September 30, 2009

We have our first 4 year old! For approximately six weeks or so, we will have one four year old and one three year old, much to Nick's dismay. He was very sad this morning that he could not be four too today however birthday-boy-Ben was very gracious and allowed Nick to help blow out candles and open gifts.

Ben woke up very happy to be four. He told my sister that when he went to bed last night he was three and when he woke up this morning he was four. It was so cute.

My mom and sister came today and brought a small cake and gifts. We had a beautiful fall day here today. Very sunny and cool. So the boys were able to play outside for a while, which they love to do with my sister. She is so much fun and plays hide and seek with them, pushes them on the swings, plays in the sand box and tirelessly pitches to them and chases balls while they hit the ball over and over and over. They love playing baseball and I think, Nick especially, would bat all day long if someone would keep pitching to him.

Ben also received three phone calls, wishing him a happy birthday. Aunt D called from Arizona and two of his cousins called him from college. Every time I answered the phone and then said "Ben, it's for you", he would get the biggest smile on his face. He was very happy and excited to be receiving phone calls just for him and Nick was happy to get to talk too, although he had a hard time with going second so much. It made me see just how often he tends to push his way to be first, ahead of Ben, and he tends to get away with it often because Ben does not seem to mind most of the time. I need to start watching for that more.

So Ben had two small family parties, one with my mom and sister earlier in the day and then the other one with our immediate family this evening after dinner.

I made a cake today and put the icing on it and then the dad wrote Happy Birthday Ben on it, after which Ben and Nick put sprinkle things all over it. So it was a joint effort and the boys were happy to get to help decorate Ben's cake.

Following are a few birthday pics. I still plan to post more pics and news about the boys soon but wanted to go ahead and do the happy birthday post first.

Here is the birthday boy, playing with a birthday toy.
Brother Nick is pretty happy about having new toys to play with and he is looking forward to his birthday coming up soon.

This is the coolest toy! It snaps together pretty easily, although it will likely be a few days or so before they can do it without help. The track is very flexible so you can simply give it a little push and create a new curve just like that and there is 15 feet of track. It was very quick and easy to put together and can be reconfigured easily to make a new track design. It comes with two little cars that run by battery and they are really spunky. I can definitely see why this toy was an award winning toy. I highly recommend it, if you are looking for something to put on the Christmas list and it was only $30, which I thought was great for what you get. It is called Build-A-Road by iPlay and it got great reviews. Ben got this gift from mommy and daddy.

I missed getting a picture of the boys playing with this (below) today but they played with it for hours. I don't know what it is officially called but I call it a marble run. This is also a big winner on the cool toys front and it also got very good reviews. Ben absolutely loved this toy that my sister and her family got for him and Nick enjoyed it also. It can also be changed around to your heart's content, although they are not quite able to do it on their own yet. It is very easy to change around though so I don't mind helping out. I enjoyed playing with this today too;). I like that both of these toys are open ended and allow for a lot of creativity. I know the boys will have lots of hours of fun playing with them.Although I didn't get pics of them, my sister also got the boys some K'NEX toys for 3+ year olds and they are also wonderful for open-ended creative play.

My mom got the Cat in the Hat I Can Do That game and it is so fun and cute. I'm sure we will be playing it again tomorrow. Definitely a great game for kids and I think it won three awards, or something like that. I can see why. It was fun and easy for the boys to play and we all laughed a lot while they were playing it. Lots of good laughs with this game.

I think we had a successful 4-year-old birthday today and we have two very tired little boys. Now I have to start trying to find good, interesting gifts for the second 4 year old...and right after that is Christmas. This is going to be a challenge. If you know of any great toys that your kids have really liked when they were four, let me know!

September 28, 2009

I have been so busy lately that I have not had much time to post. Our friends from KC came for a visit over the weekend and we had such a fun time together. They arrived on Thursday, we went to OKC on Friday for the Thomas the Train event, went to the aquarium and out to eat along the river on Saturday afternoon, and then they headed home. In between those events, we had a fun time just hanging out and eating lots of yummy bagels that they brought to us from KC (I miss my bagel store so much!). The kids really enjoyed playing together and had so much fun. They always get along so well. It is fun to watch. We were sad to see them leave and will definitely be looking forward to our next get together.

In other news, we are still working on selling our current house and finalizing the plans for our new house. After noticing that we always seem to have more people come through for our open house on Sundays than on Saturdays, we have decided to only have them on Sunday afternoons going forward. That is a relief because it gives us back our Saturdays to get things done

We had an appraisal of the house today, since there has been some confusion on the exact square footage of this house. When we bought the house, we were told it was just under 3800 square feet. When we listed the house on the MLS website, the agent got the square footage from the county records and it was listed at just under 3500, much to our surprise and dismay, since that raised our price per square foot for the amount at which we had the house listed. The results of the appraisal today? 3972 square feet! I was a bit surprised, since I thought it would come in closer to the 3800 square foot amount but, at the same time, this is a big house so I'm not too surprised.

Our architects told us that the square footage number they give us on our new house plans will be less than the number an appraiser will come up with because they calculate it differently. That is why we decided we should go ahead and pay to have our current house appraised, because we were thinking the smaller number in the county records was probably from the initial house plans and the 3800 sq ft number was probably from an appraisal. Lo and Behold, we ended up at 3972 sq ft so, who knows, but we are happy with this new number. It will really make our price per square foot so much more attractive and means that our price on the house is really a pretty good deal. So that was good news today.

As for our house plans, we got the second iteration back on Tuesday and they look great. We are really happy with them and have only found a couple of small tweaks that need to be made.....and then, this evening, the husband suggested we might want to consider moving the boys bedrooms upstairs, which is a pretty big change I think. I do agree with the husband though that, in the long run, it will be cheaper because it is much cheaper to build up than it is to build out on one level. So now we are thinking we will move the two bedrooms and their bathroom upstairs and we will also have another smallish room finished upstairs that will hold our workout equipment. That makes me happy because I really did not want that equipment downstairs, as there was not really a good place for it.

Hopefully this will not be too big of a change. We had already added a staircase to the upstairs in anticipation of future owners who might want to finish out the space upstairs. We have always been a bit unhappy with the way the three car garage was going to stick out at the front of the house and in the last iteration the architects had rotated the garage a bit so that it was at an angle and did not stick out quite so much. So now the garage can move back into the area where the two boys bedrooms are currently and we will have to rearrange some other things, like the laundry room, powder room and some closets. In the end, I think we will have more of what we want for less money, which is great.

The other news is that we will be celebrating Ben's 4th birthday this week. I sat on the couch this evening with the boys and we looked at pics from their 2nd and 3rd birthdays and it was fun to see how they have changed so much. They are such big boys now.

I have had a hard time finding gifts for Ben this year. It seems that we are at an age where so many of the toys and games are based on movie or TV characters and our boys really don't know most of them. They know a few, such as Winnie the Pooh, Thomas the Train, Barney and Curious George but not much else. I really like to pick toys that are fun and educational, along with some cars and/or trucks, since they both love to play with those. I searched long and wide on the internet for award winning educational toys and I did find a couple of goods ones but I think it is going to be a challenge to find good ones for Nick's birthday and Christmas.

The boys are both doing great but this post is long enough already. I will post some pics and a boys update next and will try not to wait so long between posts next time. Tomorrow the boys have been invited for a play date and they are going to be treated to play time at one of the fun bouncing places as a birthday gift. They have not played with these friends for a while so they are really going to have a blast.

My mom and sister are coming for a visit on Wednesday and we will be celebrating Ben's birthday, so that will be a fun day to.

In early October, the state fair and rodeo is coming to town and this will be the first year that we are taking the boys. I know they are going to enjoy it a lot. Then we will celebrate the dad's birthday and then we will celebrate Nick's birthday and then it will be Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Wow! This year is going by so fast!

We are having beautiful fall weather and are trying to spend as much time outside enjoying it as possible. We played outside in the yard a lot today and I so enjoyed watching the boys play and playing with them. It was a nice, cool but very sunny day. Absolutely perfect. Tonight it is suppose to get into the 40's, which is a first for us this year. Fall is truly upon us and I am loving it.

Next post will be a picture post with a boys update, I promise. Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the fall weather (for those of you with seasons:).

September 22, 2009

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. We have had a busy week. We received the first draft of the house plans so the majority of my spare time has been spent going over it with a fine tooth comb and making lots of changes. We met with the architects today to go over them and they had more suggestions also. The husband and I both felt it was a great meeting and we are really liking where the plans are headed. I am anxious to see the next iteration, which should be ready sometime next week.

We had another weekend of open houses. On Saturday, the husband managed the open house while the boys and I drove up to my sister's house for a visit. My niece was in from college so we got to see her, along with my nephew, brother-in-law and my mom. The boys really enjoyed it and it was nice to get away from the open house. Turns out we didn't miss much. There had only been one couple come through. When we got home, we all went out for dinner and then it was time for hair cuts and baths. The boys really needed hair cuts badly. Their hair was longer than it had ever been.

This coming weekend we have company coming in from K.C. We are very excited and looking forward to their visit. It will also be nice to have a weekend off from open houses

I have been staying up to late lately, going over house plan stuff and searching the internet for tips and info about designing a house. I am falling asleep now and it is before 9:00pm. I am heading to bed early tonight.

Good night.

September 14, 2009

We had a fun and relaxing vacation week last week here at home. We went to the zoo and we went to see Papa and Mimi, where the boys got to ride Uncle Kelly's tractor and Papa's four wheeler. They always enjoy that and we had not been there for quite a while so they had a fun time.

On Friday we had a sitter for the boys while the husband and I went to the local Home Show. The boys were very happy about this because they had been asking for Katy to come over to play with them for quite some time and they had a fun time with her.

As for the husband and I, we thought we would spend about three hours at the home show and then go to dinner or a movie or something. We ended up spending the entire time at the home show and we were not quite finished when we had to leave to head home. We went home and got the boys and took them back with us so we could finish up. As it turned out, we had basically already seen everything that we needed to see so we were not there very long with the boys.

We talked to a lot of people at the home show and received a lot of good information about building an energy efficient home. Our next meeting with the architect is Wednesday and I am excited to see what he has come up with as his initial draft.

We are getting back into our routine. We had another open house Saturday and Sunday. We did Sat and Sun from 1:00 to 5:00. We had fewer people come by than we expected on Saturday and more than expected on Sunday, as the weather was very cloudy and periodically rainy.

In other news, Nick has been sick. He has had a high fever, although it seems to have broken now so I am hopeful that it was only of the 24 hour variety. On our way to church, the dad said Nick had only eaten two bites of oatmeal for breakfast, which is not like him. I thought he would really be hungry by lunch time. We got out of church at noon and our open house starts at 1:00pm so that does not leave much time to get everything ready.

While we are in open house mode, we don't go out to eat after church on Sundays. Instead, we go after the open house on Saturday evening. When we come in from church on Sundays, I quickly change clothes and then start getting the house ready for the open house, while the dad fixes a sandwich for the boys. Yesterday Nick said he wanted a sandwich and then decided he was not hungry.  It was not long after that his fever was up up up and he just wanted to be held by mommy. We ended up giving him Ibuprofen, which brought the fever down but we think it was around this time that his eye lids started swelling pretty badly. I was beginning to think his eyes were going to swell shut but they didn't and it didn't seem to bother him much. We are not sure if it was the Ibuprofin that caused this but we are being cautious and not giving it to him again yet. The dad put a little of it on a bandaid and put the bandaid on his back to see if he has a reaction to it.

So far, nobody else has gotten sick, although I am very tired and have a bad headache today. The tiredness is understandable, as I was up with Nick during the night and I laid with him in his bed until he fell back to sleep. So I missed a couple of hours and then woke early this morning, hearing him yelling because he did not want to take the tylenol the dad was giving him. After he had the tylenol, he went back to sleep, thankfully, although I think we will all benefit from a nap today.

Today we are having a relaxing day, as much as one can have with two almost-four-year-olds who may not be feeling their best. After a weekend of open house, Monday's are always nice because everything is already clean. I do a few quick chores in the morning and I do one or two loads of laundry but that's about it, except of course snack/meal prep and clean up.

The husband called to let me know his trip to Boston has been cancelled. He was scheduled to go to a conference in October but they would not have had enough docs in the office so he had to cancel. He was understandably disappointed. He starts one week of hospital duty on Thursday morning so things will be really hectic around here next weekend. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I really do prefer the one week hospital duty stints much more than the two week ones. Much much better.

Well, it's naptime so it's time to sign off. I hope you all had a great weekend.

September 8, 2009

The husband has the week off so we are sort of vacationing at home. He has to give something like 4 or 5 months notice these days so he just puts it in the schedule even if we don't have anything big planned.

Yesterday I spent the morning cleaning house and the husband spent the morning catching up on some of our personal things, while we both spent time with the boys. In the afternoon, my mom and sister came to visit. We all had dinner together and then I made an egg and sausage casserole for the morning while my sister and the husband played with the boys. My mom visited, watched the boys and read a book. It was a very nice evening.

Today we woke up to a yummy breakfast casserole and then the husband and I got ready for our first appointment with the architect. It was very interesting and it went very well. He had a lot of good ideas for how to change the plan we found on-line, making it better and more space efficient, better flow, without adding too many square feet (we hope) or big cost. I'm not sure how long it will take for them to have a first draft ready for discussion.

After our meeting with the architects, we arrived home to a house that smelled of cooking apple pie. Yum! My sister made one of her delicious apple pies and the boys had fun helping. They really enjoyed it and we all really enjoyed eating the finished product...plus, she baked some pie crust with cinnamon and sugar on it and that was Yum too. My sister makes the best apple pie I have ever tasted and I think she probably makes the best apple pie anywhere, ever:). It is that good!

After pie and lunch, we visited for a little while, as the boys played nearby, and then they had to head home. After nap, we headed out to the aquarium. The beavers were out and very active this evening and they were so cute. The female was very friendly and really hammed it up for us. I have seen the workers there hand feeding the beavers and petting them so they are friendly towards people. We watched them for quite a while and it was definitely the highlight of our visit to the aquarium. We saw all of the other fish and sharks and stingrays and everything else and the boys had a great time there. We had been wanting to go for a while so it was especially fun to be able to go with daddy. Also, since it was evening (they stay open late on Tuesdays), there were not very many people there, which was nice for us.

After the aquarium, we went to a place that has a pizza, salad, pasta (and everything from chicken to hotdogs to mashed potatoes, etc.), dessert buffet and it also has a arcade type of place. That is really an understatement. They have bumper cars, mini golf, bowling, race cars, plus and arcade, plus a little kids area that has one of those big blow up things that the little ones can jump around in and slide and stuff and a small train ride and on and on. Too much stuff but it sure made for a fun evening. We did not even hit half of it but we all had a great time and it felt like we were really on vacation, even though we never left our city. Not bad.

Tomorrow morning we are going to the zoo. The dad has only been to the zoo once before, when the boys first came home. It was just before he had to start back to work and we took the boys even though it was pretty cold out that day. We didn't stay very long that day and didn't see too much because it was too cold. So tomorrow will be fun. The boys will enjoy showing their daddy all their favorite things to see and do at the zoo. Then we will be sure to take a good nap and have an early dinner because we are going to church tomorrow evening. We signed the boys up for the little kids choir and a class afterwards but they have missed the first two weeks because they were sick. So tomorrow will be their first night. I hope it will be ok and they won't feel bad that they don't know what the others have already learned in the past two weeks.

When we were at the aquarium today, Nick was not watching where he was going (and this particular area was poorly lit) and he ran right into a small display that was standing right in the middle of the walk way. He hit his head on it and, at first I thought he was really hurt. There were some people nearby and I saw him kind of look at them, as his daddy picked him up to comfort him. Turns out he really was not hurt that badly but I think he was embarrassed. This is something new that I have noticed recently, with Nick in particular, that he can be embarrassed now. He is a bit ahead of the game socially so I am not surprised to see this with him first. I'm sure Ben will be following soon, if not already, although I have not seen it yet.

Things around here have been going well overall with the boys. I think I may have said this already but, just in case, we hardly ever have any day time accidents anymore. Night time is another matter, although we are bad about eating dinner late and also not taking the straight to the bathroom when they first wake up. But, overall, things are good and everyone is healthy and happy around here....and tired.

Time for bed. Good night!

September 2, 2009 Part 2

Wow, I just went back to see how long it had been since I had posted pics and it has been quite some time. I have also not been very good about taking pictures so I am going to work on that. We are at that point where, every time we take out the camera, the boys want to take the pictures. Anyway, here are some pics.

This was taken sometime in July. We were doing some arts and crafts.
This one may have been in July also. I just happened to look up to see what the boys were doing and they were sitting like this, "reading" to each other. It was so cute that I grabbed the camera real quick and snapped a surprise photo.
These next two photos were taken on a day when we did a science experiment. They were seeing which piece of paper would fall to the floor the fastest.


This was also a science experiment. They were blowing bubbles and watching them pop on a piece of paper, leaving wet marks on the paper. We were learning all about air.




This is Nick's artwork. It is the first time he has ever drawn a complete face all by himself. Sorry it is turned sideways. I forgot to spin it around before I loaded it.
And this is Ben's artwork. After he saw Nick's face, he had to draw one too. I asked him what the blue and purple areas were and he said they were eyebrows.
I took this one today, just so I could post an updated picture, since they are both growing and changing so quickly. Ben was playing with the spider that Aunt D gave the boys. They have a mixed reaction to all of the Halloween decorations that are already out in the stores. They talk about them before we get there and can't wait to see them and then they get kind of quiet when they first see them and then they don't want to get any closer and then they don't want to see them at all:).

And here is a picture from today of Nick, playing with the toy mouse.

And, of course, when I got the camera out, the boys each had to take some pictures. Nick took this one.

And then Ben took this one.

And then Nick took this one.
And then Ben took this one...and then I put the camera away.
That should do us for a couple of days. The husband has the week off next week so we might try to spend a couple of days in Arkansas. They have an outlet mall there and I have not bought any fall/winter clothes for the boys yet this year so I'm thinking I might find some really good deals.

The boys are now in bed and I am sitting with them until they fall asleep. I am racking my brain, trying to think of some of the other funny things they have said lately. One thing that I hear sometimes is, if I ask one of them to do something, he will say "certainly". I don't know where they got that one because I don't say it...at least I don't think I do anyway.

This evening, the dad came upstairs and noticed a tear on Ben's face and asked him if he had been crying. Ben told him that he had been "weeping" and that it was the same thing as crying. The reason he had been crying is that, earlier he had gotten his foot shut in the door, when coming in from outside. It left a nasty mark and came just short of cutting his foot open so I am sure it is very sore. When they were upstairs with me, getting ready for bed, Nick pushed Ben in fun but it made Ben step on his foot in a way that made it hurt again so he had been "weeping".

The other word that one of them used today was "tidy". I can't remember the context now and I think it was Ben who said it. He used it correctly and I was surprised to hear it because it is not one of my normal words. They pick up so much from books and movies, it is really amazing.

The other night, Nick leaned over to give the dad a big hug and said "I lovin' on you". It was so sweet.

We went for ice cream this evening and, on the way there Ben happened to notice the numbers on the CD player so he started counting. He counted to fifty something before he lost interest and stopped. I had to help him with thirty, forty and fifty but he could do all the others. It really is amazing how quickly little ones remember things and pick up new things. I am constantly impressed by their memories but then, at the same time, I am always surprised when they don't remember something we did a number of weeks back.

Time to sign off for now. Goodnight!

September 2, 2009

The boys are doing great. Today we were looking at some of their baby pictures and I had a hard time believing how little they were then...and they were both such chubsters. They are such boys now and very cute and sweet ones, even if I do say so myself.
They are both very into telling us what to say these days, in their pretending. It is so funny. Nick has told me to say something and then, after I said it, he said "why?". I never know what to say to that so I just say, "I don't know. You told me to say that".

Yesterday we were driving in the car and Ben said something (I don't remember what he was talking about now) that started with "In the old days....". It really cracked me up because it was not something that related to "the old days" at all but that did get them talking about how in the old days they didn't have cars and they used horses to pull buggies and such. They are coming up with some very funny things these days and I need to do a better job of writing them down.

We are all getting over colds around here. Nick got it first, then the dad was very sick last Saturday. I have seldom seen him feeling that badly. I think this was only the second time in the almost 5 years we have been married. Ben ended up coming down with it around the same time as the dad. Now they are all recovering fairly nicely, though with some running noses, and I have not felt so well the past couple of days. But I think we are almost over it all.

The boys have really been enjoying playing outside lately. Our weather has been absolutely incredible. The is the coolest August Oklahoma has enjoyed in quite some time and I think we have set quite a few record days with coolest ever weather. It is now bright and sunny and around 74 degrees outside. The perfect day, although it was cloudy and trying to rain most of the day today.

Dinner is ready so I must go. Maybe more later...maybe with some pics.

August 27, 2009

Staying busy around here these days.

- Saturday we had four couples come through to see the house.
- Sunday we had around 10 or 11 (I lost count) come through.
- Monday and Tuesday we had Realtor showings
- I will be cleaning all day tomorrow for open house this weekend
- Boys and I went to the zoo on Tuesday and had lots of fun
- Nick is now sick with cold-like symptoms and fever that comes and goes
- I'm not feeling great either; very tired and sinuses are not good
- Called 6 references for two architects and got 5 voice mails; waiting to hear back.
- Made a list of all changes we want to the plan we like. Looking forward to meeting with architect, hopefully next week sometime.
- We close on our lot tomorrow afternoon.
- Now we just have to sell the house, although I have been praying that it will happen in God's perfect timing.
- The boys and I were able to stay home all day yesterday and today and chill, with no preparations for showing the house either day. It was quite a relief, especially with Nick sick and me not feeling 100%.

That's my quickie update. Ta ta for now!

August 21, 2009

We are winding up for our second weekend of open houses. Last weekend we were pleased with the response we had and we have had tons of people take flyers from the box in the yard (although I think they have slowed down now that all of the people in the neighbor have gotten one:).

We have listed our house on MLS and the agent we used also pushes it out to about 30 other real estate sites. We received a call today from a guy who left a message, asking some questions about the house. Unfortunately, his call came in when Nick was talking to daddy on my phone so it ended up going to voice mail. We left a return message this evening but have not heard back yet.

I listed the open house on Craig's List today also. It will be interesting to see how many people come by this weekend. I think we really missed the busy season, since people normally try to move before their kids start the school year.

The boys and I had a good week. The house was very clean so we really took it easy and had fun for much of the week. I took them to the used book store on Monday and we picked out a handful of great books. We have been doing lots of reading this week. I also ordered a couple of things from Amazon. One is a kid's calendar kind of thing that we change together every morning. It includes seasons, weather also and it is really cute. The boys are both enjoying it. I'll write more about it later or maybe post a picture. One of the other things I ordered is a positive parenting incentive program type of thing for kids. I'll write more about that later too. We have not received it yet but it sounds really good and positive. I also ordered a couple of books for the boys.

I spent a good deal of today cleaning again and that will likely be my life on Fridays until we sell the house. The dusting and floors have to be done on Friday, in order for them to look good for both Saturday and Sunday. So, that's my life on Friday's for now.

Right now, everyone is asleep except me. I am still ramping down from all of the work I did tonight, while the dad was putting the boys down. I had better get to sleep though. Good night!

August 15, 2009

We had our first open house today and it went very well. We really didn't expect many people to come through but we had 4 couples and 1 single guy (an architect). We also had a couple of others who stopped out front and picked up one of the flyers from the flyer box we got at Home Depot.

We were able to get a very good For Sale By Owner sign, the flyer box and the Open House signs from Home Depot for a reasonable price. The husband took the boys with him to print some color flyers to go in the box. Today we just used some black and white flyers with no pics, since we just got the box last night. The color ones will have nice pics of the outside and inside of the house, so that will be nice.

On Monday, we plan to sign up with an organization that will list our home on MLS. We can also order one of the lock box things that go on the door, in the event that a buyer's agent wants to show our home. We will pay a buyer's agent a certain percentage and the husband is thinking we might want to pay them a little more than they would normally get at first, to see if that helps. Since we won't have to pay a seller's agent, we can give the buyer's agent a bit more and still come out ahead.

So we had more people come through today than we really expected, which was great. It is very hard to tell who might be interested but it is definitely a numbers game so the more the merrier. We are having another open house tomorrow from 1-5 and we will likely continue to do this every weekend that makes sense (not holiday weekends). If we get this many people come through each weekend, we should sell it in a reasonable amount of time.

The boys did great, although I found it a bit stressful, trying to keep them busy while also talking with the people who came though. I may take them somewhere to play tomorrow. It is hard for them because they don't get to take a nap and they can't be loud and run around and stuff like that. They did well today because they watched two movies (started becoming bored about half way through the second one) and then they played outside for a little while and then I took them upstairs for a little while and let them play up there. It was still hard though because they could not make messes. They had to pick up their toys after playing with them, before getting out something else (hey, this might be a good thing!). They are not used to doing that and I know they got tired of hearing me tell them to pick up that and put this away, etc.

I think we had a good first day and we both felt good about the method we are using to sell our house. That is a good thing. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate it. Hope you had a good Saturday.

July 30, 2009

We went up to the new development, signed the paper work and put down the earnest money for the property this afternoon. After we were done, we went over and walked around the pond across the street. Every few steps we walked, a frog would jump into the pond. They were everywhere and the boys loved it. Two houses down from our lot, we saw a lady outside watching her little boy ride his bike on the driveway so we went over to introduce ourselves and say hi. We visited with her for a few minutes. She was very nice and friendly and her little boy is right around the same age as our sons. It is going to be so nice to be in a neighborhood where there are other little kids the same age as ours. I think the boys are really going to love this place.

We had a little boy funny as we arrived at the development to sign the paper work this afternoon. Nick had fallen asleep in the car on our way up to the property. He was awake when we stopped. I was unfastening his seat belt and he said, "Mommy, feel my foot!" I was a bit confused at first, as I felt his foot, and then he said, "It feels fuzzy!" That's when I understood that it had fallen asleep. (Isn't fuzzy a great way to describe this?) This must have been the first time that this had happened to him because he was so surprised and thought it was so funny. It was cute to watch his reaction, telling me to feel his foot as if I could feel it too. I helped him out of the van and let go of his hand as he started to walk away from me and he promptly fell down. He was not hurt but just continued to express surprise, as I helped him up and started to carry him but then he said he thought it was OK again. I put him down and he limped for the first couple of steps and then he was OK.

Another thing that happened was not so funny. The boys were having fun running around in this little building where we were signing our papers. There were only two people working there and us so they didn't mind and they thought the boys were cute. One guy was helping us and the other guy was sitting in the conference room on the other side of this little building. The boys would go into the conference room and sit and spin in the chairs and talk with the guy in there. But then they started running around and I had told them to settle down but we were still in the middle of our discussions so I was only half engaged with them. Then I heard Ben scream that hurt kind of scream that all mom's know. He had run into a door knob with his head and he immediately got a huge goose egg sticking out of his head. It was really scary and I was glad Dr. dad was there with us. This kid has hit his head hard a million times but has never had anything as bad as this. I would have been worried if I had been home alone with the boys when this happened. It didn't take him long though before he was right back at it, although he did make sure to remind me to be careful when I put his pajama shirt over his head tonight. The bump was still quite big and he didn't want anyone to touch it. I can understand why. I'm sure that was painful.

We have been getting a good bit of rain lately and have been enjoying cooler, cloudy weather. It has been such a relief. Time for bed. Good night.

July 28, 2009

Well, it looks as if we have the property.So, we are planning to go back up there on Thursday afternoon to sign the papers and put down the earnest money. They accepted our offer and did not counter, which was nice.
I have been looking at house plans.....hundreds and hundreds of them. They all start to look the same after a while, mostly because they are a lot alike:). We have a very good idea of what we are looking for and would like to find a plan that is very very close and maybe just needs a couple of small tweaks so that we don't have to pay a lot of money for an architect.  Now we have to start thinking about getting our house ready to sell.

Not much news other than that. The boys and I had a good day today. Today they both learned the days of the week. I have been talking to them each day about what day it is and what day was yesterday and what day is tomorrow and they were already starting to get it. After their nap today they watched a video that had a song about the days of the weeks and I think it kind of hit home.

I still enjoy watching them learn so much. We were reading the book Petunia tonight before bed. If you are not familiar with that book, it is about a goose who finds a book and thinks that she becomes wise simply by carrying it around. She gives lots of bad advice and causes many problems around the barnyard before she finally realizes that she has to learn to read in order for the book to help her become wise. When I finished reading the book to the boys, Nick said "and you are teaching us to read mommy". Yep, and I am but it we are taking the very slow route:).

I had found this old phonics book at the used book store a long time ago. I was going through my books the other day and ran across it so I put it out with their books because I thought they might enjoy it. It has lots of good pics and rhymes. Nick found it and it is now his favorite book of the moment so we read it a lot today. It introduces them to long vowel sounds, which we had not covered yet. I'm not sure how much it will actually help them though. I don't think it is a very good teaching book but I'm sure it won't hurt and it will likely reinforce what we are covering.

We are getting ready to get a good thunderstorm. I like thunderstorms, especially when there is no threat of tornadoes. Good night.

July 27, 2009

The developer sent us an email today with the price for the lot and we sent them a counter offer. Hopefully we will hear something tomorrow.

So, if we end up purchasing this lot, things are going to get very, very busy around here. First, we are planning to sell our house as soon as possible, although we will have some work to do to get it ready....mostly deep cleaning stuff, like washing baseboards:). We will also have to find a place to rent, hopefully near where we will be building, and we will need to get a bunch of stuff out of our house to make it ready to sell. Lots to do here.

If all of this comes to fruition, I'm not sure how much formal home schooling we will get done this year. We'll have to play that one by ear. Fortunately the boys are both well ahead of where they should be so I am not too concerned about it. Our number one priority will be learning to read and I'm sure we will still fit in lots of read aloud time. Everything else will be gravy and they will learn a lot from watching the house go up:).

Gotta go. More research to do.

July 27, 2009

We are looking around for lots to build a more energy efficient house and have more play space.  While I was driving around today, I noticed a new area that looked like it might be an upcoming new subdivision. My curiosity got the best of me so I went in and drove around, which raised my curiosity even more as they were building a very large building which did not seem to fit in with a subdivision. So I went to the information building to find out what was going on.
After speaking with the people in the information area, I went out on a tour. As it turns out, they are developing 3,000 acres and they are basically making an entire upscale community within the town. The large building is a new school that will be opening up this fall. They have plans for 4 or 5 subdivisions, a very large park and an outdoor type shopping center (as opposed to a mall-type) with cobble stones and all that. The park and shopping center will be built along the 100 square mile lake that is recently built and almost full of water. They will have upscale eating places along the boardwalk of the lake. They will have a rock maze near the park and a lookout area that you can climb to and can see the downtown of the nearby city. The views around this place are awesome and there are tons and tons of trees. It is a very pretty area.

They are building bike and walking trails all across the entire 3,000 acres, including some where you will have the beautiful views and one completely around the lake (not sure how it will go through the shopping area though). They are building an amphitheater near the lake and park and they plan to have lots of fun family activities in the park, lake, amphitheater area.

They are also building a new main road that goes from this new community to another nearby major road which connects to the nearby highway. This will allow people in the community to get to the nearby city very quickly, without having to go through the local town/traffic. It would cut down on the drive time for the husband to get to work. I also found that there is a back way in to the area that my family could take when they come to visit, so it would actually be much faster/closer for them than where we live now. Both of these are big bonuses because I was concerned about drive time for the husband and also for my family.

I left very impressed with the place and thinking it might be just the place for us to relocate. I came home and told the husband all about it and show him the materials. We ended up going back up there that evening and we all took the tour again. The husband was equally impressed. The boys just wanted to go home:). The husband and I both agreed on the lot that we liked the best. The lots in the two subdivisions we were looking at are all one acre lots.

So, that's where we are now. We are thinking of buying this lot that we both liked, if everything works out all right....and we are praying a lot.

July 19, 2009

The dear husband and I just returned from our weekend away without the boys. We had a very relaxing and uneventful weekend, which is to say that all went well and the boys did great. My sister, mom and nephew came to take care of the boys and they had a great time while we were gone.

We left on Friday afternoon and returned this morning around 10:00ish. It was a perfect amount of time to be away for a first time without the boys. I was ready to get back to them but felt I had had a nice break and a good time reconnecting with my husband. We went out to eat a few times and saw a movie and held hands and had long visits without being interrupted. It was all very nice and we both came back feeling well rested.

We went to Arkansas. We stayed in Springdale which was not as pretty as I expected. We took a drive on Saturday afternoon and drove over to Fayetteville, which was really pretty. The University of Arkansas is there and it has a very pretty campus and the old timey town square was lovely. We just missed their Saturday farmers market. They were putting everything away when we arrived but we got out and walked around anyway. Overall, Arkansas is a very pretty state. Lots of big hills / small mountains and tons of trees and winding roads. It is nice that we can get there by car so quickly and we will look forward to exploring more of this beautiful state. We also need to get out in Oklahoma and explore a bit more. We have very pretty parts of our state also and we have not done much in the way of seeing it. But we have plenty of time, Lord willing.

Other things going on around here. I am considering what I want to do this year with the boys for "preschool". I know it will still be mostly informal, since they are still just three years old and boys need a lot of time to run and jump and play, so they will have lots of time for that. I will likely try to start having a short (15 to 20 minutes) dedicated time with each child to focus on solidifying what we have been learning about phonics and pre-reading, maybe three times a week. I also want to set aside regular time for character development, regular devotions and Bible scripture memory each day. We will likely try to also do some preschool math but we will do it in a fun, playing kind of way. Everything else will just be coloring, pasting, cutting and all of the fine motor skill activities that will prepare the boys for writing. They like to try to write letters now and I will work with them when they are interested but I will not push this type of work until they have stronger fine motor skills.

I forgot to mention that Ben found a pen (one that Zoe-cat left on the floor after playing with it) and wrote on our leather ottoman. He had already written on it once before with a red ink pen, just a bit of scribble. This time it was a black pen. I had explained to him the first time that we don't do this (I went into more detail) and that he would be punished if he did it again. He knows where to find paper, if he wants it. He deliberately disobeyed and I did punish him for it. Afterward I was trying to clean it off with some leather cleaner (didn't work) and comet (didn't work). He was standing there watching me and told me, very proudly, that he had written an 'A' and a 'B' and, I must admit, he did a pretty good job of it. I never got it off. If anyone has any suggestions for how to get ink off of leather, please let me know.

Here are some pictures from K.C.:

We went to this great public park. We call it The Farm, although it has a formal name "somebody's name Farm Stead" but I can never remember who it is named after. It is a beautiful place. We had taken the kids there a couple of years ago but they were too little to remember it. They had a great time.
The boys were climbing on the rocks. This is right at the entrance. As we were walking away, I noticed the small signs next to the pond that say "no climbing on rocks". Woops.

This is also one of the views as you walk in. The flower gardens are just beautiful. I wish I had this kind of green thumb. This picture does not do it justice. It was actually much more beautiful in person.
Feeding the goats. The boys really enjoyed this and this place is great because they have nice hand washing areas in all of the right places.
"No more!"
This guy was sleeping in the trough the whole time we were feeding the others.
A hay ride. The boys weren't quite so sure about this because I was not going on the ride with them and dad was not on yet because he was taking pictures. My friend's mom is in a red shirt and is sitting just behind and to the right of Ben. My friend's two daughters are both in pink, the dark haired one is to the right to Ben, sitting next to her grandmother. The other one is sitting just behind Ben, kind of between Nick and Ben.
These are the huge horses that pull the hay ride. They have bells on them and they sound like sleigh bells when the horses trot. They walk around this wooded area and then they let them trot on the way back. It sounded very Christmasy as the horses were trotting back. The kids really enjoyed it.
Nick, looking out of the window of the kid-size log cabin. It is right next to a play ground.
Ben and my friend's youngest daughter inside of the little log cabin. It was extremely hot on this day and poor little Ben was sweating profusely. He kept going up to the dad, grabbing the dad's shorts in both of his hands and using them to wipe the sweat off of his face. He would put his face right into the dad's shorts and turn his head back and forth, back and forth. It was very cute but I felt bad for him that he was that hot. I tried to cool him down with some ice but he was not very into it.
Ben's first try at fishing. He accidentally got hooked in the arm once but fortunately it was pretty minor. The hook just barely went into his skin and didn't get in far enough to get past that thorny part that makes it hard to pull it out. It came out easily and just left a tiny hole.
And Nick's fishing debut. We told him he was suppose to hold the pole up but he like doing it this way better...and we had to keep an eye on him or he would try to catch the ducks. I don't know who this guy with the baby is behind Nick but he was really in jeapordy of being hooked. Sitting this close to a three year old with a sharp fish hook on the end of a pole is not the best idea. Luckily nothing bad happened.
Giddy-up horse!

Both boys loved the horse ride. They were led around a track by a volunteer of the park. Many of the workers are volunteers and look as if they are high school or college students.
All four of the kids had such a wonderful time together and got along so well. It was fun to watch them all together. They were all born in Volgograd, Russia and three of the four are from the same baby home (the three youngest ones). My friend and her mom were in Volgograd to bring her youngest daughter home when we were there to meet Ben and Nick. We all hung out together and played with our kids for 7 or 8 days and then we all flew from Volgograd to Moscow together, where we separated because they had to stay in Moscow to do paper work stuff for their daughter / granddaughter and we were headed on back home to finish our paper work and wait for our court date.

Here is a picture I took of the boys after we got home. Ben sat on Nick's lap and they thought that was very funny. I took advantage of the opportunity and snapped a photo. Aren't they growing up so fast? They both need a hair cut badly. We were going to do it tonight but the dad ended up taking them over to that neat park over by the river and they didn't get back in time. Just enough time for a bagel and a little playing and then time for bed. We are thoroughly enjoying the bagels we brought home from K.C. We still have three left so tomorrow will probably be the last day. The boys really like them too, although it took a Ben a bit to decide he really likes them.Time for bed. Good night!

July 12, 2009

We just returned from a lovely weekend in Kansas City, visiting our friends there. We all had a great time and I will post more about it later, including pictures.

We just rolled in and I am sitting with the boys while they fall asleep. As I was giving N his goodnight hugs and kisses, he said that when he is big like daddy, I won't be able to pick him up anymore. I told him I would be sad when I couldn't pick him up anymore because he is such a sweetie pie (or something like that). He said that he would love on me and then he said that when he gets big, he is going to marry me.....to which Ben promptly replied that he would marry daddy:). Nick went on to say that I am his best friend and that is why he is going to marry me when he gets big and that he is going to hug me after he marries me. Every time Nick finished a sentence, Ben would repeat the same sentence about daddy. Such a sweet age.

We had a fantastic trip and the boys did great, although this was our first longish trip with the boys since they have been potty trained so it was also the longest trip to K.C. and back, since we had to make lots of stops.

They have been quiet now for all of about 5 minutes and I think Ben is already asleep. I knew it wouldn't take long. They should sleep in tomorrow and take a good nap also because they have played so hard and had longer and napless days while we were gone.

I am ready for bed too. More later. Good night.

July 6, 2009

The other day the boys said they wanted to "do school". We had just finished breakfast. We sat at the table together and they did a little of everything, including coloring, playing around with writing letters, doing mazes, doing a whole science section of one of our work books (circle all things on the page that are living) and another whole section from the same book but can't remember what it was about now. They sat at the table for at least two hours and it may have been two and a half hours before they were done. I even asked at one point if they were tired of this and wanted to do something else. Answer, "no". Nick was particularly interested in coloring, which really shocked me as both of them have only had short-term interest in coloring to date. Ben has been particularly interested in learning to write letters, most specifically those in his name.



Last week we made a 4th of July cake to celebrate our country's birthday. It turned out very pretty but we won't be using these sprinkles on cakes anymore because they really did not taste very good. We ended up throwing out at least half of the cake, much to Ben's dismay.
These pics are from this really neat park that the dad found. It was a great water play area for little ones too but it was being serviced and was not working on this day. That stone wall in the background where the ladies are sitting is actually part of the water play area. It has little fountains all along the top of it and, when it is on, the water runs all over it and down the sides to the ground. I wish I had taken more pics of the whole park because, although it is small, it is very unique. Next time I will have to take more pics.

This is a modern day merry-go-round. The kids love it. The boys were not on it when I took the picture though.
The boys had been climbing on these so I asked them to sit in them so I could take a picture.


This is the hat that the dad wore when we went canoeing. He looked like Indiana Jones. At one point when we were getting ready, he had the brim of the hat turned upwards where it kind of just stuck out straight all the way around. I told him it was the difference between Indiana Jones (brim as seen in pic below) VS Barney Fife (brim sticking straight out). He thought that was pretty funny. He kept the brim down after that:).
One might think B would be a happy little canoe-er, based on this picture. One would be wrong:).

July 3, 2009

Today we decided to take the boys on their first canoe trip. The dad showed them pictures of people canoeing and they were very excited about the idea. We made the hour-plus drive to the river. We parked and put on our sunscreen and they still seemed very excited, although a bit more subdued because of all of the people around us. We picked out our life jackets and oars and got on the bus that would take us to our drop point.

They both loved the bus ride, although I felt it was a bit unsafe, as the driver left the bus doors open and then proceeded to careen around corners on dirt roads. We were sitting in the front two seats and so it felt very unsafe. The other unsafe issue that really concerned me was that they did not offer any smaller life jackets for kids. It was one size fits all. These were the bright orange U-shaped jackets that fit over your head, lay on your chest and there is a strap that wraps around your chest/back or, in the kid's case, their waist/back. There was no strap that went between their legs, like most kid's jackets have. They should really advertise that you should bring your own if you have kids.

We got off the bus, walked the short distance to the river, put life jackets on the kids and loaded them into the canoe. This is pretty much when their excitement came to an end. They were not very into after that. We did not go far before stopping to let them play in the water. They especially liked throwing rocks into the water. That was their favorite thing. So, after playing for a little while, we put a bunch of rocks into the canoe and started off again. They were sharing a seat in the middle of the canoe and they both enjoyed throwing the rocks out. But, unfortunately, that didn't last long.

We hit a couple of shallow spots where the bottom of the canoe rubbed against the rocks in the river bed, making a loud noise (and of course it also did this every time we loaded them up to push off again, after having stopped to play). Neither of the boys liked this and Ben was especially scared by the loud noise. Just after we took off again, after stopping to play, both boys started crying and that lasted for 5 or 10 minutes. After that, Nick stopped crying but Ben kept crying by himself. They wanted us to turn around and go back and, Ben especially, kept saying this over and over, through his loud crying. We tried, over and over, to explain in many different, simple ways that we could not go back and had to keep going if we wanted to eventually get home. Nick seemed to get this and even got annoyed with Ben's continued crying after a while but Ben continued to call for a turn around pretty much the whole way.

The canoe outfitters offer a 6 mile trip and a 12 mile trip. We opted for the 6 mile trip. Ben pretty much cried for at least 5 of the 6 miles. We ended up making another stop so they could once again get out and play, although I was concerned that we would not be able to get them back into the canoe. They again really enjoyed playing in the water and throwing rocks. Nick even enjoyed sitting down in the water and letting the current push him a little. When it was time to take off again, Ben started crying before he got back into the canoe and continued to cry, off and on (mostly on) the rest of the way. At one point, he started asking me (over and over again) if we were almost there. After his having asked this twice and having a bad reaction when I said not yet, I realized I just needed to answer yes, we are almost there, every time he asked. It made him feel much better. I think he just needed to have some hope. As it turned out, we were closer to the pick up point than we thought so we really were almost there. As soon as the boys were out of the canoe and walking towards the little bus, I heard Ben saying something about riding the bus and he was once again in a very happy mood and clearly excited about getting to ride the bus again.

We changed clothes and found a place to eat (Pizza Hut - wow, I can't remember the last time I ate at a Pizza Hut) that also had a room with a few video games, including two that were like driving a car. They both had the best time playing on these and pretending they were driving to Home Depot and to the grocery store. They would run over to us and ask what we wanted from Home Depot or from the grocery store and then they would run back and pretend to drive there. It was great because they were very hungry and this kept them busy until our pizza was ready.

After we arrived home, both boys spent a good amount of time pretending they were in a canoe and swimming and all that and then they did more of this when they took their bath.

They really had a great time before and after. It was the canoeing part they didn't really enjoy so much. They both let us know they do not want to do that again. I'm sure when they are old enough to paddle the canoe, they will love it. At this age, they would have been very happy to just hang out at the river, play in the water and throw rocks. Next time we'll just have to take some lawn chairs, find some shade near the water and sit and watch them play.

June 28, 2009

Sorry I have been AWOL. Everything is fine here. We have been having fun, playing outside in the water a lot. The other day, I spent a couple of hours outside in the scorching morning heat cleaning up some flower beds while the boys played in the hose. Every once in a while I had to asked them to spray me because, otherwise, I would not have been able to stay out as long. It has been very very hot here...around the 100 to 103 ish mark and that does not include the heat index.

We finally got a break this morning and we had a cool front come through so it only got into the low 90's today but there was much less humidity so it really felt much cooler.

Anyway, not much new going on around here. Just staying busy with summer and trying to catch up on a few things and I was also reading a book so that took me a way for a couple of days. My sister gave the boys some books for when they are a bit older so I was putting them away yesterday morning and started reading The Swiss Family Robinson to see if it was too old for them (it was). Anyway, I got interested in it because I had never read it before. I was already planning to make my weekly jaunt to the library for the boys anyway so I also found the adult version of The Swiss Family Robinson while I was there. I finished it today. What a wonderful book that was! It was written in such a sweet way that it just made me want to be part of that wonderful family, stranded on that beautiful island with them:). I really enjoyed it and was not quite ready to be finished with it. This is one of the things I love about having children. I get to read all of the books that I missed when I was growing up.

Nick has caught a summer cold and I am wondering if anyone else is going to catch it. He still keeps going like the energizer bunny, although I can tell he is not quite as agreeable at times.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. Hope you had a good weekend.

June 20, 2009

First, some updated close ups of the boys. Haven't they changed? They are both little brownies from spending so much time outside.Here is Nick, helping to put away the silverware.
And then, working a puzzle. He normally wakes up before Ben, hence the P.J.'s pics.

Here is a picture of both of our cats looking out of the window at a little rabbit. You can see the rabbit too, although you may have to click on the picture to enlarge it.
We finally painted our paper mache art work.
Here is Ben on the top of the jungle gym, getting ready to jump down and Nick is getting ready to climb up.
Ben is dropping to the ground.
Now Nick is dropping to the ground.
Ben climbing up the outside and Nick climbing the inside.
A photo op break.
They were in a silly mood.
Climbing up together.
Ben is trying to learn how Nick flips over backward as he jumps down.
Here he goes. He was too fast and I didn't catch the landing.
Both boys hanging from the inside.
And trying to climb up to flip over.
Nick hanging. Ben already landed on the ground.
Ben climbing up to do a flip.
Heals over head and away we go. They are too fast for me. I didn't catch the next step.
Putting the ball into the spray thingy.
It is really neat to see how the ball stays on the water so long.
Still going up. It stays there for the longest time.
Boys in pool doing lots of pouring.
Photo op break.
I think Ben was pretending to eat something.
This is what the pool looked like today.

Playing baseball with dad. Nick hit the ball.
And Ben hit the ball.Here is the follow through.
Dad had just finished some yard work. We have a lefty and a righty.
Hope you enjoyed picture Saturday! Happy Father's Day!