Wednesday, September 29, 2010

My kids play piano

Isn't this about as cute as you can get? My younger kids get such wonderful exposure to the piano via AnnaLisa and Andrew's piano practice. All four of the younger ones are planning on taking lessons as you can see. It is not uncommon to have them climbing up to play a little. JJ will make up his own songs and even sing to them sometimes. MaggieMae is not to be left out, she also sings and plays her own songs.

I love it!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Teaching kids the value of money and the widow's mite.

It is a difficult thing to balance how much kids need to know about their parent's financial situations. We have had many talks with our kids over the last 4 years as we have prepared financially to buy our house. There have been many times they've asked to go out to eat or to buy toys and we told them no because it is not in our budget. We reminded them we were saving for a house and that we had food or toys at home that were sufficient.
Now that we are in escrow and the kids are struggling to understand why buying a house takes so long. I am not sure what set off this idea in JJ's mind, but he walked up to me and handed me his 35 cents and told me that I could put that towards buying the house. All I could think to say was thank you. What I should have said was "JJ that is so sweet, momma knows that this is all the money you have access to." This is just another example of JJ's kind generosity that he is becoming known for.

The twins know beans...and they eat them too!

These two are crazy about black beans. This was just a fun shot I got. It is a great picture of Rosie, William is trying to hard to pose. Whenever that boy sees a camera, he cheeses up. But if I miss that is OK because he will pose again!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Proof that women need to be in charge

This looks exactly as how I saw it when I walked in one evening. Daddy is sitting in the living room feeding William out of the pan. Now don't worry, that pan is cool, I know because I cooked pasta in it 3 hours before.

I love this smile. There is nothing more that could express how happy he is with himself!

Now in Jeff (and my) defense there are many nights where we are exhausted long before the kids go to bed. So I don't blame him too much for this, but he was the adult in the room.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

JJ the "Good sandwich making guy"

If you have ever watched "Word Girl" (yes a super hero that uses words to fight the bad guys), then you would have heard about one of the villians that is called the "Evil sandwich making guy". Our JJ loves to make sandwiches and he will make a sandwich out of anything. He is well known for his 'Taco Sandwiches' which are refried beans on bread or his 'Potato Chowder' sandwich. Well JJ is definitely a super hero in our family and he makes great sandwiches too!
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Sunday, September 19, 2010

A moral dilema

Well, I have had a hard time feeling whole hearted about our new house, because of the reality that we still need to rent this house. I have been concerned about what will happen if we are not able to find renters soon. Then tonight I was praying about it with Jeff when an insight hit me so hard. I realized that regardless of what happens with this house, it simply does not work for us anymore. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about it, but I will run through them real quick.

  • First of all, I feel that we made a commitment to pay this mortgage off for this home.
  • I also recognize that this house has become a hindrance to our family. This is something that we have worked years to change, but due to the market, our attempts have been frustrated and unsuccessful.
  • We changed our strategy and started about a year ago, saving for a down payment on a second home. We had figured that it would take until next spring to have the requisite money for down payment, and money saved up in case we could not find a renter right away, etc.
  • We felt (Actually Jeff felt) it was time to start looking for a new home in mid August (yes, right after school starts). I felt good about following Jeff's lead on this. We were frustrated with a lot of the homes we found. I finally told Jeff and our Realtor that we were wasting Jeff's time, and that the Realtor and I should just look at possibilities and narrow it down for us to come look at the good homes.
  • When the Realtor and I looked at this home, I felt as we walked up the stairs that this was the house. Jeff felt good about it too when we came back. In the mean time there was another house that I really liked as well and we had to sift through the different possibilities. I also had conflicting feelings about the house - sounds crazy but it is a bit more "up-scale" in many areas that are almost uncomfortable for me.
So amid all these feelings, tonight we are praying and it hits me - it is time to get into the (new) house, and that is what I need to support. I need to stop holding myself back from supporting what I have felt inspired about and have had peace about when I have prayed and observed how I felt. I don't know for sure what will happen with this house (I do know that we can't pay both mortgages for too long), but it hit me that is not what I should be focusing on. I need to focus on what I have been inspired on and leave the rest be.

I recognize that material things are not all that important to the Lord or His kingdom, however, I have been trying to make sure that 'the mortgage gets paid on this house' is part of His answer to me. It hit me tonight that some of the lemons from our lemon tree decay. Meaning that God gives us many things to be useful and helpful to us, but it would be silly to try and eat every lemon on our tree simply so that none would decay. And that is the way of our current house. It has been good for us, but it truly is becoming a hindrance to our family. If for some reason we are not able to get a renter and make the payments needed, then it will be taken by the bank and they will have their collateral that we agreed upon.

I am a greedy person by nature. It is something I work at. One thing I do when I am feeling especially cheap, is remind myself that if my dollars were apples, I would not mind sharing them with others who needed them. So I then should have no problem sharing dollars as well. I sort of took a reverse thought on this idea tonight. If apples (dollars or our first home) should decay, then that is the nature of material things. They are only important to us in relation to helping us progress in this life.

I am reminded of a story from the New Testament when a man approaches the Lord. If I recall it correctly, he tells the Lord that he and his brother are not in agreement over how the inheritance from their father should be divided. The Lord tells him, that these things are not important. I need to focus on the important part of all this. And yes, I still hope that we can meet our commitment on this house, but I realize that is one of the smaller things.

Friday, September 17, 2010

I am not normally what I would call a fancy person...




Here are two shots of our walk-in closet. When we started looking a new home, I wanted balance with the bedroom sizes. I really did not want a bedroom any bigger than we had, but wanted the kids bedrooms to be larger. Well, in this house we ended up getting both. Our bedroom will be twice the size of our current bedroom, and our walk in closet will be about 4 times the size of our current closet, or half the size of our current bedroom! Still not sure what we will do with all that room!
These are our baseboards. They need some work, but I would have never gotten some thing this fancy on my own.
And this is another thing I love...our back patio. I've never seen one done like this before, but I think it is great! a little small, but great!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

the stripe room

This will be JJ's room. He calls it the strip room. He will share with Rosie and is excited to be moving soon. I think it will be a good thing and can't wait until we get to move.

Isaiah, JJ and AnnaLisa

Oops, actually he calls it the stripe room, my mistake, however, I would imagine either name would work...as long as the door is closed!

A room full of monsters...
















Here are a couple of shots of Andrew's soon to be new room. It has some real fun pictures on the walls. One of the things I like about these pictures is whoever painted them definitely had a great deal of confidence. These were meant to be where they were and I think they look great.

This picture was not on the MLS pictures which makes me laugh because to me I think it is one of the best painted rooms in this house. In the pictures you can see Maggie, JJ and Isaiah (cousin) checking out the walls and getting a feel for the house.

We are down to three weeks, 2 days! I started packing boxes yesterday. Got some winter clothes, games and books already packed (I think our box count is up to around 10). I am finding boxes at grocery stores, and it seems to be working well. Now I am realizing how emotionally draining it is to pack and am really wanting to go back to bed!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

A thrilled girl, a baffled mommy



















OK, it may not look it from the expression on her face, but AnnaLisa is thrilled with the bedroom we have picked out for her and her sister. In our first house I knew we had to buy it when AnnaLisa walked into the room she now has and claimed it as her own when she was 19 months old. She saw that red carpet, and it was a keeper!

The room is mostly painted (we think the previous owner had a business that went bankrupt and had the house as collateral. They were in the midst of doing upgrades when they lost their home). We have a few rooms that need finishing and this is one of them. As you can see looking over AnnaLisa's shoulder, the square is missing the frame around the colored stripes. What do you think would make a good color for this? Come on you crafty people, I need some help! Also trying to figure out what to do with the paint line that meets in the middle, should I do a chair molding? (not sure what it is really called).

Q.What is as much fun as giving a cat a bath? A. trying to get two young boys into a bath.




















I told the boys they needed to take a bath after dinner tonight. JJ's face shown with pure genius as he suggested Andrew and I guess at a number to decide who would take a bath first (mind you, I was not scheduled to take a bath this evening, but I figured he was playing the game that Jeff did with the boys last week to determine who got to take the first bath).
So I ask JJ: What is the number between?
JJ: between 1 and negative
Jeff (daddy): JJ, you can't do it that way...
Mom cuts in: No, honey I got this. Is it zero?
JJ shocked voice: Yes.
Then the back pedaling starts with JJ saying: Well, the person who guesses the number loses, and they don't go first. And I think we need to guess numbers again.
Mom: OK, one last time JJ.
JJ: This time the number is between 1 and 3.
Mom, giggling: OK, so if I guess the number then that means you will go get into the bath right?
At this point Mom, Dad, and a few siblings are just laughing hysterically. JJ is starting to realize that he must be missing something because he doesn't think this is funny at all. He starts to get upset.
Then dad jumps in: JJ, we think it is awesome that you are so clever that you could come up with such great guessing numbers games. Thankfully JJ accepted that and we were able to eventually get him into the tub without hurting his feelings.

Oh, and just so you know...the number for the second guess was 2.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Sometimes a girl gets in trouble all by herself...

Every now and again, I feel like their is something wrong. I had this feeling the other day, and I started visually counting my kids. I wanted to make sure they were all safe. It was right about the time that I realized I could not see Rosie that I heard her crying. At first it baffled me where she was. I was standing next to the kitchen table and I could hear her close by, but not see her. Then I checked under the table and found her "stuck" on the pedestal. She had climbed up and could not figure how to get down from it. When I lifted up the table cloth and found her she was crying.
It just goes to show that my sister-in-law is rubbing off on my when my immediate reaction was, "I got to get a picture of this for the blog". My camera was sitting on the island, it's usual resting place these days, when I grabbed it and squatted down to take the picture. As soon as Rosie say the camera, she perked up and gave me a big Rosie smile. That's my girl, well at least one of the four!

Big boy can climb onto the couch

Can you tell how excited William is in this picture? He climbed up onto the couch all by himself. He did not even cheat and use pillows on the floor (he had been doing that for about a week). He is just squealing in delight as I took this.

Our offer has been accepted...now for the next set of hoops to jump through.


This is the front of the house. Not very exciting looking, but the inside and backyard are great. Our kids required a few things:
MaggieMae - stairs and 2 garages (meaning a two garage doors)
Andrew - stairs
Twins - stairs
Clarissa - a room of my own?
Mom and Dad - more room and hopefully a back yard, room for food storage, we hoped for a roomy three car garage but are taking a tight three car garage. Master bedroom is huge (it did not really matter to us that it was bigger). The kitchen had to be big enough for multiple people to be in it. I had hoped for granite or corian counter tops, but I guess we will stick with what we got.

We all hoped for a pool but alas, we will have to wait on that. We are thinking that with the babies, we could save up for a few years, and get exactly what we would want for a pool when they are a bit older. The backyard does have a dug in trampoline as well as enough room for pool, play area, and garden.

We managed to stay in Gilbert school district although we ended up in Mesa. Oops! Great schools and lower taxes...I hate it when that happens. :)

Still have lots to do. Our closing date is October 6th. So you might see a bit of stress on my face for the next few weeks...but is that really unusual? Anyone have boxes they are getting rid of?