Ike yikes!

The winds are gusty here in Rockdale, but it looks like this is the place to be if you're in Texas this weekend. Here's the lowdown on our week since things really became a concern.

Thursday: 3:17pm - Rumor of no school on Friday. How obsurd for Rockdale. Cars already pulling through town evacuating from Houston and the coastline.
4:30 A call to the school confirms that Rockdale WILL have school on Friday.
4:35 Leaving for Dance lessons in Temple - gas lines are piling up and campers are passing by. Mom says she's going to stick it out in Houston since the Mayor encouraged inlanders to hunker down and let the coast get out. Dad is asked to forget that emergency relief isn't his job anymore and will consequently be working at the storehouse through the storm. I tell Mom to just come anyway, but she's trying to be brave. Dad had promised to try and come home for the night of the storm so Mom won't be alone.
5:50 Jessica loves her dance class and does great. We were late because we were following an RV going really slow!
6:30 Lily sooo excited for her first class. The teacher suggested we do a mom and me class first. I was willing, but 2 minutes into the class, Lily doesn't need Mommy anymore and has adopted her teacher to take my place. I'm the only Mom with no kid in the class. Okay not really true - Gavin was in his car seat needing me more than Lily and Jessica, who was supposed to be helping me with Gavin, was enjoying the class next to Lily and the teacher. I'm abandoned by my children in the Mom and Me class!
7:30 finally driving home. There is a steady stream of cars heading north.
8:30 Dad calls to inform us that after his bridge call they decided to send Mom to our house because they are expecting Tropical Wind storms Friday morning and Dad doesn't think he'll make it home Friday night.
11:15pm Mom makes it to our house with slow downs on 290 in a couple of places.
11:20pm Dad calls to make sure Mom made it okay. He's staying in the Bishop's Storehouse for the storm and to work the the emergency relief protocal.

Friday
2:00am Gavin wakes me up
4:00am Gavin wakes me up
6:30am Gavin wakes me up and I wake up Jessica for school
7:30 Jessica leaves for school and Katelyn arrives to play with Lily
All day Friday we watch the news to see the progress of the Hurricane. Everyone is happy that Mom made it here.
9:00am Jhonny begins working on the clean out for our sewer line that was clogged up. He pulls out tons of roots and junk from the pipes and ends up digging up two broken pipes to be replaced. I can't do dishes now because the pipe is missing. It's to be replaced hopefully on Saturday.
10:00am We go to Walmart to stock up on food. The parking lot is full of people who have evacuated. Rumors are that there is no more gas. There is still gas, just more expensive.
5:00pm we head to College Station to return the roter rooter (sp?) to Home Depot. Everyone is buying up plywood. We're wondering why they're so worried here in College Station.
6:30pm We get into Gattitown for dinner and enjoy the food and fun.
9:00pm Home and getting ready for bed. Gavin shows signs of a little runny nose. I know I'm going to have a long night.
1:00am Gavin wakes me up
2:00am Gavin wakes me up
3:00am Gavin wakes me up
6:00am Gavin wakes me up
7:00am Gavin wakes me up
7:45am Lily wakes me up and I stay up.
8:00am We finally see signs of some wind in our area. News reports lots of flooding, power loss, and winds in Galveston, Louisiana, and Houston. We can't call Mandy. I'm guessing her phone line is down and probably out of power. Hope she's okay. Not wanting to call Dad because he's probably busy. If you read this call us if you can and let us know you're okay.
9:30am Dad calls to update us. He's on generators at the storehouse since 3:30am. The water tower is out of power. There's no water pressure. Dad got soaked when he went out in the rain to turn on the generator. Trees are down and/or stripped of leaves. There's flooding and no power in Houston. Dad's glad he boarded up the windows at the house. Shingles are off of the older homes. There's a lot of wind, but the Hurricane is over Hunstville by now. The trees were over flat in the wind. Dad says it's the worst storm he's been through. Copperfield Bishop emails dad to let him know they had some roof damage and minor leakage. Dad will try to call Mandy.
9:45am Jhonny goes back to work on the sewer line.

Missing Jhonny

Jhonny is gone again. I saw him briefly last night when he popped in and left again for a job 2 hours later. It's tough being a field engineer's wife. If he's home too much - that's not good for our finances. If he's gone too much, you miss him a lot. I'm getting used to it, but he's been gone a lot lately. He's worked more of his days off than not for the past month. This was to be his 4 day weekend off, BUT the schedule was changed and so he doesn't get a day off now until NEXT Friday.
That will make 37 days with no days off. Meanwhile - I still feel like I'm camping out with a broken dishwasher and a clogged pipe that makes laundry difficult. I've been making do by standing over the machine and holding the drain tube out the door as to avoid more floods in my laundry room. These are the things he's been promising to fix since July 31st. We're well into September now. But how can I drag him out of bed when he is home? Especially when he's working round the clock with 2-3 hours of sleep between jobs?
On a brighter note, I got a job! A perfect job. I'm watching a 3 year old girl three mornings a week for 2 hours each. It's a win-win all around. The money is just right for my purpose for it, Lily gets a playmate, I don't have to leave the house or get a sitter for my kids and I still have a lot of freedom with my time. Best of all it doesn't conflict with my drive to dance lessons - the need for the job in the first place. So it couldn't have worked out better.
I also got an invitation out of the deal to go to MOPS once a week where I get to drop off my kids in the nursery for a couple of hours and play with some other moms in town. I'm all for it! I've been trying to figure out how to make friends in this community for over a year now. It would be great if we had a ward that had lots of moms around wanting to get together - but our little branch doesn't lend itself to midweek activities very well with the price of gas and the geographical area we cover. So I'm excited to see how this goes. . .
One last mile stone to report - Gavin slept in his own room last night for the first time. I was a little anxious about how it would be for him, but he was great. He slept until 2:45am before waking me up for a feeding and then slept again until my alarm went off at 6:45am. Woohoo!

Save you money!

I was on the phone yesterday doing research when Lily asked me what I was doing.
"Saving money," I replied.
"Can I save money with you?" She asked.
"Certainly!" I said. "It goes like this. Clap your hands and shout 'Woohoo!'"
"Woohoo!" she shouted.
After calling my services that were negotiable, I was able to cut our bills down $46 a month. Woohoo! Here's how:
I don't need my landline now that we have a magic jack - I just need the internet. Att said that I don't need a landline any longer to just have the internet - I was able to upgrade our internet service, get a $50 rebate AND still save $17 a month! Consequently our landline phone number will be disconnected next wednesday.
I cut down my cell phone minutes - $20
I tried to cancel my ADT, but we still have a 2 year contract. However the lady said she could knock $10 off of my rate - ? It didn't change any of our services either. How? Don't know, but I'll take it!
Woohoo!

My Sweet Jessie

I'm not sure if Jessica is happy to be in school this past week or not. The first day she was excited to see her friends. So excited in fact that apparently her teacher had to get on her more than once to pay attention and stop talking to them. Being in trouble upset her and it affected her attitude at home. When I put her in time out - something I rarely have to do with her anymore, she told me I didn't understand because her teacher yelled at her that day. I listened and commiserated and we discussed the matter.
Things got better as the week progressed. On Friday she announced that the teacher told her she could sit in the back since she was being so good. I'm not sure this is a great idea, but she took the compliment with pleasure. I hope this teacher learns that flattery will get her everywhere with Jessica.
We got the "site words" for the first test in a couple of weeks. Jessica read them over in ten seconds and tossed the paper aside. I really hope she gets something a bit more challenging soon. She doesn't seem to mind as much as I do that it's too easy for her.
This little girl of mine isn't so little any more. At moments I reflect on how much she has matured over the past year or so. She's lost the "cute" factor. When she's not pulling an attitude with me, she's sweet and pretty. She leaves me notes on my pillow, writes in her journal, reads her own bedtime stories, and tries to do her chores without being told. She's getting ready to lose a third tooth and has more permanent teeth growing in. Saturday, I let her help me make some pans of Lasagna. She mixed the cheeses and helped me with the layers. She's my nose when I'm in doubt and my second set of hands when the baby won't wait for me to finish the dishes or make dinner.
She's growing up. Before I know it, she'll be a teenager and asking me to drive the car. When I was six, the world was slower. Summer lasted forever and an hour was a long time. Now it's a blink of an eye. I wonder if it's the same for her or if time seems to stand still as it did for me?
When I look at her, I see her whole life ahead of her with so many choices and opportunities. My hope for her is to enjoy every minute and to embrace all that life has to offer. I hope she will learn to choose wisely from the buffet of life.

I love you too, Lily Lou

• This tiny tot only looks like she's 1. Her vocabulary gives everyone reason to pause and puzzle over just how old this girl is. She's "smart as a whip" as my mother put it today
• This past week as we were getting the house ready for Grandma and Grandpa's visit I requested her help to pick up her toys. Lily decided it was less painful to just sit in time out and gathered her things to beat me to the time out stool rather than help clean up. After thinking it over, she ended up in an extra long time out. I figured it would work better if she were given the minutes of her intellectual age.
• On parentcenter.com I was reading that her grammar at this age may not make sense. Okay here is a clue that she is truly advanced. Her grammar is nearly perfect. She speaks very well and it doesn't take much to repeat whatever word you say to her. When she doesn't express herself so fluently, it tends to be on purpose like last night when she climbed into Gavin's carrier and said, "Gaga, goo goo. I'm the baby Mom!"
• Lily loves to sing. Her signature hymn is "I am a Child of God" to which she almost knows all the words. While visiting my parents' ward, the nursery leader marveled over the fact that Lily sang during singing time. The other kids looked at her amazed that she was singing because it hadn't occured to any of them that they should do this too. After receiving encouragement and permission, the rest of the class also joined in. Yesterday, during sacrament meeting she declared that she would also sing and did a fair job following Sister Husher in "More Holiness Give Me."
• On a not so Holy note, she rearranged the words to a popular tune mixing up the original lyrics and some that I made up to help along her potty training. My lyrics: "Tinkle, tinkle, little pee, come on out from inside of me." Her lyrics: "Tinkle, tinkle little star, come on out from inside my butt." I have to give her kudos on understanding the idea although I was trying to be less vulgar about it.
• Last night over dessert, we were talking about who would take care of us when we're too old to take care of ourselves. When I asked my girls who would take care of me they both said, "Me!" But then Lily rethought her answer and said, "Jessica!"
• Lily loves her thumb, but sometimes she is willing to work on not sucking it. A few tricks of mine that only work temporarily - lip gloss, and nail polish that speak to her vanity, and Dora. The show suddenly pauses when she sucks her thumb (thanks to TIVO). Of course I have to watch her the whole time for this to work. It's almost torture for her to sit comfortably and concentrate so hard on NOT putting it back in her mouth.
• Lily is independent. She ignores threats and demands things on her own terms. She has come to believe that saying "sorry" abolishes her from responsibility of any wrong doing past, present and future. Now if it weren't for the fact that she is so darn cute, we'd probably be wringing her neck. But she flashes us that cute grin of hers and says something completely distracting that makes you want to laugh or melt rather than yell as she bats those beautiful dark lashes over her chocolatey brown eyes.
• One of my favorites: "Mom, I love you. I want to give you hugs and kisses."

Gummy Gavin

Gavin, gavin, gavin. This little boy is certainly stealing my heart. He's starting to talk and coo at me. The way he looks at me, I can tell he loves his mama. Yesterday in church we were listening to a really great talk that was probably a bit on the serious side when he started his smiling almost giggle over my shoulder. The sister behind me was just as distracted as I was by his bright gummy grin and dimples. What a cutie pie!

Labor Day

We had planned a trip to Houston for Labor day, but my parents decided to come here instead just in case Gustav decided to get nasty. I hope they had fun. The girls didn't want them to leave. We went to the park and then did some window shopping at IKEA. It was packed and even though we saw things we might want, the lines discouraged us from actually purchasing anything but lunch. Jhonny had to work today and so he missed out. Tomorrow it's back to school.