Random thoughts on a rainy day.

I made oatmeal for breakfast this morning. After the kids were done, all four, ages 20 months to 6 11/12ths years hopped up, scraped their bowls and put them in the dishwasher. A mother of eleven told me once, several years ago, that those were the hardest years. Now, a few years later, my olders - at the ripe old age of 5 and nearly 7 - are teaching the youngers - without any encouragement from me. It's certainly posing new challenges - but the benefits far outweigh the problems. I can only imagine it gets better from here.

On that thought, tomorrow is my 20 week ultrasound for this baby. Followed by a dentist appointment, our final walk through on the house, and the marriage class we've been gleaning much from at Gospel of Grace Church. But for today, I've got nothing going on. I'm going to enjoy today.

Thursday, barring the unforeseen, we are closing on our house. We take possession the same day. I've been having fun comparing paint swatches and have decided on a color for the kitchen. The kids room I'm going to make a few different sized circle stencils and paint polka dots in six colors that the kids picked out. Fun fun.

Sterling learned the proper name for his male body parts on Saturday. He's a bit confused though, calling it a "peanut". Poor boy.

Sterling has a firetruck bike. When it gets rained on, the sirens on the bike go on - and not off. Removing the batteries until things dry out is the only cure. At 2:00 am, when I heard thunder booming and rain coming down in buckets, I knew that bike was likely playing it's annoying tune. And then I rolled over and went back to sleep. It was (still, most likely) going off at 7:00 am this morning, warning all in the backyard of it's travel to a fire. Without a driver. Our poor neighbors. Pretty certain there's things going on in a few of the surrounding houses that shouldn't be. Maybe they were dashing around, panicking, hiding paraphernalia at the sound of sirens. Oh, what a sick, fun thought.

I can't wait to move.

You know those people that have a nickname for their babies long before they are born? Peanut, squirt, munchkin, junior - you know. I've always wanted to have a name/sex determined long before birth, but it never happened. Two of our babies we knew the sex of - and those were the two we took the longest to choose a name. One wasn't named until several hours after birth. So today, with this thought (and it was momentary, I assure you. My thoughts don't last long, or they don't get completed. Trust me on that one.) in mind, I thought "Hmmm. Falkena. 5th baby. F5. Wait, that's a tornado rating. Or an earthquake. No, a tornado, I think. At any rate, is that a good nickname to give to a baby? Are we setting ourselves up for major trouble? Can it get worse than Ruby?" Thought over. No conclusions, but there you have it. F5???

P.s. Once this thought was over, I went to trusty Google and found out it's a tornado. I think I preferred earthquake. But at least I learned something today - beyond how many times of spraying/scrubbing carpet it takes to remove poop. Yes, thank you Ruby.

Happy May! It always seemed, growing up, like spring had arrived once May rolled around. Here, spring has arrived, say, the middle of March. I'll take it.

Everything is going well as far as the house goes. No big surprises; we're actually ready to close. Inspections done, appraisal's done, roof is re-shingled, financing is cleared. So cool! Close date is still May 20, but that might get moved up. Very cool. Then the work begins! Blaine has plans to bomb it with bug bombs, then gut the laundry room where the roof had been leaking, re-sheetrock it, clean the whole house (fairly certain Blaine does not plan on that one, he plans on me cleaning...) and then we can start moving stuff. We have to search for a stove right away, and a dishwasher and a freezer, eventually. So much to do!

The girls started the next grade this last week. Eden's in 1st, Liberty's in 2nd. So far, we're in that easy-peasy stage that the books begin with, covering a review of last year's material, so the girls were loving it. We'll not work too hard through the summer, but hard enough to be ahead a bit and not lose ground over the summer.

Other than that - I've got nothing. Life continues to be busy, and we are looking forward to moving - and then not moving again for a very, very long time. My pregnancy has been uneventful, although this one has me sick still, just a bit now. Blaine admitted to me that with the size of my belly, he's still thinking twins. Ultrasound's in a week and a half; then he can see for himself. It's not.

We're under contract!

Ah, the excitement. I've spent far too much time on the phone lately, but finally... we found a house, made an offer, accepted their counter offer, and we're under contract! So very cool. I copied/saved photos, just to give you a little mini tour, but first, some details. It's 6 miles from town, nine miles to work for Blaine. There are five acres, with which we hope to grow a large garden, get some chickens soon, and maybe more animals later. And now, if you don't mind my copied realtor photos...



front of house from road


Driveway/front

back of houseliving room

fireplace off of living room
kitchen/dining room
kitchen sink - just because it's pretty :) Or maybe it's the light that's pretty, I'm not sure. Either way, I'll get to look at it often, since we have to buy a dishwasher, and Blaine tells me that's not real high on the priority list for the moment!

bedroom - only one photo but it has two bedrooms - and they both look alike
porch off side of house - the sliding doors are off of the kitchen - This is where we think we'll add on another bedroom/bathroom - someday.
The bedrooms are above the garage - these stairs go up to the bedrooms.

Likely to be Blaine's fun - a shop, and a big one at that.
Yes, it's only two bedrooms. But it was the closest thing we found to what we wanted, where we wanted it. We hope to add a master bedroom and bathroom on in a few years - before Sterling gets too big to share a room with his sisters! In the meantime, we're very excited. Very. Hope to close the end of May. Oh - and in the meantime, the seller is putting a new roof on it, because those wavy photos - the roof is pretty wavy too. That porch shot isn't just camera problems... or maybe "isn't the camera's problem" is a better way to say that.

Why, oh why?

Why, when my children starting "playing church", do they open up to, of all things, Song of Solomon? Then why, when they start giggling, didn't I keep my back turned and ignore all? Instead, Liberty sees my mortification, asks why my face looks like that, and I have to answer. "Um, Song of Solomon is about husbands and wives." "But they are talking about kissing! and breasts!" "Yes, that's part of being married." I'm barely keeping a straight face. So not a conversation I am having with my five and six year old daughters. Not now. Not like this. "Oh." Breath, Momma. And then... they kept reading. Kept giggling.

Hey, looking at the bright side, they didn't have friends over and Momma didn't have to explain to another mother why... oh dear. And another bright spot - I'll have less explaining to do when the time comes. Can't think of a more romantic book that I... well, I'd rather them not read right now, but someday - when they're thirty or something, you know. They can read it. And learn. Except right now, Liberty's reading like she's in the middle of the best book she's ever read. I have a feeling more questions are coming. Seriously, it's a small book in the middle of a huge book. What are the chances???

Ah, nothing like potty training and spring to supply blog material!

Ruby's doing... I'm not sure. She's holding it until she has something on her behind. Does that count? It shows she's ready, but other than that, little successes. I gave her chocolate milk to spur her to go - is that bad??? She did go - a tiny bit on a chair, stopped herself, and finished in the potty. Hmmm.

Then Ruby went outside with a chocolate chip cookie. And a bird left something not quite - but close - resembling a chocolate chip cookie, and Ru tried to eat it. Twice. Remind me not to kiss that girl. Apparently bird poo tastes bad though, because she spit it out with a grimace. Oh, I'm gagging just writing about it. Eww.

I had three loaves of banana bread and six dozen chocolate chip cookies baked by 10:30am this morning. How did that happen?? Oh, and a haircut. The mo' went. I wasn't sure if I liked it when Sterling got up this morning, Blaine said he wasn't so sure either, and so off it went. Fun while it lasted, but not quite my style.

Liberty lost her first tooth yesterday! It was knocked loose Monday, after she bit into a candy necklace from her Easter basket. I tried to get her to pull it out, I tried to get her to let me pull it, but no. Certainly not. Then a friend from church suggested the doorknob/string method, and Liberty wanted to try it. By all means! We tried, but couldn't get the thread to stay on the tooth. My best slip knot just wanted to slip, not knot. You know. So I helped the tooth along a little and Liberty - shocked - pulled it out of her mouth. Ah, fun times. Now she looks to big though! Nothing like a gap in your teeth to show progression of age... or lack of good dental care, one of the two.

Sterling got a new look.

Little Man has the roundest head possible, needed a haircut, and I was curious. So...




I think he pulls it off quite nicely. At age two. And when I'm sick of it, we'll 1/4" the rest of it. I did get a "rebellious" comment - never occurred to me that it is rebellious, but maybe. Either way, I cut it like this:And Blaine took it even shorter, to this:


So if it is rebellious, I'm not the only one.