A Mini Tour of the House

This will be short, because I should be packing . . . but we closed on the house on Tuesday, and have been working on stuff all week. Here's a mini-tour comprised of a few pictures I took yesterday & today :)

Walking up the sidewalk from the driveway. LOVE the nice big front porch with a SWING!!!

My view when I was sitting on the swing enjoying a break from unpacking :)

The front door goes into an entry hall. Living room is on the left, kitchen (& powder room) is straight ahead, stairs go up on the right. 

(I have pictures of the living room & kitchen on my phone, but they haven't uploaded to dropbox yet, I'll add them in (here or a new post) when I get them. Off the kitchen is a sunroom. It's functioning as a playroom for Little Bit while we're in transition. Once we get furniture moved, the big toy-stuff will be put away or move to the basement, and it will be more of a sitting space (and soaking up nature space!!! Little Bit commented "it's like being outside, but you can stay nice and cozy!" great description. The long wall is ALL windows (3 of those big ones), and each end of the room is a sliding glass door, one onto a deck, the other with a path to the garage). with some games and toys. for now Little Bit's enjoying the room to play with the tunnel . . .

 And, Lexie made her a "house" out of the box our washing machine came in, so she's having a BLAST with it :)

The only picture I took upstairs is Ashlyn's room. She (and Daddy) painted it yesterday, did touch-ups this morning, and she "moved in" this afternoon. She chose a light grayish lavender paint and a gray comforter for her bed. Bed frame still needs to come from my parents' house but we moved the mattress & boxspring in there so she could "make" her bed.  The curtains that were in there work ok, so for now she's leaving them. She'll also have a dresser, desk, night stand and book case in the room eventually but for not it's the minimalist look :) 

Lexie & Little Bit (and Daddy) painted their room today, so I'll take pictures after the tape is off. Our bedroom just has boxes stacked in it at the moment. Then there's a hall bath for the girls to share and a master bath with large jacuzzi tub, separate shower, and a huge walk-in closet. Right now those areas are all cluttered with the process of figuring out what I want where . . . :)

Reformation Day GIVEAWAY!

October 31 commemorates what has become known as "Reformation Day." Martin Luther’s nailing of his ninety-five theses to a church door on October 31, 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany, provoked a debate that resulted in what we now call the Protestant Reformation. As the “Father of the Reformation”, Martin Luther is a vital figure in Church history. His sacrifice and willingness to wage battle against the spiritual, religious, and political powers of his medieval world allowed Christians throughout time to embrace the truth of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone as explained by Scripture alone. Author Danika Cooley has written Luther's story for young people in her new book, When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther.

To celebrate Reformation Day and the release of When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther, I've joined together with a team of blogger friends to host this wonderful giveaway, valued at over $500! One person will win ALL of the following: $100 Amazon Gift Card Fire 7-inch Tablet, WiFi 8GB ($49.99)  When Lightning Struck!: The Story of Martin Luther (hardcover $16.99) From WiseDecor.com, a $50 Gift Certificate From Nuremberg Tourist Board, a Playmobil Martin Luther figure ($9.99) From Thinking Kids Press, a curriculum bundle from When Lightning Struck! author, Danika Cooley:

• Cobblestone Path Church History Research Journal: The Reformation Age (digital $20)
• Bible Road Trip Year Three Curriculum and all 3 Notebooking Journals (digital $80)

From Fortress Press, a book bundle by author, Tim Dowley:

1. Christian Music: A Global History  ($35)
2. Introduction to the History of Christianity: Second Edition ($55) 
3. The Student Bible Atlas: Revised Edition  ($12.99) 
4. Atlas of the European Reformations ($24)

From Home School Adventure Co.:

1. Philosophy Adventure: Pre-Socratics (digital $39.95)
2. Mere Christianity Critical Analysis Journal (digital $18.95)

To enter the giveaway, use the Rafflecopter below.

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Terms and Conditions:

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.  Void where prohibited by law. Must be at least 18 years of age. This giveaway is in no away associated with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. No purchase necessary for entry. Odds are determined by the number of entries. Selected winners will have 48 hours to respond to email notification to claim their prizes or another winner will be drawn. Entry into this giveaway will subscribe you to the Thinking Kids Press email list. 

Wrapping Up the Week of October 4

Ummm . . . combination of not taking any pictures last week, and being very firmly in "hurry up and wait" land with the new house . . . I have NO idea what we did last week. . . 

We had a playdate with friends on Tuesday afternoon. the kids had fun playing outside and putting on a play for us. 

My parents were here working on painting the garage roof. 

I started packing. . . I love open floor plans, but the downside is, there's no good place to stack boxes that I've packed. . . so our house is even more cluttered and chaotic feeling than usual now, but much as it doesn't look like it, I AM making progress.

We had co-op on Wednesday. Little Bit continues to enjoy it. She was singing songs from Musik Garden the rest of the week. 

Sabbath was "Jean Sabbath", when we do various projects to help others in the afternoon. We went with a group to the Boys & Girls Club downtown and did a craft with the kids and played games in the gym. The turnout was great, and the kids were well-behaved but loud (made worse by the fact that the room where we do the craft is all hard surfaces so the acoustics are horrible (or maybe they're great, however you want to look at it . . . it magnifies the sound dramatically!). Little Bit struggled some with the craft and was in tears over it, which isn't like her. Thinking about it later, I think the volume was too much for her . . . the organizers were talking about possibly splitting the group in half next time, do craft with half the kids while the other half does games in the gym, then switch. Which will help, but I think I'll also talk to her before next month and suggest that if it's too loud and overwhelming she can go up to the gym with Daddy, and we can do the craft later at home. Or, see if she'd rather pass out lunches downtown instead. Other than that minor hiccup, it was great to see such an awesome turnout and the kids seemed to have fun. 

I have to admit, by the time we got home from that, I was more than peopled out. Little Bit wanted to go for a walk in the afternoon, and the weather was GORGEOUS so we did that. I think getting out in the quiet was good for both of us :) 

Wrapping Up the First Week of October

And now, fall is here! We had a wet (off and on), weird weather kind of week. The first few days, it was hot again, to the point that I grudgingly shut the windows and turned the a/c back on. And then, just like that, it went from hot to COLD! Grumble, grumble . . . I wanted more open-window time! Maybe we'll still get some, I hope!

This week was our first week of our new co-op. I have to admit, I wasn't sure how it would play out. I knew Lexie and Ashlyn would have great fun being helpers. But I wasn't sure how Little Bit would do. Our age range is 2-6, with her being the only 6 year old. Naturally, things need to be geared more toward the younger kids since she can do easier things but they can't do older-kid things. Some days she loves being the "big kid" other days, she doesn't. . . This time, at least, things went well!

The music part of our co-op is Musik Garden (similar to the Kindermusik my older girls did when they were preschoolers, but with more of a Montessori feel). Given the age span, the program she's using is the 4 year old program. Which I kind of liked getting to listen in on, since it reminded me most of the program the older girls were in :) Lexie and Ashlyn, being the awesome helpers they are, joined in as 2 of the "kids" so that the littler kids would have other kids to mimic. And Little Bit participated better than she usually does with singing in her class at church (interestingly, she also seemed to sing better in church this week, so maybe the combination will encourage participation both places, or maybe it was all a fluke, who knows . . . Later in the week she was telling my mom how much fun Musik Garden was, so it was a hit :)  (on a side note, one of the things she loves about going to Miss Sonya's house is all the baby stuff. The "baby" you see in the swing in the background of this picture is actually her (well, technically Ashlyn's, but Little Bit's kind of adopted him) doll, Marco. Whenever we're over there she happily moves him (or whichever doll(s) she brings) between the swing, pack-n-play, bouncy seat . . . ).

Then the kids had "PE" time. Lexie and Ashlyn tried to get them to play tag, but most weren't interested. The 2 year olds didn't like the wet grass (it wasn't raining, but had been earlier), and came back inside to play with toys. Little Bit and N (4) decided swinging was more fun. Ashlyn pushed them on the swings while Lexie played tag with D (4). But at least they got some wiggles out. We'll play with various ideas over the next few weeks, but I'm wondering if, at this age, they'll do better with unstructured outside time after the structure of music time. We shall see. 

Next came art/craft time. Little Bit is always happy when she gets to use paint, so she was happy as a clam, and again told Mama all about how fun it was. So the day was a success :) I'm definitely getting the easy deal out of this whole co-op thing, since Lexie and Ashlyn happily plan the PE part that is supposed to be my contribution. I got to cuddle the baby and just hang out :) 

Thursday, after much debating back and forth, and constant watching of the ever-changing weather reports, we decided to chance the rain and head to Longwood Gardens as planned.  The weather reports actually gave a very low chance of rain, but it did kind of drizzle all afternoon. Our friend Denise came with us and, in the world of tweens, Denise is much cooler than mom and grandparents, so Lexie and Ashlyn happily headed off to do their own thing with her. Which worked well, since it meant we could go at Little Bit pace. I have no idea what Denise and the big girls did, we spent most of our time inside, but Little Bit and Mama did have fun checking out the giant lily pads. 

We went out for pizza and then came back to Longwood for their lights display. By then it had stopped raining though it was still kind of drizzly. The lights display was really cool, and the bad weather meant there weren't any crowds. It made for a late night for the kiddos, but was a great day, despite the rain!

Sabbath was a busy, but fun day. In addition to all the normal stuff, I walked into church with Little Bit and a friend we hadn't seen in several years was there with her little girl we'd never met! Little Bit didn't remember her, but we had great fun surprising the big girls :) 

Sabbath afternoon a friend texted me and invited us to go geocaching. It was kind of cold, and the ground was saturated, but it was nice to get outside after all the rain. And the kids had fun finding geocaches that had stuff in them to trade :)

So a busy, fun, fall week!

In other news, things continue to move forward with the new house. In between all the fun stuff, I've been attempting to get some packing done. I have to admit, it's challenging. There are just no "corners" in this house for me to stack boxes in that they won't be completely in our way, and there's nowhere to stack boxes in the garage that won't be in Dad's way. So, I'm packing some stuff, but think to a large extent I'll just be REALLY busy once we do close on the house and I can start moving stuff straight from this house to the new house. If all goes as planned we'll be closing on it on the 20th. 

Wrapping Up . . . However Long It's Been

I think I'm behind again.  Week before last was a pretty normal (for us) week. School, gardening, my Dad mostly finished the deck on the back of the garage (I think there are still a couple of boards he needs to add to the railing, but it works (just in time for me to be able to easily get to the big pile of collapsed boxes that are up there so I can start packing). And then, of course, on Friday we bought a house!

Sabbath after church, the girls and I headed to my parents' house.  My friend, Vicki was up to visit her dad, so we went down to see her, and of course while we were down there, spent time with various other MD/WV friends. Spent most of Sunday with Vicki and family. The kids and dogs had fun playing with the kids and dogs. I think Ashlyn had at least one dog on her lap at all times (Vicki has 2, and her dad has 1, so there were 3 to choose from). Little Bit really likes "Mr Wiggles" because he's small enough, and tolerant enough, for her to carry around :)

After we left Vicki's, we went to see another friend. The big girls and her boys were close friends when they were all toddlers, but then we moved away, and they started school, and the kids haven't really kept in contact at all. But last spring, she told me they had goats, so Ashlyn kept asking when we could go see the goats, so we invited ourselves over while we were in the area :)

It took the kids a little bit to get re-acquainted, but goats and go-carts are great "ice breakers", so they warmed up pretty quickly. The big kids spent most of the time riding the go-cart. Once the girls were comfortable with it, Lexie took Little Bit for a ride. She LOVED it!

Monday we ran some errands and hung out at Mama Papa's house, figuring out what of the extra furniture they have stored in their basement, we'll want to use in our new house.

Tuesday we went to another friend's house. The kids all had fun fishing and running around in the woods. Playing with the chickens, and then, they got out the zipline. They spent the rest of the day on the zipline. I can't begin to imagine how many miles they ran, all up hill LOL.  It was a little too fast for Little Bit, but she did go down a couple times, with someone holding onto the rope and running along behind her, to keep the speed down. Then she came back inside to play.

Wednesday we headed home, but that morning before we left, I went out to the playhouse to ask Mama and Little Bit a question and as I reached for the doorknob to go back in the house, THIS is what I saw.

Needless to say, I jumped, and yelled . . . and chose to walk around to the front door to call Dad, rather than going through this door! The big girls came outside along with Papa, and we all had a nice little nature lesson for the day.  Dad said it's a baby black snake (which, apparently, aren't plain black as babies), probably only a few days old. None of us realized they could climb brick walls like that.  As Ashlyn leaned forward to get a better look, it fell (jumped?) off the wall onto the deck. She and Little Bit jumped LOL. Once we stopped staring at it, it crawled BACK up the brick wall. I'm wondering if it lives on the roof.

To continue our nature day, we stopped by my parents' former office before heading home, and, while it's hard to see in the picture, we saw a groundhog climbing a tree! Didn't know they could do that! Ashlyn and Little Bit also think it's pretty cool that a groundhog (whom they named Chocolate Chip Cookie) had dug a hole RIGHT NEXT to the big full length windows in the breezeway between the buildings. They enjoyed watching him sit within "touching" distance, if there wasn't glass there.

After our nature-y morning, we headed home, and had a quiet rest-of-our-week. I'm starting to try to figure out packing . . . and feeling a bit gridlocked. There is NO WHERE in our house here to stack boxes and have them not be very much in the way. And with Dad still doing fix-it projects (so his table saw etc needs to be in our garage), there's really no space in the garage either. I think I've figured out a plan of attack, stacking the boxes in front of some lightweight shelves that I can wait and pack up/move AFTER we've moved the furniture and boxes out. Also trying to menu plan from the freezer and pantry to reduce the food we have to move, though eating DOWN on our stores of food in the fall, feels . . . wrong LOL. 

Sabbath afternoon, some friends invited us to go geocaching with them. It's been a long time since we've gone geocaching, I need to get more intentional about doing it, especially now that Little Bit is old enough to really get into it too. We had a nice hike, and fun figuring out a very clever geocache.

Moving!!!!

It's slowly starting to sink in . . . we're moving (again)!!! Last Friday we looked at the house, made an offer, and the offer was accepted, all in one day!

We've been casually house-hunting, while trying to decide if we wanted to buy, build, or add-on to our current home. We weren't having much luck. Either the price was too high, or the house required a lot of work, or there were other houses too close . . . etc.

Then last Wed, I looked at a new listing that seemed to have promise. The pictures looked good. Checking out the property using google map's satellite view, it looked like it might work. . . Thursday after music lessons, we drove by it to see if the lot would really work. There are houses nearby, but not too close, and the way the house sits on the lot, it works . . . Time to see what hubby thinks. But he was busy, and didn't really look at the link I sent him that afternoon. Or that evening. Friday morning I asked (again) if he'd looked at it, and he agreed to let me show him the pictures. As I was showing him the pictures, he went ahead and called the listing agent. If he'd waited until we'd gone through all the pictures, it probably wouldn't have worked out. The house is rented, and the tenant gets 24 hour notice before a showing. The girls and I were leaving right after church the next day to go to my parents' house and wouldn't get home until Thursday. BUT . . . if we could leave RIGHT AWAY, we could look at it while the tenants were already out of the house for another showing.

My parents had talked about leaving first thing Friday morning, but decided to stay until mid-day, so they were still here. I'd mentioned the house to my mom the day before, but Dad knew nothing about it until I went out to where they were working on the deck, and told them we were leaving NOW to go see a house. Dad got changed, I got dressed (one of the perks of being a homeschool mom is getting to stay in your jammies till noon some days), we quickly made room for all 7 of us to fit in the minivan. And we left. Got there right on time, looked over the yard until the other potential buyers left, then went into the house. The rooms were smaller than I'd expected from the pictures, but we still really liked the house. My dad was impressed with how well it had been maintained. The girls liked that the "rustic" wood floors have some gaps between the boards, allowing them to "spy" on the main floor from their bedrooms. . .

The realtor mentioned that there were something like 7 other people who'd asked to see the house either that day or the next and suggested that, if we were interested, we might want to make an offer yet that day.

We went home, talked about it, looked over the sellers' disclosures the realtor e-mailed us and that afternoon, put in a formal offer. After some back and forth with the seller, early Fri evening, the seller accepted our offer and we are buying the house! We'll be closing on it, pending inspections, the end of October.

From the beginning of this journey, I've begged God to make His will crystal clear. I want to know we are making the right decision for our family. And I truly feel how amazingly all the puzzle pieces fell into place that Friday are a pretty good indication of exactly that!

My 2 "don't like change" daughters and I are still reeling a bit, but we're starting to get over the fact that it happened so fast LOL. I keep wanting to plan things out and realize that I didn't pay attention to those tiny little details that I would have noticed if I'd realized we wouldn't be going back to look at the house again. I figure once the tenant has moved out I'll ask the realtor if we can go back in and look at things so I can plan better, but it's not worth bothering a tenant who's trying to accomplish their own move.

I also didn't think to take any pictures since it was our first time looking at the house, but did copy a few off the real estate listing before it was removed.

The outside of the house looks like a farm house:

I love the big front porch! I can't wait to drink my morning coffee on that porch! And yes, I realize it will be November before that happens and I may have to bundle up to do it, that's ok! There's also a deck off the back of the house and a fire pit in the trees behind the house.

The inside has much more of a "cabin" feel.

In addition to a good sized eat-in kitchen and this living room, there's also a similarly sized sun-room off the back of the kitchen. I have to admit, while we've never been huge entertainers, I'm really looking forward to having space to invite more than one or two people over if we want to. And having two living spaces means the kids can play in one while the grown-ups visit in the other. With the girls all old enough to like to do things individually, it will also be nice to be able to read to Little Bit in the sunroom while Ashlyn practices piano.

Ashlyn is looking forward to having her own room. Lexie and Little Bit are fine with sharing a room. Guess which of my children is the introvert LOL. There's room in the basement to do a guest room space and still have room for a "go get your wiggles out" space that will also house most of the bookcases and such.  Another exciting thing for our family full of girls, is 2 1/2 bathrooms! After sharing one bathroom amongst 4 and then 5 of us for the past 7 1/2 years, I have to admit I'm super excited to have a master bath again! I'm also excited to have a large walk-in master closet, though more for storing everything from craft supplies to the clothes that Lexie and Ashlyn have outgrown, that I'm keeping for Little Bit, than my own clothes. I've learned to be content with a minimal wardrobe and will probably keep it that way :) The girls are all looking forward to bigger closets too.

So, now the fun of packing and sorting and such. It's going to make for a busy autumn, but I think it will be a good move for our family.

An Attempt to Catch Up!

I don't even know why I haven't been blogging . . . too much else going on, though nothing earth shattering or, really, enough to keep me from blogging . . .

So let's see . . . some highlights of the last few weeks . . .

My parents have been here quite a bit, working on adding stairs and a small deck to the back of our garage so we can access the storage space above the garage. It's almost done. The girls have all gotten experience screwing down decking and . . . I"m not sure what all else.  Little Bit has loved having tons of time with Mama as her personal playmate.

I started doing a separate Bible with Little Bit. Using the Jesus Storybook Bible. We read one story each week and then do one or more related activities. Depending on how much time we have and what I come up with. The first week we read the introduction (you know it's a great book when you want to read the introduction to your six year old!) and I printed out a big puzzle printable that someone created to go along with it. Little Bit and I had fun putting it together, it took up most of the living room!

I turned 40 in August. And have a wonderfully low-key, just us family, kind of birthday (my favorite kind!).

And, to celebrate turning 40, I got glasses LOL. I had glasses/contacts from 5th grade on, but a year or two before the twins were born I had lasik done. I was SOOOO thankful to not have to worry about glasses or contacts while dealing with infant twins. But over the last year or so I've noticed my vision getting worse again, so finally got around to going and getting glasses again. At this point, I wear them for driving and randomly other times. Sometimes at the computer, other times they annoy me at the computer . . . I figure once I get to the point of wearing them all the time, I'll go back to contacts, because I hate glasses, but for now, I'm dealing with glasses.

The girls are all very not impressed . . . when they said they didn't like the frames I'd chosen, I asked what kind of frames I should have gotten and the unanimous answer was, you just shouldn't wear glasses! I suspect it's mainly a matter of them not being used to seeing me with glasses, and they'll get over it eventually.

We've all been getting our baby fix regularly, thanks to our friend Sonya's new baby. She and I, and another mom, have been getting together to plan out Sabbath School for the rest of the year (they both work in the 0 to 3 yr old class, along with my big girls, and all 3 of us work in the 4-6 yr old class, so we've been figuring out stuff for both classes. And, discussing a small, informal, homeschool co-op we will be starting in a couple weeks. Little Bit has had fun playing with the other kids, but also taking her turn holding the baby. Lexie and Ashlyn have been great help at helping to keep the younger kids playing together, and taking turns holding the baby (notice a trend?). As well as taking a part in our planning since they help and teach too.

Little Bit found a kid-sized bench in the shade.

Last Sunday, we took a field trip to Steamtown National Park. They theoretically had some special extra exhibits and tours, but we never really figured out what was supposed to be happening when. And it was really hot, so that made it less appealing to try to figure things out. The highlight for Ashlyn was when we happened upon a K-9 cop demonstrating how his dog helps him. Unfortunately, they were playing music so loudly over the sound system that we couldn't actually HEAR his demonstration, but at least got to see the dog doing it's thing.

Climbing around in a "box car" full of "cargo"

We went through several engines, and other train cars. Little Bit got a start on her Junior Ranger, though she wasn't able to finish it because of the extra stuff going on (Lexie and Ashlyn earned their Steamtown Junior Ranger when they were 6, so didn't feel the need to try again, at least not on a hot, crowded day).

So it was a fun day, but could have been a lot more fun with some basic communication and organization on the part of the park.

Ashlyn's garden has been producing TONS of tomatoes, so I've been making and freezing tomato sauce for this winter. LOVING my vitamix! I just wash and core the tomatoes and chop them in half or so (to fit more in at a time) and toss them in the vitamix. When the vitamix is full I turn it on and let it turn them into juice/sauce. Then I pour it into my biggest pot and let it cook down all day. I'm not seasoning at all, that way we can turn the sauce into whatever we want when we use it. Since even my biggest pot ends up cooking down to only a 3 quarts (give or take) of sauce, I haven't bothered to can the sauce, I'm just putting it in freezer bags in the freezer. Thinking this winter, when having extra heat in the house will be a GOOD thing instead of a bad thing, I may pull it all out (along with some tomatoes that I froze whole last summer and never did anything with), heat it all back up and can it, to create more room in my freezer, and for easier quick use.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things we've been doing, but that's at least a brief overview of what we've been up to the last few weeks.