Our Week So Far

Sunday was great! It was kids day in big people's church that morning. Evan is on the youth worship team and did a great job. You can see some videos of the morning here. Then, that night was life group at our house. Usually for December we have ham as the main meal, but I suggested let's keep it simple and do soups and chilies. One person said it was going to be 70 degrees (in December!), so I said let's grill and that's what we did. One family had a bunch of meat they wanted used up, so they brought 16 assorted steaks, and several pounds of ground beef for hamburgers; another family brought chicken, and we grilled them all up at our house. I, of course, did something I am notorious for doing with life group--tried out a new recipe. It was yummy!

Monday we went to co-op for a couple of hours. Evan met with his robotics team for the last practice of the semester until we start back up in January. That morning, a friend called to ask if her son could come over for a little bit while she took her daughter to the dentist. We were glad to because he is on the robotics team also, so we just took him with us until his mom got done at the dentist and made it to practice. They had a fun time playing Nerf war until it was lunchtime and then time to leave for robotics. Then that night Roger took both kids to scouts. They both belong to the homeschooling troops which meet at the same church we attend co-op in. Yea! I got a little bit of time to myself.

Tuesday is the day we stay home and catch up on laundry and school. That afternoon, Evan was really tired so I made him take a nap. When he woke up he had a fever. He still has it, but it's never gotten above 100 degrees, thank goodness. He hasn't complained of any other symptoms. A tiny bit of aching, and commented once that his throat was a tiny bit soar, but really he's functional.

Wednesday, is swimming this month at the Y PE class. Evan stayed home for 1 1/2 hours while I took Lauren to the Y and ran to the store while she had class. So glad that we live closer to town now because the Y is only 7 minutes from our house. I'm also glad that Evan is at the age where it doesn't bother him to stay home by himself for a little while. In fact, there are many times when I just need to run somewhere for maybe 30 minutes and he asks to stay home.

Today was another day at home. Evan was supposed to go downtown for 4 hours to help his scout troop set up a women's event taking place at our convention hall, but still has the fever. While he was going to do that, I was going to take Lauren on a field trip to Michael's arts and crafts store with our co-op, and then when Evan was done with his job, we were going to join Lauren's scout troop for a tour of our city's newspaper office. I'm okay we didn't do any of that. It was so nice to be home and lazy today. I did go out for 30 minutes tonight to get the kids and I some shakes from Sonic. A buck crossed my path on the way to town. We haven't been to Sonic in a while, but since our last time there they have put in a drive through which is about time, in my opinion. Then I ran into our local Dillons/KwikShop to get a couple of things including some children's Tylenol. I didn't see any, so I asked the pharmacist about it and she said, "Do you want the brand name?" I told her no, and she said good because it's very hard to find now because the brand Tylenol is doing away with their liquid medicines. Interesting.

Tomorrow Lauren will go to the Y PE class. Even if Evan's fever breaks, I like to follow the rule of not exposing him to others for 24 hours, so he can't attend. Then Lauren has a sleepover birthday party to go to. She told me today that she hopes she doesn't get sick because she will be very sad and cry if she has to miss her friend's party. I hope that doesn't happen too!

Saturday we have no plans. YEA! (Well, besides picking up Lauren from her sleepover, and Roger possible going hunting). The person painting our old house called today and told Roger that as long as the weather holds, he will be putting the paint on Saturday. He has caulked and trimmed. I have to admit I have missed the cooler autumn weather, but am thankful that the weather has been so warm that our house could be painted. However, this weekend the temps are supposed to change. It's predicted Sunday for the high temps to be in the 30s/low 40s and possible snow that night. Oh well...we'll see what happens.

Randomness

Just a few odds and ends...

First of all, I can't believe I never posted a new school year pic of the kiddos. Evan is a 6th grader now, and Lauren is a 3rd grader. This was taken on our first day of returning to our beloved homeschool co-op. Evan is doing something new for school--it's called Maize Virtual Preparatory School. I really hate the name because it gives everybody a false impression that he sits at the computer all day doing his school work. That is so totally NOT true. We received all of his curriculum books so I am still the teacher. The only thing he does on the computer is look up his assignments, do check points when he has completed an assignment, there are enrichment activities and videos to watch, and once in a while we get to have talking discussions with his overseeing teacher through the computer, and he will soon be participating in a book club with his fellow students through the computer. Also, we don't even have to use their curriculum for every subject--we don't even have to enroll for every subject. If I wanted to just enroll him for science, I could. We still enjoy another math curriculum different than what mvps has, so we are doing that instead, and for composition, he is attending live classes with his overseeing teacher (who lives in Winfield, but travels up here to conduct the classes), instead of doing the composition curriculum mvps provides. Now, since this program is considered part of a public school district, he has to take the state assessments in the spring. This will be something new for him. However, I kind of don't care how he does on these tests. Homeschooling is such a unique way of schooling, that we don't "teach to the tests" like public schools have to, so I'm not putting any pressure on Evan for these tests at all. Also, since we are not doing the mvps math, I will be enrolling him from that subject, so he will not have to take the state assessment for that subject. So many of my fellow homeschooling friends have such an eskewed understanding of this program, and it is so different, and a little difficult to explain, that I really can't. All I know is that I knew about this program for over a year before I finally felt a godly nudge to look into it. When I did, I fell in love with it. Once we started it, I hated it.  Trying to adapt to this new way of teaching was very difficult, but God told me I was not to give up. So, I didn't and now Evan and I absolutely love it! We all have different roads to take in our schooling, and God lead us down this one, and I was obedient and followed, and so far, so good. Lauren is not enrolled in mvps. She will continue to do the homeschool curriculum Evan used through 5th grade, and then when 6th grade comes, we will see if mvps will be right for her or not. Just because it's right for Evan, does not automatically mean it will be right for her. We will figure that out in a few years.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Lauren loves this new staircase set up in our new home. She tied a long scarf to her ponytail and let it hang down to pretend she was Rapunzel up in her tower.

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to see the Broadway musical The Lion King. Totally, awesome, and fantastic. The costumes were amazing! Thankfully we had bought the tickets several months ago because otherwise we would not have been able to afford them after buying the new house.

One of the best things we have bought since moving into the new house--walkie-talkies! Now the kids take one with them when they go down to the neighbors houses to play, or walk to the other side of the pond. Plus, I don't have to step outside and start hollering for them when it's time to come in, and they don't have to run all the way back home to ask something. It's worked out beautifully.

Slowly Moving In

We closed on our new house last Wednesday and beginning the day after that we have slowly been moving over what we can. We usually fill up the back of the van with boxes, but we also bought a trailer to hitch onto the back of the truck to transport big things, like the sectional couch, and also to transport the riding lawn mower back and forth between the two houses so we can cut the grass. We usually get in two trips a day moving things. We still can't completely move in yet, but that time is getting closer. Last Friday the carpet guy came and measured the bedrooms and hallway that we are replacing the carpet in and Saturday we ordered the carpet we want. Now we have to wait until that comes in and then within 2 days of that they will install the new carpet. To cut costs, we are removing the old carpet and padding ourselves, but that is no big deal at all. Once that's done we can start living there. By that time we should have most of our stuff already moved over except for the really big things that we will need help with. Then, we can start fixing up the current house in order to get that on the selling market. Busy, busy, busy. Plus, with the temps finally reaching into the hundreds for every day of the week, that heat just makes you want to stay inside and makes you feel so tired that it's difficult to even feel like wanting to move. But, I am thankful that we can do this slowly right now and not overstress or over heat ourselves. Here are a few before and after pics of the new house...

We had fireplace shelving and cupboards just like this in the old house, so I simply brought everything I already had on those shelves over to the new house to place onto the new shelves.

We brought over our china hutch and dining table and chairs.

The sectional couch, and tv and wii game system were brought over to keep the kids busy while hubby and I work on other things. Also, that arch way you see leads into what will be the school/play room and we have also already brought over board games and the doll house and train system for the kids to play with.

The New House

I am just bubbling with excitement! For a couple of weeks we have been taking the steps to buy a new home. This home is in a closer location to all of the places we frequent and friends and it will cut off some driving time from my hubby's long work commute. We just got the appraisal results today and it was good news. Plus, the inspection is done, and all of the paperwork has been gathered and submitted. It just needs the final approval from the loan underwriters and we can close. I am hoping we will be closing at the end of this week; the original closing date was scheduled for June 22nd, so a week earlier would be awesome. Before we can move completely in we have to replace the upstairs bedroom carpets in the new place which will take at least 1 or 2 weeks (getting people out to measure, buying the carpet, and then waiting for it to be installed). While waiting for that to happen, we can start moving other things in though, like all of the things that belong downstairs--office furniture and all of the items in storage. Once those things are out of the current house, it will be easier for us to do some work on the downstairs of our current house. A couple of our rooms need dry walled, and then taped and painted. Then, once we can move all of the upstairs things into the new house we will be able to fix up that part of our current house which is a little bit of painting, replacing the kitchen flooring, and just cleaning. It will be a lot easier to do all of that work in the current house once everything is moved into the new house. Here are a few pics of the new place. I have lots of pics of the inside, also, but maybe I'll show those in another post later on.

Workin' On the House

At the end of May Roger's parents came out to celebrate Evan's birthday, but to also help us put up new siding on the house. Things took a lot longer than expected, but the two tallest sides got done, and now Roger and I are trying to finish the shorter sides of the house. But, with Roger being tired after work, our weekends being incredibly busy, and the weather being in the high 90-100 degree temps, things are going slow. If all of the cards would just fall into place, we'd have it all done in one weekend, maybe one day. Hopefully our neighbors will have some patience with us and not start getting upset knocking on our door wondering when we'll be done. Keeping that in mind, we're trying to finish all of the parts of the house that are more easily seen by people who would drive by our house and will finish the back parts that are more hidden from the neighbors by our fence until the end.

Pulling off the old wooden vertical/horizontal siding:

Putting up the blue insulation and sheeting. We even finished one night using the headlights of the truck:

Putting up the siding. For the south side of the house, Roger had to back up the truck and put the ladder on the bumper to reach the very top of the house:

Movin' On Up

I posted on facebook the other day that Roger and I both are starting to have a deep desire to find some property with more land to grow more of our own food, raise chickens and maybe get a horse. Roger wants about 20 acres and also wants a little woodsy area and a pond/lake on the property to fish and hunt, but we suspect that may be a little difficult to find unless we move really far away from the big city. I was amazed at all of the feedback comments from my post from friends who read it--either adding comments under my post or talking to me about it face to face--they all have the same desire as us.

One of the friends is from church and homeschooling. Her husband told me this morning at church that they may be moving out our way. They were going to look at an open house really close to us. He piqued our curiosity so we went to look also, and ran into them there. He jokingly said, "I knew I shouldn't have told you about this!" The property was gorgeous and would be something that Roger and I would be interested in--it had every aspect that I mentioned up above, but we know this is not our time. We had discussed at lunch today that if we were serious about this, we were going to have to continue working on getting out of debt--we are getting closer all the time, still need to get our current house in good condition, cut back on our travel plans--which is difficult for us because we love to travel, and it's possible we could have this dream 5 years from now--God willing.

It's exciting to think about this, but I am also grateful that both of us know that there are other things to do before this dream can come true. It is so nice to be happy and rejoice with our friends if they decide to buy this property without feeling any discontentment about our own circumstances. Besides, they would be living so close to us that I'm sure they wouldn't mind us dropping in a couple of times a week to enjoy their property, right Kelly? (She knows I'm just joking...maybe?) Wink, wink!