An extreme case of Count Choculitis

On Monday the crew fixing our house finally finished! Hooray! We have a brand new 30-year roof (I never knew there was a difference in roofs, but now I am an expert), all new ceilings, new paint jobs all around, new light fixtures, etc...The most exciting thing is that we are no longer rockin' that mildew-y death smell from all the water damage! I never thought I would be thankful for damage from a hurricane, but it allowed us to update our house all around without costing us thanks to our wonderful homeowners insurance. (Let's give a shout-out to USAA woot woot!) So all the things that Tom and I wanted to do are now done, I didn't have to do any of the work, and it's all done in a week! Now is the time Tom will get the call that Lincoln's ready to move us, right? (no complaints if they did!)

Then there's Natalie...last night I went out for a late night G.N.O. to see a movie. When returning at the awful hour of 1am, Natalie was up sitting on the couch watching something on financial planning (Tom out cold in our room.) I asked "what are you doing?!?" She's all "watching tv." Who knew that a three year old was concerned about her financial future? Well, I walked her back to bed. She was up again at 3am, 4am, and 6am (didn't go back to sleep after 6am!). This is the second night she has done this! What is going on with her, besides, perhaps her love of financial issues? Any advice out there to get this girl to stay asleep in her bed? I've never had an issue with her sleeping in her room before and especially getting up over and over again!

I think I threw up in my mouth.

Oh, my sweet Natalie!

I had just got out of the shower this morning when Natalie strolls into the bathroom. I had just finished brushing my hair when she looks up and asks me what I'm doing. When she notices my hairbrush she gets really excited and asks if she can brush her hair. Of course she can! That girls hair could be brushed a thousand times a day, but since she's cursed with her mother's wild hair, a thousand brushings wouldn't really help (the above picture doesn't even show her at her worst.) But she takes my hairbrush and goes on her merry way, I assume to her room where all her hair accessories are.

A few minutes later, as I'm finishing brushing my teeth, Natalie show back up in the bathroom and gives me back my hairbrush. This is how our conversation went when I noticed her hair was not only brushed, but also wet.

Natalie: "I'm done, Mommy."

Me: "Oh, your hair looks so beautiful! Wait...why is your hair wet? How did you get your hair wet?"

N: "Oh, I used potty water." (turns to leave)

M: (grabbing her) "Wait, what!?! You used water from the potty to brush your hair?! You put my hairbrush in the potty?!"

N: (not realizing the problem here) Well, yeah Mommy!"

M: "Binky! Potty water is yucky! The potty is only for poo poo and pee pee! Not mommy's hairbrush!"

N: "Oh, ok mommy. Sorry mommy."

I think I need a new hairbrush.

My practical joke finally worked!!!

(This photo is of Natalie checking out a gator behind glass.)

So a few days ago I made a post about our new family pet. I had said that we got an alligator to replace our pet goldfish. Ok, it was all a big joke and let me tell you why!

My wonderful mother and father have an intense fear that since we live in the swamps of Louisiana we can be eaten by an alligator at any given second. Ok, so I'm exaggerating a little bit but they do fear one of their grandchildren becoming a tasty mid-day snack for some hungry gator. To be fair, we do live in gator country, but they stay in their homes and we stay away from those homes!

A while back our family was visiting the New Orleans zoo and at the cajun country exhibit they keep a huge 11 foot gator. While there I took a picture with my cell phone of this gator, making sure to keep the walls of the structure out of the picture. I then sent this picture to my mom's email address with the caption "look what my neighbors found in their backyard this morning!" While I thought this to be hilarious, my parents did not.

So, when my neighbor and her son (the one who a few weeks earlier had a gator take a bit of his hand) showed up with a baby gator I couldn't resist playing a prank on my parents once again. It was just coincidence that the kids were in the bath at the time, and no, I didn't put the gator in the bath with William. They really don't have any teeth yet, but I'm still not a huge fan of putting potentially dangerous animals in a bath with my children. Anyway, Shane took the baby gator back to his home in the swamp and we are still without a pet. (Tom and I also think that having a gator as a pet might be illegal, though I'm not sure.)

Anyway, I don't know how often my parents check this blog so we've been patiently waiting to hear from them, leaving that post up as if it were real. And finally, the email came today. To quote, "Please tell me why an alligator?" and when I responded that my prank finally worked the response was "Dad and I both say 'not funny' to the alligator trick."

Ahh.......all in a days work!

A couple pics from the evacuation

I have a few extra minutes so I thought I would post a few pictures from the evacuation.

This is just outside of Beaumont, Texas on our way to Houston. As we were driving through Orange County, the call came out to evacuate the county, so we got hit with that traffic, too. My husband enjoys a good challenge, so he drove across the grass to this service road and we drove for a good while passing up all that traffic. He is such a sneaky man!
While in Houston we did a little bit of everything! This is Natalie at the Houston Zoo petting a goat. Binky loved this goat and I think she wanted to bring it home with us. I don't think Los Shephitos would have enjoyed that.

Tom begged me to take this picture! The meercats were hilarious. We could have watched them all day! (Hey Connie! Can you say Mr. July?!?)
And...this is what we came home to. Well, it's actually in our next door neighbor's tree, but I think it's a great picture!

Our New Family Pet

We lost our wonderful pet, Popcorn the Fish, to Hurricane Gustav. He was a wonderful fish! He would chase his reflection around his bowl 24 hours a day and would try to eat his air bubbles as though they were food. Crazy Popcorn, you will be missed!



So, we needed to find a replacement pet. We thought it would be fun to try something new and exciting. A tad more difficult than a fish. We figured that living in Louisiana gives us a great opportunity to try something we would never have a chance to have as a pet anywhere else in the world.

A pet alligator! Here is our new friend about to take a bath with William. Babies have no teeth so he will try to bite you (it is way too ingrained in their brains or something) but it won't hurt. He'll even try to "death roll" your finger. What a great pet!

We let him swim around in the sink, too. That is William's hand in the picture trying to pick up the gator. We haven't come up with a good name yet, but Chomper, Bitey, and Justin are all in the running.

Another update

Today was the first day that people could return to the Parish. Up until now, Terrebonne Parish has been on lockdown. The National Guard was blocking all roads into the Parish and there was a curfew. But today people were allowed back in, but an 8pm purfew is still in effect. We decided to stay put until Monday. My neighbor Alonna and her family did return today and I had her check on our house (she has a key so she even checked inside.)

The Run-Down:

-backyard fence is down

-shingles ripped off; roof damage

-water damage to the ceiling in kitchen (from roof damage)

She went on to say that it is just a mess there. No power (could be up to three weeks to get it back on) and debris is everywhere. Said it took two hours to clean up their front yard, and it's not that big!

So it looks like we will have a big mess when we get back. Fortunately, Tom can get a heavy duty generator through Lincoln so we will have some power when we get back and we won't have to live completely like the Amish! Ugh...the hot Louisiana summer is still going strong!

Any further questions? Check it out on www.houmatoday.com! Have a good one!

The O'Briens are Refugees

This is just a quick post to let anyone who was curious know that we are safe. We evacuated Houma well ahead of the storm on Saturday Morning. We can't get ahold of any friends or neighbors who stayed back yet, but it doesn't seem the destruction was nearly as bad as predicted. We are just looking forward to the all clear signal so we can go home and start cleaning up debris! Anyway, the most important thing is that we are safe and well cared for right now. More posts later!