Friday, March 25, 2011

Drivers License, misc. conversations & the house

Hooray!! Tania has good enough grades to get her license. She is even going to make the honor roll. Sasha has good enough grades to get his license but he is not eligible for another month.
So today David took Tania to get her drivers license. He actually had to take her twice because Tania did not wear her contacts or bring her glassess. She couldn't pass the eye test without them. When they got back to the DMV they ended up talking to the same person from the first time they were there. After Tania's eye test, the DMV offficial wrote some words on a piece of paper and asked Tania to read the paper. He wanted to make sure she could really see the letters correctly or so he said. The words were "I must kill moose and squirrel". The DMV official said that he had to hear the saying in the native tongue.
David had a great time with the official but now he had to explain about moose and squirrel and why one of his best friends has a nickname of moose and squirrel.
Earlier this week as I was driving the kids home from school, when Tania mentioned that her friend makes it a habit to ask each of her teachers "How are you doing, my favorite teacher?" We kind of laughed about it but we talked about what a difference that might make with attitudes of teachers toward them. I encouraged them to try saying the same thing to each of their teachers to see what would happen. I haven't heard anything back yet. I'll let you know if the kids notice a difference.
This next comment is for Brent M. In answer to your question if the kids ever appreciate anything. At the beginning of the week, David took Tania to Bountiful to see her friend's dance performance. It was a very long and gruelling hour and half for David. He really doesn't enjoy stuff like that very much. When they got into the truck to come home, Tania actually thanked David for taking her to the performance. It was very sincere and very appreciated.
This comment is for Wendy. Our friend Wendy has her son write down something he is grateful for every day. I thought we could at least tell each other what we were grateful for at the dinner table on Sunday. I have been waiting for the right opportunity to start this little idea. Last Sunday was the first time for us to say what we were grateful for. I was pleased to hear what Tania was grateful for. I don't think Sasha was really comfortable. I hope next time he will be more comfortable. But at least after dinner Sasha was quite willing to give out hugs. He was in a great mood. I like to think that our grateful talk put everyone in a great mood. It was really nice.
Tania's room. This picture makes her room look purple but it is really very pink! It should match her new bedding very well.


Laundry room

More laundry room. The countertop was supposed to be completely installed the other day but apparently the installer was talking to his wife when he cut the top. Oops, he cut it wrong. So now they are making a new top.


We have our new fridge and our double ovens. My children laugh at me because I have wanted double ovens so badly. The pantry door is still covered with a film. Once the film is removed it should look really cool.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

This is Tania after she spent a couple of hours cleaning the new house. Obviously, we need to have her work on the house we are living in.

There have been some fun times as the house has been built. Quite often we go see the house when it is dark outside. We had to bring flashlights with us since we didn't have any lights. The more we went to see it in the dark, the more hiding in closets, hiding behind walls and standing quite still in a dark room occurred. So as we had more hiding, I'm sure you can guess, we had more screaming and jumping as people jumped out of their hiding spots. It has been so bad that I have had to lead the crowd around before they would go anywhere. Of course that really didn't help because I new something would happen and just walked on by whoever was hiding. I must admit, I might need hearing aides after Tania has screamed several times in my ear.

The outside of our house is really looking like a real house. Tomorrow they are going to start working on the driveway.

Cabinets in the mater bath.


Our kitchen.



More kitchen





The family room.




The kitchen's new hardwood floors.






Our stairwell and front entry.








They lined all of the inside doors to paint. It was really kind of bizarre looking.