THE JOHNSONS: A Day Around the House

We just enjoyed a relaxing day around our house today. Well, some of us anyway. Joseph has been on the phone a lot and running errands for the ward here and there, trying to get last minute Christmas things done for ward members. Aidan and I made the trek out to speech once again. I can't believe that before he started all day school we actually went out to speech two or three times a week! We had to be there pretty early, so Aidan and I made the trek alone. When we got back Joseph had cleaned the bathrooms and was mopping the kitchen floor. He is great and wonderful.

Around three o'clock the maintenance guy called. They had come a couple of months ago to do their annual inspection of our townhouse and had written some work orders up. He came over to fix the pantry door, Livi's closet door, and apparantly to attach a banister on our stairs to the basement. The banister part was news to me. We have never had a banister and honestly we have never wanted one either. I know where the banister is. It's in our laundry room attached to a pipe on the ceiling. I don't know why it's there, but that is where I would like it to stay. I tried to argue this point, but I guess that it's against code to not have one. I don't know why it hasn't been against code the last 2 years we have lived here or however long the people before us had it attached to the ceiling, but apparantly it's a life or death situation that we have one. So I had to let them into the laundry room to get the banister off of the ceiling. The problem here is that Aidan and Owen wanted to help. The bigger problem is that you have to go through the toy room to get to the laundry room. The biggest problem is that Santa is currently using the toy room as a storage room and so it is completely off limits. So I had to stand guard at the toy room door so no wandering eyes could get into the toy room. Another problem presented itself when they got the banister down, realized that it was still brown....indicating that it had been on the ceiling for at least 10 years when they had painted all of them white, and also realized that they couldn't get it out of the laundry room because it's too long. So the solution....take the vent off of the wall between the laundry room and the living room and pass the huge bar through the vent. An easier solution in my opinion.......attach the thing right back up to the ceiling where it was perfectly happy and leave my stairs with out a banister. It all worked out though and they got it out and took it with them to paint it. I hope they realize that I will have to pull the stupid thing back off of the wall when we move so that I can get my furniture out of the basement. I might even pull it off and attach it to the ceiling again. Depends on the mood that I'm in and if Joseph will be a rebel with me or not. It doesn't look promising.

Then the maintenance man, who we will call Richard (because that's his name) informed me that he needed to take my pantry door with him in order to fix it. I kind of felt like I was on the Grinch Who Stole Christmas when the Grinch lies and steals the Christmas tree. Really?? You need to take the door to fix it? The only problem with the door is that the handle is loose and it doesn't open very easily, but I guess he has to take it with him to solve the problem. As if keeping Aidan out of the food when we had a door wasn't hard enough??!! So now I have a pantry with food randomly piled on the shelves, and now everyone can see it and Aidan and Olivia have free reign of it. I don't think I could get Kael to eat anything out of it even without a door so at least I don't have to worry about him. I think maybe the maintenance guys are bored?? Most people left for Christmas and it hasn't snowed so they don't have a lot to do?? Hopefully for the sake of the other residents of Village Green it will snow soon so they will be busy. Otherwise who knows what they will come and steal from your house! Other than those few adventures today has been pretty laid back. Here are a couple of pictures....

Aidan found some Toy Story stickers that Aunt Katie sent for him. He spent most of the afternoon sorting them into their own class, species, and phylum and making them talk to each other. Don't worry...the backs are still on all of them, they are not stuck to my couch.

And a cheesy smile for the camera.

Owen spent a lot of the day wiping snot on the couch and his arm and watching Super Why, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Wow Wow Wubbzy. Those are all his best.

When Owen would let him, Kael watched some Scooby Doo cartoons.

While Kael was watching Scooby Doo these two trouble makers were risking their lives. They are playing Kael's Bakugan. Doesn't Owen look like he knows he is doing something wrong??

"But Mom!! I just want to Brawl!!"