Color Wheel

A few months ago our big screen TV upstairs started making this horrible sound that was similar to that of an airplane. Obviously we could not watch the TV with that sound. Luckily it was upstairs and we rarely watch that one so we didn't worry about it. Finally, we decided we needed to get it fixed so we started calling around some places to get a quote. Well, no one will give you a free estimate for a TV and the cheapest price to come look was $150. We decided to do a little internet research to see if we could figure it out ourselves. Mark did some research and decided it was most likely the color wheel which is the same problem we had a few years ago with this TV and it cost us $400+ to get it fixed. He found a blog of a guy who had replaced the color wheel himself so we thought hey we can probably do this. We ordered the part for $100 and set to work on it while Barrett napped today.

We removed the back panel, unplugged cables, took tons of pictures in case we forgot where things went, made notes, labeled everything, changed out the color wheel which has to be done with a great deal of care because the wheel is so sensitive and can shatter easily, and put everything back together in reverse order. All of this took about 2.5 hours and we were pretty nervous to turn the TV back on. However, we did and IT WORKED!!! It actually worked. We were shocked that we were able to do it the first time around and were able to get everything plugged back up correctly. We were so proud! So now our TV is fixed and we saved ourselves $300+. And we had a good time fixing it.

The moral of the story is that if you have a Samsung DLP TV that sounds like an airplane, call us and we can help you fix it. :)

Update in words

What have we been up to lately?? Hmmmm...in a nutshell over the past several months we have celebrated Christmas, New Year's, Easter, several birthdays of friends and family, gone to the Dallas Zoo, the Tyler Zoo, the Dallas Children's Museum, Little Gym, Mavericks games and I'm sure some other things that I can't remember right now but that should get you up to speed.

It's hard to believe Barrett is almost 2.5 years old. I can remember so clearly bringing him home from the hospital.

At 2.5 years of age, Barrett:

• is at such a fun age developmentally. He was an early talker so now he talks so much and can have full conversations with me.


• points out the school buses, firetrucks, gas station and new building every time we leave our neighborhood. All of these things are on the main road to our neighborhood.


• loves pointing out Target stores.


• refers to himself as "my". For example, the other day he was getting his pj's on and he says "Where'd my get these pj's?" He says "my do it", "my going outside", etc.


• says "Mommy hold you" when he wants to be held. A few months ago, he said "Mommy hold me" I quickly reminded him it's "Mommy hold you". I was sad that he was already correcting his grammar!


• thinks my other name is "Honey". He knows Daddy as Mark but if you ask him Mommy's other name he says "honey". We were dying Easter eggs at Nana's (Mark's mom) and he heard my nephews and niece calling me Stephanie and I think that was the first time he realized that Stephanie is my name. Now he says Stephanie is my "big girl" name.


• loves sports. He's always loved sports but the love grows stronger each day. He knows how points a touchdown is and how many points a basket is. He says that baseball is his favorite sport but it's probably a toss up between baseball and football right now.


• is left-handed. He eats, throws, bats, etc. left-handed. He will sometimes color with his right hand but usually switches to his left hand after a few minutes. The other things are exclusively left-handed.


• is obsessed with A&M. He whoops all the time and can almost sing the Aggie War Hymn by himself. He definitely knows all the words. The best is when he is singing Jesus Loves Me and he whoops in the middle of it. So funny!


• is still attached to the pacifier which he calls nookie. He only gets it at nap time and bedtime or on a special occasion (i.e. Easter church service when we went at 7:30am and he went to "big" church with us).


• loves his routine. At bedtime specifically, he likes to have his nookie, woobie, tiny elephant, stuffed rabbit, sippy cup of water, and his glove (usually the baseball glove but it was my golf glove for 2 nights). Tonight he actually has a baseball in there too. He has to have classical music on, his white noise machine which plays ocean sounds, and his shapes that light up on the ceiling. He is very particular about this.


• wakes up each morning and says "Mommy (or Daddy) I awake. Come get me." He then always tells me about his dreams. 4 out of 5 times he says he dreamed about nookies (his name for his pacifier) but the other day he told me he dreamed about a lion and a giraffe and that they were connected. Then he held up his hands and said "so that's what I dreamed about."


• cracks me up on a daily basis. He says the funniest things.


• points out every tractor, big-rig truck, school bus or motorcycle that he sees. He also comments on whether motorcycle drivers are wearing helmets or not and then he assesses whether that is safe or not.


• loves that Jay Sean song "Down". We watched that show the Sing Off a few months ago and the group that won sang that song and it was awesome so we watched it on DVR at least 10 times. He sings that song still now all the time.


• asks about people he knows all the time. He'll say "where's granny? where's ben? what's mallory doing? I wanna see Becca. etc." If he has met you, I can guarantee he has asked me about you, where you are, what you are doing, he'll say he is texting you, going to your house in his little firetruck, etc. He doesn't forget anyone.


• loves Barney. Alot of parents hate Barney but I don't fortunately. If he gets to watch a show he usually picks Barney, Handy Manny or Thomas. I think Thomas is the worst of these three because it's SO boring.

Update in photos

Yes, I do realize that it has been over 5 months since we've (read: Steph) updated the blog. So now you will get slammed with a TON of pictures all in one post. The following pictures cover December-April. :) Of course, I have several hundred for each month but I will spare you that and just picked several that are cute.

Barrett petting the baby goats at Santa's Village in Richardson.

I wrapped all the presents this year in brown paper. See favorites on the right..."brown paper packages tied up with string". I used ribbon instead of string.

Barrett chilling with his cute Converse. He LOVES his red chair with his name on it.

Our other child who doesn't get quite as much attention as she did pre-Barrett.

"Mommy I puttin make-up on" Seriously he said this as he smeared ketchup on his face. Delightful!

Out of all my shoes, he most often goes for these.

Meet Frank. He is B's first Build-a-Bear. Barrett named him Frank.

Christmas morning! Barrett loves school buses so Santa brought him a pop-up school bus tent. It's now his favorite hiding place in hide-and-seek.

Santa brought a keyboard!

And new puzzles!

And race cars and an Aggie sweatsuit!

Look how big he looks with his little backpack. He takes this to Miss Amy's on the days I teach. He puts his milk and woobie in there.

Trying to use the headphones in the car to watch his movie.

Hanging on the high bar at Little Gym.

The cape is back! It makes an appearance every now and then.

Barrett trying to take off his own shirt.

Barrett put his tool belt on and then put this bucket on his head and told me he was "going to go fix somethin"

At the Dallas Children's Museum playing in the water with cousin Alex.

At Children's Museum building a tower with Daddy and Zach.

Snow in Texas!!!

Barrett eating snow. He loved eating the snow and playing snow baseball.

Playing with Dad in the snow. After snow days, I always had quite a bit more laundry to do. They layered up!

More snow. The trees and bushes were so weighted down. We couldn't believe how much snow there was.

Eating snow? Yes, I think so.

Learning how to change Frank's diaper.

Bath time! This guy needs a haircut.

Brushing teeth. B loves brushing his teeth and for a 2 year old he does a pretty good job but we always follow up just to be sure.

He took his soccer whistle that goes around his neck (that he typically calls his jacket ?!?!) and put it on his head and said he was going to get on the treadmill. Um, pretty sure he is mimicking my headband thing I wear when I run. LOL!

Dressed up for snow day!

Barrett's first ice cream cone! Now, he has had ice cream plenty of times but he has never had his own cone. So deprived. ;)

The best pic I could get with my uncooperative child. Barrett with his cousins on Easter.

He found a golden egg! It had money inside. Score!

He loves hunting Easter eggs.

This CD player attaches to his crib but we stopped using it a while ago because the batteries drained so fast. Now he has a regular stereo to play his music at bedtime. We told him this one was broken so here he is trying to fix it with his Handy Manny tools. Awesome.

Still working on it. He worked on it for a good 30 minutes.

Indoor baseball! Barrett can only play balloon baseball inside because he hits the regular (but the soft kind) baseballs too hard. Notice his hand...yep...that's my golf glove. Sweet.

Batter up!

Sliding into home.

Love the golf glove. He slept with it for 2 days. No lie.

We just bought him a bunch of 2T shorts for the warm weather and while I was cutting the tags off he snagged this pair and decided it was a hat.

Barrett loves to go in the backyard. The other day I was in the kitchen and looked outside and saw him like this. He'd carried the Bumbo seat from the playroom closet upstairs outside and was sitting in it just staring off into the yard. Next to him on the right is my calculator. He said he was "texting Unca Andy" on it. He seriously cracks me up.

He sat out there for 20 minutes at least in the Bumbo.

Barrett skyping with Mark in Los Angeles. Does it get any cuter than that??