My little world.

Back to the land of the living!

2009-01-01T11:55:00.004-06:00

After three exhausting and fairly sick months I think I'm finally coming out of it. Sometime soon I'll have to post some more recent pics from the fall and Christmas. In a few weeks we'll also know for sure if the little firecracker growing inside is of me is a new brother or sister for the boys.

James pulled a doozy on me over Christmas which I'm certain he wouldn't have pulled it off if I hadn't been pregnant. It was December 23rd and I had taken my evening cocktail of anti nausea pills that quickly puts me to sleep. So there I lay at 830 at night asleep on the couch when all of the sudden I awoke to the doorbell! James didn't seem that surprised, he jumped up and answered it while I tried to awaken from my groggy sleep. And in walk none other than my parents from 200o miles away!!! They got me good, I had NO idea they were coming. This was a nice surprise and we had a great time in between all my getting sick and resting ;-). Fortunately I was just starting to come out of the worst part of my morning sickness.

We are now heading into the new year with great anticipation for what this year will bring. It seems we don't ever seem to have a dull year around here. Each year brings some life altering change to our lives. So I guess we'll just wait and see what all this year brings.

Happy New Year!

MIA....

2008-11-16T08:56:00.003-06:00

Well, I have two posts that I never finished. One was on Jonathan breaking his arm about 5 weeks before summer was over. The other was on my FIRST worship leading experience...leading... from the piano... in front of over 100 ladies. Well I never really finished those posts so there ya go.... maybe I'll go back in time at some point and finish those.

On to new news. Ok we'll start with the back story... the way back story, but I'll simplify it.
*when james and I got married we wanted 3 kids
*after having Ian (my baby that screamed for 9 months due to digestive issues) we put that plan on hold
*we then decided to look into adoption
*that led us to foster care... for a while
*after foster care we decided to open the door to more biological kids
*2 years later we still just had the two boys, totally content with either 2 or more children we didn't really mind either.
*We had decided after a while to schedule an appt to make things permanent, we didn't really want to keep things in limbo forever.
*I had a recurring bad dream that led us to cancel that appt about a week before it was to happen.
*About a month after that we were at church for a meeting about the womens retreat and the boys were playing. They went outside and locked themselves out. When they came back inside Ian told me proudly that he prayed a lot outside. He then said "mommy I prayed for you to have a baby".... we laughed.
*3 Weeks later..... two little lines appeared .

I can't describe the emotions I felt looking at that test. I laughed and cried all at the same time. I couldn't beleive it... really. I told James later that day. I was shocked to find out that he was really excited... I wasn't sure how that would go. So a while later we took the boys to yogurtville. I reminded Ian of his prayer and said well God answered your prayer... what do you think he said. Jonathan pipes up "No" in a sort of disappointed way. I say "no try again" A light goes on over Ians head and he says "YES?!?!?!" I confirm. Then a second light goes on and his eyes get even bigger and he says " BUT MOMMY I PRAYED FOR TWO!!" to which I explained sometimes God answers yes to some of our prayers and no to others. We'll let time confirm that one.

So here I sit somewhere in my 9th week of this pregnancy. I've managed to avoid most of my morning sickness thanks to a zofran prescription. I've been looking back on my previous pregnancy journals and things seem to be progressing along just as they have for the last two.

A couple things make this one different. First, Jonathan will be 8 and Ian will be 6 when this baby is born ... YIKES. They are so excited though and it has been so much fun to share the experience with them. Second. I have only ONE thing left from the boys. A pack and play. I had also picked up one of those high chair things that sits on your own chair for when I was watching a friends kids at my house. So I have two things. Everything else is starting from scratch. In some ways I guess maybe I'm glad. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to wear my maternity clothes from 8 years ago.. HA! And the crib we had broke while we were taking it apart for the last time. Thank goodness for Divine Consign and Craigslist.

SO that is the latest from the Asplunds.

2008-07-12T09:50:00.002-05:00

The boys
ARRRGH
Jonathan with a friend Alex at yet another pool
Backyard fun.
Jonathans 7th birthday party at "going bonkers".
Updated pic.
Ian WATCHING all the kids in his class go off the diving board.
Swim lessons. Too lazy to go back and rotate this one.. maybe another day.

Some recent photos.

2008-07-12T09:29:00.004-05:00

lazy days

Most basic of water shooters.
You're not going to get me to smile.
Well ok but only a little
HAHA GOTCHA!
Ian being thrown into the pool (underwater during swim lessons)
Jonathan jumping into the deep end.

Simplify... sounds easy ..HA!

2008-06-15T00:06:00.003-05:00

After recently moving into a new house and having half of my earthly possessions in storage for a year I've come to learn a few things. First off is I'm utterly ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted and frustrated with the amount of utter crap we have collected, shipped and stored and that was after getting rid of HUGE amounts of things before we left. I feel as though I could fill a garbage truck myself!

The message for our lives for the past year has been simplify. When we first moved into the house we only brought in what we needed for times sake. I was so content to have just those things. Then I would open the garage door to find a garage filled to the brim with only a walking trail through it of STUFF! I was surprised at the heaviness that I felt as soon as it all arrived at the house. So we have systematically been going through boxes and either, keeping, trashing or goodwilling many many items. The range of emotions that goes through my mind vacillates between all the emotions listed above. It is a very draining process. The idea is that in the end we will have only what we need or have a need of in the foreseeable future. And to take that a step further would be to not purchase, acquire or accept things that we don't need.

I've been trying to employ the reduce, reuse, recycle model in our going through items, at least on the big items. I feel that we have done a pretty good job of re tasking items that we already own so we don't need to buy new furniture or get rid of things in order to just go buy something similar but different. For instance.... we put our bedroom armoire in the living room. We also put our big huge long dresser in the living room with mirror above it... this has proved to provide some great storage space in a living room that would have limited storage or decorative furniture otherwise. And to top it off due to our fairly consistent decor theme it all blends in perfectly with our current living room set. I'll have to post pictures next time I get a chance. (read: too tired to do it right now).

So that has pretty much been my last 24 hours for ya.

Lots and Lots of Odds and Ends

2008-06-05T09:17:00.004-05:00

This week has been all about getting our apartment back into shape so we can turn our keys in with minimal charges... we'll see. This included painting back all the "accent" walls to the blah that they were when we moved in.

Timing.... Apparently about a week after we started sleeping in the new house the covered parking at the apartment that we pay for and the van usually sat under collapsed on a few cars... thankfully we were no longer living there, weren't visiting and I don't believe anyone was hurt.

High winds at sea. The last couple weeks have been in the 90's so we have been enjoying the pool in the back yard, for a few days now we have been in a wind advisory so steady winds in the 20's and justs into the 40's. This has been so weird because we are so used to wind coming from an icy gorge (Columbia that is). The wind here is just as warm as the day. So we get in the pool and about every 10 mintues when a floaty flies out of the pool Ian runs and gets it and then hops back in the pool. Fun times.

Garden. So while I was at Wal-mart picking up some groceries I decided to try my hand growing a few myself. I guess I figured any previous attempts (and subsequent failures) will most likely be overcome by the use of an automated sprinkler system. (and some super hot southern exposure in the back yard). So this year making an anticipated appearance in the backyard are several cherry tomatos, strawberries, zucchini and watermelon. In the fall we'll try our hand at some cold weather crops, lettuce, cabbage, and a few others. I'm not sure when those are harvested but I think sometime in late late fall.

Hindsight. Ever look back and wish that you hadn't bought about 50% of the things you have. I face that dilemma as we speak. My house has pretty much everything in it that it needs. (minus the huge wall storage thing from Ikea that we want to get for the boys room that will take the place of 4 current pieces of furniture (bookshelf, 2 plastic dressers and a real dresser) leaving us with even more stuff to get rid of. So the garage still has no less than 2 dozen boxes of stuff out there. Now I have to cut myself some slack, some of that is Christmas items but even that! We have 2 full size fake trees... who needs two? On top of that we have several mini's and a set of 3 that we used for our trees this year. We also have all of our garage and yard care/maintenance stuff in boxes still. (weed trimmer, leaf blower/sucker, tools etc.) So all in all yeah we have a lot of stuff we need to get rid of but most of all I just don't want to deal with any of it... bottom line!

Let the sleep resume! Since 3 days after arriving in Texas Jonathan has been in Kindergarten. School starts for him at 8 and he would catch the bus at 710. Since we moved he gets taken to school at 730 but seriously... we have to wake up between 630 and 7... just for him, James doesn't have to leave for work until like 850 most days. On good days we can sneak Jonathan out of his bedroom without waking up Ian. Today was a close call, I looked down at Ian just in time to see him let out a belly laugh and a big toothy, dimply grin. I was sure he was awake but upon further inspection, nope, he was just laughing in his sleep. That was at 7... it is no 9:33 and he is still asleep! Those must be some good dreams! All that to say, today is the last day of school and we are ALL looking forward to it getting out!

Surprise surprise. I'm not sure who all reads this so i hope I'm not ruining anything here BUT James' parents are coming for a visit in July (not the surprise). We last saw them when we drove to Georgia for Christmas. I have to say I was at my all time heaviest in my life when we saw them. Sad but true that must not have been a great sight. BUT! When they come this time I will be down about 50 to 55 lbs !!! Won't that be fun, as far as we know they don't have a clue.

Jonathan's turning 7!
He his so excited to have his birthday at Going Bonkers, this is similar to a place called Kids Club Fun and Fitness that we used to frequent. They have this HUGE play structure with all kinds of fun stuff in there, it is more open than the one we were used to, rather than the structure being in a corner it is in sort of a U shape with seating in the middle and a second floor "quiet" room for parents with free wifi!. It also has a second level with video games and a first floor with food party rooms etc. We are doing our first party package and I pray all his friends that we invited don't show up (last year every last one of them did!). This year was supposed to be a small birthday year but how do you invite just a few? I have a feeling the bill at the end is going to be a bit bigger that we had planned on.

Neighbors. We have met some terrific neighbors, sadly the ones right next door that also have a 4 and 6 year old are moving July 4th. But there is still a boy that was best friends with the 6 year old next door right down the street. So Hopefully Jonathan and he will hit it off.

Ok I think I've rambled on about 4x too long but I hadn't posted much in a while so time to catch up I guess.

Till next time!

Stories...

2008-05-30T23:42:00.001-05:00

There are stories and explanations for most of the pictures below... when it isn't almost midnight and we don't have an all day track meet tomorrow I'll do some explaining .

Around the yard.

2008-05-30T22:50:00.001-05:00

Just a few moments from the last few weeks.

2008-05-30T22:46:00.000-05:00

So much going on, so little inspiration to blog.

2008-05-14T10:35:00.002-05:00

Like the title says. This feels a little more like an obligatory update that if I don't make I will feel so far behind there will be no recovering.

Track...

Jonathan, 6 almost7, had his first track practice yesterday. He had a blast! He was one of about 7 kids that fell into the 6-8 age bracket. He did pretty well. He ended up running about 3 times around the track and various drills on the field. At one point they were doing the drill where you run to a first line then back to the beginning and then to the second line and back to the beginning. During this drill he decided he wanted to run next to his friend... on the other side of the field. So, imagine what it looks like when everyone else is turning to run back toward him and he is running criss-cross to his friend. At one point he runs into this older kid and quickly says with a chuckle... "tag your it!" and runs off. There were a few things like this throughout the practice. We were so proud of him, he ran his tail off and still wants to keep going with it. This is a huge commitment for us since it is 630-8pm tues, wed, Thursday. Then meets all over the metroplex on saturdays. It should be fun for sure.

Summer 08 unplugged.

We decided that we are going to go unplugged for the summer. What this means for us is that we won't have cable, the internet will be for email and bill paying and not much more. This will translate into more family time, more outdoor time, and generally spending our time more deliberately. To that end we bought Jonathan his first chapter book that we all thought he might enjoy... (without comics or pictures). To our amazement he finished all 86 pages within the first 2 days we had it. Then we picked up another one with 36 pages and he finished that one in a day. So public library here we come!

Ian

Ian has been having a great time with school and is eagerly anticipating the classes that he is taking this summer. He will have a gym class with all the trampolines and foam pits, that should be entertaining. Both boys are also taking a cooking class and swimming lessons. They are so excited. I think the thing we are all most excited about is not having to wake up so early over the summer.

HOUSE!

In 2 days we will be closing on our first Texas home. We have been so wrapped up in other goings on it has almost been an after thought. We also will have an extended move in over the next few weeks due to not wanting to pack everything and also I have about a week more of childcare duties that the new house won't be ready for.

It will be fun to get into our long term storage and see what we felt we needed to keep so bad but could live without for a year or so. We already know that we will be paring down our belongings even more. Our first house was a moderate size , our second was about twice our first (which we rapidly filled all the way up!) and our third is slightly smaller than our first (at our choosing!). One word sums up the direction our lives are attempting to go SIMPLIFY!

What we observed while living in a big house.

1) big house = big utility bills
2) big house = more of everything to buy for it, furniture, window coverings, etc
3) big house = costs more to change anything, windows, carpet, countertops
4) big house = endless cleaning
5) big house = more taxes
6) big house = more maintenance
7) big house = costs more

our conclusion... big house was not for us.

So we will gleefully move into our new house and get rid of anything that doesn't fit!

God

This is such a personal and big thing that is going on in my life but it doesn't really seem appropriate to blog about it. So lets just say, I'm in a very cool place with the Lord right now. My worship times are far more intense and intimate that they ever have been. My hearts desire is to see others come to a place where they can enter the presence of the Lord in the same way and be free to express there devotion to Him in new ways. To be free to worship the Lord extravagantly as Darlene Zschech puts it in her book. This is everyday worship in what we do but also in our quiet times with the Lord as well as corporate worship expressions. Lately I've been so overtaken by my desire to express my worship I find my self not being able to raise my hands high enough, sing loud enough, I want to scream like you would if you were excited at a football game. Have you ever noticed how excited people get at sports. It is also interesting to notice that when people get excited they raise their hands and scream, that seems to be our automatic response. Almost like we are programed to do that. Hmmm, interesting.

O.k. I think that is enough for now, I've got to get back to living the life I will later blog about.

I got to see this...or something just like it on the other side of town.

2008-04-24T09:59:00.004-05:00

After small group James needed to spend a few minutes inside talking with someone after I had left to go get the boys. So when I pulled back up to the house we were meeting at with the boys we decided to stay in the car and watch the show. Here is an example of some of what we saw minus the tall buildings. INCREDIBLE!

1308 Silver Maple Dr (pictures from listing)

2008-04-24T09:40:00.004-05:00

These will become the "before" pictures which I will update after we are settled. (why is everything I'm typing showing up underlined! argh! I added a link a while back but the line WON'T GO AWAY!

Consequences of a missed day of school.

2008-04-24T09:21:00.004-05:00

Jonathan is in Kindergarten. Words cannot express how proud I am of how he is doing in school. After a bumpy start he is just thriving. Jonathan gets mostly "great", "terrific", and stars written by his teacher on his work. The other options are check and check minus which usually are followed by "Jonathan I know you color better than this" or something like that. This usually follows a day where he is just tired of doing the same stuff over and over again.

He also remains in pretty good health most of the time so he hasn't missed much school.Tomorrow we will be taking him out at lunch time since we are leaving for a camping trip with our small group!!! woohooo! This makes me think of the last time he missed a day of school I think it was in January or February. The following picture is a result of that single missed day...Take special note of how nicely he has drawn the lines between the numbers and how carefully he colored the nice brown hair. Yeah, I'll admit that the last g needed to be a little lower. So it seems to me that the only reason that he got a check instead of a star would have to be his choice of skin tone? Peach.... could it be that he missed a key lesson here in that one missed day of school? I can't tell you how long and hard we laughed upon opening his folder and seeing this picture. How do you tell your son you got a check on your work because you colored this guy the wrong color... He does have nice red lips though don't you think?

T - 21 days and counting...

2008-04-24T09:09:00.002-05:00

.. until we close on our new house! I just need to take a moment and explain what type of woman is selling this house to us.

1) A tree branch fell in the front yard during a storm a week ago. She reassured us that it would be cut up and picked up by the city and she would have someone come out and clean up the break so that the tree would heal properly. Who does that on a house that is practically already sold.

2) I asked if she had any sort of regular pest control company that she used and would she recommend them. She mentioned that she treats it herself 2x per year and usually that is in November and May and this has always taken care of anything on the outside of the house and kept out anything from the inside. I just received an email stating that she just treated it. Now all this is post contract, so she has no obligation to do any of these things.

3) She has also stated that she will be cleaning out the gutters, if she has time she will fertilize the yard. She is facilitating and paying for half of a brand new roof, before we move in!

4) She is also going to take the time to show us around the house and answer any questions we have (we did this on our last house and it was HUGELY beneficial).

So anyway, all that to say we think she rocks!

Thunder Rolls.

2008-04-09T06:04:00.003-05:00

I can't begin to describe what last nights thunder storm was like but I will attempt. Most of the evening/ night you couldn't go more than about 45 seconds between flashes of light and there was almost a steady stream of thunder. We were suddenly awoken when a flash of lightning that must have either been directly overhead or landed somewhere near by, this was simultaneously accompanied by the loudest thunder I have ever heard. It startled us both awake, it shook the building and set our car alarm off... twice. I of coarse was so impressed, I love it. Jonathan was not quite so impressed. I went to his room after hearing him call my name and as I got closer to the bed he lept from his top bunk and clung to me like a monkey. I didn't even need to hold on to him (although I did) as we made our way back to my bedroom where he was nestled in between mommy and daddy with his hands firmly squished up against his ears. Ian on the other hand our light sleeper (jonathan being the heavy sleeper) didn't make a peep and slept through the entire thing, which I account only to the fact that he was soooooo tired from the previous day.

I didn't mention the hail. Before we headed to bed we heard the unmistakable pounding of hail outside on the car ports which just reminds us that we only have one covered space and the van is currently in it. So James puts his heavy coat on (in 70 degree weather mind you) to protect himself from the hail and braves the worst of it to go move the car to a vacant covered spot. All the while there are flashes overhead and thunder pounding. What a shame it would be to get hail damage a month before we move to a house with a garage. The hail we received last night was about 1/2-3/4 of an inch. Apparently they consider it large if it is 3/4 of an inch or bigger. I was starting to think that it wasn't large unless it was golf ball or softball size which we have heard of nearby recently, but have yet to see with our own eyes.

Well needless to say I'm a bit tired today but my day begins at 5:30 whether I like it or not. I'm hoping to sneak in a nap when the little ones nap today but we'll see.

Enjoy the day!

So there you have it that was our night, oh and the power blinked so my bright idea to use our cell phones as alarms last night was brilliant (pat pat pat on my back). So I read the forecast for the next couple days and it does say more of the same except with the addition of tornado's which for some reason doesn't scare the tar out of me like it used to.

Moving Forward. A New Roof Over Our Head, Another Year Goes By

2008-04-09T00:14:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting at my computer listening to the midnight thunder roll through. I have always loved the sound of thunder, we rarely had it in the NW however, when we did you could always find me perched at a window waiting to see the next bolt of lighting.

Today marked the end of our option period on the house, so up through today we could have backed out of the deal and lost only our $100 option fee as opposed to the $1600 that is our earnest money. Before the day was over we were able to negotiate a new roof for the house we are buying. The one thing on the house that wasn't quite up to snuff. Now that being said, there wasn't really anything wrong with it, it was just old. Older than much else on the house. We have chosen the company, product and color and the seller will have the work done. Woohoo! It is even going to look more fantastic. It has new or newer carpet, countertops, cherry kitchen cabinets, windows!, pull out shelves in the kitchen, sprinkler system, landscaping etc etc etc. It is a modest house that has been well taken care of in a nice neighborhood. I'm hoping, Lord willing, that we will be able to settle here for a while.

James and I met the roofer there on Monday to get an estimate and it was the first sunny day we had seen the house. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Even more in the sunlight. With the last house we were looking to buy, each time we would go there I would have more and more questions and hesitations. With this one I have just noticed more and more things that I like. I'm sure reality will come crashing down on me at some point but for now I'm blissfully overjoyed.

I celebrated my 31st birthday yesterday. I have to say it was a terrific day. It seems that with each passing year I become a little more content with my life. Right now I can honestly say I'm 31 and proud of it. I'm happy with where my life has taken me and I'm happy to see it going where it is. I'm blessed to have a wonderful family, great friends near and far, a church I love to serve in and be a part of and relatively good health that is getting better by the day. I'm also thrilled to see that this season holds some new challenges and opportunities to possibly work but more exciting is an opportunity to help influence the women of the church in worship. I have a passion to see them free to praise there king with reckless abandon. To be free from the bondages of self doubt and pride. I want to share with them some things that the Lord has revealed to me about worship and how to get ourselves out of the way so we can be changed by His presence in a more consistent and real way.

Ok seriously this is a HUGE lightning store... IMPRESSIVE!!!!!! Better get off the computer is blipping.

1308 Silver Maple Drive.

2008-04-02T13:39:00.002-05:00

Well our offer was accepted and the inspection is scheduled for tomorrow. I don't anticipate anything big coming up but we will see. I'll see if I can take some additional pictures while we are in there for the inspection. Not sure how that works with the seller still living there.

More on all that later.

Scratch that. House buying take 2.

2008-04-01T07:02:00.003-05:00

Last week we exercised our option to not buy the first house we were looking at. While the payments would have been a dream, it just had too many issues under the surface that the seller was not willing to work with us on. And, since it had a nice little crack in the brick work on one side it was going to need a structural engineer report at which point the odds were that it would need to be addressed before purchase and the seller wasn't willing to do that so we would have wasted about 2k at that point and we wanted to cut our losses and move on.

We set out Saturday morning to look at 3 houses in the next 10k category.First one was in a great neighborhood but the floor plan looked like something a child had put together... it just didn't work. The second one was in a great neighborhood, nice curb appeal, impeccably maintained, new cherry wood cabinets, wonderful landscaping with little gardening surprises around every corner etc etc etc. So we loved this one, it even had all the little pull out shelves in the kitchen. There were little extras throughout the house. So we put an offer that was just slightly below asking price since it was priced a little higher than the other previously sold homes in the neighborhood. So how did they respond? ... they flat refused the offer, no counter with a higher price. well hm! So we wrote up another offer for full price and sent it off Saturday night. And we waited, waited and waited. We hadn't heard anything as of noon Monday so we checked in with our Realtor and at the same time she was checking in with the sellers Realtor. Turns out despite the fact that the offer was faxed and emailed... it was not received. The sellers had been thinking that since so many people were looking over the weekend that they would get other full price offers. As of Monday noon, we were the only one and they had refused it... imagine the mental turmoil that must be going on in their heads! hahahaha. OK so we resent the offer Monday and it is currently Tuesday morning. We'll see what today brings.

There was a third house we looked at that day, but after seeing the second one we didn't spend more than about 2 minutes walking around it.

In the meantime, a friend who is looking to get in on a sweet pre-forclosure deal may need to sell in a hurry and just happens to be in a neighborhood we have been looking in and is a touch larger than the house we put an offer on. So it all seems to be some pretty interesting timing but we'll wait it out and see.

Flash Flooding.

2008-03-18T10:17:00.002-05:00

I have heard the warnings about flash flooding but I've never really experienced it until today. After dropping James off at work so my parents could take the van to downtown for a visit to the jfk muesum I was on my way back and it really started to pour. It was hard to see, lightening was pretty constant (love it), the thunder was there but not as loud as I've heard it before. I decided to drive to where the house is and take a look to see where we might want to add some gutters, oddly enough many of the homes here just never put them on... they NEED them!. So getting down the alley was interesting since they shape them with a real big dip in the middle of them so you kinda straddle the water as you go down the alley. I pulled into the driveway.. there is a garage and a car port that looks like it was built to industrial standards. This is actually a great feature since if there is ever a time where you can't get both cars in or you have a visitor and it starts to hail you can just use the carport. So essentially we have 4 covered spaces. We pulled all the way under so we could have a repreave from the sound of rain pelting the car. It gets so loud you can't even hear each other.

Once we headed back we have to go over a few hills and I use the term "hills" lightly. More like mounds. At the bottom of one as I drove up to an intersection I noticed a car stuck in the mud of the median. I thought he had gotten into an accident but as I looked further he was just trying to go around the upcoming flood. I got up to the intersection and there were no less than 4 cars flooded and stuck there. Soon after the police showed up and blocked off the road (I'm sitting just 1 car back so I've got a great few. Some cars are making it through and some arent so the police decide not not let anyone. The officers wade over to my side of the intersection and I notice that they are wading THIGH HIGH! YIKES! Glad I didn't try to make it in the car. Once the rain slowed a bit I was able to do a u turn but thanks to the cars large turning radius I had to correct my turn half way through to avoid the stuck car. It was fun, the boys were all excited since they have been watching hot wheel movies where they drive in water. So it was a very fun and educational experience as well as exciting with the news of our offer being pretty much accepted while we were driving around.

Update to my update...

2008-03-18T10:14:00.002-05:00

We heard back today that the seller is choosing to "work" our offer. He is just asking that we pay for the Survey instead of them ($400) , not really a big deal. Other than that we are good to go. So barring finding out something terrible about the house I think we are a go! I can wait to go inside and measure to see if the square footage is right on this one or on the other one we looked at (same floor plan but listed as 200 more sq footage.) You better believe we aren't going to mention that before closing. Doesn't really matter I suppose one way or the other. We like the house no matter what it says.

House Update...

2008-03-17T23:32:00.003-05:00

This is the front view. Windows on the left are the dining room, entry door is to the left of the two center windows that look into the living room and straight through to the patio in the back. I promise this house is really cute in person... it just isn't all that photogenic. The inside pictures also don't do it justice. This is a shot of the living room into the dining and kitchen, The kitchen runs from the right of the picture to the far left side of the fireplace. This has a lot of great places to put all my christmas stuff! How cute would stockings look from that.
This is a shot from the corner of the master bedroom looking out onto the patio and into where the master joins near the kitchen (not through the kitchen).
And this is the patio looking into the living room, if the blinds were open you could see clear to the front yard. This makes it look VERY open on the inside. The doors on the right of coarse are the master bedroom and the door in the far right is leading almost all the way into the kitchen and the garage is on the left. This is the patio that Ian was laying on in my last post.

The offer we put in was placed the same time as another offer. Our realtor thought that our best bet would be to get a pre-qual. letter to include with the offer and shorten up the time to close making it April 30 instead of May 15. We also will need to go conventional instead of FHA since it was a flip and they would have to wait until they have owned it for 90 days before we could close and it looks to be a pretty quick flip.

The offers were presented to the seller tonight sometime. Our realtor is in Galveston on an anniversary trip but we spoke by phone about 4x today already. It is late and we anticipate hearing something back tomorrow. Hopefully. While we feel great about this house, we have surrendered the situation into the Lords hands. If it is not in our best interest we will not be too disappointed. God has saved us from some horrific situations in the past and he has even tried to save us and we stubbornly pressed on instead of listening to his gentle promptings. That lead to disaster. So we patiently wait.

Today was also St Patricks day so with my parents we had corned beef and cabbage along with some festive margaritas to top off the day. Hoping tomorrow brings good news.

And now we wait.

2008-03-15T22:51:00.005-05:00

Two days ago I finally picked up the phone and dialed a Realtor that I had been in email contact since before we moved to Texas (so we would occasionally email back and forth for about 10 months). I have been looking near daily at the listings of new homes on the market, price reductions, and offers again since before we even moved here. I finally saw a house that brought be to a point where it was time to look even if that meant that we would pay rent on an apartment and a house for a few months. So I made the call.

We set up a time Saturday (today) to meat at Starbucks and then go looking. I had mentioned to her 3 homes I was interested in and told her the 5 elementary schools (which just represent the neighborhoods I want to live in) and asked if she noticed anything that stood out to her in those areas. She came with 5 houses (all of which I had driven by in the day that I waited for the appointment). We tossed one out right away, it was in a great neighborhood but ugly street. The first house we looked at was a newer home, it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, but the living space was a little to small downstairs and the yard was a bit to cramped.

The second house was in a great neighborhood but needed WAY too much work. The 3rd home, WE LOVED! It was a flip but a great one. It looked terrific. Light bright, open, large kitchen with lots of counter space. The appliances were a bit dated but in perfect condition, they literally looked brand new just 20 years old. It had split bedrooms, gas starter fireplace. The front looks funny in pictures but cute in real life. It has beautiful large crape myrtles on both sides of the front of the house, they have this amazing barkless trunks that I LOVE. Very large living area with windows to the tiled patio that is between the house and the garage (in the rear- we get an ally like on king of the hill ;-) that is just amazing. It also had brand new paint inside and out as well as new carpet. Nice ceiling fans and light fixtures too. Ok so just loved this house. Then we went to the last house which was the exact same floor plan but wasn't as nice. Now this last house was listed as having about 200 more sq ft as the one I loved. (even on the tax records). But the house was the exact same size. Soooooo which one is right. They are priced as though they are 200 sq ft different. So long story short....

We placed an offer tonight on the one we love! Our offer was a full price offer (house only on the market for 8 days) of $129900! Can you believe that that is 10k less than our first home 10 YEARS AGO! Houses here are still priced fairly reasonably in some neighborhoods so they do fly off the market pretty quickly if they are in good shape.

The house is on Stein Way... yes this is a play on words the whole neighborhood is musical names... alto avenue, sonata lane, cello court, Stradivarius lane, Bach Blvd... you get the point. So we wait. To see what they say. It is a solid offer, the only thing that they could really take issue with is that we are pushing the limits of the closing date. We are wanting it out as far as possible ... so 45 days from the end of the 10 day option period would make it May 9th... we pushed it to may 15th. The reason for this would be so our first payment would not be due until July 1 making it only 1+ a partial month of rent left on the apartment lease. WO0HOOO! Oh and this is a picture of Ian "Camping out" on the patio that can be seen clearly through a bunch of windows in the living room as well as french doors from the master bedroom. Needless to say the boys LOVED IT too.

Clothing shift

2008-03-11T10:05:00.002-05:00

So as most people know and have experienced as you lose or gain weight you incrementally change your wardrobe up or down sizes. My wardrobe currently contains items in 7, count 'em, 7 completely different sizes. This is using the misses/womans, not WOMENS, and not junior sizing. So that is even numbers only. That 7 sizes represents about 60-75 lbs. With that said I think it is time for an update.

Do you ever start a diet and think, this is going to be it! Then by about 5 days in you have forgotten all about it? What makes those "other" times different, when it does work? I'm not really sure, but gratefully, I do find myself in one of those times. I've been following my plan for 3 weeks and have lost a total of 17 lbs and can now rid my wardrobe of 2 of those 7 sizes. I think I'm the most excited about summer. I want to wear shorts! I don't want to be fat, hot and miserable. When we moved to Texas I told myself that the hot weather would be a factor in me losing weight because I just can't stand to be hot and fat at the same time! Just doesn't work for me.

Maybe that is why this time is different, or maybe it is just that life has settled down enough for me to really be in a place to tackle what the inner problems are. Our actions are really just the physical manifestation of what is going on in our minds. So if our minds are sick, not thinking right, food focused, me focused or just plain unfocused so the body will go also. We are called to live lives of focus and discipline. To reign in our flesh and make it subject to our spirit. While also focusing our Spirit on the one who created us. Then, if our bodies just follow our minds we should be acting the way we were created.

So what about emotional eating. This could be for many reasons: stress, celebrations, feeling sad, hurt, angry, bored. It seems that our hearts are crying out for something and our bodies interpret it as food. When the reality is that our hearts aren't crying out for something , they are crying out for someone. Turning to just another person would only pacify the situation. Those people will untimatly let us down. We need The Perfect One to fill our needs in this area. When we ache God longs to bring comfort, when we are angry He wants to hear all about it, when we are bored He wants to tell us what he wants us to do. When we are stressed He wants us to build our faith and trust in His love for us.

This makes me think of "mindless eating". In light of the concept just mentioned, what does that mean. Our bodies don't just pick up food without our minds knowing it. It is in an indication of that lack of focus and lack of living a deliberate life. If we want to make a difference with our life and truly live up to all that God has called us to we must live with intention. Paying close attention that all we do, what we spend our time doing and THINKING! What we think plays such a vital role in who we are and what we end up doing. So In keeping with that, I have some things that I need to go do now.

Go , have a blessed intentional day! Live on purpose!

Apparently I'm not the only one that needed to confess.

2008-03-04T21:30:00.002-06:00

(see my confession a couple of posts below)

The news just reported that in Dallas County 15% of the Registered Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton because they thought she would be easier to beat!!!!!

Looks like it will be a late night here in Texas waiting for the final results. And since the whole process is a bit convoluted with the Texas Two Step process with voting then caucusing in addition to that, there will no doubt be some legal issues and challenges if it is close at all. (and no I won't be waiting up to find out).

Happy election year!

I'm Dreaming of a White ...March 3rd????

2008-03-03T21:19:00.002-06:00

Ok so Saturday it was 80 and right now everything is covered with a blanket of snow and there is that hush that comes from snow cover. It just muffles every sound. The cars, the roads the grass all covered! I wasn't sure I would see any snow when we moved here. They told us they usually just get ice... guess we lucked out!

Unfortunately I don't have the camera (it is in south dallas with james on a retreat) so I don't have any pictures. I may try to catch some on my camera phone in the morning since it doesn't get bright enough to catch any of it at all.

Weird weather!

2008-03-02T07:19:00.005-06:00

Saturday
Beautiful Sunny 80 degree day

Sunday
75 clouds increase today thanks to Gulf moisture pouring into North Texas. A wind advisory is in effect for south winds at 25-35mph with gusts near 40mph. A few thunderstorms may pop up this afternoon, but all of us get wet tonight. ***Update now it is a tornado watch... this just keeps getting more interesting. Since James is out of town on a staff retreat I'm going over in my head where we would go in the apartment if a tornado actually hit. Hmmmm. However this isn't the first time they have had a watch since we've lived here.

Monday
45 Thunderstorms will be widespread tonight into Monday morning. Many storms will be severe with damaging winds, large hail and heavy rainfall. A FLASH FLOOD WATCH is in effect through midday Monday. Behind the front Monday, winds will be very gusty out of the north. Temperatures will fall into the 30's, with wind chills below freezing. Light snow is expected in our Red River Counties and it looks like a rain/snow mix will affect the DFW area. ** Update (755pm sunday) It is now a Snow Advisory meaning it is falling or is going to soon. And next week we'll have 70 and sun all week. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Good thing my parents are visiting next week not this one!

Tuesday
58 (official election day) Everything clears out for election day. Expect full sunshine and mild temps on Tuesday.

I can only remember once in a blue moon when you would wake up and the temperature was already at the high that it would reach for the day and would go down from there. This seems to happen here any time a cold front moves in. You do have to check the weather or you could send your kid to school in shorts since it is 70 in the morning and have them come back freezing because it is in the 30's. I'm having fun learning about all the new and different aspects of the weather here in Texas. Oh and apparently 4 days of 70's and and 80 bring the crickets back. chirp chirp!

Passion Island - our shore excursion from the Cruise

2008-02-29T21:30:00.005-06:00

We actually jumped like little kids on this...

And it was sooooo much fun!
Check out the color of that water

This was the included buffet and open bar that made that giant trampoline so much fun;-)

The beach

You won't see too many pictures of me from the cruise since, frankly, most of them would make terrific "before" pictures!

The Corona shot (this is the island they shot those commercials on)

My confession.

2008-02-29T21:23:00.003-06:00

Ok so we are proud Republicans. Not ashamed one bit. While we don't always agree with the far Right side we definitely are Right without a doubt.

Today we did something that we never thought we would do....

We voted for Hillary Clinton.

Now you might be thinking. Are you out of your mind you just cast a vote for a totally unelectable candidate, she would never win the election if she is nominated....

Exactly!

I have to say I only had one moment of doubt. That was when we realized that when you go to a primary they make you choose democrat or republican. Then they call it OUT LOUD! Now we had been talking to several others in line (for an hour) and frankly would be totally embarrassed to say we were Democrat. But we bit the bullet for the cause.

This evening. ...

2008-02-29T20:44:00.005-06:00

The beginning of our 1 hour wait to vote.

1/2 way through our 1 hour wait to vote

The boys enjoying our new favorite pizza place ,

Pizza INN! James used to go here with his dad growing up.

A satisfied customer.

My dinner! Vanilla with raspberry mmmmm!
Well it is no sausage pizza but I am down 11.5 so far!

Getting Jonathan from the bus stop. A Story in pictures.

2008-02-29T15:29:00.006-06:00

Who knew... did you know? I didn't...

2008-02-28T14:44:00.004-06:00

On my recent quest to eat more healthy I have come across a few things that I can't believe I never knew. You may have known them but I sure didn't.

#1 The chicken that changed my life.

Did you know when you buy frozen chicken breasts you don't have to thaw them? Easiest recipe ever! Take any seasoning or rub (this can be BBQ, Greek, really any flavor you want, they have at least 30 different ones at any grocery store) and sprinkle this on both sides of the frozen chicken. Put the chicken on an oven safe cooking dish (spray it with what ever you want to keep the chicken from sticking). Then pop it in the oven on 350 for 50min to an hour depending on how thick the chicken is. I have even put this in the oven on delayed timed bake (don't worry it wasn't in there long enough to go bad or anything) while I went to church and had fresh hot chicken when I came home. I use it on salads, by itself, anything. It is so much more tender cooked this way then pan fried or stir fried like I have always cooked it. I NEVER knew you didn't have to thaw chicken!!! How sad is that.

#2 Pan Fried Tilapia

Now this one does need to be thawed... oops, be right back. O.k. my dinner is currently thawing. Heat a pan on the oven with a little oil, until it is really hot. Sprinkle the thawed tilapia with "blackened seasoning" on both sides. Then throw them in the pan and cook for just a minute or two on each side until the fish flakes and is cooked through. Presto! You have fish that might as well come from a restaurant. Serve with your favorite sides. Currently mine is baby salad greens with grape tomatoes and sliced cucumbers with either raspberry wine vinaigrette or Asian silk spray dressing. YUM! (that is dinner tonight!)

That's all for now!

Where will my garden grow?

2008-02-28T13:02:00.003-06:00

Since we are now getting a 70+ degree day every few days on average it seems that all the radio and tv adds have changed over to nursery's and garden centers. This of coarse drives me nuts because we are in an apartment and don't even have a really sunny patio (which of coarse is great in the middle of summer). I knew this would be an issue as I am a total yard freak. I would love to spend all day at a garden center picking out flowers and shrubs and trees then come home and plant them and water them. I love when the everything blooms I could just walk around a nice yard forever admiring all the blooms, leaves and different types of bark. Ok I'm starting to sound a little over the top. But I just really love and appreciate things that grow. I have a couple of shade loving things on my patio. I even planted some grass in a pot out there. ;-) It doesn't really make up for the lack of yard though. I can tell that this spring is going to be a little trying for me, but I'll just keep thinking of how much less work it is to live here (said with clinched teeth) and that it is only a matter of time before we will buy a house and put our own roots down here.

Update...

2008-02-21T10:04:00.002-06:00

In the 6 days before the cruise I had lost 8 lbs total (much of it water of coarse). When we arrived home I weighed the next morning to find that I had gained 6 of it back. Within the first two days back on my little program I was back to only 1 lb higher than pre-trip weight loss. Now I want to stop and absorb that. I ate on this trip... I mean I really ate...and drank! I had whatever I wanted although half way through the trip I started feeling yucky and switched over to better choices. So I am amazed that within 3 days of getting back I will have erased any damage done! I LOVE THIS PROGRAM!

So I now have about 3 weeks until the next challenge. My parents are flying in for a 10 day visit. I plan on keeping up my plan and making my "lean and green" meals the dinners. Hoping for the best.

Back from paradise.

2008-02-21T09:54:00.003-06:00

Monday we returned from our cruise. It was amazing. We are already trying to plan our next one. I have to say though that in looking back on the experience I'm not sure it would have been the same if 90% of the people on board were not from Texas. I don't want that to sound prideful but I've observed that Texans tend to be more friendly and fun. So imagine being on a cruise where the employees on board know that! They played the Texas card many times, it made for some great energy.

We decided rather that going on the Snuba excursion (cross between scuba and snorkeling) we would go to "Passion Island" This is a little island off of the island of Cozumel that they filmed the Corona commercials. It was a short Tour Bus ride and then a little boat ride over there. Once you were there you were with only about 50 people on the whole island. It included a buffet lunch and an open bar. They had Hammocks, beach chairs, volleyball, a trampoline in the water and out, they had this little bed thing with 4 posts ... it was wild. The whole thing was so much fun.

I'm sure I could talk about it forever and I'm to much of a long story blogger but maybe I'll share more another day when I have more time on my hands.

Big Fat Lie

2008-02-11T21:35:00.000-06:00

Recently I have watched a member of my small group shrink. Really, like by over 130 lbs, and still shrinking. I was intrigued. So what did I do? I asked his wife what was going on. So she went on to explain what he had been doing, it was a combination of formulated shakes, soups etc that he had about 5 times per day and 1 main meal. So I thought well it worked for him so I think I want to give it a try.

I did the research, found out what the philosophy was behind it and once I was completely sold on it I plunked down my money for a months supply. I waited about a week for my first "kit" to come in the mail. In that week I think I must have talked to 6 or so people about it. They were all so excited and curious. I must say I had my "I really believe in it" hat on. It is one of those moments that when I wear it I really have to be careful what I'm talking about or I could talk someone into jumping off a bridge. (this made me not really able to trust what people said because I felt that I had talked them into it before they had a chance to think for themselves) I don't know why people listen to me and believe what I say but for some reason when I get passionate about something this thing lights up inside of me and it becomes contagious. I really should put that to good use one of these days.

My plan was to start the plan after we got back from our 5 day cruise to Mexico. I mean really who diets for a just the week before they go on a cruise.. really? So when the box arrived I was so excited I took it with me in the van to do school pick ups and read the material while waiting for the kids. I couldn't wait the 2 weeks until we got back so I decided to do it for a "trial" week and get a feel for it then go on the cruise hoping that it would put me in a healthy eating mode and I might do better on the cruise because of it. And perhaps I would lose a little weight so that whatever I might gain on the cruise would just be nullified.

Day1 Hunger. I knew this day would be the day I felt hunger again. I haven't always allowed myself to feel hunger, usually the days stress would get me before then. I ate every 2-3 hours just as the plan had said and I did it with enthusiasm. Lost 3 lbs this day.

Day 2 Less Hunger. This day I had to start mildly keeping myself busy when i would have usually been snacking. I didn't feel that hunger as strongly today but it was usually there by the time I was ready to eat again. Lost 2 lbs this day

Day 3 Stress. They say when you start this type of diet that you crash part was through the first week and to expect it. I had a stress crash. I was tired and I wasn't ready for my cruise. I had shopping to do and that stressed me out because I didn't like the way anything looked on me. However, when I found myself at target trying on clothes for the first time in a long time I was walking out of the dressing room with some keepers! This brightened my day and things were looking up again. Lost 1 lbs this day.

Day 4 Exhausted. This must have been the day that my glucose stores were gone and my body had to go into fat burning mode. I was exhausted, my legs and my feet were so tired just from doing church that morning. I wanted to collapse but the day just kept marching on and I was a bit cranky toward the end. Lost 1/2 lb this day.

Day 5 Today. Hmmm the truth comes out. Well I have been doing better than I had imagined on this plan so far. I have been enjoying much of the foods that are provided. I have LOVED the new recipes I got from that small group member that has shed 130+ lbs. THANKS! But today was different. I had some normal and not so normal stresses and instead of going to food (which I didn't even think of!) I reflected on my behavior. I was acting like such a child. I was being selfish and inconsiderate. I had been unloving and rude. I had put myself before others even when they were having a hard time. Now this had way more to do with what was going on in my head than anything that I actually acted on but I was shocked and embarrassed to think that I had felt this way.

They say on this diet that after a short while two things happen. #1 The fog in your mind lifts #2 In women that are over weight they store estrogen in fat, when you lose this weight rapidly your body has to release the estrogen giving the effect of some pretty ugly PMS. I give that credit to putting a magnifying glass on the real thoughts and emotions I have been feeling. The fog lifting (from not carb hiding my emotions) I give credit to being able to assimilate those feelings into coherent thoughts. And finally I give credit to a low carb diet to taking away the cravings that drove me to the kitchen in the first place to swollow my problems away. Today I had to come face to face with one of I'm sure many unresolved issued that I have had in my life. I have to make a conscious decision to resolve these things in my mind, act like a grown up and doesn't try to always get her way.

So all that to say I feel like I've been living one BIG FAT LIE after another. In my mind that is. When I get upset at someone I often just bitch and whine and eat some food. Then I "feel" better. I don't really resolve anything. So after years and years of doing this not only am I carrying around that baggage of feeling like a bad person I'm carrying the physical baggage that shows just how many conflicts and emotions I have stuffed down.

I'm encouraged that this way to lose weight allows me to deal with one thing at a time. I don't have to worry about what I'm eating because it is pretty brainless so I can focus on fixing some of the underlying problems that have caused the issue in the first place. Then, once I've lost all the excess weight and hopefully undone a lot of damage in my mind and emotions, I can move on to the transition and maintenance phases that allow a very slow transition and learning curve into how to feed my body when my mind is well. I don't think I've ever had my mind well enough to this without being being pulled into the kitchen and drawn to every nasty thing that my body tells me will numb the pain.

As of 4 days in I've lost a total of 6.5 lbs. Yes I know much is water, but I still think that is pretty darn good, I'm excited to see what the whole week shows and then how I fair on the cruise. I'm already looking forward to getting back and jumping back on track to go for the long haul. I'm guessing at this point that it will take about 6-9 months to reach my goal. So I say bring it on!

Please forgive the typos its late and I just had to get all that off my chest.

Crusin' Through Ten Years!

2008-01-22T06:10:00.000-06:00

Come February 21st James and I will be married for 10 years. I can hardly believe it. Even more I can't believe the great and the stupid things that we have done in 10 years. Great - buying a house so early on. Not great - trying to move to Seattle. Great - having 2 terrific boys. Not great - buying 2 houses in NY. Through it all God's grace has been on our lives. Though we have had our sets of challenges, as everyone does, our commitment to each other has only grown stronger. For that I are grateful!

In accepting this new chapter in our journey that has taken us half way across the country we had agreed to give up a couple of dreams. The biggest one was we had always planned on taking a cruise for our 10 year anniversary. We figured that we wouldn't have the money to pay for it and we certainly wouldn't have the babysitting to cover it. Well again thanks to God's grace a "job" of sorts has landed in my lap (watching a friends children while she teaches, giving me school holidays off) and we have been introduced to some fantastic babysitters. So with some of our new found extra income and while employing some of our new babysitters we will indeed be taking our first cruise for our 10 year anniversary.

We will be leaving on Valentines day and driving down to Galveston where we will cruise to Cozumel. So we are thrilled that God has afforded us the opportunity to meet this definite "want" that we've had. I'll be sure to take pictures and post them when we get back.

Laughter makes a great ab workout....

2008-01-14T19:33:00.000-06:00

and after the stretch marks my boys gave me laughter is the least they could do.

Lately my kids (Jonathan in particular this time) have been tickling my funny bone. I know that everyone thinks there kids are so funny. Well I'm one of THOSE parents. Here are some examples lately... this will all mean more of coarse if you know my boys to begin with. This is a few of the things I have observed in the last 24 hours.

This first one isn't so much ha ha funny as it is a cleaver thing to try.

Ode to a spanking

So Jonathan had been having a rough day. He finally took it too far and was informed that he would be getting a spanking. Now he doesn't get them very often since he knows how to dance around the line with grace without crossing it. He is also a very sensitive boy and unlike his brother Ian who doesn't really care if he gets a spanking, Jonathan very much cares if he gets one. So in his attempts to get out of it he pleads with Daddy, "daddy I didn't deserve that! I didn't deserve to get this spanking" Then as a last ditch effort he brings in the big guns " I'll throw up if you spank me!" Now if you know Jonathan you know that he isn't saying this in a threatening manner he is saying with sincere concern that he is going to blow chunks or at lease that is what he wants you to think. At this point James and I can't help but laugh but the spanking proceeds as planned and thankfully no spew came forth.

Handy

Every time we get in the car now that the boys are both in booster seats Jonathan promptly buckles up and Ian screams while he gets frustrated (while not really trying) aimlessly hitting the buckle with the seatbelt. Sometimes he gets it when he finally settles down and occasionally Jonathan will help a brother out. Well tonight was just such a night. So in an effort to encourage his helpfulness we tell him that he is doing a great job helping his brother and we really appreciate it. To this he responds without pause in a prideful manner "Yeah, I come in handy" i

Cannibals and Ketchup.

Sometimes with kids you just pause and think... I can't believe this conversation is really happening. This combination of topics should really never ever happen. So tonight we were on the way home from getting the boys hair cut after an unsuccessful attempt to get them to try tilapia (which jonathan did an impressive gag on). We had just walked out of a grocery store where we refuted several attempts to get food with " sorry you didn't eat your dinner" ~side note... we are not a clean your plate family but we are a "you need to eat the 2 tablespoons of the new food we offered" end side note~ We get to the car and
Jonathan asks " can I have ketchup"
to which I respond "by itself?"
Jonathan - Yeah
Mommy - No you didn't eat your dinner and ... Yuck.
Ian - you can have people with your ketchup (he is always saying silly things that don't make sense so this was no surprise)
Jonathan - You can't eat people (to which jonathan always responds in all seriousness)
Ian - Yes you can
Jonathan - no you cant ( you can see where this is going)
Finally Jonathan - Mommy can you eat people?
Mommy (carefully). - No WE don't eat people
Jonathan - Well that is good cause if we ate people then we would all be eating each other... then all that would be left is one big fat guy.

So there you have it funny or not, this is what we laugh at.

Sarah

Christmas

2008-01-02T15:10:00.001-06:00

Christmas eve 8pm leave service at church to start our drive.
10pm van acts up and we pull over (waited several minutes , restart, ok)
12am still driving.
2am, driving some more,
4 am driving bleary eyed
6am sun starting to come up... helps driving
8am and still driving
10 am are we EVER going to get there
12 pm getting closer
1pm arrive at papa and grammy's house for Christmas day

(SO NOT WORTH DRIVING ALL NIGHT)
In hind sight the 3-4 days of recuperation that were required after the drive were not worth getting there on Christmas day. Next time we will either fly or take 2 days to drive.

We stayed for about 6 days then took 2 days to drive back. That was much much better. I will post pictures sometime soon.

Our new favorite park.

2007-12-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

As I was driving around neighborhoods I ran across a terrific little park that I just had to share pictures of. It was rainy the day we had time to drive by so we just got out for a few minutes. It's sunny today but I have way to many kids to go there. Perhaps later this week. As I look at the pictures they don't really do it justice, I'll have to take some more pictures next time we go!

My boys...

2007-12-16T08:11:00.000-06:00

Sometimes a child will say something that just strikes you funny in the moment. Or, sometimes it is something sweet or profound. I'm writing these down almost more for me to remember them than to share.

After paying $12 to go to a really fun indoor play place Jonathan says "That was really fun! And it didn't even cost a dime!"

Ian "I want Jonathan to sleep on the floor with me so we can have connotations" I say "you mean conversations" he says "yes commentations"

Some of our dialog last night at Taco Bell -

Jonathan starts to mention that he misses some of his friends from Washington. So we start talking about a few of them. Then he starts talking about his new friends here. Then I mention that there is a slight possibility that one of his friends from Washington might move south somewhere near us (is that vague enough for a blog... I have him more info than that). Then Ian gets so excited he almost falls out of his chair and says oh we need to pray! This is the boy that for the LONGEST time we could not get to pray at bedtime for anything! So he doesn't start until every hand that is currently holding a burrito is holding the hand of the person next to them. So here we find ourselves in taco bell on the high table with Ian praying that this certain friend and family will move to Texas! Nothing makes a heart swell more than seeing there children seek God on there own. This leads me to our next moment.

Jonathan- "Jesus picked a great place for us to live" (referring to Texas) Then Ian says "yes lets pray that we don't have to go back to Washington... we don't belong there" Oh yeah that is what my 4 year old said, funny thing is that we have never said that about Washington... that was all him.

Lately having conversations with them has been more fun than with adults. There are just a kick!

Little reflections.

2007-12-14T20:49:00.000-06:00

Children are but little reflections of there parents running around being the "at home" version of us in public.

So it never seems to really sink in that my children hear everything I say until I hear them say it. There are many phrases that weren't too offensive hearing adults say but when you hear it come out of a childs mouth you realize how vulgar it really is. Ok so vulgar is a bit strong for anything that would be said in our house but you get the point.

Today as we shopped in a book store for Christmas gifts Ian walked by me looking at all of the eye level items in sight. He ran accross some childrens books and one of them looked a bit scary, I think it had dragons on it or something. So in true Ian fashion he began talking, and talking, and talking about it. You have to picture this with a 4 year old that has one of those very baby like voices... not speach but voice. Then he begins to describe this scary book and in all honesty I'm only halfway listening to him at this point since I'm there with a purpose and we are running out of time before we need to move on to our next stop. Then my mommy ears picked up on a word that I say quite frequently but have never heard come out of Ian's little mouth. It was "crap" that got my immediate attention. Then I quickly searched my mind to try to extrapolate what he had been saying before that so I could piece it all together. Finally after quizzing the boy It all came together. "it was so scary that all my crap came out" When just then the guy at the end of the isle who had obviously been trying to hold in a laugh let a big hoot! I have learned to embrace those moments and enjoy them rather than be embarrassed, it is so much more fun!

I ran to the next isle nearly falling over in laughter to tell James of the event. Of coarse this would be a childs rendition of "it scared the crap out of me" Funny how they inturpret things so literally. So what must they think of holy Sh** how confusing that must be (we don't say that by the way), although I used to say holy crap and then Jonathan said it a few times and that became a thing of the past. I'm rambling now so I know I'm done.

Freak of nature...

2007-12-06T22:31:00.001-06:00

For those of you at the cookie exchange that manage to track down my blog this is what I was talking about. This is my pregnancy with Ian in 2003. (top picture with black tank in front of piano is in 2001 Pregnant with Jonathan 33 weeks - he was born at 35 weeks)

Left to right top #2 33 weeks #3 34 weeks, blue shirt - 38 weeks, red shirt - not sure I think around 5-6 months. Gray sweatshirt - I can't remember but it just looked really funny.

Ok that is all.

Hands Down My Favorite Childhood Cookies.

2007-12-05T20:03:00.000-06:00

A little explanation : I don't tend to have the average tastes. I'm not a big chocolate fan. I would gladly have any flavor of cake but chocolate, any flavor of ice cream but chocolate, and any flavor of chocolate but chocolate (white, flavored with essence of whatever).

So after hearing that it should come as no surprise that my favorite cookie... isn't chocolate. In fact my first words were "I don't want any" to a chocolate chip cookie. NO JOKE!

I can still remember the first time I had my favorite cookies. I was about 7 or 8 and it was after school. I was sitting on the floor in front of my parents warm crackling fireplace (must have been winter). My mom brought them out to me on a paper towel, still warm from the oven. I can remember taking a bite and thinking... this is my favorite cookie... ever! They have a little, not sure what else to call it but a bite to them. They pair well with Gingerbread tea (with vanilla creamer) or with a Chai tea latte. Although back in the day, I had them with plain old milk.

This recipe has been adapted from a "make a mix" cook book from the 70's. In the original recipe it makes a large generic mix that you then take a couple cups of then add the cookie specific ingredients. Well, in my house that is a dangerous prospect to have cookies that close to completion in my cupboard so I opted to figure out how to make a small batch.

Sarah's Sassy Snicker-doodles

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Combine in medium bowl:

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp cream of tartar

a dash of nutmeg.

In a large bowl mix together:

a little less than 1/2 cup sugar

a little more than 1/3 cup brown sugar

Cut in:

1/2 cup shortening

then mix in:

1 egg

Add the dry mixture to the sugar/egg/shortening 1/3 at a time. I use a spatula then switch to hands for the final blending.

Form round balls of dough and roll them in:

cinnamon-sugar and a dash of nutmeg to taste

Place on baking sheet and flatten slightly with the bottom of a glass.

Stoneware baking sheet - Bake about 9-10 min (7 min for metal pan) Tops should be crinkled and sides just ever so slightly browned. Allow to rest on the pan for 3-5 min then remove to a wire cooling rack to prevent edges from getting too hard. (unless you like them like that!)

There you have it. My favorite cookie recipes. Before I had children I worked for about 3 years and I was asked to bring these to each and every birthday party for 3 years. I would never give out the recipe. At the ripe old age of 30 I've since come to my senses and will now pass it along for others to hopefully enjoy as much as I do... well that isn't real likely but I hope you at least enjoy one batch ;-)

Goose Egg?!?

2007-12-05T17:24:00.000-06:00

SO where did the name goose egg come from anyway? These are some of the questions I find my self asking when I hear my son say " Mommy I'm distracted from sleeping because of my goose egg" The goose egg soon became the scapegoat for many a "distractions"

You see the other day while simply walking, I repeat, simply walking. ... Jonathan in an almost choreographed way dropped a lego house, tripped on it then some how hit his leg on the wall and his head on the lego house... seriously ... leaving a scrap and large goose egg on his head. I to this day have no idea how he did that I just know that I have NEVER heard him cry like that... I don't know how he could have hit it so hard but he is very cautious now how he walks with legos ... yeah ok I couldn't type that without laughing :-)

Now of course knowing that this bump looks pretty bad in person and indeed got much worse before better turning all shades of purple, green and the like. We did have a talk with Jonathan so we would know what he would tell anyone that might try to probe him on how get got it! Oh and that is BBQ sauce from dinner on his face.

Chaos = Order.

2007-12-05T17:12:00.000-06:00

It seems that way in my life anyway.

Why is it that when I have two children, one in school 5 full days a week, and one in school 2 part time days, can I not keep an apartment completely clean (never got bad but should have been a bit better). Then, add 4 more children and I'm Susie flippin' homemaker. I have the kids clothes laid out, meals all set at the table with color coordinating cups and plates for each child. Dinner even seems to come together better. WHY WHY WHY! Why does it take necessity to make me do it.

I enjoy a clean and tidy house, why can't I do that for just my family? It takes the necessity of adding variables: babies, parents of babies, choking hazards, time crunched days of pick ups and drop offs to make my day go smoothly and end with all the laundry and dishes put away with the floors vacuumed? Its curious but I suppose I'm not complaining.

I guess it is good to know how you operate ... for better or worse.

My Big Helper

2007-12-05T17:07:00.002-06:00

Ian blew me away today. He is now not quite 4 1/2 but you would have thought he was a teenager with his babysitting training certificate and everything. He followed around the almost 1 and almost 2 year old watching there every move and giving them age appropriate toys. When he saw them with something questionable he would say, don't put that in your mouth, don't choke on that, let me show you what you CAN play with. He would usher them away from areas of the house that were not "play areas". He talked with them, "read" them books, played silly entertaining games and dances with them. I have to say I feel like I owe him some money. Although, at the end of the day he is tired just like I am and so about that time I don't feel like I owe him anything but a great big huh! ;-)

He is growing up so very fast before my very eyes, but we are enjoying every moment and I'm so proud of him.

Finally COLOR!!!

2007-12-05T16:58:00.000-06:00

Ok I was seriously starting to wonder if ANY of the trees here turned colors or if the leaves finally just gave up and fell off. This week is the first week I have really noticed most of the trees turning colors. I was getting really worried there for a while! So, now I don't have to move back to the NW ... whew! That was a close one.

I love driving through the neighborhoods with the garages in the back, they seem to all be tree lined streets where everyone keeps the front nice and the leaves are all turning now it is soooo pretty. I really do look forward to buying one of those houses in the next year or two. I've been scouting neighborhoods trying to stay really close to work/church. It has been a HUGE blessing to live 3 min away.

So all that to say "fall is finally in Dallas"

Sarah

Well here we go, ready or not!

2007-11-28T06:11:00.000-06:00

I got a call from my friend, the one with the 4 children (two bio, two almost adopted). And it looks like we are a go on me watching her children. Only, one thing is different... I start next week! This was optional but I don't really have any reason not to do it.

This will be a stretch for me. I've watched this many children before but usually slightly different ages and for different amounts of time. This will be 4 days a week with breaks in there for preschool, kindergarten and ladies bible study. I don't think I'm crazy for doing this but I guess only the blog will tell!

God is so good. We had some pretty lofty financial goals after we got here. The kind of things that you think... we'll NEVER be able to do that! (or it will take our whole lives) And while there are always more/better ways to do things (i.e. buying a house with cash) that we don't quite have the nerve to do, the Lord seems to be providing ways for us to actually accomplish our goals! It has been pretty exciting. We are also blessed to be a part of a capital campaign at our new church. It is awesome to see Him moving in our lives!

On with my day!

Possibilites

2007-11-26T13:08:00.000-06:00

Went to Mc'ds today with a group of girls. Part way through the morning I realized that everyone at the table but me (5 others) all had teaching degrees. Now, they don't all actively teach right now but they had some great perspective on the job as a whole. It was very encouraging.

A possible opportunity came up that seems to fit into my grand scheme! Although it may not sound like at first. So I'm most likely going to have to take at least one prerequisite class to get back in to the swing of college. This next semester might be a good time to do it since I don't have residency yet so it might just pay to wait until next fall when I will. So what do I do between now and then? Well, I do have a friend that is in need of one semesters worth of child care for her 4 kids (two little ones, 1 preschooler, and one kindergartener). So the little ones need watching m,t,w,th. The preschooler attends school t,w,th. And the kindergartener only needs to be picked up from school. This would give me something to do, allow me to hang out with some kids, and make some extra money to pay for Ians preschool next year (he wants to go more often so we are looking into a 4-5 day a week pre-k class for him.) Since they do full day kindergarten it is good to get used to going more and he really really enjoys it. This would also free me up to focus my daytime on school, so I don't have to sacrifice to much of my evenings and weekends working on school.

So there you have the most recent development in my life. This is still all a little up in the air since two of her children are foster/adopt and we need to make sure that I am an ok caregiver since I don't have my license here (only in WA). And that the school job works out well. It seems to be one of those opportunities that all the puzzle pieces just fit together but we will wait on the Lord and see.

Jonathan - Has expressed some interest in trying out for a vocal solo at church. So after discussing it with him (what happens if he gets it and what happens if he doesn't) he has been practicing and we will be taking him to tryouts on Wednesday night. YIKES! While we were very pleasantly surprised to hear him practicing (he sounds great!) we are preparing ourselves for tears. Jonathan has a tendency to get very emotionally invested in things. Like this morning he completely lost it when we couldn't find his school folder. So I promised that if we found it we would take it to the school. Well as soon as I got back to the house James came running out with it, he had found it crammed in the back of some books on their book shelf. So I followed the bus to a stop and gave the folder to him. I still don't think that he fully realized what was happening, so I look forward to asking him after school. I'm hoping that he wasn't totally humiliated, while this hasn't happened yet, I suppose that day is inevitable. We'll try to put it off as long as possible. He still wants us to come and eat lunch with him (at 10:30!!) so I think we are in the clear.

Ian - Is also wanting to try out but we assume once we get there he will shy out of it, but who knows. I worked in his class this Sunday and as soon as we got in there he starts pulling up chairs and directing the kids to sit in them all in a row in front of him while he starts to dance for them (very funny!) So, I leaned over to his regular teacher and asked if he is always like that and she gave me this perplexed look and said "he never even says a word". Well aparently it might be a good idea for me to work in his class now and again! It is odd since he does so well in preschool, although that is with 3/4s instead of 4/5s. I guess that is probably a preview of what it would be like if we put him in the "proper" school grade instead of waiting a year.

Well I think that is all for now.

Sarah

To Teach or not to Teach...

2007-11-24T22:21:00.000-06:00

I find myself considering going back to school so that I can get my BA and teaching certificate. Some of you might find this a bit odd since at church I always pegged myself as the one that is not gifted or interested in teaching Sunday school. I have said that for YEARS. So what has changed? Well my reasons seem to be three fold on that one. #1 Rebellion - I was required to teach Sunday school, in fact tomorrow I'm covering for someone tomorrow and I'm a little excited about it. #2 Mine very own - I don't find it terribly easy or fun to teach my own boys things at home. However, put them in a class full of kids and its a kick. #3 Temperament- I have not always had the patience to handle children, however, after finding my all natural happy pill I'm much better now!

It is odd, I wanted to be a teacher when I was growing up until I got came to know the Lord then I wanted to be a pastors wife (mainly just because I really wanted to be like the pastors wife at my church). I even felt that the Lord has spoken to me that I would be a teacher. I explained that away as being a teacher of anything but certainly He was not asking me to go to 4 years of college because I was not interested in that at all. My only desire was to go to Bible College. So, did the Lord speak that to me all those years ago (about 12 to be exact) for now, did I hear Him wrong, or was he simply telling me i would share information with people in general?

I guess there are a few things that get me excited about teaching (warning some of these are not noble, just being real).

#1 I really like to impart information to people, when I get excited about something I love to get others excited too (imagine getting a bunch of early elem kids excited about something!.. So fun!). Anyone who has ever been around me when I get excited knows exactly what I'm talking about!

#2 I really like to encourage, find the kid that doesn't think he is good at anything and find something to encourage them in (this is the "devils" advocate in me). I've seen the impact of when a teacher encourages Jonathan and I LOVE it. Also, this brings in some of the experiences I've had working with foster children.

#3 The starting pay in our school district here for a full time teacher is in the low 40K's (told ya they aren't all noble)

#4 Only working about 180 days per year (oh there's another one)

#5 Being able to work and still get off the breaks that the kids have off. By being able to work I'm referring to the feeling of filling a need, being good at something, and making a financial contribution to the household. I have had a desire to work for a while now but I'm not willing to put the boys in daycare even just for breaks to do it.

So what would all of this look like? Well, I would work for the next two years to get my AA degree in early ed. All distance learning from the local community college. During part of that time I would try to work in a preschool for experience, credits, and reduced tuition for Ian ;-)

Then I may take a year off if I need to establish residency to get reduced tuition at a 4 year college. (I don't think I would need this if we bought a house but while we are renting I would need to live here for a year while not going to college to qualify). Then I would finish my last two years with as much distance learning as possible. Most if not all of it looks to be available online now.

So there ya have it, a thought in progress. What am I doing about it now? Well I have several people who teach here (preschool, elem, high) I'm going to go visit a couple class rooms to get a better feel for it. I may also help out more with Jonathan's class too. I went on a field trip with them and that was an adventure for sure, but fun. Alright, time to put this day to bed!

Misc. Pictures.

2007-11-23T21:13:00.001-06:00

Jonathan with his friend Diego on the bus.

Jonathan on his field trip.

Tulip Farm last Spring.
Mighty Warriors.

Have you ever been driving down the road
and you noticed that the lanes just on the other
side of the nice grassy median was oh so clear
and your lane was getting backed up.

Well you might have the thought cross your mind
hmmmm, maybe I could just cross over that
grassy area... BUT YOU WOULD NEVER
ACTUALLY DO IT. Well here ... they do! There
are worn tracks into the grass in certain areas
where people just make there own off and on ramps
it is hilarious! So that is why so many drive
trucks and suvs... its all starting to make sense.

Christmas decorating so far....more to come.

2007-11-23T20:29:00.000-06:00

Our Apartment - pre christmas decorating

2007-11-23T20:16:00.000-06:00

Decorating for the season.

2007-11-23T20:04:00.000-06:00

Today we dug out what boxes aren't in long term storage to find what we had to work with for Christmas. Since the unloading of the truck was sort of a whirlwind of boxes flying to and fro I can't think for sure why I put anything anywhere. But, it is what it is and we are not going into storage to pull a few specifics out from under our furniture, boxes and yard care stuff!

So the main things that seemed to have made it into storage are BOTH fake trees we have, all of our hand made and crocheted stockings (yeah o.k. that one did make me tear up a bit) and many of our extra ornaments I use around the house. We do however have a few of my favorites I have picked up at after Christmas sales. I was pleasantly surprised with a certain snow man that I had forgotten I had adopted last year into our Christmas clan. We also have a set of three alpine trees that will for this year be IT for trees. Funny enough we found enough large sized white lights to do the whole front of our last house... hahaha, and this year we don't even have a house to put them on ( I had gotten them after Christmas so they are still new in the box!!!)

So this Christmas will be a bit different but we are grateful for where we are and will make due with what we have. I did have to add a few ornaments this year since we needed smaller ones for the smaller trees. I got a little Santa foot ball player to symbolize our new love for the COWBOYS!!! woohooo 10-1. I got a matte finished gold star for the lone star state, and a funny one that is a rustic bird house looking thing with a door that opens and you see a tiny squirl sitting on an out house seat reading a paper. I'll have to get a picture of that one! That pretty much sums this Christmas up.

My First Solo Thanksgiving in the Kitchen!!!!

2007-11-23T19:34:00.000-06:00

So this was our first year with just the 4 of us for Thanksgiving in Texas. We were invited to a friends house to have dinner but alas, we had already bought the turkey (and James really really wanted some left overs).

So We scaled things back a bit and I used some shortcuts on a few things. Here is what the menu looked like (we completely cut out a few things that weren't favorites by both James and I since we were the only ones we were really cooking for)

Turkey
Stuffing
Green bean casserole
Mashed potatoes (gravy)
Rolls
Cranberries
And the oh so not traditional (but James new favorite) Mint Chocolate chip Lactaid Pudding Pie

Ok so the only part of this experience that I will take the time energy and back pain from my chair (hint hint honey!) to write is about the turkey. I have made a few turkey's in my time. I have made the infamous one that got to excitedly learn that the nasty stuff is stuck up the turkey's butt (an unpleasant realization). This was also the turkey that didn't quite get done and I had to microwave parts of it! There was the second one that I was using a recipe that cooks the turkey overnight in the oven... that would have been great if the oven didn't have an automatic turn-off feature that stalled the cooking half way through the night. I have assisted in a fried turkey but I can't take any credit for that one since all I did was find and print the recipe. So this was my first attempt and I let www.allrecipes.com be my guide. I read all about brining (soaking overnight in salt water) So I decided why not I don't have anyone else coming over so if it is a total disaster I can always try again to get the left overs that were really the main objective. So on I went. I didn't have a full size pan so I just flipped it half way.

I awoke Thursday morning at 8 when I quickly did the math and realized that I only had 1 hour to get that turkey ready and in the oven. So I rinsed it off stuffed it with some veggies and a few herbs. poured butter over the top or is it the bottom. The first 2/3 's of the time was cooked breast side down. It got a nice golden brown before I turned it over to be breast side up. When I turned it I got really nervous since half of the skin had decided to stay with the veggies instead of sticking to its position of holding in all of the moisture. The drum sticks were also looking suspiciously done loose at this point. But I let the cooking time go on. I looked in at 3.5 hours and sure enough my tender timer had popped which also made me a bit leery since I had just read that if the tender timer pops it is most likely too done since it usually hits the bone and blah blah blah back to the story. Ok so now it was time to let it set... which I think I actually forgot on each of my other attempts not sure. I don't remember doing it, definitely not the first time. So I went on to make my gravy and eventually needed to take the turkey out of the pan. This is where it gets good... really good. I don't have any of those handy lifter things to pull the turkey out so if you can picture this I have my yellow pot holder mits covered with plastic grocery bags (this is how I turned it over while cooking too ;-) Ok So I put my hands to the sides of the turkey and begin to lift. but the whole top half of the turkey comes apart ... off of the bottom half. then the legs come off and plop back into the pan. At this point I'm thinking. I either did something very right or very wrong and considering I'm seeing most of the poor naked turkey laying there without even its skin on I'm leaning toward wrong. But I decided to let it set like the directions said although it seemed like a moot point since it was all taken apart now.

Ok so I'm not really a great story teller I tend to be really bad at the endings I just sort of blurt it all out... so here goes... This was the most tender (even all the way through the white meat of my 15 lb turkey), flavorful, turkey I have ever had, no offense to anyone who has ever served me turkey. James tells me how much he likes it on each plate of leftovers. You keep thinking you are going to need gravy to make it moist... nope It stands on its own. So after my first couple attempts I'm unashamedly bragging on my turkey conquering this year!!!

Ok so that was long story long! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Randomly Sarah is no more....

2007-11-23T19:31:00.001-06:00

So in my true random fashion I have completely lost the information I used to create my last blog, thus I was not able to log in to post anything ;-) Ok laugh if you must ... I am.

Some call it clutter, being disorganized, or plain laziness. I choose to think of it being a bit more intentional. I'm intentionally being random... is that even possible. Well in either case it is what it is.