I love NOODLES!

Oh my, where to begin? The Marchik house has been a very busy one over the last few weeks. We continue to deal with the aftermath of the flooded basement - the drywall has now been installed and has been mudded and taped. There is one more coat of mud and then the messy process of sanding......but then we will be ready for some paint! I think we have found the paint colors which wasn't terribly painful. We are still working to find matching carpet so that we won't have to recarpet the stairs - we will get the sample carpet from the carpet dude in the next day or so....fingers crossed that it matches! The new baseboards need to be painted and installed and THEN the carpet guys can come. I think in another week or so, we might have our basement back. This has certainly been an arduous process but I am thankful that we are nearing the end.

Work has been extremely busy for me over the last month. Things are starting to slow down just a bit - now just "normal" busy instead of crazy busy. We had a wedding to attend this past weekend. Jason and I both think that this might be the first wedding that we've attended since our own which was almost 5 years ago! It's funny how weddings go in waves....we have a few more in the next several months. Anyway, so we headed out of town to the wedding and Gram and Pa came to stay with Paul. We stayed the night for a mini getaway and enjoyed sleeping in a quiet hotel room until whenever we decided to get up on Sunday morning! The wedding was beautiful and the reception was lots of fun. Congrats again to Dan and Brittney!!


Jason made pasta and sauce tonight - we ALL enjoyed it!! Paul got to eat his dinner in the buff....well, in a diaper I guess. MUCH easier when eating messy saucey noodles!


Licking the butter from his bread.....
I'm gonna take a bite from the middle of my noodle!

Counting out his noodles on the table. Whatever it takes to master his counting skills - noodles, fingers, toes....whatever!

My noodle eating fool!

After dinner, we had to play some choo-choo's.....ah, the look of concentration.

Getting comfortable while reading on the couch. This boy loves to read.

Paul continues to amaze us everyday with his language. He is putting so many sentences together now and they actually make sense! It's nice to be able to hold a conversation with the little man. Here's some funny video from dinner tonight - he's been learning the cats names instead of just calling them kitty-kitty. When he tries to say Rascal's name, it sounds a little like a naughty word - it's hard not to laugh. And he clearly loves his peaches!

Iowa State Fair 2010

The Iowa State Fair is pretty big stuff around here and has been in full force for the last few weeks. We've been wanting to go, but always seemed to have something else going on. We finally bit the bullet today - well, I guess we didn't have much choice since it is the last day of the fair! It was blazing hot today - low 90's with plenty of humidity. So while we knew Paul would have a blast, we also knew that we were gonna be sweating and the day didn't disappoint!

We hit the livestock barns first to check out all of the cool farm animals that Paul loves.

Checking out the baby cow - Paul was in love!

Checking out the BIG pig! He got a little freaked out when the pig woke up and moved but seemed to like him when he was "night-night".

Aahhhh, our favorites, the goats. There were goats as far as the eye could see.

After a thorough disinfecting, we headed to the long stretch of food vendors to pick our pleasure. Daddy went first and grabbed a smoked turkey leg. It was AWESOME! We all had to take turns gnawing on the leg.....

Paul was loving the turkey leg!

Then it was on to the fried food......we had fresh cut french fries and fried macaroni and cheese. We were in fried heaven!

Onto the fun beverages (rather than the boring bottled water we brought). Nothing like a lemonade shakeup at the fair!

And then we just had to have dessert - it was a tough call, but we decided to head to the shop with just about anything you could possibly want dipped in chocolate. Seemed like a safe bet!

Paul loved the frozen banana dipped in chocolate.

Oh, and the ice cream cookie sandwich dipped in chocolate.....

With our bellies full and getting closer to nap time, we made our way to the famous Butter Cow. Yeah, I know, I know....only in the Midwest would the State Fair display a cow made of butter. If we were that close, we had to check it out. This year's theme was Dr Seuss so we got to see the butter cow AND a butter sculpture of Green Eggs and Ham.

Here's the butter cow - obviously in a refrigerated room so I had some trouble with the flash reflection.

Paul checking out the butter Dr Seuss!

It was a fun day, but VERY hot. I am glad we snuck in a trip to the fair on the last possible day - Paul definitely had fun. One of the highlights of his day was getting to ride the bus - how funny is that?!? We parked at the State Capitol building and took the park and ride to the fair (much easier than trying to park at the fairgrounds). He wouldn't stop talking about riding the bus.

We'll be laying low the rest of the day and staying inside with the air conditioner running! We are hopeful the repairs to our flooded basement will start next week so we can start using all of our space again. They ended up cutting out 2 feet of drywall to be safe so the job got a bit bigger than we originally anticipated. I am hopeful that Jason will be able to get all of the subcontractors lined up and we can efficiently wrap up this major disruption to our lives! We are fortunate to have a large home so we still have places to spend time, but we are out of our routine without the basement for sure.

A flooded basement.....

So last week was already geared to be very busy and stressful.....and then it just got worse. I was scheduled to spend the week traveling around the state and Jason was going to be busy handling much of the homefront. We have been getting crazy amounts of rain - something like 14 inches in a 4-5 day timeframe. We were doing just fine until the last storm that hit on Tuesday night. We lost power for over 6 hours which means our sump pump wasn't working and with the ground so saturated already, there was just nowhere for the water to go. We ended up with a flooded basement. Of course, I was out of town so Jason had to deal with it on his own. He called me on Wednesday evening to let me know and I quote "There was splashing as I walked across the carpet".....those are NEVER the words you want to hear!

Jason tried to extract as much water as possible, he moved the furniture and started up the fans and dehumidifier. Because there were so many others with the same issue given all of the rain, we couldn't get a professional to come cleanup until this weekend. By Friday, we knew the carpet was not going to dry out and we were going to have to pull it out. Gram and Pa said they would pitch in.....which was super helpful. Jason and Pa spent 2 hours cutting up wet carpet and pad. We were lucky to have ServPro come today to survey the damage and begin the appropriate cleanup.

It's so sad down there! They pulled the baseboards up and sprayed a chemical that prevents mold and mildew. They have 2 super duty dehumidifiers and 15 special fans running down there now and they will continue for the next 4 days. We were lucky that they didn't have to cut the drywall (based on the moisture measurement) and we are also lucky that the weather was nice today so we could open the windows upstairs. The chemical they had to spray didn't smell very good so we have effectively aired out the house now.

Here are pictures of the pathetic basement. There was one center section of the family room that was dry so all the furniture is pushed there - it's like an island of furniture.

The entire guest bedroom had to be pulled up including the closet.

The aftermath.....a soggy pile of carpet and pad.

It could be a lot worse, but I must tell you that this was not exactly the week we wanted. There was so much more to it, but I won't even go there.

On a happier (sort of) note.....we got an offer on our old house. It's been on the market since October of last year with lots of foot traffic and no offers to date. So we should be happy, but I must tell you that it was a pathetic offer - not even in the ballpark. We know this couple has been looking at the house for at least 6 or 7 months and have been through it multiple times. They had a house to sell and just recently finalized an offer on theirs and then made an offer on ours. We made a counter to their pathetic offer so we'll see what happens. We clearly want to sell the house so we're hoping they will be a bit more reasonable.

Certainly never a dull moment in our house, huh?!?

Here's some great video from happier and less stressful times - LAST WEEKEND! Paul was eating his corn (imagine that) and having a grand old time. It was tough to edit it down, but here you go.

Paul's formal hanbok picture

Right before Paul's second birthday, we took him for some professional photos in his hanbok. Paul's foster family gave it to us when we were in Korea last year and he wore it for his first birthday. It was a bit large on him for his first birthday but fit perfectly for his second! Since we aren't sure if it wil fit him for his third birthday (it's doubtful), we decided to get some nice photos taken. The photo shoot went terribly - he was in an awful mood and cried much of the time. I was shocked that there were actually 3-4 shots that turned out well.

We just sent a framed 8x10 to his foster family as well as some other snapshots and some artwork that Paul painted in a care package that was hand delivered by a traveling family (thanks Mandi!) Hopefully they have received it already and are pleased that Paul looks so handsome in his hanbok that they hand picked for him!

We had one of the photos turned into a nice canvas and then recently has it custom framed. We are so pleased with how the canvas turned out. We hung it this weekend and then snapped a shot to share!

Could it BE any hotter?!?

Man, this hot and steamy weather really puts a damper on the activities during the weekend. But, we did the best we could to keep the little man entertained (oh, and us too I guess). We hit a local indoor play place - it has various indoor playground equipment as well as bouncy things. We weren't sure if Paul would enjoy it or not - he had a decent time, but was afraid of the bounce houses which meant he was relegated to playing on just a few things. Aside from one very rude older child that made Paul cry (gotta love those kids with NO manners and NO parents anywhere in sight), it was a nice way to spend an hour on a hot afternoon.

Hey momma.....check me out!
We hit the park this morning before it got too terribly hot - it was still steamy and we were all sweating by the end! Good thing we got Paul's hair cut yesterday so he didn't have quite as much on his head to make him hotter!

The saga of the transition from crib to toddler bed continues. I will say it has gotten marginally better, but the week has been tough for all of us. Let me first say that those with kids that aren't good sleepers will probably be thinking we are crazy to be complaining....but bear in mind that we are spoiled and Paul has been a great sleeper from very near the time we brought him home. The crib was converted to a toddler bed last weekend after he climbed out of his crib and took a nasty spill to the floor. Both Saturday and Sunday went very well - he slept in his bed the whole time and seemingly had no issues with the transition.

Well....weren't we surprised when early Monday morning (say 1am) began a new pattern of screaming throughout the night as well as getting out of his bed. His new favorite past time is laying by his door and kicking the door (VERY loud I must say) and he also enjoys messing with the springy door stops....but really who wouldn't love that since they make such a lovely SPPPRROOOOONG noise when you play with them. Needless to say, he has been very busy at night and none of us are getting nearly the sleep that we are used to! Things have been slight better as the week has progressed, but we are still fighting the battle through the transition.

We have an infrared web camera that Jason built so we can watch much of the action.....fun but I sure wish there wasn't anything to watch other than a sleeping child. We know that he is rarely sleeping in his bed and instead chooses to sleep on the floor near his door. He always has his monkey (named Oooh-oooh) and sometimes will take his choo-choo pillow from his bed as well.

Today for nap time, when I went to wake him (it was 4:45 and he was STILL sleeping), I carefully opened the door to find him totally sacked out and using monkey as his pillow. He didn't wake up when I opened the door or when I closed it again and stepped over him to walk into the room. See what I mean - he's my sleeper! I just wish he was my sleeper on his "normal" schedule and in his bed. The funny thing is that we have been through the 3 rules to sleeping in a toddler bed and he can repeat them when asked - he just doesn't follow them.

Rule #1 - No climbing!

Rule #2 - No kicking!

Rule #3 - Stay in bed!

We've been 0 for 3 for every night and every nap....but here's hoping that the rules will sink in the more that he repeats them to us.

Check out my baby....good thing he has such soft carpet in his bedroom!

Oooh-oooh makes such a nice pillow.

We smoked some ribs and a turkey breast today - a fun treat! And we haven't had corn on the cob for a while so we had to stop at the farm stand to pick it up. For those of you that are avid readers of our blog - Paul has quite the infatuation with corn. He ate 2 ears of corn with dinner tonight.

The remnants of the his corn-fest!

As I write this, I can hear my cute little man kicking the heck out of his door. We have tried to go up to make him stop, but alas it seems to be a losing battle. It sounds like he is getting closer to falling asleep again (he's been asleep for a while already and then awoke but who knows why). Fingers crossed that we can all get some sleep tonight......nighters!

Sleepless nights......

Dear Paul -

I am so proud that you are growing into such a great young man. I love that you are becoming more independent and can really vocalize what you need. But for all of the things that I love about you right now, I am not so in love with your current sleep patterns. We setup your toddler bed last weekend and you slept like a champ for the first few days....and then the week started and it all changed. We are all pretty tired after many long nights with lots of screaming and kicking the door. I just can't wait for you to go back to being the best little sleeper in the whole world - we were clearly spoiled with your 12 hours of solid sleeping each night and 2 plus hour naps. So, let's just work on sleeping through the night again and life will be grand!

Love,
Mommy

Going to the park!

We are so fortunate to live so close to fun recreational facilities! We headed to Saylorville Lake this afternoon for some walking and playing at the park.

He's starting to get the hang of this whole sunglasses thing - at least this time they landed on his face although he clearly needs to work on which side is up! He's still my cool dude.....

Hey mommy - check out the SLIDE!
My little man is not so little anymore....he looks like such a boy here instead of a toddler.

We walked over to see some geese....there was goose poop all over the ground which Paul was enamored with - he's SUCH a boy's boy. Here he is pointing at a pile of goose poop with one of his stockpiled sticks. At least he pointed it out so no one stepped in it!

The lake has several spillways - this one is pretty cool to watch because of the force of the water coming through. Paul had fun throwing rocks in the water!

It was a nice weekend and now we head back into the week ahead.......