Oh my oh my oh my

We are actually considering moving to the COUNTRY!!! And I am excited about it! Me, who's never lived more than 10 feet from another house in my whole entire LIFE, city girl through and through. I am actually excited about moving myself, my husband and my four kids to a 5 acre hobby farm in a city 15 minutes from my church and life as I know it. Currently there are 2 dogs, 2 roosters, 4 geese (big ol' white ones with the knob on the beak), 4 guinea hens and 4 actual live peacocks living o that property with an almost 60 year old lady. And the animals stay with the property. Yikes. What the heck do you do with a guinea hen or a peacock anyway???

Mommy Bonding

Before I get to the Mommy Bonding story, I'll update you on our house situation. First off of course, our house sold. In a day and a half. With two offers on the table, one of which was above asking price! Second, we have offered, counter offered, countered and accepted an offer. Now, since the home is under forclosure, you'd think that the bank would be HAPPY to get rid of it, collect their money and get on with life! Not so much. We were sent a 12 page addendum with incorrect information on it, told to "just sign it, it's fine" and I don't think so. So, now we've got a message in to the realtor who's working with the bank that says, "put in the right information or we walk". Of course, if we walk, we're walking homeless on June 14. Soooo, needless to say (though I'll say it anyway) we're AGAIN looking for houses. Ugggg!

Now for the fun part! Jim is at Schaeffer's graduation tonight. Evan begged me to go to the park, so I loaded up all four kiddos and off we went! I chatted with a few mommies and their kids in the sand box. One mommy was helping the kids with sand castles when I saw her 4 year old boy run off behind a tree to take care of his business. I told Nikki (the mom) that her son had done so just as my Aidan announced that he had to go potty too and started running off for the tree! Nikki went over just as I noticed that Aidan was not merely watering the tree but adding fertilizer as well. Eeewwww! As I ran to the van to find some wipes and a diaper to put the "stuff" into I noticed Nikki also coming over with a pile of paper towels for HER son's fertilizer! Once we got our respective kids bums and messes cleaned up we went back to the sand pile and commisserated about the wonders of boys. Remind me to remind Daddy that he needs to set up some boundaries for out of doors "business"!!!

I won something!!!

I was invited by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer to participate in a Mother's Day writing contest at Kisses of Sunshine. Sure I was just wasting my time, I zapped out a paragraph introduction to a short essay my mom wrote and passed on to me. You can read the essay and the other entries at Extra Kisses of Sunshine. Enjoy and Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers out there. And a peaceful Mother's Day to all those who are missing their mothers or children or the fact that they are not yet mothers today.

Aidan's take on life

I have two hilarious quotes from Aidan that I've debated blogging about here. I decided to just go ahead and share. If I offend, so sorry, but hey, I can't make this stuff up!

The first one came a few weeks ago. We'd had a speaker at MOPS sharing about how to talk with your children about the birds & the bees, starting with just giving them correct termiology for body parts. I decided that I should just tell the boys that Avery has a v*gina and that it is different from their p*nis. (Shrouding actual terms to avoid sickos from finding these stories, sad, but they're out there.) Anyway, a few days later Aidan and Toby were watching Avery get her diaper changed. Aidan wondered when Avery was going to get her p*nis. I told him that Avery wasn't going to get one, but that she had private parts called a v*gina which is inside her body. A while later I heard him explaining this to his brother. "I have a p*nis, but Avery's is 'in China'!!!" It is soooo hard to try to explain things like this when you're on the floor laughing your head off!!!

The next cute Aidan-ism came just this afternoon. We were at Mel's house for lunch and her newborn decided it was time for lunch too. One thing to note here, I am a white girl through and through. Mel is half Mexican and has a darker complexion. Aidan noticed that Mel looks different than I do and wondered, "Is Ananiah getting chocolate milk?" We were laughing so hard we were crying!!! It was a good thing our friend Mercy who is African-American wasn't there for this one!!!

Works For Me Wednesday

I have a van with two sliding doors. LOVE IT!! Will not go back to a single side slider. Anyway, I also have 4 kids. When I unbuckle them, as I go around to get more out I have the kids "stand on the line" of the parking lot so they're not running around and trying to get themselves run over. If the line has been worn off, I have them stand on a crack or touch the door. Then when we're all lined up and ready to go I tell them they can walk! This really works for me. It gives me a peaceful start to most any trip we take (of course, that doesn't help the rest of the trip, but at least we've started out on a good foot!)
Head over to Rocks In My Dryer for other great tips!

My celebrity look alikes

The View From Here

I am overdue for an update here; it's been a busy weekend.

My parents came up for a visit which was a great diversion from life! We're putting our house on the market tomorrow, so now I have to return to normal and start cleaning and packing unnecessary stuff away (or just give it away). We're not going far, just somewhere with a little more elbow room for boys to run.

Avery is overall doing better. We're learning her "I'm tired, put me to sleep" cues and jumping on them to get a happy napper. She's smiling and cooing all over the place. Quite a difference from the sad baby I had a couple of weeks ago. Zantac seems to be doing the job!

Toby is a kick. He's such a ham and gives us something to laugh about every day. Right now I'm lifting my self-imposed ban on Caillou. I hate that kid's voice, but since it's keeping Toby entertained, I'll let it go for now.

Aidan just provided me with a reminder that I do indeed have boys. I came downstairs from putting Avery down for a nap. I saw the sliding glass door open to the deck and one "shiney heiney" out there on the deck and Aidan, ahem, relieving himself on the deck!!! It is so hard to explain how we are supposed to use the potty while I am cracking up!

Evan is on a field trip to the MN zoo today. He has directions from his teacher that if he does "one little thing wrong" he'll be in the visitor's center with the teacher for the rest of the trip! I just told him that he had to be good or they would leave him in the monkey cage. Bad idea on my part, he thought that sounded like fun!

My girlfriend Melanie had her baby on Friday. Ananiah Eileen was born on her due date, quite a difference from her big brother who was born at 25 weeks 6 days! She was almost 7 lbs, a giant compared to 2 lb Zane. Everyone is doing great!

In other news, please continue to pray for Heather. She came through her brain tumor surgery well, but found out that the tumor type it is carries with it a life expectancy of 3-5 years. She has three kids ages 10, 7 and 5. The 5 year old is autistic and a heart transplant patient. Pray for Heather, Mark, Easton, Eli and Emma as they deal with this news. Her spirits are good and she is leaning heavily on God to get them through this chapter of life.

Blessed be the name.