Make yourself comfortable Camden

Is that a good work ethic or indecisiveness?

As we were driving home from school today Ainsley asked, "How will I pick a career when I am grown-up?"

I told her that she wold take classes, maybe watch people who did things, and pray about it, then pick something.

She said, "I already have a plan."

"Great, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I want to be a nurse and a teacher. So I'm going to work in a hospital in the morning, then teach afternoon kindergarten in the afternoon."

I said, "Wow."

"Then I want to be a dentist also, so I will do that on the weekends. Then maybe some other things also."

Good luck honey-that should keep you busy.

Favorite moments from the last couple of weeks

Ainsley's last day at Kelly Creek- they wrote her a book- it was so cute. Mrs. Taylor was the best!














Moving day-that is me driving that HUGE truck! And here was the shed moving- that was an adventure. Look at the color of the sky- we moved in February for crying out loud- could we have had a better day?

And here is the girl at the Deep Creek music program. She had been there for a total of 4 days, she didn't know all the words but faked it really well. She loved it and had a great time. We went out to Dairy Queen after the program and she sat at a table with two new friends from her class. We are still just amazed at how well she has done with moving. She loves her new school and new friends. I guess we can spend the money we had put away for therapy on something else! :)

And if you read the previous post about Camden being sick, here is the update: Monday morning I called the doctor to make an appointment to bring him in because (and this is a direct quote I said to Heather on the phone) "I know there is nothing they will do, he will send him home and tell me call back if he still has a fever in 3 days, but I would be a bad mom if I don't take him in because he is lethargic and has had a fever for 3 days." Well, Camden is going to join Ainsley and Hudson in the ongoing quest to make their mother look like a liar and an idiot often by always proving me wrong. Turns out he was actually pretty sick. We barely made it out of the doctor's office without being admitted to the hospital. He had a chest x-ray and blood test and eventually (after 2 1/2 long hours with Hudson with me) a couple of antibiotic shots. We went back today and got cleared. The nice thing about the shots is that they take care of everything, no 10 day, 3 times a day antibiotic to forget and feel guilty about. Our doctor is the best (Kevin Carpender) would you believe that he called on this morning before he had even gotten to the office to check and see how he was even though I was going in with him at 11 this morning? Anyway-the little punkin' is back up and running today. But this was definitely not a favorite moment.

Forced to slow down

Don't get me wrong, I would never want my kids to be sick. However,yesterday was a good day. The baby had a fever and was pretty much only happy if he was laying on my sleeping. With the frantic pace we have been going ever since this whole move thing became a reality it was nice to have an excuse to go much slower. It was also nice to have him content to just lay on me. There is nothing like a little person melting into your body sleeping. Since about August when he became mobile he has been awfully busy, so I soaked up the snuggles yesterday. Tennille's (my sister) little girl Eleison will snuggle all the time. My kids seem to require a drug induced state to snuggle for more than about 2 minutes. As great as yesterday was, this morning as I wait for him to wake up, I'm hoping he is better. I have lots to do.

Settled

Thanks to prayers of so many people everything went through and we closed on the house in time to move on Saturday. I can't even imagine what a nightmare it would have been if we would have had to move during the week this week. (the people who are renting our Gresham house from us are moving in this Saturday, so we had to be out one way or the other!)Everything went great, and if your not in Milton-Freewater and so you can't have my dad as your relator, then you should call Vicki, she was amazing!

Anyway- our moving day was an adventure. The way I make myself feel better about it is that the last time we moved (almost 11 years ago) we had 150% less people in our family. The kids may be little, but they sure have lots of stuff. Anyway- the good thing is we had lots of GREAT people who were willing to give up the beautiful Saturday to help us. And speaking of that, we couldn't have had better weather for moving- even in February! So thanks so much to my mom and dad, Arlene, Cyndi and Eric, Greg M., Randy K and Scott, Heather and Brent, and Kurt M. You are all so wonderful. We can't thank you enough.

I just unpacked the last box in the house today. So while there is nothing on the walls yet we can at least live without chaos around us. (I won't mention how the garage looks like a bomb went off in it...)

The amazing blessing is that the kids have transitioned SO well. The weather has been so good that it has made the outside play area so fun. Today was Ainsley's third day of school and she has done great. She had me stay with her for about the first 40 minutes the first day, and then has been off and on her own. She loves her teacher, Mr. Coburn. She has always loved men, so this was a good fit. She came home the first day saying, "I had friends pretty much from the moment I walked in." and "I think Mr. Coburn looks really nice and handsome." Her class has a music program tomorrow- her fourth day of school- and she wants to be in it. I asked her if she knew the songs and her response was, "not really, but it's not that big of a deal mom, I can figure it out." So with two days of music under her belt we will be attending the music program. Funny kid. I am still just shocked at how easy this was.

Anyway- soon I will try and post pictures of the new house. Thanks again to everyone who helped!

Oh My Word

Do you want to know what the definition of stress is? The feeling you have when EVERYTHING YOUR FAMILY OF 5 OWNS is not put away. Synonym: Moving.

Good moments this week

After watching a T.V. show
Me to Ainsley: Did you like Buzz Lightyear?
Ainsley: Yes, except there were no God phrases in it.

Doesn't everyone sell lemonade when it is 55 degrees outside? They do if they are Oregon kids who have been starved of the sun for much too long


I have no idea what prompted this
Ainsley: If I had three wishes, one would be that I could have Hudson's eyelashes.
Me: You and me both honey.

If your going to leave a cookie from school in your backpack big sister, I'm going to find it!


For my teacher friends
We were just finishing reading The Magician's Nephew and told Ainsley the next book is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Ainsley: Hey, the Lion is Aslan and the Witch is Jaris and the Wardrobe is from the tree.
Me: (acting surprised) Yes...(dramatic pause) I think your right.
Ainsley: Hey, I just made a text to book connection!

Camden- not able to wait for facial hair, takes matters into his own hands.

better response than I ever imagined

After reading Randy's books about Heaven I have realized that Heaven is going to be so much better than I can imagine. God sometimes answers prayers like that, blessing you with an answer that is so much better than you ever even considered asking. That is what has happened to us with Ainsley's attitude about moving.
Yes, if you didn't know we are moving. Hopefully on Saturday. One might wonder why we are leaving our cute little house in a neighborhood that I love to move to...well...a 70's ranch. Not really my dream house. The thing is, eventually Damascus will get a plan for the city and let development happen, and eventually the housing market will recover and that development will happen. At that time they will build a new High School and there is a good chance Andrew will want to move to the new school. One of the bonuses of having a teacher parent is having the teacher parent be able to teach in the same school as the kids. In light of that we have always planned on moving to Damascus so our kids could go to school there. Because the building stuff hasn't happened as fast as we thought it would (thanks Damascus City Council and Economy) we are left with the choice of either waiting to move until they have built cute new little houses in new little neighborhoods, and move our kids when they are older in school. Or move now, into something we can find, and move them before they are really established in a school.
Based on how well Ainsley HAS NOT DONE with transitions in the past, we figured we better just bite the bullet and get it over with. So we have been looking for awhile and found a remodeled ranch house, that is a good deal, and has a huge greenway with a playground behind it. It is actually a little bigger than our house now, but only has a 2 car garage instead of 3. It is in great condition, just pretty ugly, but I figure with practice I can learn to drive up to it with my eyes closed. The inside is cute. Our plan is to live in this house and enjoy the outside space when the kids are little, then when the housing market improves and Damascus figures out where they are going to let people build houses we will sell the new house, and our old house which we are keeping as a rental, and buy something else. Then again, who knows what God has planned. Maybe I'll be living in my 70's house until I'm in my 70's.
But back to the answer to prayer. As I mentioned, Ainsley and change don't usually go well. So we were really stressed about what it would look like to move to a new house and also move to a new school. We planned on letting her finish the year at Kelly Creek and have her move at the beginning of second grade. We seriously were just praying, "please don't let this be an absolute nightmare that she needs therapy over." When I first told her about the house her response was, "I hate that house, it's not fancy." Give her points for being observant. But then I remined her that it has 3 full bathrooms, so the boys will share one, mom and dad share one, and she gets her own. Total transformation. She was exstatic. She somehow knew without us telling her that she would have to switch schools, and her concern was that the only time someone moved out of her room this year she was gone with pink eye that day so she, "doesn't know if everyone will just line up at the door to give me hugs goodbye or what." She is also worried that her friends are not going to know what to do at recess without her telling them. No lack of self-esteem. So we never even brought up the possiblity of staying throgh the end of the year. she is so excited to go to a new school! We have visited Deep Creek and she loves it and can't wait to go. We are just astonished.
So anyway- her is my public prayer of thanksgiving to God for blessing us with what has so far been so easy when we thought it would be so hard. I'm not naieve enough to think that there won't be some bumps in the road as we make the transition. But I'm really just going to enjoy this for now and praise God for it. Here is my cute house I'm leaving, and letting a renter live in (there is something to pray about.) Pitures of the new house to come!

Happy Valentine's Day

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You KNOW your kid is spoiled when...

...this is what you hear from the backseat as you are pulling out of the Starbucks drive-through:

"STOP Mom! We HAVE to return my steamer, it is SOOOOOO disgusting. They made it with nonfat milk!"