Yesterday we had a full and exciting day. We dropped the kids off at Mom's house after nap and took off to buy our flooring and pick out appliances.

We stopped off at End of the Roll to look over our top picks again and Jason was able to get them to cut down the price a bit on the flooring we ultimately chose.

Its a lovely Jatoba (or, Brazillian Cherry).




















After getting that done, we felt so much better for having that decision done and over with. So much stress. We headed for Sears initally to window shop, but after talking to the sales people we realized that we could get some very good deals on appliances if we bought all Kenmore and bought them on the 30th (they are having a one day 20% sale on Kenmore stuff). Consumer Reports rated Kenmores as their "best buy" for the appliances we needed, so we picked out the washer/dryer and refrigerator we wanted and had her write it up. We'll have to come in on the morning of the 30th to actually purchase them to get the deal, then they will be delivered the next morning.

Because I'm a geek, I will attach pictures of my new appliances, which I love.
















After all that we went back to Mom's, had dinner, then came home. The kids were worn out, and so were we!

I keep forgetting to mention, Ethan can count to 5 now and sing the alphabet. Gwen can say tons of words, but her current favorite is "uh oh" which she repeats over and over again at the slightest provocation.

Our dishwasher is broken and we haven't been able to fix it. It doesn't drain out all the water. Last night I thought I had fixed it by - and I realize this is not an approved method by anyone, ever for dishwasher repair - tossing bleach into the pool of water at the bottom and running it through a cycle. The thought being that the bleach may loosen up the clog, if there was a clog. Indeed, it seemed to work as all the water drained out. So this morning we happily loaded it up with all the backlogged dishes and ran a cycle and we are left with another pool of water that has not drained! We are way over our head when it comes to this particular appliance so we arranged for someone to come out on Tuesday to look at it. In the meantime we'll be buying some paper plates and cups and handwashing (*shudder*) whatever is not disposable.