Thanksgiving

Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving? Ours was very nice! As usual we went to my mom and dad's house, and Mom fixed the ham, potatoes, and a few pies while Kelly, Faith, and I handled the rest of the food. Kelly made the turkey, which is always amazing. She gets it so juicy! She also brought a few other things, deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole, rolls, chocolate truffles, and the sweetest little turkey cookies for the kids. Faith made squash casserole, fried okra, shucked beans, rolls, and homemade honey and pumpkin butters. Yum! Nick made deviled eggs, and I made corn casserole, lemon blossoms, pumpkin trifle, and cranberry sauce. After lunch the guys went hunting while the rest of us just hung out and talked and watched the kids, and I even got to take a nap - decadence!

I got paid for the aprons I made for the church that day, and I also had the money come in on Paypal for a decal order, which was nice. Another neat thing that happened was that Nick got to bring home a HoneyBaked Ham from his job on Wednesday, and it is SO good! 

I mentioned last time I posted that I had found some great Christmas gifts at thrift stores. Well, one of those gifts that I found last week was a kid's die cutting machine called a Cuttlekids. These retail for about $45, and I found one new in the box with all the accessories for $3.99. I have a big die cutting machine myself that I love and use all the time, and Daisy always wants to use it, so I know she'll love this. The thing is, it only comes with a couple of dies, so when I went to a different thrift store this past Wednesday I had it in mind to try to find a few more dies for it. Now I didn't think it was particularly likely that I would find any, but it was just a thought. Would you believe that I found a whole pile of them still in their packages? They ranged from $.99 to $1.99, and the $1.99 ones had multiple dies in the pack. I scooped them right up! Then I went to Joann Fabric for their early Black Friday sale. They had flannel on sale for 70% off, so was able to buy enough for baby blankets for all the soon to be born babies I need to buy for for less than $2.50 a blanket. I'll be taking 5 of them to church tomorrow and making 3 for Kelly and Grant's baby. Joann's also had their remnants marked 75% off the current price, which made flannel remnants something like $0.52/yard, and I got a bunch of remnants which will go to make pillows and lovey blankets. 

We've been so blessed this year with Christmas gifts for the kids coming in from all different directions. A friend messaged me today asking me if I would like a pair of boots that belonged to her daughter and had only been worn twice. Yesterday  I got a call from my mom telling me that my cousin had decided to get rid of their air hockey table and my aunt wanted to get rid of her elliptical machine. They were both just going to take them to the thrift store, but they wanted to know if we wanted them instead. Um, yes please! The elliptical is going to go in our bedroom, and the air hockey table is going to be an awesome Christmas gift for the kids! This particular cousin has blessed us with timely hand-me-down in the past. In fact, she's pretty much made Christmas for our kids a time or two. Jack's birthday is 8 days after Christmas, which sometimes makes it a little tight, and last year she passed along her son's like-new Spiderman bike for us to give him as a gift from us.

Kelly, I think I mentioned, is having a baby (any day now), and she asked me if she could buy some htv (heat transfer vinyl) from me for a project. She wanted to make a milestone blanket for the baby, but she was afraid that if she ordered the vinyl online it wouldn't have time to get here before the baby came. I had some on hand, so she came out tonight and I cut out the numbers and words on my Cameo and we put it together. She owed me money for the vinyl (it took over 6 feet of it), but she forgot to bring it with her, so we worked it out that instead she's going to order some glitter htv for me when she places an order herself on Cyber Monday. This works out perfect for me, because glitter htv is one of the last few things I need to finish my Christmas gifts, and I didn't have money left to order from the sale myself. This way I get what I need and she's paying the flat shipping fee!

Friday Nick was off and we got to go do some running around together and have a wonderful lunch date at The Chop House using a birthday gift card I got last month. Anyway, I think that's about all that's been happening since I last posted. God is still showing up in a big way! We face more financial challenges in the days ahead, so please keep asking God to provide for us - obviously He's hearing all our prayers! Please specifically pray that He will keep sending in craft orders for me!

Showers of Blessings

Guys, I just have to tell you, God just keeps blessing me! As of my last post before LOL Day, we were pretty down to the wire with money. Kelly and Grant's photo shoot was very close to our house thankfully, because I drove there on a very close to empty tank. The photo shoot went so well - both my niece and nephew and even the dog were so cooperative and well behaved, and I got some great shots of everybody. After we were done we walked back to our cars, and I was kind of hanging out talking to Grant while Kelly got the kids in the car. She walked over to tell me goodbye and handed me a check for $75.00! I honestly, really, truly had not expected them to pay me anything, and I wasn't even thinking about it standing there. They've sometimes paid me some in the past, but not always, and I was happy to do the shoot either way. I assured them that they didn't need to do that, but they insisted, and it was such an answer to prayer! I was able to put gas in the car and buy some groceries for dinner that night.

A little later my mom called to tell me she had found a couple of really cool robotic dinosaurs at a thrift store for me to give Jack for Christmas. Morgan was spending the night with her, so when I dropped her off Mom showed them to me, and they both work.  I looked them up online, and they retail for around $100 each, but she got them both for $12. They're going to make an awesome Christmas gift for him!

The next day we had lunch provided for us at the birthday party of one of our other nephews, which was nice. I was supposed to do his 3 year pictures that day after the party, but Faith wasn't feeling well, so we postponed it.

By Sunday the $75 has been almost completely spent on gas and groceries. I sat in church that morning thinking about the last $8 in my wallet, about how I had asked God to bless me, and how He had been doing so, and how that $8 was just about 10% of the $75 Grant and Kelly had given me. So when they passed the plate, I dropped it in, determined to keep having faith. Nick runs the sound board every service at church. After the service I made my way to the sound room to find him with a huge grin on his face and an envelope with his name on it in his hand. Inside was a Christmas thank you check from the church for $750. For the last couple of years they've done this for him because he not only runs the sound board, but he also maintains the supply stock in the room and fulfills the requests for our sermon CD and DVD ministry. We had both forgotten about it though, and it's not a guaranteed thing anyway. What a blessing! God took that little $8 I put in the plate and gave it back to us almost 100 fold! I thought He was blessing me with the $75 a couple days earlier, then He turned around and gave us 10x as much! And you want to know something funny? Remember that $8? Well a couple weeks prior a lady at church had asked me to make her a couple of decals for her and her husband, but they hadn't been back to church since. That morning her husband was there and told me his wife had told him he needed to give me some money. It was to get his decals that I had gone up to the sound room when Nick showed me the check. And it was with that happy news in my heart that I brought the decals back down to the man - and collected $8 from him.

Yesterday I had a deposit of $27 for an Etsy order that came in on Thursday. Today a lady that I was paired with in a craft exchange a couple of years ago messaged me and ordered 11 decals from me, which will be $33 when it comes in. Tonight Robert asked me to make a church logo decal for his car and asked me to price them out because he's going to offer them for sale to church members. And just a little while ago I finished up an order for 9 aprons for a church that our church supports. Our church bought all the materials and will be paying me $45 labor, plus I get to keep the heat transfer vinyl that was leftover.

I've also found some really good deals on Christmas gifts, including a couple at a thrift store, as well as some amazing deals online. God is just so, so good to us! I don't share any of this to brag (other than to brag on God), but I just want to maybe encourage someone who is struggling and needs to walk in faith. He will take our little bit and make it great! And it's so important for me to document for myself how He is daily taking care of us.

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving!

Hello?

Hello? Anyone still reading?

Gosh, where to start? Well, I'm posting this from our new living room! Okay, so we finally sold the house. Like for real sold it and closed on it and bought another one. It took 136 showings, 3 contracts, and 5 extensions on the closing date, but it got done! It was a serious roller coaster. We got the contract in February and were supposed to close March 24. We actually ended up closing April 22. There were so many crazy things to happen. All of the delays were the fault of either our buyer or his loan company. It actually caused us 3 days delay on the scheduled closing of our new house. 

Speaking of the new house, we love it. We really, really, really love it. Before we found it, during the mad rush to find a home once our old one sold (which turned out to be not such a mad rush after all), we found another home that we fell head over heels in love with. It was crazy how perfect it was for us. It's like it was actually custom built for us. But we lost the bid on it, and we were devastated. After that it seemed like nothing we saw was appealing at all, and we looked at A LOT of houses. In fact, we actually signed a contract on one at one point that we didn't just love, simply because it would technically work for us, and we were running out of time. Fortunately the inspection on it came back with some minor issues that allowed us to back out of the contract. I'm so very glad now that we didn't buy that house, but at the time it seemed like we were out of options. 

Then when our realtor showed me this one (I went without Nick the first time), I said to him, "This is the first one I've liked since we lost (the other house we wanted)." Nick liked it too, although it took him a little bit more time to get fully on board with it. But once we got our hearts wrapped around the fact that we really were not going to be able to buy our first pick, this one was the obvious choice.

Let me be clear, I know that God had a reason for us to not get that other home. Yes, it certainly was everything we wanted, but it was also a very long commute to Nick's job, and the neighborhood was not as nice as the one we now live in. And I just have to trust that there may have been other issues that would have come up down the line.

But anyway, here we are. The kids all have their own room, Nick and I have a massive bedroom and a ridiculously large closet, his commute to work had been cut in half, and.....there's a craft room! Actually it's technically a den, but for me it's an awesome craft room, and it's all mine! I'm still working on getting it all put together, but I'll get there. I'm mostly done. And the back yard is big and flat and fenced in for the kids and the dogs, and a walking trail runs right behind it. Earlier I made blackberry cobbler from the blackberries we picked along the path back there.

We celebrated our 18th anniversary last Sunday. Actually we celebrated it the Friday before with an awesome kid-free trip to an amusement park, but Sunday was the actual day. The whole weekend was wonderful, but we especially had fun on our date Friday.

I finally got Jack potty trained. And yes, he's four, but between all the chaos of having the house on the market for almost a year with nearly daily showings and the four weeks we lived with my parents it was just an impossible task until we got settled. 

Oh, I didn't mention we lived with my parents for a while? We moved out of the old house March 26. At that point there had been one extension and we were due to close on the 29th, so we cleared out so the buyer could do his final walk through. Then of course we ended up not closing for almost another month. My parents were really awesome, but it was an extremely stressful month with all five of us sharing two bedrooms and one bathroom, on top of the daily roller coaster of trying to get the sale of the house to closing. 

Morgan and Daisy will be going to new schools. Morgan really wants to go to her old high school, which could technically happen because she has an approved transfer, but she ended up failing two classes last year for a myriad of reasons, and Nick is understandably unwilling to have me drive 20 minutes to the old school and back twice a day when she's not been doing the things she's supposed to. She lost her phone privileges months ago for doing some inappropriate things with it, and she's still not managed to earn it back. I don't want to give the impression that she's turned into some kind of teenage reprobate - a lot of her issues stem from some struggles with anxiety and depression that she really battles, but some of it is just her being an irresponsible kid. We're hopeful that a new school will be a fresh start for her, and we really love the school district we've moved to.

Domestic discipline has been very much on the back burner, which I hate, but I don't know how to fix it. I've tried bringing it up a couple of times, and Nick seems more or less willing to keep it on the table. Unfortunately that's easy to say without really doing anything to make that a reality. And I'm working hard to try to keep the house much cleaner than it was when we lived in the old house (before we were showing it 42 times a day), so maybe there's just nothing for him to come down on, but that doesn't mean the need for boundaries and discipline isn't still very much there for me. It's been seven months, and the lack of it is making itself felt. Meh. Same old story.

Let's see, what else? Right before we moved, a lady at our church gave us a brand new condition couch, chair, and recliner. She had bought them for her living room about a year ago and decided they were too big for her space, so she just gave them to us. She is an older widowed lady who lives alone in a pet free home, so they were immaculate, and it was just a crazy out of the blue blessing.

Last month we HAD to put tires on my car. It had gotten to the point that Nick wasn't comfortable with me even driving it, and something had to be done. So my dear sweet unselfish husband sold his custom bicycle that Will and Kate got him for Christmas a few years ago. It hurt my heart for him to give it up, but it was sold and gone before he ever told me about it.

Nick's great aunt passed away earlier this week, and we will be going to her funeral this evening. She was a lovely lady, and we hated to lose her. Unfortunately she had been struggling with dementia for the last few months, so it was a relief too in a way. 

Morgan turned 15 in April, so sometime in the next few weeks we plan to let her go get her learners permit, and just when exactly did I give permission for my children to grow up?

We went to church camp at the beginning of June, and it was a blessing as always. We had 16 kids get saved, including Daisy, who had made a profession when she was 4, but realized she hadn't really had a clear understanding of what it meant at the time. She wants to get baptized in the next few weeks.

God has really been so very good to us, showering us with all kind of blessings!

A Forever Home

Guys, I know it's been ages. Life has been so busy, but very good for the most part. On August 26 our sweet Daisy girl asked Jesus into her heart, which has been the BEST news!

She's such a precious girl, and I'm so proud of her. Today after church she decided she wanted her ears pierced (something she's been toying with for a while), so we took her and got it done, and she was SO brave!

I got spanked last Saturday morning. Housework stuff again, although there way have been some other stuff mixed in there. He woke me up digging in the toy chest for the doggin bat, and within a few seconds I was over his knee with my panties down. I can't say I was terribly cooperative, but it was a rather rude awakening.

We have had to deal with some drama with Morgan recently. There's this kid who goes to her school. We'll call him Joe. Joe is 13, but he's major trouble. He's been an on again/off again boyfriend to Morgan's best friend Allie, and just through his interaction with her he's proven himself to be manipulative, mean, unfaithful, and a liar. In fact, there have been several occasions where we've curtailed the time Morgan and Allie spent together because of Joe's influence on Allie. Well, last week we found out that he had been grabbing Morgan's breasts on the bus, despite her telling him to stop, and also spreading some nasty rumors about her when she wouldn't agree to some explicit requests he made of her. We immediately contacted the school about the breast grabbing, and because there were witnesses, they suspended him for 5 days. She's riding the bus while he's on suspension, but we plan on driving her in and picking her up once he comes back. I would appreciate everyone's prayers though that he doesn't try to harass her any further (and also that her friend Allie will finally see the light about him!).

There's another matter that we seriously need and would really appreciate your prayers on. Okay, (somewhat) quick back story: A bit less than 5 years ago, a few months after Daisy was born, there was a house that came up for sale. This house was much bigger than ours, and it was located just above my parents' house (a positive for us). We loved just about everything about the house - the style, the room, the lot. It was also originally built by a contractor as his personal home, and he went far above and beyond the requirements for making the house well built, sturdy, and well insulated. It was a foreclosure, so there was the thought that maybe we could get it for less than it was worth, which would have to be the case for us to afford it. I remember walking around the yard, holding hands with Nick and telling God that we would really, really love to have this house, but that it would absolutely have to be His doing for it to happen.

It turned out that there were a couple of problems. First of all there was something wonky with the way the title was filed, causing some issues with buying it. Then the bidding went completely out of our range at that time. But the guy who bought it was a title lawyer who was able to untangle the title issues, and we thought, well, maybe this is God's way of clearing the way for us to buy it down the road. So we kind of put it out of our minds. 

A year later, the guy sold the house to his father-in-law, who is in real estate, and also happened to be the guy who bought my Papaw's farm from my mom after he died. He lived in the house for a couple of years, and he did some landscaping we would have wanted to do, and put in beautiful real hardwood floors. Then last year he offered to sell it to us for a great price if my mom would write off the balance of the money he still owed on the farm. Beyond the fact that my mom just couldn't afford to give away what was basically her retirement to help us get the home of our dreams, we would have never let her do that. So we let it go again.

But now the guy wants to retire and move back home to the county he's from, and he wants to be out of the house by the first of the year. And he's interested in selling it to us. And he is willing to buy our home from us to use as a rental property as part of the deal. And we want this SO SO SO much. And God has worked some serious miracles in the past few months to put us in a much better position to be a contender for this house. But there are so many things that will have to go just perfect for this to happen. First of all, he's going to have to come down on the price by a good bit. Which sounds like a huge obstacle (and it is!), but we happen to know what he has in the house, and if he would just come down to that, then we could afford it. He claims that he will be happy to get back out of it just what he has in it. The problem is, he's kind of inflating the number he's giving us for what he's spent on it, and although we know better, calling him on it is not going to work in our favor. He also has to agree to buy our house for a decent price, which we're not too terribly worried about. 

And there are things that favor him in doing this deal with us. Like he will get a rental property out of it, and he also won't have to worry about selling his house on the open market (which is not so great right now), possibly delaying by months or longer his plan to move back home for good by the new year. But he's a guy who likes to make money (not criticizing), and this deal would not be a real moneymaker for him.

We would benefit by far more than he would. Not only would we be be getting our dream home, but we also wouldn't have to worry about getting our current house market ready, although there are a few minor repairs we would take care of anyway. But a cash buyer (which he would be) means no inspection process and having to fix every ding and scratch. It would also put us very, very close geographically to my parents, which is not such a huge deal now, but likely will be in the coming years when they will start to need assistance on a day to day basis. My mom is not in great health as it is, and I would like to be convenient to her should she need me to be, a likelihood I don't like to contemplate but can't deny. It will also make it easy for Nick to mow their yard for them when the time comes. 

This would be our forever home. As it sits it has the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms our current house has, but there's a huge finished basement the size of the rest of the house, already plumbed out for another bathroom and just waiting for us to turn it into a master suite, a laundry room, a bathroom, a craft room (!!!!!) and a small guest bedroom, all of which we could do with minimal cost and the help of my father-in-law the carpenter and my dad the former plumber.

This is not an impossible deal, but it will definitely be God working if it goes through, and we know that if it does not happen the way we're hoping, it's because He has a better plan. Worst case scenario, it doesn't happen and we stay in our current home, for now or from now on. And it's warm and solid and cozy, even if it is a bit cramped. We are so very blessed either way. So what I'm asking is for you all to pray that God's will be done here, and that if that plan does not include us getting this house, that Nick and I will be filled with peace and contentment and the assurance that He is still in control.

In about 17 hours we have a meeting with this gentleman, and hopefully we will know then whether or not we need to let this dream go. We're going to lay out for him what we hope to do and what we have to have to make that happen. If he doesn't agree, then we have to walk away. Please, if you are a praying person and don't mind do so, set an alarm on your phone for 7 PM EST and send up a prayer for God's sovereign will over this meeting and the whole situation. Love you guys!

July so far...

Did everyone have a nice 4th of July? Ours was quite lovely. We actually went to my parents' house the day before for a cookout, and it was a lot of fun having all 6 of their grandkids under one roof, especially since 5 of them are 4 years and under. :) Of course they're all together every week at church, but it was nice to have them where they could get down and play and make lots of noise. The actual 4th we went up to Nick's grandparents' cabin on the lake. It was wonderful! We had great food, fishing and swimming, and when it got dark, some of us went out on the pontoon boat and watched the fireworks going off all over the lake. 

I've really missed the cabin. We spent our honeymoon there, and every June for years we would go back for a family June birthday party and then stay for several days to celebrate our anniversary. For the last three years Nick has used his free week of vacation for church camp, so we've not gotten to stay for the week since 2010, and in 2011 we just had a weekend there. This was the first year at least as long as we've been married that they've not had a June birthday party, which was sad.

This year he gets 3 weeks vacation, and we were so looking forward to having a week there again. Unfortunately, since Nick's grandfather passed away, his grandmother has been getting more skittish about life in general, and she told us at Easter that she didn't think she was going to let anyone stay up there anymore. When Nick's dad opened the cabin up for the season there were some plumbing problems that had appeared over the winter, and I guess she's paranoid that someone will tear something up and Nick's grandfather is no longer here to fix things. This is disappointing to be sure, but we're hoping and praying that she will come around. 

Saturday we took the kids to the mountains and just walked around and had fun as a family, which was such a precious gift. God has been so good to provide us some financial ease recently, and it was wonderful to be able to have time with family on all three days and not have to scramble for money for gas or food to take to the celebrations.

Another blessing was that my parents found a killer deal on an upgraded washer and dryer a few weeks ago, and they passed their old set on to us. Obviously it was used, but definitely an upgrade to our washer and dryer, both of which were close to wearing out entirely. We were hoping to make it to next income tax return time so that we could buy a new set, so this was a real blessing. It's actually made laundry a much more pleasant chore. :)

I did end up getting a spanking after all. He planned to get to it Friday night after the kids were in bed, but he fell asleep on the couch. Then he planned to handle it Saturday night, but we got home late, and when he was ready to do it and go to bed, the girls were still awake (although they were in bed). So he decided that he would set the alarm early and do it before church. He was quite prepared to wake me up and paddle me (a rude awakening indeed), but his alarm also woke the girls up, and they came piling upstairs (saved by the bell!). 

Finally Sunday night the stars aligned and he took me upstairs to meet my fate. Forty or so swats with the Patty paddle from Cane-iac over my jeans might not sound so bad, but 4 months is a long time to go between spankings, and I was definitely on fire from the start. But it was exactly what I needed, and I've rediscovered my motivation for housework since lol. Now if I could just rediscover the same motivation to get to bed on time!

Staying Afloat

Guys, this month, and thus this year - it's been HARD. I mean crazy stressful! Let me see, a few of the high(low)lights:

A couple of weeks ago, when pretty much the whole country was frozen, our pipes burst and pretty much flooded the garage. Our washer and dryer are out there, and we have an old playpen out there where I try to keep all the laundry waiting to be washed. Unfortunately, the day before, Morgan and Daisy decided to "clean" Jack's room, and I don't even want to talk about why there were so many clothes on the floor in there, but they took every single piece of clothing, including some of Jack's new stuff from Christmas that had been knocked down from where I had it stacked until I could clear drawer space, and threw it all out into the garage on the floor in front of the washer and dryer. (I know my sentences are too long. I'm seeking help for it.)

So all of that stuff was soaked in extremely frigid water, and I had no idea how to stop the leak. Morgan and I started hauling all the wet laundry into the bathtub downstairs, and since Nick was at work an hour away, I called my dad. He came immediately and went into the scary crawl space under the house and turned the water off. By this time Nick was on his way to Wednesday night church, so my dad had me call him to come home instead. He came on home, and between the four of us (me, Nick, Dad, and Morgan) we got the pipes repaired (Nick and Dad) and all the laundry up and the water shop-vacced out of the garage (me and Morgan). That was the 8th. 

The 11th Daisy's best friend was having a birthday party, so I whipped up a few hair bows for a birthday gift, and we headed out the door to Chuck E. Cheese. It had warmed up drastically by then, so I was wearing flip flops (which I kind of live in) when I stepped out onto our wet front porch. My feet shot out from under me, and the right one jammed up under the bottom of the porch railing. I nearly passed out, but I kept it together, and once I could breathe and manage to stand, I went inside to change so that we could leave.

My foot was actively throbbing all day, and by the end of the night I was concerned that I might have broken the...top...of it (whatever that's called). I don't have health insurance, but I do have several nurse friends who convinced me via Facebook that I really needed to get it x-rayed. The kids were all in bed by then, so someone needed to stay with them. I called my mom to see if she would come sit with them so Nick could drive me in case they gave me something that would prevent me from driving myself home. Instead my dad came down and drove me across town to the hospital. James works there as a surgical tech, and he smoothed the process for me a bit, getting me fast tracked, bringing me a pillow and something to drink, etc. X-rays revealed that it was just badly bruised and swollen, which was good news except for the fact that I could have just stayed home and avoided the ER bill. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Both the little kids had been sick all weekend, so my dad and I took them both to the pediatrician on the following Monday (the 13th). Can you tell my dad is my hero? He went to 3 different doctor's visits with me this month. This was a horrible visit, both kids feeling terribly bad and violently opposed to any sort of examination. It turned out that they both had double ear infections.

Daisy had gotten her referral to a GI doctor the previous week and seen her on Friday, the day before the birthday party. It was really more of a consult, and the doctor set up an appointment for a lower intestine barium scan the following Friday. She also sent me home with a little plastic vial and instructions to collect a stool sample. This was not something I was looking forward to, but we do what we have to for our kids, right? Unfortunately she was not producing anything to uh, sample. I stalked this kid for 5 days. Finally, this past Wednesday, she yelled at me to let me know she was ready. While I was "collecting" and pretending I was in a happier place, Jack managed to get hold of not just my Macbook, but a cup of tea that I didn't even know was in the room (it was Daisy's).

Morgan came home from school just then to find him sitting on a soaked couch, splashing away in the puddle that surrounded my laptop. The lid on it was closed, so she grabbed it and yelled to me to tell me what happened. I was a little tied up, so I made sure she had gotten it away from him and finished what I was doing. When I got in there it really didn't look like anything had gotten inside it, so I set it aside while I cleaned up the tea. It was a couple of hours before I had a chance to mess with it, and when I tried to turn it on, nothing happened. Opening up the case revealed that tea had definitely gotten inside. That was really just the end of my rope. That day I had dealt with sick kids (Jack had thrown up - on me - more than once), collecting poop, piles of laundry, and fighting siblings. Plus I was supposed to meet a photography client in two days with a CD of her pictures (which I needed my Mac for), and an Etsy client wanted a custom pillow cover (which I also needed my Mac for). To make things worse Nick and I were snapping at each other, because he'd had a crappy day too (not as crappy as mine I daresay). I took it to the computer repair place I use and it's the logic board - $900 to repair.

This past Friday I took Daisy in for her barium test. She had to drink this awful chalky liquid, but she did pretty well. When I woke up that morning my right eye was kind of red and crusty. This is what it looked like then:

Two days later I was in all kinds of agony, and it looked like this:

Sorry the second one looks kind of insane. I was trying to get it as open as I could because I was texting it to my cousin, who is a nurse practitioner and was kind enough to call me in a prescription for some antibiotics. I was finally able to put my contacts back in today.

Today I got thrown up on twice (once yesterday and several times earlier in the week). Yeah, it's been a little rough.

BUT, there have been good things too. Some of them really good. I got a call one day last week from our water company telling me someone had paid our bill for us anonymously. It didn't take too much investigating to figure out it was my parents. :)

James showed up Tuesday and handed me $50 to help offset the cost off all the co-pays and prescriptions.

I called my mom Thursday morning to ask if she could stay with the kids so I could take my computer to the repair shop to see if it could be saved. She showed up a couple of hours later with a relatively inexpensive but brand new and fully functional HP laptop, all for me, courtesy of her and my dad. I was able to use it to fill my Etsy order and get it to the customer on time. They've also bought both food and medicine several times for my little family this week.

The computer repair place said my hard drive is still good, and they can move all my data over for $89. I'll pick it up this Friday and most of that cost will be covered by the CD order.

My photography client was incredibly cool about the whole situation and didn't mind waiting another week for her CD. I still had all of her raw files on my camera as a backup, so I hadn't lost them either way, but I would have had to re-edit all of them, and with the pinkeye I couldn't stand to look at a computer screen for more than a few minutes.

We were able to fix the pipes for less than $1 since my dad had a couple of pipe pieces that fit, and all we had to buy were a couple of copper joints. And we got all the wet laundry washed before it mildewed.

Daisy's lower intestine scan came back clear, and her stomachaches have become fewer and farther apart, so now we're just waiting on her next doctor visit.

So there have definitely been blessings too.

That said, I'm wound a little tight these days, and I'm feeling a little unmoored relationship-wise. We've been a bit in survival mode around here, and my very contagious pinkeye has just been the latest thing to keep us from getting close. The truth is, I miss my husband, and I miss very much feeling the comforting bounds of his authority. The day after my last post he apologized and told me that he'd known what I needed but hadn't felt like dealing with it. I can't say that that didn't hurt a little, but he was trying to stay afloat himself. I guess I've just been doing and taking care of so much at home myself lately that I'm missing a reminder that he's in charge and I actually don't have all the responsibility myself.

He's going to be staying home from work tomorrow because he's gotten sick himself in the last few days, so I don't think there will be any sort of discipline forthcoming, but I will be glad for the time with him, even though I hate that he's not feeling well.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Thank you all for all your thoughts and prayers!

Soon to arrive...

Well, it looks like Robert and Faith's sweet baby boy will likely be here on Wednesday. She's not due until the 28th, but she's dealing with some of the same things I did with Jack, like low blood flow to the placenta and a tiny little guy as a result. They think he's perfectly healthy, praise God, just small. They're estimating somewhere around 4 pounds right now, which is about what they thought Jack would be, although he turned out to be 3lb 11oz. And to tell you the truth, I can't wait to get that itty bitty baby in my arms! I really never thought I'd get my hands on another one that small, so it will be a treat to snuggle him up.

To give you an idea, this was Jack snuggled up in Morgan's American Girl sized bed when he was about 3 weeks old:

I did their maternity pictures on Monday, and I really think they turned out great! This Saturday I'll be doing Brandon and Melanie's, and I've had a couple of other people interested in shoots as well, so that's definitely something to be grateful for!

Life Changing

Gosh, it has been BUSY around here! Morgan has started soccer, which is taking up some of our time. She has practice on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and games on Saturdays. This past Saturday was her first game, and she did great! They won 4-1, which is a nice change from the last season she played. This time around her team is older and more experienced, and it shows.

I've also had some sewing to do. Daisy's birthday is coming up on October 5th, and she has requested a special birthday skirt. I finished it today, and I'm kind of in love with it. The main part of the skirt is made from this sweet pink nursery rhyme toile, and the bottom band is a coordinating solid pink. I plan on getting her a plain white t-shirt and embellishing it with some of the toile, maybe a rosette or two.

Here in a few minutes I need to sew up a skirt for an Etsy order. And guys, Christmas is only 15 weeks away! I should have started on Christmas gifts last month! I've already been forewarned that I'm not to turn our house into Santa's workshop again this year, and  I've promised to try not to.

But the biggest thing that has been taking up my time is my (early) birthday gift from my mom. This is seriously the best thing she's ever given me (besides you know, life). She's paying for me and the kids to have a membership to our local YMCA for a few months! We're waiting on the Y to review our application for scholarship to see if maybe we can get the membership at a discount (I'd really appreciate you're prayers on this!), so that maybe they can pay for it long enough for us to get our income tax back and pay for a year up front. 

This has been life changing for me, just in the week since I've been going. I'll be really honest here, I've known for a while now that I really needed to do something to get in shape and lose weight. Diabetes runs in my family, and it hit my mom when she was just a little older than I am now. I think that's the main reason she's doing this for me. Nick has been working out and losing weight for the last year and 1/2, and it's made a huge difference in his life. 

My biggest problem was just not having an opportunity to work out on a consistent basis, which made it seem like it wasn't worth doing really at all. There for a while I tried walking around our neighborhood with Daisy and Jack in the stroller, but then it was too hot, then it was too rainy, then it was too cold, then they got to where they just fussed and tried to climb out the whole time, and it just wasn't worth it. But the Y has child care, and they will watch the kids for up to two hours a day, included with my membership. 

The kids LOVE it there. They have this big plastic playhouse shaped randomly enough like a tomato. Daisy calls it "the bamato house" and I just want to freeze time every time she says it. She's getting old enough now that she doesn't have very many childish mispronunciations anymore, and I cherish them all. 

Right now we're going on a free pass because they're still reviewing my application. The free pass counts for everyone in our household, so that means Nick has gotten to join us a few times. He has his own gym membership at a gym close to where he works, but it was really great having him come show me how all the machines work. Once the membership is active Morgan and I will get to meet with a personal trainer to do a fitness test and get set up on a routine. Then every time we come in we'll log into a computer system that will give us a tailored workout plan for the day. For now I've just been doing the treadmill and some weight room routines Nick showed me. 

It's been hard, but so very good to have the chance to push myself, and I've lost 7 pounds so far. :) Anyway, that's what I've been up to, how about you guys?

Busy days

Coming back from vacation I always feel like there's so much catching up to do. That's not actually the truth in this case, even if it feels that way. Almost all of our vacation laundry was done before we left Texas, and we unloaded the car as soon as we got home, so it was just a matter of putting it all away. The dishes were done and the trash taken off before we left, and even most of the laundry that didn't go with us was clean (although maybe not folded).

But here it is less than 2 weeks later and the laundry is piled up (despite the fact that I do it constantly), the sink is full (also doing the dishes all the time), and the bedrooms are in chaos (despite the fact that I've worked on ours all week).

Part of it has to do with the fact that Jack has been crazy clingy since we got back, and Daisy has been an unusual handful. I think she picked up some attitude from Maddox, because she has definitely not been her usual sweet and compliant self since we got back. The other night she pitched an honest to goodness temper tantrum, something that has only happened once before in her life, and that was when she was about 20 months old.

The last couple of weeks have been full of errands, between back to school shopping, dentist appointments, a birthday party, a wedding, an order for a skirt for a lady at church, signing Morgan up for soccer, paying bills, taking the dog for a rabies vaccine, mailing back Morgan's old ipad, and getting the new one to log onto our wifi, a process that turned out to be a ridiculous hassle.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me kind of a crazy story. All my life my parents have loved to sit on the front porch during a thunderstorm. (No lectures please). They have two porch swings and several rockers, and my mom has a big fluffy recliner out there. So when a storm blew up that afternoon they sat out on the porch to enjoy the show. Then it started to get pretty bad, so they decided to go inside.

About two minutes later my mom was looking out the window at the deluge when suddenly lightning struck one of the trees in the front yard their hammock hangs from. The hammock is secured with a thick chain, and the lightning jumped from the chain to a shrub at the corner of the porch. The whole house shook, and the blast hurt their ears even with them inside. My mom had a ceramic frog shaped planter at the base of the tree that was struck, and it was blown apart. The surge fried their whole phone system, one of their TVs, the wiring to their cable and internet, and their well pump.

Once they got their nerves settled and the storm died down, they went out to check the damage. All of the bark on the tree had been blown off in long thick strips, and the recliner where my mom was sitting just a couple of minutes before the strike was filled with bark and sharp shards of shrapnel from the broken planter. If they had still been on the porch when it happened they would have doubtless been injured, quite probably seriously so. Thank God they had gone in!

They were without water until today when they were able to get the well pump replaced, but it will be another week or so before they get their phone and internet back.

We also got some family news last night - Grant and Kelly are (quite unexpectedly) expecting again! They're happy, but also more than a little scared, because Logan is only 10 1/2 months old. When the new baby comes he'll be just a little younger than Jack is now. All day today I tried to imagine bringing a newborn home right now and trying to juggle him/her and Jack. Honestly, Kelly struggled quite a bit with postpartum depression, so we're praying that she handles it well.

We are looking a bit forward to watching the new parent smugness fall away, lol. It's just within the last week that Logan has started to even army crawl, so they've not had to do any baby proofing as of yet, and they always seemed a bit exasperated with us and with Kate when Daisy, Jack, or Maddox got into something at their house. We knew that as soon as Logan started getting into everything they would understand, but now it looks like they're going to really be baptized into it with fire.

They've also had plenty of date nights, something that comes very rarely for me and Nick, simply because they have one (immobile) grandchild to watch, where we have 3 very active ones. Nick said several weeks ago that he had the feeling that once Logan was up and into everything that the baby sitting offers would dry up pretty quickly.

Kelly called me today to talk to me about getting the same maternity coverage I had with Jack since their policy doesn't have maternity benefits. I think they should qualify, which would be great, so she can keep her same doctor. Dr. E delivered all three of mine, as well as Logan, and she will deliver Faith's baby in November, our friend Melanie's in December, and Kate used to see her when she lived here. She also was Faith's doctor during her pregnancy last year that ended in miscarriage. She's really an awesome OBGYN, and I was a little sad when I went back for my six week visit after Jack was born because I knew she'd seen me through my last pregnancy.

I've been doing a bit of crafting lately, which is always good for me. I made Daisy nine little skirts to take to Texas with us, and a 10th one a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I made the one for the lady at church. It's actually for her granddaughter who lives out  of state. Her family will be coming in for a visit this weekend, and she'll try it on her then to see if the fit needs to be adjusted, and then she wants four more. My mother-in-law's birthday was last week, and I made her a necklace, bracelet, and earring set, as well as a couple of leather brooches. I also made a taggie blanket for my friend Elizabeth's neighbor, and I had a pillow cover order last week. My friend Denise just started an Etsy shop selling handmade earrings, and her birthday is coming up, so I've made her a bunch of earring cards in zebra print (her shop theme) to mail off to her. And Elizabeth's birthday was this week, and she's requested a couple of hair accessories, so that's next.

I'm missing Nick a lot. It seems like it's been ages since we've had any alone time, and if I'm honest I'm feeling the need to feel some boundaries. I'm at that too familiar place where I think the best thing for me would be a hard spanking, but I don't really have a way to make that happen short of purposefully doing something to make him mad, and I'm not willing to do that. There are surely things he could pick to deal with me about, but he's been really busy himself, and I'm trying to stay aware of that.

Anyway, it's time for me to head to bed, so I'll say goodnight.

Cranky Pants

A little personal information: historically, I've not had terribly long or intense monthly cycles. For years I was on Seasonale, which let me have just 4 periods a year, usually lasting 3-4 days, and sometimes I skipped even those (with my doctor's blessing). Then when we decided to start trying for Daisy (when Morgan was 5), I went off birth control entirely. That was 7 years ago, and I've not been back on it since. Around 5 years ago my Polycystic Ovary Syndrome kicked in, and my body would sometimes go 2-3 months between cycles, and when they did show up, they were short. Then I had Daisy, and it was like the pregnancy reset things, and suddenly I was super regular, and only lasting 2-3 days. 

After Jack though, I had a copper IUD put in. My doctor warned me that I might have heavier periods for a while with it. Look people, he's 18 months old (!!!) now, and my last period was TEN DAYS and really, really awful! All of this to say that I just started again, and I'm feeling all kinds of weepy and out of sorts, and I don't like it at all! I know many, many women have struggled for years with heavy flow and terrible cramps and all kinds of other things that are making Nick wish he didn't get auto-emailed my posts (stick with me, honey - I'm about to change the subject), but this is new ground for me, and I'm kind of unhappy about it! But whatever, I know this will (eventually) pass, so please excuse my whining.

Did everyone have a nice holiday weekend? Nick was off for four whole days, which was really nice. We spent the 4th at Grant and Kelly's house with the whole family (all in-state siblings and spouses, my parents and Nick's). It's done nothing but rain here for days now, so fireworks were out, but we still had fun visiting. 

My mom had her knee surgery this morning (well, I guess technically yesterday morning, since we're into Tuesday now). It was done arthroscopically, and it went well (thank you for your prayers). She had a large cartilage tear and a free floating piece, all of which had to be cut out (don't you need your knee cartilage? Will it grow back? No? Yes? I don't know.). There also turned out to be less arthritis in it than they had previously thought, so that's good news. Her doctor is optimistic that this will really improve things for her, although she's in tremendous pain post op, so please continue to pray for her pain management.

Next week is Vacation Bible School at our church. I'm in charge of the crafts this year, which I'm excited about. I usually assist my mom, but she'll be home recovering, so she turned the reins over to me. Kelly will be helping me out, along with a college girl from our church. We've got tons of stuff planned, and I'm supposed to go to Kelly's house tomorrow (today?) to help get it all organized and ready.

The week after VBS, Kate and the kids (and possibly Will? I'm not sure) are coming in for a few days. I'm excited to see them, especially since financially, our annual Texas trip is looking kind of iffy. That's certainly not to say that God can't provide. I know that He can and am praying that He does, but this is a want more than a need, and I'm trying to be prepared for the possibility that His answer may be no on this one. Either way, it will be great to spend some time with them while they're here. 

God has been providing what we need when we need it, and I know that He is good to us, all the time!

Anyway, I'm off to take my unreasonably teary and emotional self off to bed on time for once!

Camp

You guys - camp was amazing! We had 51 kids there, and let me tell you, God showed up in a big way! We had 14 saved, and one called to preach. And about those 14 - number 13 was on Friday morning, and it was Morgan's best friend Lola, which was awesome. Now Morgan made a profession of faith a couple of years ago. That said, my girl has just not shown any evidence that it was real for her. I love her with my whole heart, but she's been a pretty tough to handle preteen attitude-wise, and she's shown less than no interest in church or anything spiritual. Nick and I (as well as her grandparents, aunts, and uncles) have been praying hard for her for a long time, just waiting for God to really get a hold of her.

Friday night after the service she came to me, just generally upset about things in her life that make her unhappy, not really anything specific, but I had an idea that God was working on her heart. She insisted that yes, she was saved, but she really seemed to be trying to convince herself as well as me. I told her that only she and God know her heart, and that if she said that was the case, then I would take her word for it. I spent some time just telling her how much God loves her, and that it seems like she had been running from Him. I told her that I don't know His will for her life, but I could promise that if she would just surrender to Him, He has so many amazing things in store for her. At that point she kind of eased her way out of the conversation, and I could just see the conviction in her. But it was not the time to push, so I let her walk away, and I just kept praying. 

About 4 hours later, all the campers were in bed, and Robert, Nick, Grant, and one of the other counselors were all hanging out with me in my cabin, discussing the week. Suddenly we heard someone outside, then we heard Faith say (through the screen window), "We have some good news!" A few seconds later she ushered Morgan and Lola into the cabin. Morgan was crying so hard she could barely talk, but she managed to tell me that she had asked the Lord to come into her heart and given her whole life to Him! Hallelujah and praise God! This child was broken in the Spirit, something that was very much missing two years ago, and my heart just soared! 

There could not have been a better end to the week, and I'm amazed at the change in her in just the few days since it happened! There were so many kids who met with Jesus while we were there, and time and time again our counselors walked up on impromptu prayer meetings - young people going to God because they wanted to, not because it was on the schedule! 

Sadly my friend Ann didn't get to spend the week with me after all, mostly due to some medical issues, but she did get to come up for the service a couple of times. Even without her though, I had a great time, and we're literally counting down the days till next year!

God's blessings

This week is a real struggle for us financially. Nick and I are both stressing a bit, and I know that when that happens, the best thing for us to do is stop and pray, and praise God for His many blessings. We've already done the stop and pray part, so I just want to put it out here how very much God already has blessed us lately.

The biggest blessing was of course that Nick passed both of his ASE tests on Thursday. But it didn't end there - on Friday I got a text from Nick with some great news! That morning he went in to his immediate manager to give him the paperwork showing he passed the tests, then went back to his work area. A few minutes later his manager called him back in and told him that he had been looking back over the shops records and 1) Nick is always, always, always the workhorse of the team, consistently pulling in more hours than anyone else, and 2) that he (the manager) has been keeping a book of every car that came back because of a technician's mistake, and Nick has not had one single entry! Because of this, he is getting a 50¢/hour raise!

This is especially significant, because no one at the shop has had a raise in 5 years. Once upon a time passing each test netted you 25 cents on the hour, but that has not been the case for a very long time. In fact, several very good employees have gone and asked for raises several times over the last year, and they've all been turned down, so he wasn't expecting anything.

And almost more than the money, I appreciate the fact that they've acknowledged just how hard a worker and how valuable an employee he is to them! I know just how much he's worth, and a 50¢ raise doesn't begin to encompass it, but it's definitely high praise in this economy, and I'm so proud of him!

Another blessing was that my mom and dad brought by a few things today. They're forever showing up with a couple gallons of milk (the kids go through about a gallon a day) along with fruit, mac n cheese, bread, whatever they think we might need (this is something we never ask them to do btw). But today, along with the milk, they brought a new pair of capris for me (I never get new clothes - wheee!), two lovely dresses for Daisy, and a brand new Costco membership card for me!

We used to have a Sam's Club membership that we renewed when we could afford it. But it expired last year right around Christmas, and we just didn't have the extra. They built a Costco in our city sometime last year, and we were kind of considering going with them instead. In fact, Nick and I took a tour of the facility a few weeks ago, and we were impressed with what we saw. The main issue though was that the membership cost $100, as opposed to Sam's which cost $40, and we really couldn't afford either one.

A few weeks ago one of the daily deal sites offered Costco memberships for $50 each, and it came with $50 worth of fabulous coupons, several for completely free products. I knew we couldn't do it right then, even with the discounted price, but I called my mom to tell her about it, since she had shown some interest in maybe getting a membership herself. She called me the next day and told me that she had purchased a membership for each of us, and that the cards should be coming shortly! I'm so excited about it!

Let's see, what else? My parents have a pontoon boat they got for a good price from a friend a few years ago. It's been ages since we went out on it, a couple of years at least. Friday Nick is off and we're going to take the kids out on it and make a day of it - something we're really looking forward to! The next day is Nick's family's annual June birthday gathering at the cabin up at the lake. I actually thought it was this past Saturday and that we'd missed it, so I was relieved to find out it's this week.

I think this year's party will have a tinge of sadness to it. It's the first since Nick's papaw passed away, and he was always such a big part of it. The cabin actually belonged to him and Nick's grandmother, and he spent just about every warm day that wasn't a Sunday up there fishing. Nick's grandmother is also one of the ones celebrating a birthday this month, and it will be her first as a widow. And Nick's dad's birthday is the day after hers, so I think it will be a bit sad for him too to have it without his dad, not to mention the proximity to Father's Day.

Two days after the birthday gathering we will be leaving for church camp! We're really excited about this! We're bringing 13 kids just with us, and Morgan is really stoked to have so many of her friends there with her. And speaking of friends, my best friend Ann is going to stay the whole week with me! Her two boys are going as campers, and she decided to tag along and share a cabin with me, Daisy, and Jack. I can't even tell you how excited about this I am! It's been 15 years since we had a sleepover, and I could sure use the girl time!

Anyway, as you can see God has been so very good to us, and I have so much to praise Him for! I would really appreciate your prayers for my sweet husband (and for me!), because as obvious as God's provisions for us are, we're still quite human, and sometimes we let the stress get to us. Also, Nick's hands are still unimproved, so that's still something we're praying about as well.

Anyway, I'm off to bed - good night all!

Hooray!

You guys - he passed BOTH tests! And I can't even tell you what an obvious God thing this was. Not saying anything at all bad about Nick, but he just did NOT have as much time as he needed to study. At. All. In fact, he only got to crack the study book on the second test yesterday. And these tests are hard! Not only is the material complicated, but the questions are purposely confusing. Perhaps that's to make sure the test takers are really using their investigative skills, but I'm more inclined to think that it's because if you pass they refund ALL of your money. Yep - his whole $98 is coming back to him, which means he can use it to register for the next two tests!

Thank you so much to those of you who stopped to pray - it really helped! The kids and I stopped what we were doing every half hour and prayed for him during the testing, and he was sure praying all the way through!

God is so good!

*Edited to correct myself - I was confused on the refund issue. Nick just let me know he will get reimbursed, but it will come from work, not the testing company. 

The Party

So we had The Slumber Party. And for the most part it went very well. There ended up being 9 girls in all counting Morgan and Daisy, which ended up being the perfect number. 

The girls flipped over the zipper pouches and hair bows, and they had a blast making the bottle cap pins, glass stone magnets, tie dye shirts, and canvas bags. My mom had balloons and streamers, and a gorgeous food table set up. She got some great gifts (almost all of them One Direction themed, which was just fine with her!), and they had fun playing her One Direction trivia game.

The crafts stretched out until almost 2 AM, at which point we left the life center and went over to one of the Sunday School rooms for a photo shoot. Two of the guests were the granddaughters of a very sweet old man in our church who runs the video camera recording all the services. He also takes the pictures for our church directory, and he's had his backdrop and lights set up there at church for months. He very nicely gave me permission to use them to do a shoot with the girls, and they ate it up!

After the photo shoot I set them up with the first movie (I rented Parental Guidance and Diary of a Wimpy Kid). There was a small amount of drama surrounding one particular girl (we'll call her Allison). She had caused a little bit of an argument earlier in the evening too. Allison is a mostly latchkey kid. She's an only child, her mom and stepdad both work jobs that have frequent overnight shifts, and she spends a lot of nights alone in her house - not exactly an ideal situation for a 12 year old girl. 

She can be really abrasive and overbearing, but to me at least it seems fairly obvious that it comes from constantly searching for attention, and she really is a sweet kid underneath. A couple of months ago on the bus she tripped and landed on a boy sitting down. He shoved her, she shoved him back, and he punched her in the face and bloodied her nose! A boy did this! But the real outrage was that the bus driver didn't do anything at all other than to call the boy an idiot! For the next few weeks, every time she got on the bus, most of the kids would pull their shirts up over their faces, hiding their eyes from her "ugliness" until she would sit down and one of the little monsters would give the all clear. (This story honestly makes me angrier and angrier every time I think about it. It makes me think I could put a few of those paddles upstairs to some very good use!). Anyway, she finally reported it to the principal (since the bus driver wasn't doing anything about it), and Morgan went with her to sign a incident witness report. The school sent it to the police department as a bullying incident, and I don't think there's been a problem since. 

Anyway, Morgan is a friend to her, but she can be pretty hard to deal with sometimes, and Morgan didn't want to invite her to the party. I made it a very strong suggestion that she include her on the guest list, and despite the few random moments of friction, I'm glad we included her.

Saturday morning my mom let me sleep for a few hours while she made breakfast - chicken and biscuits and pancakes. When I got up we made the hair clips along with some door hangers my mom had come up with, and by then the parents had started to show up. That's when I started looking for my keys...

And looking, and looking, and looking! I couldn't find my keys anywhere! I finally had to call Nick to come and bring me a spare, and when he came we kept looking. We tore the place apart, even rooms we hadn't been in. We called the two girls who had already left and had them check their bags in case they had gotten scooped up by mistake, and we had all the girls still there go through their things. After 3 and 1/2 hours (!) of searching we gave up and finally had to admit that it looked like someone had taken them. 

I'll be perfectly honest, we all thought Allison had taken them. She didn't want to go home (she rode with me), and she was really the only one there who would have done such a thing. Also, in the course of looking for them, one of the other girls checked Allison's purse and found the phone charger that another girl was missing. (Of course it's entirely possible Allison thought it was hers and put it in there). On the way home I assured all the girls in the car (3 plus Daisy and Morgan) that if someone had taken them as a joke they wouldn't get in trouble, but I really needed them back. Just before I dropped them off I told them that if they came across them it would be great if they would just drop them in our mailbox.

Sunday at church we all looked again, but no luck. It was seriously stressing me out! There were keys to both of our vehicles, and the house, not to mention that $24 key chain I got spanked over!

Allison usually comes over in the mornings to wait for the bus with  Morgan, so I was hoping she would drop the keys in the mailbox when she came. But when I went to get the mail there was nothing there but bills. Then this afternoon my mom called. She was putting up some of the craft supplies she brought, and there in the bottom of the bag were my keys! 

Talk about relieved! And very glad that none of us had actually come out and accused Allison! Still, I called her and told her that we'd found them and thanked her for helping us all look on Saturday. :)

Anyway, that was our weekend. I hope yours was great!

Dental Surgery

Our youngest girl had dental surgery yesterday. (By the way, that outfit on the baby doll belonged to her baby brother at one time). Early in the morning I took Jack out to stay with Nanny, and Papaw loaded up in the back of the car beside a very nervous little girl. We headed down to the children's hospital and went through admitting, and before long we were in a room. Her vitals looked great, although she was scared of having her blood pressure taken and wearing the pulse oximeter.

Before long they came and gave her Versed (or happy juice as they called it). She thought they'd said they were bringing apple juice, so she was a little disappointed when they showed up with the medication, lol. It took about 10 minutes for the happy juice to kick in, at which time they took us all upstairs. She was absolutely delighted by the fact that they wheeled her whole hospital crib onto the elevator.

My mom had sent her a present to occupy her, which turned out to be a little diary and pen set. She was feeling pretty darn relaxed by this point, so she was content to sit and draw me "a lovely rose". My dad was so attentive and loving with her, and quick to introduce himself as Papaw to every medical or dental professional who stopped by to talk with us. Of course he loves all our kids, but he tends to pay extra attention to Daisy because he's afraid that as the middle child she'll feel left out. Of course she's one of the cutest kids I've ever known, so there's not much chance of that happening!

After a while they wheeled her back and sent us to the surgical waiting lounge, and Dad went down to the cafeteria and bought breakfast for me and him. Because she was too frightened at her office visit to really let him do a thorough examination, the dentist was kind of guessing at what would need to be done. After about 45 minutes he called the lounge to speak to me, and it turned out that they needed to do work on 4 teeth they hadn't planned on touching. The only other option was to just pull them, definitely not the ideal solution because not only did they need to be there to maintain the shape of her dentition, but they were also her four upper front teeth!

There was also a financial issue - obviously there would be a charge to do this unanticipated work. But I really felt that we needed to get it all fixed, so I told him to go ahead and restore them and we would come up with the money somehow.

About an hour later he came out to let us know he was finished. He said that everything had gone well, and that she had done just great. And happily, there were a few teeth he had thought would have to be repaired that didn't need work after all, so it looks like rather than owing him more money, we may actually have some coming back to us! All in all though, it was still a lot of work - 3 pulpotomies and 10 crowns! And of course fillings under all the crowns.

We went back down to her room at this point to wait for them to bring her back from recovery. After about 45 minutes they wheeled her in, but she was sound asleep, although they did say she had come out of anesthesia before she fell asleep. By this time Robert had come by to see her.

They had warned us that she might be combative when she woke up, but that wasn't really our experience. She kept touching her teeth, especially the front ones because the crowns made them a little thicker, but mostly she was just tired and a little discontent. By the time we got to leave though she was happy to have a ride down in a wheelchair with a grape Popsicle in her hand.

My mom brought Jack back to our house along with a big pan of baked spaghetti for our dinner. Daisy has done great with pain management. She cried a little when Morgan helped her brush her teeth before bed, so we gave her the Tylenol with Codeine they prescribed, but she's only had to have it once since then. Today she got a Get Well card in the mail from an older couple at church and was over the moon excited. :)

Anyway, I'm so glad it's done!

Blessings (and a spanking)

Hello, everyone. Did everyone have a nice Valentine's Day? Ours was low key but nice. Our cable remote had been dying on us for a while (not a battery issue), and Nick had been wanting me to pick up a new one. So I ran out and got one and had it waiting for him with a big bow on it. Other than that we just let the TV and the Kindle be our Valentine's gifts (not that we normally go anywhere near that big). 

Today was full of blessings. Morgan had the day off from school (President's Day), so it was nice to have her home. Nick had to work, but they had a productive day, which was good. I was working on laundry when I noticed that our washing machine had quit too early. I opened it up and saw that it wasn't draining. I kind of freaked out a little, because isn't that always the way - you buy a new TV and something like your washing machine tears up? I got online and tried to research the problem, but it quickly became clear that any solution was beyond my skill level. I called my dad, who has wrestled with his share of washing machines over the years. He came down to give it a look and was fortunately able to fix it with what we had on hand.

Some really exciting news came from Nick. Kate texted him today to let him know she had shipped us a car seat for Jack along with my Christmas gift. About six months ago when Kate came in for Kelly's baby shower she told me that she was going to give us the car seat she had brought with her to use for Maddox while they were in. Apparently it was an extra, and I was really excited about it. Not only would that eliminate an upcoming expense for us (buying a new one for when he outgrows his infant one), but it was a super nice one too, a Britax, which is about $200 out of our price range. Unfortunately it didn't work out for us to follow her to the airport when they left, so she had to take it back with her. Nothing else was ever said about it, so I assumed we would be buying our own.

But the Christmas gift news is what has me really excited. Right after Christmas Kate called Nick and told him that they had been planning to buy me a new laptop. But when Will went to order it (off Home Shopping Network I think), they refused to ship it anywhere other than his address, so he just cancelled the order entirely. She told Nick that they had a practically new Macbook that they ended up not using once they bought it (can you imagine being able to spend that kind of money for something you don't need and probably won't use?), and that they might send me that instead. 

But it's been nearly two months since Christmas now, and I had honestly given up hope of getting anything. I have to admit, I got pretty excited about the idea of a replacement for my poor, limping along laptop, so it was pretty disappointing to watch the weeks go by with no mention of it. But I just assumed that they had decided that with Nick's bike (which was an impulse buy for Will) they had spent enough on our family for Christmas. And they really, really had, and it was thrilling for me to see Nick get such an awesome Christmas for once. But....I confess to being a little hurt, mainly because very nearly everything we gave them was handmade by me. I put a lot of love and work into their (and everyone else's) Christmas, and it wasn't to get anything back, but I did feel a little...forgotten.

Anyway, they're sending the Macbook, my very first one, and I'm so excited!

I got punished last night for the laundry issue I mentioned the other day as well as the generally chaotic state of the house right now. With the girls asleep and Jack entrenched with a bottle of milk and Yo Gabba Gabba larger than life on the new TV, he took me upstairs to deal with me. He rummaged around in the chest at the foot of our bed and finally chose the Patty Paddle from Cane-iac. He then gave me a very stern talking to for the better part of an hour, followed by a spanking that was much more merciful than I deserved. I was teary before the first swat landed, which I think is probably why he let me keep my jeans and panties up and only gave me 20 licks. 

Today I was better focused, and I got more than usual done, even with the time out to deal with the washing machine. Anyway, Jack's almost asleep, so I'll say goodnight.

Tax time

So it's been a day or two since I posted. Things are good here. God has been blessing us and providing as always. I'm not going to lie - money has been CRAZY tight. Winter in general is always a little pinched just because work slows down at my husband's commission based job. And with Christmas and New Year's Day his check(s) for those weeks always take a hit because they get a flat amount for the day that is always smaller than they would have made on a normal day. 

Winter 2011-12 had some unexpected blessings. In late 2011 Nick and I shot a wedding together, which was $1200. Also in late 2011 Nick totaled his car, which was paid off, and we got an unexpectedly large check from the insurance for it. And when I was in the hospital, one of my very favorite blogger friends sent us a Christmas card with some surprise cash inside, right when we needed it (she was one of my very favorite bloggers even before that ;)). Then, when we filed our income taxes for 2011, we got back a nice tax refund. And just a few weeks after that we unexpectedly got some extra money back from our home insurance on our roof replacement.

But Winter 2012-13 has been harder than most, and certainly harder than last winter. To start with, his pay for the year was almost $5,000 less in 2012 than in 2011, just due to the available work. Most of that shortage was the last quarter of 2012. This was also the first year since we went to one income that Kate and Will didn't send us a nice big check for Christmas. Not, of course, that they owed it to us or anything, but let's be real, it always really helped, and we definitely felt the lack of it this year. And of course we've had an extra person to feed, clothe, and diaper this year.

All of these things combined to take us to the point where we've not just been struggling to keep everything less than 30 days past due, but occasionally writing a check we couldn't cover, because the bill had to be paid and letting the bank's overdraft protection kick in, something we HATE doing. That said, we've  certainly not gone hungry, and many times, just when we didn't know what to do, God has sent just what we needed, whether it was a sudden request for Nick to work on someone's car, or a sale in my Etsy shop, or a photography client buying a larger CD than they originally planned to, or my mom slipping me $20 for gas at church, or my parents showing up with a pack of toilet paper, a gallon of milk, and a bag of oranges for my fruit-loving girls. Just this Sunday we had a Praise Night at church followed by a chili dinner, and all of the leftover chili was sent home with us. We ate it for 3 days, and I still had a gallon of it left to stick in the freezer today. And in the last 2 weeks we've sold 4 things we had listed on Craigslist, one of which we'd listed several times in the last couple of years with no interest. 

I had just come to the conclusion that while last year God was teaching us all about how He could move in BIG ways, this year's lesson was all about trusting Him on the thin edge of no other options, and we wouldn't be getting any "big" blessings. Then I filed our income tax tonight. Income tax time has always been the time when we caught up on anything we were running behind on, as well as took care of things like new glasses, dental work, replacing worn out shoes, etc. And if we had anything left, we could buy something big, like my camera, or our living room furniture.

This year though we were honestly just hoping that we would get back enough to pay my parents back what we owe them, and we were kind of afraid we might actually have pay something. See, we've always set our paychecks up so that we didn't claim any dependents all year so that we got more back at tax time. One year I messed up and claimed 3 people (me, Nick, and Morgan), and we ended up having to pay about $100 that year when we filed. So since then we've always tried to not take the deductions throughout the year.

When Jack was born on January 2 we joked that if he could have just shown up a couple of days sooner we could have gotten a nicer tax return, although truthfully we were glad for him to have the extra couple of days inside. But we were almost giddy thinking of what an awesome tax return we would have with 3 kids this year. Much to our dismay though, we quickly found that we could no longer pay our bills on the amount Nick was bringing home after taxes, so with a sense of mourning for our much anticipated tax return, he reluctantly adjusted his withholding to reflect all of our dependents. 

Tonight Nick brought home the last document we needed to file, and I took a deep breath and decided to get it over with. Much to our amazement and relief, we'll be getting back almost as much as we got last year! I just want to thank God for the little blessings AND the BIG ones!

So much to be thankful for...

Okay, I need to do a gratitude post. A little while ago I checked the bank account and realized that we're going to be about $65 short covering what we already have out there. And Nick just got paid, so I'm struggling a little. This time of year is always rough, but this was the worst check of 2012 so far (and hopefully at all!) due to a number of factors that don't really matter. So we were already putting some things ahead that we really needed to pay this week, and we still came up short. But I do know that God is looking out for us, and He has done so many good things for us this week. I need to focus on that and get my attitude in gear. 

I can be thankful for:

One biggie is that I discovered the shortage before it actually overdrew us and caused overdraft fees. I will probably have to borrow the money from my mom for a few days (which I HATE to do), but one great thing is that I booked a couple of photography sessions for this coming weekend, which should give me at least $90 in sitting fees that day. So at least I should be able to give the money back to her within 4 days.

Another awesome thing to be thankful for - today we got a new dog. It's become pretty evident that Pancho is gone for good (sob!). Last week a girl that I went to school with mentioned that a mutual friend (another former classmate) was looking for a home for her dog Lucy. Normally in that situation I think, okay, what's wrong with the dog? But in this case she loved the dog, but their family situation was less than ideal for it. She actually belonged to my friend's 12 year old son, who just refused to do all the doggy related chores (walking, feeding, bathing, etc.) My friend ended up doing all the caring for the dog herself, and she'd been threatening to give her away for a year if her son didn't start taking responsibility. They also live in a condo, so there's no real room for the dog to run around outside. Anyway, today we went to pick Lucy up. She's a mutt, but a fairly small one, although she's bigger than Pancho. She's very well housebroken, great around kids, and loves to cuddle. We brought her home and she's settled right in. And she was free! And if God should see fit to bring Pancho home after all, we'll happily have two dogs.

A few days ago I discovered via Pinterest that you can bake cinnamon rolls using a waffle iron. They bake up really fast, and the best part is that the waffle grid means that when you pour the icing on it doesn't go sliding off the side! I had a can of orange sweet rolls in the fridge (my favorite), and I was starving, so I'm eating some as I write. Yum!

A few days ago we got a card from Kate with Kit's newest volleyball picture and a nice note in it. I gave her a call just to catch up, and we had a wonderful long conversation that I really enjoyed. 

Morgan got to go to a Fall Festival with her friend across the street tonight. She came home with a cake, a box of cupcakes, and this big vase full of Skittles that she won by guessing closest to the right number inside. Not that we need more sweets in the house (hello, Halloween!), but it makes me happy that she won something, just because I know that was fun for her.

I was running low on diapers for Jack, but yesterday we stopped at the Goodwill (although I wouldn't have if I'd known how short we were!) to replace my ironing board that broke recently (I know, who breaks an ironing board?) Not only did I get an even better ironing board (with a place to hold my iron!) for $3.00, but I also picked up a pack of diapers for Jack for the same price. Now before anybody fusses at me for buying thrift store diapers, the pack was brand new. It's my guess somebody got them in their shower and their baby outgrew them before they could use them. They're a size 1, which will juuuuuust fit him. We actually buy size 2's now, but these will do in a pinch, and they'll certainly get us through the week.

We were also out of formula, but fortunately I had a backup. When Daisy was a baby, just as she outgrew formula, I made a great find at a local discount grocery store. They were selling 3 1/2 pound cans of Nestle Nido Kinder, which is basically formula for the 1 year + crowd, for $9.99, half of what we were paying for a 3 pound can of formula at Sam's. I was able to find it there for just long enough to carry her through the stage of needing stuff with more nutrients than cow's milk, and I hadn't seen it since. A few weeks ago I found it again, only this time the cans were 4.85 pounds for $9.99! One of the cans was pretty badly damaged, so I left it, but I bought the other three, bringing home over 14 1/2 pounds of it for less than $30. Jack won't be a year old for another 8 weeks (EIGHT WEEKS?!?! How did that happen?), but I'm just making sure he gets plenty of solid food, and the Nido is working great for satisfying his bottle needs. 

We have plenty of food in the house to see us through.

Yesterday I was able to pick up a couple of free 8x10 photo collages from Walgreens. I had a code that worked on both my account and Nick's, so I got to surprise my mom and Nick's stepmom with collages of all their respective grandkids.

I got a Redbox code via text that let me rent What to Expect When You're Expecting tonight for free, and we really enjoyed it - very funny!

Morgan missed the bus this morning, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She was actually out there 10 minutes before it was due to run, but for some strange reason they had already come and gone a few minutes earlier, this according to the girl at the bus stop waiting for a different bus. Jack's been up really, really late the last couple of weeks, and when she came up to tell me she'd missed it, I wasn't fit to drive. I told her I was going to need a few more minutes sleep before I would feel safe getting behind the wheel, so she went back down to let me sleep. When she woke me up it was after 10:30. She'd only missed one day this year, so I decided to just let her stay home. She helped watch Jack and Daisy all day, and I got a TON of work done on our bedroom, something Nick was very happy about...

...as evidenced by the mostly lovely encounter we had just before he went to bed (only mostly, because Jack wouldn't go to sleep, so we put him down in the (newly clean) floor to play where he couldn't see us. We were almost done when he managed to pull himself up to my night table, knock my clock off in the floor, and turn on the very loud radio function, scaring himself into a wailing fit). But interrupted or not, it was very nice to just connect that way, something we really need to make it a point to just make happen more often, kids, work, and chores or not!

I'm going to be part of a sort of craft/home business fair on Black Friday. There will be 10 of us with home businesses (ie. Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Arbonne, my Etsy shop, etc). I plan to sell some leather and vinyl bow cuffs, which I'm also making for Christmas, as well as some hair accessories and felt Christmas trees. Those last are just big felt Christmas tree shapes with various ornament shapes cut out of different colored felt. You hang the tree on the wall and let your resident toddler decorate and redecorate to his or her heart's content (and hopefully leave YOUR tree alone!). I made one for Daisy, and she loves it. I also plan on sending one to Maddox as well as my cousin's little boy a few weeks before Christmas. If I can come up with the $10 to buy more seed corn, I'm also going to make some hot/cold packs. I'm going to try to get Nick to paint some ornaments too, something he did last year for gifts. 

Anyway, hopefully I can earn a little money and get a little local exposure for my shop in the process.

It's been well over a year since I last got new contacts. In fact, I'm thinking it might be more like three years, because I've not had vision insurance since I quit my job. Anyway, we're those terrible people who wear our disposable 30 day contacts way longer than we're supposed to. No lectures please, needs must and all. But I was down to my last pair, and I was really milking them. I'd had them in for probably 6 months or more, just trying to make it through till we can afford the copay to get new ones. I have glasses, but I got them when I was pregnant with Morgan, and the prescription isn't quite right anymore, so I only wear them when I have to. When I was cleaning out our bathroom the other day I found a brand new pair of contacts! So you can bet I put those suckers in!

I have just about everything on hand that I need to make Christmas gifts. I do need to buy some candy to send to Will (last year's was a huge hit), and I need to order some photo prints and get a few picture frames. I also need some plastic canvas to make a fabric barn for Maddox, and some dollar store farm animals to go in it. But I think I've got everything else.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Good night all!