"I can still hear with my ears, you know."

So we're having family prayer last night in our room and kneeling at our bed. Will is reverent, Ryan is praying, and I'm trying to keep Tommy still. Didn't work. He moved and wiggled the entire time. So I finally put a "seat belt" hold on him the rest of prayer. When we said "Amen" and closed prayer, Tommy glared at me and pouted. I asked him if he knew why I had done that he said no, and that he was mad at me for holding him so tight. I told him that it's important to be quiet when someone's praying, but more important, to be reverent for Heavenly Father. His eyes got big and he said a very slow, deliberate, "ooooh". I told him he can't bounce around during prayer anymore and he looked up at me and said, "But Mommy, I can still hear with my ears, you know." Oh the logic of a 4-year old.

The boys' bedroom

Well, because of my flood, the boys' bedroom also flooded. I forgot to mention that the kitchen wall and their bedroom wall are connected. So we currently have the carpet pulled up and fans and the window open. I decided to paint the room with the paint my mom bought us since I have everything out of the room anyway. It's a nice shade of very light blue. Then I'm going to put white trim, and corkboard on the back of their door. I might even put picture rail up so that they can hang their school artwork also.
I painted all this while they were napping with their Daddy yesterday afternoon. So when Will got up he opened his door, poked his head in and said that he hated it. He like his Buzz Lightyear room better. Tommy came in and said he loved it. I guess you can't win all the time. They're most excited now that I'm going to hang the superhero posters up that they've been collecting.
When it's finished I'll post the picture for all to see.

Plumbing mishap, or how I forgot to turn off the main water valve

Hello friendly readers. I am currently working on fixing up the house little by little, as budget permits. My husband isn't very handy (or so he wants me to believe), so I am doing it all by myself with my trusty Home Depot manual. I call this the "Bible for do-it-yourselfers".
I obviously forgot to read-up on how to do under the kitchen sink plumbing.
What I'm trying to do is put my garbage and recycle cans under the sink, to help my kitchen appear less cluttered. My mom is finally rejoicing as she's been after me for a long time to do this very thing. Well, when we bought the house the previous owners had a water filtration installed, which we've never used. This was in the way of the cans fitting perfectly, so it had to go! So I figured I could just unhook the hose attachments to the shut-off valve; I couldn't unhook or unscrew it, so my bright idea? Just cut it off! WRONG IDEA!!!! It began leaking profusely, a steady run of water all over the cupboard floor. So I quickly shut off the valve under the kitchen sink. I went to Home Depot and the appliance guy there told me to get some end caps and those should do the trick. I bought the wrong size, returned it for the correct size, and that was still the wrong size! So I went to Fred Meyer and bought a new valve that was straight instead of a "y" and went home with my wonderful idea to put the new valve on myself. I've put up shelves, painted walls, spackled, etc. So, of course I can do this right? NO!
I managed to unscrew the valve and just when that happened, SWOOSH!!! I had water blasting in my face and flooding all over the kitchen. I had my oldest son run next door and get my neighbor to save me from myself. He rushed over and we troubleshot how to fix it. We tried putting the garden hose to the copper pipe coming into the house to divert the water outside. Didn't work. He finally went to the street and shut the water off at the meter. Duh! Why didn't I think of that to begin with?
So, here we are with water standing at the 3 inch level, going on to the carpet, my clothes are soaked to the bone and finally one of the phone calls paid off. Just AFTER Ryan got home from work. Needless to say, he wasn't very pleased with my attempt at home improvement. Or should I say MISimprovement? Did I mention that Friday was our 10-year wedding anniversary? Happy anniversary Ryan, the kitchen has flooded and the steak is burnt. Sorry.
So 3 other neighbors arrived and helped us get the problem fixed.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Ryan had me put duct tape on the opening, because, after all, he reasoned, they created duct tape for WWII for waterproofing, right? WRONG.
Well, I hope you all had a laugh on my attempt. Ryan made me promise to never try to fix anything electrical in our home. I have to agree with him. With my luck, I'd probably just burn the house down.