind us. But soon enough, the kids filed out on to the stage.



They sang and danced and entertained us all.



David even got over his shyness and started singing along with his classmates toward the end of the program.



Finally, David received his diploma and the kids sang "Happy Trails," to signify their movement forward to Kindergarten. At this point David decided revert to his non-singing self.



Then Mrs. Haase showed us the most effective way to clear out an auditorium (besides shouting "Fire!"): We were invited to go outside to watch the kids release balloons - then they locked the doors behind us.

Piano Practice

We're not sure exactly where Analeigh came up with the idea - though it may have been from watching Kaley Smith when we eat lunch at the Smith's home after church on some Sundays - but today she decided to make herself a "piano," complete with a music stand.

Runny Eggs!

Recently we had a bunch of eggs, so Ben made himself some over-easy eggs with a runny yoke. While Liz finds them disgusting, the kids were amazed by the concept and demanded that daddy make runny eggs for them too.

So he did - and they loved them!

We've Got Kittens

It appears that one of the stray cats around town made its home in our garage. Only recently did we realize just how at home she had made herself when we heard the sound of baby kittens calling to her.



Yes, they're cute - but we've really got to kick them out at some point!

It's a Ghost!

Analeigh came running to her daddy and latched on to his leg shrieking, "It's a ghost!" Upon further inspection, it was discovered that the "ghost" had a rather ticklish physical body inside of it.

Happy Mother's Day

In the words of Ben, "Liz is an amazing wife and mother." So amazing that she deserves more than what she received for Mother's Day (though as Ben pointed out, he put a lot of effort into the new kitchen faucet she got yesterday).

Liz got two flower vases from David and Analeigh, which they built yesterday at a Lowe's Build and Grow Clinic. The flowers in the vases are from a bush in our yard that the kids enjoy pulling branches off of. She also got an awesome purse and a new pair of sunglasses.

The Faucet from Delta

The reason this post is titled "The Faucet from Delta" is because the word Ben really wants to use in place of "Delta" is not appropriate for young ears (that and he doesn't want to wash his own mouth out with soap).

Long story short, our faucet broke earlier this week. When Liz went to turn it off, the water kept flowing. So we went to Lowe's the next day (Wednesday) and bought another faucet to replace it (with a sprayer add-on too!). When Ben crawled under the sink to take out the old one, his wrench couldn't pull the nuts off the bolts. So we went to the local hardware store and bought a basin wrench. That didn't work either.

So Ben did some research online concerning how to get a rusted nut to come off a bolt (worst-case scenario involved buying a Dremel and cutting the whole thing off). Then we went to Lowe's and Menards this morning and bought some B'laster PB (which was supposedly more effective than the WD-40 Ben had already tried using). Ben also bought a deep socket set to fit over the bolt and an extension bar set to try going at the nut with his ratchet. And just in case Ben's elbow grease was not enough, he also bought some socket adaptors for his drill. As Tim Taylor used to say, "More power!" Finally, if all else failed, Ben purchased some nut splitters too.

The whole idea was that whatever we didn't have to use we would return for a refund.

So, Ben tried the B'laster PB - fail.

Then Ben tried using his ratchet with the deep socket and extension bar - fail.

Then Ben tried the socket adpaters in his drill - EPIC FAIL! The chuck (the head of the drill) sheared off when Ben put it in full reverse, thus destroying his drill. Best of all, the nut still didn't budge.

So, after shedding some tears over his drill, Ben started in on the nut splitter. While the concept of the device is simple, the implementation of it is somewhat difficult as the only way to get enough torque was for Ben to reach around and push down on the sink while also reaching under the sink with his ratchet to turn the splitter. This resulted in a very bruised upper right arm for Ben from pulling the ratchet. But in the end it was worth it because Ben finally defeated both of the rusted nuts (and to think it only took an entire afternoon and part of the evening)!

And for his victory dance Ben walked outside and slammed the old faucet into the trash can! To contrast the hours he spent taking out the old faucet, he was able to install the new one in about 20 minutes.

By the way, Liz loves her new faucet and sprayer - so happy early Mother's Day to her!

Passing on Traditions

Last week our friend Marsha posted a picture of her son watching Star Wars for the first time. It made Ben realize that he has been a neglectful father. While he has been reading what David calls the "letter book" (as seen at the bottom of our Christmas post) almost every night for the past couple weeks, Ben has not sat down with our kids to watch the movie.

So today Ben asked David if he would like to see a movie based on his favorite letter book (yes, Ben said that the movie was based on the letter book - not the other way around!). When David said yes, Ben popped Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope into the DVD player and away we went.

David and Analeigh were surprisingly attentive and could be heard saying, "C is for C-3PO," "R is for R2-D2," and "D is for Darth Vader." They were a little disappointed to not see "B is for Boba Fett" and "Y is for Yoda," though we'll probably watch Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI - Return of the Jedi in the near future (assuming Liz continues to support Ben's brainwashing of our children).