Chuck and Poo

Let's just say Sunday and Monday of this week held very interesting events for me. It all began on the way to church at about 9:25am. We've been attending Forest Hill for the last few months to allow some time to 'take a break' from leadership, since Chris came off staff at St. Giles at the end of 2008. As we approached the church grounds we heard Kayna burp - but to a mother's ear, it was not a normal burp. She did it again and Chris turned around to discover that she had up-chucked all over herself and the carseat. I had never dealt with her throw up before, and let me say, its quite different from baby spit up. Needless to say, we were not prepared to tackle the situation so I suggested pulling onto the nearest street, that happed to be Steve and Jane's street (our pastor and his wife at St. Giles). We pulled up to their house and I knocked on the door. Jane answered the door looking very surprised to find me on her doorstep at 9:25 on a Sunday morning. I explained to her the situation and that we didn't even have 1 napkin, wipe, nothing. Jane was so gracious and let me use warm towels, her youngest son's clothes, wipes and whatever else we needed in that moment. Jane went on to explain that she thought I showed up to pray for her since they were making the announcement that morning that Steve was resigning from the church, to be a chaplain with NASCAR. I had no idea. I offered to pray though :) We had a sweet moment and I was so thankful that we got to hear the news directly from them, despite the up-chuck from Kayna.
Jane went onto church with her children and graciously let us stay to finish cleaning up. As I sat down on the Keller's couch to warm Kayna up I looked at the red leather foot-stool and noticed that there was poo in the exact spot that I had my foot resting a moment earlier. Gross. Somehow I stepped in poo on the way from the car to their front door and proceeded to track it into their house!! "Crap", I thought, then chuckled at the pun. "Chris!? I need the can of lysol that you found - there's poop in here!" After cleaning up the poo we decided to head back home. We took a 2 mile walk down Fullwood Lane. On the walk we heard what sounded like a huge tree fall just ahead in the woods. Sure enough, a large old Pine tree had split at the base and fallen to the ground. Very strange. On the way back, we saw flashing lights from a police car and ambulance. While we were walking, a car had driven off the road towards the wooded sidewalk we were on, and stopped just short of the line of trees. Who knows what happend? The driver went completely across both lanes and was facing the opposite way of the oncoming traffic. Strange again. We made it home safely and had a calm afternoon. Whew!
Monday started and Kayna and I headed to the boys' house. I watch 3 boys (1yr - 4yrs) each Monday for a friend. When Kayna had to use the restroom, I helped her get onto the toilet. Noticing that the previous potty-goer didn't flush, I proceeded to flush, as Kayna was getting situated on the seat. The water did not go down. Kayna had to poo and there was no stopping her. "Crap" - I thought, haha, again. When she finished, I hurried off to find a plunger. Upon returning, with plunger in hand, I found their large black lab lapping water out of the toilet!!! OH NO! With his snout covered in nastiness, I got him into the office and closed the door. I found the disinfectant and sprayed it on every drip from the toilet to the office. Somehow the toilet began working and I was able to flush away the remaining nastiness.
Moments later, the youngest boy woke up from his morning nap. Upon entering his room I could instantly tell that he would need a diaper change right away. Boy was I right. There was poo from his chest to his upper back. "Crap" - it wasn't really funny anymore. Poor little guy!! I debated on whether or not to give him a bath. I settled on using about 65 wipes after role-playing in my mind what might happen if one of the children downstairs let the lab out of the office. After we got everything sorted out and sanitized we all enjoyed playing in the backyard, out in the open, fresh air. Of course, Kayna was sure to find some dog poo in the grass... "CRAP!"

Renovation

In November we decided to take the plunge and rip up our terrible old country-blue carpet and put down hardwoods. We moved in with our gracious friends Taylor and Lacy for what was supposed to be 1 week. I went around Matthews and Charlotte looking for the perfect/best color and wood for our home and by the time I laid out all the samples, we could have just put them together to form our new flooring! We settled on raw hardwood (White Oak Common #2, 4" planks to be exact) and we had it stained a walnut color. Our goals were simple: no red undertones and wider than standard boards. After the floors were installed we decided to paint, to make the house feel more complete and 'us'. That turned into fixing a hole in the ceiling (from the house settling over time), to removing the popcorn from the ceilings, to replacing can lights above the fireplace, to tiling the guest bathroom!!

I've been hesitant to post pictures since we don't have the finishing touches complete yet (new hardware, a rug, i'm dreaming of a pair of vintage upholstered 'club chairs' to go on either side of the fireplace, and we don't have window treatments/accents yet)....but - its so much better than what it was before, I will go ahead and show you the Houston's mini-extreme makeover.

A special thanks to Taylor and Lacy for letting us live with them for 4 weeks (even encompassing Thanksgiving!)!!!

BEFORE (From warm):

AFTER (to cool):