Solomon is walking!

My bitty baby boy is walking! A few days ago he took his first step and now he can make it across the living room. My earliest walker. Yesterday the big kids were running in circles and Solomon got this look like "I can do that too!" and off he went. For about 4 steps before his body got ahead of his feet and he fell. Then he just crawled with them, lol.

Things are going well around here. It seems everytime I turn around we have new animals. We started with a turtle and 2 cats, we now have one cat, one turtle, two dogs, one fish, 4 mice and 3 chickens. Where did they all come from? At least it's a start to our farm, lol.

Updates!

We're on slow dial-up now, so I haven't been getting on the internet more than about once a week since we moved. I feel like I'm wasting time waiting for pages to load, so then I try and get chores done while it's loading, and then I forget about it and no one can call for hours on end, lol. We're doing good though. Progress on the house has expectedly slowed. Between the house and his job, Austin had been working double shifts for over a month when we moved, so he's taking it easier now and mainly only working on the house on his days off. We also had some car issues, so he had to work on that for a few weeks as well. But hopefully soon we'll be able to move into the rest of the house and have more than just one bedroom, kitchen and living room to live in. We're not really too cramped right now though, which is good. I do have to make sure the kids get a lot of outside time. The biggest aggravator really is that until the other 3 rooms are finished I can't finish unpacking and I'm tired of not being able to find the things I want. But that's a small complaint to be sure.

Solomon is doing wonderfully. He's been inch-worming along for a little over a month and now he's figured out to really crawl, sit up and has started pulling up the last few days. I can't believe he'll be 7 months old soon. It goes by so quickly. The kids are already asking when I'll have another baby in my belly, lol. I have to say, I'm starting to wonder myself, though I know in reality, it probably won't be next spring/summer, just like before. I've got a long way to go if baby fever is starting to hit already!

Genesis is a wonderful little girl, who loves to help out around hte house and with the baby. On Monday she got hit in the face with a shovel by the neighbor girl (totally on accident) and had a deep gash on the bridge of her nose. I took her to the ER where they determined she needed one stitch. I was a little concerned about tetanus, since she's not vaccinated and a lot of risk factors were there, but the ER Dr said the chances of her getting it were very remote and not to worry. We removed the stitch today and it's healing wonderfully. Other than that, she's very two and has her moments.

Canaan is growing up so fast. He's a delight to have around as he's also a willing helper and I love watchign the things he comes up with.

Asher can't wait for us to start school next week. He knows that by the end of 1st grade he'll be an independant reader, and that's very exciting for him. I'm also excited to teach him this year as there's just so much to learn. Other than the reading, we'll also be doing more formal math and memorizing math facts and such along with fun science experiments and a Bible timeline. It just looks like it will be a fun year.

I'm doing great. Solomon is quite a bit more needy than I remember any of the others being (or maybe it's just b/c I have 4 now) and I'm having a hard time getting my groove back, but now that he's starting to take longer naps and plays on the floor more I can see the light at the end of hte tunnel. It's frustrating to feel like the house is always in survival mode, but I wouldn't trade all the baby snuggles I get for more housework time almost any day of the week. One day a week I would like to be able to actually get more done Which I think is also partially why I don't mind not having the rest of the house done. I'm working hard enough just keeping what we have clean!

Tomorrow's the day!

Tomorrow we move. I'm excited to get on with this next phase of our lives. We'll spend the summer finishing up the house and then in the fall we figure out what to do with all our apples and whatever else kind of fruit we find. In the winter we start figuring out next year's garden and building the chicken coop. So exciting! I am not, however, looking forward to the next several days. Tomorrow we're starting bright and early at 6:30am, supposedly. First thing, we're all going to the new house, so the men can finish my floors (sigh) and I can start cleaning (double sigh). It should prove to be a long day. And then of course we'll spend the next couple days juggling things around until we find half-way decent places for everything. Though we can't do too much unpacking b/c half the house isn't finished yet. But it will still be an exciting adventure and a great beginning to our new blessings.

Asher is sad to be leaving his friends. He regularly plays with an 8yo boy and 4yo girl that live across the street. He said he wished we could live here forever. I explained to him that we can't, and besides, the neighbors are moving in a month or so anyways, so it wouldn't do any good to live here. But that doesn't take his sadness away. This is the first time he's ever experienced regret at moving. Before he was always excited. But this is also the first he's been old enough and had friends to really get it. But moving on is a part of life unfortunately. I, too, will miss our neighbors and being able to walk up to the store, and to visit friends and family, but I'm much more excited about the life we have ahead of us.

Don't know when I'll be able to post again. Of course we have the busyness that comes with moving. The phone guy should be out on Monday to get us all set up, but then we'll only have dial-up. That may be good for my blogging, perhaps I'll get so fed up trying to do anything else I'll just blog instead to keep my busy, lol, or I may get so frustrated I just about give up on the internet all together (yeah right) or spend all my time waiting for pages to load up that I don't have time to blog. Or maybe, I'll blog while I'm waiting for other pages to load. Only time will tell.

For now, goodbye and pray for us!

Making progress, sort of

We got a bunch of boxes moved today, pretty much everything I've packed so far. For now, we're just putting most of the boxes in the (no where near completed) master bedroom, until we have time later to juggle things around. Things to do before Sunday: fix bathroom floor, install toilet and sink, cover big hole in the kids' bedroom closet, put a floor in the utility room for my washer and dryer, buy a stove, move everything, clean both houses, did I miss anything. Oh, and as of this morning, DH is the only cook at the restaurant, though he's already told his bosses he can only work Friday and Saturday evening, and MUST have the mornings and Sunday off.

YOu've got to be kidding me

On Tuesday we paid the deposit to get water turned on at the new house. We left explicit directions to call before turning on because we just put new plumbing in and didn't know if there were any leaks, etc. We were assured they would call and even if no-one was there, they would keep the water turned off at the meter, just in case. No call on Tues. Wed morning, DH got up early, all ready to put the toilet and sink in. Walked into the house to discover a flooded bathroom, no kidding. The sink, bathroom and shower were all turned on. And remember, the toilet and sink weren't installed yet, so their pipes were just spraying everywhere. After numerous calls to the water company and having fans blowing all day, they will not charge us for the 8000 ( :O) gallons of water used and things dried out fairly well, so it shouldn't be too much work to fix. I think they should pay for what does need fixing, but DH isn't too worried about it. Fun times, hey?

Here we go

We have less than one week to move out of our current house. Before we can live in our new house, we need to finish the bathroom (it's about 3/4 painted, needs the toilet and sink/mirror put in), put a floor down in the utility room so my washer and dryer can be put in and buy a stove. I would prefer we get the joists taken care of under the wall between the 3rd bedroom and the kids bedroom, but I don't think that's going to happen. So we'll probably just put a piece of plywood there for now and call it good. And of course I need to finish packing, which I am working on, but it's slow going with a baby who I think is teething. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Busy, busy, busy

We've been busy around here. Everyday we get up, eat breakfast, I take a shower (most days), then we head to the new house. DH and I get as much done as we can with a baby who likes to be held, a 2yo who likes to help and a 4 and 6yo who go back and forth between helping and exploring, which means constant checks to be sure they haven't gone too far. By the time we get home and eat lunch, it's 3-3:30. Dh takes a nap with the 2yo, while I sit and catch my breath! At 4:30 Dh is up and getting ready for work. When he leaves it's time to do as much picking up, laundry, dishes and packing as we can in the next 3 hours before the kids start getting ready for bed. They shower, eat and go to bed and then I collapse on the couch for an hour or so until I crawl into bed.

The kids' room is all done, painted and everything, just waiting on laminate. The living room and kitchen need the ceiling and floor painted, then they will be done. Bathroom needs a little more mudding and sanding before we can paint. the shower is in and plumbing hooked up, the sink/vanity is all ready, just waiting to paint first and the toilet is almost ready to put on. We still need some plywood put down where the washer and dryer go, and a wall, and the utility room will be usable. Oh, and now we found out that we need to get the garage, which was used as a barn, cleaned out ASAP so my FIL can stay there. We have just under 2 weeks to get it all done and get moved in. Then we'll worry about the rest of the house ;)

Baby and house updates

The baby is all better. About two days after his rash appeared, it started to disappear. 3 days after that, it was all gone. Still not sure what it was and nobody else has come down with it (though it has a 2wk incubation, so we'll see)

I put together a little slideshow of the house project, though it looks worse then when we started. Today we bought all new bathroom stuff. Fun!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0803/kugoi/new%20house/?albumview=slideshow

Roseola? Rubella?

Last week Solomon had a low grade fever for two days, no other symptoms. Yesterday he had what looked like a heat rash on his face, then his whole body. Today, all the little bumps are bigger, as in spread out, not taller, and the fever is back. A lot of people said it looks like Roseola, but some said it looks worse than any Roseola they've seen. And Roseola is usually marked by a high-grade fever, not a low grade. So I did some more research and I'm leaning towards Rubella. Rubella is marked with a low-grade fever and starts on the face. The pics of Roseola and Rubella online look a lot alike, but based on symptoms, I'm thinking it's more likely Rubella. Well, if I've got to pick on of the MMR, I'll take Rubella any day! I wonder if the other kids will come down with it... Want some pics?

House update

Let's see, we ended up not having to get the electricity inspected. It seems the first lady we talked to didn't know what she was talking about. We did however have to pay a ridiculously high deposit. We'll get part of it back after 12 months and the rest back after 18 months (assuming all payments are made on time).

We discovered we need to tear out the entire bathroom because all the walls were full of mold. Reason for mold? The drainage pipes in the sink, bathtub and washer weren't connected and just drained onto the ground under the house. I think we're going to buy one of those one-piece bathtub/shower dealies so we can just put it in without having to worry about caulking, etc. Just much less work. We also need to buy a new toilet because the old one got broke when DH moved it. And we're goign to go ahead and buy a new bathroom sink/cabinet becuase the one that was in there is only 18in wide and there's enough room for a 30in wide one and the $150 is worth it for the counter and cabinet space.

We've accepted that in order to move in by June 1st (so we'll get a month with no rent/payments) we will most likely be moving in with just subfloors. Not a problem, as far as I'm concerned. There's more than enough space that we can shuffle rooms for a bit until it's all ready.

The last couple days I've been going up to the house with the kids and while the men work on fixing floors, pulling out bathrooms, etc, I've been doing little things. The previous owners had an open fire in the fireplace, so the walls are covered in soot. I've been washing that off, though I'm not sure how clean the walls need to be to paint. I also spent a good amount of time removing carpet tack board and padding staples from the living room and kids bedroom. I still need to remove a wallpaper boarder from the living room and we need to buy some spackle, so I can start filling in holes, etc in order to paint. For now we're just going to paint everything off-white and later we will decide on colors. I'm the kind of person that needs to live in a house for a while to see what colors I want. But we're making progress and I'm glad that I'm able to help even though I'm constantly interrupted by the kids.

Packing is going slow. I've had a hard time lately with the baby just keeping up on dishes and laundry, so that doesn't leave much time for packing too. I've only managed to get about a dozen boxes packed, but I'm working on it. We haven't had to leave anything behind yet because of my packing procrastination, and we've made plenty of moves!

I officially graduated Asher from Kindergarten last week. We didn't finish the curriculum we're using, but he knows everything in it so at this point it was just extra practice. Now I'm not stressed everyday when I don't get school done! School things are also on the list of things I can pack now.

Speaking of school, in the family room, which we'll be using as a dining room, we're going to have two walls covered in shower board. It works just like whiteboard and isn't too much more than drywall. My sewing desk will also be in that room, so I'm excited about that.

I think that's about it for now. I would post some 'during' pics, but they're pretty scary at this point, what with walls and floors tore out and a bathtub sitting in the master bedroom, etc. Maybe you can see the 'during' pics when I put up the 'after's , lol.

My battle against laziness

I've always been a lazy person. Lazy and procrastinating by nature. Since having children, this has bothered me more and more and I've been consciously fighting it. There are some times in life though where it's an easier fight. Right now is not one of those times. Everyday I have to sit down many many times throughout the day to take care of the baby, and every time is new battle to get back up. It's so easy to just hold the sleeping baby and not get anything done. It seems by the time I finally convince myself to get off my behind, he's waking up and needs to eat! Case in point: by my schedule, I should have been in the shower half an hour ago, but here I sit, with a sleeping baby on my chest, blogging. I may or may not be able to put him down right now without him waking, I wont' know until I try. The good news is that it actually bothers me now when my house is a mess and I keep loosing the battle to get up. When Asher was a baby, I didn't much care. So off I go, to fight the good fight and every time I win I become a better person.

Mystery Solved

For the last week or two, Solomon has been getting little sores and scratches on the top of his head. I had no idea where they were coming from. I thought they were appearing at night, but that's all I knew. It was driving me crazy and you can just imagine the ideas going through my head since we have issues with bugs and mice! Last night, I figured it out. When he nurses while we're both laying down, he takes his arm that is furthest from me and reaches up and around to the top of his head. He mainly plays with his hair, but he scratches and picks too. Mystery solved! Now I just have to decide what, if anything, to do about it...

Pulling up carpet

We pulled up carpet yesterday and set off some odor bombs called Room Shocker. I had read about it online and it got pretty good reviews. Plus, it has a money back guarantee, so we went for it. I think it's pretty much just a gaseous form of bleach, which I normally don't mess with, but sometime you gotta do when you gotta do. They say for strong odors to let it work for 24 hours, so well see how well it worked this afternoon. The house will probably reek of bleach, but thats better than the smell that's there! We talked to a neighbor, and he said they had chickens living IN the house. We're not talking about little chicks in a box here. They didnt have an adequate chicken coop, so the chickens were in the house. So you can imagine the smell in the house. And the desperate need to replace floor coverings!

Today DH is out at the house with a neighbor digging a french drain. The house has water damage and we heard it was from water coming off the hill, so we're trying to divert the water run-off. We think a lot of the water problem is also just from the gutter not being connected. Where the worst damage is, is where the gutters end and it all spills out there.

So that's where we are. Reconstruction has begun.

We have the keys!

The keys to the farm are ours! A little unexpected fee came up. Turns out the previous owners haven't had the electricity turned on since '05. The electric company requires an electric inspection on anything that hasn't had the electric on in over a year. Of course we have to pay for it. Doh. Weren't expecting that. The inspector guy is out ot lunch right now, so we won't know until this afternoon what it's actually going to run us. But that's okay, because we own a farm!

Pics of our new house and farm!

Here it is! The house is 1700sf, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. This could only have happened through God's miracles, so praise the Lord with me! We hope to move in before June. Here's some highlights.

The pics are (I think I got this in order):
The front of the house, The hill right behind the house, Our fruit trees, The back of the acreage from the top of the hill, All the ways back is ours, The view walking back

Next post:
Master bedroom, Family room, Kitchen (don't hate me!) and The living room fireplace.

TWO daddies!

The other night my BIL stayed over and slept on the living room floor. When Genesis got up with the boys, she came to our bed and fell back asleep with me. I got up a short time later, but she stayed sleeping. Eventually she came out and half awake, saw her uncle laying on the floor. She was at his feet, so she couldn't see his face, and he was sleeping in a position that DH sleeps in often. Her eyes got so big, and she exclaimed with the most wonderful voice "TWO daddies!" She was completely awe-struck. Unfortunately I had to break her heart and tell her that one was Uncle Amos. She was very disappointed. Can you tell she's a Daddy's girl?

Well, darnit

We may not be closing on the house on the 15th. The bank is having issues getting all their paperwork in order. But that's okay, it gives us more time to get firm numbers on things we need to fix up the house. In the meantime, we just wait patiently, I suppose. And try and remember to take the camara next time we head out there...

Planning the farm

So we've spent the last week or two planning our farm. We eventually hope to go off the grid and maybe even self-sustaining. By off the grid we don't just mean to have alternative sources of electricity, but rather to go without. So a lot of plans are working towards that goal. First thing, of course, is getting the house livable. We can start work after the 15th. I still don't have any pictures, but promise to get some as soon as possible. I should probably start packing, since we move in less than two months, if everything goes to plan. But alas, the baby hasn't been feeling well so I'm barely keeping up with laundry and dishes. Right now we're having discussions about where to put the wood stove. There's already a place where one was, though we would have to protect the walls and such, but it's in the middle of the master bedroom and clearance would take up a lot of our room and DH is worried it'll be too hot in there to sleep. So he talked about moving it to a corner of the bedroom, but I"m thinking, if he's going to move it, he should just move it to the family room if he's that worried about the heat at night. We also have been discussing about the whole summer cooking thing when we go off grid and what we want to do about that. Here's our plan so far, though subject to change as we learn more. We have a fireplace to heat the front of the house and we'll be getting a wood stove big enough to heat the back of house. Then we'll build a cook/wash house off of the kitchen to put a cook stove in. That porch area will have fold-down walls and screens so in the summer we can open it up and not heat up the whole house while cooking, but in the winter I can close it up (so I won't freeze!) and can hang laundry up in there as well. Right now we'll just get the wood stove to heat the back of the house, but in the future will buy the cook stove. DH wants to go all out and get one that has a water tank on the back for hot water. Less work for me!

We've also been planning the garden and chicken area. My dad grew up on a farm and told me this great idea that I only found mentioned in one place so far online. What you do is fence in two garden plots, and put the chicken coop between them. The first year, you let the chickens out on one side and put your garden on the other side. Then the next year, you switch them. So the chickens are eating up all your left over garden stuff and composting it, completely weeding the area and fertilizing it. So every year you have a great garden plot to plant in. Awesome! We're going to go ahead and raise layers and meat birds. Hopefully, every 2 months or so we'll get a chicken to raise a brood of chicks to slaughter. Which means we'll need a rooster. I think we said if we start out with 18 or so chicks that should be plenty to get us through until we get some good layers to raise up some more for meat. I'm so excited. Not so much at the thought of slaughtering chickens, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

Speaking of slaughtering, DH is also planning on learning how to slaughter deer (shot on our own land!), and eventually cows that we'll raise too. We're not sure yet exactly how many cows we'll be able to pasture on our land, so that will have a big impact on how we do that, of course. We know for sure we want a dairy cow, and we'll have to freshen her every year or two so we might as well raise the calf for meat, but we don't know what we're going to do about mating her. I don't think we want a bull just for one, at most, two dairy cows, but I don't want to pay to get them inseminated either. Maybe we can find someone to trade use of their bull for something...

But I'm rambling and really need to try and put the baby down so I can switch laundry and wash two days worth of dishes. Thanks for listening to my rambling!