Evan and Alli's Birthday

Yes, Evan and Alli really are 5 years old. When I think about Drew turning 5 she seemed so grown up to me, but Evan and Alli still seem like babies. They're so little. Another thing that I keep thinking about is when I was 28 weeks pregnant with them I was put in the hospital with contractions 8 minutes apart. It was such a stressful time because I was in the hospital for a week hearing nurses whisper in the corner that I wouldn't be leaving the hospital pregnant, which worried me to death. I remember my doctor reassuring me that he saw a patient of his that day who had premature twins that had just turned 5, and I thought about how lucky she was to have her babies grown and healthy, and that seemed so far away for me. Of course, I did leave the hospital pregnant and held on for another month, and here we are today, with 5 year old normal, healthy kids. I know, the sap is overwhelming. Anyways, back to the birthday party. We took them out to dinner on their actual birthday because they wanted to go to a restaurant where they sing to you. And then we had the big party this past Sunday. It went really well. Of course, nobody knows what RSVP means these days (I myself am as guilty as the next guy), so we had no clue what to expect. A whole bunch of kids showed up. Twins means double the kids and double the presents, so we had a garage full. The rain showed up before the party, and it ended up pretty nice. The ground was wet and soggy, which was why we moved everything into the garage, and the kids still played outside with all their little friends and got nice and muddy. They got a crazy amount of gifts (lots of much needed clothes and several not-so-needed, but much desired toys). I think more than anything they were just thrilled to have their friends at their own house. And, Andy and I were pretty excited about getting to show off the house. It was a really nice day, lots of family and friends around, and a few strangers, including one very odd mother - nice, but odd. Here are some pictures:

Also, here's a little video clip of Drew hitting the ball at her last ball game. Of course, when I thought to get up and take video she hit the ball straight to the pitcher and got out, but she hit it pretty good anyways.

T-Ball

I finally have some pictures of Evan and Alli playing T-ball. I don't know what the deal is, but for some reason the week's forcast is beautiful every day except for Saturday around here. It has seriously rained every Saturday for a while now. In fact, at this game in the pictures, we were sort of misted on the whole time, but they've cancelled so many games I think we all knew the only thing that would stop us was a terrential downpour. And, this week's forcast is the same. Sunny, sunny, sunny, and then rain on Saturday and Sunday. I think it's raining on Sunday just because we have Evan and Alli's birthday party planned for that day and we were going to grill outside. It's me. I'm cursed. Anyways, back to the T-ball games. They're so cute at their games. They look so little after watching Drew play. They're doing so good and are really having fun. T-ball is so nice and so unstressful. There are no outs, and everyone bats and plays the field and we don't keep score, so it doesn't matter. It's just all instructional. Their coaches are 2 girls that I work with, and there are 2 other teachers' kids on the team (which makes 5 of us altogether), so it's nice that we can all go to the games together. So, enjoy the pictures. And, stay tuned for birthday party highlights (and pray that the rain stops before the party).

On to the Bathrooms

First of all, I realize that most of you probably aren't used to me posting this regularly, so if you haven't looked at the pictures of the kitchen, make sure you scroll down and look at that, too. On to the bathrooms. I rarely take baths (meaning, of course, that I always take showers - not that I don't bathe), except for when we go on vacation and stay in some really nice place that has a TV and a bathtub in the same room. It's just really hard for me to shut my mind down and fully relax without thinking of the 10 million other things I should be doing unless I have some distraction, which is what the TV does for me. (Like it or not, it's true. I thorougly enjoy TV, and even use it as my friend to keep me company when I'm alone.) So, last night when I got home from the grocery store, Andy had run wire to our bathroom and hung a TV on the wall for me directly across from the bathtub! I was so excited! There was no electrical outlet on that wall, or cable, so he had to wire all that stuff, which is second nature to him since he works with electricity all the time. He's just so handy to have around! I mean, he's big and warm and makes me laugh, and on top of it all, he's handy! Talk about a bonus! Here's a shot of it from in the bathtub, which I layed in fully clothed (no water of course) just to take a picture for the blog.

Here's another picture of the bathroom. You can see the reflection of the TV in Andy's mirror. My sink is there to the right. You can see the corner of the counter. The shower is directly across from my sink, and then the toilet is in its own little closet next to that.Speaking of bathrooms, I was upstairs cleaning the kids' bathroom today, trying not to vomit from how nasty it was. I clean it as often as I clean the other bathrooms, and it's always exponentially worse. I have a good friend who has 2 kids right around the ages of mine and we've discussed how gross the kids' bathroom gets compared to the adult bathroom. The toothpaste caked on the sink is 100 times worse. Not only do they spit right on the edge so that the toothpaste runs all the way down the sink and most of it doesn't get rinsed off, but they also inevitably spit one big glob that apparently never gets touched by the toothbrush right where water doesn't hit that sits there and dries overnight. Yuck! Also, my kids play outside a lot, and they always seem to get covered in orange mud, which then floats on the top of the bath water in a yucky orange pool of suds, and then when they drain the water, the residue sticks to the sides, so I always have a nice orange ring around the bathtub. I won't even bring up the toilet. What's sad is that I cleaned it all today, and the kids spent the night away last night, so they took a bath over there, but tomorrow as soon as they take their bath, it'll be nasty again. Such is life. I feel the same way about laundry. As soon as I get it all washed and folded and put away, it's time for bed and the kids change into their pajamas, and the 3 outfits they were wearing make half a load already. This is why my laundry gets so piled up at times. My mind goes on laundry strike and I can't make myself get motivated to do it anymore, until we're all out of socks and underwear, and whether I like it or not, it must be done.

Kitchens and Softball

In my last post I forgot to include a picture of the outside of the house, so here it is:

Also, we got our new pretty granite counter tops, faucet, and tin backsplash, which Andy finished today. We also switched out our appliances. We got new ones at the old house about a year ago, and this house had decent ones, but they were all white, so we decided to switch them out to update everything. Here are a couple of pictures:

Here's an upclose shot of the granite and tin, and my pretty new teapot that Andy got me to match the counter tops (the black and brown one).Also, last weekend Drew had her first softball game. She's playing coach-pitch this year, which is why she's standing on the pitcher's mound next to a coach in a different uniform. She played the pitcher position because she's so awesome at stopping the ball, if I may brag on my child a little. The majority of hits go toward the pitcher at this age, and she dives for the ball and lets it hit her and everything. She makes me proud. Evan and Alli's T-ball games start this coming Saturday, so I'll have pictures of them up soon.

Updates

Hooray!!! We finally have the internet hooked up! We can be such procrastinators. Actually (and my mom can vouch for this) we're just too busy to breathe. On top of moving, and both of us working full time, we now have entered softball/T-ball season, so life has gotten even crazier. Evan and Alli have practice Monday night, Drew has practice Tuesday night, church is Wednesday night, Drew has practice again on Thursday, and they all 3 have practice on Saturday. Aaaahhh!!! is all I can say. I love watching them play, though, and they love it, so we can't make them quit, and I'm told that this is everyone's life these days, so I guess I can suck it up like the rest of the world. So, we finally are starting to feel like we're sleeping at home and not in some vacation house. It's amazing what a new house will do for motivation. My house has stayed spotless for almost a month now, and laundry has not backed up once. Those of you who live near me know what a miracle this is. I just love keeping it clean because it's so pretty. Can you tell I'm a little proud of it? We still have several bare walls, but we plan on being here a good long time, so fully decorated walls will come. The kids are doing great sleeping in their own bedrooms, and since they get the entire upstairs, I've only seen 2 or 3 toys in the living room the entire month! We were just all right on top of each other at the other house that everything bled over into everything else. Daisy is also enjoying her new, huge space with no visible cage. The invisible one is much less forgiving, though. I would recommend an invisible fence to anyone, but I recommend it with a huge warning that nobody gave us. It's absolutely horrible the first time the dog hits the line. The people that lived here before us love their dogs and everything, but they were fine with letting them get shocked. Andy and I almost gave it up after about the second time it happened to Daisy. In fact, we took it off of her and decided she could just live in the garage. But then, the next day she escaped, which motivated us to try it again. We put the collar on her and she completely froze. She wouldn't move at all. I pushed her over to her dog house and her food to show her she was safe, and then she wouldn't move from there. She's totally used to it now and it's great to have, but it was rough for a couple of days. Anyways, with all the pictures this is going to end up being a really long post, but it's long overdue, so here are some pictures of the new place.

Here is the breakfast area. We're getting new granite countertops Monday, so I'll post pictures of the rest of the kitchen later.

Here's the dining room.

Here's one angle of the living room.

And another angle of the living room (Yes, that's Remember the Titans).

This is a shot of the upstairs from the downstairs. The recessed lights you see are over the couch, and then the rest of the living room is open to the upstairs, which is great for the kids to be up there in their own space and I can still hear everything they're doing.

This is the kids' playroom, which was painted by the previous owner.

Drew's room, also pained by the previous owner. The colored polka-dots go all around the room, which is bigger than it looks, but because of the slanted ceiling it just looked like a long tunnel in the picture, so I got a little closer.

And Evan's room, which looks a little sterile in the picture. The first owners didn't have any boys, so this was an office. No fancy painting in here. :( He's up there sleeping in the top bunk, otherwise I would've made the bed all nice and neat.

Here's Alli's room. That's her also sound asleep in the bed, and this was already painted this way as well. Nice, huh?

And last but not least is our bedroom. It was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, and it's over twice the size of our old bedroom, so we still have a good bit of space to fill.

So, that's it. We love it. On top of everything is only about a mile from Wal-Mart (which I may have already mentioned). I'm glad the whole moving part is over. I have some pictures of that, too, but I figured this was enough for now. Oh, and I can't forget the kids at Easter! Here they are all nice and pretty:

Stay Tuned for More Stories

Well, we moved finally! I have pictures to post that will have to wait until later. The house came with cable TV already hooked up, and I have internet at school, so we've sort of drug (dragged?) our feet on the internet at home. It should be up next week, though. We love our new house -- it has so much more room than our old one. I have plenty of stories (mostly ones involving Daisy and our new invisible fence - talk about torture!), so I'll be back soon to tell about them. So, once again, don't give up on me!

More Moving Updates

We went up to our new house today and got a definite move-in date, which is March 2. They're moving out Friday, the 29th, and then they're hiring somebody to come in and clean really well and shampoo the carpets on Saturday. She is an immaculate house keeper. I have actually witnessed her following her 2-year-old around with a rag wiping whatever she touched. So, when she said she was going to have all this cleaning done, I wondered what could be so bad, but I wasn't about to turn down a good professional cleaning. After we left the house, we went and bought a whole slew of furniture. We actually bought about half of it in January when we thought we were about to move, and the guy was nice enough to let us keep it all there until we were ready to move, which we thought was going to be a month. We went back today to let him know we hadn't forgot about it and picked out a couple more things. We're strongly leaning toward getting a king size bed, instead of keeping the queen we have. We're definitely getting a new bed frame, it's just the size we're going back and forth on. We looked at mattresses today, which is sort of a difficult thing to decide on. We layed on the mattresses and everything, but to get good feel for what it'll really be like, I felt like I needed to kick off my shoes, roll over to my stomach and hike up my leg in my usual sleeping position. I just didn't feel comfortable doing that in front of the salesman in the middle of a store. We went to one store and found a bed frame we were pretty pleased with (although neither one of us felt like we couldn't live without it), but the salesman acted like our negotiations were silly, and he wasn't very nice about it, so we left there out of principle. We just didn't find anything else that we were crazy enough about to pay the price they were asking. I mean, it's one thing to pay a lot for something you love and will keep forever, but it's completely different when you start feeling like you're buying something just because you can't find anything better. We still have 2 weeks. I keep hoping the urge to pack will just hit me without having to muster up motivation on my own, but it's just not happening. I absolutely cannot wait to move -- it's the packing that's getting me. I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to just rake everything out of the cabinets into a box and sort it when we get there, but I'm sure I'd regret that later.

No, I'm Not Dead...

...Just incredibly busy. We're moving in 2 weeks (for real this time) and I'm so not ready. I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. It's one of those days when I know there are 10 million things that need to be done, but I don't know where to start. Plus, for some reason all the neighbor kids have ended up here today and I've finally managed to get rid of all but a little 3-year-old who doesn't get my hints that it's time to go. I guess I'll just flat out have to tell him to leave. His response is always, "My daddy said I could come here." Anyways, this is a terribly boring post, but I just didn't want anybody to give up on my blog. Maybe my next post will be from the new house!

Confessions of a Hypochondriac

Well, the pain in my side has finally started to ease up. For those of you who don't know, I'm sort of a closet hypochondriac. I hate going to the doctor because it's such a massive inconvenience, but I'm generally in fear that I have cancer or heart disease or some other thing that is going to cause me to die young. It doesn't hinder my lifestyle (I haven't become a germaphobic hermit or anything), it's just one of those things that always crosses my mind. So, when I went to the doctor about my side again, they did all these x-rays and blood work to check for infection, and everything looked clear, except that I was still in terrible pain that just wouldn't go away and my lovely Indian doctor wasn't exactly sure what it was and started making guesses about ligaments and tendons and cartilage. I knew, though, that all the tests had been run and everything was clear, so I wasn't too worried about it. My mother tends to be the opposite of me. She doesn't worry too much about life threatening illnesses, and always assumes the best until she's told otherwise. But, then, a couple of nights ago she asked me for the millionth time about my side and I replied with, "I don't want to talk about it," because I was so annoyed with the whole thing. Then she said she was worried because I shouldn't be in pain this long. Well, that's all it took for me to start mourning the death of my children's mother and get all stressed out about it. That was late at night, and the ER is not even a consideration for me unless I have bones sticking out or something because it's the most uncomfortable, repulsive place in the world covered with people suffering from the pitiful condition of ignorance and bad genetics, which leads to terrible health and no insurance and the use of the ER as a general physician, making it totally miserable for people with a legitimate emergency (No, I have no problem expressing my honest opinion). So, I went to bed and prayed and coughed myself to sleep. Today, it feels so much better. It's still there, but it's bearable. I can wash my hair without feeling it, and I can lay on my back without feeling like my lung is going to split open (I've been restricted to the fetal position every night), and I can even sit up with full use of my stomach muscles. I'm still coughing, which my doctor gave me an asthma inhaler for, and which I never remember to use, and it's still lingering in the back of my mind that there could be some underlying problem, but I've always been a perpetual worrier, so my mother used to frequently remind me of the words of Scarlett O'Hara to help me sleep at night: "Fiddle, dee, dee. I'll worry about that tomorrow." So, that's what I'm trying to do. A couple more years blogging and you'll all know the full extent of what a nut I really am. Oh, and here are Evan and Alli caught in a rare moment. They've gotten in the terrible habit of fighting all the time these days, which I'm finding is typical.

It Snowed!

Last night it snowed! It's actually kind of a slushy, wimpy snow that's good for making nasty orange mud, but it was enough to cancel school, and that's what's important, right? Andy still had to work because linemen work hardest in the weather that most of us don't leave the house for. It's actually a little bit sad because he's never gotten to play with the kids in the snow. Well, not never. There was that time we were driving home from Gatlinburg that we stopped and played in the snow for a little bit. I remember when Drew was a baby and it snowed one time and he mentioned that there was this old guy that he worked with who was close to retirement who said he'd never played in the snow with his kids. Anyways, since he had to get up so early, and I'm used to getting up even earlier, I couldn't go back to sleep, so me and the kids were out in the snow before 8:00. Plus, it was melting pretty quickly, so I knew our time was limited. The kids didn't care that snow around here is always the consistency of a snow cone, because that's all they know, so they loved it. Evan and Alli got cold after about 30 minutes, so we were back in before 8:30. But, it's almost 9:00 now and Drew's still out. She said she was going to the neighbor's house (her teacher) to see if they could play. Both parents over there are teachers, so I hope they were awake! Oh, and while I'm posting (because we all know it'll be a while before it happens again), we've been pushed back another month for our move date. Andy's cousin has run into some more delays with the house they're moving into, so they asked for another month. It's a good thing we haven't sold our house yet, but I'm starting to feel a little silly because people keep asking, "Have you moved yet?" and for 2 months now we've been saying, "not yet." People are going to start thinking we're dillusional liars or something, but I promise, some day we will be moving! Check out the cute little videos below, and me being the cynical mom that I am discouraging everyone from eating snow and making snowmen. It's not my intention to be the party-pooper. I'm just too realistic for my own good I guess.

My Baby and His Dirtbike

Andy has been talking about getting Evan a dirtbike since the day he was born. In fact, if I would've encouraged it, he probably would've bought one when I was still pregnant. But, now that Evan is getting close to 5 years old, I couldn't hold him back any longer. Andy and Evan have been riding around the neighborhood together for a couple of weeks, with Andy gradually doing less and less, until they got to the point where Evan was driving and Andy was just riding along. Today he decided it was time to let Evan go on his own, so we went out behind our house where they've cleared out everything to start a new phase in our subdivision. He actually did really well. It's kind of impressive how quickly he picks this kind of stuff up. With his bicycle, Andy took the training wheels off mainly because he's so rough on things that the training wheels were all busted up, and Evan took off with no problems. He pretty much did the same thing today. This is his first time alone and he did great. He fell a couple of times, which made him a little skiddish, but he was fine. In the shortest video clip (the last one that just appears black but still works) I cut it off so quick because I was supposed to catch him, which I did pretty well almost every time. One of the times he forgot to hit the breaks and flew past me. I even learned to start it up all by myself, which is really nothing to brag about. It was a lot of fun, though, and pretty exhausting for us all.

A Vacation From Vacation

I have officially decided that pleuracy is an illness spawned directly from Satan himself. I don't know what that says about me seeing as it's infiltrated my body, but I'm soooo incredibly over it and ready to not have to brace myself to cough. And sneezing is a luxury I never fully appreciated before. I went back to the doctor because my side was hurting much worse, and she decided to do an x-ray on my ribs to see if one was cracked or broken and said she'd give me a prescription for Loritabs if it was. Well, it's not, but I still asked about the pain killers. She explained that Loritab is a narcotic and I need an anti-inflammatory, so ibuprofen should be good enough. I didn't say that if I get enough narcotics in my system the pain would eventually go away, but that's what I was thinking. Anyways, I went back to work today with no kids, which I think is a good way to start out -- gradually. As much as I was dreading it last night, it was kind of nice to be back in my old routine. I've always thought that Andy's life was much easier with getting to go to work all day, and now that I go to work all day, my thought has been confirmed. Being a stay-at-home mom is the hardest job in the world. So, before we went back to school, we went to a birthday party for a kid at church at this place called INK (Interactive Neighborhood for Kids), and it was pretty neat. It's set up like a little town with a grocery store, bank, doctor's office, dentist, hair salon, restaurant, etc. Evan spent the majority of his time at the grocery store while Drew and Alli visited the hair salon, and then decided that they liked the playground best, which I guess is what they prefer in a real town, so why not in a pretend town? Here's Evan shopping: And here are Drew and Alli at the hair salon:

Holiday Catch-Up (AKA more excuses for lack of posting)

So, as usual, the holidays around here were incredibly hectic. For me it kind of started with our school Christmas party on the 20th with the massive amount of obsessive parents my homeroom students have. Seriously, I think there were 50 people in my classroom with all the students, parents, and younger siblings. Other teachers were walking by gawking at the crowd. The worse part was that they wouldn't leave. School is over at 2:25 and at 3:05 my last parent finally left! They're all under the impression that their precious little darling is my only student and that I have all day (during a Christmas party!) to sit and chew the fat about them. To all of you future parents of students, yes, it's wonderful to be involved, but within reason. As I've mentioned before, they drive me crazy. Here is a picture of the ornament I had my homeroom make, along with our little Christmas tree covered in their ornaments. By the way, the ornament took us several weeks to make. It involved 3 layers of papier mache, lots of painting, and a good bit of hot glue. Also, the 2nd grade did a Christmas around the world presentation, and Drew's class covered Africa. Here's a picture of me and her, and her in her little African outfit. So, almost immediately after school was out, we started our regular Christmas. Of course, before all of that, Andy finally got home from Oklahoma late on the 19th, and we still had to finish shopping (insanity!), so we did all of that, and wrapped like crazy, and got it all finished Saturday night. We spent the night of the 23rd with my parents and woke up the 24th and opened presents there. Then that evening we went to Andy's dad's and had Christmas with the Clark's. Of course, the 25th we woke up after Santa came to our house and had real Christmas here. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids at my parents' house.Unfortunately, that's kinda where the Christmas cheer ended for us grown-ups. Andy's grandfather passed away on the 23rd. He'd been sick for a long time, but that sure didn't make it any easier. We decided to do our regular things with the other sides of the family for the kids, but also because Andy felt like his grandfather would've wanted us to try to enjoy Christmas. From the 25th to the 27th we were in and out of the funeral home. It was all pretty hard on Andy's mom's family, especially this time of year, but they seem to be doing as good as they could be. I didn't know his grandfather very well because by the time I came into the family, he'd gone downhill enough that he didn't talk very much, but aside from Andy's dad (and me and the kids of course), this was the person he was closest to, so most of my tears were for him. On top of everything, not that this really even compares to the loss of a grandparent, I went to the doctor today and found out I have the beginning of walking pneumonia and pleuracy, which is an infection in the lining of my right lung. I've been walking around for a week thinking I had a broken rib or something. I feel fine other than a horrible cough and killer pain on my right side when I cough or breathe deep. But, instead of sending me home on antibiotics, the doctor gave me a shot and I already feel much better. And, for those of you wondering, we've changed our moving date to Feb. 1 because the people in the house right now (Andy's cousin) had some set backs with the house they're moving into. With everything so busy, that's fine with me. My goal now is to relax a little before I have to go back to school. Most of my laundry is folded and all the Christmas stuff is put away, so wish me luck!

Not for the Squeamish

There are times when I find myself asking, "What is wrong with my children?" All 3 of them have cut their hair more than once. And, I know you're all thinking, why don't I just put up the scissors? Well, in a normal house where normal children live that might be sufficient. Not mine. I cannot explain to those of you who don't live near me exactly what level of nuts my kids are. They're precious, and I love them, and they're not those kids that are referred to as brats. In fact, I get compliments all the time about how well my kids behave in restaurants and at church. Random old ladies come up to me at the grocery store and tell me I'm doing a great job. But, we're always dealing with MAJOR wounds and disasters. Evan rode his bike (which he rides quite skillfully without training wheels I might add) down the front porch, and later down the slide. He always has cuts on his face. He has a huge burn where he tried to get on Andy's dad's treadmill and fell. Sounds like a good case for neglect, right? Not so. I know there are others in my family who have the same types of children, and Andy was one himself. You can see my latest disaster pictured. The first picture is Evan after his personally done haircut, crying, not because he was in trouble, but because I said I was gonna shave his head. He, for some reason, was more embarrassed at a shaved head than this retarded haircut. I called Andy (who's been sent to Oklahoma for an ice storm) to tell him, and he said to do a mohawk, which he knew would traumatize Evan, even though it's quite the trend these days. So, I did. I know, all the grandparents are probably flipping out, and I can imagine what we'll get at church. Oh well. I've been saying, "I don't care" about a lot of things for a long time, and I think that's Andy's motto.

A New Post...Finally!

I find myself regularly apologizing for my blogging neglect, so here I go again. For those of you who haven't given up on me, sorry it's been so long. I've been packing like crazy around here, and the house is sort of sad right now. I've taken all the pictures off the walls and what's left is the nail holes and a few scratches that were under the frames. Almost all of my knick-knacks are now in boxes, and the only Christmas decorations we have out are the tree and stockings. The good thing is there's not much to clean up after Christmas. We had an inspection done on the new house and the guy found a couple of pretty big things, so we got a little nervous that things may not work out. But, we talked to them today and I'm feeling pretty good about it, and we've all agreed to keep on packing. The main thing I have left is the kitchen pantry and the closets. Next to the kitchen, that will be my biggest ordeal. Of course, there's the garage, but that's Andy's world in there, and I would have no clue where to begin. We have a hot-pink 1970 Chevelle that's in about a million pieces, and a countless number of tools. It's amazing the amount of stuff that can accumulate in 7 years. We're pretty good about cleaning out and getting rid of things. Neither one of us are pack-rats. But still, there's just a lot of stuff. I'm so excited, though, and ready to move. It'll be a little sad leaving here, because it's the only house the kids have lived in, except for our little apartment that we moved out of when Drew was 2 months old, and we've done a lot of work here. The biggest things were the major plumbing project Andy took on in putting a bathroom downstairs where there was nothing plumbed, and then the hardwood floors he put down. I jokingly mentioned that the next people to move in here would probably put down carpet. Andy didn't find it very humorous. I usually try to include pictures of the kids, but I'm also slacking on taking pictures these days. It drove me crazy trying to get a decent picture for Christmas cards this year. Trying to get all 3 kids in a half decent pose at the same time is like spinning your wheels, but we finally got one I can live with. So, sadly, here's the only other picure I've taken lately: all the packing I've done thus far:
No, the boxes aren't really full of eggs. We just have access to an unlimited amount of free egg boxes thanks to Andy's dad. As usual, the picture doesn't do it justice. I sure do feel like I've packed more than that, anyways.

It's Ladybug Infestation Time Again!

I'm a little over-due from my usual weekly blogging. I had such a busy weekend that I didn't even check my e-mail, which these days is unheard of for me. With the impending move on the way I'm trying to do what I can so that when it gets here we're not killing ourselves to get out in a short time. The good thing is that we're not selling the house right away, so we don't have to have everything out in one day. We can move sort of gradually. However, I hate moving, so I'd like to keep it from dragging out as much as possible. This weekend I got the laundry room cleaned out. It's one of those rooms that has become a catch-all for the things we know we don't want to throw away yet but don't know what to do with. Well, most of it got thrown away this weekend. One thing I won't miss is the ladybug infestation we get every year around this time. It usually hits at the end of October, but this year it's hit a little late. Yesterday I swept hundreds of them out of the floor in front of the door and windows. I don't know if any of you know that ladybugs have a distinct smell, but in swarms they do. When I walk in the door every afternoon the smell hits me. One year I made the mistake of vaccuming them up, and I had to get rid of the bag because the vaccum cleaner smelled like ladybugs. Maybe soon it'll get cold enough to kill them all. It's just funny because if people were all crowded together and this huge creature came up and started killing them, most of the people would scatter and never come back. Not ladybugs. They don't seem to care if I smoosh all their little friends, or thump them across the room. They just carry on with their invasion fearlessly. Ugh! Since I haven't taken any pictures since Halloween I'm including some pictures of the kids from when we went to the park a couple of weeks ago.

Halloween '07

Halloween has come and gone again, and for some reason I follow the exact same picture format every year with my pictures. Same place in the yard, same poses...at least the costumes are different. This first picture is of the 5, yes, 5 pumpkins that I carved all by myself. Drew helped me dig the guts out of the huge one (for reference it weighed about 50 pounds). Then she drew a face on another pumpkin and lost interest. Evan wrote "boo" about 50 times on his pumpkin, and then drew a face the size of a half-dollar, so he was a little upset when I carved a big face in it and not the tiny one he drew. I couldn't get him to understand that I just didn't have the precision I needed with my kitchen knife. Alli drew the face with the tiny eyebrows and the huge round mouth, and then wrote her name across the top. She also did pretty well digging guts out. So, after I worked with Drew to clean out the big one, and then finished off cleaning Alli's, that was it for me and guts. In the last ones we just set the candles on top of the seeds and everything. It worked just as well, so I may just skip that step in the future. As far as costumes, Drew wanted to be Sacagawea, probably because Andy goes around saying her name all the time because it sounds funny. This was as close as we could get. I was just excited they had an Indian outfit at the costume store, seeing as I waited until the 27th to buy costumes. Alli is a spider princess (the name that came on the costume bag), and Evan is Optimus Prime from Transformers, which Andy was especially pumped about. The mask made it through one house before he didn't want to wear it anymore. Of course they had a great night and got tons of candy, which we all ate and felt like puking before the night was over, and still have tons left. What's sad is within the next couple of weeks we'll eat all the good stuff out, and then the cheap-o yucky stuff like Mary-Janes and Bit-O-Honeys (sorry Dad) will be left over, only to get thrown away while we're cleaning out to move. Oh yeah, we're moving! Our date is January 1, and it's only about 10 minutes north of here. The good news is that it's one mile from Wal-Mart and the bank and several eating places, and there are even places that will deliver. Nothing delivers here. We're moving mainly because this house is just too small. The kids' rooms are tiny and so is our bedroom, and the living room is so not conducive to entertaining (because we're such party animals). The new house is so nice and has lots more room. The kids will all have their own bedroom, plus a playroom. We should be able to live there with plenty of room for at least 10 years (we've been here 7!). Plus, it comes with one of those underground invisible fenses, so it's all ready for Daisy, and it also comes with a golf cart! That was the deciding factor. I'm kidding, but, seriously, we've already decided that next year we'll be trick-or-treating on the golf cart. So, that was the first of many holidays to come and our big news. I can already smell the Thanksgiving turkey, and, yes, that overwhelmed feeling of not having a clue where to start with packing has set in as well.