Room pictures and new additions

I am going to try to get the captions to match the pictures.

Here is the picture of Madelyn's purple room.

Next is a picture of the pink that Hannah picked out. We will have to wait until it dries completly before we add Natalie's blue to the other walls. I took the girls to a lady's house who was giving away free kittens. She had a whole bunch, a lot of different ages. I let the girls pick out two new kittens. The gray one's name is Smokey, and the other's name is Stripey.

I emptied 2 boxes of kids' books, and 3 boxes of kitchen stuff while Aaron was painting the pink trim today. I have a meeting tonight at 7 for the coop teachers at our school that we go to on Friday. I am teaching a high school class from Dave Ramsey. I really don't want to drive 25 min. there tonight, but don't really have an excuse not to go, so I guess I will.

Madelyn is complaining a lot less today. I don't think the antibiotic has had time to work, but I think knowing what was wrong with her has taken a big weight off her mind. She apparently was really worried over the weekend, wondering what was wrong.

I'm Giving Myself an Award

Yes, I am awarding myself with the "NEGLECTFUL MOTHER OF THE WEEK AWARD"
I think I have earned it.
Let me give you background. I know I could have kept all this to myself and none of you would know what has happened, but sometimes I just have to confess my shortcomings.
Let me go back over the last week or two. It has been very busy around here with buying the house, watering plants at someone else's house, and all the other errands that we have been running this summer. Seems like we are always getting in the car and I am always yelling "go potty before we leave" Madelyn will go, then as we are walking out the door, she says she has to go again. In my hurried state, I have just thought the going a lot was her worrying that she wouldn't have to go while we were out.
I guess I was flashing back to my childhood where while having to go potty while we weren't at home wasn't a crime, it was at least something to feel guilty for. I even wondered how she could pick up on that.
Then on Thursday, she was complaining that her stomach hurt, but she couldn't give me more than vague symptoms. She was even dry heaving some and asked for medicine. So from Thursday until yesterday she was off and on complaining, lying around. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't get much info out of her. Everything was so vague. The first 2 days, I figured she either had the touch of stomach virus or ate something bad. By Saturday night, I was planning on a doctor's visit on Monday. Sunday night, it finally hit me. DUH!
Peeing all the time.
Lethargy
lower abdominal pain
nausea
She has a UTI and although I knew her symptoms, I didn't take the time to sit down and think about the last few weeks and put it all together possibly getting her to the doctor sooner.
We went yesterday morning and sure enough, the doctor comes in after checking the sample and says "Big Time Bladder Infection"
I apologized to her on the way home.

Busy

Busily trying to get the house ready to move into.
Over the weekend, we have moved most of the boxes that we had already packed. On Friday, when I was considering filling up the bookshelf in Madelyn's room with books, I decided that while most of our stuff was still at the rental, it would be best to go ahead and at least paint the kids' rooms. So, we decided to let the girls pick the colors. Friday evening and part of Saturday morning, Aaron and I finished painting Madelyn's room PURPLE.
Aaron is heading over there right now to start working on Natalie and Hannah's room. Natalie picked BLUE, while Hannah picked PINK, so we will see how it blends together. I will try to remember to take the camera over there with me today to post the after pictures. The whole house needs to be painted. The entire house inside was the same color - a bland off white, with a vague hint of green? I don't know how to describe it, but I think the rest of the house will have to wait though.
Aaron is working a weird shift today. He will be going in at 1:30 and getting off at 2:30 in the morning. Something to do with bats. So, he is off this morning, hopefully going to get a nap before going in this afternoon.
My mom has been here all weekend, and has enabled Aaron and I to run errands and paint without the kids helping.
Madelyn has a doctor's appointment today, and I will probably go help Aaron paint after that, but I have to get shoes on now. Thankfully, Mom is still here and so I only have to take Madelyn with me to the doctor.

The Wait for the House is Over!

Closing went very smooth today. We had to take the girls, I couldn't find a babysitter, but they did real well. I took them some new coloring books and they were very quiet. Thank you all for thinking and praying for us. I think once it hits us, we will be thrilled.

I think that it hasn't registered that the house is ours. We went over there today after closing and spent a while. It was great to be there without a realtor following us around the house. We walked through the orchard area and I took a basket to pick some fruit. That part was a little disappointing because all the beautiful plums that were there a few weeks ago had dried up or fell off. We did find another apple tree with sweet, little yellow apples. We found the fig tree which had a lot of ripe figs on it. There were two peach trees that had a ton of tiny unripe peaches, so hopefully they won't dry out like the plums before they mature, and we also found 2 black cherry trees.

We hiked around all of the property that was cleared (although needs to be bushhogged badly) and down the road area that goes into the woods. We were walking down the middle of the driveway and I felt what I thought was weeds tickling my leg, looked down screamed. The creature flew off and I thought it was a grasshopper, but Madelyn said, "no, it was a spider" Sure enough, there sat the huge wolf spider, bigger than a half dollar. I am terrified of spiders, I had to mentally calm myself down. Right before we left, Aaron said "look at that spider that crawled into the garage. So, I got out and looked. Wow, it must have been the other one's great granddad. It was about the size of a tarantula, but skinny, not fat and hairy.

We ended up missing church tonight. We got in the car and Madelyn saw a few ticks on her. These are the tiny kind that are about the size of a pinhead. Very hard to see and pick up. They all ended up complaining of the ticks the 5 mile drive home and when we got home, we probably spent 30 min. in the bathroom, combing over the kids entire body looking for these tiny ticks. Aaron counted the ones he pulled off Natalie. Grand total from Natalie? 32 I don't think Hannah was far behind. It took forever to get the things off. I probably had about 10 from my knees down on each leg. Gonna have to do something about the tick problem here.

I have posted pictures of Natalie and Hannah making biscuits for breakfast yesterday morning. I measured the stuff, Natalie stirred it together, then I kneaded it a few times and they took it from there. I did all the oven work, but they rolled them out and cut them and rerolled. They were real good.

Tomorrow is the Closing Day!

We should be closing tomorrow at 3:30pm. Think about us, and pray it goes through ok! I am excited, yet still leary. I think once the papers are signed, I will be more relieved.

One of Those Days

Awwww! Isn't she so cute?! She probably never gets into any trouble. DO NOT be deceived by the sweet, innocent face. I think I will call her "the Instigator" . In my family growing up, it was my older brother Michael. Oh the misery that one person put into my life. I don't know if he terrorized Eric, the oldest, but his mission in life was to make me insane, all the while feigning innocence with my parents.

Back to Hannah. I grew up with a brother who thrived on picking at me to the point of me taking and taking and taking, then I would finally explode in anger. That would get me in trouble, all the while my brother laughing that it worked once again. My parents used the useless phrase "just ignore him, he only wants a reaction from you" Well, that may be true with someone you don't have to live with, but when you have to be around a person 24/7 who loves to make you cry, it is hard to ignore.

That being said, I am very sensitive to siblings who pick at each other. I know how it is to be helpless, to know that you can't win either way. Either you are a tattler when you tell on that sibling, or you take and take, then you explode and since your parents didn't know, or didn't care how much you took, they think you are overreacting to a minor irritation.

On the opposite side of the coin, I cannot stand to hear the whine "Hannnnnaaaahhhhh, Stttttopppppp!" So, I have had to give the older two a way to deal with it, rather than put them in a no win situation. I told them, tell Hannah once, in a non whiny voice, to stop whatever she is doing. If she doesn't stop, come tell me, in a nonwhiny voice that you have tried to deal with it on your own. If you whine or don't come to me, then you both get into trouble. I think that has been a insanity saver for Natalie. The first few weeks after this announcement by me, she came to me all the time, and Madelyn, just a few times. I guess Hannah is tired of not getting away with her tormenting ways.

Now I will say to negate some of this negativity, she is a very sweet girl and I love her very much. Does that one sentence make up for the paragraphs before it? It will have to do today, maybe tomorrow after I have slept off some of my annoyance.

Here is a picture of Hannah sitting like a bird in the "nest" that she made out of pillows and chairs.

We had to go to the larger town about 25 miles from here today to register for Friday classes. I got the ads out of the Sunday paper yesterday and decided since we were going to be in that town, we should hit all the deals.

This morning, we started by going to CVS here in town and getting the colas that they had cheap. I was out of conditioner, and we go through a lot with 4 people with long hair, so they had some on sale, then more money off for 75c. So, I got about 5 and when I checked out, they came up 99c. Somehow, in the 10 min I spent shopping, from the time I got the conditioner to the time I made it to checkout someone came around and took off the 75c stickers. (I checked).

Then we drove out to the animal shelter to check on prices and just check it out. They ended up having an emergency call about a injured dog and had to close up, sending us away.

We came home and I gave the girls showers, ate a snack and got them ready to have their pictures made.

We drove to this larger town and first went to Walmart to get the pictures done. I thought I was going to have to sit through all the expensive package choices, even though I always just take the $7.99 package. Thankfully, someone came up and so she sped me through.

Then we went to Staples and spent a while finding the cheap deals in the ads, and then they didn't ring up as cheap as they were supposed to, but they were still really cheap, so I got them. I was in line and the people in front had a problem. So, there ended up being about 6-8 people in each line. They finally opened up another line and she says "I'll take the first few people in that line" I bent over to pick up my basket and before I even stood back up one lady just tore over to the other line. It was almost comical how rude she was. Then everyone else went over there. I tried a few more minutes in my line, but then gave up and ended up checking out behind everyone that was behind me.

Off to Walgreens where I had cut out about 8 coupons of really cheap stuff. Of course, I only found 1/2 of what was advertised. Apparently, they had run out of the other things.

After that we got lunch and went to the school to register. We were there about 45 min. until they called our names. They had one room open with toys, so the kids got to play while we waited. The girls got the classes they had wanted. Madelyn will be taking Science, Art, and Reading to Remember. Natalie will be taking Science, Safety for Kids, and The Story of the World. Hannah will be in the preschool class.

Our last stop was Aldi's which had milk on sale for $1.99 a gallon. We got 4 gallons, plus a few other things, then headed home. Whew! What a day!

We got home about 15 min before Aaron, so I boiled some water and started the spaghetti while the girls cleaned the dining room, and I cleaned the kitchen.

And then there were 2 kittens.

Sadly, our sweet Chocolate Chip has disappeared. We left the house Friday morning and she was here, and when we came back 6 hours later, there has been no trace of her. She was a good kitten and we will miss her. I suppose we will never know what her fate was, but we like to think that perhaps someone took her and is going to give her a good home.

We are planning to close on Wednesday. It is starting to get a little more exciting! I will breathe a sigh of relief when the papers are signed however. I have ordered our homeschool curriculum for the year. I am starting to get excited. Truth be told, at the end of last school year in May/June, I was about sick of it. Ready for a break and hoping that the desire to start school again would return this fall. I felt guilty about dreading schoolwork, but then realized that it was the same way for me when I was in grade school, and high school. Sick of it by the end of each semester, but excited about starting back again. We are using Winter Promise again. Last year we did their program Children Around the World, and this year we are doing the American Story I. I am looking forward to learning about our country's history. Something that I didn't learn a lot of while in school. I hated history.

Not much news to report right now. Oh exciting news! I don't think I mention that he was gone, but Aaron was gone all last week from Wed. to Thur. He got home Thur. night and we were all very happy to see him. It was a stressful week without him here, but he was on a fire making extra money, which will help us in our move, I am sure. I miss him when he is gone, but am so proud of how hard he works for us.