Natalie's birthday and clean carpets

Natalie turned the big 4 years old yesterday. I think she got plenty spoiled by all the gifts. She got Barbies galore, including a Princess horse and carriage, a few cards, a little money, and a fun game. I really wanted to do a party for her, but being sick and pregnant, I just plain didn’t have the energy to put it together. Maybe next year. We settled on a family party at Joe’s parents’ house yesterday afternoon. They served us delicious dinner (including ham from one of Liz’s boys’ pigs). I made Natalie a pink princess castle cake for dessert. And she got to open presents and start watching her new Sleeping Beauty movie.


The only other exciting thing we did was borrow the JRCC carpet cleaning truck and clean our carpets. Since we moved in, we’ve had a number of issues relating mostly to having small children who sneak things out of the kitchen they shouldn’t. But more than that, Natalie perpetually gets bloody noses (we think directly related to an inability to keep her finger out of it, dry air, and a lack of coordination to remove dry boogers without injuring herself) and bleeds all over before she figures out that she needs a Kleenex. Sometimes, she gets them at night and wanders all over the house, bleeding everywhere she goes. It’s made for some really nasty stains that ordinary carpet cleaners don’t fix. Then, a month or two ago, Joe accidently dropped a soda can, and it exploded all over our downstairs carpet. We cleaned immediately everywhere we saw it splatter, but we missed a lot of little spots that have been soaking up dirt ever since. We even cleaned out both our cars and did all the upholstery as well. Anyway, long story short, our carpets look AMAZING thanks to my wonderful husband!