We Are Thankful

1. We are thankful that Dan is home safe and sound.
2. We are thankful that we have family in the area who can help out while he is gone.
3. We are thankful that our only plumbing problems have been self induced (Aaron flushed a bunch of clorox wipes and caused a backup again) and Dan was able to fix them with out a plumber.
4. We are thankful for 4 days of being together with no work or school.
5. We are thankful for the new dry wall going into our bathroom.
6. We are thankful for music and the spirit it brings.
7. We are thankful for our family nearby to spend holidays with and eat yummy food with.
8. We are thankful that even my mistakes in the kitchen in preparing for Thanksgiving - still tasted good - even if we were unsure that they would when we went....
9. We are thankful for Christmas Trees - real ones that smell good!!!
10. We are thankful for the beginning of the Christmas Season and all the reminders of our Savior's Birth
11. We are thankful for our new ward and the chances it has already brought for service.
12. We are thankful for the spirit we have felt at church.
13. We are thankful for the chance this move has provided to make new friends.
14. We are thankful for piles of leaves and how fun they are to play in!
15. We are thankful for each other - there is no other set of people I would rather be with.

We are so blessed - there is no way I could list all the many things we have to be thankful for - but this is the list of things we were thankful for this week - it's been a busy, but wonderful week!

From Zero to Disaster in.....

It amazes me how quickly all 4 kids can turn a fairly clean house into a disaster zone. If I send them to play and do the dishes and sweep the kitchen - I will probably come downstairs to find a complete disaster. If I try to work on something downstairs, I will probably go upstairs 10 minutes later to find contraband crumbs all over the kitchen floor, and blankets and pillows all over the front room. (And of course Aaron under the table hiding because he knows he has done something wrong)

As usual when Dan is out of town, I am also amazed at what an incredible husband I have and how all my best efforts are just not enough with out him. Last night after the Aaron and Evie decided that 5:00 was too long to wait for dinner - and mashed up half a container of goldfish and then mixed it up with the brand new box of raisins and ate some random other food on the counters, I put them in PJ's and sent them to bed - figuring they had already had their supper.

Eileen got a friendship bracelet making kit from one of her friends for her birthday. Yesterday I showed her how to make a friendship bracelet and she and Anna picked it up right away. They have been doing almost nothing else ever since. They have friendship bracelets scattered all over the house to give to their cousins and friends. I was amazed at how quickly they picked it up and how long it has entertained them.

Well even as I type, the kids are supposed to be cleaning... I wonder what mess I will find next....

Church today was wonderful, if a bit tiring. We got there early to practice for the choir number today. The kids thankfully were mostly well behaved during Sacrament meeting. The talks and lessons given today all seemed to be exactly what I needed to hear. We had a wonderful Sacrament Meeting talk about finding joy in the journey. He talked about enjoying the flowers along the path, instead of just focusing on the garden at the end. He also talked about remembering to shift our focus to what is most important - the people around us. I think I had forgotten all that yesterday.... I really needed the perspective change.

I have given up on potty training Aaron. It was supposed to be Dan's job to potty train the boys - I told him tonight that I'm giving the job back over to him, I can't take it anymore. Evie on the other hand, seems to want to be potty trained. She often tells me that she wants to go potty and then poops and pees on the toilet. She seems to be closer to figuring this out than Aaron is.... Funny thing is that any time Aaron is stinky now, she follows him around going "ewwwww Anor (what she calls Aaron) ewwww STINK!!"

More Cake?!?!?!?

Well - so the sewage started backing up again late Sunday night, Dan noticed it while he was up at 2 am with a sick Anna who was covered in diarrhea and needed a bath. We stopped all water use and called the plumber again.... So at this point Dan and I are rather upset and discouraged thinking that this may cost us a lot of money and a LOT of hassle. Well we get the plumber here and he makes an interesting discovery. Our house has 2 sewage lines. All the work that has been done up to this point has been done on the smaller and less used line. The back up was occurring between the two lines under the house. So he pulled out the downstairs toilet to snake the other line. He got it cleared out and then we had a person come over and scope it (put a camera in the pipe to see if it's ok) and we found that all was free and clear now - we would not need our yard torn up, we would not need our basement torn up (any more than it already was) and we shouldn't have any more trouble. So after all that stress - it turns out to have been a fairly minor problem that would not have happened if they had realized that there were 2 pipes in the first place....

The rest of the week has gone fairly smoothly. We had another plumber in on Saturday because we saw a drip inside the wall where the dry wall had been removed - and oddly enough - we wouldn't have known that this drip was there until it had done some damage, except that we had the dry wall removed because of the sewage problems. Maybe a small reason to be grateful for all we went through - but it's one less thing we will have to worry about in the future. LOL - he only had to cut out a couple more small sections of dry wall to fix it.... But the holes he made allowed Dan to run our internet into our basement with out a cable going into our window and going all around the floor of our basement. So I might have chosen for things to go more smoothly, but it seems to be working out now. :)

Eileen had a birthday party this weekend. She hasn't had a birthday party with her friends for 3-4 years now, and I figured it was time she was able to have one. She invited a few friends over and the kids had a blast running around the house and outside. Dan did balloon animals for all the kids - which was a HUGE hit - and they fought each other with balloon swords, tromped around like balloon elephants, and walked balloon dogs. We fed them lunch, let them eat cake (and ice cream too) and finished off the party with a pinata. I think she really enjoyed it, and it wasn't even that stressful for me. Plus I can stuff the kids stockings with the left over party favors :) Then her friend Morgan (from her old school) stayed the rest of the afternoon to play.


Here they are all lined up to take their turn whacking the pinata. They loved it - they liked hitting it more than they liked collecting the candy....


The most amazing part to me was when Eileen and I sat down this afternoon to write Thank You notes - not because I made her - but because she wanted to. I helped her with the writing and spelling, but I was so proud of her wanting to do this. Such a big and responsible girl!!

Finally one last picture - I made Dan take another pic - I now officially have 2 more pictures of me pregnant that I have had with the last 2 pregnancies. This is me at about 29 weeks - ish. Amazingly I still feel good (most of the time) and while my belly noticeably impedes my ability to bend and pick things up, it is still not too uncomfortable. The baby is very active and the kids love to feel him wiggle. Anna will sit there and push gently on my belly until he starts kicking her back.


Evie has started potty training herself. She will tell me that she has to go potty and then we will go and get her sitting down and she will go. Really the only dirty diapers she has had the last couple days have been wet ones from bed time and nap time. She is so cute sitting there and so proud of herself when she does something. And she sings on the toilet - "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" of course.

Moving.....

Well - I can't believe that 2 weeks have passed since we I was last able to post. I have been with out internet until today - and honestly, even if I had had internet, I probably wouldn't have had time or energy to use it anyway.

Tuesday we dropped the kids off at Frank and Tina's for the week. They were on fall break and so they got to spend the whole week hanging out with their cousin and Aunt and Uncle.

On Wednesday the 26th, we closed on our house - which was earlier than we had hoped and gave us a couple more days to try and move before the end of the month. Despite getting snowed on all that day, we still managed to get a bunch of stuff moved over to the new house that evening. Thursday we continued to pack and move over those non-daily essentials, and build the stuff we had gotten at Ikea so that we could minimize the amount of work to be done over the weekend. Turns out this was a good idea.

Friday night, Dan picked up the U-Haul and a few teen-age boys from the ward, who live nearby, came over to help load boxes. Then Dan unloaded the truck at the new house... by himself. I tried to help with as much of the small stuff as I could - but being the sweet caring hubby that he is, he wouldn't let me do much.

Saturday, a few guys from the Elder's quorum at church came over to help with moving the furniture. Dan and 4 other guys spent almost the whole day moving all our furniture into the van and then back out of the van and into our new home. The lunch we fed them doesn't seem like thanks enough for the hard work - which I know led to sore muscles later. :) Saturday we also picked up the kids and brought them to their new home. We showed them their new rooms and they had fun checking everything out. We also made a little stop at Peoria ward Halloween party - the kids enjoyed getting dressed up and weren't even too disappointed that we totally missed the trunk-or-treat part of the party.

Sunday was a bit of a break for church, and Dan trying to finish a few last things before he had to go out of town.... Thankfully my mom also arrived late Sunday from Texas to help. That night - he was up being sick half the night.

Monday, he left for Chicago. Unfortunately for him - every time he leaves - everything goes wrong - then he feels bad for being gone. Things started out relatively small and just got worse.... For starters, that night - I had the same bug Dan had and it left me exhausted, sore and barely functioning. I'm not quite sure how I would have managed with out my mom there. Tuesday was mostly my mom trying to help unpack with me spending a lot of time napping.

Monday was also Halloween - the kids loved getting dressed up - and loved answering the door for trick-or-treaters. My mom passed our candy while I walked the kids around the block - that was plenty of candy and plenty of walking for all of them. They had fun - they all got into saying "Trick-or-Treat!!!" And Evie seemed to enjoy herself... a least until she saw a scary mask. After that she wanted to be held a lot and kept talking over and over about the "Scary Monsters!!" One was particularly bad and had her screaming and crying until we got to the next house. Aaron has been a pirate for the last 3 years now - I guess it's he favorite. Funny - he never really talks about pirates any other time of the year.... By the way - Eileen is showing off her rings.


Wednesday was Eileen's birthday - My big girl is now 7 years old!! And for her birthday she got a Snow Day.... that's right - no school. We celebrated that night with cupcakes and Great Grandpa coming over. Eileen enjoyed her birthday dinner of cheeseburgers and beans and mommy tried to do something other than sleep and wish the kids were at school....


Also on Wednesday, we found out that the cable guy would not put cable into our basement - so he ran a line into the upstairs and then I had to wait for Dan to get it down to my comp (which is not set up for wireless)

Friday was when things started going really wrong. We had had a bit of trouble with some of the drains in the house, on Friday, it got a lot worse - like a huge inch deep puddle of sewage water in our laundry room. We had a plumber come over to snake the pipe. After working for an hour and a half, he was unable to pull out any problems - he concluded that there must be a break in the line. With a house stinking of sewage and no way to fix it, we woke up the kids and dragged them to Frank and Tina's in the night. I was up until after midnight talking to claims adjusters and trying to figure out why this was happening and what insurance or home warranty would cover.

Saturday we were met at the house by the sewage clean-up people, and the plumbers. The plumbers tried a few other things while waiting for the people to come mark the power lines so that they wouldn't dig into them while trying to fix the pipe. In they process, they were able to push something through the line and clear it up. They still don't know exactly what the problem was, because they weren't able to pull anything out, but for now we have working water. So thankfully (since both the insurance company and the home warranty people were trying to tell us that they would NOT cover replacing the pipe since it's not in the house, and since replacing the pipe might have taken at least another whole day) we were spared a large cost of repair, another night away from home and more emotional distress. Now we just need to get the sewage clean up done and the claims done and this will all be a distant memory.... I have pictures of this... but you don't want to see them... trust me....

Sunday, Dan came home to a wife who had actually recovered some of her sanity and to his own bed. He met us at church and we enjoyed meeting our new ward and are eager to make new friends. I went to choir today - it was nice to not be in charge of it, and it was nice to see the good turn out they have.