It's been forever and a day

So we have been so busy with Abigail and keeping everyone updated on her progress that I have not posted anything on our original blog since Colton's field day in first grade. Instead of write a lot on this blog, we are going to use it to post pictures. The pictures and the captions will help tell the story of what has been going on. We will also keep up Abigail's site since she will continue on her journey of being born with a cleft. We have never forgotten about her awesome big brother, Colton. He continues to do well in school as he brought home a great report card. He is obsessed with Star Wars right now and below is a little movie he made for all of you to enjoy. Love you all.

Our two little elves.

Colton's Field Day

With Abigail coming at the right time I was able to go to Colton's Field day since I took the whole week off. Colton did awesome. He loves to play games, so field day is like Heaven to him. Rather than me tell you all about it, I will let the pictures do the talking:

Colton and his good buddy Griffin

Colton playing cup stack (or just holding the cups)
Colton's version of the limbo
Colton doing an obsticle course
Again with the obsticle course
Colton long jumping (I think he broke the world record)This was pick up a bunch of stuff and run as fast as you can
This is Colton and his girlfriend Kyla (Her name is tough to spell, pronounce with a long i)
Colton doing his best at tug-of-war
Colton doing what he does best...Dancing

Now a day's they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so they only hand out one ribbon at the end of the day. Colton still had a blast and has already told us that he can't wait for his 2nd grade field day.

Biggest Heart Ever.

So, most of you know Colton and you know how big of a heart he really has. On Wednesday I went to pick Colton up from his bio-dad's apartment. Colton usually just moseys his way out of the apartment, taking his grand 'ol time. Well, this past Wednesday, Colton comes out of the apartment and comes up to me almost running. As he approaches me he has worried look on his face and he asks, "Dad, is Ace at our house?"

I replied, "No goof ball, he is right inside the truck."

Colton then had look of relief on his face. Colton then said, "I made Ace some missing dog signs that we can hang up."

I asked, "Why would we do that?"

Colton answered, "Because Ace was at my school yesterday and he was lost. Lex and I was trying to yell at him and get him to come to me, but Ms. S (the recess teacher) told us to stay away from him. So, I was worried that Ace was lost and the dog catcher would get him, so I made him some signs."

To back track a little, about a month ago I got a phone call from a teacher at Colton's school, who had Ace, who had jumped our 6 foot privacy fence and ran to Colton's school (about 3/4 of a mile from our house). When Heather had come home on Tuesday from the doctor she notices Ace was gone. She then heard him bark outside and notice our neighbor letting him out of their gate across the street. She went outside and Andy (our friendly neighbor across the street) said he noticed Ace running back and forth in our front yard trying to get back into the back yard. Andy told Heather he went over and got him and gave him some water.

Our dog is CRAZY! So, on Tuesday he had jumped our 6 foot fence again, ran to Colton's school, said hi to Colton, ran back to our house, got invited into our neighbors house, had some water, then finally came home when Heather got home.

I scanned in one of the pictures that Colton had drawn. This boy is amazing:

I got Scammed!!!

So, I fell for it. It was a good plan by these people though. First off, I lost no money, just my time. About a month ago I got a phone call from "L and L Systems" and the lady on the other end said she was doing a public survey and she asked me about 10 questions; most of which had to do with cleaning supplies. I don't mind being part of the random sample of a survey. At the end she asked my permission to put me into a drawing for a 3 day, 2 night stay at a resort. Who would want that for free, so I said sure. Well...it was a part of the scam:

On Wednesday I got a call a little after 8:00 PM from "L and L Systems." I bold PM because that is already late. What does the lady tell me: "You are the lucky winner of our drawing and you get a 3 day 2 night stay at a resort." I think this is pretty cool, and I even recognize the ladies voice. She said that needed to drop off a certificate and get my signature for receiving. She made sure I was going to be at my house at 8:30 PM so they could drop it off. I said I would be and then specifically asked her, "Are you going to come here and try to sell me something?" Her reply was, "No, all you are going to have to do is sign for receiving your prize and fill out a 10 question survey." I then proceeded to tell her I would be here. Again, this was all part of the scam.

Two people showed up at a little after 8:30 PM. They came to the house with a big box and a little box. Since it was cold outside and I saw that neither the guy or gal was bigger than I, I invited them in out of the snow. The guy came in and said, "Is this your living room where we can set up?" I then told this guy that the lady on the phone told me all I had to do was sign for my prize and fill out a questionnaire. He told me he wanted to show me just a few things. I then responded, "We can go in the kitchen and you have 30 seconds."

To make a really long story short, the guy and gal were there to sell me a vacuum. The guy tried to belittle our Dyson (which we love), but I didn't let that fly and I argued with him. Finally I kicked them out of our house after he tried and tried and tried and tried to sell me a vacuum at 9:30 PM. I was blown away by how hard this guy tried. He did everything but get down on his knees and beg. Some of the funny parts of this whole experience was my arguing points. This guy had no idea what he was walking into, with trying to explain turbine motors and air flow to a Mechanical Engineer. My favorite response was: He asked me,"Would use a microwave that would only cook your food half way?" I replied with, "Sure I would. I would just use it twice." The guy looked at me and didn't have a word to say.

Before the guy left he wanted to call his boss and tell him how awful he failed at selling me a vacuum. I politely let him use our phone. I am glad I did this, because after the guy left our house, I immediately redialed the number. I got right to his boss who now has two ways of going #2. Just to spread the word, and to hold up my promise to this boss, I am letting everyone I know, DO NOT LISTEN TO, BUY FROM, TALK TO, ETC. ANYONE FROM "L AND L SYSTEMS." They are scam artists and I not proud to say that they were even in my house, but at least I can now let everyone else know, not to fall into the same trap. The vacuum they were trying to sell me was the Tri Star. And I thought buying a $500 vacuum was outrageous, they only wanted $2895. Yeah almost THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS! I couldn't believe it.

Then the final straw was this guy asking me to fill out a form with 8 of my friends information, AFTER I asked him to leave. They have to be on some sort of drugs at this point, to think I am going to give them anything but a swift kick to the rear end. So just remember:

L AND L SYSTEMS = SCAM

TRI STAR CLEANING SYSTEM = SCAM

PETER J. = FEELS DUMB

The last thing I have to say is: Heather, sweetest woman I know, YOU WERE RIGHT! She told me before they got there, that they were going to try and sell me something. I LOVE YOU BABE AND I AM SORRY FOR BEING SO DUMB.

Crazy People's Household is right

Is there ever down time? I can't even imagine what it will be like when Abigail comes. At least Heather will have some time off of her crazy work place. What has been going on:

Colton, where do I begin? He is growing up so fast and learning so much. People always say they are little sponges and those people are so right. He learns so much every day, and he has such a good memory. He is doing so well in Tae-Kwon-Do. I missed it, but a couple of weeks ago he was able to break a board for his first time. Heather was there and she said she almost broke into tears with joy and excitement. She said Colton threw is little hands in the air and was so proud of himself. He is currently trying to test for his next level which I believe is high white belt. Baseball is also starting up soon. I am going to be his coach again. This year we are in Machine Pitch, so it should be interesting. I will post up some pictures of him as soon as I take some. I still have to get some pictures of him at karate, so once I get them I will share with you all.

The house is pretty much at a stand still. It is about 99% complete, and it will probably stay that way. There are really just some odds and ends to do. Now that I am done with the majority of the interior, maybe Heather will allow me to do some work on our garage. The bar top still needs to be refinished too.

Heather's back is getting better. Thank you all for your prayers. Poor Heather has been ordered to get massages. She goes once a week for about an hour. I guess it gets me off the hook for a little while.

That is all that is really going on as we wait for Abigail to come around.

A final note of "PRAISE GOD." We finally have a settlement agreement between us and Colton's biological father. I express how relieved we are that we can finally move on. I could on for hours about how it was like pulling teeth without any numbing medicine, but for now I will thank God that we got some papers signed.

We also want to send out another welcome to Nash Jacob Adams. He was born on April 3rd at 7:09 PM. He weighed 6 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 inches long. His parents, Lauren and Travis have started creating a blog, so once it is up and running I will post up the link. For now you can enjoy a picture of him:

It's Been a While

Sorry it has been a little while since I have updated anything on the house or the family. First off, I want to tell the whole world how proud I am of Colton. We had our second parent teacher conference last night and I quote the first words out of his teacher's mouth, "I just love having your son in my class. He is such a wonderful boy, and he is always happy and nice and kind." As I said on our other blog, nothing makes me more happy and more proud than to hear how happy our boy and how kind our boy is. That is one the greatest things a parent could ever hear. For the garbage Colton has had to go through and hear, I am so glad and thank God for such a wonderful and smart boy. They told us that he is making really goo strides and learning well. Of course he has his 6 year old moments when he can't focus, but he is getting better. I am so proud of him. He is also doing well in karate and hopefully soon, we can get him into some piano lessons. I also registered him for baseball (machine pitch) the other day. I am again going to coach his team and plan on having another undefeated season!

The house is "almost" done. We finally have CARPET!!!! I grew up on carpet and have missed it since we moved into our house, but it is back and it is Awesome. It has really made our basement. We don't have worry anymore about what that old carpet had in it. It also creates more space for Colton and I to wrestle. We love it. There is a lot of clean up still to be done but here is what part of looks like:

I should be receiving the door knobs today! We are really down to the finishing touches. It feels good to almost be done with our major projects. Maybe next week we will sell it start over? Ha - don't count on it. I am working on putting up a lot more pictures in an online gallery, so once I do, I will let you all know. Pictures of Abigail's room are posted on forourlittleone.blogspot.com.

I've Created a Disaster

So, at least I can say I have tried. I still haven't quit, but the bar top is not going very smoothly. I tried putting a top coat of concrete to make it look nice and it ended up cracking all over the place. I have since removed it and put it on hold until after the carpet is installed. I figured I will wait until the base layer has fully cured, then I will try again. I have a couple more ideas and if all else fails, I will tile it. We get our carpet this Friday (Feb 29th). I can't wait to have something down there that I actually feel comfortable laying on. It will be nice. I will then just have to cover the carpet with a good layer of plastic when I try to re-coat the concrete. I have a good feeling that it will work this time. We will see.

Concrete...

So, it has been a lot harder than I thought. Of course in Peter's world, everything is easy and everything fits together perfectly. Well, the concrete didn't turn out bad, but at the same time I can't say it was what I imagined. The top came out good; it was the sides that did not turn out. You can see in the pictures below that it turned out "honeycombed." I then went back to Lowe's and got a "top finishing" concrete to fill in all the gaps. I think it will be nice in the end. In true Peter fashion I just jump in head first and hope there is water in the pool. If there isn't then I will just repair the damages later (I married a nurse on purpose, a beautiful nurse at that). I had some good help for the initial laying of the crete, although he sat around most of the time complaining about an ingrown hair on his arm, WIMP! The pictures below so the progress of our work.

Click on the Photos to make them bigger

Paint Done. Concrete Form Done.

So all the carpet is out of the basement and the walls are painted. If you have never used a airless paint sprayer, really ask people how to do it before you do. First off, the first one I rented broke down. I had to take it back and get their other one. Then as I was painting, all I could see was white. I had no idea how thick the paint was going on so I just continued to spray. Well most of the paint was alright, but some of the paint ran because I was spraying it so thick. It really turned out nice and since it is only the basement, I wasn't so picky. What I am more excited about is the concrete bar top that I am doing. I have it all framed out and this next weekend I will be pouring the concrete. Below is a picture of me after I was done painting and a picture of my concrete forms. The family is doing really good. Colton is doing well in school. He told us the other day that he got to put his name on the board because he was reading so well! Heather and I are so proud of him. He loves taking pictures so below is some of his photography. Spiderman is blurry because he is "so fast." Colton is also in Karate. He has been enjoying it, but right now we are trying to get over that hump of "it's getting hard so I want to quit." I think it will be so good for him in the long run. We are also trying to get him into some piano lessons, but so far I have been unsuccessful to find the right teacher for him. Emotions and craziness is high around the house right now, so once things calm down a little bit, he will begin piano lessons.

(You can Click on the Photos to make them bigger)

(Trust me I am not that dumb. This is a Joke)

DEMO is Back!!!

Since there is another precious one on the way, "she" needs a place to rest "her" sweet little head (we still don't know what the sex of the baby is, but it will be a girl so...) This means the computer moves out and the baby furniture will be moving in. The computer is so precious but it still needs a place, which is the basement. We have not done anything with our basement since we moved in...until now! The demolition of basement has begun. All we are doing with the basement is painting, redoing the bar top, and carpeting. The previous people had carpeted down there, but they had also left it up to their dogs to destroy it. You can see below what I am talking about:

The first two photo's are "before pictures. All of the stuff will be removed. The last picture is of the pee stained carpet that I have removed.

Meanwhile the family is doing great. We had a big cold spell here for a while, but it is warming up. The boy had a great time with the huge icecles that formed:

Back into It!

So the holidays are finally over. We had an absolutely awesome Holiday season. There is no doubt that Colton was a good boy this year because he got just about everything he wanted. I say just about because he was still able to think of some toys that he wanted. It was also good to hear him say things like, "Happy Birthday Jesus," and be able to have conversations about why we really celebrate Christmas. I think Colton plans on being a good boy this year because he has already started making his list. Heather and I also had a great season as we got to spend a lot of time with each other. The getting bigger prego Heather (that is the baby is getting bigger, not Heather) is doing well the pregnancy other than the general aches and pains here and there. For those of you that don't know, I have started a blog for our little:
forourlittleone.blogspot.com
You can visit this site to get any updates as to how our baby is doing.