What do you do all day?

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

We signed the paperwork for our construction loan this morning, and things will ge moving as soon as we get back from FL and pay 10% down to our builder. So, I thought I had better get over there and take some pictures of the lot before the action starts:

This is the view of the lot standing on the front of it and looking back. It is an acre. Our back property line is a creek that is at the bottom of a little hill beyond the tree line. The boys already love going back there.



This picture is taken from the same spot, looking the opposite way (what we will see from our front door).



This picture is taken looking to the right. There is an empty lot (for now) between our lot and the house you see.



And this picture is taken looking to the left.....so far no homes built on this stretch (I think there are 3 lots between our house and the corner).



So there you have it! It will be exciting to see it change as the house goes up! I am glad I have someplace to keep track of the progression, because I am generally not very good about taking pictures at regular intervals. Hopefully this will help.

We are off to FL tomorrow for a week with DH's family. I am looking forward to it.....I am even looking forward to the drive. I really enjoy road trips for some strange reason. Maybe because I know DH won't be going anywhere!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Back from Florida. We all had a really good time. My in-laws rented a four story house, and DH and I had a bedroom on the top floor, with the boys one floor beneath us. DH's two brothers each have 3 kids, but they are much younger than our kids, so those families were up at the crack of dawn each morning with their babies. DH and I slept late each morning, never hearing a thing....we loved our room at the top of the house! One of the local stations where we were had "Rockford Files" on at 5:00 each day, so that was must see tv for me while we were there. It's the little things, you know?

I have to say that I would have been happy to head for home on Thursday....I had kind of reached my limit on the communal living at that point, but we made it through and left about noon on Saturday....stayed Saturday night with DH's cousin in Birmingham....and then drove all the way home on Sunday.

I had total PMS for the first half of the week when we were there....of course, that is when the entire family decided to throw me an *early* 40th bday party, complete with all of them (even my boys!) dressing in all black for dinner and giving me Depends, metamucil, tweezers......you get the picture. I HATED IT! I was gritting my teeth and putting up such a good front (DH assured me that no one could tell....) but I just had *no* sense of humor about it at all. I felt fat and old (the only female there, except my mil, without a baby/toddler) and honestly, when we went to bed that night, I laid there and had a good cry. Of course, a couple of days later, I felt much better about life in general and would have handled the "celebration" much more easily. I'll tell you what....I don't have horrible physical PMS symptoms, but the emotional ones have certainly gotten more intense over the past couple of years. Yikes! One funny thing....one of my BILs ended up asking me for the metamucil wafers that I had gotten because he was having a little trouble :> . I was glad to help him out!

Now we are back and I have been going over to school to work every morning this week. I found out this week that the language arts teachers scheduled a field trip to take the 7th graders to see "A Christmas Carol" on the same day as my Christmas concert, meaning that I won't see my kids in class the day of their concert.....not ideal. I don't know which was scheduled first, my concert or the field trip (but I have to turn in all of my concert dates for the following year in March......) but I wish someone had given a heads up about this before they got scheduled on the same day. I will be letting appropriate people know..... I can already feel my stress level ratcheting back up, and I hate it! I have to take the boys to their school today at 4 to turn in all their forms, etc. I can't believe that summer is over! WAAAAAAH!

Our anniversary is Monday, which is also my first day of school. I don't know if we are doing anything special or not, or when we will find time! DH and I had some good conversations, though, on our trip, so I am feeling good about our marriage right now. I think he is hearing me about how much time he spends at work, and he is going to try to end his clinc earlier some days so he can get home sooner. After (almost) 18 years, I can honestly say that I still light up when he walks into a room, and there is no one I would rather spend time with. Whether that is a sign that our relationship is healthy or just the reality of having and OB/Gyn husband who works a lot, I can't say!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Happy anniversary to DH and I! We are going out to eat tonight at Melting Pot, our new obsession. We get salads, a double order of cheese fondue, and of course the chocolate! Yummy..... :dinner: He bought me flowers and had them in a vase on the table when I got home today (he was on call all weekend, so he had the afternoon off today). He's such a good guy. I can't pretend that I knew enough to know that I was making a good choice when we got engaged......I thought I was, of course.......but the reality is that I was barely 21 years old and knew next to nothing. :huh: Still, I thought he had integrity and character, and that is what has carried us through the really difficult periods of parenthood and medical training. He is far more unselfish than I and really just wants me to be happy. He can always make me laugh, even when I don't want to, and that quality has helped to smooth over many a rough patch! I heart my husband, more than I can say! :mydoc:

Well, tomorrow is the first student day and I am as ready as I can be at this point. We have a new principal this year and he is *organized*! One of the biggest frustrations I have had over the past two years is that whenever we had a 2 hour delay because of weather or a half day because of teacher in-service, we never knew ahead of time what the schedule would be for the hours that we had students. This guy already has published a schedule for each of those situations so we will know ahead of time. He also gave us a schedule of when our evaluations will be, including a pre- and post- evaluation meeting. Today went well but I am sure there are going to be some moments of adjustments, especially for the teachers that have been there 20+ years (and there are several of them). We also will be moving into a new school building in February, and we got to go over to the site as a faculty today and take a tour. I saw my new room for the first time.....I can't wait to be in that space! The new building has a "cafetorium" (don't you love those words......like "spork") and I will hopefully be able to do my concerts in there (once we move) rather than having to do them over in the high school auditorium, which is what I do (and hate) now. Let's see.....I am moving into a new school in February, DH is moving into a newly constructed office space in October, my kids' school is building, and of course we are breaking ground on our new house yet this month! Whew! That's a lot of construction dust!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Well, we are all officially back to school as of today (except DH). The boys *finally* started back today, but got out at 1:30....wth? A friend brought them home for me, and then I got home in time to take the older two back for soccer practice at 3:30. All three of the boys were quite underwhelmed about going back to school, but everyone seemed to have an okay day. I walked Nathan to his 1st grade classroom. We had to find his hook, which the teacher had labeled, in order to put his backpack away. The way it is set up, there are a couple of hooks for backpack/jacket and then above that is a shelf. When Nathan went to hang up his backpack, he hit his forehead on the shelf (I think because he is much taller than the typical 1st grader) and I could tell it really hurt. His lip started wiggling and I could tell he was frantically trying not to cry. I comforted him as best I could, and then left to head to school myself. I just about had a total breakdown on my way to the car.....my baby is in 1st grade!

We went to get the older boys cleats and shin guards for soccer and Luke is now wearing SIZE 12 SHOES! Holy crap. His voice isn't even changing.....he is nowhere near done growing. And Nathan is bigger than Luke ever was.

Funny story: We went out to our new neighborhood last week to take a walk. There aren't very many houses out there yet and it is a very pleasant place to walk. As we walked, we encountered a cat. He was definitely an outdoor cat and may not have belonged to anyone, but he was very friendly. He was that skinny, sinewy kind of tomcat, just packed with muscle. The boys were having a lot of fun with him, and then noticed that he was un-neutered. All of our cats are fixed and have been from the get-go, so the "look" of an unaltered male (from behind) was very amusing to the boys, especially to Nathan, who kept giggling about it. Luke took it upon himself to explain *all* about testicles, etc. and the boys kept meandering along behind the cat. Meanwhile, DH and I were involved in our own conversation and were walking a little faster. We were quite a way ahead of the boys, when all of the sudden we both heard Joel say "I think Dad is neutered." It was kind of humid out, so his voice carried really far even though he wasn't talking very loudly. DH didn't say a word, just turned on his heel and very quickly walked back to where they were and talked to them very intensely. I think he cleared things up. So funny. He just didn't want them thinking he was a eunuch!

I have a back to school pic of the boys from this morning, but I am too lazy to post it now.....

Sally

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

I have just enough time for a drive-by update (appropriate for a gangsta such as myself.... ). Today is Nathan's 7th birthday. He had a party yesterday at a jumpcastle place called "Pump It Up". A good time was had by all, and I was glad, because I booked the party on the strength of Nathan saying in the car that he had seen it in a commercial and wanted to have his party there. I looked it up online at school, called them, and put down a deposit! His birthday always sneaks up on me and on the years we do parties, I am always behind on his. He invited his whole class, some neighborhood friends, and a couple of friends from church. My mom was able to come down, too. Today, we had our family celebration, and he enjoyed the presents we gave him.

the birthday boy and I this afternoon


Nathan (and friend....I couldn't get that kid to get out of the picture!) in the birthday chair at Pump It Up



Nathan asleep with Cameo, our devil-cat


The boys on the first day of school


Joel at Pump It Up

Luke


We are running out the door to a cookout at church.....not much else to report, other than DH and I picked our doors and windows on Wednesday night and were pleasantly surprised that we came in only about $500 over allowance when all was said and done. We are getting really excited about seeing it take shape....still waiting for them to break ground.

I will try to post a longer update later.....

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

I drove by our lot today and saw that it had a "silt fence" surrounding it. I didn't know that was the term for what I saw, but it is the orange material that you see stretched around the perimeter of building sites that is about 2 ft. high. I should have taken a picture, I guess, but they plan to dig the basement next week, so I will take a picture then.

Here's a funny story. DH and I picked out our windows and doors last week. It was a fairly tedious process, consisting of going around the perimeter of the house and deciding on each opening. We are having mostly double-hung windows, but when we got to the master bedroom (at the back of the house) the window guy asked if we might want to do casement windows instead in order to maximize our view of the trees behind our house. Well, I have casement windows (the kind that crank out) now and half of them are stripped and no longer crank. I also have found that the windows rattle when the wind is blowing (too noisy if they are open at night) and sometimes they block the flow of air depending on which way the wind is blowing. Last, but not least, the kids have run into them when they have been open and the kids are playing outside. So, I explained all of this to the window guy and he was a little taken aback, probably because I had barely said anything up to that point. He said "Okaaaay, double-hung windows in the master it is." We all laughed, and then he moved on to the next opening on the back of the house, which is the dining area off the kitchen (which also has a view of the trees). He said "Now, do you want to stick with the double-hung windows here, or....." and I said "Oh, as long as it isn't in the bedroom, I can be creative." I realized what I had said about a half-second too late. The guy gave me a funny look and I immediately looked away and pretended I was studying one of the displays in the showroom. DH totally didn't hear it and the moment (thankfully!) passed. The window guy has a son who is a student at my school, and I run into him in the community from time to time. I told the ladies I eat lunch with what I had done, but I said that I wasn't sure the guy picked up on it. One of my fellow teachers has a husband who is a builder and knows this window guy too, and she told me she is sure he *totally* picked up on it. SO EMBARRASSING! Every once in a while I do or say something that has "blonde" written all over it, and that was definitely one of those times. When I told DH what I had said on the way home, he laughed his head off. Now he keeps coming up to me in the house (but not the bedroom) and saying "Soooo, we're in the kitchen...... (living room, dining room, etc.) feeling creative?" I have a feeling this one will take a while to die.

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

They broke ground Thursday!


More later.....

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

I tried to post more under the picture yesterday, but kept losing my internet connection (and my post) just as I would hit "submit". So I will try again!

We are all doing well, just very busy with school and soccer. Indiana just completed their standardized testing last week. My task at school was to test one of the *19* special ed groups that needed modifications made to their testing according to ther IEPs. My group of six kids had to have everything read to them (along with the multiple choice answers) over and over. Imagine reading 7th grade math questions aloud, several times each. Imagine "reading" a graph aloud without interpreting it at all. Imagine reading language arts questions aloud (particularly the ones dealing with punctuation.......placement of commas was a favorite of mine ) and not reading it in such a way that makes the answer apparent. My brain was fried at the end of the week. There was a math question involving a graph that kept track of the length of lizards that the kids had to interpret......something about reading "Matt's lizard was less than 2 inches, Joe's lizard was between 2 and 4 inches, and Scott's lizard was over 4 inches...." OVER and OVER almost gave me the giggles. I was TIRED Friday night!

This weekend has been pretty calm. DH and were able to sneak away to Chipotle (yummy!) for lunch yesterday and then went to the new Half-Price Books that has opened in our 'burb. I love that store so much! We traded in a box full of books, got $17 credit and a 10% off coupon, and bought some decorating books to look through at home. Travis worked an in-house shift last night, but he was busy, so it is just as well he signed up to work the shift, since he would have been at the hospital anyway. He has been there all afternoon today, too. Last Thursday morning, he got paged at 2 a.m. by a patient who thought she was experiencing pre-term labor at 33 wks. He told her to go into L & D and they would put her on the monitor. When he went in to round around 6, the nurses told him that her monitor showed a lot of activity around 4:30, so someone went in to check on her.....and found her boyfriend (19) on top of her! Just the thing for pre-term labor, right? He tried to do some patient education when he rounded on her, but who knows. Makes for a funny story!

I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but I noticed when looking at our shadows that I am definitely the *3rd* tallest in our family. That feels weird! I am tall, taller than most of the students at my school (which is the way I like it, frankly) and Luke is the same age they are. But he is definitely taller than me....5'9 or 5'10 at age 13. I think he will give DH a run for his money soon. In other Luke news, he has a *girlfriend*. This girl used to go to his school but moved to public school this year. Their "relationship" will apparently be conducted entirely on facebook and through Yahoo chats. DH and I think that Luke agreed to "go out" with this girl so that he is "taken" (an easy excuse to fend off the girls who ARE at his school) but not encumbered in any real way, since he never sees her. Interesting times in our house.....not sure I am ready for it.....but *SO GLAD* Luke told me the password for his accounts so that I can "monitor" the situation! Mwahhh-ahhh-ahhh.

Off to watch the Colts kick some butt.....

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Here is this week's construction update:

They have poured the basement! It is so cool to actually see the outline of the rooms. The house is going to sit up higher on the lot than we realized....I guess we both thought that the basement would mostly be buried, but as you will see in the pictures, the tops of the walls stick up above ground quite a bit.

Here is how it looks from the street today. You can see our garage on the right, with openings for each of the three doors.


Here is the view from the window well of one of the basement bedrooms (the one closer to the street). If you look across the basement diagonally from this view, you can see our workout room in the opposite corner.....it has a window well that goes around the corner from the side to the back of the house.


Here is picture taken from the window well of the basement bedroom at the back of the house. If you look across the basement diagonally, you can see another bedroom in the opposite corner.


This is taken from the same window well. If you look straight in, you will see a wall that juts to the right (or back of the house). That is the outline of our basement kitchen.


That's all I have! The boys have been really excited to "see" their rooms. Apparently they will be doing the plumbing next, so I don't know if next week's pics will be much different....

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

I have been shamefully lax in my updating.....I have two weeks' worth of house pictures on my phone, but haven't had time to upload them, etc. I haven't taken any pictures this week yet, but both the basement and the main level are framed. I have LOVED going in and seeing the dimensions of the rooms and closets, and it is also nice to look out the window openings and see what our view will be.

My only excuse for not being more active here is that work and parenthood are kicking my ass. I can't imagine what working full-time will be.....I know they are going to ask me to work full time next year, and I will probably say yes, because I feel like I should try it for a year and see how it goes, once we are living in that community and all in the same school system. The first trimester is always tough, but for some reason it has seemed busier this year. :huh: I have my fall concert Tuesday night and parent-teacher conferences Wednesday. My Fall Break is Thursday afternoon/all day Friday, and I am heading out to meet one of my best friends from TX in St. Louis for a girls' weekend. She turned 40 in August, and I will be turning 40 soon, so we figured we were due. I can't wait!

DH and his partner got through their office move with their sanity intact, just barely. They are enjoying having their own space, and the fact that both of their offices have windows now. Work continues to go well for DH and he is finding his stride as chief of the dept., although I don't think he will be sorry to let go of the responsibility when his term ends in another 15 months or so!

The boys are all doing well and are growing like weeds. We are planning on getting them all new jeans this weekend, since it looks like cooler weather is finally here to stay. We had parent-teacher conferences at their school this week, and they are all doing well. I am ready to move them to public school, though. Nothing specific bothers me about the school they are in, but Luke ages out of this school at the end of this year, and keeping his younger brothers where they are would mean two different vacation schedules, etc. I am not impressed enough with the private school to make that happen.

DH and I are heading out to walk through our house (again! ) and then to dinner. It will be nice to have an evening with him.....I feel like I have hardly seen him the past two weeks.

I promise to post more pictures soon!

Sally

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

I have missed everyone! I have had a hard time staying caught up since school started, and for the past couple of weeks, I have been having even more trouble than usual.....things have been hectic!

Last week was a doozy....my kids had a concert on Tuesday night, and my school had parent-teacher conferences Wednesday night, so I was gone until after 8 both nights. Wednesday night, we were also hosting youth group at our house, so I actually had to ask another youth group parent (and one of my friends) to come over and be the "adult" in the house during youth group time. I called in favors one after the other to get the kids home from school (both days) and back and forth to bball practice (Tuesday) and now I owe everybody! Thursday was a half day for me (and Friday was Fall Break) so I had made plans with one of my best buds from TX to meet in St. Louis for a girls' weekend. I was afraid to plan it, knowing that DH would not be able to fill the gap, (he was on call TWTh last week) but he really wanted me to go and actually called my mom (who also had a half-day Thursday and no school Friday) to ask her to drive down and help out. She did (and even helped my 1st grader get his leaf collection done, to boot) and it was a good thing.....I still didn't get away from home until 3:30 and had to get my oil changed on my way out of town. My kids had half days both Thursday and Friday, and no school at all yesterday or today, so DH flew to KS with them (to visit his parents and go on a hunting trip with his Dad/brother/DS #1) and just got back today.

Thursday, as I was waiting in the cell phone lot at the St. Louis airport to pick up my friend, I got a call from my principal, who shared the sad news that one of my students had been found dead that evening. I later found out that he either committed suicide or was playing the "choking game". So, so sad. The funeral was yesterday and it was by far the saddest one I have ever attended. The boy's mom literally had to be carried in and out of the room where the funeral was held, and she laid on the casket throughout the service. All I wanted to do when it was over was hug my kids, but they weren't home yet. I sure hugged them when they got home today! Yesterday at school was very sad and strange......we had counselors in the building and I think things were handled as well as they could have been.

My friend and I had an *awesome* time together in St. Louis.....lots of shopping, talking, sleeping, and we each had a facial and a massage, too. The weekend was partially to celebrate our 40th bdays.....mine is right around the corner and hers was in August. When we left, the doorman that had become our buddy during our stay gave us each a hug and a kiss! We were actually staying in the same hotel where Sarah Palin stopped off to give her deposition, but since we were out shopping, we never crossed paths with her.

DH got home today and as he pulled in the garage, his "Check Engine" light came on. Since we both are driving cars with close to 200K miles on them, we take those lights seriously, so back to the airport we went to rent a car for him, and then we dropped his car off at the garage we use. As we were driving back home, his partner (who was at the airport, getting ready to fly out to a medical conference) called DH to do sign-out. And DH is back on call, today through Sunday. He told me at dinner (I think he waited til we were in a public place!) that he had signed up for in-house shifts both Thursday and Friday of this week. So I will be doing the trick-or-treating thing (once again) alone. I don't know why this is even shocking to me, because I have done it by myself more often than not, but it still made me mad.

We did drive by our house today, and saw that the windows and doors have been delivered and (mostly) installed! It is so exciting to see it all come together. I took a picture, but don't have time to post it right now.

One other interesting piece of news is that DH asked me to find out how much it would cost for me to carry our family on the health insurance I could get through my school, because the scuttlebutt is that the insurance through his work is going to go up tremendously.....the premiums will be about 10K a year, and that is for a 5K deductible. From what DH said, many of the people in his office are looking into individual plans. Seems kind of ironic that the rich dawkter is asking his low-paid teacher wife to handle the insurance coverage for the family......but that's how it is when you are living the dream! Honestly, we are very blessed and I have no complaints, but between DH's schedule and this insurance wrinkle, it certainly isn't all I expected.

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Here I am again with more apologies for the lack of pictures. Part of this is due to our computer issues, but most of it is due to my lack of time for uploading and posting. We bought ourselves a fancy Dell laptop last Christmas and have had nothing but trouble with it. We have taken it to the geeks at Best Buy *twice* and just got it back for the second time. Yes, Dell provides customer support, but expects the customer to have unlimited time to sit on the phone to receive said support. Right. So, we have it back now, but haven't even turned it on because.......Travis got me a new MacBook for my birthday! :rah: :rah: :rah: What a guy. I absolutely love it! He and my mom worked together to surprise me also.....I knew that my mom was coming to take me out to lunch and shopping for the afternoon on the Saturday prior to my bday. I was excited about it, but very surprised when my mom showed up with my two sisters, who live in Nashville and Cincinnati. I screamed when I saw them and even got a little teary. We had a great afternoon. Then we all (including Travis and the boys) went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, and the second surprise was that our best friends (and their kids) were waiting there to have dinner with us. They live about an hour away and we really struggle to get together now that our kids are older. We had a private room at the restaurant, which was really nice. All in all, it made 40 much easier to wrap my head around, although I missed having a dinner out with just DH (which is our normal birthday celebration). We'll have to get back to normal for #41! On the actual day of my birthday, my work friends snuck in my room and decorated it with bday banners and black crepe paper. The students enjoyed seeing that and told me how young I looked and that they couldn't believe I was 40. True or not, it was nice to hear.

About the house.....it is completely framed and shingled and the ductwork/wiring/plumbing is in place. The fireplace housing is also in, as well as all of the bathtubs. Drywalling is supposed to start next week. DH noticed that some of the detail work in the brick was wrong, and emailed the builder about it last night. I drove by today and noticed that the bricklayers were re-doing the area in question. I have to say that the entire process of working with this builder has been a pleasure. We met with a decorator last week (I think? or the week before) to get help with picking our paint colors and finalizing our carpet/tile choices. We had all of our samples there (cabinets, countertops, tile, hardwood, and carpet) and we managed to get it all picked out. Our wall colors are a range of beige to chocolate brown (on accent walls) with some light/medium blues incorporated in our master as well. I know you paint junkies will want to know the exact shades, and I do have them written down, but not memorized. Sorry! Our master carpet is going to be a chocolate brown frise....I can't wait to see it all. We are really getting excited about it, although selling our current home nags at us. There is a realtor here that does guaranteed sales, and I think we are just going to do that, even though we most likely won't end up making anything on this house, and may have to bring cash to closing. The stress level of having it on the market and the potential of two mortgage payments will just be too high, for DH especially. We don't have that much in this house and never expected to make much on it anyway. C'est la vie.

We have been a house full of sickness for the past couple of weeks. The boys and DH have had this horrible respiratory virus and I had been mentally congratulating myself that I hadn't caught it. Yesterday, as I left work, I had a little sore throat and thought maybe I was finally getting what they had, or a cold of some kind. By about 9:30, I wanted to die and knew it was strep. DH looked in my throat and saw white everywhere. He had some Levaquin at home, so I took one of those, slept *very* poorly and then got up and went to school. By the time I knew I was sick, there was NO WAY I was driving out to school to make a sub plan.....it was easier to just go myself today, even though I felt like crap, couldn't sing at all, and honestly, could hardly talk. I told my students what the deal was, and they really rose to the challenge. Our holiday concert is only 3 weeks away, so we really needed to get some things accomplished today. I hope I feel more like myself tomorrow, though.

DH's youngest brother and his family (three little kids) are coming for Thanksgiving next week. I am excited to see them and to get my baby/toddler fix. I need to figure out what the menu will be, though. My mom and one of my sisters may be joining us, too. It will be fun. Hopefully I will have enough downtime over the break from school that I can get some updated house pictures posted....at least now I have a reliable computer!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

Some pictures!

This is our house as it was two weeks ago. Now the brick is completely finished and it looks done from the outside.



Here is a picture of me with my whole family after I opened my new computer:



Here I am showing everyone the "fiber biscuits" my friend gave to me as a gag gift:



and here I am with DH at my birthday dinner:



This whole process of uploading and posting pics is much easier on my MacBook!

My students caroled today at the local Barnes & Noble in conjunction with a book fair that our library was holding there. It was a strictly volunteer thing on our part, and I just opened it up to the students and said I would give extra credit to those who participated. We sang at 11, 1, and 3, and I had about 30 students (not the same ones) each time. I got a lot of positive feedback from parents and from store employees. I think the library people appreciated it, too, because it got more people from the community to the store and a lot of them then bought stuff and used the vouchers so that the library could get money. It was a good experience.

It did eat up most of my day though. I took Luke shopping at Target after the caroling thing because he has grown so much and has no long sleeved shirts that fit. We got him several things....he is totally in a men's XL for shirts. He is just about to catch DH, who is a little over 6'2. I had no inkling he would be this tall.....I don't think he is anywhere close to being done growing. His voice hasn't even changed yet. He doesn't know his own strength anymore either. He yanked a drawer out Friday morning.....*all the way* out. It crashed to the floor and broke apart. DH was able to put it back together, but dealing with Luke and his growth is truly like having a bull in a china shop here lately.

DH is working the second of two in-house shifts IN A ROW tonight. Grrrrrr. Life is nuts, as usual. Nathan's teacher's husband died Friday morning. He had multiple health problems, but it is still very sad. He was well-known and loved at the church, so they are not having school on Monday because the funeral will be at the church that day. However, they want students (whoever wants to) to come and sing at the funeral, and my boys decided that they wanted to do that, so a friend of mine will pick them up and bring them home. DH is off Monday afternoon, and he is going to take Joel to get his ears checked. Joel has had one thing after another these past few weeks, and has been congested for the better part of a month. We have noticed lately that he isn't hearing us when we talk to him, so we are going to get that checked out. The cleaning lady is supposed to come Monday during the day (good luck to her....cleaning with three boys underfoot! May the force be with her.) Joel has a bball game Monday afternoon. My Tgiving company (family of five) arrives Tuesday afternoon. I work that day, and the boys have bball practice that night as far as I know....3:30 to 5:00 for one and 6:30 to 8:00 for the other. On Wednesday, I work my normal schedule (til 2:00) but my boys get out at one, so I will have their uncle do the school run for me . On Thursday, my mom and one of my sisters will be joining us for the big meal, so 12 of us all together. I am looking forward to it, but getting there might kill me. I have finalized the menu in my head, and have asked my mom and sister each to bring something, but I need to make a shopping list and get that taken care of, hopefully tomorrow. I should go to the visitation for Nathan's teacher's husband, but I don't know if I will make it.

Happy turkey day to everyone!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

My concert is over!!!! It went well....such a load off to have it over with. My kids were so cute and sang really well. (They hate when I call them cute, but they were.) Now I can focus on packing up the rest of my room in preparation for our move to a new building, which takes place in 10 days.

DH's grandmother passed away suddenly last Monday, so we made an unexpected road trip to KS last weekend. I am glad we went, but now I am *really* behind in getting ready for Christmas. Our tree isn't even up. Hopefully that will all be rectified after this weekend. We are going to list our house after the holidays, so there is a TON of de-cluttering we need to do. Oh, and we are driving back to KS for Christmas two weeks from today which we had already planned.

Our new house has dry wall up and they will be starting on trim/painting soon. It is seeming more and more real all the time. I will try to get some pictures posted here soon.

That's it for now!

[mommax3]

Re: What do you do all day?

So, pictures.....

This is the view as you come through the front door. The dining area is to the right. The great room is straight ahead.


This is taken from the great room, looking back at the front door and stairway down to the basement (which will eventually have a railing!)


This is the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher will be in the island, where you see the stuff coming up out of the floor. The vent for the fan over the cooktop is coming down from the ceiling.


This was taken with me standing approximately where the island is, looking into the great room. There will be built-in shelving on either side of the fireplace, with a flat-screen tv above the fireplace if we save enough money to get one!


This is our master bedroom. I need to take a picture from another angle, too.


This is the tub in the master bath.


This is the shower in the master bath. The cut-out will be a window that looks into the vanity area, where there will be a tv.


That's it for now! I just sent the paint colors we chose to the builder today.....I can't wait to see the colors on the walls!

Sally