Party On!

Winter turned 6 years old today! She has become such a big girl. She even has lost her first teeth a couple of weeks ago. Winter's cousin Lille also turned 6 this week, so Catherine (Joe's cousin) and I threw a birthday party for both the girls yesterday. We wanted to have the kind of party that would let the "city kids" experience the farm life for an afternoon. We set up a petting zoo with a cow, 2 sheep, 3 goats, baby chickens and pony rides. There was also plenty of fishing and general exploring going on.

It turned out FABULOUS!! We had a TON of guests so it was nice and hectic and stressful for me. I think we had a total of 26 kids and 20 adults at the house. After a couple of hours outside with the animals we moved inside and had cake, icecream and presents. It was so great to be able to have the space for all of those people!



We kept the party going with a lasagna dinner with 19 of our guests. Then, when everyone except the Morphises had left, somehow we still weren't partied out. I really love the board game "Settlers of Catan" and so do they, so we stayed up until the wii hours in the morning playing that. Today was only slightly more relaxing with church and a visit to the parents' house. Joe's sister Nancy decided to come visit for 3 weeks to help out with Great Grandma Benac, so we got to have dinner with them, Mark and Kelly and mom and dad. That's 3 out of the 6 kids together!! Next week Ruth will probably be back, so we'll have 4 out of 6!! Almost a family reunion. Now only Angela needs to come down too .... hint hint.....

Spoils of war

We had a fabulous Christmas this past tuesday. On Monday night we reinacted the story of Christ's birth. The kids had a lot of fun being baby Jesus, Joseph, and the donkey

The most exciting gift for me (beside the horse) was the raclette grill mom and dad gave me. It's a grill that you set in the middle of the table during dinner and everyone grills their own food at the table. This is a Swiss tradition and they have a special Raclette cheese they melt and eat with potatoes. Since Dallas is such a big city, we get the conveniences of cool grocery stores. So on wednesday I went to the Central market and actually bought some of this Raclette cheese which has been imported from Switzerland. While I was there I also picked up some good stinky cheese from Italy, and some yummy French style bread. It's too bad that we don't live closer to that store (but probably a good thing too!!)
Tomorrow we are having a birthday party for Winter's 6th birthday, and combining it with her cousin Lille's birthday. We have fun stuff planned and it should be a great madhouse with 32 kids, and their parents. It's mostly family, and some friends. We are planning to set up a petting zoo with a cow, sheep, goats, and also pony rides.
It's been very rainy here the last couple of weeks, and now it's VERY muddy. When we were in Switzerland I bought some mud boots, and didn't realize just how much I would need them. It's extra muddy now, because some males (I won't name names) in our family took a Jeep to the upper pasture, so the "road" to the back is really, really, really muddy now. My poor horses have also been suffering from the mud, and slipping and sliding all over the place. So I decided to put them in their stalls for a couple of days. Faith (my horse) has become very attached to Cookie, and started freaking out when separated from her. I actually got one of my fingers stuck when she yanked up her head, and it nice and thick and purple now....

Well, according to my good friend Tiffani, we are now officially white trash. You ask why? Well, a couple of days ago Joe and his friend Neil shot some rabbits that were innocently hopping around our farm, and we ate them that night for dinner. It was actually not too bad. The idea of it is actually worse than the taste. It tastes kind of like chicken. Plus it's nice to know that if we ever run out of money and food, we can just go outside and catch a fish or shoot a rabbit for dinner.

Days fly by

I can hardly believe that it's been 5 days since I last wrote anything!!
We just get so busy with everyday life that the days fly by.
I'm excited to get a couple of days of rest with Christmas. Tonight we started the festivities with clam chowder. Tonight is the arrival of Mark and Kelly, which is very exciting.
Really what it comes down to... I'm just too tired and lazy to write right now... so adios!

Believe the Power!

Yesterday I got a horse!!! I am sooo excited. Her name is believe the power, but I think she'll go by Faith.
She is a very large horse (16 hands for any of you who know anything about horses). She's a 8 year old mare. When she was young she raced on the track (no, she didn't win any money). She is very sweet to me and comes right up to me in the pasture. Unfortunately she is not so nice to Betsy. Earlier, she full on attacked her! That kind of freaked me out, so I seperated them, and put Faith with cookie. They seem to like each other, and now share the lower pasture. I was just out there talking t0 Tina (the lady that sold us the house and who lives next door now) and she told me how to figure out how to fix the electric fencing. There's a short somewhere, so right now I am just hoping and praying that she won't try to get out of the pasture, because she totally could if she wanted to.
Anyways, I have to get back to my large list of to-do's. Most of them don't include playing/riding the horses. :(

Ginger bread house

We just got home from sunday dinner at Joe's parents' house. We celebrated Jesus' birthday with birthday cake and everything. After dinner the kids got to assemble and decorate a gingerbread house. They have been looking forward to this for the past 3 weeks, and were super excited the whole way through. With a little help from me and mom, I think it turned out pretty nice! Also, Joe's grandma Benac is back home from the hospital (she recently broke her hip) and we feel so blessed to be able to see her so frequently.
I can hardly believe that Christmas is just over a week away. I am very excited though, because Joe's brother Mark and his wife Kelly will be coming to visit, and it's been entirely too long since we have seen them. I just can't wait to see Kelly's pregnant belly (she's due with a baby boy in March)

Word spreads fast

When we moved to Leonard we joined our new ward in Bonham. As you can imagine, this far out of the city the wards are pretty far in between. The Bonham ward was only recenlty made from a branch into a ward (a branch is a really small congregation). Coming from a place with a large LDS community, I have to say I was a little scared and apprehensive about moving into a small ward. There is the prospect of big important callings, and of course the decreased chance of having some families in there that are similar to ours. So far, we are doing good on the callings. Joe got a calling to be the assistant ward clerk, which takes about 2 hours every sunday... not too bad! I still don't have one. We also got lucky with the whole friends/family situation. We live only 5 minutes away from a great family with 3 kids. 2 of the 3 kids are the same age as our kids. Sterling has a friend named Van (which the kids mistakenly called car), and Ginger has a girlfriend named Parker. And I have a friend named Teresa. I feel so blessed to have someone close by whom I think I will be very good friends with. She also has all kinds of farm animals, and makes me green with envy over her cool chicken coops and chick incubator/heat lamp setup. I know, kind of silly things to be jealous over, but I can't wait to have my own chickens so I can gather fresh eggs every morning. Some other fun things about a small ward: everyone was super excited when we moved in, and welcomed us into the ward. After not having to give a talk in 6 years, Joe spoke the 2nd week in church. 30 minutes after telling the bishop I play the harp, a sister asked me to play for the Christmas program. Any day I would rather play the harp than give a talk!! This has also gotten me to start practicing again! (it was a long 4 months of no harp music for my soul).

Another animal on our farm

Last week we first saw our hooty friend. We have some kind of bird's nest right outside our front door, and one day as I was peeling the tape off the window after painting I saw him just sitting there staring at me. He isn't there all the time, but doesn't fly away when you go outside.

When it rains, it pours

I just found out that our cripple horse can still run (more like trot). The storm clouds have been gathering for the last hour, and just now it started to hail. Cookie was running as fast as she can (not so fast) for her stable. Today I am greatful to be a non-working mother. As I am writing this blog I realize that it is almost time for Winter to get home on the bus. How sad would that be for her to have to walk all the way up the driveway in the pouring rain!! She would be totally soaked. Just going out to the car and back into the house got me considerably wet.

Mudding
Part of my responsibilities while Joe is gone is to go out to the back 40 and feed our cow Betsy. Seeing as it had rained so hard, and the clouds were still looming, I thought I would just take the car instead of walking. Now you say: Isn't she smarter than that after being married to Joe for the last 7 years? Well, apparently only after I got halfway out there. I knew I was probably in trouble so I drove the suburban to the top of the hill and parked it on a grassy patch. After feeding Betsy I was kind of nervous and started to think about the possibility of being stuck at home for the next 2 days until Joe gets back. So I back up just a bit, and then just gunned it. Mind you I still had to turn it around. Luckily there was enough space to make a wide donut and I kept on speeding towards the house. At one point I thought I was going to loose it and run into the sheep pen, but with my driving skills was able to keep it on the "road". In conclusion: it was a fun, scary, exhilarating ride. (and I really wish I had 4-wheel drive so I could go out there and play in the mud a little without the fear of getting stuck!)

This weather reminds me of when we lived in Florida. We loved days like this. The days that it rained were the best days to go to the amusement park. It would start to rain, so everyone left. Then an hour later the rain would stop, and the park would be empty. The perfect time to go on all the rides without having to wait!!!

Home alone

A picture that I just HAD to post

Part of the reason for moving to Texas was that Joe wouldn't have to travel as much. It's been great, because he has been home so much more. However, he still needs to travel about once a month to Chicago. He left earlier today. So now the kids are in bed and the house is totally quiet. ...

not for long... Just as I wrote that I heard some crazy cat noises outside. I checked it out and for a minute was fearful that we had lost another cat. Luckily Pumpkin came out of the bushes, although totally wet. Then after I put them away I saw another big black cat running off. I guess he came to terrorize my poor little kitties.

Sunday in church I was feeling pretty good for a change. They were talking about the importance of journal keeping, and usually this subject gives me guilty squirms. Not now!! I know this blog isn't an official journal, but I figure it's as close to a journal as I'll ever write. Even though I only started a few months ago, I can tell that it'll be fun for myself to read back after a while. I just forget so many details!!

Quotable Quotes

Sterling says some funny things.

Today at dinner we told him to finish his dinner and he asked why. So we said: "There are starving kids in Africa". He then says: "We ARE starving kids"

About mouthwash: "Oeh, it's disgusting good!"

Christmas letter

Well, after declaring my rebelliousness to Christmas cards, I got to thinking. For our adoption home study we have to make a photo collage, so why not just send a copy of that too all my loved ones instead of a Christmas card? It will show all the things we have been up to lately. I still needed a good family shot with all our family, so we all headed out to the pasture. I think we got a pretty good shot with us and 3 of our animals.

IKEA

I have slowly been compiling my IKEA list, and today was the day I finally went. IKEA is the kind of store you can spend all day. They have you follow the arrows weaving through the whole store. It took me about 3 hours today, and that was plenty long for Ginger. By the way, I will never go there with more than 1 kid. They do have a kid play area, but the kid has to be potty trained, and it's only for an hour. Who can shop in an hour at IKEA anyways??

So I got some good stuff while I was there. I got a small table for my breakfast nook. It came with 4 chairs, and only marginally put a dent in my wallet with a price tag of $120. Not to shabby I thought. I also found a really cute rocking Moose (yes, Moose, not horse). I thought I would let Ginger play on the display toys for a minute, and man, she is a rocker!! She rocked on both the mooses, and there were also some other rocking things that rock sideways. A couple of times I was certain that the rocker would tip over. Oh yeah, when we first got there we enjoyed a breakfast of eggs, baked potatoes and bacon for $1. They probably figure you'll spend more time, and thus money, if you have a full belly. If you would get hungry and be forced to leave the store to eat, they would loose business. So I guess they make a lot more money on that $1 breakfast than you would like to know. Other things I got include shelves, some more shelves, and some cute kids bookshelves. It's really amazing how fast everything adds up.

Today after Winter got home from school, Sterling gave away the secret about her horse (what can you expect from a 4 year old?) She was very excited, and they proceeded to go back the pasture where Cookie and Betsy are living. As I was looking through the binoculars I had to laugh when Winter was pulling on Cookie's halter and pulling some more, and some more. Finally she gave up and started to chase the cow. Cute!! Now the kids are helping Joe catch some dinner. I really want to make some ranch coated fish, but that only happens if they catch some. If not... I guess we'll have to have plain rice for dinner

well, maybe some dotted news

Tonight Joe picked "Cookie". She is a 22 year old horse, with a broken leg. It looks really fun/scary because it healed crooked. She is white with brown spots. Mostly a horse for the kids to ride on. I thought we were giving it to Winter for her birthday, but apparently Joe told Sterling that the horse is for Winter, so that secret is not going to last until the end of December.

Current animals at our farm:
2 cats
2 beehives
4 sheep
1 cow
1 horse
3 weasels

no news

So it's been weird for me to blog without having a bunch of really excited stories to write. The reality is that we have settled into the mundane day to day schedule. I wake up at zero dark thirty (6.30) to get Winter ready for the bus. Then, if I'm lucky, I jump back in bed for 30 minutes and sleep until Sterling and Ginger come to wake me up. (usually Sterling is awake before I can even drag Winter out of bed) Then I get Sterling ready for preschool and drop him off. At this point I look at the long list of things that need to be done to the house and decide if there's anything I can force myself to do. Of course I always pick the easiest and funnest thing,... which makes it so that after a week or so of doing that only non-fun things are left. That was the case today, so I decided to just do nothing! Well, not nothing,... just not any productive things that will get my house renovated.

One thing I really enjoy about my new kitchen is that is looks out into the family room where my tv is. Today I watched the Ellen show (to my husband's disdain) while cooking dinner. I made a yummy recipe that I got from my sister-in-law Angela. (lentil tacos). We had a very early dinner (4.30pm) because Joe is picking up the Christmas pony. We just have to decide how we are going to keep it a secret from the kids. Kind of hard when 2 of the kids went with Joe, and the pony will be in our pasture. I have to come of with some kind of inventive reason why this pony is in our yard. I'm open to any good suggestions!!

Internet at home!

Yes, we have finally rejoined the world of the living (communication.)
It feels so liberating having internet at my own home. I didn't realize how much I missed it, but now I look back and can't figure out how I coped with having to go to the library to check my email. Going to the library with a 2 year old can be challenging. Especially when it's a very small local library with only 1 librarian that keeps a very close eye on all activity. Last week Ginger accidentally ripped part of a page from a book, and now she has to stay by my side. Well,... you know 2 year olds... if she decides she doesn't want to be right by me, she'll let everyone know. And everyone did know when she screamed her head off.

Today is the Dutch holiday Sinterklaas. It's the Dutch St Nicholas who celebrates his birthday on december 5th. We are going to have Joe's parents over for dinner and do a dinner that we always did growing up as a child. It's called "gourmetten". We all sit around the table and have a griddle in the middle. Everyone cooks their own food as they go along. This makes for a very long and fun dinner. After that we will have a gift exchange. We all drew names out of a hat (actually a bowl) and we all get a cheap gift and write a poem for that person. Of course, since I'm the mom, I have to write 3 poems....


I am just so happy to be here in the rural area in Texas. When I look out the window all I can see is fields and cows!! And when the school bus gets back to drop of Winter, Sterling run outside and yells: 'YES!" then he promptly start running down the driveway (it's a long driveway). Winter jumps off the bus and runs to greet him too. Then they walk back together and Sterling holds Winter's backpack for her. How sweet!

It's December!!

Being in Texas has really thrown me off, in regards to the fact that it's now December, but it feels like September. Today I can easily walk outside without a jacket and not be cold. I really can't believe that Christmas is only 3 weeks away.
One of the things I'm getting into with this whole problem of Christmas cards. For some reason I'm feeling rebellious this year, and really don't want to send out any cards. I guess the people that keep in touch will know everything about us anyways right?? Maybe I'll just send an email or something.

So this week we finally got carpet in, and moved into the rest of our house. We also moved some furniture in, and are finally feeling like we are a little bit at home. Tomorrow we get our wood floor in, so we'll have plenty of work to do with that.

Things are finally settling down a bit though. I feel a lot more relaxed, and just get a couple of projects done each day. I also keep discovering new things in our town Leonard. This week I found out that we even have a movie rental store!! (and Joe found a auto parts store)

Tomorrow we will finally get internet out at our house! Then I'll be able to blog a little more frequently.

Get ready, set, go!

We had wonderful Thanksgiving with the family! We came to Joe's parents house around 11 am. Everyone did their part for the dinner, and since I made the pies I had the luxury to sit and read the newspaper ads for "black friday". For the last several years I've made it a tradition to go shopping at 4 am the day after Thanksgiving, in order to get great deals. It took me a while, but Liz has finally agreed to go with me. I just love the adrenaline rush that I get when I'm in a mad dash to get one of the 12 free laminators. So after a lovely dinner we relaxed for a while and then had yummy pumpkin pie, that Winter and Ginger helped me make. Tonight we went down to uncle Bill and aunt Barbara's house in Dallas, and hung out with the whole gang. Several cousins were there, which made for a good time. I even got to go to Aaron Allred's fancy lawyers office, so Katy and I can redecorate it to look all fancy. Anyways, I really need to get to bed, since I have to get up in 4 hours!!

time flies

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I last wrote anything. I have to say that throughout the week I've had great stories that I wanted to post, but simply didn't have the internet to do so with. So now I am really not in the mood for writing, so I'll give you a quick rundown of this week's events. I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to prepare the kitchen and all other cabinets to be painted. Wednesday night we painted them, and they look fantastic. Now I just need to make a quick trip to Ikea to get some great knobs to finish the look. The other developing news is that we went from 2 kittens, to 3 kittens, back to 2 kittens. A girl in our ward, Theresa, gave us number 3 (whose name is brownie). On Thursday she made a fun trip in the hood of the suburban. Apparently she crawled up in the hood right before we left to Winter's Thanksgiving school program. I heard some meowing, but just thought he was in the car with the kids. She rode there 15 minutes into town, sat there for an hour, and rode back the 15 minutes without getting killed. I think her salvation was that she was stuck. Meanwhile, our first cat Sunny got lost. I don't know if she also tried to ride with us and fell off, or if she got all the way there and then jumped off, or if she simply got eaten by a coyote... So now we just have pumpkin (the orange boy cat), and the new cat Brownie.
Today we are going to visit Joe's grandma in the hospital, who unfortunately fell Thursday and broke her hip and has some head trauma. The kids had fun this morning decorating some cards for her. Oh yeah... about the benefit of living here in Dallas..... Last night we came home late from a fancy dinner with the BYU management society. Mom and dad and us all went together, and after we got to their house, we decided that it would make a lot of sense to sleep here. To sum up how nice it is: I just finished my pancake breakfast. I really think I'm going to love it here, especially out at our farm. Our little town of Leonard has great things: a grocery store, for last minute purchases, a library, post office, mexican restaurant, pharmacy, pre-school for Sterling etc. Sterling now goes to preschool 5 days a week from 8-2 pm. It's been quiet at the house.....
Oh... I just remembered... We also got 4 sheep this last week! And Joe got a new truck.

The big move

So today is the big day. We move to the farm! The house it totally not ready for living in, but we've decided that we'll get much more work done if we're there to work on it all the time. It is a little crazy that we are all sleeping/living in 1 room. None of the other rooms in the house have any floorcoverings. At first Joe will still go to his parents house to work until we can get internet, but then he'll be at the farm all day too. I went to Sterling's new school yesterday, and he and I are very excited for this new experience for him.

We are in the middle of the process of getting a home study done for our adoption application. We are hoping to get the paperwork done before the end of the year, so we can get on the list of adoptive parents. We want to adopt a little baby (under 1 years old), and we have no preference for race or gender. Most of all we want to give a child a forever family that otherwise wouldn't have that opportunity. So as part of the process, I had to get my fingerprints taken today. They send them to the FBI to make sure we are no criminals. 2 things about that: 1. any idiot/criminal can get pregnant and create their own child, but if you want to adopt they have to check out everything about you. 2. I just had my fingerprints taken by the FBI for a background check when I became a citizen. Now you would think they could use my fingerprints (that I'm sure are still in their system), but no, they have to get them again... just in case my fingers morphed into something new. No, I'm sure it's just to get more money out of me, which is why it frustrates me.

Today is my last day with internet access (on a normal computer) so I don't know how long it will be before I'll entertain you again with my simple life.

1 + 1 = 2 kittens

Since "Sunny" will be an outside cat, I thought it would only be humane to get another cat to keep her company. I picked up an orange tabby kitten today (a boy), that will be able to keep Sunny company, now and later... Winter decided to name him Pumpkin. He is definitely a little spicier than Sunny. On the way home, I held him on my lap, as I had done with Sunny, but he kept trying to claw his way up my shoulder, whereas Sunny just layed down and went to sleep.

Pumpkin is also much more of an explorer and got a hold of a grass hopper and had himself alittle playtime. He also showed Sunny that it would be a fun/good idea to climb up a tree,.. but the only problem is that since she is still a couple weeks younger than him, she wasn't able to get down. This is the point where I have to get the ladder out of the house, and pluck my cat out of a thorned tree. I don't think she appreciated it as much as she should have.

Kitten

So, for the last 2 weeks we've had a farm with no animals. Well, we now have our first one. I finally got my cat!! As some of you know, we had a cat when we first got married, that mysteriously disappeared on the way back from Florida. After that I've wanted a new cat, but Joe's not a big fan, so it just hadn't happened. Joe is very opposed to pets in our house (and I am too, ever after this nasty house we had to clean up) so now I have an outside cat. Sterling, Ginger, and I went to pick out a kitten yesterday. We picked a girl cat, and Sterling named her Sunny. She is silver and super cute. I can't believe how small she is. After we got her, Joe wanted me to look at some trucks for him, so I just put her in my purse, which she just loved, and she just went right to sleep in there. As I'm typing this I am feeling a little bad though, because she is all alone at the new house right now. She has the shed as her house, and there is no windows in it, so it's gotta be dark and lonely. Later today I'll go over there, and Joe has been trying to assure me that she'll have a blast in that shed.... Ginger has really taken a liking for Sunny. when we were in the car she screamed the whole time (1 hour) because I wouldn't let her hold it.

Back to work

Yesterday I had to make a very difficult decision: Play volleyball, or work on the house. Even though I was very tempted to go play volleyball and win the Dallas regional church volleyball competition, I decided to make the responsible decision and work at the house.
All the tile was broken out, and we were left with a whole bunch of cement glue/grout. So we went to Home Depot and rented an electric hammer/chisel. It took 9 solid hours to brake it all out. At the end we figured the best way to get it all up, was to have me vacuum an area looking for leftover grout, and when I found a spot, for Joe to get it up. I kind of felt like an assistant to a dentist... you know... when they stick that vacuum in your mouth. We are all very sore from this task, but also very happy to be done with it. It's fun to reflect back on all the work we have done, especially because that makes the work ahead seem not quit as bad.

The other fun thing was that Sterling caught 4 fish in our lake. Joe was very jealous, as he hasn't been able to catch anything yet. Unfortunately I haven't really had a chance to do any fishing myself, but I did witness the slaughter ( and managed to save 1 fish's life by convincing Joe to throw it back).

a little brake

Today I finally got to a little brake from the craziness. We sold our pacifica, so we are back down to 1 car. Joe had to go buy an "animal trailer" and took the burb, so I was stuck at home. Not that I minded too much, because I've been working too hard anyways. It's nice to catch up with my friends and family and sit down to check my email and to do other mundane things in life. Speaking of mundane things... I better clean up this pig sty (as I'm still living with the in-laws, and I don't have the liberty to choose to live in a mess) and cook some dinner (which I'm sure will be appreciated by all the hungry mouths.)

Haloween fun

Since all of our stuff is still in our Pods, we had to be a little inventive with our costumes for the kids. And I have to say that they all looked very cute!! Winter was a Japanese lady, Sterling a pirate, and Ginger a fairy princess. We went to the church's trunk or treat where the kids got enough candy for the next year. They loved going around as much as giving out candy to other kids.
Today I had another pretty productive day at the new house. I broke out most of the tile in the kitchen, so my arms are going to be ripped!! Since we are a "little" behind schedule, we will have to move our stuff into the garage, so I pulled out all the trash and decorated the driveway with it. Joe is buying a trailer tomorrow, so we'll be able to take all the trash to the dump.
All together a good and very tiring day.

Working till your muscles give in

As most of you know, we have purchased our new home, and finally have starting fixing it up. The lady whom we bought this place from does not know that the words "clean", "dust", or "sanitation" exist. Even the showerhead has a 1/2" layer of dust on it!
So most of the flooring is out, except the tile in the kitchen. We ordered the carpet, but Joe just told me today that we will have to postpone the installation by a couple of weeks, because there is no way that we can get the house ready in the next week. So I guess the goal now is to be out of the in-laws house by Thanksgiving (I'm sure this is not what they expected when they first allowed us to move into their house, but they are very nice about the whole situation).
So, Sunday is (unfortunately) over, so tomorrow we get back to work. Oh, and I have to tell you about my fund findings in the air return vents. Besides the dog hairballs, and 13 years worth of dust, I also found 1 dead mouse, and a $5 bill. I just kept hoping that the next vent would hold the $10,000 booty, but that never happened...

non-working mother

These last couple of days I have been reading my family members' blogs, and have started to feel like I am not doing my part, unless I have my own blogspot. I don't proclaim to be a good writer, so even though this won't be the best/funniest/most entertaining literature you have read, I hope it will still be interesting enough for you to want to read about our lives.
So there are 2 things I have to explain. First the name. We are currently in the process of buying a home. Every time I call a mortgage company to get a quote, they want all my personal information. That is fine and dandy, until they get to the question: "Where do you work".... well, that's a tough question to answer. I guess I could say that I work everywhere, everyday, in every profession. But usually I just say: "I don't work". Now as all of you stay-at-home mothers know, there is nothing further from the truth. Sure there are times I get to have a little nap, but only after spending 2 hours in the store listening to my kids asking for candy, chasing them down the isle, and bribing them with candy if they can only be good for a couple more minutes.
The other thing I want to explain is this wonderful pokadot background on this blog. Two of my sister-in-laws have this same template, and it's just so cute. I thought that maybe if I used the same one as them, my blog would also be as interesting and funny to read as theirs.... (even though I know this will never be true)
Well it seems as my free time has ended, as my sons just asked me 5 times in a row to sharpen his pencil... I guess I am also a professional pencil sharpener.