Merry Christmas!

Christmas was a little bit different for us this year.  I had planned to do a more simplified celebration because we are busy getting packed, closing a loan, showing our current house to renters and organizing our move.  What I didn't know was that it was going to be even simpler then planned.  On Sunday afternoon I got sick and that evening Lilah got sick and by the morning Madeline wasn't feeling so well either.  Mike's cold from 3 weeks ago was getting worse.  On Monday Anna Elise got sick and everyone was getting worse, not better.  We all had some kind of stomach flu.  Mike made lots of trips to the store for medicine, gatoraide, crackers, and anything else that we needed.  By Tuesday Calvin was sick as well.  We were not able to go to the zoo for the Live Nativity, we skipped our 'baking day' and didn't make very many goodies or cookies, we didn't deliver goody plates to friends and neighbors, we had to postpone our Christmas Eve party, and we all just laid around the whole week!  We did watch Christmas movies and shows and whoever felt well enough, did some Christmas crafts.  On Christmas morning we felt pretty good.  We were able to open presents and we all felt like eating and had our traditional breakfast of Monkey Bread, scrambled eggs and sausage.  Unfortunately that afternoon Celeste finally succumbed and Mike was getting worse.  On Thursday Mike ended up at Patient First and came home with a diagnosis of severe bronchitis.  The Dr gave him a breathing treatment and 4 prescriptions.  I'm glad that the chest x-rays and blood work came back negative for pneumonia!  On Friday morning I woke up with a severe sinus infection that included the normal congestion and pressure but also had body aches.  It lasted several days.  Lilah was taken down with round 2 as well and eventually Anna Elise also got sick, again.  It was not a pleasant week as far as our health was concerned - however, we still managed to celebrate Christmas, have some fun, and spend lots of time together as a family.  Before we got sick we made a gingerbread train station, saw the downtown lights, went to the Nutcracker, and while sick we had our postponed Christmas Eve party, played with presents, Skyped with and talked on the phone to extended family, and got lots and lots of rest!  
For our Christmas dinner we switched up our normal dinner time family questions.  We asked everyone what their favorite present was and what they planned on giving  Jesus this year.  I'm so thankful that Calvin was the first one to go and that he took the questions seriously and gave the perfect answers.  He said he was going to give Jesus the gift of trying to break a bad habit that he has been working on.  The rest of the kids followed his example and all of them picked some personal habit or characteristic that they were working on changing.  It was a nice ending to a special day. 

 On our way to the Nutcracker

Our train and train station gingerbread kit!

 Mom did a lot of the building

 Celeste took good care of the candy =)

 Everyone had fun decorating

Almost done!

 Christmas morning!

 

Celeste eating breakfast in her new dress up and with her new dress up shoes - she carried them around with her all day!  (ignore the lovely picture of me)

Happy Birthday to Me!

As the oldest person in the house with my birthday on the shortest day of the year - sometimes I'd be ok just skipping it altogether - but I know I'd never get away with it.  I told Mike I didn't want anything for my birthday, just to go out and celebrate with him.   He took it one step further and made it a big celebration the whole day!  I got up early and got my birthday breakfast - donuts!  While I was gone the kids got out the birthday plates, napkins, party hat and card that Mike was hiding away.  I came home very surprised!  After lunch we continued the party with a piñata full of chocolate!  We didn't have time to eat my 'cake' but we finished big with a babysitter, dinner, a movie, and milkshakes.  We watched Saving Mr. Banks and I really enjoyed it.  It left me wanting to watch Mary Poppins again.  If you are going to watch it, watch Mary Poppins first!  I did feel a little bit of guilt because I know it was not Mike's first pick, but he was a good sport.  It was a sad movie, which was unexpected, but it was really good and I loved it.  If it's not an accurate portrayal of what really happened, don't tell me!
Anyway, the party continued on Sunday - we had cake after lunch!  The kids insisted on putting the right number of candles on the cake - they barely fit!  I really appreciated the effort that Mike put into making it a fun birthday.  I also had fun watching the kids have fun with the celebration!

 piñata fun

 Ready for my date!

Fun with birthday hats

 I blew out all the candles on my first try - unfortunately I also blew hot wax all over my table!

House!

After verbal and written offers we finally have a contract on a house!  It's a spec house and you can see the builders tour of our house here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB9JVYkK6mU  .
It's almost 2600 square feet with 4 real bedrooms.  It has two living spaces and it's two zone heat and A/C.  We are so excited.  It's in our same ward but a much better elementary school, an ok middle school and it will be in a  new high school once it's built.  It is on over an acre lot.  It's not perfect, the yard is all on the sides of the house and not in back, it's a crazy lot and the garage is actually too small for Mike's shop and it's a bit more of a subdivision then we wanted - but we can work with those things.  We will possibly be adding a third bay to the garage to make it bigger.  We love the neighborhood and we were so excited to find out that some friends from church live across the street and there are more friends from church close by (around here, that means a 5 minute drive).

Our closing date is set for January 15th.  We plan to move on January 18th and hopefully have renters in this house on February 1st.  I have already starting packing, organizing, and selling our stuff.  I'm feeling a bit nervous that I have to get a loan on a house, pack and move, do Christmas and a couple of birthdays not to mention end of year reports, taxes, and payroll taxes for our several businesses all in about 6 weeks.  We also need to move Mike's shop, find a renter for our current house, do some minor fixing and painting on our current house and purchase a few things for this new house.  I can do this!

New House!

 Most of the land in the picture (across the street) is our lot.

 

 

 Views off the back porch.  The black plastic fence is an erosion barrier for the construction.  Once the grass is established we can remove it.

Large, level, cleared side yard with enough trees to explore!

 Some of the boxes I've packed



Thanksgiving

I didn't take a single picture on Thanksgiving day.  Sorry.  We had a great Thanksgiving week.  On Wednesday I made rolls and layered jello.  We moved our afternoon movie to an evening movie since Mike worked all day.  We met him for dinner and then took the kids to Frozen.  Everyone loved it - it was such a cute movie.  Even Calvin enjoyed it despite the 'princesses'.  So fun.  On Thanksgiving we had some friends over.  Their dad had to work on Thanksgiving and like us they don't have any family around - so they came to hang out with us.  It was fun to have them and for the first time in several years I didn't haven to make the whole dinner (yeah).  On Friday we did some shopping (at a sane hour) and enjoyed our day off.  On Saturday we put up our tree and some Christmas decorations and started wrapping presents!  We also spent some time at a new house and made a decision to make an offer. 

We've been house hunting since early October.  We love our current house but we've known for years that we needed to move and we just haven't been able to make it work.  We want more space inside and out but we also need a different school for our kids, especially the middle school that Anna Elise will be attending soon.  The behavior issues that go on in the classroom are too distracting and teachers spend their time babysitting instead of teaching.  I realize that some of these problems are in all schools, but not to the extent that they have escalated to in our school.  Mike finally figured out that if we purchased a house with a large garage he could stop paying rent for a shop and he could run his business out of our house.  That rent money could be put towards our new house payment and make moving possible.  Our unique set of criteria made looking for a house a challenge.  We needed a large garage, 4 bedrooms and a good school district.  We also wanted atleast an acre, to stay in our current ward, and had a pretty tight budget for what we wanted.  After some frustrating and disappointing experiences with financing and house hunting we have finally found a house we want.   It isn't perfect, but we think we can make it work.  We just have to work out a few details with the builder (did I mention it's a new house?) 

On top of all this house hunting and celebrating Mike has been working crazy hours.  He is busier then he has ever been.  He finally hired another employee, but to get caught up he was working 12-14 hour days and 6 days a week - for probably a month a now.  He says that he should have more normal hours now that Thanksgiving is over, but I'll believe that when I see it! 

Now to find some pictures...

Anna Elise got her braces on!  Just the top and just the front few teeth.

 

 

 Crazy hair day at school - it's hard to see but they have green hair wax in their hair

 

 

 

 

Celeste has decided it's time to have hair - she uses her cloth as her 'hair'.  She wears it every day and asks to have it combed and fixed.

Visitors!

We had company!  I love visitors!  The end of October brought our friends the Cordons!  We were able to see them several times and had a good time.  We went and stayed with them at their timeshare in Williamsburg and were able to swim, mini golf, play, have lunch, and hang out!  We loved seeing you!

Somehow all of my pictures with the Cordons don't actually have the Cordons or their three adorable kids in them.  I'm not sure how that happened, I guess they'll have to come back and let me take some pictures =).


We then had Grammie and Pops come and stay for a week!  We had a blast!  We went to Carter's Mountain, to see Despicable Me II, to get ice cream shakes, and house hunting.  Unfortunately we also got sick (poor Pops got it the worst) and Mike nearly broke his foot and ended up in the ER.  It was still a fun visit and we are anxious to have them come again!

 We had quite the hike to get up to where we could pick some Fujis at Carter Mt.

 There's Lilah, Madeline and Calvin headed back down

 View of the barn and the tail end of the fall colors

 Grammie brought a bunch of new dress ups!  YEAH!

 

 

 Celeste showing Grammie how she can do the splits

 

 

 We went to the old Byrd Theater to see Despicable Me II.  The organ rises up from below the stage and we get a 10 minute concert before our discount movie. 

 The Byrd Theater is an old restored theater - the seats are uncomfortable, but it's worth it to see the amazing building!  Here is the old curtain.

Happy Halloween

We REALLY celebrated Halloween this year with 3 parties and trick or treating - we were tired of dressing up by the time we actually went trick or treating on Halloween.  Everyone had a great time, ate way too much candy, and partied hard.  Anna Elise was a vampiress, Calvin a pirate, Madeline a witch, Lilah a sock hopper, and Celeste was a princess. 

Scary!

Too cute to be scary!

Lilah lost her cute blue neck scarf at the first party!

Calvin's eye patch broke and he had to hold it up - but we fixed it =)

Ready to Trick or Treat

 

 

 

After Halloween I went to Michaels and all the Halloween stuff was 70% off!  We got some fun things, including a black wig.  Celeste is going to be Snow White next year so it was perfect.  We put it on her and she LOVED it.

 

 





Happy Birthday Lilah Bean!

Our Bean Bean turned 5 on the 14th!  She had toaster strudel for breakfast and homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner.  She wanted cinnamon rolls and I surprised her and glazed them with pink frosting!  So yummy!  The kids had the day off of school so we were able to open her presents in the morning and spend all day playing! What a fun birthday!

The kids also had their primary program recently.  They did so well!  I usually get frustrated when they practice their part and learn it so well and then get nervous and can't do it during the program, but they all did so well!  Their dad paid them to learn their part, do well during practice, sing and do well during the program.  They all earned their dollar!  The program was very well written, all the kids said their parts (Madeline's was a paragraph long), Anna Elise sang in the special descant group for I Am a Child of God and our family sang the first verse of Families Can Be Together Forever.  I was so nervous I nearly forgot the words - I only sing in the car!   It was a such a great program and we were so happy to have our friend Anne come and watch the kids.  We'll do anything to get her to come out and see us ;).

Singing to Lilah!  I know we took more pictures but I can't find them!

 

 

Watch a video of our Primary Program parts and one song here.

Happy Birthday Anna Elise!

Anna Elise turned 10 on 10/10.  Pretty cool!  I can't believe we have hit double digits at our house.  She had a fun day.  She was able to quickly open one present in the morning and she chose to have Pop Tarts for breakfast.  Her dad went and ate lunch with her at school and then she was able to open her presents after she got home from school.  She chose to have beef stroganoff for her birthday dinner and we finished off the celebration with a strawberry Barbie cake.

Celeste has been obsessed with birthdays for months.  Every day she tells me "I having my birthday coming up soon".  I have given up arguing with her and I just tell her yes.  "I going to turn 3 on my birthday."  Atleast she has that one right!  I was worried that she was going to be unhappy celebrating somebody else'a birthday when hers is 'coming up soon'.  We started prepping her for Anna Elise's birthday at the beginning of the week and she did great.  No tears or tantrums and was so happy to be celebrating a birthday.  I was relieved! 

Earlier in the month we found some soft curler and rolled Madeline's hair up to see if we could get some curl (unfortunately we tried the new kind of curling iron and although it's better, her hair still won't hold the curl for long).  Anyway, after hours of trying to sleep she gave up and decided that curls weren't worth the pain of sleeping in curlers and out they came.  She woke up with straight hair in the morning.  I hope she learns to like straight hair!

General Conference was a fun weekend. Mike went to the church building for the priesthood session even though he could've watched it at home.  He had to stop and get our traditional Krispy Kreme doughnuts on his way home.  Sunday morning is so exciting for the kids - they love waking up to Halloween doughnuts for breakfast (sure beats homemade granola or mush or oatmeal).  We tried to watch the 'morning' session on Sunday (it starts at noon here) but had technical difficulties so we watched the Saturday afternoon session instead.  Mike and I watched the second session on Sunday alone and in peace.  It was great.  I'm excited to go back and watch the talks that we missed.  I am so thankful for the prophet and our other leaders to give us direction - we live in such a loud and divisive time and it brings such comfort to hear our leaders telling us to stand strong, giving us direction and encouraging us to do better. 

Singing Happy Birthday to Anna Elise - the video camera shut down right before she blew out the candles...

 Opening presents

 

Anna Elise got a large stuffed lion, so the other girls went and got their stuffed animals out.  That's Celeste behind the pink bear.

 

 

Madeline with her curlers and a typical Madeline silly face!

A Comedy of Errors

Before I begin I want to announce that it's my 500th post!  Yeah!  Kind of crazy.... OK, the kids settled into school and I struggled to keep up.  I thought that when school started life would get a bit easier but with the orthodontist and dentist appointments, my work schedule getting busier and lots of
little things that needed doing and everything we neglected during the summer my life got very hectic!  Mike decided to go to the Virginia Dental Convention to advertise for our vending business and he convinced me to go with him as a sort of working vacation.  I was able to get our superstar babysitter Anne to come spend a couple of days with the kids and we were able to go.  Mike and I drove the 3 hours in our separate cars to this amazing hotel in the middle of nowhere, without incident but from there it just went down hill.  Nothing big, but lots of little things just made the whole trip a bit ridiculous.  We had trouble getting into and out of the loading bay to unload all of our stuff.  In fact at one point we were blocked in and totally stuck.  We finally got our both completely set up and both cars parked.  We decided to go for a hike since we had the whole afternoon and evening free.  We had a great hike and great conversation.  I realized while we were hiking that I had left a stack of our stuff on the loading dock - oops.  I hoped it would still be there.  I also wondered why we had to be all set up so early in the day if we weren't going to be displaying that evening.  We got back all sweaty and dirty and decided to cut through the ballroom and just check on everything.  We found that there was a reception that had started 15 minutes ago and people were in there!  Oops.  We ran out to the car - Mike changed his shoes and cleaned up while I took care of a few last minute details.  I looked awful so I hid in the car while Mike worked the crowd.  I tried desperately to get my phone charged and to find a signal.  My sister had her baby that day and I had been unable to get details or pictures and was so frustrated!  Mike finally showed back up and we drove 20 minutes down the road to the small town we were staying in.  My phone wasn't working and I couldn't remember where our reservation was.  After aimlessly driving around I made a lucky guess and we found our hotel!  Mike checked us in and we went straight to dinner.  It was awful.  Terrible food and totally overpriced.  I just wanted to sleep, I was exhausted.  We went back to the hotel only to find our room was a smoking room and really stank.  We complained, but they were full.  So they made us a reservation at their sister hotel.  We had to go to a third hotel to get our key and check in.  The hotel we were staying at had a 'virtual concierge' which meant that nobody actually sat at the desk.  You skyped another hotel to talk to the manager.  Weird.  We finally got checked in and into our hotel.  I went to bed only to be woken up several times by some random beeping noise in another room.  I couldn't even go complain to the front desk - because nobody was there! I still don't know what was beeping, but it was so annoying!  We made it back to our booth the next morning only to find that it was a super slow convention.  Mike spend a lot of time on his phone in the hallway working and I sat at the booth totally bored.  Not fun.  No internet so I couldn't play on my laptop and no cell coverage in the ballroom.  It was finally time for me to go home.  I picked up my purse and the strap broke.  My purse dropped.  It was only a couple months old- I was so irritated.  I started the long drive home.  I didn't have Mike to follow, he was staying for one more day and my phone didn't work to get directions.  I, of course, got lost.  Not fun.  I finally figured it out on my own and made it home - but not without a lot of frustration!  I finally got some cell coverage but for some reason when I called Mike I couldn't hear him talking to me.  I would call him and talk and then hang up and then he would text me his answers.  Ridiculous!  When I got home I got the kids to bed very late and was so glad to sleep at home.  Mike called me in the morning to tell me he had locked his keys in the car.  He wanted me to research what was cheaper, a locksmith on a Saturday or a new window for his car.  The nearest locksmith was over an hour away - so not an option.  Luckily we found out that in remote counties like that the sheriff will get you into your car, so we didn't have to pay for either!  Mike made it home early.  I was glad to see the weekend end!  We aren't going back to that convention next year!

 Mike at our Treasure Tower booth

 

 

A deer we walked by on our hike

Back to School

On Tuesday the kids went back to school.  It was tough getting up early and having to hurry and get ready, but they all made it on the bus.  They all love their teachers, had a great first day and are doing well.  There were some disappointments as far as everyone having all their friends in their class, but that's the way it goes! Going back to school can be a hard adjustment for everyone.  We had some tough mornings, grouchy kids, tears, temper tantrums over homework, etc, but it will get easier each week as we adjust.  We had a very busy week and finished it up with a bang.

In other news, I went to Time Out For Women here in Richmond.  I went on Friday evening.  Mike came home as I walked out the door.  After he feed the kids he decided to take them to the NASCAR race.  It was race weekend here in Richmond.  (For those of you who haven't lived in the south - Nascar is a BIG deal.  Everyone has their favorite driver's number on their vehicle, they camp here during race weekend and the traffic is horrendous!  In the 12 years we have lived here, we've never been to a Nascar race.)  The 'big' race is on Saturday - on Friday it was the junior league races, so children 12 and under are free, the parking is free, and there is very little traffic.  So Mike loaded up the kids, stopped by to get a 6 pack of ear plugs and took them to the race track.  They were there for the pre-race festivities and for the 'Gentleman, start your engines!' and for a good part of the race. The kids had a fabulous time!  They said it was very loud.  They left before it was over and on their way out had to walk right by the track.  It was so loud and scary that Celeste wet her pants - did I mention that Mike was carrying her? =).   On Saturday I got up early and went back to Time Out For Women for most of  the day.  I had such a good time.  The speakers are all uplifting and funny and inspiring.  Having access to Deseret Book is always a good (but dangerous) thing, I had fun with the women I went with, and it was a great break!  I came home to a clean house and happy kids.

First Day of School

somebody always gets bunny ears

Anna Elise was not happy and Calvin definitely got the reaction he was after

So excited at the track

watching the race with earplugs

the race cars