How Things are Going

We've had a lot of fun this Christmas in Nashville. After all the stress of moving, it's been nice to have few responsibilities and lots of family to visit with.  Our kids are getting along great with their cousins.  Unfortunately we all got

 a horrible stomach bug and it still hasn't finished it's course through everyone.  Hopefully soon we'll all be better.

Miss L at the state capitol with her adorable cousin, Mr. C.

We've been seeing quite a few sites and I have a ton of pictures, of course, but most of those will have to wait.
In my mind I keep thinking we will be going back "home" after this "vacation" but what was home is no longer.  It's a strange thought sometimes.  The weirdest part is picturing not running Mr. M back and forth to school.  That's been such a huge part of our daily routine.  I lived in our TX house the longest I have ever lived in one house or one ward.  I'm glad I have least visited LA and know a little about it.  When we moved to TX I had never been there or seen our new house in person.
Our kids have been playing so much and getting so dirty that I keep referring to them as homeless children, which is, in fact, exactly what they are at the moment.

Gingerbread Houses

The kids got invited to their friend's house to make gingerbread houses.

I was so grateful because we haven't had time to do anything like this with the move happening. 

They were BEYOND excited and had a blast.

 Mr. M wasn't moving quickly enough for me so he didn't get to pose with his.  Poor guy.  Mom is not he most patient person right now.

Kindergarten Party

Mr. M is much less sad about leaving his school than I am.

I am nervous for him and sad he was leaving friends. 

He was just like, "Ok.  Buy Guys.  I won't be back."

 I love his little class.  I will miss them.  They are cute, cute kids with a great teacher.

Mr. M is such a good kid I'm not too worried about him adjusting but he does say he wants to be homeschooled when we move.  I told him he is going to give the school a try because he might really love it.  I think he just wants to be home to play more.  I would too if I was five-years-old and in all-day kindergarten.

But he's done so well.  We are proud of our little guy.

Midnight Bike Riding

So it wasn't really midnight, but it felt like it!

6:30..... Midnight.....Who can tell the difference?

Miss L's Preschool Events

Miss L was an angel in her preschool program.

This sweet girl next to her apparently wears a lot of large bows because Miss L is really into them right now and when she gets them in she says she looks like this beautiful girl.

 

 We also had a great time at her class Christmas party.  I love all her expressions. 

 This is her buddy that we also attend church with.  Bunch a cuties!

 She's all about this pose lately.  She also loves skirts and leggings.  And I love her.  Having a girl is so fun. 

Letters to Santa

Geocaching Party

The local geocaching group threw a farewell party for Cabe.  He is somewhat infamous around here.  Actually we are finding out he is infamous across the United States (and possibly world-wide) for his geocaching fiasco.

One of his geocaching buddies gave him this:

 Those are FLARES so please don't call the cops on us.  And that's just a clock on the top, not attatched to anything dangerous. And the ammo box is empty.  So stay calm.

His friend read an earlier post that C  had done on the geocaching website and said it "alluded" to future events.  In that first geocaching post C ever wrote it said something like, "The guy in the truck had gotten there first.  Blast him!" 
It was so funny....at least if you were actually there is was.

He is well-loved and deservedly so.  My hubby is a good, good guy.  He's really gross and a big pest, but he's really funny and awesome and I know will be missed around here. I'm glad I don't have to leave him behind!

Peace of Mind in a Crazy Time

We asked Cabe's little sister to fly out and stay with our kiddos while we were away.  She was willing and we were grateful! She had to leave behind her hubby and two jobs, one of which she babysits kiddos that I know she missed all of them terribly.  Our nephew also came with her.  He's Cabe's other sister's twenty-year-old son.  It was great to know there were two adults here to handle the chaos our little people can create.

Apparently Lil' D missed his siblings a lot on the days they were in school.  The first day he moped and sat on the couch wringing his hands.  He also did a lot of crying, whining, CLIMBING, and just driving everyone crazy.   It feels good to know other people in the world now know what I am going through every day.  I love him, and he keeps life exciting, but keeping him alive is exhausting.

The other two had a little mud party in the bathroom that caused some havoc but all survived so I think it was handled well.

As I knew she would, Negman (nickname) not only kept them alive but did crafts with them and kept them happy and entertained. 

My favorite story they had was when after church someone said, "Your children were so well behaved," to my nephew.  When I asked what he said back he said he just nodded.  It was just a little too much to explain, "Actually, these are my cousins and she is my aunt but they are not her children."  Then he wondered, do they actually look anything like me?  Considering he is half-white, a quarter black, and a quarter Mexican and my kids are white as white can be.  I also got a few comments from ward members about how much better behaved my children were for them than they are for us.  I'm not surprised. We seem to bring out the fits in at least one of them every Sunday.

We are so thankful to Negman and S for watching out littles.  It gave us such peace of mind. We are also thankful to everyone who helped give rides and keep them informed of all the things they needed to know (like snow days). 

We love you all!

Question and Answer

Everyone has had a bunch of questions for me lately.  So I'll try to answer a few.

First I'll share some pictures of our trip.

On the way there we geocached a bit. 

At one part we thought the geocache was in the cemetary.

It was not but it was a rather exciting hunt.

That's me going "Whooooo!"  Like a ghost...or something. 

 Not sure why we stopped at a cemetary first because we actually found it at a church.  A pretty little church.

I loved that first night.  Being alone without kids.  Visiting with no fighting or whining in the background.  Getting to stop and geocache without worrying about someone waking up and me having to be mad at Cabe for stopping.  It was fun!   We were also so excited to see where we'd be living. 

So questions....

1. Who stayed with your kids?  We flew out my sister-in-law and our nephew to be with them.  I'll do a post about this later.

2. Why was it so stressful?  This is a lot of money.  This is a home that has to house a lot of people because we want more children and we should be there for awhile.  Making this decison was tough.  I didn't want to regret the house we chose.  The new homes were so tempting, but all they had going for them was that they were new.  They didn't have good storage space, their location was too far from Caleb's work, and they were cookie cutter.  The older homes have their own set of problems.  We didn't understand the layout of the town.  The traffic was terrible.  It was just so overwhelming.

And then when we'd make a choice something would always go wrong.  It's not as simple as just find a house you like and buy it when you have a third party company bossing you around.

Then when we chose a house and we were so excited we went to church and people were trying to talk us out of it because of the school Malachi would attend and because many of them are moving and wanted us to buy their houses. We had to pray and decided what was for our family.  I visited the school and asked them blunt questions and felt that the school seemed fine to us. I also did some research online about it. The other ward members houses were gorgeous but they just didn't feel like our house like the house we chose did.

Moving is just a roller coaster and making grown-up decisions is stressful.  Plain as that.  I could go on and on but I'm pretty sure this answer is more than enough.

3. How did you feel about La?  It was beautiful and green. It has water. It has a lot of fun things to do.  It has amazing food.  I love the house we are hopefully buying.  Those are the pros.  The other side of it is the layout is so confusing, the schools are rumored to not be as great, the traffic is horrible, and I didn't meet any swamp people.  The ward is very small.  This is not a pro or a con, just something new and a little nerve-wracking for me.  The people seem great and we are excited to get to know them. 

Something interesting is everywhere I saw the words "go" or "snow" it was spelled, "geaux" or "sneaux."

I have no idea how to speak French so I misspronounced pretty much everything.  Although I think I slaughtered it less because I know Spanish.  Any language knowledge helps.

Instead of counties they have parishes.

It's vastly Catholic.  That will be a change for sure!

The adventure is so exciting.  I'm sure there are more questions I can answer but I am actually hoping people read this so I won't go on any longer for now. :)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

All I Want For Christmas is a Place to Live!

If you don't like to listen to me vent or complain, then just skip this post.  I don't need any advice on looking at the bright side and I don't need any judgements.  I think in general  I'm doing a pretty good job of staying postive.  I am well aware there are so many others with so much less.  We are blessed...but also a little stressed. :)

There, now that that is out of the way I just need to get some stress out on "paper."  It helps me feel better.  And actually like to hear a good vent here an there as long as it's not tearing down other people.  It reminds me that we are all human.

Our trip to Louisiana was stressful.  I thought I'd get to sleep in and enjoy quiet time with Caleb. I did get to enjoy quiet time with him and that was great. But I got hardly any sleep.  Sometimes being a grown-up is no fun. 

First we found a beautiful home but due to it being overpriced (majorly) we weren't able to get it.  Then we found another house with a great yard.  Caleb like it a lot, I did not.  So we kept looking. Overall we were not overly impressed by the houses we saw and we viewed a lot of houses.  They just weren't cared for in the way we try to care for ours.  

Eventually we went back the house I originally loved the pictures of and we decided it was the perfect compromise.

A little older, but not too old.  Required some work, but not too much (or so we thought).  It had a large yard, but not too large.

And it had this AMAZING room: 

 And these beautiful new cypress floors.

 (Master bedroom.)
And we can't forget the lemon tree (far left-hand corner).  The kids are extremely excited about the lemon tree.

 The bathroom tubs and showers definately need replaced.  And while we are at it we'd like to fix up this master bath area.

The kids bath is in better shape:

Caleb's company uses a third-party company to help you move.  While this company can make things very convenient in some areas, they make it extremely difficult in other areas.  Getting this house approved has been hard (or IS hard, we're not done yet).  First they didn't like the stucco on the front, then after we got the stucco approved, they didn't like the siding on the side and back (still not sure whether it is approved or not - which is crazy because it is a sturdy composite siding).  Then some of the stuff in the house is older and they didn't like that.  So we've had about a million five different types of inspections so we've already sunk a chunk of money into it. 

Then the inspection reports were not amazing.  This house needs work.  A lot of work. 

 But did I mention that it has this room:

(Same room as above but it's not staged in this pic.)

I love this room!

We also love the location (super-close to Caleb's work), the cost of the house (we got a sweet deal but are now looking to get it even lower considering all the repairs), and the area.
We are not home repair kind of people.  I can paint and Caleb can fix toilets, that's about the best we offer.  But this home just feels like our home.  I can picture my little family growing up there (well, for at least the next five years). We are just praying that we will know God's will and that we'll be able to ride the wave with smiles on our faces.

The Simplest of Things

Are Usually the Greatest Sources of Entertainment.

 We're singing into the vaccum hose.
Just singing into the vacuum hose.

 Oh what a wonderful feeling,
Just singing in the vaccum hose.

And this must be done all dressed up...including muliple headbands and taped on earrings.

 And who doesn't enjoy reading a book while sitting on in a pot?

Snacks are good for pot sitting as well.

 
 A glass table with the glass removed.  Best. Toy. Ever.
And apparently a great spot to give hugs.

 Sometimes I wonder why Damon is so tough and such a wild man.  And then I see images such as this:

 Car seats can also be brought in for entertainment value.  Even better they can be used for short bursts of containment.  If only I could strap Lil' D in there for longer periods of time....hhhmmmm.....

The kitchen table was also a lovely form of enterainment.  At first we put the chairs on top of the table to keep Lil' D away from them (he would slide them all over the house to get in precarious situations) and off the table, but due to some other circumstances I decided the best place for that table....

 is the garage.  We're moving in two weeks anyway.

Why do we even bother buying our children toys?   That's what I would like to know!