Too Funny!

Yesterday morning in church, Susannah and Samantha were getting ready to start that game where you take turns connecting two dots at a time to make squares, then whoever makes the line that completes a square puts their initial in it, and the one who has the most completed squares when the grid is full, wins.  You know that one? Well, Sammy said, “I love this game.  Grandma always lets me win.”  Susannah then turned to Sam and said, “Well, I’m not Grandma.”  J

Rise and Shine!

Okay, now this is just gross! I'm sitting here at the computer in the dark because no one else is up yet, and I hear Cuddles (one of our kitties) growling. This is unusual for him, but I think that maybe he and Britt (our older cat) are having a stand-off. It continues so finally I get up to investigate. He is in our bedroom with me but I see that he is the only cat in here. Wierd. I walk over to turn on the hall light and upon doing so, I suddenly notice that he has a dark shadowy form in his mouth. Oh my! Sure enough, it is a mouse! I inform Greg of the situation and then head for the living room in search of something high to perch myself on. Cuddles is on the prowl, too, wandering with this wiggling thing in his mouth. Greg manages to pick Cuddles up, still carrying the mouse, and I open the front door so he can deposit them both onto the front porch. Patchy is all out of sorts now, too. She knows something is up and paces the house meowing constantly. Cuddles wants back in and we see that he has succeeded in killing his catch and has left it as a gift on the front doorstep. How sweet! Now we let Patches out to satisfy her curiosity. I've got the heebie jeebies, but nothing like an exciting story to get the girls out of bed for school! They can't wait to see the mouse for themselves!

Checking in ...

Hello, hello! Thought I'd check in. Life is speeding on by and soccer hasn't even started yet! We've been staying home more than before, but it doesn't feel any less busy around here. Five kids in the house gets a little loud at times. Well, okay, it stays loud most of the time. But it's usually happy noise of children at play.

Greg went on a week long business trip to Massachusetts recently, and during that time, my grandparents came and stayed with me. It was really nice to have their company (not to mention their help), and I hated to see them leave on Friday. Sammy and Pejo got to visit with their mom and nannie this past weekend in Oklahoma City. They hadn't seen Hannah for right at a month, so that was a happy reunion.

This weekend is the Garfield County fair. We are looking forward to going to the carnival on Friday night. It's always fun for the kids, albeit expensive for the parents. :) We usually go with friends so we all have someone to enjoy it with.

We are still appreciating the extra space we have in the new house, but I still can't say I've done much unpacking. I need the moving in fairy to pay me a visit. I suppose that's what I should be doing right now, huh? Perhaps it's a time management problem on my part?

Well, sorry to be brief, but I gotta get. My poor parents haven't heard from me in ages so I think I'll give them a call.

Till next time ...

Still Alive and Kicking!

Gee, it’s been forever since I’ve posted anything.  Sorry!  I know I have a few faithful readers out there.  Life has been crazy lately.  Sammy and Pejo came back on Thursday, July 31^st.  They are planning to stay with us until Andy returns from Iraq in December.  Having five kids hasn’t been too difficult, as they all play together really well.  As I’ve said many times, those boys are just two peas in a pod!  They can be a handful, though.  Like yesterday when the girls’ had dentist appointments.  I had to take everyone with me, and I thought we’d never get out of there.  The receptionists probably collapsed in relief when we finally did leave.  It’s a small waiting room and the boys really terrorized it.

The Friday morning after Sammy and Pejo arrived, I took all five kids and drove to Hot Springs, AR, to spend the weekend with my family.  We had a really nice time.  I missed a turn on the way there and drove a good 60 miles out of my way, but we eventually got there.  Greg stayed home to work around the house and also covered my paper route for me while I was gone.

I’m working Friday afternoons in August in addition to my regular Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday mornings.  I’m glad the extra day isn’t a permanent addition, but I haven’t minded it like I thought I would.  I like coming in at 1:00 instead of 9:00.  I’m always in such a rush in the mornings!

School started back yesterday, the 13^th.  All three girls were really excited about going and each had a good first day.  Makaley is in Kindergarten this year and doesn’t mind at all going all day.  Susannah did not adjust to the all-day thing very well so I’m glad Makaley seems fine with it.  Susannah is in 2^nd grade and her teacher is her 1^st grade teacher’s mother.  I thought that was pretty neat.  Sammy is in 4^th grade (wow, that sounds so grown up!) this year.  She will turn nine on the 22^nd of this month.  I don’t know if I can accept that.

Next week Greg has yet another business trip, this time to Massachusetts.  We won’t get to tag along on this one, but I am really excited because my grandparents are planning to come stay with us while he’s gone.  I needed someone to be here so that I don’t have to take all the kiddos with me on my paper route each night, and they volunteered!  It’ll be awesome to have them here, and they will enjoy getting to spend time with their five “great-grands.”  Hopefully they will still be sane when they head back home …  J

I have really gotten into listening to books on CD or tape lately.  I listen to them mainly while doing my paper route, and I think I’m addicted!  The other night I was in between books and felt rather lonely driving around with just the radio on!

Well, I had better end this update and get home from work.  Happy Thursday!

Status Check

Well, I am happy to say that our old house is very close to empty, FINALLY!! Did I say that in my last post? Well, we are really there now. There is one more truck load sitting in the living room waiting to go over, but it’s all boxed up and ready. There’s also one, maybe two, truck loads waiting in the garage, but they are out of the way and can sit there a little longer if necessary. Inside the house, I’ll just need to gather up a few loose ends, and then vacuum the floor and bring in the toys scattered in the backyard we almost forgot about. (Oh, and have we emptied the shed??) After that, I officially hand the reins over to Tricia to get done whatever she wants in order to prepare the house for her daycare. This Saturday she’s having a “working pizza party” where she’s invited friends and family to help clean and paint the house. I am not sure I was invited (because she figured I’d need to be unpacking now), but I invited myself and definitely plan on being there. She was absolutely instrumental in helping us get everything packed, and I figure the best way to repay her is to return the favor.

There is a town-wide garage sale next weekend (Aug 2^nd) that we plan to participate in. I know we have a lot to put out, but I’m not sure how much of it I’m going to be able to find. We may end up having another sale of our own in September. I need to spend a good part of next week focusing on it, though. We are going to set things up at the old house in the empty garage (it will be empty by then) and pair up with Tricia’s family, which we do every year anyway. They even buy sodas and water to put in an ice chest and sell. That idea usually goes over well in the August heat.

The kids and I will be leaving on Friday for my side of the family’s annual weekend in Hot Springs, AR. Greg actually volunteered to stay home and do my paper route and handle our part of the garage sale. While he will miss seeing family, I think he will get more relaxation out of being able to work on unpacking and his other projects uninterrupted and on his own schedule, than he would traveling 8 hours one way for a mini-vacation. The work waiting at home would weigh on his mind and stress him out to where he wouldn’t enjoy himself in Hot Springs. Me, on the other hand, I am the queen of procrastination. It won’t bother my conscience one iota to take this “break” and spend a weekend away doing nothing!

My brother Andy is currently home in Kansas from Iraq for his 2-week R & R. He was supposed to go back on the 26^th, but is expecting to get another 2-week extension. Due to some family issues he is dealing with right now, he has requested that he be allowed to stay home permanently and not finish his year in Iraq, but I don’t know that he is going to be granted that wish. In which case, Samantha and Pejo might be coming back to our house to stay for a while again. We are looking forward to having them, if it works out that way. Especially now that we are in the new house and have considerably more room!

Well, this is what we have going on right now. With a little work and other activities tossed into the midst. School starts back in three weeks on August 13^th. The s are both very excited about going back, which is good. They have really been playing well together this summer and using their imaginations to come up with new games. I’m always happy to see that. There’s been plenty of fighting, too, but we’d be worried if there wasn’t. Greyson has grown up so much, it almost makes me sad. He’s definitely a little boy now. I keep asking him to stay my baby, but he says, “No, I can’t be a baby. I’m Greyson!”

Have a great weekend!!

The Never-Ending Moving Process

I have decided that moving is too much work.  There was a night last week when I actually did change my mind.  There’s still more stuff in the old house than in the new, so it would be easier to just go back, right?  But I don’t know why I entertain such thoughts since that’s not even a remote possibility.  Nor would I truly want that.  There’s so much more room in the new house that I know it will eventually be worth all this work.  But the moving process is dragging on and on and on and on …

The problem is that we spent most of Greg’s week off work and the time our company was here working on painting and things in the new house.  So now, we are having to actually move our stuff just whenever we can find time -- in the evenings for Greg and for me, in between running here and there during the afternoon.  And it’s not like we have every evening free either.  If only life would just pause so we could get this finished up, but I know we’ll eventually get it done.  I just hope it’s soon!

Right now we are working hard to clear everything out of the old house so that Tricia can start getting set up for her daycare to be up and running on August 1^st.  In case I haven’t mentioned it, our neighbor and good friend across the street is going to rent our house to expand her home daycare.  She is so excited about this that she has been packing up my house for me!  I daresay she has done more of the work than I have so far.  Or at least as much.  Plus, we’ve been using her husband’s truck regularly for our trips back and forth.  I don’t know how we’ll ever repay them.  They are good friends.

Losing our Four-Legged Babies

Well, yesterday was a sad day for our family, as we buried the third of the five pets we’ve had for the last 12 years. Our dog Shelby (the brown one) developed a devastating back injury over the weekend. We aren’t sure what happened, or if something did happen. Our vet suggested a stroke, possibly, but we’ve been noticing some behavior changes, so perhaps it’s been progressing towards this point for a while now. Dr. Shimanek didn’t really give us much hope after looking at her yesterday. He just said she’s in really bad shape and a lot of pain. I expected to hear that he could perform a $1,000 surgery to prolong the inevitable, in which case we’d at least have an option, but there was no alternative. So, as hard as it was (and still is), we had her put down shortly after 5:30 yesterday afternoon. This was made all the more difficult for us, especially Greg, because July 14^th is also the day his mother died in a car four years ago.

The other two pets we have lost this year were cats. We found Willow, our calico, under the kitchen table one morning back in February. That was a real shock because she was healthy so far as we knew, and our youngest pet at 10 years old. Then about a month ago, our part-Siamese cat Lexi, disappeared without a trace. The previous night when Greg was calling for the cats to come inside, he heard growling in the alley, like the start of a cat fight, but when he went to check it out, he didn’t find anything around. Neither of our cats came in at that time, though, so he left the door open during the night for Lexi and Britt to come in later. The next morning, Britt was there, but Lexi was not and we haven’t seen her since. We searched the neighborhood and the alley behind our house in depth but found nothing at all. Because of the noise Greg heard, we suspect that something attacked her. And in fact, we heard from a neighbor that one of the two pit bulls who live a street over was running loose around the same time. Part of me still wants to believe that someone just saw our pretty kitty and decided to take her home for their own. I noticed for a couple of weeks afterwards, however, that Britten would go outside but very hesitantly and he would also stay close to the house. My theory is that he witnessed whatever happened to Lexi, and it must have been bad to traumatize him so.

Our house is still far from empty, though. We still have our dog Shanna, our very first pet, and our orange tabby cat, Britten (pet number four), plus our new baby kitties, Cuddles and Patches. Oh, and let me not forget Comet the mouse and Cowboy the Beta fish.

Speaking of Cowboy … on Monday morning, Greyson came to get me, wanting to show me something in the s’ bedroom. I went with him and he pointed into the sink at something black-looking and slimy. Well, my first thought was that a kitten went potty in the sink. My next thought was that an eel of some sort had come up the drain. Finally, the truth dawned on me as I heard Greyson saying, “Fishy in sink!” It was only then that I noticed the lid was off of the fish tank. Apparently, my little boy climbed up on the sink counter, fished Cowboy out of his tank, and then dropped him in the sink. Fortunately, Greyson was so proud of this accomplishment that he came and got me right away to show off his handiwork, so it had not been too long and I was able to put Cowboy back in his water and he swam off very much alive, although probably a bit stressed. This little incident won Cowboy a new spot of honor on the mantle in the living room. I do not think that anyone (cat or boy) can get up there so he’s safe for the moment. At least until the next time Greyson comes across the step ladder …