• I'm one step closer to figuring out this undercabinet lighting maze. The LED light bars came in yesterday (1-day shipping from DHL...they rock!) and I think I've solved our problem with how the transformers will work with the five different hard-wired zones. Just have a couple questions left for our Taiwanese vendor (Photonier Technology) and I'm ready to complete the order. It's pretty exciting, as this is the last major piece of our kitchen puzzle.
  
  
• Still digesting the news that LeBron James declared he's going to play with the Miami Heat. What a moron. He's taking a pay cut to play with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh but the Heat still won't have any money left to pay for a decent supporting cast. But wait, there's more! Miami is a small market, so good luck if LeBron wants to expand his "brand". But wait, there's more! LeBron will have to share the spotlight (and the ball) with his two superstar buddies. Good luck trying to separate from the pack and establish yourself as The Man. While some people are hyperventilating that Miami will now win multiple championships, the reality is that with a projected supporting cast of minimum-salary nobodies, this team still isn't a lock to beat Boston, Orlando or Chicago in the East, much less win one NBA championship. To me, LeBron is clueless and I hope he never wins any championships.
  
  
• It's Day 3 of the Henry Potty Training Festival and he has not had a single accident all day (and so far, all night...through 1:26 AM). Can I say 'Whew'??? I still hate potty training but I thank God that it's been pretty painless so far.
  
  
• As head coach of Ethan's youth baseball team, had a team practice tonight. Things are going well. Ethan plays at Welles Park in the Minor League; our team is the Rockies. Team is 7-2-3 and in 3rd place in the National League. Have a game vs. the Yankees on Saturday, then the regular season finale vs. the Twins on Sunday. We'll see how things go.
  
  
• Bought this new product at Target called Kashi TLC Oatmeal Raisin Flax Soft-Baked Cookies that has both omega-3 and fiber. Both Mil & I agreed that we wouldn't buy this again. It tastes very "grainy", is not exactly soft in texture (I was expecting it to be like Matt's Cookies) and generally more like a granola bar than a cookie.
  
  
• Sorry, no pics today. Getting late. Maybe tomorrow.
  

So it isn't a year since our last post...woo hoo! Like a broken New Year's resolution, we'll resolve to try to stay current in our blog. (If you roll your eyes at this point, I don't blame you.)

Today is Day 2 of the Henry Potty Training Festival. I have to call it a festival to make it sound fun b/c I hate potty training. We normally start our kids, whether boy or girl, at 2 years old but had to postpone it with Henry since we were temporarily dorming with Mil's parents due to our house construction. So Henry is now 2.5 years old. Hopefully he will "get it" faster since he's a little older than we would normally start. And so far, he's had many successes in between several of the expected accidents, so it could be worse. But I still hate potty training.

Just to clarify, we do potty training cold turkey b/c we feel it works faster that way...at least it has with all our other kids, who averaged about 2-3 days to get it down 80%. Last night was his first overnight experience and Henry had no accidents. I took him to the potty at 11:30 PM (he was dry but nothing happened at the potty), and again at 1:30 AM (he was dry and had success in the potty). And Henry stayed dry the rest of the night. Whew! But I still hate potty training. We'll see how it goes tonight.

As for our house, I'm currently trying to figure out how to do undercabinet lighting for our kitchen. I decided on LED, as it's cooler to the touch than Xenon and more energy efficient than halogen and even florescent. But it's been quite an adventure trying to figure out what exactly I need. I could go the expensive route (over $1000) and let the Lighting Manager at Ferguson design a Juno Trac12 LED system for me but I can save about half that if I can plan it myself. Pray for me b/c this has got me sorta stumped. Our GC even came over today to look at my parts list and asked "Can you return this stuff?" Ugh. And did I mention I hate potty training?

We cooked our second meal on our new BlueStar range tonight: BBQ pork fried rice. It was our first time using a wok on our 22,000 BTU burner and lemme tell you, that is some serious heat. I had to use an oven mitt just to hold the spatula thing that I used to stir the ingredients in the wok...and I felt the heat near my tummy as I stood in front of the range. Wow. The range is incredibly impressive. I can't wait until our kitchen is finally 100% finished (currently has no running water and nothing is in any of the cabinets, so we're still cooking out of boxes).

And our hood is phenomenal. We turned it on and when we finished cooking, you couldn't smell anything. Only after we turned off the hood and the cooked food continued to release aroma did we get any whiff of culinary scents. In the past, our entire house would smell like food b/c we didn't have any kind of hood. And it was less noisy at full power than Mil's folks' hood at medium-high power. Outstanding performance.

(Please excuse the messy and still-unfinished kitchen in the photo).

Lastly, we tried putting the kids down early: 8 PM. Of course, it wasn't until closer than 8:45 that the kids were all in bed...but it was better than the 10PM bedtime they routinely had been getting for the past several weeks. This gave us a little more time for our personal stuff before our own bedtime. And we have a lot to attend to these days. We'll see if we can sustain this effort of putting the kids to sleep earlier.

How are you doing? Please keep us abreast of what's happening in your life! Everybody has a fascinating story to tell and we'd love to hear it.