We're moved!!

We're moved!! Kinda. Does it count as being moved if you still don't have your couches? Or your bed? Or dressers? Or kitchen table? Or a whole room of stuff at the old house that goes into storage? I didn't think so. So we're mostly moved. We're supposed to be getting everything else moved and the old house cleaned up this weekend. Then I can really start unpacking. So far I've only really unpacked the kitchen. I can't unpack the living room b/c we don't have the couches yet. We think we know where we're goign to put them, but it's hard to know for sure until you actually have the furniture in the room, yk? All our clothes stayed in the drawers and we hung stuff up in the closet as we brought it in, so there's not much to do there. The kids need a few things unpacked in their room, but the bunkbed isn't put together yet and it's peices are in my way. Not too mention I'm not unpacking any toys until I'm ready to go through them, which won't be until everything else is unpacked. So that's where we stand. I spent yesterday unpacking the kitchen and today I got the bathrooms all set up. Oh, and put a few boxes in closests, where they will stay probably permanantly.

I am enjoying my highspeed WiFi though. It rocks.

And now the fun starts :)

Genesis has learned how to climb onto the kitchen chairs, and thus, unto the kitchen table. At present she is standing on it playing with light switches (it's pushed against the wall). Now nothing is safe. She already knows how to push the chairs around, so she's been playing with stuff on the counter and the table all day. They were the only two safe places left!! And now I have to keep a doubly close eye on her. I do try and keep her from playing with stuff on the counter, but I won't keep her off the table as long as she's being good. After all, the boys are allowed to sit and play on the table (safely).

And the fun is also starting with moving. We've hit the time where we are just going from room to room packing things in boxes. Surprise surprise, DH didn't go through anything with me, which means I have free reign to go through things on my own and get rid of what I don't think we have space/a need for. Yay for me!! Let the decluttering begin!! We actually started on Sunday. DH went to the key from the landlord, while I piled up boxes into the living room for him to load up when he got back. After we got that loaded up and he left with it, I finished packing up the extra bedroom, getting scared half to death when a mouse jumped out of a box right at me. And the cycle continued. We actually got everything out of the boys' room except their mattresses which are on the floor, everything but the furniture out of the extra bedroom, and everything except the couches pretty much from the living room. The friend who is helping DH is off of work tomorrow, so they're planning on getting everything from our room except the mattress. I got it all packed up tonight. We hope to everything moved out by Saturday night so we clean, both houses! and then start unpacking no Sunday. I'm not sure we'll be spending the night at the new house Sat like we planned, though. We had a little snafu with the water company and may not be able to get it turned on until Monday. And I am NOT living there for a day and half without water! Oh well, the phone won't be switched until Monday anyways.

Speaking of the phone, I called the other day to switch the phone over to the new residence and got great news. Right now we pay for local telephone, caller id and accelerated dial-up. I found out that for just $4 more a month, we can have high speed, with a wireless router, unlimited long distance, and all the services like call waiting, caller id, 3-way, etc. Can you believe that?!? I said "heck yeah!" and signed us up. It just about makes up for the water issues I think. Hopefully after we get it all set up and get settled in I can get some new pics of the kiddos uploaded. Woot!

Moving, Moving, Moving

Well, it's official. We are moving completely by next weekend. Just over a week away. And how much do we have packed you ask? Little to nothing. Why you ask? Well, that's a good question! For one, we weren't for sure we were moving until last weekend. For two, DH and I are both procrastinators. And for three, and most importantly, we really don't have a lot to pack. Pretty much the only things that got unpacked were things we actually use, and I hate packing up things I actually use! So this weekend we're going to go through stuff to decide what will find a new home in our new (to us) place, and what will find it's way to storage, either to wait until we move again, or to yard sale. Somethings to go through include: books, stuff in the extra bedroom, and most importantly, toys!! We're getting rid of a lot of toys, regardless of what anyone says to stop me! And I made a deal with DH. If we don't go through things before we move, then I have free reign to go through everything by myself and get rid of anything I want. So that's what we're doing this weekend, and then at the very beginning of next weekend I'm going to go through and pack up the whole house. That may seem like a huge undertaking, but really it's not. Like I said, we don't have a lot out really, and then I don't have to sort through everything to decide what we need for the next week and what we don't, it all goes in together, with necessities in a few separate boxes. So there ya go. That's the big moving plan. Of course after we move I'll be busy for a few days unpacking boxes and finding everything's new home, but I'll be sure to let you know how things are going :)

One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven

I was recently given a book by Mark Cahill titled "One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven." (that's probably supposed to be underlined instead of in quotes, but whatever) It's about the importance of witnessing to others. I've only just started reading it, and skimmed through it, but wow, it's already lit a fire under my butt. Do you "witness" to others? Obviously we have our children and we witness through our lives, but have you ever just gone up to a stranger and asked them if they know Jesus? A few times I've asked people who IMed me and random, but I've never done it in person. Call me a chicken. But really, we all need to step out of our comfort zones. Out of our comfort zone is IN His comfort zone. Where we are weak, He is strong. So let's let Him be strong by witnessing to others!

Oops

It's been a few weeks again since I posted. Oops. In my defense, Genesis has been teething something awful, so every night when I get the comp she's usually in my lap nursing, and I just prefer not to type up a big ol' blog one-handed. But today was much better, so she's already asleep, probably doomed to wake up just as I head to bed ;) She's a weird teether. She'll be cranky for a good week or two, with no sign of any teeth, then she'll be her normal self for a few days, and THEN you can find the little white bumps under her gums, and she doesn't complain any more after that. I guess they just hurt until they get closer to the surface. I think it's odd anyways.

In other news, I sewed a skirt last week! My message board is doing another sew-along and this time they were doing skirts. A lot of the ladies were making layered/peasant skirts, but I already have a few of those and they're not my favorites. Then somebody posted a link for a wrap skirt. Now I've had wrap skirts before and donated them b/c they would gap open whenever I bent over and were just too hard to stay modest in. But after a few women made theirs they assured me that there was enough overlap it just wasn't a problem. So I found this nice kahki colored material at Walmart in the $1 bin and bought it. I LOVE my new skirt. It really doesnt' gap at all and looks very nice. DH was skeptical as well, but now he's telling me I need to make a bunch more in different colors. And the boys say I look like a princess in it :) Asher actually requested that I wear it tomorrow, so I think I will.

Moving

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike moving? I really really do not like to move. I don't like packing, I don't like unpacking, I don't like coming up with a new schedule and routine that fits our new house. And yet we seem to move an average of once a year. sigh. So guess what? We're moving! Again. The place we're in now is owned by a guy who was in jail. But now he's out and wants his house back. We knew this was coming, but we were hoping we would have more time. The good news is that we already have a new place :) It'll be ready in a few weeks, giving us time to come up with a deposit and get things packed. I am looking forward to living in town again. Right now we live in the middle of nowhere and without a car, well, it gets difficult. So once we get into town we'll be able to walk to the little general store when I need milk, go for walks around town, the boys can ride their bikes, we can walk to MIL's, SIL's and DH's grandma's, and I may even find some people I enjoy spending time with, though I won't hold my breath on that. The one big downside is that it's a smaller place. It's really quite ironic, as our family gets bigger, our houses get smaller. 2.5 years ago we lived in a 2000sf, 4bedroom, two story house. Then we moved into a 16x80 ft, 4 bedroom trailer. Now we live in a 14x70, 3 bedroom trailer. And the place we're moving into is a 12.5x70, 2 bedroom. Fun fun. I think we're goign to have to get a storage unit, there's just no way we're going to fit all our stuff in there. Hopefully we won't be there too long (can you imagine trying to fit a family of 6 in a place that small?), but of course that means another move. sigh. Oh well, at least it will force us to get rid of more stuff. I always planned on getting rid of more eventually, I just figured it be'd to make room for more kids, not fit us into continually smaller houses!

Updating

First I'll update you on the rice pudding/bfast. So I made rice pudding, the kids and I ate it, not too bad. DH gets up, says "what's for bfast?" and I reply "rice pudding." He goes "Oh, I'll make something else then, I don't like rice pudding. Well, never had it really, but I don't like the idea of rice for bfast" Normally, I wouldn't have cared, but come on, this is AFTER I asked him if rice pudding for bfast would be ok. If he had said "We can try it, but I don't know...." or at that time had said "I don't like the idea of rice for bfast" then that would have been ok. But to say it after I asked him and already cooked it? Whatever. But Asher has requested that we add regular oatmeal (not just baked oatmeal) to the menu, so I'll be moving cornmeal mush to Thursday and regular oatmeal on Mondays.

Speaking of menus, I need to get mine made for the next 2 weeks since I"ll probably go grocery shopping sometime at the end of htis week. I need to get on that. Anybody interested in hearing/seeing it when I get it made up?

And for another update, a wonderful update on the toy issue. So Saturday we "went through the toys" on the guise of gettign rid of some/over half. Care to guess how many DH actually decided to get rid of? ZERO. Not a single toy made it to a donation box or the trash can. Somebody shoot me now.

How Things are Going

It's so wonderful to not have any toys :) It takes the boys a whole 15 minutes to pick up Genesis's toys and any dirty clothes/trash that's on the floor. And then we have plenty of time to read Bible stories and The Hobbit. Just lovely. Maybe it will last, even after they have toys again? Maybe.

What else? Oh! I finished my Mei Tai! I decided not to put a pocket on it, which for some reason has DH distressed. Apperently he was really looking forward to having one with a pocket? Like everything he sewed he gushed about how wonderful it was and how I should sell them. And this is right after he makes fun of my never straight seams. I always tell him that if I were to pay somethign to make something for me, and they gave it to me with this poor of quality, I would not be happy. Why would I expect any less from others? But I am happy with how it turned out and I know the more I sew the better I'll get.

I am so proud of myself. YOu ever have those weeks where everythign just goes smootly and you get all your chores done and all that? I've had one of those weeks. Last week I really dropped the ball and got hardly anything done, so I've really stepped up this week and done really well. Actually I do pretty good most weeks, but after having such an unmotivated week it was nice.

I was just sitting here thinking about tomorrow's bfast. We're having rice pudding. Want to know a secret? I've never in my life had rice pudding. Never. And while I'm sharing. This past Monday was the first time I've ever had cornmeal mush. Why the sudden desire to try new things? DH asked after we moved in that I start making bfast every morning. His grandma always made bfast so he had gotten used to it in the many months he lived with her. He wanted bacon, eggs and toast so we did that for a while, but it got expensive, so I started only cooking it every other day with other things on the off days. And now DH is complaining that he's tired of bacon and eggs all the time, so I'm looking for even more cheap things for bfast. I hate having ot decide in the morning what to cook (actually I hate having to decide what to cook for any meal or snack, thank God for menus!) so last week I set up a new bfast menu. Sunday is eggs, bacon and cinnamon rolls (which I keep intending to start making my own, but for now we use Pillsbury), Monday is cornmeal mush, Tuesday is french toast, Wed is bacon, eggs, toast, Thurs is baked oatmeal with fruit, Friday rice pudding, and Sat is super sugary, artificially flavored/colored cereal, b/c it's easy and I love it :) Only the rice pudding and cornmeal mush are new. So far this week everybody has loved everything. Every morning the kids wake up and ask what's for bfast and when I tell them, they cheer. Yay for Mommy! Let's hope the rice pudding goes over well too!

A solution to the toy torture? plus a few other things

Last night DH got home from work and heard, yet again, how horribly pick-up time went and immediatly went into action. He gathered up all their toys, all their books, all their craft stuff, all their costumes, all their everything, and put it all in the extra bedroom, never to be seen again. Well, at least not for a long while. He's seen how how horribly pick-up time goes, he understood perfectly when I tried my newest idea and he too had had enough when I told him they just don't care. So for at least a week, they have no toys or anything. Genesis does have a few, b/c it's not fair to her to not have any toys b/c the boys aren't doing their job, but the boys can't touch them. They will slowly be able to earn a few toys back. DH also decided that we're goign to go through and get rid of a lot of their toys. This is HUGE. I've been telling him for years that they have too many toys, but he never lets me get rid of anything. He usually just keeps bringing home more junk. But he's finally realized that they really do have too much and they obviously don't respect and appreciate what they do have, so we're goign to get rid of at least half. Yay!! I love my hubby. Sometimes it takes him a while, but he eventually gets the point. In fact, as he was telling the kids this morning what's goign to happen, he said somethign about needing to go through all his stuff too b/c he holds on to way more than he needs! We're actually goign to get rid of stuff!! So yay for decluttering!

I think Genesis is teething. She's been major cranky the last few days and keeps wanting to nurse. She hasn't gotten any new teeth in a long time though, so I suppose it's too be expected. She only has 6 teeth after all. She's sleeping for the moment, let's hope it stays that way!

One of my message boards is doing Mei-tai sew-along that I've joined in on. I have one mei-tai I got when Canaan was itty-bitty and just love it. I've been meaning to make another for ever now and with this sew-along I'm actually doing it! So far things are looking really good. DH was even impressed. So far I have all four straps done and the body is pinned together. I'm thinking about putting a pocketon it though, so I need to check out the directions on that before I go any farther. I'm really excited about though. I'd post pics, but my internet is too slow to get anything uploaded, I've tried a million times.

The Toy Torture

I am about ready to go completely insane. I absolutly HATE the end of the day when it's time to pick up toys. I mean HATE. Ever since Asher was probably about 2 we've picked up toys almost every single night before bed. You would think we had this figured out by now, but we don't. Every single night it's torture. I do nothing but nag, nag, nag the entire hour it takes us. I am completely out of ideas on how to fix this. I've tried standing over them the entire time which just ends up in a whole lot of discipline with no better results. I've tried having them pick up several times a day so the mess isn't so big. That just results in having to nag, nag, nag several times a day instead of just once! A few weeks ago I got a new idea where I would just set the timer and when the timer goes off any toys that are still on the floor become mine. Now I just have a huge pile of toys in my room! I DO help them, but the only difference between me helping and not helping is that *I* end up doing all the work! I'm thisclose to just getting rid of all their toys. They obviously don't care about them and to be honest, I don't think they would really even notice. They'd still keep plenty busy. I don't want to have a "can't get a new toy out until you put the other away" kind of rule for multiple reasons. For one, sometimes you just need more toys to do what you want. YOu want to build a ramp with your blocks for your cars to go down. Or have your dinosaurs attack the Lincoln Log cabin. Or have the stuffed bear serve the pretend food dinner. I don't want to stifle them by limiting the number of toys they can play with at one time. I want them to be able to seamlessly move from one activity to the next, when they think of it without having to worry. I really don't mind not being able to walk through the living room throughout the day, I just hate the torture of getting it all picked up at the end of the day! I just don't know what to do about it anymore but I'm so tired of the fight every single night.

In the Name of the King

So DH and I had a wonderful day out. We went out to eat (at Arby's, lol) then went to see In the Name of the King at the dollar theaters, well, $3 theater to be more precise. The movie was only ok. If it had been a made for TV movie I wouldn't have cared, but I don't think it was theater quality. After that we went to Walmart and picked up a few things for our Super Bowl party next Sunday. The kids had a great time with their Aunt and cousins. But DH is calling for me to watch a movie with him, so I guess that's it for now!

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...