Thankfulness

Today I have been stuck by the realization that I have had some wonderful people in my life. And knowing that brings great comfort knowing that they are not moved from my life just because I have changed location.

Dear friends that have changed us, made me a better person, put up with me during my annoying times, and those I can count as dearly missed when we are apart and can catch up with as easily as slipping on a comfy familiar pair of slippers.

Today we were blessed by a visit from one of those friends.
If you can believe, we first met when I was a shy awkward 9 year old in her 4th grade class. The lasting effect she has had on my life extends far beyond the classroom through now. My kids are blessed by her grandmotherly ways with them and I am blessed my our continued relationship.

So, Ms Cate.. Thank you for everything. Words do not express my gratitude :-)

The hamster wheel for Children

I know you want one.

Something that keeps the kids running indoors in one place and gets all their energy out.

I have discovered it. (ok, my kids discovered it) and it is...........

A kitchen island!

Seriously- 2 of the litter chased each other around my mother's kitchen island for over an hour today.

Them in action:

What Sonia was doing during the excitement:

And the new additions to our stuffed animal collection:

And pictures from this weekend:

The water sprinkler rocket was a hit. We FINALLY had weather hot enough to let the kids use it. The hot weather lasted one (yes one) day.

The front porch mafia: And the kids and their uncle :-)

Shopping

I don't know why it is..

But my kids always act better when my mother isn't around. ESPECIALLY when in public or shopping.

Now.. my mother likes shopping and she really likes shopping for them.

And they know it, so it's the excitement of Christmas morning when she darkens the doors of a retail establishment with them. "Grandma, can I have this??"

Just in the past week they have gotten her to buy (willingly) Frosted Flaked, Coco Pebbles, Honey Smacks, Pops, Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks. And that was just in the cereal isle.

And the 3 cartons of ice cream and the fruit snacks and chips and juice boxes..

And 2 lbs of oreos.

Seriously, I think they need a chaperone to go the the grocery store.

But TODAY we went to a retail store. a Clothing store.

I have given my mom the "if it doesn't fit in their suitcases, we can't take it" lecture to prevent the new-outfit-every-week-from-walmart phenomenon that seems to happen when we visit. But since that discussion.... several of their outfits- particularly their Pajamas(!!!) have seemed to disappear... (I smell conspiracy)..

But it was a clothing store and the intent was to buy 2 pairs of shoes- 1 to replace my daily pair of shoes and one for the baby since his feet seem to have grown 2 sizes in 2 months. (not an exaggeration)

SOMEHOW in this clothing store my mother found the only toys in it. and we are now the proud owners of not 1, not 2 but 3!! stuffed dogs and another flashlight to add to Joey's 15 other flashlight collections.

*sigh* Even when they are chaperoned, we come home with "extra" stuff.

And the place was a mad house. Even before our 4- ring-and-grandmother circus arrived. It was Memorial Day Sale Day. Unfortunately, it was also the last day to use our gift certificates before they expired.

For Andrew...Larry's new car---

Because I really have nothing else to write or post.........

Larry's new car.

It goes a trillions miles an hour and costs about that much, too.

I know nothing about cars, but I was told that that thing that looks like glass IS glass and the fluid in there was specially put in there to match the paint of the car. I think it's antifreeze, but I could be wrong.

Oh, it's also a mustang.

This is the one he actually went for a ride in. I guess you can go 0-100 in something like 3 seconds.

And.. the dose of reality..

THIS is what the mirror looked like when we arrived in CA.

At least they weren't love bugs.

The rest of reality-

No, we didn't buy that car.

Well I'd say TGIF..

Except when you are a SAHM and your husband isn't around..all the days are the same.



But from yesterday (or was it the day before?)
The kids got to visit our family friends' farm to see the cows.



This cow is a week old

This one is a day old



















So my suburban kids got to see what country life was like.

Including my daughter's decision that "cows smell bad" and my son's amusement that they pee and poop all over the place.

"look mom, that one's pooping!" "eww, that one pooped on that one" "heee heee look at that one peeing!" and "mom!! Kayla stepped in poop!!!"

And they were pretty terrified of them. Especially the full grown ones. I guess if I was 3 feet tall something 500(???) lbs and over 5 feet tall would be pretty scary, too.
Except Kayla who isn't afraid of anything. She ran right up to them and scared them- the started backing away from her. Guess a cow has more sense than my 3 year old.

My poor son

His mother decided it was time to learn how to cut his hair and bought a pair of hair clippers yesterday.


He is SOO good when I take him to get his hair cut- still as a statue- he really doesn't even blink, I think. I suspected it was out of terror, but thanked my lucky stars he was good every time.


And I was right. In my mom's kitchen, there wasn't the slightest bit of terror and it was akin to sheering an unrestrained sheep.


So.. here it is, his first of many lopsided haircuts:

Nostalgia

I think I have a terminal case of it. Visiting my hometown realizing my kids will never see it as "home" makes me wistful. Pathetic, I know. There is just something comforting about the smells and sights of familiar things when you come home.

I'm sad that they'll never know the smell of autumn leaves or their brilliance. That they won't have the familiarity of being able to drive to any of the 6 New England states in an hour or 2 at the most. They'll miss having history steeped into everything around them. And trees with real leaves on them. (and I'm not talking palm leaves).

But again, they'll never know a winter that lasts FOREVER or a sun setting at 4pm in December. And family dysfunction will be a distant shadow on their radar.

But.. on another topic..

Our house- (again, the nostalgia, so I guess it really is the same topic, lol) the one we bought first married, poured our sweat and tears into, deepened and stressed our relationship to unbelievable depths, which welcomed the twins into the earth.. THAT house... Is for sale. again. I drove past it to make sure it's new owners were taking care of it and almost fainted when I saw the for sale sign in the yard.

BUT.. I was DYING to see the inside of it to see if they've taken care of it, if they painted over my faux finishes, if they were taking care of our 'first baby' so.. I was debating calling the real estate agent and asking to see it. I know our nosy-ex-neighbor nextdoor would have called the cops in 2 milli-seconds if she saw me snooping in the windows or, uh, using the key I found that I think goes to their front door...

BUT having just been through the trama of trying to find a house has stopped me in my tracks on pretending to be a interested buyer..

SO..I'm going with the next best thing- internet snooping and this is what I've found (the virtual tour gives you a better look)

http://www.era.com/listing/2457822/142352.html

So.. no, they haven't changed much at all. Only the kid's bedroom has been painted- it was pale yellow, now it's a burgundy.

The housekeeper

Yes, she is real.

But we can't afford the house much less the electricity/water/internet, so how we can also afford her is going to be a stretch. (but I'm willing to try to stretch on this one) lol

And I meant live like the DR's on TV. Daytime TV, probably- the ones that have gardeners, houskeepers, never a hair out of place, it's 100-degress-and-they-don't-break-a-sweat, and have perfect kids-who-are-always-clean-and-listen-well kind of dr's. And they have nanny's, too, don't they?

Please don't wake my up from this dream.
at least not until tomorrow.

False alarm

we don't have that house. The owner is (*STILL*) thinking about accepting us.

SO...

I don't have pictures of the house we have FINALLY been accepted with. It looks alot like the one I posted. A different color, but really close. Still HUGE still 4 br with a loft, 2 car garage..

It is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L and $$$$$ but... dang it, he's going to be a dr, we can try to live like one, right? I'm looking for online classes on how to live like the upperclass- the she-she-foo-foo kind, I think. Not really sure, but the neighborhood is one of those nice ones, although it isn't a gated community and not all the cars are Lexus/BMW/Porche/etc. I'm sure the trailer is not going to visit our house. Not real sure about the rest. I'm thinking us red-neck types would be screened out if they could. But we can pull off "normal" when we have to.

And on the bright side- it has mature fruit trees galore, berry trees, an avacado tree, a date tree.. nice yard, beautiful views - it backs up against a nature preserve and against that is Pendleton.

Oh, and the best part- the housekeeper. yes, you read that right. She cleans, does dishes and will cook you dinner. Oh, and does your laundry and will change your sheets.

Have I mentioned answered prayers, yet?

We ALMOST have housing!

Let me tell you- it is easier to tame 4 kids than find a rental house in the Pendleton area!!

This is how it works:

There is no central listing place for rentals- you find a neighborhood you want to live in and drive around looking for a 'for rent' sign

Call the number and they may or not call you back that week

OR it was just rented

IF you can see it, there may already have been 'applications' on it, meaning 4 or more other people have paid their fee to apply to rent it and they'll get back to you in a few days or week to let you know if you are worthy of renting it compared to the others.

Oh- and kids- they count against you.

and pets- forget about it.

BUT that said- after 3 days of 10 am to 10 pm of banging our heads on closed brick(stucco) doors.. we have put in an appication on a property that was on the market 5 minutes. so far we are the first application on it. We are hoping that we'll be 'accepted' although I worry that as soon as they hear about our kids, they'll freak out. There was only room on the application for 2 kids. We had write their names in in tiny print below the place for kids.

AND we were accepted on a much smaller house, so, if that fails, we'll have someplace to live. We'll just have to refrain from having more kids. The bonus there is it's a nice neighborhood, probably less pretentious, but.. even the nice guy there wants to increase the security deposit because we have kids.

SO.. picture of the house we hope for- (and yes, we're spending WAAYYY too much on rent for it, but right now we'd trade our 4th born to stop playing this insane housing rental game)

Can you guess where we are?

Please pass the valium

The packers have left. It was estimated to take them 1 day to pack. It took 2 full days. They ran out of boxes and had to return with more the second day. And THIS is what the house looks like now.
And we're worried that we are over the estimate which was frighteningly close to our 'allowed' weight. It took them 1 day longer to pack, 2x as many boxes----- no, it doesn't look good. We have alot of heavy stuff, especially tools, books and apparently lots of other heavy things. SO... in the spirit of getting under weight we have offloaded lots of stuff.. our couch and love seat, our deformed grill that was melted/reshaped after it was caught on fire not once but twice.., Larry's chop saw, table saw, a TV, and all sorts of other stuff that doesn't look so move-worthy when you realize it's going to cost you $.50/lb if you're over the allowed weight (no, not REAL sure about the exact amout, but that's a fairly educated guess)

SO- that ratty T-shirt- no, not worth $1. That broken Larry-will-fix-it-someday CD player- not worth the $3 to move, etc. Unfortunately, we figured this out about 1/2 way through them packing/sealing boxes, and it was midnight as we were doing this with the other 1/2 of our belongings..

And not only that, they packed stuff they shouldn't have but we didn't catch it until now.. and it's too late- like the silverware basket for the dishwasher. It's packed. It's not in the dishwasher, and we have NO idea which of the 500 boxes it's in. We'll be mailing it back to the house, I guess.. oh, and they do this special seal-the-box-with-2-yards-of-tape thing, so we really can't go re-opeinging the boxes..

So..in the spirit of adventure, I took a picuture of what I will be living out of for the next 6-8+ weeks:

There are not enough hours in a day

And only 2 days before movers get here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HELP!!!

Oh fairy Godmother---- where are you?? I could really really use some help here.

Anyway.. here is the house- shutters back up

Rednecks through the south would be proud

While my neighbors cringe:

Remodeling the inside of the ugly trailer with a chainsaw:

And the video: (click on the link)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v203/gcowles/?action=view&current=S6003078.flv

And that's a blow torch.
Doesn't every one have one and use it to try to get rusted bolts off the trailer??

Loading a trailer into a trailer.
You never can have too many trailers, right

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v203/gcowles/?action=view&current=S6003104.flv

(click on it, I can't figure out how to get video embedded yet)

And We're making our close friends rednecks:

(sorry it's blurry, Jessi! you were moving too fast ;-)















New Roof, New gutters
Shutters still need one more coat of paint. Looks *slightly* less like a double wide trailer? no?
Aren't they just too cute?