A House Full of Boys

Another Birthday Party

2008-05-01T09:55:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday Micah turned 6! We were going to celebrate that day, but he woke up and got into trouble before anyone else even woke up, so I made him delay a day, conditional on his behaving the next day! Luckily he did not copy Caleb's 7th birthday, where he had to wait over 2 weeks before he could have his birthday, and we were able to celebrate yesterday. We went to Walmart and picked out a cake and some soda, and when we got home I made pizza. I let him open presents first, so they had something to do while I cooked. He got Star Wars legos, a clone trooper figure, and a movie.

I'ts been stinking cold here this past week. It went down below 40 several times overnight. Back when we had a warm spell (even hot one day!) Chris turned off the heat. We'd used a lot of oil in just the two months we've been here, so I didn't really complain. I figured it wouldn't get that cold, and even if it did, it would warm up enough during the day to make up for it. Well, when it only gets up into the 50s, that doesn't warm the house back up again. Ugh, it is soooo cold in here! Not good for all of us who are trying to kick this cold thing for good. Poor Jacob, he had finally had a few days without his nose running, but yesterday he had a fever and his nose was running again. Waaah. I'd like spring to come back and stay this time!

While it was warm, Troyer and Caleb worked on a project out back:

They built a tree fort out of boards and old doors they found in the barn. It started out with a rope ladder, but that broke, so now it has an old ladder they found. The fort has 4 levels, so room for everyone! Noah spent a week reading books up there. :-)

Mystery Plant

2008-04-25T22:17:00.003-05:00

Can you help me identify this plant? It is small, low to the ground. It is kind of like a crocus, except it just came up in mid April. All my crocuses had already come up and finished before these bloomed. I really like them, but I have no idea what they are. Do you?

In other news, I have been sick. Ugh, SICK. I got the flu last week (and somehow managed to not pass it on to anyone else in the house!) and caught a cold on top of that. I am still trying to defeat the cold. I have a nagging cough that keeps me up at night, which makes me very tired during the day; plus my left ear filled with fluid and won't drain. Luckily it is not infected, so it doesn't hurt, but it is very hard to hear with that ear. While I have been sick, the house has gone waaay downhill. The boys can barely manage to behave themselves without drawing blood when I am not on top of them; nevermind taking over some chores for me. Chris did some dinners, which helped, but didn't clean up after them. I also fell more than a week behind on laundry. The drawers were literally empty of clothes. oops. I am happy to report that I am feeling well enough to catch up, but it will take a while!

We're Free!

2008-04-10T13:44:00.002-05:00

Last week, Chris and I went to the closing on our old house, got our check and got outta there! WOOHOO!!!! Who'd have thought that we would be able to sell our house so quickly, in today's market? We certainly didn't. Our buyers had already tried to bid on another house similar to ours and lost to someone else, so they were eager to grab ours. Luckily we were eager to get rid of it! LOL Inspections went well, conditions agreed to rather easily, and they requested to move up closing by a month. No problem! So now we are free of a very heavy weight - namely, a second mortgage payment to find money for. We had saved some money aside for that expense for 3 or 4 months, but since we closed so quickly we ended up not even paying one month of double payments. We are planning to use that money to pay down the mortgage on this house so the payment is approaching reasonable. I suppose that for a lot of people out there, what we pay now is already reasonable, but it is twice our old payment, so too much of a shock to the budget at this point. Reammortizing will bring the payment closer to that of our old house. So we are one-house owners once again - Whew!

Signs of Spring

2008-03-28T12:12:00.002-05:00

The weather here is warming up, slowly. I can't complain too much, since we don't have snow (and I am HAPPY for that!) but I do wish it were a few degrees warmer. It didn't feel too much like Easter this Sunday, but the sun was out and it was less windy than it's been the last few weeks. I found these out in my front yard on Sunday morning:

I also have some daffodils starting to come up as well. I really like living down here; the area we used to live in won't have any flowers for another month!

We went over to MIL's for Easter dinner on Sunday afternoon. Dinner was yummy, and we got to spend some time with Chris' sisters and BIL. After dinner, the boys went outside to hunt eggs. FIL colored the eggs, and then he and BIL and Aunt Shawna hid them. I was glad it was sunny and nice out, even if chilly. Last year it was really cold and the boys didn't have much fun. The way they hide eggs over there is funny. For the little kids, they do the obvious hiding spots on the deck, so the eggs peek out a bit and are easy to find; but for the older kids they really make it a challenge. FIL went out into the yard and just dropped the eggs in the grass. Then he moved leaves or grass over top of them to hide them. They boys had to wander around in the yard hoping to come across the eggs. Even funnier is that FIL doesn't pay much attention to where he drops them, so by the end of the hunt, we are all desperate to find the last of the eggs, LOL.

Finally, FIL decided to offer cash for eggs LOL and announced he'd pay a quarter an egg to whoever could find the last 2. Noah was all excited to come up with them, but just at that point MIL yelled out that there were still another 2 missing! FIL upped the payoff to $1 an egg, and everyone looked even harder. Since Levi and Jacob found their eggs on the deck, Levi kept looking there. MIL and BIL told us that all the deck eggs were found, so we just thought it was cute that he was still looking. Well, lo and behold, he came up with one of the eggs! It had rolled under the deck. Samuel found the other egg out in the grass, and FIL gave out the money to each of them.

2008-03-25T09:28:00.004-05:00

Here are some pics of the boys playing by the barn. They love using the ramp to pick up speed. Too bad we haven't had enough snow to use it for sledding. Maybe next year!

A Room With a View

2008-03-21T09:09:00.003-05:00

One of the things I love about this house is that every room has a great view. We are surrounded by farmland; we only have 2 neighbors that we can see from the house. I love looking out every window. Here are some views:

Living room window, facing north:

I think those deep sills are awesome too!

Living room, facing east:

Kitchen, facing east:

Out the back door, facing west:

Ok, ignore the hand prints on the back door LOL. You can see, we have a back porch, which will be great in the summer, to sit in the evening and watch the sunset.

Very Belated

2008-03-19T04:37:00.002-05:00

Jacob turned 1 last month, right in the middle of our move. We waited another week until the kitchen was unpacked to celebrate with a cake and a new movie. Troyer baked the cake for him, and he really enjoyed it!

A Nibble

2008-03-05T14:41:00.002-05:00

and not from a mouse! We have gotten an offer on the house already! A full-price offer, which we have accepted. Whew, what a relief. We had visions of our house sitting on the market for months. Pending the usual inspections, we could close as soon as the end of April! Yahoo!

Things Are Crazy (and Dirty)

2008-03-04T10:25:00.003-05:00

Wow, I thought I would have had time to post some pictures by now, but we've run into some issues that are taking a while to correct. Biggest on the list is the hot water. We noticed last Sunday that there didn't seem to be any hot water, but the inspection report said the heater was working, so we weren't too concerned. We figured it had to be turned up or something easy like that. No such luck. You see, we have a solar heated system, so usually the water is heated that way and stored in the tank. I had to call in a repairman to look at the system to see why it wasn't working. First off, the computer on the controls was bad and needs to be replaced. Next, there is a back up for the solar, that is the boiler (furnace). The repairman tried to turn off the bypass from the solar so the water would go through the boiler, but it killed the water pressure. It took him 2 more hours to figure out that all the valves were clogged with iron deposits. As in, clogged completely shut. Well, that explained no hot water. So, after replacing several valves and such, he got the water working, but told us the tank was shot and needs to be replaced. Cost for a solar hot water tank? About twice the cost of a nice electric heater from Lowe's. Ugh.

Now, since the heater was ruined by our hard water, we decided to have the water tested and get some figures for installing filters and softeners. After all, we don't want to get a new tank just to have that ruined too. Last night we had a rep from Rain Soft come in and do tests on the water at the kitchen sink. Of course, our water is bad. Bad. BAD. Highly acidic, which is why the copper pipes are leaching copper into the water. Full of iron, which is clogging everything. Luckily we have a UV light to kill bacteria, so he didn't have to pitch one of those to us; but on the opposite side we have high nitrates. Were you keeping track? That's three systems/filters we need installed. Like, immediately. It will cost money we do. not. have. Ack! We explained to him our situation, about how we haven't sold our old house yet, and all our cash is tied up in that right now. Once we sell, we will be able to do repairs. But that could take months, or more if we are particularly unlucky. He did take pity on us, and offered us a super super deal on financing, and included all installation and any parts that may need to be replaced once they start taking everything apart to install it. Considering how the water tank went, that could be considerable. We are leaning towards taking the deal. Oh, he also said he could have it done within 2 days of signing a contract, so it could be as soon as next week. That's how sorry he felt for us, since we have small kids drinking this water. We have Culligan coming in tonight to see what they have to offer. I'm betting they will have a hard time beating last night's offer though.

So, in light of the water issues, the mice pale in comparison. After all, they are keeping to just one cabinet, and I don't even have food in them. I've been putting poison in there, but I know there are too many to kill off that way. I put a trap there too, right where I can see the opening, and it gets set off twice a night, but it hasn't caught them yet. Smart little buggers. A cat is moving higher up the priority list.

As Promised, Some Pictures

2008-02-21T16:47:00.002-05:00

We made another run (actually two, I forgot the key the first time - Oops!) today, and it was a nice sunny day, so I got a few pictures. Of course I then wandered around the house thinking, OMG it is so small! What was I thinking? How will we fit? And then to top it off, the kitchen was littered with mouse droppings. UGH! I guess the sellers had been coming in daily to clean those up, so we didn't realize how much activity there was. I had assumed some, but obviously we will be setting traps and putting out poison. Yuck.

Also, it looks like I won't get my fridge tomorrow. We are due for a snow/ice/sleet storm all day tomorrow, so even if the delivery truck made it, there is no real way *I* could get there and back. I have rescheduled the delivery for Sunday. That will work, since there will be a lot of people there, helping move in!

Both of my sisters are coming, and bringing their families, so it will be a kind of family reunion, and we plan on having some fun once the work is done.

Ok, here is the house from the driveway:

And here is a shot of the barn. It is very close to the house, which is nice and convenient. Not sure how much I'd like it if there were cows in it... LOL

It's Ours!

2008-02-20T16:45:00.002-05:00

We are now the proud owners of an old farmhouse! With awesome barn. Lots of work to do to clean it up, and ack, it seems smaller inside now that we have to figure out where to put everything. But the potential is heady. There are so many things we could do with it.

We have been packing and moving boxes all week. On Sunday, Chris took 5 loads over in the van, with the benches out. I have been driving over once a day with just the back bench out, and the boys have been helping me unload. Last night I went out and bought a new refrigerator. It was a little tricky, since the space for the fridge is in a tight spot, so I had to maximize volume while minimizing depth. I did ok, though I suppose most people would think 18.2 cu ft is small for a family the size of ours. But the best part was that it was on sale! It was last year's model and they already had the new models out, so I had to take the floor unit. I got a 10% discount for a tear in the cardboard on the back, plus they were having a special for free delivery. I got my new fridge for $400!

At closing, Chris got a good look at what our payments will be until we sell our current house, and got a little freaked out. Our plan is to reammortize the loan once we get our equity back out of this house. We won't be eligible to do that until June even if we sell now, so we have 3 months of very high payments. It is a bit scary, but we planned for it, and have the money in savings to cover it, at least for a few months. Let's hope this house sells quickly! (and for asking price - we are listing it at what we consider to be a reasonable price, instead of trying to play games with counter offers etc etc). The market around here is picking up a bit, and Spring is traditionally a busy season for real estate. My fingers are crossed!

No pictures yet, but I will be at the house on Friday to clean (and await my new fridge), so I can get plenty of pictures. I think most of them will be "what were these people thinking????" kind of pics, but they will make great "Before" photos! LOL

Almost There

2008-02-13T13:56:00.002-05:00

Closing is less than a week away! We're signing the insurance policy this afternoon; we got permission to get in the house on Sunday so we can move some stuff early. By the end of next week, we should be ready to shift the bulk of our living from here to there!

Packing is going, um, slowly. Really, how can you know what to pack when you need most of the stuff that is out? I think mostly the boxes in the attic, some in the garage, and the little I have managed to pack so far are what is going to be moved on Sunday. Chris will have the last week of February off of work to finish getting everything out and clean up. Hopefully we will find a buyer quickly!

He Walks!

2008-02-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

In January, Jacob took his first steps. By the end of last week was up to about 5 steps at a time. This week, he is choosing to try walking everywhere before he gives up and drops to the floor to crawl. Right in line with his brothers, he has walked before his first birthday!

In other exciting news, the house is officially ours, and we are closing on the 19th! Yes, only 2 weeks away! Ack, off to pack...

Things You Didn't Know That You Really Didn't Care That You Didn't Know

2008-02-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged for a meme by Lisa so I guess I'll play. I have a feeling that most of the people reading this blog know as much about me as is worth knowing, but here goes...

The rules for this meme are:

(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

hmmm not sure I can think of 6 people who haven't already been tagged LOL

1. I like Diet Coke and won't drink Pepsi no way, no how.
2. I like angel creme donuts, and can't stand chocolate donuts.
3. I went to Germany for 3 weeks when I was a sophomore in high school, as an exchange student.
4. I ended up graduating from college as a Math major, even though in high school I regularly slept through my Calculus class (as in, I fell asleep with my head on the desk, and I sat in the first row, oops!)
5. Green is my favorite color. Not mint green or pine green, but hunter green, the color of early summer grass and leaves.
6. I like to swim, though I don't get much chance to anymore.

Ok, so now to pass on the fun:

1. Paula
2. (the Other) Gretchen
3. Kim
4. Jenni
5. Heather
6. Aimee

Where Have I Been?

2008-01-28T15:08:00.001-05:00

I wanted to try to post more often once Christmas was over, but I've been busy. Just after New Year's, I saw a house come up on the market and it looked like maybe something Chris and I would want. We have always known that our stay in this house would not be long, 5 years maybe, because we wanted more room outdoors for the boys. Lately Chris has really been getting the itch to get out of this house. He doesn't like the area (he thinks this is the city, which makes me laugh, it is country to me) and he wants room to get out and roam around.

We went out and looked at the house. We went back and looked again. We looked at our checkbook and tried to figure if we could swing it. We went back and looked one more time. We decided to go for it. We qualified for the mortgage without even selling this one yet (though the payments are scary), and so we made an offer. There was a previous offer on the house, but those buyers couldn't get financing without selling their first house, so their contract was conditional. The sellers decided to take our offer, even though it was a little lower, since we could close right away. So, barring the previous buyers actually coming up with money by Wednesday, the house is ours! Now the worries about how the heck we are going to pay for it, and of course selling this one, begin!

Our new house (?)

Belated Merry Christmas (to us!)

2008-01-09T23:53:00.000-05:00

My dad sent a check to help us upgrade our sad little 19" tv. When he was here to visit at Thanksgiving, and saw what we were watching, I think he cried a little for us LOL. We had already been thinking of getting something bigger, but we hadn't really decided on what we wanted. The cabinet we had would not hold anything that much bigger than the one we had. In the end, we decided on a 32" LCD tv, so then we had to get a new cabinet too. So shopping for a new tv, and a new cabinet to put it in, took us a while. It was a lot of money, even with a generous dad/father-in-law/grandpa, and we wanted to be careful how we spent it. Both the tv and the cabinet ended up being on sale. I think we did ok, though obviously we have room in the new cabinet to upgrade again LOL. We only just got it all hooked up and plugged in tonight, so I can't review the tv yet; I hope all the excitement and anticipation was worth it!

A Closer Look

2008-01-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Even with the individual pictures of the Days of Christmas, it was hard to see the details on each of them. I told you the pipers and drummers were my favorites, here they are, even closer:

Each color is a separate piece of paper glued on, none of it is colored in. Even the tassle on the hat, the tags on the socks, the plaid on the kilts, the eppaulettes, the buttons on the coat fronts and cuffs. I used an Exacto knife to cut almost all of it out. One of the things I like best about these are that cutting each piece out by hand one at a time made each figure unique. None are exactly alike.

Christmas Cookies

2008-01-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

So, a few days after Christmas, I finally got around to rolling out some dough and cutting out some cookies! This is the first time I've tried cut out cookies, and they weren't all that tasty because they were too doughy and I had to keep adding flour to stiffen them. Samuel, Micah, and Caleb decorated them, and they had fun with that. For all that they were not the best tasting sugar cookies I've ever had, they were eaten up pretty quickly!

They ate the cookies so quickly that I didn't have a chance to get a picture of them eating them!

12 Days of Christmas, Construction Paper Style

2008-01-02T19:40:00.002-05:00

I was asked to show a closer view of my 12 Days of Christmas cutouts. My sister and I started these in high school, as a locker decorating project. We never did get them finished before we graduated, but I finished them in college. They are made from cutting out pieces of construction paper in different colors, kind of like quilting but with paper and glue instead of fabric and thread. I drew up a picture, then cut it into pieces for each color, traced it onto the construction paper, cut them out, and glued them onto the background square. Our inspiration was a holiday ad for some sort of liquor like Bailey's or something. I did adapt the images, and I am most proud of my pipers and my drummers.

On the first day of Christmas:

On the second day of Christmas:

On the third day of Christmas:

On the fourth day of Christmas:

On the fifth day of Christmas:

On the sixth day of Christmas:

On the seventh day of Christmas:

On the eighth day of Christmas:

On the ninth day of Christmas:

On the tenth day of Christmas:

On the eleventh day of Christmas:

On the twelfth day of Christmas:

The Rest of the Day

2007-12-28T23:50:00.001-05:00

Once they got over the shock of the Barbies, they went on to open the rest of their gifts, which they were very happy with. Lots of Transformers, lots of Thomas, some Legos, some books and DVDs. The oldest 4 got shirts with Lego Star Wars on them, that was a popular gift.

Christmas Morning

2007-12-28T23:27:00.000-05:00

After getting to bed around 4 AM (I was up wrapping, but to be honest, I wasn't moving too fast. I interrupted myself a lot, to read, or change the CD, or have a piece of candy LOL), the kids got up around 7. Actually, Samuel woke up at 5, because the baby was stirring. Instead of ignoring him like usual, he got him out of bed and started playing with him. He says he didn't know it was so early LOL. Chris got them both back to sleep and then they were the last ones up for breakfast.

Christmas morning breakfast here is just candy. I have tried making something special, but the boys have no interest in putting off presents. This year they ate the second gingerbread house. Keep in mind that we made it over a week ago, and that Levi is very sneaky. Here is what the house looked like when I served it:

The back

Not too bad, just a few candies missing here and there...

The front

Well well, notice how the gumdrop windows are gone? LOL

They enjoyed the house anyway, along with candy canes and Hershey's kisses.

This year is the first year we've done stockings for the boys. We don't teach them that Santa is real, so there wasn't a point, especially since we didn't have a fireplace. This year, since we put the tree up downstairs, stockings made sense. I bought cheap ones and put candy in. We also added a surprise...

Eager to open

What the heck???!!!

Oh yes, those are Barbies! LOL See how the 13 yo has fallen completely over? I think that was an allergic reaction LOL. The boys had been acting pretty badly the last few days, and very much as if they were entitled to their gifts. We thought this variation on coal could be a teachable moment LOL

Worse Than Coal

Scenes of Christmas

2007-12-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

These are from Christmas Eve, before I wrapped any presents.

Christmas Cards, Round 2

2007-12-21T01:54:00.000-05:00

Ok, we tried it again tonight. I used a slightly different camera, and played around with settings a lot. I didn't really find any settings I liked. Basically, flash indoors = evil; no flash indoors = grainy and/or blurry LOL. I think I should have given up on the white t-shirts. They threw the lighting off too much. But in the end, this is what I have:

I didn't have to cut and paste this time, I only adjusted for red-eye. Pretty impressive, huh? lol To make up for that, though, I spent *forever* playing with photoshop, adjusting the brightness and color. Ugh.

I like both of the pictures about equally, for different reasons; so I just put copies of each in the cards. I guess people will think I'm egotistical for thinking they want 2 pictures of my kids LOL.

Christmas Cards, Round 1

2007-12-19T23:33:00.001-05:00

Chris came home reasonably early tonight (around 7, which is only early because lately he's been having to work until 10 or 11) and helped me round up the boys and throw them in front of the tree for pictures. It was almost 8 before we actually got started, so a bit late for the younger ones. I didn't really get any great pictures. I wanted the tree to look lit, so I didn't use a flash. My camera can take low light pictures, but you have to stand reeeaaaallly still LOL. And none of the boys can move. Yeah, right. Good luck. Well, after almost 50 shots, they were tired of standing in one spot and Jacob was just plain tired. I let them go, promising that if I couldn't photoshop a good picture tonight, they'd be called down for round 2 tomorrow. Here's what I came up with:

I had to cut and paste a smiling Jacob and a standing-still Levi. I don't think it came out too bad, though it doesn't look as good printed out on paper as it does on screen. It looks bright, but it prints darker. I'll let Chris decide if he likes it enough or if he's up for another go tomorrow.

Gingerbread House, Version 2

2007-12-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

We let the boys eat the gingerbread house last weekend. Yum, it was good. Since they did so well decorating it, I bought a second kit for the younger ones to make. I didn't realize what a nice job the older kids did until I saw the result from the 3, 5, and 7 year olds! No symmetry, no color patterns, heck, the two halves of the roof don't even match! But they had a great time with it, and they love how it looks. We're saving this one for Christmas morning.

Notice how the snowman decided to play Santa? LOL