Visiting Isabella

Since we just made a quick visit Friday, we decided to go back on Saturday with Daddy and Uncle Jon.

Isabella's hair was curlier after her bath!

Aunt Janelle and Isabella

Isaiah was constantly stroking her head or checking her out in some way.  He's truly enamored with her.

Uncle Jon and Gramma taking a peek at Isabella

 The kiddos took turns holding Isabella . . .




Like I said, Zaya just had to keep checking her out.



Daddy took a turn too!

The Vickerman Family

Welcome To The Family!

Meet

Isabella Jade

Born Thursday, June 28th 11:40 pm

7 lbs 9 oz ~ 18 1/2"

Aunt Mel introducing the kids to their new cousin!

A closer look

Isaiah has a new buddy.  He LOVES her already!

SO excited!



Madi and hungry Isabella



It's kinda neat being an aunt for the first time!
(cell phone pic taken by Makenna)

Can you tell he's EXCITED!!

Hope to take more pictures tomorrow . . .

WELCOME HOME, MOM!

This past Friday and Saturday, I was able to attend a Ladies Retreat in Sugar Creek, Ohio.  So many aspects made it a wonderful, memorable trip -- attending with friends, beautiful weather, singing with my mom, nice facility, God working in me through the speakers.  The theme was "A Measure Of Faith."

You know you're in Amish Country when . . .

But before I left, I set out a couple things for the kids to enjoy while I was gone.  Lucky Charms (something I don't by often and when I do it is usually Aldi brand) and these . . . (Do you know how hard it is to find chocolate coins when all there is everywhere is Easter candy??)  Wish I had time to line up the colors, but they probably didn't care or wouldn't have even noticed.

We also did a little shopping in Amish Country -- bulk food stores, antique stores and thrift stores.  Found these adorable mini animal crackers (about the size of a dime) and alphabet pretzels that I plan to use to review letters with Isaiah.

It was dark when I returned home, but this chalk drawing was on the drive way . . .

and they had all made notes for me enclosed in this envelope drawn on by Isaiah.  He wrote "MOM" and drew me an octopus on a tractor. This seems to be his newest thing.  He's drawn it three times recently.  Cracks. Me. Up.

From Makenna (with a pop-up heart)

Madi's included a little side note! =)

And Isaiah stapled an extra piece of paper on the back of his card, so I could draw something if I wanted.  He stamped stars and butterflys in the sky, drew a house and a tractor -- sans octopus this time.

I was also greeted with new growth and flowers around the yard . . .

While shopping, I found a washer/dryer/ironing board play set for $4.00!  Wasn't sure if I could even fit it in the girls' room, but I had to grab it for that price!  We ended up taking down a twin bed in a spare room in the basement and set up all their baby and kitchen stuff.  It will be a nice place to play in the summer since it's cool down there.  I'm thrilled it opens up space in the girls' room!  Hopefully that will be one of my next projects.

Coming home to a sweet welcome was the icing on the cake to a refreshing weekend.  The Lord knows I needed it.  There were many things that jumped out and convicted me or encouraged me this weekend.  But the most special part was that someone from the hosting church was assigned to pray for me ever since I signed up to attend the retreat.  This is the dear lady that prayer for me.  I am confident that the Lord was able to speak to me in such a great way because of her prayers.

I'd encourage you to read and reread Romans 12.  We are reading it together as a family a few verses at a time and studying it.  There are quite a few verses in that passage that are very familiar to a lot of us, but their meaning is becoming more real to me the more I study them.

 Romans 12: 3 "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith"

Happy Birthday to Meeeeee!

Before you think this post is about me, let me explain . . .

I haven't had much time to update on the housing situation.  But we've run into a couple snags.  Not the end of the world kind of snags, however, there was a good possibility the sale of our house may not go through.  Because no similar houses have sold in our area in the last 6 months, the appraisal was coming in about $6,000 short.  This meant the bank would not give the buyer the amount we agreed on. 

We were given a heads up earlier this week in case we knew of some other home sale in the area that the appraiser could use as a comparison.  The offical report was not given to us until this afternoon.  We were told we should know Wednesday . . . most likely by Thursday afternoon . . . probably early Friday morning.  It's not easy to not get worked up about something like that.  (Please excuse the double negative -- ha!)  However, for the most part, we've remained calm these last couple days.  We also learned we have to install a railing on the front porch because it doesn't meet the requirements of the buyer's loan.

We were told the buyers were able to come up with half of the difference (although during negotiations on the sale they had no cash to work with).  Our realtor said she'd chip in a little of her commission, and we think the other realtor will chip in as well.  The man handling our new mortgage paperwork said he'd lower his fees, so we would have some of that money to put towards the difference.  All of that was encouraging, but that left us with about a $5000 void between the new railing, the difference in the appraisal and expenses we've encountered with the new house.  We've been praying about moving closer to Rick's work, the sale of our home and buying a new house all along.  And seemingly every day, we add more details to those prayers.

This is the part of the story I can't really give details about, but as my husband was speaking to someone on the phone this afternoon he was asked about how things were going with the home sale.  Rick explained that we have about a $5,000 deficit to make the sale of both our house and the new house to through.  The man on the other end of the line said don't worry about it that he'd provide the money and not to sweat the small stuff!!  I don't know what to say besides A). PRAISE THE LORD!! and B). to whom is $5,000 small stuff???

After Rick told me this story, I began to tear up (of course) and the tune "God Owns A Cattle On A Thousand Hills" began to run through my mind.  My heart still skips a beat when I think about it! 

What ties all this to the title of my post is, today is my birthday.  My youngest brother called to wish me a happy birthday shortly after I received the call from Rick with the news.  My family has been faithfully asking me how things are going and praying right along with us, so I had to share the story with him.  He said that has to rank up there with one of the best birthday presents ever!!  As far as I can remember, it does!  The more I thought about it, the more it dawned on me that if we had heard back on the appraisal Wednesday or Thursday like the realtor thought, Rick probably wouldn't have had a conversation with that man, and it wouldn't have been my birthday!

God's timing is perfect.  It even makes sitting alone at the kitchen table eating leftover chicken nuggets on your birthday the end to the best day a girl could ask for!  I'm very undeserving, but I'm so thankful He chose to pour His goodness on us.

Psalm 50:10

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

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!

The Sleep-Deprived Indian

Our summer went by quickly.  I swore (well, not literally!) that after a VERY busy summer three years ago we wouldn't overbook ourselves like that ever again! Summers since haven't quite been that busy, but they have been busy.  Jumping right into homeschooling was not a big help.

Sleep deprivation has been a big issue for me this summer and on into the school year.  I'm learning to deal with it (since I don't have many opportunities to catch up on sleep), and thankfully the Lord has helped my to deal with my chidren in a normal way instead of the way I would normally act while sleep deprived.

Last week, Isaiah was working on a school paper.  The teacher told him to color the capital I and little i green, then to color the feathers his favorite color.  The indian's hair was to be brown as well as the face.  I thought that might look a little strange as he has a heavy hand to his coloring.  So I told him we would change things up a little and use yellow for the face (hey, we're limited to like six colors here).  I asked him what color we should color the tongue.  He replied, "Red."  I expected him to put the red crayon down after he colored the tongue and pick up his brown crayon to finish the hair.  But when I looked back down at his paper he was coloring the eyes red!  I stopped him thinking I would take this time to "educate" him on the parts of the eye.  I said, "Now wait, Isaiah.  Lets talk about eyes for a minute.  There is a colored part -- you and Mommy have blue, Daddy and the girls have brown.  But the rest of the eye is mostly white.  See?", as I pointed to my eye.  His reply. "No, its not.  It's red!"

I didn't even bother trying to explain to him why my eyes are red.  I just had to laugh and then take a picture of his drawing to remember this too cute moment with my son.

First Day Of 2011-2012 School Year

The first day of (home) school went well ~ PRAISE THE LORD!  I can't say as much for the other days, but we're off to a good start.  (Please excuse the poor quality in the photos.  I had to use my cell phone.)

Makenna in her (school) room 

Madison in her (school) room 

 Isaiah proudly showing off the YELLOW school bus he colored in class

We've tried to employ a few ideas that make school run more smoothly.  Nana helps supply our Snack Basket.  We keep this in the kitchen and the kids can pick out something and serve themselves a snack while other are still schooling or Momma is playing catch-up trying to get lessons together for the remainder of the school day!

We also have a Prize Box the kids can pick something out of when they do a good job on their school work and have a good attitude.  Papaw helped supply items for the Prize Box and Mommy bought a few things from Oriental Trading Company (bubbles, pencils, erasers) and added a few miniture Snickers, Swedish Fish and Smarties!

Happy Mother's Day!

I had the enjoyable pleasure of spending the weekend with both my "Mothers" and my girls.  We attended a Mother's Day Luncheon together.

Just had to add the rare photo of Daddy & I together!

Friends

Here is a picture of Kristin and I from the early 80s when we were about 6 and were flower girls in a wedding of a friend at church.

Think I may have one of the two of us at my wedding (or maybe hers).  If I come across it, I will try to download it.

Please pray as I've been asked to speak at her funeral Wednesday.  It will be very difficult emotionally, but I'm more concerned that I have the right words.

Lyle the Crocodile

The local college put on a Children's Theater his week.  The kids and I were able to go Friday evening and see "Lyle the Crocodile."  They absolutely loved it.  I was glad it was appropriate for all ages.  Isaiah even loved it and probably talked about it the most afterwards.