Recent Happenings

Where have you been?

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. I didn't even realize a month has gone by. I keep getting ideas for a great blog post and then I don't have much time to write it down. We've had so much going on, it's been a whirlwind. I will try and catch you up as best as I can.

I apologize for the lack of pictures, I will take some and get them up soon.

New House:

We have been all moved into our new house for about 4 weeks now. We still have boxes to unpack. It's getting done slowly but surely. I'm so relaxed here with all this space so it hasn't worn my nerves yet that all the unpacking isn't done. The new house really isn't all that big according to some standards, but to us it feels like a mansion. Our little condo we lived in for 6 1/2 years was 900 sq ft with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It had no yard. We were blessed that we had a roof over our head and heat/cool when we needed it, but it was just way too cramped for our family. For about 4 months we squeezed into a mobile home that was even smaller than the condo and had only 2 bedrooms. This was our transition home while we looked for a house to buy that would be adequate for our needs. The Lord answered our prayers and gave us exactly what we had wanted. Our new home is 4 bedrooms, 2 story, 3, yes..3 bathrooms a large kitchen, a 2 car garage for Adam, a large yard and it's at the end of a court. It's nearly double the size of our condo and I am so overwhelmed with gratefulness to the Lord for His wonderful provision. The downside is that Adam has a longer commute to work. But, he said it's all worth it to have all of his girls in a nice house all day. Of course his garage makes it worth it too.

It seemed like we were just handed this house. We were looking for a few months, and had already put offers in on 5 other houses which we were denied. When our Realtor called the agent for this house he said that he already had a few cash money offers and we could see it but there really wasn't much point. As soon as we saw the house we knew it was perfect for us so we put in an offer anyway despite what the agent said. The next day our Realtor called and said they were accepting our offer. We were overjoyed. I think Adam offered $15,000 over what the house was listed at. Our next surprise blessing came after the appraisal was done and the house appraised for $15,000 less than we had offered (the exact original price). This was a foreclosure house and so it was being sold by a bank. The bank lowered the sales price down to match the appraisal, so we got the house for less.

During the loan process, I noticed that we were being grossly overcharged by the escrow company. The only reason I knew this, is from having been an Escrow Officer and working in escrow for 10 years. Otherwise we would have had no clue and paid more than we should. I contacted the escrow company and they refused to lower their fees. It was a little frustrating, but the real estate agent for the seller/bank was able to reduce a fee that ended up being 3 times less than what I was asking. This was another huge blessing.

There wasn't a whole lot of work that needed to be done with the house. We painted and painted and painted. The painting took a super long time and I'm glad it's over. I understand now why people hire painters. We also had to replace carpet in the upstairs. It's the only place that is carpeted. We went to Home Depot and received rude customer service and then were told that it would take weeks to get our carpet. We sort of waited to the last minute (our fault for sure) but they could have been friendly at least. We ended up visiting a family owned, carpet/kitchen/bathroom business in town and they gave my husband and incredible deal on some very nice carpet and padding. It was several hundred dollars less than HD would have been, and....they installed it 3 days later. The secretary at the store told my husband that they practically gave him that carpet. I always prefer to patronize family businesses rather than huge corporations anyway. Adam was so thankful for the generosity of the owner that he decided to run a huge $25,000 bathroom project through this store. I think the owner had no idea that by his kindness he would receive a frequent customer in Adam.

We are settling in nicely. Our neighbors are very friendly and there are a lot of children in the court here.

Other recent happenings:

We were invited to head out to Sacramento to Verity Baptist Church, Pastor Roger Jimenez. They had a special service with guest speaker, Pastor Steven Anderson, of Faithful Word Baptist Church from Tempe Arizona. We like to listen to Pastor Anderson's  mp3 sermons and were excited to hear him preach in person. As I expected, his preaching was powerful. It was great to be able to meet Pastor Anderson in person and also to have the pleasure of meeting one of his sons.

Family:

All of the kids had the flu during the time we were moving back to their wonderful selves.

Homeschooling has been more relaxing now that we have space to put all of the stuff. The girls enjoy having more areas around the house to spread out their work. As I'm typing the little ones are happily riding their bikes in our back yard. It's a wonderful thing.

Me:

My body seems to be healed and back to normal after the baby loss. It took about a month to recover fully. I am praying that we will have some new (good) baby news soon. Please keep me in your prayers that my tubes would be healed. That was worse than I ever could have imagined. My heart still aches, and I'm sure always will. There is a very sweet woman at our church who is pregnant with her 11th child. She and I were about the same amount of weeks along. It kind of hurts my heart to hear her updates and see her progress. Please don't get me wrong, I don't have any bitterness toward her. It's just sad for me to know that that's where I would have been.

Another sweet woman at our church told me, time doesn't heal all wounds, God heals all wounds. That keeps me feeling better to know that in the wake of this terrible event, God is there.

I am working on a couple more posts and hope to have them up soon.

God bless.

Moving and Stuff

For the last two weeks we have been working every day at our new house getting it ready to move. We have to move this weekend and still have so much to do. Some of the work we were planning on doing before we move is now being put off until after we move. The paint and carpet are now the focus before we move. I have kind of put off packing the mobile home and I probably should have started sooner.

Painting has been a lot more work than I could have imagined. Each of the 3 kid rooms are different colors. The rest of the house and our room is all a taupe color. It's nice. There is A LOT of trim to pain. A whole lot. Last weekend we had some very nice friends come out and help us paint. It was such a blessing. There is no way we would have been able to paint that much with just me and Adam. I have discovered really don't have a steady brush painting hand. haha. I'm pretty good with the roller though. Adam is going every night this week after work to finish the painting.

We sort of slacked on getting carpet ordered. Only the upstairs is carpeted and we need to replace it. We picked out a carpet at Home Depot and they told us it would be 2 weeks before they could put it in and we don't have 2 weeks. We have about 3 days. I called that Empire Today and scheduled an appointment. Their ads sound good. However Adam looked up reviews on Yelp and they were very scary. We decided that it would be a bad idea to buy from them. Yesterday we went to a small family owned business in our new town and the owner was working. He was a very nice man and helped us pick out a similar carpet as the one we liked from HD. His estimate came in about $400 cheaper than HD's and they had it in stock and would install on Friday. It was such a relief. Adam was able to make a business connection with the owner so that was nice. Adam is in the process of remodeling a bathroom for work and the owner of the store is going to order all of the stuff he needs.

Saturday morning bright and early is moving day. I am so excited. I really love our new house and still can't believe it's ours.

On a medical note. I have been getting my blood drawn every 2 days to watch my hormone levels until they reach zero again. This loss has been harder than I could have ever imagined. I struggle with wondering if we made the right choice. I have realized I knew very little about ectopic pregnancies at the time we were in the hospital. My prayer is that the baby was no longer alive when the ultrasound was done. I spoke with a Dr about my concerns and a lot of the factors point to a no longer living baby, which I really hope that was the case. I know as humans we can only do what we can with what we know. I am so thankful for forgiveness in Christ. I hope this feeling of guilt will not stay here with me. Adam said he made the right decision.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers. God has been giving me comfort during this time. It's amazing how the scriptures speak right to your heart. I hope to never have to experience this again. I want so much to have another child. We will wait and see what God has planned for us.

Wait....Where did November go?

My nephews and 2 of my daughters on Thanksgiving

November just flew right on by. I haven't even had time to sit down and write a proper blog post.

We've had so many things going on........

My oldest twins celebrated their 12th birthdays earlier in the month. It's amazing to me how much different they are than I was at 12. I don't really tell them much about those years but of the few things I have said, they told me I sounded mean and needed a spanking. They are right. I told them I was such a brat I made sure they were not. They have completely different personalities than I did though. They really desire to never do the wrong thing. They would rather just avoid it all together then have to deal with a punishment. I on the other hand, was the queen of sneaking and hoping I wouldn't get caught. I am grateful to God for his grace in the children he has given me. They are such wonderful sweet girls and I surely don't deserve them.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my In-laws house. This is our usual tradition. They don't live too far but we like to spend a few days there and enjoy the family and the out of towners. Thanksgiving was wonderful as always. I love large family gatherings. I also love my husbands family. Adam spent most of the day outside frying 3 turkeys. They sure were good. We usually fry a couple and cut them up and freeze them. It's great lunch meat.

For the last 11 years I've been one of those crazy early morning Black Friday shoppers, but for some reason this year I just wasn't feeling it. My friend and I have gone together every year and usually we have a big plan and shop till we drop and then have breakfast and go home to sleep. Maybe it was the lack of money for gifts this year since we are buying a house, but none of the sales seemed very exciting. We did however go to Toys R Us at 10pm on Thanksgiving night. My 3 older girls all wanted to buy something with their money they have been saving. My mom and my usual Black Friday shopping friend also came. It was very cold waiting in line outside, and the inside of the store was complete madness. Of all the years I've gone shopping I think this was by far the worst I've seen. I've never seen the chaos that they report on the news about fights and tramplings, though I believe it. As we were waiting in line in the store (for nearly 2 hours) there were people arguing about who was in line first and how long they had already been waiting. Those behind us were complaining about how crowded and slow it was. This is annoying...It's not a regular shopping trip, and part of getting that item so cheap is waiting for hours to pay for it in the crowded hot store. The girls each got what they were wanting so that made it worth it.

My mom had a birthday right after Thanksgiving. She came out to our house and spent the day being lazy with us. We lounged around and watched a couple old movies, Anne Frank and I can't remember the other. I made dinner and Adam snuck out to get her a cake. It was a nice day. I made her an case for her flat iron so she can travel with it without wrapping it in a towel. I used this website for the instructions. It came out cute. I don't have a picture. =( sorry.

A few days before Thanksgiving we found out that we  had an offer accepted on a house. After putting in 6 or so offers we were getting discouraged. Actually, the house we got had 5 offers already on it when we put ours in. Basically the realtor told our realtor that they could show it but, it really wasn't necessary since they already had 4 cash and 1 conventional offer. We wanted to see it anyway. Of course we really liked it. It had everything we were looking for. We went ahead and submitted an offer despite the other agents comments. Lo and behold, they called us the next day and said they liked our offer. Yay! I couldn't believe it. Then again I kept telling Adam, when the right house came along it wouldn't matter about how many offers there were. All in Gods timing, not ours. It's now set to close right before Christmas. We will have to do a little work to it before we move in so we will be here in the little mobile home for about 6 to 8 more weeks. The kids are elated that they are getting a back yard. My husband is elated about his new garage and I'm just glad it's bigger than 900sq ft. Actually the kitchen has been remodeled and there are nice new cabinets and counters and I'm very excited that it's large enough to have more than 2 people in it.

Yesterday Adam got my tiny Christmas tree out of a box so I could decorate for Christmas. We are keeping all of our decor packed this year. The little tree looks so cute. I got a pack of ornaments at the dollar store it took very little time to decorate but it looks nice.

I also attempted my 2nd year to make turkey soup from the left over carcass, legs and wings. Last  years was a total flop. It was really not good. This year I  used this recipe and it was REALLY REALLY GOOD. I actually can't believe how yummy it was.

My brother in law who has been in Afghanistan is now on his way back home safely. Thank God! He and my sister are expecting their first baby in early April. I can't imagine how stressful it must be to be pregnant and have your husband over seas.

That's all for now. Have a fantastic week.

So, you think you can buy a house?

Buying a house has become a lot more difficult than we expected. It seems that everyone else wants to buy the same homes we like. We've been  out looking at different houses many times. I'm sure we've seen close to 30 houses. Out of those, we've really liked 3, and submitted offers on those. We were outbid on all of these. One of the houses we even put in for $34,000 over what they were asking and still we didn't get it. This definitely is going to take longer than the 2 months we were expecting.

 We thought we had found a wonderful house. It was a 4 bedroom with a huge lot. It had been vandalized but it wasn't anything that Adam can't fix. Someone had broken 3 windows, punched holes in all the interior doors andburned some of the carpeting. It really was a very nice house, just needed some fixing. The lot is what we were most excited about. Our bubble burst when we were told that lenders wont give mortgage loans on homes with broken windows. GRRRR! You've got to be kidding me. Adam could fix those windows for less than $1000 and we can't buy it. It was a little bothersome.

We will just keep looking. Obviously we haven't found the right place yet, or I'd be posting about us moving. The little place we're staying in, is quite cozy. It's a little cramped but we're used to it. Small houses make for closer families.

Organized Packing and Moving

I have moved several times in my life, and each time, I adopt new practices to make the move easier and more organized. Recently we had to move our 7 member family. We actually are moving twice within a short period of time.

This system has proven to be very useful but, especially since we are not unpacking all of our stuff while we're in the interim house. I tried a very different approach to moving this time. Usually I'm pretty organized as far as packing all of my boxes and writing which room they belong to on the outside. But, I still always face the problem of "which box did I put the ________ in?" and thus begins opening every single box marked KITCHEN until it's found. This.....is......a.....big......fat......pain!

Supplies you will need:

Moving Boxes all different sizes (way more than you think)

Packing Tape (more than you think)

Scissors

Pencils and pens

Colored markers

Address labels

Lined index cards

Recipe box

Colored paper like construction paper

Tissue paper/News paper (unprinted is better)

TIP- It's best to have a special box or basket for these items. Your moving box will help keep your supplies organized, especially if your husband thinks your new cool pack of colored Sharpies all belong to him.

If you know ahead of time that you are moving it's will be a little easier to pack and move this way. It's a little bit of extra work but it will save you A LOT of time on the other end. Actually it can even save you a lot of time before you actually put the boxes on the truck. Even packing with a tight time frame you can still do this. I packed about 65% of our boxes using this system the day before we moved.

Using the colors of construction paper assign each room or area  a different color. Here was our list.

Living Room including Coat & Hall/Linen Closets - ORANGE

Kitchen - YELLOW

Bathroom(s) - PURPLE

Little Girls Room - BLUE

Big Girls Room - RED

Our Room - GREEN

School Room - LIGHT BLUE

Garage/Shed Storage - BLACK (this is the only color I didn't attach to the box)

Each box you pack will need a color and a number. The first box you pack will be #1. Cut the colored paper into 4ths or 8ths. 4ths work well for larger boxes but 8ths will save more paper. Write the box # on each colored paper and tape it to each side of the box.

 Next, Labels. Lots and Lots and Lots of labels. Like with boxes and tape you need more labels than you think. I ended up with about 110 or 112 numbered boxes. I didn't number the boxes that we already had in our attic before the move. I only numbered the ones I packed. Print several sheets of labels for each room. The larger rooms will need more. I had to go back and reprint more because I under-estimated. Each box will require 4 labels. Put one label on each side of the box in the upper right corner. You will find the colors will be easier for you to identify the the boxes, but if you have helpers moving you the labels will be easier for them. Be sure not to forget to print FRAGILE labels,  and put on on each side of the box with the fragile items. TIP - if two people share a room, print both names on the labels, this will save on labels. For the boxes that belong to only one of those people, underline that persons name on the label. 

 Most of my colored papers are not cut evenly or straight. It would take way too much time for this. If you have a child old enough to cut this is a great job for them. Most if it can be done ahead of time. My 4 year olds were able to help put the labels on.

Boxes. The rule for boxes is, "You will need more boxes than you think, it's better to have too many than not enough. I figured I would need about 60 boxes and I ended up with over 110 numbered boxes, plus the extra empty ones for moving day. Before you go and buy boxes you should try and get them for free. I didn't buy any boxes. In our town the businesses have large dumpsters behind the building for cardboard only. I was able to find most of my boxes this way. I also put a wanted post on Freecycle.org for moving boxes. I did get some this way too. TIP- if you have a BevMo or liquor store near you, the liquor boxes are excellent for packing fragile items such as glasses and vases. They have dividers in them and it saves a lot of time not having to wrap these items in paper.

You will need a package or two of index cards and a small container to keep them in. I found my index card box at Wal Mart for $1.00 in the office section and the index cards were about $0.75 cents. 



Each box will have it's own card. At the top left corner of each card draw a colored square. The color should be for the room that the box belongs to. The top right of the card will have the number of the box. As you pack the box, write down everything you put into it. Now, for certain areas I didn't write down each item. For my nightstand stuff, I only wrote "Kimmie's nightstand stuff" I know what is in my nightstand. But for the kids school boxes, I was very detailed because I had 6 identical sized boxes.

 It's okay if you end up with the colors all mixed in. I didn't pack each room one at a time. I would have 3 blue cards 2 yellow cards then 3 oranges etc. As long as they are all numbered in order and the contents are recorded they can go in any color order. 

I took this one step further and created an Excel spread sheet and put the Box #'s and contents in the spread sheet. It's alot easier to click find and type in the item and have the program jump right to the box number than it is to flip through 100 cards. I did keep the box of cards. What if my computer crashes?

When I couldn't remember which box I packed my 3 hole punch in, it was awesome that I could hit find in excel and type 3 hole punch and it told me that it was in box #37. This was before we moved and it would have not been fun to open all the packed orange boxes to find the hole punch. 

After your box is packed be sure to tape it closed. Taping it will make it stronger and better able to sustain boxes stacked on top of it. 

I'm jumping out of order here but I'm sure you can keep up. The next picture is of an index card for a box that was only partially unpacked. The unpacked items were crossed off and at the top the location of that box was written. We are not fully unpacking and this box had games and toys for the little girls. I don't want these all out. The box is being stored until we move again.

 
Pack a suitcase or a small box for each family member with stuff you will need right away, tooth and hair brushes, a change of clothes for a couple days etc. You will be very glad you did this. You think you will get that stuff unpacked right away and most likely it's not going to happen. You will be exhausted. It's very easy also to put all the bedding for each bed in a large garbage bag and keep that with you too. When the bed is set up it's easy to remake it. Or you can use sleeping bags for your first night.


It's also very helpful to have a few "we need it now boxes". You can give these boxes a special color or use a laundry basket and keep these boxes with you or have them be last on the truck. If you need your shower items and kitchen frying pan first thing the next morning, you will be glad you did this. Oh and keep your cleaning supplies handy, you will need them at both places.


Be sure sure to keep a few empty boxes around, there will always be extra items that weren't packed and you will need these.

At the new house, decide whether nor not you are going to place boxes in each room or in one designated place. If you want them taken to each room hang the paper for the color of that room in a place that's easy to see, so those carrying boxes can just find the color. You can also put the label for that room on the colored paper. You should designate a spot in each room for boxes pick a wall or something. Hang another colored paper there and write BOXES HERE on it.


BIG TIP - If you choose to have one designated room for boxes tape up the colored papers so that each color box can be stacked under the coordinating color. Write on the yellow paper YELLOW BOXES HERE, and on the orange paper ORANGE BOXES HERE etc. Now, I didn't do this. I had a room for boxes, but not specific spots for each color. As I was digging through looking for GREEN box #65 that was behind a stack of 80 other boxes, I realized that having them stacked by color would have been a whole lot easier. I will be doing this on our second move for sure.



I must say that we were glad over and over again that we had numbered boxes with lists of the contents. We used it several times. It also helped to decide which boxes needed to be unpacked right away and which ones could wait a few days, or go to be stored. As I unpacked boxes completely I took the numbered card out of the card box. I was going to throw them away but decided to put them in a ziploc bag and hold onto them. I may end up repacking the boxes with the same items when we move again.

TIP - I put labels on the dressers and such so the helpers would know which rooms to take them. They were very hard to get off, so I don't think I'll do that again.

This move was very organized and easy. It's never a good idea to be packing the day you are moving. This aggravates the nice men who come to help out of the goodness of their hearts. Lets face it, no one really likes helping you move, they just want to get it over with and go home.

TIP: Make sure you feed the very generous people who are helping you move. Buy pizzas or something quick and easy. Pizza is very easy and doesn't require dishes or a lot of garbage. Have plenty of water bottles on hand too. Full bellies will keep your helpers happy and working. My husband once helped someone move and he didn't get fed. He came home feeling unappreciated, starving and grumpy. I doubt he will help that person move ever again. Men like food. Feed the men who are moving  you.

I promise this makes you life easier. I have been so happy I took a little extra time and made this move organized. 

Last TIP: DON'T LOSE YOUR CARD BOX! 

If you have questions I'd love to hear them.  

October Updates

We have had a lot going on and I have been away from blogging. I'm always coming up with blogs to write in my head but when I get ready to write them down I forget what it was I wanted to say. Here are some quick updates about what we have been and are doing. Now that I am not on Facebook, I'm hoping my family will find it easy enough to pop on over here to see what's going on.

House/Moving: We have moved into our temporary home. We had to move out of our other house because it sold. Everyone had a really hard time saying goodbye. We spent the last 6 1/2 years of our lives calling that little place home. For the little girls, that has been there only home. They took moving the hardest. It was unreal the day we moved all of our stuff out. It didn't seem like it was really happening. I know God has another plan for us, but saying goodbye to the home that held so many memories was difficult. It was a nice place to live, the neighbors were all wonderful. The kids were able to play outside with a bunch of other kids anytime without worry. Still, we really had a hard time living in such cramped quarters.

Our new temporary place is  a small place that belongs to a family at our church.  They were gracious enough to allow us to move in and "house sit" for a very little monthly.  They are planning on selling it right away, but offered it to us for as long as it takes us to find and buy a new home. It is SUCH a blessing. We are still able to save money while we are staying here. If we were renting a house we wouldn't be able to save. Renting here right now is more expensive than the mortgage payment on home.  We did lose a bedroom, but gained a bathroom. We only had 1 bathroom before and now there are two. This has been like a dream. It's funny though the kids still line up outside the bathroom door and wait. They have to be reminded there is another bathroom, they're not used to it yet. We have managed to make it very cozy, and comfy. We continue to go out every week and search for a home to buy. We did put an offer in on one house, but it was not accepted. That was a bummer for sure. Last night we saw a couple we liked, and hopefully will get a chance to see some more this week.

I am working on a Moving blog post, about my new moving system. It proved to be such a help and made it a lot easier. I'm so excited to share. I'm hoping to have that up later this week.

 Julia and Emily: Julia was the most excited to move at first so I was surprised when she had the hardest time. On the Monday after we moved, she was very upset and had a breakdown when Adam tried to leave for work that morning. He made arrangements to take the day off and he stayed home with her. I had a lot of running around to do with the older girls that day, so he was able to spend a lot of alone time with her. It was exactly what she needed. The next day she was back to her normal self and was okay when Adam left for work. The sweet little baby girl needed her Daddy. Whoever says kids don't need full time dads are doing serious injustice to their children. Everyday I see my children needing their daddy. Each day when he gets home he has a bunch of happy jumping screaming little girls to greet him at the door. Julia is very sensitive to attention from her dad. She wants  it and she needs it. He is so amazing with them, he loves giving his girls attention. He always tells them that he's going to love them so much that they wont need to run out looking for some stupid boy to love them. They will be protected and loved and able to wait for the man God has for them. It makes my heart melt to see him love them so much.

Emily has surprised us a lot with how well she is recognizing words and facts. I have not yet taught them to read. Most of it is intimidation on my part. They are very sharp little girls and I'm sure can pick it up quickly. So far I have an Abeka phonics book that I picked up at a rummage sale and we are working on short vowels. We are also doing sight words. Emily is a firecracker. She is a riot. She thinks she knows so much and likes to try to argue with me about things which she doesn't know. She LOVES learning and is very good at memorizing. When she needs to be taught about something she did wrong, I show her in the Bible what she did and what it says about it. She can retain the scriptures amazingly well. She also enjoys helping me cook and sew. I am embroidering some flour sack kitchen towels and she is right there next to me pulling the needle up and learning how to do stitches. She's very patient and eager to learn.

August and Kiley: They will be turning 12 next month, where does the time go? They are such wonderful young ladies. So sweet and loving. They have big hearts for God and are such a blessing to Adam and me. They are now in the 3rd month of 7th grade and doing very well. We are settling into homeschooling and loving every minute of it. We pulled out of public school last year to homeschool and haven't looked back since. For two weeks following my surgery and the moving, we didn't get much school work done. I was pretty stressed about it. We meet with an Education Specialist at our Charter School ever 20 days. They check the work, and ask if we need anything. They purchase supplies and text books if we need it. During our meeting with her last week I was worried she thought we did too little. The opposite was true actually. She was impressed with the quality of their work and how thorough they were. She said that she was surprised they do so much. I was so relieved. They do take a lot of different classes. In the 4H alone they are taking 11 different projects, along with the normal school subjects, and music lessons.

They are both in their 5th year of playing soccer. I was a soccer player as a kid and so I just automatically signed them up. They enjoy playing the sport. This year Kiley has been the goalie, while this is heart wrenching for me to watch those girls kick balls hard and fast at my child, she is really good at it. She is a phenomenal goalie. August has been the teams center halfback. This is a tiring position, but since she is very skilled and VERY fast she does well at this position. I don't know if I've seen too many children run as fast as she can, she almost like a bolt of lightning. When she was in public school she was the 2nd fastest in the whole school. Only 1 boy was faster than her. The soccer keeps them busier. It is only for a few months a year and then we don't play any more sports.

I am nearly 4 weeks (tomorrow) post surgery. At first the recovery seemed horrible but it has gotten a lot better. I still am not feeling 100% but each day it gets better. They give 4-6 weeks for recovery  so I'm still within that time frame. We did our move during the 2nd week of recovery. This was good and bad. The good was that I didn't have to lift any boxes or move one thing. I was able to sit on my little bar stool and direct traffic. The bad was I wasn't able to lift any boxes or move anything. This sort of made it difficult to unpack. The older girls were a big help though and we are pretty much all unpacked. We are not unpacking everything since we will be moving again in the next few months.

I have discovered a love for embroidery. I have been doing 30's style bonnet girls (like the one in the link) on the edge of flour sack cloths to use for dishtowels. Each of the girls picked out a girl for me to embroider so I also embroiders that girls name onto the towel. I'm trying to find a website who has a good bulk deal. I originally got them for the airplane to Tennessee and am really enjoying them. I'll take some pictures soon.

Me: My most recent change has been deactivating my Facebook account. I really have in the past enjoyed Facebook. I like being able to see photos and updates about loved ones who live far away, as well as old friends from school. I'm taking an indefinite break. I found myself constantly checking it from my phone and sitting down on the computer during the day. I would sit down to do something else on the computer and end  up on Facebook for an  hour. It has gotten out of hand. Sometimes it's best not to know as much about your family members. Facebook can get very personal. This was my only connection to some people and I hope they aren't offended by my hasty deletion of my account. Hopefully they will remember my blog and come here. This morning when I woke up I reached for my phone to check my FB, and I realized I had a problem. It's not okay when it's the first thing on your mind in the morning. So for now, I'm giving it up. I am not setting a time frame but as time passes I'm sure I will no longer have a desire to go on there. It has been such a time waster lately.

I'm getting ready to start gathering all of my handmade projects for Christmas. We are on a very tight budget this year, since we are buying a house so I am going to make a lot of the gifts for others. I wanted to make the book slings in the Family Fun magazine. I have also been wanting to make the little girls duvet covers out of vintage sheets or fabric, but I'm having such a hard time finding something I like. This will most likely wait until their 5th birthday. I was thinking of making all of the girls pillowcases with embroidery. So much to do so little time. I absolutely love vintage or Victorian style fabrics and linens. I wish I could decorate my whole house in a vintage style, but that would get pretty expensive.

I also just joined Swagbucks.com, and I'm still trying to figure it out. If anyone has any tips, I would love some help.

Adam: We finally have him back in the evenings now. For a couple of months he was building 2 bathrooms at our Pators house and he would be there all night after he finished at his regular job. It was hard not having him around most nights for dinner and the like. He was really missing the time with the family. A lot of the time he has side jobs after work and I know he is exhausted. He works so hard to take care of us. His birthday is this month and I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to get him. I'm going to bake his favorite dessert and cook a yummy dinner for him. He doesn't really care too much about gifts so I think just the family being around will be nice. We celebrated with his family over the weekend, and that was nice.

His mom is from Germany and I have been meaning to ask her about German type traditions. I would like to incorporate that into the kids lives. I should try out some German dishes maybe? She had a very nice family gathering for Adam and his brothers birthdays. The dates are close together so we did them at once. His parents are such wonderful people. I lucked out in the in-law department. They were there all day the day we moved helping and moving and working. They come out every weekend to watch the kids sports. I love having family all around. I feel sad for those who don't have that.
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I'm hoping to be able to blog more now that I am not spending so much time doing time wasting things online. I'm hoping to be able to spend my morning alone time to blog a couple of days a week.

Moving

This is fun and a pain at the same time. It's fun looking at houses (some of them anyway). We have to move in about 4 weeks. I'm scheduled to have surgery in the middle of this. I'm trying to have our new place found and the majority of our old house packed before surgery. I don't know how long the recovery will take so I don't want to chance not being ready.


I'm taking the responsibility of packing and finding of the new house. Adam has been working SO much. We hardly even see him anymore. Our original plans went south so now we're onto plan B. I know God has something for us. I'm just not sure what we've seen is "it" yet. The kids all love going to look at empty houses and trying to pick which room would be theirs and where they would put their stuff. This does come with some disappointment when we have to tell them that we can't move there.

We are excited to be able to move to a larger home, but the town we're moving to is further from church. I don't like that so much. I'm praying that we will be able to find something in our town so we're not so far away. The new town will also be further from Adam's family but closer to my mom. I guess it's a 6 of 1 half a dozen of another.

I try to be as organized a packer as possible, this time I have a much better system. I'll post a separate post on my moving system after we've moved so I know exactly how it all worked out.

Please keep us in your prayers. We are losing a dear family member to age. It will be any day now. We will miss her a lot. I'm also asking for prayer for my upcoming plane flight and surgery. I'm nervous about both. Thank you so much.

What's going on?

We have been so very busy this last month. We had church camping at the beginning. That was fun, but the place we went was very cold, so that was not so fun. Camping at the beach here is cold and overcast and drizzly, it's not Hawaii, or even Southern CA for that matter. The kids didn't mind the cold one bit. The picture above is of them all playing in the freezing ocean. Brrr.

The following week we took a 4 day family vacation to Lake Tahoe. It was beautiful. We really needed a relaxing break, especially Adam. He's been working so hard. He's been building two bathrooms at our Pastors house, so he goes over there to work for 5/6 hours after he gets done at his regular job. We've missed him, and he missed us so this vacation was just what the Dr. ordered. (pics soon)

We did find out just before leaving for Tahoe that we will be moving. We were ready for this news. I'm so ready for this but I will miss our tiny house. We had our babies here and it's the only house we've lived in together. It will be sad leaving all of our wonderful neighbors. The kids are sad to leave all of the friends, it really is a fabulous little neighborhood. We're looking for a new house quickly. Most homes in the area we are looking are Short Sales, and those can take months to close escrow. We were hoping to find a foreclosure or a straight sale, but there aren't as many to choose from. We will most likely have to move twice, because we wont have a new house before we have to leave this house. Packing is ready to begin. I am looking forward to being able to have two bathrooms, hopefully an additional bedroom and a garage. Yay! God is so good to us. He always knows exactly what we need.

This brings me to update on my declutter mission. I have not forgot about it, it's just been put on hold because we were so busy. I have (I think) about 150 more pounds to go. This mission is going to change slightly to a declutter as I pack mission. This should motivate me more because I don't want to move  all this stuff. Now I've really got to get it in gear. We will be moving by the first of October so I only have about 4/5 weeks to pack. One of those weeks we will be gone. I'm going to be flying across the country to have surgery done. So, please pray for me. I don't like flying or surgery. My mom is going to come with me, because we can't have Adam miss all that work. My in laws are going to take care of our children. Lucky Opa gets to homeschool for a few days. Ha! They should have fun, I hope.

More later. God bless and have a wonderful day!