VACATION!!!!!

Oh, thank God vacation is finally here!  I'm looking forward to spending time with all 3 of my boys.  It does figure, though, that as soon as we got on vacation Adrian decided that he was going to fight his nap.  He has been screaming for over half hour for the past 3 days when I put him down.  He never fought his naps before and, in fact, was always a better napper than Sebastian.  Now, after he finally does fall asleep, I'm lucky if he sleeps an hour.  It sucks and makes for a very long day when Adrian sleeps 45 minutes and then wakes up Sebastian too early, too.  I'm Ferberizing him again at nap time...today was better than yesterday--he slept after only a half hour of screaming, but this isn't fun!  I don't enjoy regressions.  Anyway, I know I have to keep to the schedule and keep at it.  I just had hoped I was done with all this sleep training business.

On Saturday, we didn't do much except go to Lowe's and buy a new dishwasher.  The old one that came with the house had to have been at least 20 years old.  It was ancient.  The thing didn't wash very well anymore, the soap dispenser would get stuck shut (so it would "wash" occasionally with the soap still inside the dispenser), and the rubber ring around the door to keep the water inside was all ripped.

We decided to forgo the $300 Lowe's installation charge and hope that our plumber friend would come to help us out.  Carlos disconnected the old one himself so that we could take advantage of the free haul away by Lowe's.  This is what he found behind the dishwasher.  First off, I'm not sure if that electrical business is legal??  There was no outlet, just a junction box nailed to the floor?  Is that ok?  The second surprise was water on the floor...one of the drainage tubes was leaking...who knows how long this leak had been going on.  I guess it couldn't have been too bad or we would have seen water damage downstairs on the ceiling.  In any event, I'm glad we bought a new one!

Actually, there was a 3rd surprise as well.  Mouse droppings.  SO NASTY.  We've never seen evidence of mice anywhere in the house (knock on wood), but they must have been able to enter through that hole in the wall and then they were trapped behind the dishwasher.  Hopefully that was from BEFORE we moved in.  I was so grossed out.

So, our electrician friend is coming Thursday to fix the electrical (put an outlet there so we can just plug the new one in).  Then we'll either install the dishwasher ourselves or have the plumber come.  I know it's probably not hard for Carlos to install it himself, but things with electricity and water freak me out.  If they are done wrong, they can be costly to fix!  We'll see.  For now, we have to live with a hole in the cabinets and the new dishwasher in the corner of the kitchen.

It was 60 degrees out Saturday afternoon so we took a walk with the boys around the neighborhood.  They enjoyed splashing in the puddles, and I let them because they had their boots on.

Yesterday we had a party at the Paones in the afternoon.  It was a nice party for Patrick's christening/Christmas.  There was a huge yankee swap with over 46 people participating.  We brought a big bag of pistachios from BJs and some Philosophy shampoo/body wash.  We took home a children's Christmas book and a bottle of wine.  Before going home we went to the Taunton Green to check out the lights.

We didn't stay long because it was starting to rain.  But the boys liked the lights and the Santa.

Adrian is screaming again--after only 20 minutes of quiet.  He does have a bad cough which seems to be keeping him awake/waking him up.  I gave him Tylenol before the nap to see if that would help (his throat MUST hurt with all the coughing he's been doing), but apparently it didn't.  I used saline on him earlier, too. It's going to be a long 2 weeks if this situation doesn't improve soon!