Homeless....

Well it's been one crazy week - we were supposed to have all our stuff packed up and papers signed closing on our Texas house this week.  Unfortunately not all went according to plan.... 

Tuesday we planned to do the last of the laundry and then we gave our old washer and dryer away to friends in the ward - they came and picked it up for us.  We got that all done - finished up the packing and went to bed a bit early in preparation for a long day.  

Wednesday was moving day.  I took all the kids (except Anna) and went to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa Cox.  We had a fun morning walking around the zoo and chatting and looking at the animals.  There were new baby lion cubs too and that was so fun!!  After, we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and my parents set up the projector and the kids and I watched movies in their little theater.  We watched Dora the Explorer and Hocus Pocus.  We had dinner down there which was just pizza, but it was nice not having to worry about dinner or about the kids getting in the way of the moving.  After, we headed back home to an empty house and went to bed.  

Thursday morning, we loaded up the vehicles and said goodbyes to our neighbors before finally pulling out (later than we wanted, but not too bad) and heading towards Colorado.  It was a long tiring trip, but we made it safely into Colorado that night.  We stayed with friends out in Strasburg.  The Guinns were so kind to offer their home to us!  Friday we took it a bit easy.  In the morning, we walked down to the park and played for a bit, then I took the kids and we went to visit Becca and her kids.  Then we stopped by to have a quick visit with Kay and Reggie, then we headed back for a yummy dinner with the Guinns.  

Saturday morning, we set out for Idaho.  We stopped at Little America and got in WAY too late at night.  The kids are all sick of travelling by this point, and by this point we know that the closing on our house is being pushed back again, which pushes back the closing on our house, so we don't have a home to go to, or a place to send our furniture and boxes....  So well before that day's driving was done, the kids were grumpy and sick of the car and driving.   We stopped at Little America for ice cream cones.  David was so excited about his - the rest of the kids just devoured theirs and then went to play.  

We finally got into Meridian very late and got the kids to bed as quickly as we could and then crashed.  The next morning, we had a fairly lazy morning - but since David ended up sleeping in our bed - Dan and I had spent the whole night getting kicked and pushed out of bed, so we hadn't slept very well.  We had a wonderful church together - we got to see the broadcast of their fast and testimony meeting.  We did some scripture studying together, we played games, we took naps and we had a wonderful evening chatting with Sarah and Rob and their family who came over for cake and ice cream to celebrate Grandpa Jones' birthday.  Since we have nothing pressing us to be in Oregon next week - we are going to stay here a few more days - we will get to be here to go through the temple with Olivia and get to rest for a couple days.  

Yep.... Still Waiting....

 Well - new plan....  So we were supposed to head out this week and close this week, but both have been pushed back a bit.  We have readjusted plans and are now planning to have the movers take everything on Wednesday, then we will drive out on Thursday.  We will do a remote close part way through our trip out to OR.  

Monday, my parents came up and brought lunch.  It was much appreciated since we have packed up most of our kitchen, we don't have the ability to cook much!  We then had a friend from church drop off dinner for us.  

Weather has mostly gotten lots cooler, so this week was wonderful for being outside - even to the extent that when going on walks in the morning or evening, I've often taken a sweater!  :)  Because of that we have spent a bunch of time playing and walking outside.  Dan took David walking down to the mailbox - and David insisted that he needed to wear a sweater - so he wore mine.  

I took James and David to the park on Tuesday morning - thankfully it was pretty quiet there - unfortunately none of the older kids wanted to come with us.  But the younger boys had a great time running around and playing and being out of the house - the weather was perfect and we had a great morning.  

I decided to take the kids on one last library trip - we needed some books to get through this week of waiting since all of our own are packed up!  We had fun picking some books out and then headed home.  It was nice to have some time where the kids weren't complaining about not having anything to do.  

Tuesday night, we went and watched the presidential debate with some friends.  It was disheartening to watch the behavior of grown men who our nation thinks are qualified to lead our country...  

Wednesday was supposed to get into the upper 80's, so I took the kids and we headed down to my parents house.  The younger four kids swam - my parents heated up the hot tub some, so they didn't get too cold too fast.  They had a lot of fun - then once that had worn off and they had dried off some, we all walked down to the turtle pond.  The kids had fun feeding the turtles and the fish.  Evie saw a baby near the shore, and Eileen managed to catch it.  It was so cute!  After walking back - the kids were all sufficiently hot enough to want to go back in the pool.  After a little bit of that, my dad started showing Evelyn pictures of previous Scotland Trips to get ideas for her trip whenever it happens - eventually all the other kids trickled in to watch also.  Grandpa had a great time showing pictures to the kids.  We headed home for dinner - but all in all, it was a wonderful and tiring day!  

      

James has been wanting to play with the wiffle ball and paddles every day - so he and I have spent some of almost every day out playing - which usually leads to others coming out to play with us.  David thinks it's great fun - though James gets frustrated with him.  It's fun to watch James have fun and get better.  

It's hard to believe that it is already October.  We had friends bring over dinner for us on Thursday and stay to eat with us - the food was super yummy and the girls and Dan and I all really want the recipe.  We are so blessed by the wonderful people in this area!  

This weekend was General Conference.  It seems like we just had the last one - time has been going so fast this year...  The conference was just amazing.  So much wonderful council and it's so peaceful to know that the church is led by men and women who are honestly trying to live what they teach.  It made such a stark contrast from the presidential debate.  I am so grateful for a prophet to lives the gospel and shares his experiences and his light with us.  I am grateful for council and advice from wise leaders and for their comforting council during these crazy times.  

So we are counting down again.  And praying that this will be the last postponement....  

Counting Down....wait what?

The kids didn't have school on Monday - Evie and her friends wanted to get ice cream together, so I took Evelyn and her friends plus James and Aaron, and walked down to the ice cream place and got ice cream.  The kids had a good time.  We almost got rained on, but it held off mostly until we got back.  

The kids had school on Tuesday and then we withdrew them from school.  Except Anna.   Then we buckled down to packing.  ....Mostly

Wednesday morning, I had the opportunity to go to the temple in the morning.  It was so wonderful to be able to go.  My heart and soul felt so much better for being able to go and be there and feel the spirit.  

After, I went home for a quick lunch before heading over to Lori's house for a bit.  We were able to sit and chat for awhile and catch up.  It was so good to see her again!  My heart and soul needed that visit too.  All in all - Wednesday was a wonderful day!  

Thursday started with packing, then I met up for lunch with the ladies with whom I've been serving in primary.  We had a great lunch and a great time chatting.  

Friday, the girls and I went down to my parents house for hair cuts.  Eileen, Evelyn and I just got a quick trim.   Anna chopped it all off!   She went with an adorable pixie cut and she looks so cute!  

My dad also pulled out some things from my grandmother's hope chest.  Including this gorgeous coat and two beautiful dresses that she knit herself.  He had the girls try them on - they looked beautiful in them!  

We are officially into the "eat whatever food you can find" stage of packing up.  So for dinner one night Dan had a smoked pork, mashed potato, stuffing, mayo, mustard and jelly sandwich on some of my dad's home made bread....  He loved it - so did James.  This is a picture of the epic creation.  I did not try it. 

Saturday started a bit rough.  My parents are struggling with our move and my mom and I had a text conversation with both of us getting rather teary.  My mom beats herself up too much sometimes.  She is such a wonderful mother and I'm so glad we have at least had some time living down here with them again.  

Saturday evening, Evie headed to a birthday party with her best friends and the rest of us headed over to the Tilton's house.  It was strange to drive back through our old neighborhood and drive past our old house.  It was also a blast being with the Tilton's again.  The kids all had a blast playing together, and the adults had a great time hiding in a different room chatting.  Before we left, we did a photo re-create.  Megan had this picture of Eileen and Sonora from back in the day, so we made the girls re-create it for us.  Such cute little girls and such beautiful young women!  

And this is the original :)  

Sunday, we got to go to church and I got to play the organ.  The talks were about the Love of God for all his children - it was beautiful and uplifting.   After church, Evelyn wanted to make cookies with her friends - but we were missing ingredients and basics like mixing bowls and measuring cups were already packed up, so she found a recipe using only what we had and borrowed some equipment from her friends houses and they made cookies...  at least she is determined!  The cookies came out good though!  

We had a quick dinner of cereal and whatever we could find still in the house, then we went out to our front yard to play and say goodbye to our friends and neighbors.  We had friends from the ward and neighbors come and chat and play.  Dan pulled out some balls and things to play with in the yard and we had a great time!  David had a blast chasing big kids all over the place.  Even Koopa got in on the fun by escaping the house and hanging out with us outside - he was even well behaved mostly.  

 While we were outside enjoying a last bit of time with our friends, we found out that the buyers on our house are asking for an extension of the closing date.  They want to move the closing date to Oct 10th.  So now we are trying to figure out what that means for us and the move.  We will know more once we talk to the moving company tomorrow, but for now, it looks like we will be here a bit longer than we planned...  Now to find out if we will have any furniture while we are here....  

Birthday Fun

 Holy Moley it's been a busy week!  

Monday was my 41st birthday.  We had pineapple upside down cake and nachos for dinner.  David helped me blow out my candles and he wrapped up a couple of his cars to give me so I could play cars with him.  He and daddy wrapped them up in the morning, so he was excited all day about getting me to open my presents!  

These are just David being cute.  My dad sent some bread home with us when we went down to visit - and David loved it!  (so did the rest of us!)  

David wants to spend all of every day "playing cars."  Sometimes that actually means playing with the cars - sometimes it just means, "come play with me mommy."   On Tuesday it actually meant playing with cars since we needed to play with the cars he wrapped up for me.  :)  

Wednesday was Evelyn's 11th birthday.  She had Butter Chicken for her birthday dinner and sheet cake for her cake.  She got some really cute clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Jones and a fuzzy sweater, a stuffie backpack and fidget cube from mom and dad.   

Eileen and Anna wanted to re-do their hair to get the color brighter - I thought they looked awfully funny with their hair in cups waiting.  

She and her friends wanted to do a baking competition - I was a little worried about how it would all work out - but it ended up working out ok.  Some of the girls had more experience than others, so they needed a bit of supervision and we had to stagger baking of the cookies.  They had a blast and made a mess and then we took plates with one of each cookie to have all the parents judge (Dan judged for our family since I knew who had baked what so I wasn't impartial)  Emily and Leah ended up tying, but all the cookies tasted great!  

After we finally finished all the cookie baking and judging, the girls convinced all their parents to sleep over at our house.  Evie had passed out by 10:30 while the other girls were still awake - but they had a great time and Evie loved getting to spend some time with her friends before the move.  

Saturday started out with waffles and lots of girls.  Then after lunch, Evelyn with out for ice cream with Grandma and Grandpa for her birthday.  Evie also got to talk to her adopted grandma Sister Cottrell.  Then in the afternoon, we took the whole family and headed down to Medieval Times for a fun evening together!  The kids loved it - even David was enthralled and James was crazy excited for the whole thing.  Evie got one of the flowers after our champion won an event, and we all had a wonderful time!  

I got to play organ this week for church and of course that meant some practice time too.  Before church on Sunday, I had the kids get their yearly picture taken.  James was reluctant, but quick and easy.  Aaron was quick and easy and liked it when I had him take a picture with his vampire teeth showing.  James wanted his picture taken over and over and over, then wanted to get into everyone's pictures and of course, he wanted to see all the pictures too!  Evelyn was easy once I got her to tilt her head in a way that would remove the glare on her glasses.  Anna was the easiest of all.  Eileen just tried not to laugh at me while I told her to think of cute fuzzy moths and caterpillars so that I could get a nice smile out of her - she hates smiling! Oddly enough my favorite picture of the bunch is not a big smile, but the picture is just so her.    I sure do have cute kids though!  

We also took a headshot of Dan - we need proof that once his hair was this long.  He likes the first one better because he is all dressed up and looking stylish, but I just love the second one - It was taken before I took the kids pictures just to get the lighting in a good place.  The smile is just so genuine! 

I'm certainly not the best photographer, but this was fun and I like how they came out - and it's much cheaper and easier.  

Church was wonderful - but Dan and I were exhausted, so we took an afternoon nap, then after dinner we played some games with the kids.  

Dan and I are spending spare time packing.  We are trying to get to say goodbye to all our friends.  We are trying to get the kids school work done.  I'm ready for this all to be done.  We spent some time trying to nail down our trip out to Oregon and figuring out how it will work out and where we will be when.  We had hoped to stop by Paul and Candace's house in Utah, but that is looking like it won't happen.  Paul may have COVID, which worries us for him and his family, for now he is just quarantining, but either way, we won't be staying there.  

School and Packing

 We've had a busy week of school stuff.  Anna and Eileen have seminary, Anna has band and cross country, Evie has band, Anna and Evie have piano lessons.  

Dan smoked some pork this week - it was SO yummy, Dan invited some friends over to help us eat it and we sent them home with some pork and some sheet cake.  

David wanted to sit RIGHT next to Dan at lunch time.  David had some cute moments - in the car this week, he sneezed and then said "bless myself"  When someone says he can't do something, he often says "too late, I gonna do it"  

Anna High School had their homecoming game on Friday, so Dan and I went to watch Anna play during the halftime show.  She did amazing!  She had me help with her hair - they told her she had to have a medium high bun with no fly aways.  So I did a bun and pinned it up with bobby pins and the glued her hair to her hair with hairspray.  By the end of the night in a warm Texas night, she still had no fly aways and she thought it was hilarious that when she got home and took all the bobby pins out - her hair still didn't fall down.  Dan and I watched the game through the halftime show.  Anna was playing winning, so that was fun - and Anna's first homecoming game of her High School career included a 20 minute break when all the lights went out.  

Bright and early on Saturday morning, Anna had a track meet.  She did well and had a really good time of 16:16.  Grandpa Cox came to watch too - he drove up and was comfortable being there since it was out in the open and he didn't ever have to be near anyone to be able to watch her.  

Saturday afternoon, I took the kids down to the library for a quick drop off and pick up of books and let them know that this was the last time we would be checking out books from the library.  Then we headed down to my parents house.  I didn't think it would be warm enough for swimming, but I should have known better.  The four younger kids spent most of the time there swimming - even though they were obviously cold.  Anna also got in for a bit, then she got out, laid down on a towel and slept through dinner.  Dan and I brought sour cream enchiladas for dinner and a salad for my dad, my mom got a cake from Nothing Bunt Cakes and we did a little bit of a birthday celebration.  My parents, with a hint from Dan got me a super soft fuzzy sweater!  

Sunday was beautiful.  We had church together.  We played games - we played space base and I lapped Dan with my score!  :)  We had biscuits for dinner, and Evelyn made cupcakes that we took to her friends in the neighborhood after dinner.  Then we had a nice time chatting with the Francone family.  

MCO had it's first week of video rehearsals.  Evelyn and Anna and Eileen all have done their rehearsing for the week - I still need to do mine, but it's wonderful having the music in our homes!!  I love getting to listen to them sing!  David was a bit of a cranky beast today - he can go with out a nap once in awhile, but if it happens more than once in a row he gets really cranky.  We were talking to Gene and Ann for a bit today, and he got very mad when Dan wouldn't let him walk off with his phone and talk to them on his own.  

We have also spent some time this week packing up.  We are starting to try to get everything that isn't totally essential packed up.  

New Home!

 It has been a long and crazy week.  School has been getting into a more regular train and the kids are doing pretty well.  David misses being able to play with all the kids though.  Eileen and Anna have seminary in the mornings and Anna has cross country and marching band and piano.  We are keeping pretty busy.  

Dan was supposed to leave for Oregon on Tuesday to look at houses.  However, storms in the area caused his flight to get cancelled and he ended up not being able to leave until Wednesday.  On Wednesday afternoon he was able to fly out and got into Portland just in time to look at a house that we had been excited about.  Unfortunately, there were serious slanting issues with the floor in the house.  So the next day, he went to look at a couple more houses we had been interested in, and they both had similar issues!  We were getting rather bummed out by the whole thing.   Dan was just driving around the neighborhood of one of the houses we had looked at and was looking for "For Sale" signs and then having me look up if they were in our price range and would fit our family.  Wonder of wonders, we found one that looked like it would work and we really liked how it looked too, so Dan set up an appointment to see it.  After walking through the house, we both really liked it, so we put an offer in and now we are officially under contract!  

One of the nights that Dan was gone, we had Beef Stroganoff - David loved it and ate crazy amounts of it - both on the night we made it, and on the next night when we had leftovers.  

The younger kids wanted to build a fort and sleep together on the hide-a-bed.  So we let them have fun and they actually even slept - mostly.  

Saturday was a much more laid back day - we slept in a bit and spent a few hours at the pool.  Dan was supposed to get in around 7 - unfortunately, due to more bad weather, his plane was unable to land at first, and then unable to circle anymore without refueling, the flight was sent to Kansas to be refueled and then they finally made it home.  He didn't get in until late, but at least he made it home safe!  

Today, we got to go to church and it was a wonderful fast and testimony meeting proceeded by an epic  tantrum from James that had me outside with him waiting for him to calm down and missing the opening song and sacrament.  :(  

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Mangum's house for dinner and fun.  We had a great time chatting and eating yummy food!  

We spent our evening talking with family on the phone and playing games and playing.  I've spent way too much of this week looking at the pictures of our future house and trying to plan where things will go.  Eileen keeps laughing at me for it.