Stice Family

First of all, I am so proud of Brielle!  We had her parent-teacher conference last week and her teacher raved over her.  We knew she was wonderful, but it's always a special treat to hear others share positive feedback about your child.  She kept telling us how smart and sweet and wonderful she was.  I like to feel on top of what my children are learning rather than leave it all up to the school system.  Brielle and I do a lot of learning drills together and the teacher's feedback on what a unique student she is just made me glow.  She's always been very very bright. She was born with a crazy enthusiasm for learning- especially for anything you'd find in a classroom setting.  The teacher said that Brielle is a major boost in her self esteem because Brielle is always so approving and excited about what the teacher has prepared for them to do/ learn each day.  Brielle comes to school, enters the classroom, walks straight up to the counter where the day's assignments and activities are, and bubbles with excitement, sits at her table, and waits absolutely eager to begin.

The teacher also talked about Brielle's character.  She said Brielle's understanding for right and wrong is leaps and bounds above what they expect from kindergartners.  She knows when other children say something slightly unkind and is sensitive to how the recipient is feeling, knows when someone does something sneaky or anything else that for most children her age is still a gray area for integrity.  She said Brielle even asked the student teacher who, at first, wore low cut neckline shirts, if she knew what "modesty" meant.  The student teacher laughed together with the teacher, but the student teacher wore more modest shirts to school from then on.  : )  Way to go, Brielle!

We love her.  She is so very very special.

And a side note, I forgot to mention that Brielle lost her two front teeth two and a half weeks ago!  Todd pulled both on the same evening.

Some not so fortunate luck:  we recently had our bathrooms and mudroom tiled.  But the toilet started to leak water behind it that seeped down between the new flooring and sub-floor. Which we did not realize until we noticed the carpet outside the doorway of the next room over (the master bathroom) was a little damp.  We thought the kids had spilled water.  But it quickly got more wet and MORE wet throughout the day.  We checked for a leak in the roof/attic.  Later that day the grout lines in the tile next to the carpet appeared a little wet.  We followed the wet grout lines to the wall that divided the two bathrooms.  We went to the other bathroom and found the slow steady leak from the toilet.

We called a disaster clean up company to check it out.  Sure enough, a lot of water was trapped between the new tile floor and the sub-floor.  And all of the brand new tile in both bathrooms had to be ripped out.  It was ripped out this morning.  As well as the sub floor below.  Both bathrooms have large fans running inside them as well as the crawl space beneath.  They are attempting to dry the floor beneath both vanities from the crawl space- trying to avoid removing them.  But they expect that they'll have to remove them too.  Which will damage them too much to re-use them and new ones would then have to be purchased.  The main bathroom tub will also possibly have to be removed if it doesn't dry well enough from beneath, but they are more optimistic about that one.

We called our home owners insurance who said they would probably cover it all.  But wouldn't guarantee it until their adjuster comes out and takes a look.  The clean up repairman said insurance companies tend to deny claims on long-term leaks because they chalk it up to neglect.  We hope this appears as neither long term since it hasn't molded yet which usually takes less than a week, and it wasn't neglect because we couldn't see the water until it appeared in the carpet.  I pray we don't have to pay for all of this again.

Anyway, so our bathrooms are ripped up while a for sale sign sits in our front yard.  Not the best scenario.  We haven't had any calls on it yet, I didn't think I'd hope people would NOT call soon.  I just don't want some one who would have bought the house to call and find out the situation, and get scared off.  So as of today, I hope that they take their time calling for another couple of weeks. The disaster clean-up crew re-installed one toilet over the floor boards so we'd be able to stay here and have a running toilet this week while the floor dries.  But that will be less than ideal for Lainey's big birthday bash with all of Todd's family tomorrow....

Speaking of which- here are her invitations. 

Little lady bugs for our little Lainey Bug!