Just catching up!

Let's see, haven't blogged in loooong time. I keep meaning to, and then I loose my connection and decide to just go to bed instead, lol.

We did get that room cleaned out before my dad got here. It looks great. Funny thing happened though. We got it all cleaned out, moved tubs upon tubs of baby/kid clothes to the barn, moved box upon box into assorted closets, etc. Then I went to bed that night and realized "Omgosh, look at all that wasted space. A whole room, just sitting there empty, unused!" Well, I couldn't have that. After all, we're a family of 5 living in a single wide trailer, wasted space is a tragedy! So we did some rearranging, moved all the tubs of clothes back into that room, stacking them on the trunk that is now full of blankets/sheets and on top of one dresser. The tall dresser that is closest to the door got turned into a shoe/hat/glove dresser, moving all that stuff out of the small thing of shelves that were crowding the hallway. We moved the shelf to the living room to better organize the toys that are in there. Then the other dresser we filled up with games, books and hardly used craft items. We also had two milk crates storing shoes and such in the hallway and moved them to an end table in the living room. One sits on it's side and has some books in it, the other sit on top, right-side up and is filled with craft items that are used regularly. My house is far from house beautiful, between the milk crates, hand-me-down furniture, duck-taped sewing desk and the shoe boxes I use to organize toys, but when it's all picked up it still looks nice and fits mine and dh's personality. Oh, and after my dad left, we moved all the big stuffed animals that were cluttering up the boys room onto the bed in the extra bedroom. I'm very happy with how things turned out :)

As for my dad's visit, it went great! My dad had once said that if I moved here he would never come visit b/c he had no desire to see my husband. I can't say I blame him, but it still hurt, so I was very happy when he decided to come visit. I know part of it was just to check in on us, but that's ok. Not only that, but him and DH got along wonderfully! DH was very worried that my dad would make him miserable. I can quote DH as saying "your dad is the only person I worry about hating me" He knows other ppl that matter to him, like his family will never hate him, and other ppl who matter in my family, like my mom, will put their own feelings aside when visiting, but my dad. He has the potential to hate and make it known. So we were both very relieved and happy when my dad treated DH just like he always had. So we all had a good time. My dad took the kids and I to a movie, we saw "B movie" at the cheap theaters, but missed a good chunk of the beginning and it was pretty short anyways. Seemed alright though. Then we went to Wal-mart and my dad bought a whole bunch of movies for us. And then we went to a book store and he bought The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring books, b/c I mentioned we were needing new chapter books to read outloud. Then the next day he took me grocery shopping, since we're still vehicle-less. And he insisted on paying for all our non-food items (food items are covered by our wonderful gov't since we live "below poverty") All in all, it was good visit. We discussed future visits. He know has children that live all over the country so visits are spread out. But I think since we live closest, at just under 5 hours from him, he may come visit us on the occasionaly long weekend, and visit the others on Holidays. He talked about checking out the schedule for the Nascar track that is not too far from here, so we'll see about that.

Oh, speaking of money and such up there about groceries, I just remembered, DH got a raise! It wasn't much, but it will help us greatly, and he'll be getting more hours, which will help even more! We were joking about how rich we felt when he got his paycheck, but in reality, it was still below poverty (to give you an idea of how little he makes!). We should be able to get caught up on our bills in just a few weeks and then we may even have some extra to save up for a car. Woohoo!

And speaking of spending money and a car, DH's sister called a few days ago and offered to watch the kids and let us borrow her car tomorrow so we can go on a date! She's even throwing in $20! I think we're goign to go to the $2 theater and then Arbys. So romantic, huh? Of course, just to make things fun, af showed on Thurs (the beginning of my second cycle since DD was born) and is super heavy. Isn't that what everyone wants to worry about when out of a very rare date with their dh. But the good news is that my cycles aren't too wacky, the first cycle was 6-7wks, which is normal for me, which an 11 day luteal phase, which isn't too awfully short and should be up to 12days, my normal, before long. That should put us at a good spot for getting pg in March again, since that seems to be when I concieve. I'm getting excited about being pg again. I'll probably start stressing about it if it gets into April and I haven't gotten pg yet, but for now I'm content waiting until March, lol.

Somehow asked how school was going and basically, it's not. I decided to give Asher a looooong break for now. He's just refusing to do all things with letters and gets frustrated at numbers even, so occasionally we look at the calendar and talk about what day it is, etc, and me reading outloud twice a day, but that's it. After we get a car and have access to the library we'll probably start doing My Father's World. I think going back to teh basics with letters and sounds will really build his confidence and I love the way they introduce numbers and ones/tens, a concept I have not been able to get across. In the meantime, I've just preparing myself, going over stuff again and again until I have it all figured out and making lists of things we need, etc. I really think we'll enjoy MFW once we get started.

I think that's about it, as if that post wasn't long enough! I'm goign to try and remember to blog more often, really I am, Maybe I need to move the link up on my Favorites list...