Wednesday, February 25, 2009

House Hunting

Well it has been a long 3 years here in "smallville". And sometimes just as freaky as that show, at least to a city girl like myself. One of the ways we think might help is for us to own our own home again. With prices so low and Obama's tax credit for purchasing a home, it seems like a good year to try that. We spoke to the church elders and to my surprise they did not object. I think down the road we will have some objection by some. We plan to have David commute to the church so that we can get into a larger community. We don't qualify for a very high morgage but we did qualify. So we are primarly looking for a "fixer-upper". We've seen one house already and are going back tomorrow for a 2nd look. An offer has been made on that place but we plan to make a counter offer. It is a large, brick two story home with about 3200 square feet which is what this large family needs. Not just because we have so many kids but we homeschool, I have avid readers so we will have a library room, plus we have some craft hobbies. And everyone who is crafty knows how much space your supplies take up. We don't know if our offer will be higher or lower than the previous offer so we don't know if will be accepted or not. If not we will keep looking for a large home which would have to be another fixer. We are still waiting to hear about a new call in the area which is actually within commuting of distance of where we are house hunting. But if that doesn't come through at least things for me and the kids will improve just by getting to a larger community. Wish us luck on our endeavor.

365 day Project - 31

Whooo, whooo Gabrielle got her braces off today. The two years went by fast. She now needs a retainer on top and bottom. Then she will be slowly weened off the retainers but the process takes about two years.



Don't her teeth look great! All to the tune of roughly $5,000 dollars - it might as well be the million dollar smile slogan since that amount is just as hard to come by. Thankfully we had the insurance and the budget to get it started. Now to move on to the other kids. Arianna is scheduled for sometime in March to get them started anyway. And we might have to bump Annaliese up because she could need her top jaw stretched. Sounds painful, doesn't it. But apparently it is better to do it before the end of puberty because the bones in your skull start to fuse then.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

365 Day Project -22-30

I came home from grocery shopping today and was able to grab a few photos of my son before the sun went down. His sisters were already heading inside but Micah wanted to stay out longer. So I took advantage of the few moments, grabbed the camera, and click. Here are the results:

















For those of you who don't know, you can click on an image to enlarge the photo.

Isn't he a cutie!!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

365 Day Project-day 17-22

These pics our from our Christmas tree hunting day in 2007. It was really cold that and most of us did not dress warm enough. Since then, DH has developed allergies to trees so now we have 2 artificial trees each year. But these photos hold fond memories.













I'm hoping it warms up around here so I can get outside and get some up to date photos for this project. If not, I think we should start thinking about going south. LOL

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

365-day 16

365 Day Project - day 15


I couldn't resist posting this photo. My youngest Micah and my 2nd oldest Arianna have birthdays back to back so sometimes we celebrated together. This was from Nov. 2007. Although, now my son has said they can no longer celebrate together. I think he has caught on and wants all the glory for himself. I don't blame him one bit for that though. One day a year should be special for each of them. We live pretty far away from the rest of our family now so the kids miss celebrating with cousins and grandparents.

365 Day Project- day 4 through day 14

Well this project may take me longer than 365 days. But here are some photos from about a year ago. This particular day my camera was cooperating really well for me.


















These are what I call our "frosty" pictures. They remind me so much of the Christmas cartoon. I can't build I actually got some good shots.















It was a fun day. Just the right temperature for sledding. I'm having to use pics from a year ago because this season has been awfully cold here. Then on days when it isn't as cold we don't have the time or like now I have kids coming down with colds.