Clothes Dryer

Heaven knows that Nate and I aren't the most proactive people in the world when it comes to home maintenance. But we discovered something this weekend that I want to share.

Our clothes dryer had been acting a bit strangely lately. The top of it was getting hot when it ran. And it started to get less and less lint in the lint screen. And the clothes weren't getting very dry. Then I ran a load of towels, and there was no lint in the screen. I knew something was wrong.

So after trying a couple of things, I pulled the dryer away from the wall and checked the vent hose - it was completely clogged with lint! I'm guessing we were a load or two away from a big fire. So we vaccuumed out the vent hose, where it connects to the wall, and where it connects to the dryer. We got LOTS of lint out of there. The hose easily connects back on both ends with a spring loaded belt type thing at our house. All of this probably took less than 15 minutes.

If you're as clueless as we were about doing this little maintenance item, you might want to check that out at your house. You may be able to prevent disaster - and maybe improve the efficiency of your dryer.

Babysitting

I had the pleasure of babysitting Calvin Koontz last Saturday while Nate and Adam were out in the woodshop. Calvin turns one this coming Friday and is just learning to walk. We had a pretty good time. He is a pretty easy-going little guy. It hasn't taken me long to forget how much work toddlers are. Shew. And how cute and innocent they are.

Visit to Grandma and Pa-paw Brooke's

A couple of weekends ago, Colin, Megan, and I stopped by Grandma and Pa-paw Brooke's house for a visit. We had a pretty good time. One thing we did was have Grandma cut Colin's hair. This is kind of a right of passage for the guys in our family. Grandma got out her big soup pot for him to sit on and her very experienced clippers and went to town. Colin wanted me to get his picture with all different expressions, so enjoy...:)

Normal

Mad Happy
Growling?
Scared
Shocked! What a ham. Grandma was such a good sport.
Then Grandma had Colin and Megan pose for the famous "Hand in the cookie jar" pose...of course they were rewarded for thier modeling services with a cookie afterwards. :)

It was a nice visit. Wish we could see them more often.

Kindergarten Work

Nate and I have been really enjoying Colin's learning process during Kindergarten. He is so smart. It is amazing to watch him learn. Here are a few of his recent papers.

The translation for this first one is "I love lunch at home with my family, peanut butter is my favorite."

This second one isn't from Kindergarten. He just made this one doddling at home when playing with Megan...so sweet.
Just so you don't think Colin is too angelic, this third one proves that he is a normal six year old boy. It is what I believe to be his first 'writing sentences' punishment. It says "Follow hallway rules" - five times.
Thinking about Colin's first sentence writing punishment got me thinking about my last (and only) experience with that. The sentence was "I will not participate in extracurricular activities in Mr. Schwartzendruber's General Music class." And in my defense, it wasn't me specifically who got in trouble, but the whole class...some of you Oak Hill alumni might remember a similar experience. He got every class eventually, I imagine.