Sunday, July 26, 2015

We move next week!

Looking around, it's hard to tell, but we're moving in five days!  Crazy!  We now have a place in Emporia and have already paid and got our keys!  I brought some stuff to my classroom too.  Our kids are pretty excited about the new house!  I'm super excited to be back in Emporia.  I love Leavenworth, but we all loved Emporia and have great memories there!
We've been packing, but mainly decluttering.  It's always fun to get rid of all the extras, so we're not moving too much stuff.  Especially stuff we're not using!  With seven kids it's easy to get a lot of stuff.
We've had some sickness going around, so we haven't done a lot.  I've been snuggling my little guys a lot.  We haven't been sleeping well at night.  I think our kids have noticed all the boxes, and since we move every year, they know how it works.  I can't wait until we are able to stay someplace longer than two years!  I know my kids are ready to settle down and stay somewhere!
We'll see if I can post next week.  I don't know how the internet situation is going to go!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Still no place yet

I've been taking the kids out (for the most part, one at a time) this week.  Kira and I hung out on Monday.  We went to the bank and to my parent's house.  I got to hang out with my dad while my mom did errands.  My Mamaw and Aunt and cousin came from Louisiana for a few days, so we spent a little time with them before we headed to The Cokeville Miracle.  It was great!  We got popcorn and a banana Icee (YUM)!


I saw a lot of people I know, since this is the only showing of this movie in this area.
Tuesday was Leah's day and we tried to get our car taken care of.  We went to try and get it inspected here, and no dice-we need the original paper (that they didn't give to us).  Then we had to drive all the way there for the paper and it wasn't ready, so they had us go get lunch.  We had lunch and it still wasn't ready.  We finally got the paper and went to get it inspected close to there.  I was pretty much done for the day with all of the nastiness, so I introduced Leah to retail therapy and we wandered Ikea and finally found what we were looking for,  I think Leah has a whole Christmas list from there now. We went home and she was super disappointed that we didn't go by my parents' house.
Wednesday was swimming at my sister's house and hanging out with my family!
Thursday was a day with Josh and Cecilia.  We headed south.  I was able to check out my new classroom, get my keys and my work computer!  My kiddos loved the bathroom around the corner!
Then we went to look at houses.  The first one was tiny, so that one's a no go.  The second one we all loved and are super hoping to get!  They're having a hard time getting information from our old landlord.  Stink.  The other house that we liked last week went to someone else.  If we don't get this one, we're stuck with whatever we can get.  Totally not my favorite.  Either it would be expensive with not enough room, or tiny with not enough room.  We got ice cream and headed back.  I was excited for the Do-it-herself workshop at Home Depot!  It's every third Thursday from 6:30-8pm.  This time was a storage ottoman and I was the only one there, so I did most of the building and then I got to keep it, for free!  My kids love it so much that they've already broke off the hinges on the lid.  No surprise there,  I still want to make four more!  I don't think I want them all to be wheeled though.
Friday was Girls' Night Out with one of my best friends and two of my sisters.  We ate at KC Joe's (another Z-man, yum) and then headed to the movie.  I was super excited, because I used dealflicks.com for the first time!  I got $60 in vouchers for $36!  That got us four movie tickets, a large popcorn, two icees and a bottled water!  With $1.38 to spare.  New favorite website before going to a movie (which really doesn't happen very often)!  Then my sisters headed out and my friend and I wandered Target until after ten.  It was fantastic!  We hardly ever get to hang out together!
Saturday was another day at my parents' house.  Scott worked for his mom for a little while and I got to help take care of my dad!  I was able to feed him a few times and helped him get upstairs (my mom does all of the heavy lifting), and help a little with the bedtime stuff (I get to pulverize his pills before going into the feeding tube).  I'm learning.

 Leah rocking her new toy from Sonic
 I love to see the Temple!  This was Tuesday night!
 The baby doll bed I built from IKEA!
 My kiddos at the pool, Scott and Samuel were elsewhere, so I kept only counting to six, and it drove me a little crazy!
 Mandy taking Josh to "The Deepness," you know 5 feet deep.
 Josh loves trains and I love sunsets.  
 My classroom
 Brand new Smart board!
 My students' desks, I'm getting a few more!


 The storage ottoman "I" made.
 Here's the inside!
 I know, we're a beautiful crew!
Cousins sneaking the last of the cake!

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Happy Birthday to Josh!

It's been a fun week!  I went down to Emporia on Tuesday and looked at some options for us to rent and turned in paperwork for my new job.  I took the older van and it sounded horrible, so I didn't do much either than that!  I really like one of them, so we turned in our application for that one!  We're still waiting to hear back!  I was able to go have dinner with some awesome friends!  It's been a long time!
Wednesday I got to go to McLouth and get my last paychecks!  I loved it there, but I'm excited about my new school "home!"
Thursday Scott was down south for a lot of the day, so he got to hang out with my family and visit his garden at my parents' house.
Friday we went and had a "playdate" with one of my friends and her kids.  It's always fun to see friends!  My kids have been asking when they could hang out, so it was great to be able to tell them!
Afterwards we were able to spend time with my family!  Always my favorite times!  We even ate Chinese-yum!
Saturday we spent time with another friend and her kids until we had to leave, so I could go to my baby sister's church baby shower.  My mom, sisters, and I went over for that.  They came back with us and I was able to take some family pictures where we did their maternity pictures real fast and then went back to prep for Josh's birthday "party."
I frosted the cake, and it really wasn't awesome, but he was happy!  We ate tacos and then had cake and ice cream.  Josh loved his birthday presents! The play dough came to church with us and they're playing with it right now!  He got a bath car track and a lot of the kids were willing to take baths to play with it!  Josh and Samuel played with it last night and then today Leah, Cecilia, and Josh played with it!  Perfect!
Today is actually Josh's 3rd birthday, so he got yummy pancakes for breakfast!  He ate an apple right before church.  Then he had string cheeses while waiting for dinner.  He's a happy camper!  I'm happy, because he's been wearing underwear all day!  He made it through church and then had an accident at home, but it's awesome!


She fell asleep!

 So sweet!

 Even Scott helped with the ramp!

 He blew out the candles before the song was over!

My little man is 3!

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Home again!

Monday we went to Yellowstone and saw Painting Pots and Old Faithful and other geysers and some waterfalls.  We saw almost no wildlife (2 chipmunks and a bird).  Our kiddos didn't even mind the sulphur smell-it made them want eggs!  I can safely say that I never want to do that again.  We paid $30 for the privilege of driving around forever to find parking spots and the traffic coming out, ridiculous!  It took us maybe an hour to see all we could see and three hours of driving to see it.  I loved the views and getting to share that with my kids.  It was pouring rain on the way to Old Faithful and it stopped right before we got out of the car!  We only had to wait 20 minutes for it to blow.  Some of my kiddos had to go potty, so Scott took them, and they missed the first part, but got to see at least half!  They spent most of the two hours after Old Faithful telling us they were ready to go back to Uncle Chris' house.  So, we started our way out just driving through parking lots (super slow, this was not a fast process) and taking pictures from the parking lot.  We should have given ourselves more time, but really didn't want it when it came down to it.  Our kids are still little.  Maybe when they're older and can all walk without complaining, we'll camp and spend more time.
After Yellowstone we went to Rexburg and saw where Scott, and my sisters went to college.  It's changed a lot since Scott was there!  He didn't recognize most of it!  It was pouring rain there, so we weren't there long either.







Tuesday we spent as much time as we could with Chris, he was actually off!  He showed us his fire station (where he's a volunteer firefighter), it was pretty awesome!  Our kids loved it!  Then we played at a park and got ice cream at Reed's Dairy.  Our kids loved seeing the animals afterwards!  We got a huge box of Idaho potatoes (50 pounds) for $10!  They're super yummy!  We headed out soon after and drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming where we stayed the night.













Wednesday we drove from Cheyenne home.  The original plan was to go to Winter Quarters (where we were married) and do family pictures.  Instead we raced home waiting for news on my dad.  He started bleeding a ton from around his feeding tube hole (that he got last week) and they couldn't get it to stop.  We hightailed it and made it home about nine thirty.  Soon after he was able to leave and go home.  Phew!
Thursday we went to see my family and my two aunts that had come into town to see my Dad.  I haven't seen them in a long time, so that was super cool!  They got to meet our awesome kids!

 My Dad loves them so much, he cried!





Friday was a pajama day.  We needed a break, so we just stayed home and got a little cleaning done. Our boys all got buzzed!
His first haircut 


Saturday we celebrated Independence Day by cleaning the church at 7:30 in the morning and then dropping Scott off to go to Home Depot and make Minion scooters.  After that hour of helping six kids almost every step of the way, we were finished and found free hamburgers and hot dogs outside!  Awesome!  We headed to my parents' house and it wasn't too much later that they all came back from their breakfast.  We got to spend the day with my family.  I was able to give my dad water a couple of times and help him get adjusted in his chair.  Poor dad.  This is rough on him (and everyone else involved).  My sister brought Kira back and cooked the meat.  I got to meet my new niece!  Hurray!  We went home after eating and walked down to watch the fireworks.  A great view from just down our street!  We also saw a dog go out in front of a car and get hit, but was able to run away.  Phew!  We have no idea who's dog it was, so crazy!  I'm just glad it was okay, because my kids were right where they could see it!
 Meeting my niece!






So that was this past week.  I'm exhausted, but now we need to find a place to move to, sign paperwork for my new job, and get packed.  Great times ahead!