Broke House and Broke Car

Our new roof got started today. This is our first step (other than repairing the broken window) to fix our "broke house", as Carter says.

The crew showed up around 11:15 am and only got the shingles off one section in the back and got the felt on that section. I don't think they are going to finish the rest tomorrow as they originally said.


We're going to have to really make sure all the nails get picked up because they are everywhere and I'm sure they would go right through the Crocs that Carter always wears.



Amy and I were planning to take the kids to the pool today. I was waiting to talk to our roofing contractor and Amy had gone on to the pool. She discovered that it was closed today so we decided to head to the other pool in the neighborhood. Since she didn't know where it was, she came over to the house and was going to follow me there.

My car was parked in front of the house because of the roofers and Amy parked behind me on the hill. When we were leaving, I thought I had put the car into drive but it started rolling backwards when I took my foot off the brake. Even though I have an automatic, I gave the car more gas thinking the hill was causing it to roll backwards. By the time I got my foot back to the brake, I had rolled into Amy. I immediately put the car into park and so I have no idea if I was in drive and the car never engaged or I was somehow still in neutral. Either way, I hit Amy. And Carter is now describing my car as "broke" as well.




Thankfully we are all fine but I feel terrible that I hit Amy. I hate that I've caused her this inconvenience and I feel dumb because I consider myself a good driver. She's been so nice about it though.

This afternoon Amy and I stopped by the body shop Brian and I have used before to try to get estimates. Due to all the work they have from the hail storm, the earliest they could do an estimate was the end of the month and repairs couldn't be done until at least October. Hopefully everyone isn't that backed up!

When we were at the body shop, Caitlyn was playing with a toy phone. When we asked her who she was talking to, she said "Insurance." These kids hear us even when we don't think they are listening!

Amy and I have the same insurance agency and they have been great so far. With the recent storms, they have a mobile catastrophe center still set up and I have an appointment with them tomorrow to get an estimate and move the claim forward. Also, since we are with the same insurance agency, they are waiving the deductible.

Naps

I love naps. I really love that I have the kids on a similar afternoon nap schedule!

Rylan is taking two naps a day. I usually try to get him down for his morning nap around 9:30 am because it's typically only 30 minutes and all the programs we go to start at 10:30 am. If he doesn't go down that early and we're going out, he'll usually take a nap in the car or stroller.

Rylan has to have a morning nap. He didn't want to take a nap the other morning before we met Amy's family at our pool at 10 am. He got really grumpy within an hour and he fell asleep on me in the pool. I laid him down on a beach towel on the concrete around the pool and he amazing stayed asleep. He took a 45 minute nap on that hard concrete!

I usually put Carter down for a nap around 1:30 pm. He almost always goes to sleep easily within a few minutes. Then I usually nurse Rylan and he'll fall asleep. I will then put him in his crib and he'll sleep anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. If he takes a short nap, I can usually get him to fall back asleep on me and I'll hold him and watch TV while he finishes his nap.

I am so glad that I usually have a little bit of time in the afternoon to catch up on things around the house. I'm still always behind but am a little more sane with the break.

Carter's Vocabulary

I've been meaning to post about this for a couple of months now, but I'm just now finally getting around to it. Carter's vocabulary has exploded recently. He's still not very clear with his pronunciation, but he has so many new words.

The one I love and hate right now that he started saying while we were at the beach is "in a minute". When we ask him if he's ready for bed or wants to go inside or just about anything, that's his response.

Carter is putting together more and more words into longer sentences. It's getting much easier to have a conversation with him.

He also will finally repeat just about any word we ask him to. He was very obstinate about this for a long time.

Ocean Isle - Day 3

Monday, June 6th was Brian's 33rd birthday. We had a lot more fun on that day than we did on our anniversary (June 4th) which was spent driving with two little ones for 10 hours. They actually did really well on the drive to the beach. We got new DVD players for the car before this trip. We set one up for each kid. Carter watched 6 movies during the drive and was content the whole drive. Rylan occasionally paid attention to the movies and only fussed occasionally. There were a few times I crawled in the back with the boys to try to calm Rylan down even though there's not enough room between the carseats for me to sit facing forward (I have to sit sort of sideways because my hips don't fit).

Anyway, on Monday we decided to go to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, which is in Wilmington (Kure Beach, actually). To get there we drove up to Southport and then took the ferry from Southport to Fort Fisher. The ride is about 30 minutes and crosses the Cape Fear River.


Birds follow the ferry because people always throw food to them. Someone shared some bread with us and we joined in.


Rylan hanging out with GG on the upper deck ...


Carter enjoyed ever bit of the ferry ride.


We went straight to the aquarium after getting of the ferry.

One of the alligators was hanging out at the front of the tank so I tried to get Carter to pose with it for a picture ...


Carter refused to touch the horseshoe crabs and starfish in the touch-tank. But he did enjoy looking at them up close ...


Checking out the sharks, rays, and other fish in the large tank ...



Carter's favorite were the giant spiny lobsters ...


We tried to get a picture of all the kids outside of the aquarium but the mosquitoes attacked them immediately and this was the best picture I got ...


After the aquarium we went to a local seafood restaurant for lunch called Bowman's at The Beach. Then we headed back to the beach house but this time drove through Wilmington to get back to Ocean Isle instead of taking the ferry.

The boys both took a nap in the car and so we went down to the beach when we got to the house. Our routine every time we went down to the beach was to play in the sand for about an hour and then go in the ocean to get some of the sand off.


"This is so much fun!"


That night we celebrated birthdays. That day was Brian's, Maddie's is June 17th, and Rylan's is June 28th.

Rylan loved his presents from GG and Papa Art. He especially loved banging on this wrapped one!




We had cupcakes but I decided to hold off on Rylan getting his first cupcake until his party at our house. He did get a couple of really small bites of mine though.

Ocean Isle - Days 1 & 2

We drove from Knoxville to Ocean Isle, NC on Saturday, June 4th for a week at the beach with Brian's family. His parents (Art & Cinda) rented a house on the beach that also had a pool. The house was actually a quad-plex and we had a 7 bedroom end unit. No one rented the other 3 units the week we were there so we had a the pool to ourselves the entire time.

Besides us and Brian's parents, his half-brother (Tony), Tony's wife (Tina), and their son (Dominic) and Brian's half-sister (Kristen) and her daughter (Maddie) were able to make it. This was our first time meeting Kristen and Maddie and we are so glad that we got to spend the week with them.

All the kids got along great. Dominic is 9 months older than Carter and Maddie turns 8 this week. Dominic and Carter loved following Maddie around and doing whatever she directed them to do. I think Carter listened better to Maddie than to me the whole week!

We left Knoxville around 7 am on Saturday. We drove to Wilmington first (which is about an hour from Ocean Isle) and dropped off Charlotte with my mom. We spent a couple of hours with her and then drove on to Ocean Isle. We got in around 7 pm and visited with everyone before getting the boys to bed. They had late bedtimes all week but have managed to get back on schedule now that we are home.

Brian and I took the single bedroom on the third floor and kept Rylan in our room. His crib was around a corner from the bed so we didn't disturb him. We kept him in our room since he still gets up a lot at night and we wanted to be able to get him before he woke up anyone else. Carter had one of the four bedrooms on the second floor.

On Sunday we were on the beach by 9 am. We had wonderful weather the entire week - no rain and just a few clouds. I was nervous about how Rylan was going to do on the beach. The first time we took Carter to the beach, he just wanted to eat the sand. Rylan though had no interest in putting sand in his mouth. He loved running his hands through it though and knocking down sand castles.

Rylan typically could sit in the sand for about an hour just playing with the sand and with our sand toys before he got bored.


Carter was a little scared of the ocean the first day and spent most of the morning in the sand.


But he quickly warmed up to the ocean and loved playing in the waves with Brian. He's so little though that Brian would have to hold on to him or the small waves would knock him down.

Rylan loved the ocean too. I'd hold him in the water, then lift him up some when a wave would come, and he would giggle every time.

After spending a few hours on the beach, we went to the pool for awhile. Then we had lunch and the kids took naps.

After dinner we took a walk on the beach. Carter and GG (Cinda) collected shells ...


Rylan got passed back and forth between me and Brian ...



Brian and Carter tried to find ghost crabs. After Brian stuck a stick down a hole to see how deep it was, Carter stuck a stick down every hole he saw ...


After our walk on the beach, the boys got baths and then Carter got to play with his cousins. Here's a picture of Carter, Maddie, and Dominic hanging out on the back porch before bed ...

Drinking Water

Rylan had a breakthrough yesterday on drinking water. He drank half a sippy cup! There is hope that I'll be able to wean him not long after his first birthday!!!

House Repairs Update

We are finally moving forward on making repairs from the hail storm that came through at the end of April. Our very slow adjuster finally finished our claim on Thursday before we left for the beach.

The materials for our roof got delivered last Thursday while we were on vacation.


The roof is supposed to be started today but we have a chance of storms this afternoon so I'm not sure it'll actually happen.

Once the roof is done, we'll move on to other repairs. Our siding has been discontinued though so we're going to have to have all of it replaced (80% of it was damaged though). Our contractor is going to try to work with our insurance for us to get it all covered.

Our next challenge is working with our mortgage company (whose name is also on the insurance check) to get our money released to us. They require a lot of paperwork to prove we're using valid contractors and that the repair costs match the insurance estimates.

Working on all of this is why I haven't gotten around to posting the last few days. Hopefully tonight I'll start posting about our trip!

Beach Vacation

We got back late this afternoon from a week at the beach with Brian's family. I have tons of pictures to post, and I hope to get started with it tomorrow. The boys both loved the beach, and we all had a lot fun.

More Pool Fun

It's still in the mid-90s here so we went to the pool again today. Amy and her kids met us there and we stayed for a couple of hours.

I took a quick picture of Carter and Caitlyn in the goggles and swim vests before getting in the water ...


I think Carter was showing off for Caitlyn because he was suddenly super brave. He wanted to swim all by himself and would just jump off the steps towards me with no warning and start moving his arms and legs. Then he jumped into the deep end to me several times and went completely under every time. Today he was back to the comfort level he had at the end of last summer.

Splash Pad

Amy and I took the kids to the splash pad at Carl Cowan Park this morning. It was super crowded but hopefully it'll get better as the summer continues and kids get bored of it (kids just got out of school last week and the splash pad opened this weekend).

This was Rylan's first time getting wet there. I took him last year when he was a newborn but only Carter ran through the water while Rylan usually slept in his stroller.

Rylan didn't mind if I was holding him and running through the water with him but he was not a fan of being sat down with water spraying on him!


"Much better!"


We stayed 2 hours. Rylan missed his morning nap and got tired around 11 am. He fell asleep on me but I was able to put him in his stroller.


Caitlyn and Carter spent a lot of time in the shade just watching all the other kids, but they did get out there a few times and seemed to have lots of fun when they did.




Rylan woke up after about 30 minutes and got lots of love from Caitlyn and Carter ...