House For Sale

It's {almost} official.  Tomorrow the realtor comes to measure the rooms and take pictures.  We'll be listing in less than two weeks.

Guess I'd better get off the computer and get workin'!  Lots to do before then!

Teaser - Hartville, OH

Today, I took the kids to meet up with friends of ours in Ohio for a day full of fun, fall activities!

(I may or may not update this post with details.  HA!  Just warning y'all.)

A special thanks to my friend for lending me her camera to make this possible!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Because Memorible Things Aren't Supposed To Happen Right Now

This is just how life goes.  We haven't seen a deer in our yard for months and months, but sure shootin' as soon as I turn my camera in for repairs, boat loads of them show up! HA!

Yesterday a few deer showed up further down the driveway.  I called the kids to come look as soon as I saw the deer.  After I gathered the kids and went back to look myself, I saw Toothless was sitting right in the middle of them all.  What was too hillarious is that he bolted after a while and scared off the deer!

Please enjoy the lovely cropped cell phone quality photo.  Seriously.  Sorry.  It's the best I can do under the circumstances.

This morning the kids yelled "Mom, the deer are back!"  They were way closer this time.  We hadn't let Toothless out of the shed, so he didn't get to have any fun. 

We only saw two deer at first, but after a couple minutes a third deer came walking out from behind that clump of trees.

A couple weeks ago, the kids were playing with those sticky slap hands.  You know the ones . . .

Yes, those are the ones.

Anyway, sticky slap hands have left numerous hand prints on my ceilings.  Fortunately for the kid's sake, we are going to painting the ceilings soon!  The kids were told not to stick anything to the ceiling for future reference.

Yesterday, the girls were quietly doing schoolwork and Isaiah was no where to be found.  I walked into the livingroom to find Isaiah's favorite pet shark attached to the ceiling!  He must have bolted once the shark got stuck.  It was actually very humorous at the time, and it still makes me laugh when I think about it.  (I'm living on very little sleep, so you'll have to bear with me.)  The first thought that came to mind was that even this ferocious shark couldn't handle the stress and chaos around here and hung himself from the ceiling! HA! 

It was funny at the time.  You'll just have to trust me.  Yesterday was actually a pretty calm day.  The girls finished school by 2:00 which is a record lately.  {SIGH}  Don't know if it will last, but I'll enjoy it one day at a time if it does.

Well, life is calling.  It's 12:06, and I'm sure the children are almost turned into dust as lunch is supposed to be at noon on their time clock, and I'm running late!

What's New?

There's a variety of things to report on. 

Everyone is doing well.  Madi is getting over strep and making good progress although she's struggling with a dry cough.  So thankful the rest of us were able to escape it!

Yesterday, we looked at a couple houses.  (For you local folks, we are looking at a house in Harmony near I-79.  It will cut Rick's communte from 1 hour and 15 minutes to 30 minutes!)  We've looked off and on for probably a couple years now; however with the mortgage rates where they are and our level of frustration where it is with Rick not being home as much as we'd like, we are a little more serious about looking at our options.  So much so, that we have started the great purge on our house today in preparation for listing our current home!

Adding working on the house to homeschooling combined with the fact that I had to turn over my camera to the Geek Squad yesterday means my posts will be few and far (or fewer and farer) inbetween.  I've warned the children they are not allowed to do anything exciting in the next few weeks until I get my camera back!

I'll try to update on anything big . . . listing our house, offers on ours or a new house.  Oh, by the way, Madi lost a second tooth on October 4, Uncle Steve's birthday (HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY UNCLE STEVE!)  She has another pretty loose one on the bottom and a slightly loose one on top.  She's becoming self-conscious about it.  In turn, she is all but refusing to let them come out.  Unfortunately, they are loose because the new ones are coming in.

I started the great purge in Isaiah's room.  His closet still contained "baby stuff" -- diaper stacker, baby clippers, travel bottles of shampoo and baby lotion, hospital paraphernalia, towels and wash cloths.  As much as I DO NOT want another baby, it was difficult to toss those things.  In my mind, garbage is synonymous with things you don't want.  I would like to keep those things just for the memories.  I just keep telling myself I don't want to have to move or store all those thing and for what real purpose?  I ended up keeping very few things -- name tag from baby bed at hospital, hat, etc.  That still didn't make it any less emotional.  Daddy just laughs and tells the kids "Mommy doesn't want any more babies, but she cries because she doesn't have any more babies."  I told them just like you are emotional about leaving this house (the only one they really remember living in) that it's exciting to move on to something else.

Who would miss cuteness like this?!?

Cell phone pic of Isaiah's first Wendy's Frosty experience!

"Family" Update

I started this post a couple days ago.  Since then, a couple more things have happened.  Those things will be noted in italics.

In no particular order . . .

MAKENNA:

This past week, Makenna started taking riding lessons.  The first lesson is a trial to see if she likes it and if the instructors think she'll do well.  She practiced mounting and dismounting (almost flawlessly -- their words, not mine) and practiced commands such as Whoa and Walk.  We need to work a little on speaking up and speaking with authority, but I think she'll do well.

These are from her second lesson:

She also won the coloring contest at our Chiropractor's office.  She's on a roll winning prizes there!  This gift included 3 free movie rentals, popcorn and candy.

We rented Sound of Music, a couple horse movies and a few others. Makenna loved Sound of Music and wanted to know if there was a #2! The kids and I had fun watching the first half Thursday night -- popcorn, candy and all. Daddy joined us Friday evening to finish the second half of the movie.

MADISON:

We finally went back to the glass blowing place where we had a field trip a couple weeks ago to pick up Madi's souvenir choice.  She chose the tube necklace with green oil and chose to have her name and Mom written on a grain of rice inside.

She started with a fever Friday evening.  Long story short, she has strep.  Please pray for her AND US!  She does not like the medicine, and we have two doses daily for ten days!!

DADDY:

Well, Daddy started his week out a bit rough.  He tagged his first 6 point buck!  Praising the Lord he was fine.  Caused about $5,000 worth of damage to his company car.  Guess they won't have it done for a couple weeks!  You'll see him sporting around in a nice Buick Regal these days.  Thankful it is all covered under insurance.

CHIPY:

A while back we moved Chipy into a bigger box.  He really liked being able to move around.

This was his home [sides up and lid on] after I found him running around the house when we came back from riding lessons.

The latest update:  Daddy came home that night and took Chipy to a nice, "safe" place in the great outdoors.  Strange, but I feel more free with that thing out of the house.  I've had a couple heart attacks since we acquired that thing!!  Last week, a child of mine that will remain nameless, let Toothless [the cat] in and didn't remember to check to see if the bathroom door was closed.  I noticed Toothless scurrying around the potted plant.  Ya, you guessed it.  He had retrieved the chipmunk and was chasing it around the kitchen!  I quickly grabbed the cat, promptly hit him over the head a couple times and made him spit out the chipmunk! {sigh}

It was a sad parting (or so the kids thought).  We told them we helped nurse him to health, that they did a good thing, and that he was wild and needed to be let go.

ISAIAH:

Isaiah is making improvements in school.  He'll actually asks to do school about half the time now.  (The other half he still says school is boring, and he doesn't want to do it. But we're making progress.)

This morning he watched one video class with me (upon his request).  The teacher was discussing apples, orchards, blossoms, etc.  She mentioned that applesauce and apple juice came from apples.  Tonight at dinner I asked him where applesauce came from so he could share his new-found knowledge with his sisters.  His answer . . . Giant Eagle!