And the remodeling begins!

We have been renting a large, old, (very old) farmhouse out in the country for the past 14 months, it's just getting to be too much for us, the heating bills are sky high, and well, there's just too many things wrong to list, I'd be here all day! So for the past several months we have been looking for a house in town and last month we finally found one. We were able to get a really good deal on it as it was a fore closer and the bank really wanted to get rid of it. The lady that owns the bank is a friend and gave us a great deal, we are thankful to have it. It comes with 5 acres, plenty of room for everybody to roam, although we plan to put up a fence for Sophie(and the kids) as it is still in city limits and dogs can't just run loose. We've been having central air and heat put in for the last 2 weeks, hopefully that can be finished this week so that we can get inside and start tearing wall-paper off walls (ugh, is there anything worse?) and start the painting. I've been meaning to take some pictures of the inside but every time we go over there I forget my camera. I always love to see before and after pictures, it makes it all seem worthwhile! The garage that you see in the 2nd picture is going to torn down this spring and we'll be building a new one.

The side view

In other news, Brianna started preschool again today. I though that was an extremely long break, but in a way kinda nice. She seemed to have fun and especially since they FINALLY got to have their Christmas party, it had been canceled several times due to bad weather in December so the teacher just decided to have it the first day back in January. There was a gift exchange and she came home with a Bratz Baby, those things are so weird looking. Needless to say, it might not be sticking around here for that long! :)

I would love to have some input from some home-schooling mothers out there. I've been thinking about what to do for Kindergarten this coming year and still haven't made up my mind. There is not a Christian school (of any kind) here so I've thought about home-schooling, but don't really know that much about it. I would love to hear what curriculum's are used and what works well, and is somewhat easy for the teacher also! Any comments would be appreciated! :)

Happy Birthday Mom!

We want to wish a very Happy Birthday to the world's greatest Mom, Mother-in-law, and Grammy! We hope you have a great day, (even though it includes a lot of caulking! :)

Brianna and Tyler wanted to wish you a happy birthday too!


Love,
Tim, Lori, Brianna and Tyler

P.S. Is it 39 yrs. old again this year? :-)

A visit to Sesame Street

Well, Tim and I survived a show from Sesame Street Live, this was the first show like this that we have gone to and probably the last for a little while at least! After a while, all the shrill singing and talking can really start to bother the eardrums! As we were leaving the parking lot I made the comment to Tim that after a while all the songs start sounding the same and he defiantly agreed with me! The important thing to remember is that we were doing it for the kids and they had a lot of fun, which is all that really matters! Brianna of course really enjoyed seeing all the characters but I was really surprised how much Tyler liked it too, he really seemed to get into all the singing and clapping, when everyone else clapped, so did he! It was so cute!
We've been thinking about where to go on vacation this year and I think we're heading back to Disneyland again, we had so much fun last year and the kids will enjoy it even more this year. Tyler, definitely, he was only 6 mo. old last time and spent the majority of Disney sleeping in the stroller! :)

A new game of " Toss the Potatoes"

Tyler has recently discovered the bin of potatoes, ugghhh. Actually, I'm surprised that they haven't been the source of entertainment until now, but I guess my children's OVERFLOWING playroom has been doing it's job! :-)

This is how the game goes: Tyler empties all the potatoes onto the floor, mostly by tossing them to his sister

Brianna then lines them up and organizes them

Gathers them into a pile
Returns them to the bin
And the fun starts all over again!

Disclaimer: Just in case there are any Mothers out there gasping right now at the thought of potatoes being played with in the kitchen, I have to say that this isn't an everyday occurence but when it does happen, it does keep everybody occupied while I prepare dinner!
My motto for the new year: "Don't sweat the small stuff" :)

" Patiently waiting for 'Sissy's' time out to end"

A wonderful Christmas present, and a wonderful little girl!

The dustbuster above had been on my Christmas list for several months, I've never had one and thought they would be so great for cleaning up those little messes that kids continually make throughout the day. Well, sure enough, Santa was kind enough to bring me one on on Christmas morning and it has certainly been well used since then. The other day I was cooking in the kitchen and gave the kids a snack and pretty soon the floor had lots of crumbs on it, as usual. I handed the dustbuster to Brianna and showed her how to use it, hoping that she would think it was 'fun' to clean up the mess! :) My wish was granted and she ended up vacuuming the WHOLE floor on her little hands and knees, she really liked it! That was just yesterday so this morning the floor still looked pretty good, just a few spots here and there. We were eating breakfast this morning and she starts checking out the floor and then asked me, "Mom, can I mow the floor again, please?" What kind of a mother would I be if I didn't let my daughter do what she really wanted to do? :) Needless to say, my kitchen floor is very clean at the moment and I'm hoping the novelty of the dustbuster doesn't wear off too soon!