New Home Sweet Home

Isn't this a lovely house?

Well, it's all ours as of Friday the 25th!! (Yes, 2 exclamation points. Really I could do a million more, but I figure you can tell I'm over the moon ecstatic about the fact that we have actually found and bought a house by the usage of just 2 exclamation points. But I digress...) This is our lovely, wonderful, roomy, dream home. I can't believe it finally happened for us. We have been looking for 6 months (more if you count me looking before our old house actually sold). This is 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths on a full basement, joy! I can't tell you how happy I feel about this, really there aren't words.

Some will say that I am spoiled because I am used to this kind of room, and some will say "well the pioneers had like 10 kids in a one room cabin." But to them I say, they sure did....but in today's standards, that would be illegal (and they had all the prairie to let their kids roam in, without having to worry about someone hurting them)!! I can't say that I hold much love for our current tiny little apartment. I won't be sad it say good bye to it's one bath and 2 bedrooms, or it's no garage and having to warm up the car for 30 minutes to defrost it so I can go anywhere in the winter, problems, or even it's cigarette smoke filled hallways. Nope, can't even say that I will miss having to go to the laundry mat or using the wet cat smelly washer and dryer here in the 3rd floor closet. However, I will say, it did it's job well by giving us shelter from the wild weather this year and kept us warm (a toasty 85 degrees year round without even having to turn on the heat). So in that respect it has been a blessing. Also the last 6 months have given our family the opportunity to see if this is were we really wanted to live before we committed to a house, and it turns out.....it's way to small here, and nothing is open on Mondays. The apartment has also been the biggest source of my blogging silence because I was always taught that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I despise the fact that I was such a complainer about this place. I am sure I complained to anyone who would listen (sorry people). I tried to keep my mouth shut, but many more times then I would have liked.....all that was bad about it spewed right out of my mouth before I could stop it.

However, here I am now seeing the bright roomy light, at the end of the tiny little apartment tunnel. I must say that it was worth it. The money we saved during this time helped us to afford this majestic palace. Yes, it really does look that way in my eyes, and no one will tell me any different!

So here are the pictures of the inside with some of my commentary. I want to show you a few of my favorite things about our new palace.

Welcome to the kitchen.
This should look somewhat familiar to some of you.
Click here for comparison to our last kitchen.

The living room with fireplace.
I was just thinking, that fire place looks familiar too.
Click here and scroll down to the picture
of the Scout Master's party.

A Dinning Room
(never had one before)
This especially makes me excited because
I have 2 tables that I love. The big one and
the one we bought for tiny little apartment and
now I can use them both!

Landing of the stairs.
B looking cute!
(She was dying for me to take her picture)

Did I tell you there where 2 1/2 baths?

Jealous of my soaking tub?



Another wonderful thing about our new palace?
The laundry is upstairs in this closet!
(And the Scout Master bought me new
front loading machines to put in there).

So there you have it. All the wonderful things about the new house and all the pretty pictures to so with it. I can't wait to get into there. We have the keys and it's ours but we don't have to be out of our apartment until the 18th so we are taking the time to clean, clean the carpets, magic erase things, and are taking out stuff over slowly. Hoping we will only have to move the BIG STUFF on moving day, and we will be recovering the long lost treasure that is our storage unit by the end of April. Not too over whelming of a move. Which is really really really really x1,000 nice.

Ky's First School Program

Ky's first school program was tonight. He was super cute! He was embarrassed for us to see it I think, but he was excited at the same time. We had heard about this program every day for at least 3 weeks before hand. He even had a little solo in one of the songs. The program was about all the different holidays we celebrate. It was a cute little program. Here are some pictures.

On the left is the back of Ky's teacher Miss Howard
and then Ky holding his heart prop.

His solo part.
"I celebrate by birthday."

Sorry the pictures are so blurry and yucky. I don't have a fancy mom camera, just a point and click but when I have the setting on landscape (which is the only way to get a picture that isn't so dark you can't see it) it is super sensitive to any movement at all and I almost always get a blurry picture. But a blurry one is better then none at all. So there ya go! LOL

Pinewood Derby #1

Today was Ky's first Pinewood Derby EVER!! He had the best time too. He was able to race is car 3 times. He won once and lost 2 times just by a fraction of a hair each time. He was the first one eliminated but this gave us a chance to see just how much of a good sport he is when we him how he felt about it and he replied "It's okay, it was just for fun anyway." I was so impressed and proud of him for his mature attitude. He really is the best little boy! Here is is with his car.

The story of his car is this. The Scout Master had to go to England for work the weekend before the Pinewood Derby and he was gone until last night, so sadly he couldn't be there to help us prepare the car. I was at a total loss so the night before the Scout Master left last week we ran out to Hobby Lobby and grabbed a legal, already cut out car body. Then after we dropped off the Scout Master at the air port (which was really hard for all of us, especially Ky and I, which so much terror in the air these days) we took off to spend the weekend and the extra day off at my parents house. Where I am happy to report Pappy (my father) was more then willing and also able to help Ky sand paint and weigh down his car while I took off running errands, going to church (alone where I could actually listen) and running around town looking for boots (the winter up here has been rough this year). So by the end of the weekend (even with all the kids running fevers, and being under the weather and us spending until Tuesday because of fevers, and Monday they had off anyway) Pappy and Ky were able to finish up a really good lookin' car!

Ky with his car. Front view.

Ky with his car. Side view.

Racing

The Finish
(with Patch, of course)

After the Derby we asked Ky were he wanted to eat lunch (since it was the least we could do since he was the first eliminated player). He said McDonald's (which we normally refuse to eat at). He got his wish and then the rest of the afternoon we spent running around town and messing around. It was a fun first experience for all of us.

Long time....and I am sorry about that. I have been really struggling since we moved back in August. Maybe it's depression, maybe it's laziness....I am chalking it up to a little of both.

I really don't care for our apartment (something that really bothers the Scout Master). I think it bothers him because he "picked" the apartment. However, it really has little to do with who picked it and just how terribly tiny it is....and all of the things that are inconvenient about it, things that don't bother him because they aren't his everyday job (take laundry, for example or even better carrying the groceries up a flight of stairs and then not having anywhere to out them once they are in the apartment). So this makes me not want to blog all the negative I feel because after all blogs are supposed to be lovely and happy, right? So also then I don't want to go back and catch up on all the things that happened before we moved because there are pictures of our house and our yard and our other things....which are, sadly no longer ours.

I've tried so many things to brighten up. Shopping (yuck, it takes us anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to get to the shopping), working out (that's working a little....I've lost almost 15 pounds since we moved here), and I even went and got my long hair cut off, but I still struggle. I know I am not the only one who has had these struggles and I have turned to so much prayer I am sure Heavenly Father is weary of listening to me. So here I am writing and I feel a little bit better.

The best thing that has recently happened is that Bee is fully potty trained now! It's made me so happy to see her take this step to big girl land, but it has made me sad too to know that my baby is growing up. Weird, I know!

The Christmas Season is upon us and low and behold my address book is in storage somewhere....so if you are out there reading this please send your address my way!

I promise to try really hard to get back on here and get more of our doings posted.

Love and safety to all this season!

Our Adventures at Sauder Village

Today we ventured over to Ohio, to a place called Sauder Village. If you are thinking to yourself, Sauder sounds familiar to me....where have I heard that before? You've heard it because it is a brand of ready to assemble furniture. So what would hold interest for us there? Well, let me tell you. It is a historical village and that kind of thing is right up our family's alley! E and The Scout Master had gone on a school field trip there on the 23rd of September but they didn't get much time because school was delayed for 2 hours that morning due to fog. So we decided to go back so all of us could have a look around. The best part was that it was Scout day so any Girl Scout or Boy Scout in uniform got in for free!! So all of the kids got in for free because Bee is still young enough to get into most places for free. Which is really awesome.

So here are a few pictures of what we did that day besides walk and walk and walk.

On the working farm the kids:
a. loosened kernels from the cobs of corn
(this was to feed to the animals)

b. played games

She is really good at this. She did not get that from me.

Made corn husk dolls.
Ky's was a boy scout, of course
(originally, he didn't want to make a doll
because they are for girls)

Learned about the doctor's office in the early 1900's
(here he is demonstrating a wrist splint)

They even went to school in a one room
school house (for about 5 minutes).
Don't you love the look on Ky's face?

Decorated pumpkins
(left to right, B, Me, Ky, E)
??, Fall Goddess?, a boy scout (see a theme here?), and
a witch.

In an uncharateristic moment (when the rest of us were
enjoying ice cream) Bee decided to throw a fit.

There was a museum there and I thought this was funny.
I love this band's music, but never realized they were
named after a car.

This is a view from behind the main circle of buildings.
Isn't it just beautiful?

The Scout Master and Myself.
(He just wouldn't be serious, and can you see
that huge wrinkle on my face?)

We had a really great day there. We bought herbs, a little yarn, and some wonderful chocolate. We made bracelets in the Indian village too. It was so nice that they had those experienced for free for the kids. We had a great time (did I say that already? I don't think I could say it enough).

8-9-10

Today was Emma's 9th Birthday. I can't believe that she has gotten so old so fast. We are in the middle of moving and packing so we couldn't have a party at our house so I asked her where she would like to have her party and she said Waka Dog, which is a lot like it sounds, a hot dog restaurant. Only she would think of having a little party at this place. It was only the guilt of us being in total chaos around here that granted her wish! There hot dogs are pretty good. It was last minute as so many of our "parties" seem to be, but we were very happy that all the family could make it out at least for a little while. I am so grateful to them for making the effort to come out and help make my Emma smile. Here are a few pictures of the night.

Emma Getting exactly what she wanted.
Another mermaid Barbie.

Kyle took this picture of Great Gramps.
Not to bad, if I say so myself.



Opening some presents.

Picture of the cute cupcake cake we found
at Target just before heading over to Waka Dog.
We really lucked out and they offered to write her name on
it for us. We also found a few extra cupcakes that
matched. It was a big hit!

Myself and the Birthday Girl.

The Scout Master wasn't able to make it home from work in time (just another reason why we are moving closer to his work) but he brought her home a Littlest Pet Shop present and she adored it. Also her Aunt took her out to the mall for a little fun. She got to make a Build a Bear, Jump on the Mall Jump, and ate at the food court (just a little note to Aunt Audrey: Kyle sulked all evening and kept asking us why Emma's birthday was better then his. She got jump on the bungee thing at the mall and I didn't. I secretly think he would have loved to make a Build a Bear too. I've never seen my little man so sad. I just told him he wasn't 9 yet and that maybe when he was 9 he would get to do the same thing. Though I would love to do a mommy daughter date with him soon.-Love Katie) Emma did have a pretty awesome day. I wish adult birthdays were as much fun!

Moving Again

I have been horrible at this blog thing for awhile now. I haven't wanted to make a new post because I wanted to catch up with the old before starting on the new. Well.....the longer I wait to post again the longer the list of catch up posts gets. Now I am not going to be really great at posting for the next few weeks either because.......we sold our house!! Which is a good thing and a bad thing all rolled into one.

Good because the kids will only miss out on 4 days of school and because it was an almost exact answer to our prayers.

Bad because after a week and a half of looking at almost everything available.....there isn't anything we can make work. We have a whole basement of furniture and hobby and exercise equipment that refuses to fit in a house without a least 4 bedrooms. Long story short.....there isn't anything near our price range that will work and everything below those houses needs extensive work before one could move in. So there isn't any middle ground. Plus there is always money to consider.

So we decided to move into a teeny tiny apartment for 6-8 months and then be able to afford the house we really want. It was a hard and stressful decision. But once made we felt pretty good about it and we can't help smile at thinking that our cost of living is going to be cut in half, which means we can save and save and save!

So there you are updated but not quite up to date with everything that has happened.