Guess what we found

Need a closer look?











Tis the season for kittens. There are just 4 under the neighbors porch right now. I'm sure in the coming weeks that number will at least triple. There are some rather large Mama cats walking around the yard.

I SOOOO don't like cats. But those kittens? They are the cutest little things.

And when Nehemiah talks to them my heart turns into a little puddle of mush.

More Pictures from Grandpa

To say that my dad likes taking pictures would be the understatement of the century. I could go into great detail about the many occasions in which I was ready to hurl the camera along with the photographer across the county line. But, I'm not complaining right now. My children (well, Joseph anyway) now ask for Grandpa to take pictures. They know that Papa Al = camera and cookies. As long as the lens isn't pointed at me, it's all good. But, I will take the cookies. Thank you. :)








As for the tools in the photos... they are his props. Bribes to keep the children still. I'm thinking he might need to come up with something, say, a little more toddler friendly than power tools.

Baseball

We have ourselves a lefty



Joseph has been really into baseball. He was last summer too, and his love for the sport is only growing. He's getting pretty good. He doesn't like being told how to correct his stance or swing.... but no one really enjoys being corrected. He has a good arm and can throw the ball pretty far with good aim.



Roger used to play ball. He's a good teacher. Me? Beyond "This is a bat. This is a ball." I'm really unqualified to teach anything about this sport. See the tongue sticking out? Thats the thinking tongue. I love it. :)




Not to be left out Hannah had to bat too!

The cutest bunch of outfielders I ever did see.

When did he grow up?

How do you eat your Ice Cream?

The Nibbler: This one will make a cone outlast anyone. He likes to savor it.




The Slurper: This one will somehow slurp all of the ice cream out of the cone without ever taking a bite.





The Examiner: This one will carefully plan each and every lick. Planning out which way to glide the tongue for best flavor. Sometimes fingers need to dig in the cone to dig out a piece of chocolate that would ruin the otherwise perfect lick.

Micro-Machines

Roger has a good number of toys saved from his childhood. He recently pulled out some Micro-machines for the kids to play with. They were a hit. (As are most of the toys that he still has)






I had to put them away after a day of playing though. I couldn't stand having 20+ tiny cars and trucks scattered all over the house. Which is just as well, because they will just be special all over again when Roger pulls them out in a few months.

Maybe I should pull out all of my old cabbage patch dolls. Somehow I don't think they will get the same chorus of "ooh's and ahh's" as a little box of trucks. Not even from Hannah.
Some day.
I hope.

Texas Update

Ok, well for those of you that have followed along with our whole Texas saga, here is an update. (ok, maybe it's more of a rant, but you will maybe catch a bit of an update too)

Our house is supposed to be sold by the end of June (it's under a rent to own type contract) The renters/buyers have yet to go apply for a loan. I'm told they will be going on Friday, but I won't be holding my breath. The chances are very slim that they will actually be approved for a loan. Their credit is Bad (yup. with a capital "B") As long as they show me proof that they tried to get a loan, the contract then gives them another 2 years to get their ducks in a row. (stinking contract! WHY did I sign you?!)

I've been calling them to try to hurry them along. They don't seem to understand that they can loose the house if they don't even try for the loan. While on the phone last night Mr. Renter/Buyer lost it. He said he was tired of my harassing phone calls... he went on and on. What I wanted to do was jump through the phone and smack him around for awhile. What I DID do was assure him that I'm not calling to threaten him, but to remind him that time is running out and that if they don't start doing what they need to do they will lose the house. They seem to forget that they actually need to DO something to own the house. He calmed down and asked what happens if he's denied a loan. What?! Seriously these people make me tired. They have the same contract that we have. Apparently it was signed without reading it first. The first time I called them they told me they were going to be applying for a loan in July sometime. That would have been a month too late. Ok, so after going over the contract again (which I have done in every phone call recently) Mr. Renter/Buyer tells me "ok, well if I'm denied this time I'll definitely get it next time" Yeah sure you will.

I look forward to having my house back in 2010.


In the mean time we are trying to figure out where our moving to TX fits in to all of this. Now that we (most likely) will not be closing on the house this summer, a trip to TX to scope out jobs and houses seems a little out of the question.
The whole thing just makes me want to pull out my hair and run around screaming like a wild woman.

My hair is so nice now, so I guess I'll have to pass on that.

Instead I'll blog my frustrations and try to wait it out. I know God has something for us. Being patient is not easy though.

Before & After

I did it! My hair is about 10-12 inches shorter than it was before! I forgot to bring my camera to the salon so I don't have a picture of the ponytail, minus my head. :)

So, just to remind you here is the "Before" Ignore it's mugshot like quality. The ONLY reason I'm showing this picture is because it's taken right before I left to get my hair cut. I figured same lighting, same outfit, better comparison for before and after.



Loooong hair.
Ok. Had enough of the "before's"?

Please swallow whatever coffee and or chocolate that you might have in your mouth. I'd hate for you to spit on your monitor when you see the "after"


Ready?










ok, here we go.

















How's that for change? :)

I like it. I think I would prefer it to be a little bit longer but I really like it. Now I need to buy goop (I'm sure there is an appropriate word for it, but um, I don't know what it is) for the ends of my hair to make it "flip".
Oh, and my eyebrows... did you notice? I have 2. :) You can see they are still rather red in my after picture. I wanted to get it taken right away though. I was afraid that I might forget, and I needed this picture as a reference so I can maybe hopefully make my hair look like this again.

Praise Report

God is so good! I love seeing him answer prayers, especially the prayers of my children.

Joseph lost his baseball hat a few weeks ago. We looked all over for it and couldn't find it. So at the mall today I looked to get him a new one. They didn't have the same one that we originally bought but we found one that was "ok". We waited in line for an eternity. There was only 1 person in line in front of us. Finally I was tired of waiting and convinced Joseph to leave the store - without the hat. In the car we discussed some places we could go to look for a hat tomorrow. Joseph exclaimed "I know! We can ask Jesus to tell us where the hat is!" Well, duh! That was a great idea! So Joseph prayed and God told him where to look. Sure enough, it was right where God said it would be. I love it! Such a simple solution, but Roger and I didn't think of it. I'm thankful for the line that never moved. Joseph had a wonderful lesson in answered prayer tonight.
Maybe we should have listened to Joseph the other day when he said God was telling him that we should all take a trip to the zoo. :)

Just Play At the Park

We were walking to a local park the other day. Roger and I were talking and I said something to him about losing these last 11 lbs before reaching my goal. Joseph overheard and said something about losing a trillion pounds. (Trying not to take offense) I said if I lost that much I wouldn't exist. To which he replied "I bet God weighs a trillion pounds. Hey, if you weigh a trillion pounds you could be God's woman!" Yup, thats me. God's woman. :)

More Hair Drama

Updated with more choices


Ok, more hair help. I know, I really need something better to do with my time. I can't help it though. My thoughts these days are all about what to do with my hair!
I dyed it last night. It's just a 28 wash kind, but I really like the color. It's just a tad lighter, gives it a nice "sun-kissed" look.
So let me show you a few "styles" that I'm thinking about. Here is one. Here is another. One more. Thoughts? Too short? You commenters were right about the pony tail. I do like a nice pony tail come hot summer days. Especially since our cars AC is broken and we have to drive with the window down. (Remind me to tell you about the time I got hit in the face by a bee going 70miles an hour.) I just don't know.

My sister sent me this one.


I like it but I'm not sure if my hair can do that since it's so thin. I just need to make a decision already! Thanks for all of your input though. It's helping. I think.

Happy Mothers Day!!

Ignore the add for 1800flowers. Well, unless it makes you want to send me flowers, in which case I'd be happy to send you my address. I do love flowers. Tulips are my favorite. :)


Hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Hair Drama

Ok friends. I need your help. My hair, it's bugging me. For those of you that have known me for a long time you know that my hair has been basically this same style for, well, forever. A massive haircut back in 04' was fun for awhile but it is long again and I am READY FOR A CHANGE. My hair is long enough to donate to Locks of Love, so I do believe I will go that route. They need at least 10 inches in order to donate. That leaves my hair between my chin and shoulders. My question to you, the sassy, trendy, the appropriately dressed :) WHAT do I do with my hair? Comments, pictures, hit me with your best shot. And if for some reason you think cutting my hair is the WORST decision ever, I want to hear that too. I'm desperate. I bought not one, but TWO boxes of hair dye at CVS yesterday. Save me from myself. :)




PS The eyebrows will be getting some attention too. I know you are relieved to hear that. Just saying it makes me able to breathe a little bit easier.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! The hair! It's taking over!!

By the way, my hair is very fine. And I am losing it by the bucket full. If God decided to bless us with more children I'm going to have to start Rogaine, or get a wig, or something. My husband has a head full of hair. I think he's going to have to let his hair grow out so that I can have a wig. But, thats in the future. For now I think a nice cut and some new color will go a long way.

I love mail

I just ordered Joseph's Kindergarten curriculum and I am SO excited! I can't wait for it to come. Maybe we'll have to start school earlier than August. :)

Ready for a laugh?

Knock knock
(who's there?)
Banana
(banana who?)
Knock knock
(who's there?)
Banana
(banana who?)
Knock knock
(who's there?)
Orange
(orange who?)
Don't cry I'm your friend


Joseph had me laughing with that one. Now he's going to think that the joke is supposed to go that way. Silly kid.

Other things that the kids have said that make me laugh...
Hannah refers to Nehemiah as Hannah. She calls everyone else by the right name, but Nehemiah is Hannah. (although this morning she did call him "Buddy")
Nehemiah calls Joseph Nehemiah. He calls everyone else the right name, just Joseph is Nehemiah. ?? What is with my kids?! :)

The kids were watching a video from the library. Hannah went right up to the tv, knelt down and began to laugh. Then she turned to Joseph "Funny Jojah? hahahahahaha Funny Jojah?" she just had to make sure that Joseph thought it was funny too! :)

I'm sure this one is much funnier when you actually see it. Nehemiah when scolded will begin jabbering back, and even though we don't know what he is saying we can tell by his tone that he is talking back (being sassy?) So then he gets scolded for that. (this is where he makes me laugh) He'll then fold his arms across his chest, (really high up almost like he's giving himself a huge hug) stick out his lip and let out a "Hmm!"
It's a good thing God makes em cute. :)

Our Weekend

What a weekend. Saturday we had a yard sale.

(this is only some of it - it ran from the front of the house, down the side yard and took over the back yard)

We've been preparing for it (for what feels like) forever. It seemed like the boxes of stuff going outnumbered the things that were staying. So, at the butt crack of dawn (that is an official time, isn't it?) :) Roger and I woke up to begin setting up tables and tables and tables o' stuff. Before the sun was up people were there in my yard rummaging through boxes that hadn't been unpacked yet. They are crazy. But hey, the crazies bought stuff so I'm ok with that.
Overall we had a good yardsale. It wasn't our best one yet but it most definitely wasn't the worst either. Joseph proudly manned the "money table". He also did a great job of offering everyone that set foot on our property a soda. I had to keep reminding him that they were there for people to buy, not a lovely parting gift for shopping our junk.


So, as with any yard sale we spent most of the day outside. Just Friday I had Joseph at the Dr for allergies. Turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Joseph has seasonal allergies. He was getting up to 5 nosebleeds a day and the poor kid is sneezing and rubbing his eyes more often than not. So at some point on saturday I looked at him and thought "wow, you have been outside a little too long your eyes are looking rough" With that thought I called him to come closer just for a better look at ol' puffy eyes. To say I was grossed out would be an understatement. I was freaked, grossed, I can't think of another adjective to describe what I saw. Joseph's eyeball was swollen. Not his eyelid, though that was swollen too. His eyeball was quickly doubling in size. (I tried to google it to find a picture to post but among all of the nasty eyeball pictures, there were none that looked like his.) (aren't you relieved) :) I called the Dr, though honestly I'm not sure why. I love our Dr, but I'm pretty sure my mind was made up that this kid needed to go to the hospital. That is what he told me to do and I quickly tossed him in the car. Luckily we live only 5 minutes (if that) away from the ER so we got there fast. I prayed on the way over, in between trying to calm Joseph down. He wasn't really worried about going to the hospital, but his eye "hurt and was itchy". Turns out that it was just a bad allergic reaction. Right before we left, Roger got a piece of grass out of his eye. Guess the kids is allergic to grass. The hospital game him some Benadryl, which helped rather quickly. I took a picture when we got home and his eye was already looking better. The hospital staff found Joseph rather amusing though. He was telling the Dr "I'm a boy genius" :) He's so modest. So anyway, now Joseph has to take allergy medicine every morning. At least until summer starts. Then we will re-evaluate. I will now keep Benadryl on hand at ALL times.

this is after Benadryl. If you look at his right eye you can tell it's swollen but it's already SO much better

On the plus side, when Joseph and I got back from the hospital, Roger had already finished packing up all of the unsold stuff from the yard sale! I didn't have to re-pack anything! Woo-hoo! (thanks hon!)

Let's talk paint

Mary is hosting a wonderful Design Time carnival over at her blog. (click here to read about the inspiration behind this great idea. Then click here to check out how other bloggers like to decorate)




Ok, to be honest. All these pictures are of my old house. We currently live in an ugly rental. The walls are white. It's dull. It bugs me. So I'm going to show you some pictures of my house in TX. Right now I can only manage to dig up pictures of Joseph's old room and the bathroom. The living room was my favorite paint color, I'll work on trying to find that. But for now....

This is (was) Joseph's room. You might want to put on your sunglasses.

Bright enough? His room only had 1 window. This room was painted a dark green when we moved in and it was way too dark. Having only lived with white walls in the past we were ready for some color. This room took care of that need. :) His crib bedding was whirligig so I painted cute little bugs all around the room as a fun little border. The sad looking valance above his crib was supposed to get a mock window frame with a pretty painted outdoor scene behind it. Never happened. But that was the vision. :) We had an old ent. center that we painted to match the room. It worked to hold toys, though it wasn't the best in decorating style. But hey, he was 1. This room was a lot of fun. It was hard to walk into his room and NOT smile.


It is now safe to remove your sunglasses.



This was my bathroom. I really like this color. We added the 3 white shelves. The bathroom was rather small and we needed a spot for the every day kinda stuff. So I bought some cute glass jars to hold q-tips n' such and they became displays. I'm classy like that.


Ok, thats all I can find. What I can tell you though...
my (old) living room was a beautiful shade of red. I don't like my couch. This color made me like my couch. Oh, what a little paint can do. I know you're dying to see what color can do such a thing. Sorry. No pictures. Found old pictures that had some cute 14 month old baby buns, but no living room paint. Where were my priorities?! :)

My current house...
We have no cabinets in our bathroom. So over the bathroom door we have a shoe organizer. It houses our shampoo and bath type items. Not pretty, but practical for a small space.

I was SOOOO wanting something like this from pottery barn. We don't have even a little bit of space for it. So instead I went to Target and found a 2x3 cubby and bought pretty little baskets to go inside. They now house our shoes and hats n' heading out the door "stuff".

Ok, I'm out of ideas now. Be sure to head over to Mary's for some more decorating tips and ideas.

Car Wash 2008

I use that title because we next to never wash our poor van. Sad but true.

Seeing how much fun everyone had "helping" though we just might need to bump our car wash standards up at least to a semi-annual event.

warning: more pictures than you may have ever wanted to see of someone washing a car

Joseph was so excited he could hardly stand it. "I wanna help!" Was uttered approximately 4,789 times.
Nehemiah was happy playing in the water the leak in the hose was leaving in the driveway.
That is, until he saw BUBBLES!
Woo-hoo! bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles bubbles


I really like this one of Joseph. Not sure why, but it's one of my favorites.

Joseph was in charge of the hose. That can be a dangerous thing. He was a helper though. Here he is helping Nehemiah and Hannah fill their watering cans.


There was such a look of concentration on his face. He was working hard at his job.

Ah, maybe not so much here. :)
This is Hannah posing. She stands like Joseph. She'll do anything "like Joseph". They are two peas in a pod those two.
Uh, don't know whats up with that face but do you notice how WET he is? That would be from the watering cans I mentioned earlier.
See?





Yeah, we'll have to do this again.

Funny Mom song

Ok, I know I've seen this before on someones blog but I ran across it again and thought I would post it here.
Maybe I posted it here? I don't know. If you all have seen this before forgive me. It's late. I should be in bed not blogging. :)