camping

Alrighty......so.....looks like camping will be the theme of the month. Went over to new house today to start cleaning up and unpacking and realized...um, the workers are not as close to being done as we were told they would be (supposed to be done Wednesday), so we assessed the situation (power tools all over the place, piles of saw dust, sheetrock in the hallway, half painted walls, etc......) and we realized there is no way we could even make it work in this house with the children. So we are gonna be camping at our rental for another week. I say camping because all we have over here now are our mattresses on the floor, one bucket of toys, one thing of books, a few laundry baskets of clothes and our toiletries, alot of my kitchen stuff is already packed, even my washer/dryer are over at the new house....We eat sitting on our kitchen floor, i mean we have nothing to sit on here..it is crazy....anyway......worst things have happened. I am just thankful our house had not been rented out yet or we would be at a hotel, although staying at a hotel might be cheaper than paying to rent our house on top of paying for the mortgage at our new house (which we were not planing on overlapping those two) Anyway wish us luck, pray for us that we will and the workers will get everything done. Let me know if anyone wants to have my big girls over to play for abit, they sure miss their toys that are all packed.

Moving Day

I cant stand moving....moving just plain stinks. and moving with small kids stinks even more bbbnmhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjggggggggggggggg(these letters were types by mattie as she got out of bed for the 20th time (no joke) while I was trying to deal with Jane crying)....I think my two fave reasons for moving out o this house are:

1. the door handles in this house dont lock......my kids are free to open and get out and my toddler has never had to be put in her room, hear the door shut and know she just cant get out so she might as well go to sleep. Nope, instead she knew she could always just run right out squealing in delight at her escape. So jacob or I (usually me, as he is usually not around for bed time) have to stand and hold the door handle as she tries to open it and I am soooooooooo done with that. I can not wait till we shut the door and she comes to it and learns for hte first time that, yes indeed she will be staying in her room....

You know, the problem is not with my kids. Even though they are abit out of sorts and abit acting up from spending so much time away from here and me, as they have been over a different persons house every day for a week now. I know it is because I need sleep and I need to see an end to the chaos known as moving. I know it doesnt help that we are moving into a house we cant unpack into right away due to major things still needing to be done, like painting and flooring. not to mention none of the closets have any of the shelving up yet so cant unpack hardly anything but beds and dressers till that gets done.

and jacob is working overnights for the next 5 weeks, so he comes home at breakfast time and has all this stuff to do but anyway....

back to the other thing i loathe about this rental house. The upstairs toilet, just about everytime we flush we have to plunge the heck out of it. you may wonder why we dont ask the landlord to fix it. Well, we have a property manager and he could care less about the house as he is not the owner and the owner has already made it clear that she doesnt have money to deal with anything here, not to mention this is how the toilet was on day one of living here so it must have been something she was living with and therefore wouldnt care that we have to live with it as well.

There are loads of things we have struggled with in this rental which has only fueled our desire to get out of rentals. We are really so happy to own a home and we can see what it will be like when all these things get done in the next few weeks but in the meantime, i may loose it. Just so you know. I just hope I can 'find it' when it is all over with

more house

here are some more pics of the house work.So in these you will see some framed out areas upstairs. One of the little areas is a built in cabinet into the eves with framing around it where I will hang a curtain as a little clubhouse for the girls in their room. I think there is also a picture of the rest of the mst bedroom with its current lovely wallpaper...we have taken quite alot of that stuff off the walls but this rooms wont come off so it will be painted over......still doing last minute decisions on the colors..anyone have a favorite to recommend????? Your color just may be chosen:)

house

Here are some outside and inside pics of house so far....In these pics you will see the mudroom area, or part of it, it connects our garage and house, which is so great. You will see part of the new construction, our mst bdr closet and bath area and new stairs going to the upstairs. You will see the thing with the bars, which will be a walk in pantry. I think they used it as a little dinette area.

Our new abode

Moving day is fast approaching, weather the house is done or not. I was hoping for all the way done but looks like it will most of the way done. Many of you know we bought a house but, although in good condition, it needed to be expanded upon. The whole upstairs was open attic space and we needed bedrooms there. There were also too many walls downstairs, making the house very choppy and darn near impossible to see from one room to the next, so we are 'opening' it up....basically knocking down parts of walls....it also had that flooring...you know the kind....looks like nice wood but it is only pine..which is well not gonna work for my ladies who like to dance around in cinderella shoes and who like to bring rocks in from outside and drop them on the floor. So we are also installing new flooring and carpeting. This place was in sore need of a new heating system and the new upstairs was gonna need heat, so that is also being done. Lets see what else..oh yes, added a master bathroom (and boy it better be a sanctuary for the price it cost to add it!), a gazillion closets, a kitchen pantry the size of a small room, all new kitchen appliances, a ton of electrical work (and they like every other person in this state tried doing alot of the electrical work themselves, so there was quite a mess to get sorted out, not to mention, places that didnt have lights that needed them and places, like the basement that have like 25 lights for some reason)...We are also doing major landscaping on the outside (partly to fix the fact that the ground around the basement needs to be slopped to prevent leakage into basement, and partly to get rid of all the asphalt the previous owner decided to lay all around the house..and because, we needed a few places to plant some food/flowers)...I am sure I am leaving something out..but lets get to some pictures. We are the third owners of this home, which was built in 1940. I tried to take some 'before' shots, but in some of the rooms you will see some of the new work going on. We are excited for what will be the finished product (someday soon). These pics are a few days old now, alot more has already been done.

Well instead of adding the house pics I am adding pics of the girls..I will have jacob upload the house pics...

Math Major...who would have known???

A few pics from my #1's 5th birthday party.........We had a great Storybook party where everyone brought a fav book and dressed up as a character in it, we got to read lots of books, play games,and make our own books. She loved her party and just loves any excuse to have as many friends over as possible....

now unto Math.....
I didn't particularly like math in Highschool and was soooooooo happy in college that I didn't have to ever take it again. I could have worn a shirt that said, "who needs algebra anyways????"...at any rate I thought I was done with it, other then when I use it for all the math one does day to day but that is besides the point....

The thought occurred to me that I think I am currently majoring in math.....why is this? Well I use alot of Algebra every day and I just realized it. Oh, I did not like Algebra...n= x=5 stuff....i despised having to divide x/n and somehow get another letter. "I don't know, is the answer P"?....I mean, it drove me nuts mixing letters and numbers.....and Word problems......they just about killed my little teenage brain.
My algebra teacher loved word problems, so now I had to take words and decide which sentence needed a number to stand for it and which sentences needed to be represented by letters..ughhhhhhhh..(wow, just writing about that class makes me irritated all over my skin, didn't realize it still is like that for me, anywho...)

So this morning, after being awake most of the night and yet having to be 'awake' for the sake of the children's livelihood (and maybe the houses survival as well) I stumbled out of Matties bed carrying Jane (no, mattie was not in her bed (I mean, why would she be there anyway....??? She was in MY bed with Jacob of course...of course, anyway, we basically played musical beds last night, expect instead of switching beds when the music was played again we would all get up as zombies and move beds when crying happened (that counts as music, right?)----
anyway, I said to myself,

Sleep=Happy MaMa

Hey, I just did some Math with words, how about that......and I started to think of other math problems I have learned over these last few years as a mom and came to the realization that lo and behold I am majoring in Math........When i get done I will definitely have my Doctorate.....and to think, all it is costing me is my sanity, and a few gray hairs :)

Here are some more math problems, enjoy, and feel free to comment any of the math you have learned as well...

* x Toy=0 desirability, unless....Y wants toy, then Z will desire it Equally, so Y=x=Z, (ALWAYS)

* The dirtiest clothes or poopiest diapers ONLY happen within an hour of finishing all laundry and the next laundry day is now 3 days away

* Mama on phone= whiny, sad, fighting, need to nurse children (ALWAYS)

*Hard days ALWAYS end on a hard note (like jacob calling and informing me that he will be even later than normal, and 'normal' is already a 14hr day (can i just say it has been a hard day, if you havent picked up on it already.....and there is no relief in sight, atleast not for a few more weeks till he switches to a different schedule, sometimes I have to remind myself that other peoples spouses come home atleast by dinner time and definently on weekends. That those daddies are around to help with bedtime and even sometimes with wakeup routines.....i have to take mine to the hospital if i want my children to lay eyes on him once in a 6 day period......i know, i know, we chose this job.....but sometimes.....it is just sooooo hard....so hard you really cant describe it to another unless they have or are going through it. Don't get me wrong, we both are happy with his chosen profession, he finds so much joy in helping others in a time of need and i love that he loves to serve that way and found a way to meet our needs financially doing it. As of now my children dont realize that other peoples daddies have a different work schedule than theirs and that those daddies are home more. I guess all I have to say is, It is HARD being in the FIRE...........

* Planned dates with spouse= no success and the converse is true, spontaneous dates with spouse= success (if on calendar and babysitter is all set, something will happen, always.....)

* The sweetest moments always come on the hardest days around these parts (like today, watching my girls get down to some of my fav music, or having my 5yr old ask how she will know which prince to marry when the time comes and if she will be like Aurora in Heaven,

* The times when I cant do all for myself or my family or my house and feel like never ever able to complete a task = the times when I think of the Savior the most.....

and one more random thought....
I had a good friend recently tell me I stink at order in my house (for things) and it is so true.....not because im not screaming inside for it......i want it like crazy, but after playing with my children, doing school work, cleaning with them, reading with them, running errands, and cooking from scratch all our meals and snacks, there is no time left....none.....not unless i give up sleep and I am not getting much of that right now anyways....so not much to give up there. I think the thing that frustrates me most is everything just needs a home....if something has a home (and the home is easy to get to and accessible for me and the children) then it will get put in its home, but if we have to walk upstairs, take out a few totes, etc.......to get it home.....it will just hit the nearest flat surface.....so, in honor of this lovely trait and because we are moving into our new house (we close next week:) please leave in the comment section any great idea you have or tools or gadgets you use for organizing and setting up an orderly house for yourself and kids......that will be much appreciated....

Photos

We have finally received our pictures from our Christmas photo shoot...boy was that 'fun'....two and a half hours of trying to get our kids to take pictures...well we got a few good ones and a few silly ones. Will be posting several over the next little bit...Enjoy