Flashback Friday

I've decided that I'm going to try and blog more. So....I'll start with a picture from the past and do a flashback Friday.
This is a picture of Kendall from when he was 4. He was fascinated with firemen and policemen. My neighbor bought him this cute fireman outfit for Halloween at Costco and he got a lot of use out of it. He would wear the coat with his Winnie the Pooh moon boots and his fire hat. He always had to have his flashlight handy and would wear Jon's old ski goggles and use a medicine measuring cup (or a bottle lid) for his air mask mouthpiece.

This picture reminds me of the time that he dressed up in this getup and refused to take it off when we went to the grocery store. So...this is how he went. He got a lot of looks--some looked at him like he was weird and most would comment about how their kids would do something similar. He would do some really heavy breathing in and out of that medicine cup and I would worry that he'd hyperventilate, but he never did. What a kid!!

Kitchen Floor

I think the floors look sooooooo good now!! It's hard to get a good picture to show how good they look, but after dealing with the pealing (aka ugly) look for so many years, these are a dream!
The kitchen floors have FINALLY been refinished! I was trying really hard not to be grumpy about it (yes, it was hard for me to keep positive about this), but we made it through. We have real hardwood floors and I guess at one point (before we moved in), they had the floors done and didn't allow enough time between staining and sealing (or something like that) and it caused the stain to peel back. Our floors looked really worn and gross. So...we had it done. What I had a hard time with was they were supposed to come last Thursday to sand and stain and then Friday to finish it up and when Jon called to confirm on Wednesday night, he was informed that they couldn't come until Friday. We thought maybe it would only take one day, but then found out that it would still take the two days. At first, we were told the guy could come on Saturday to finish the job, but when he was leaving, he said he'd come first thing on Monday morning. What that meant for me was keeping ALL shoes and ALL water, liquid, snow drippings, etc OFF the floor for a whole entire weekend. Any of that would leave big stains. With 4 kids (and their friends) and a dog, that was not an easy task. He finished up yesterday afternoon and we had to go easy on it--no shoes still--but today we're good to go. I'm also really happy because my stove/oven was delivered yesterday and my microwave was delivered today. We'll be back to normal soon!!!

Flash Back Toys

Jon and I were talking a few weeks ago about toys that we had when we were kids. When asked, I always answer that my favorite childhood toys were Cabbage Patch Kids and Barbie dolls. But...I remember a few other toys that I really liked too. Does anyone else remember these?

These are Dolly Pops. My sister and I got some of these for Christmas one year and I remember how much I loved them and how fascinated I was with them. I believe I was about 7.
How about these? These are Glamour Gals, a very mini Barbie-doll type doll. Most had removable clothes, although not all. They had hair you could comb and painted on shoes. I liked these when I was maybe 9 or 10. I had the cowgirl (Jana), a rock star (Roxie), a beauty queen (Erin), and another girl (Vanessa). Gee--I even remember their names!! I think I also had a bride (Jessie), but that actually may have been my sister's. They had a cruise ship that you could buy for these gals and I really wanted that. I wanted a lot of these dolls actually, but I guess I eventually lost interest.
My sister had a "pet" monkey that I was a little envious of. I used to wish for a real pet monkey, so that I could change it's diaper, dress it up, feed it. Basically, a baby. We have no idea what happened to that monkey, but it was pretty cool.