As Promised, Some Pictures

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!

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

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!

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

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?

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!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Cards, Round 2

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

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

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

Baby's First Christmas

When my first baby was born, my mom started a tradition of buying a Baby's First Christmas ornament for him. She bought one for each grandchild, up until the year she died. That year I took up the tradition and have added an ornament for each new baby. I never realized how hard it was to choose a good ornament. The year Levi was born was the year we didn't decorate for Christmas, we didn't even put up a tree, so I never got around to getting him an ornament. I had to go online and find a site that sold past year ornaments.

This year is Jacob's first Christmas, and so I began the search for a new ornament. Each year it seems harder to find one, but I suppose that is because I am so picky. I'd like the ornaments each to make a good set together, but not to be too much alike. That is very hard. I found a cute stork ornament, but I bought a stork for Levi, so I didn't want to have another. Each of the ornaments is a ceramic animal with a toy or stocking, so I didn't want a glass ball with writing on it, and I didn't want a flat disk or star. Of course, the ornament also has to just appeal to me.

Finally I found a cute Boyds Bear ornament. The bear is plush, but Boyds has a special meaning for me, because my mom used to collect the bears. Today the ornament arrived in the mail, and I am a bit disappointed. It is bigger than I expected, and the bear is not at all poseable, which it said in the description that he would be. However, when I showed it to Jacob he got a huge smile on his face; so I guess it will do. :-)



Here is the bear on the tree with the other boys' ornaments:


The stack of blocks is 1994, the baby bootie is 1996, the bear hugging a christmas stocking is 1998, the mouse in the nutshell cradle is 2000, the bunny in the blue knit stocking is 2002, the stork carrying the baby is 2004, and the bear in the blanket sling is 2007. You can see how it is a bit bigger than the others. Still, it is cute :-)

Snow!

We got our first accumulating snow fall on Wednesday. The boys couldn't wait to go out in it. Unfortunately, we were short one pair of snow pants, so Samuel couldn't go out. It turns out that he and Caleb are wearing the same size, but I only had one pair in each size. He got to have his turn in the snow yesterday while Caleb stayed inside. I did go out last night and buy a second pair, so next time he won't have to wait.

7 Santas

We decorated our tree last night. Once again, you can tell the boys did their share, lol. This is a new ornament that my sister bought for us last year. She bought it before Jacob was born, so she couldn't add his name yet. I wrote it in just before I put it up. It isn't often you find anything with 7 boys on it!

Gingerbread

In the spirit of Christmas, this year I decided to try out a gingerbread house kit. I was afraid that it would be frustrating, if the icing didn't really hold up the house well; but it wasn't very expensive and I knew the boys would have fun.



The kit came with pre-made walls and roof, so we skipped the hardest part. It also came with bags of candy and 2 bags of special icing. I put up the structure and helped with the icing, since the bags were hard to squeeze and it mattered if we were accurate in order for the house to stay up. I let the boys put on all the candy.



It was starting to look pretty good, even before we were finished.



I'm not sure how I'll keep them from eating it too soon!





We are all very pleased with the result!