Awana awards ceremony

Tonight E. had his last Awana—the awards ceremony! They had a program where each child received their certificate and/or award. Five kids were also baptized. It was a nice celebration and overview of the year. Tyler’s last clients didn’t make it to their session, so he surprised us by making it for the end of the program and the reception afterward. Next year E. will be in the next age group, called “Sparks” of all things. I think he will especially fit into this group. ;) In the first picture E. is getting his award and certificate. They projected a slide with each child’s name and picture so that everyone in the sanctuary could see. (The lighting in the church is obviously not conducive for taking photos!) In the other pictures, E. is with a couple of his buddies and holding up his certificate and Cubbies award for finishing Book One.

To swallow or not to swallow . . .

Last night P. had her first taste of food, well, if you consider runny rice cereal “food”! I gave it to her right before bed—she was really tired—so the timing probably could have been better thought out. I will probably start to give it to her every night at dinnertime so that she can sit at the table and eat with us.



In other family news . . .
We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have been looking at houses handfuls at a time and still haven't found anything. I was also sick most of last week and then it hit each of the kids for one day at a time, too. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t the swine flu!) We have also been trying to get all of our summer clothes out and get S. and P. into their next sizes. Basically, our place is absolute chaos right now . . . and we still haven’t found any of my shorts.

Last week, I took the kids to our church’s play group at this really nice park. It was so fun that we went back that weekend as a family. There is an oversized pond to fish in and a farm at the park, too. We also had dinner with friends and made smores over a fire in their backyard. Overall, a nice relaxing weekend. Enjoy the photo highlights!

I’ve seen better days

Actually, I have even seen better weeks. This past week has been particularly grueling. Here are some of the high, er, low points.

Amish friendship bread
Do you remember that Amish friendship bread that gets passed around and usually gets back to you at least twice a year? Well, last week we were given a bag of it. I really like the stuff so E. and I have been taking care of mashing the bag every day and getting the added ingredients into it. Tomorrow was the big day for finishing it up and baking two wonderful loaves. Was the big day. Tyler got out of the shower today and called me upstairs from work. All three children were in nap time and the house was oddly silent. (It was nice.) I had the bag of Amish bread sitting on the ledge in our kitchen. Somehow (and I really don't know how it happened, though I would like to blame the dog because he was the only one around!) the ziploc bag of batter leaned over the edge of the ledge and opened up, letting the contents of the bag run down the wall and onto our living room rug. Lovely. I then spent the next hour with a bucket and rag trying to get it all cleaned up. Thankfully, Amish friendship bread batter is cream, and it doesn’t look like it is going to leave a nasty stain. On the downside, I couldn’t get the fermented batter smell out of the carpet fibers (you remember the strong stench of that batter, right?). Yes, I have seen better days.

Disappearing act
You may remember in a previous blog how S. had defeated her crib and was found sleeping on the floor beside E.’s bed. Well, the novelty of being in a big girl bed quickly wore off and she has been fighting nap time and bedtime like the plague. (As I type she is still getting out of her room every two minutes despite her door being locked and a baby gate across the doorway—my attempt to at least tire her out with some obstacles.) The other night I almost frantically called Tyler because I could not find S. anywhere. I had just finished some things up downstairs and came upstairs to check on the kids. S. hadn’t been out of her bed for an hour, so I was shocked when I didn’t see her in bed. I checked her “normal” sleeping spots on the floor, but she wasn’t there either. I then checked P.’s crib. Nope. My bed? Nada. The couch? Empty. Where is she?!? I ran back into her room really fast because one of E.’s blankets had fallen to the floor and I thought she might have been under it. She wasn’t. I then noticed how E.’s arm was wrapped around his stuffed animal. I pulled back the covers and it wasn’t his animal at all . . . it was S.! She had crawled up into his bed, was all the way under the covers, and had tucked herself under his arm. (See picture.) What a nutty kid . . . she almost gave me a heart attack! Yes, I have seen better days.

Later on in the week I found her sleeping almost entirely under the foot of E.’s bed. I didn’t get too worried that night; I just kept looking until I found her. She was bound to show up somewhere.

(Yes! She is finally starting to wear down for the night; she stopped climbing over the gate. Victory is at hand!)

More than just groceries
Our last trip to the grocery store was met with really heavy rainfall. The first grocery store flew by without an event. At the second, and last, store, I couldn’t get the automatic door to shut on our van. Doh! I put all of the kids back into the van so that they wouldn’t get soaked to the bone as I worked on the door. I finally got it to close and then I had all of the kids get out on the other side of the van. In my hurry to get us inside the store, I totally forgot to grab our grocery sacks so when we left the store I decided just to bag them outside. But then it just started raining harder. Ugh! Everything was soaked! But at least the kids were in the van. After the wet food fiasco, I climbed into the back to get S. buckled in. And then I felt it. Our whole van rocked. What was that? I looked up and a car had just rear-ended us. Sigh. Wait! Why is he pulling away?!? I turned to get out the side door and, grrr, child locks! I moved around and over the driver’s seat and jumped out the door. Thankfully, Mr. Hit-and-Run was picking someone up at the door of the store. I ran up to the car (even more soaked at this point), and knocked on the window. Then I was shocked—it was this really old, old man. I felt so bad; but he did just hit us so I confronted him anyway. He said he didn’t realize that he hit me, yadda, yadda, yadda. For the next 10 minutes I stood in the rain looking at the damage and getting his information. I was so wet that water was just streaming down my face. By the time we got home, our frozen food wasn’t nearly frozen and I looked like a drowned rat. The good news is that the damage was very, very minimal. The bad news is now we have to find time to get the claim filed and quotes from an auto body shop . . . only two of which are credentialed by the insurance company in the entire city. I just knew that this town had nothing but crooked mechanics! ;) Poor old man; I hope the claim doesn't make his insurance go sky high. Yes, I have seen better days.

(I think S. is finally asleep. Like actually asleep! Wow, it only took 1 hour of repeated, consistent discipline. I'll have to check to see if she is actually in her bed!)

Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’

I haven’t been the greatest about giving P. tummy time. Mainly because I put her down to play while I am cleaning or making dinner and don’t have much of a chance to just sit down and play with her. Since the tummy threshold is normally pretty short, sadly it just doesn’t happen as much. Her four-month appointment was this past week and the doctor encouraged me to give her more tummy time. We have been and it is already bearing fruit. Big, round, ROLLING fruit!

He Is Risen!

Happy Easter! We had a wonderful time this past weekend spending time with one another and with friends. I had Friday off of work so Phoebe and I spent much of the day shopping with my good friend Angie. I had decided that I wanted to stop buying paper napkins for everyday use, so one of the things I was searching for was cloth napkins ... at a price point of $1 or less. And I actually found some, and at three different stores! (Normally it takes me months—and even years sometimes—before I make a purchase of something like this.) I think I am going to take two sets of napkins back though and then go to Kohl’s to buy more of their clearanced ones. They had a style that I liked, but didn’t have complete sets. So I may have to sneak out again sometime soon and check at other Kohl’s stores to finish my collection. That is definitely a pro of being in a larger city—multiple store locations!

Candy shenanigans
What do you get when you leave a toddler unsupervised with her Easter basket? Yes, lots and lots of foil-wrapped candy with entire chunks taken out of them. Or plastic-wrapped candy that had been chomped, and yet held firm in the jaws of a little one! (We had more than one mini Snickers that was just crushed and yet the packaging never opened.) Fortunately, S. was skillful enough to somehow eat the chocolate while keeping the foil wrappers in her mouth. I figure that if she wanted the chocolate that bad, she could have it; I wasn’t going to dig it out of her mouth. (It hurts my teeth to even think about it again!) Of course, she wasn’t even close to being satiated with the chocolate she worked so hard to get. This is what I saw for hours after the egg hunt:
And no, she wasn’t being nice and asking if I wanted any!

E. had a great time, too. While S. only had 12 eggs, E. filled almost his entire bucket. And as you can tell, these were not small buckets. He was much more serious about his success, too—he opened every last egg before choosing which piece he was going to digest. (Mind you, it was only 9:45 AM, so yes, he could only have one.)

I read a fun Easter idea in Family Fun magazine, and Tyler implemented it for us. Instead of filling all of the eggs with candy, he wrote different items on slips of paper and put it in some of the eggs. So with candy, coins, and “duds” (eggs that were empty!), the kids also got messages like “Mommy and daddy love you,” Scripture pertaining to God’s love for us, and “coupons” for things like a trip to the zoo, an ice cream cone, kisses, and park play dates. Interestingly, S. got most of those eggs. I am sure that E. will be more than happy to redeem them for her though. Tyler did a really great job being creative and keeping the kids guessing on what would fall out of their eggs!

Easter dinner among friends
Two sets of friends came over last night to celebrate Easter with us over dinner. It was a nice, relaxing time. I am really thankful that we have found good friends so quickly after moving here. While I neglected to take many pictures, Tyler did snag a couple of the table and his fantastic ham. (Check out my great, new napkins! Aren’t they cute?)

How many offers?!?
Our Realtor called today with news of the house we put an offer on. It was on the market for only one week and received 47 offers. Was the selling Realtor exaggerating?!? I mean, that is almost 7 offers a day! Well, our Realtor didn't really know, but he did know that they didn't accept our offer. Bummer. In Tyler’s words: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away—blessed be the name of the Lord. (Well, maybe I should have said “In Job’s words ...”.) Bottom line is that we are sad, but over it. Tyler has already scheduled for us to look at another home tomorrow morning at 9 am. This one is only 5 minutes from where we currently live and super cute ... on the outside at least. It is always a crapshoot when they don’t post pictures of the inside of the home. You really never know what you are going to get!

Tyler went to the leasing office today and received wonderfully unexpected news for us pertaining to our current living situation. We thought our lease was up May 11th-ish, but it ends up that it isn't up until May 31st! The even better news is that we don't have to sign a new lease for a year, 6 months, or even 3 months. They are willing to work with us for what we need, since we are looking to buy a home. I was so thankful and grateful! Praise God for a flexible leasing office! Now, we just need to find that new place to live ... !

Home sweet home

Well, we are home! Actually, we have been home for almost two weeks now but it has been a long transition back into the swing of things. Overall, the trip was good. It was really good to see so many people from both sides of the family. And I was thankful to have Tyler’s mom stay with us in KY at the museum the four days I had to work. I am not sure how she survived it, but she did. For days, after returning home, all the kids and I did was catch up on our rest! At the bottom of this post, I have added some picture highlights from our trip.

It’s a sale! Or is it?
A lot has been accomplished since we have been back home. For starters, we finally finished our state taxes and mailed them in on Thursday! Whew! This was definitely the closest we have ever come to the deadline. We also made our first ever offer on a house this past Monday. =) It is a really solid house that just needs a little bit of updating. It is only 14 years old, so things aren't anywhere as hideous as some houses we saw. We could move right in after a good cleaning. However, it seems that we aren't the only ones who liked the house! Our Realtor took us to the house on the second day it was on the market. We made an offer the fourth day it was on the market ... and the selling agent had already had numerous offers in hand! We are actually still waiting to hear whether or not our offer had been accepted or not. The selling agent was supposedly waiting for all of the offers to come in and then they were going to choose one. This has been a great reminder to Tyler and I of the sovereignty of God and so we are just waiting and trusting in His Will to play out. We will be sad if we don't get the contract—because we really are running out of time before our lease is up and we really liked so many things about this house—but we won't be devastated. My main focus right now is to go through our things and start compiling a mass garage sale pile. We have boxes and boxes of things in storage since our move here that we never even opened. Besides the lack of pictures on our walls, we haven't really missed any of it. I have an uncle that gets rid of things he hasn't touched in 6 months, so I would say one year is a good test of time. I probably don't even remember some of the stuff we have stored away downstairs!

What's on the agenda
We have a pretty busy weekend scheduled ahead. I went shopping yesterday with my friend Angie and found some good buys on things that I have been needing to get ... and even a couple of items that I have had on my “want list” for a couple of years now! We then had dinner with she and her husband at our place and went to the Good Friday service at our church together. Today, I am trying to just relax while Tyler is at work. He and E. are going to get a pizza tonight and go bowling, while the girls and I hang out at home. I may start packing up the things in our basement, too. (We need more boxes!) Tomorrow there is an Easter breakfast at church before the service and then we are having friends over for an Easter dinner. I am looking forward to celebrating Jesus’s victory over death tomorrow with friends ... and all of the great food my husband is going to prepare. I will try to post pictures next week. But for now, enjoy these from our trip!