We put in another offer on "White Vinyl" (read DUPLEX below if you don't know what I am talking about) and they have accepted it. We are officially geared up to live in a duplex! I will get some more pics of it soon and post them. We are planning on closing and moving on Monday Ocotber 15th.
Going out of town last minute with two kids is pretty tough, but I am so thankful that my kids are pretty well bahaved, or else I wouldn't even attempt it. My mom called me last night, and my Grandma passed away Tuesday. She had a severe heart attack.
When my mom was 11, her biological mom (Katie Ruth) died in a car accident and then a few years later, her dad remarried to a lady name Audna Mae. She had 4 daughters, all whom were much older than my mom and my mom was never that close to any of them. After the death of my Grandpa in 1997, my Grandma had a stroke and wasn't able to communicate as well, so one her daughters (DJ) took her in. I have not seen my Grandma since 1998, right after I graduated high school because DJ would never let us (or any of our family as a matter of fact) see her. We never knew if my Grandma was well taken care of or not. We would hear stories of DJ taking Grandma along with DJ's husband and his mom around the US in a motor home, traveling from state to state. I never thought that was a good idea since my Grandma wasn't able to speak very well and she was an elder. As a matter of fact I just found out that she died in Florida. I didn't even know that they were living in Florida!! Whenever my mom and I would go to our annual "family reunion" in south Arkansas in the summer, we would drive by where they were living but I think they always knew what weekend we would be coming (regardless if we called or not) and they would leave so that we couldn't see my Grandma.
I don't even know if my Grandma knew that I got married, and that was 6 years ago, or if I had kids. I sent a wedding invitation and also birth announcements along with Christmas cards every year and never received anything back.
Needless to say, I have to go to her funeral, she was married to my Grandpa (he was my favorite) and she made him happy and I do have many good memories with her. It will be interesting to see family that I haven't seen in a long time, and also sad that I missed so much of my Grandma after she had her stroke.
I will be leaving in the morning with Caleb and Ariel and then we will be back on Saturday night. It's about a 6 hour drive.
Here is a link to her funeral home site and her obituary:
http://www.lewisfuneralhome.biz/ObitFrame.htm
click on Audna Diffee
OK, so I think all of you know that our house has on offer on it. Some of you have asked...where are we going to go? Well, Dan and I have had this idea for many years now of buying a duplex, living in one side and renting out the other for about 2-3 years and then we would move on to something else. We think that now is the time for that to happen. For the past week we have discovered that buying a duplex is a lot harder than buying a single family home. The financing is such a joke. The banks are wanting us to have so much liquid cash and then on top of that pay an additional 3% for taxes...all this after we pay 20% down. We are still going to get a duplex but now we just have to find one that suits us the best.
She is going home tomorrow!!! Praise God! She is off the ventilator and life support and is getting around quite a bit. She is off the liquids and is able to consume a few solids. Although she has made it through this scary situation, please continue to pray for them. They will have some moments within the next few months that may be kind of scary. The babies are doing fine and as far as I know she is still not dilated and the babies are staying put!! Thanks for all of your prayers!
Here is a website that has all of her information on her and updates. She took a turn for the worst last week and now has double pnemonia and is on life support. She is improving and they are hoping to have her off of life support today. The babies are still doing good but she is still having contractions. She has made it to 27 weeks! Please feel free to take a look at the journal that Kyle and Christie's mom is keeping. Thanks again for all of your prayers!
http://www.caringbridge.org/
Go to the website and where it says visit a caringbridge website type in christiehuggins.
Last Friday we received an offer on our house. It is a couple who is in their mid thirties with no kids and plans on using this home a lot for entertaining. The offer is pending upon an inspection and an adequate appraisal. Dan and I are weighing our options and have found a few potentials that we might consider putting an offer on soon so I will keep you all posted!
I have a dear friend named Christie (her husbands name is Kyle) and she is expecting twins with a due date around Christmas. She is around 25 weeks now and has just received news that one of her twins, Blake, has a heart condition that would need 3 surgeries before the age of two. The first surgery being needed at 5 days old. Since he is a twin his chances of being a preemie are high so therefor his chances for survival are below 50/50. Christie is also now in the hospital with preterm labor and is on a high dose of medication that is causing her own health to fail. Please lift them up and pray for a miracle in this family. They have been trying to have kids for quite a while. Also pray for the other twin as well, her name is Lauren. Thank you!
The past few days it has been rather chilly in the mornings so I have been able to get Ariel's fall clothes out and at least let her wear them in the mornings. Here are a few of the outfits that she has been wearing the past three days. Notice in one of the pics her new nike tennis shoes that I got on ebay! I actually got 13 pairs of shoes for $23.00...and they are all in excellent condition ranging in sizes 2-4. 
My wonderful friend Allison told me this morning that she had been tagged and had also tagged me! I wasn't sure what this meant, but low and behold I went to her blog site and she HAD tagged me and now I have to share 8 random things about me.
1. I have never in my life mowed a lawn. I think the reasoning behind this is because my mom and dad's dear friend cut his big toe off while mowing the lawn when he was young and I remember the horrifying story of him having to take his severed toe with him to the hospital to have it sewed back on. Granted he was mowing barefoot but still...I think if I did mow a lawn I would wear steel toed boots and also curl the toes under just to be on the safe side!
2. I always secretly knew that I would have a son first and then a daughter. That is just always the way I pictured my life.
3. When I was in 8th grade I wanted to be a Marine Biologist and move to Seattle and study the ocean!
4. I like to wear fake nails...they are just so much easier to maintain!
5. I have to rinse my feet off before going to bed. I know...it's weird but I can't stand it when I feet are clamy!
6. I can't read music but I love to sing in choir at church! I learn from hearing the music rather than reading it.
7. I wear a size 3 3/4 wedding ring...Dan got me a size 4 and it fell off!!
8. I love to cook but hate to bake.
Ok now it's your turn...those of you listed below you better do it...if anything do it for me, I want to know more random things about you!
Mandy Bean
Becca Cross
Erin Dees
Ranea Burt
Amber Powell
Yep, that's right!! She will be ONE in one month! Crazy to think that this time last year I was very much ready to have her (as a matter of fact this weekend last year I was having my baby shower!) Let's see...she is not walking yet but is cruising from the couch to the love seat and is able to walk while holding someone's fingers. She plays peek-a-boo now and covers her eyes when you ask her to play. She can also play pat-a-cake, and claps her hand and is starting to roll her fists when you sing "roll it up". She can say dog...it's more of a "DA" but then gives her version of a bark afterward which is pretty much a high pitch squeal (two in a row like "ruff ruff"). She has started playing with her brother a lot more. Today she actually grabbed his shirt and yelled at him after he had taken a toy from her! I think she will be able to stand her ground when the time comes.
I put her on the scale with me the other day and it said she weighed 20 pounds! Then after that, I got Caleb on the scales and it said he weighed 29.5...I think she will surpass him for sure shortly! She still eats very well and is still taking a bottle with warm formula. She is doing very well with the sippy cup and water but won't drink cold formula from it. I think by the time that she turns one she will be on only sippy cups and on whole milk. She still wakes up between 4:30-6:00 in the morning wanting formula in a bottle and I have done the big "no no" since she stopped nursing. When she wants the bottle at that time, I just give it to her and then go back to bed and let her keep it in her crib. But honestly I don't see the difference between her drinking it in my lap or laying in her crib and drinking it. She doesn't much care to be held while drinking it and I am afraid that if I just put her in the floor to drink it at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning then she will want to be up for good and play. I do not however just give her a bottle when I put her down for a nap or when I initially put her to bed at night. I guess it's just one of those things that you have a crutch on and you do what works! She is also still on the pacifier but I will wean her from that after she turns one. Caleb was able to give it up pretty easy right after his 1st birthday. I think it will be harder on me than on her...it's just tough the first few days until they forget about it!
I am so excited to see her in all her fall clothes. I have a great friend who let me borrow a ton of clothes that Ariel can wear this fall/winter and I bought some tights, shoes and bows to go with most of the outfits. The bows are still an issue because she has no hair and she pulls the headbands out now. I still use the stick on bows that I used on her when she was a newborn and they stay in pretty good!
About 5 years ago, Dan decided that he wanted to someday build a dining room table made out of a Walnut tree that was on the family farm. He and his dad hauled the tree to a logger and then had the tree cut into various sizes of boards and then had it kiln dried. His parents delivered all thecut boards to this house when we moved in and they have been stacked in a pile in our garage since then...we have lived in this house for 4 and a half years. Since Dan has been so diligent on wanting to get this house done, he has not had time to even work on the table at all. Well this past weekend he was finally able to get the table started and I could just see in his eyes how happy he was.
Once a month, one of my dear friends (Mandy Bean) organizes a play group called Toddler Toes. This month we were to meet at a local park near the square in Bentonville. Wednesday was the day that we were to meet but it was raining all morning so Mandy decided to relocate to a park a few blocks away that had a larger pavilion that we could "try" to corral all the kids in. Overall I think it went rather well and it was a chance to get the kids out of the house for the morning.
The finished product!
As you avid readers know, my dad went through some testing two weeks ago and was miraculously healed. Here is his testimony if you all are interested.
http://www.worldfaithnews.com/NewsStories/DaleRaleyTestimony.htm
Pool sticks in the ear?
She is saying..."Don't touch my pool sticks!"
BIG SPLASH!
Stop splashing me Caleb!
Clearly I think she had enough at this point!
Saturday we had our open house again from 10:00 to 12:00. Dan took the kids to the park and to wash the van and I stayed at the house to welcome people and answer any questions that they had. We had two families come. It was kinda a poor turn out for what we had been having but I am just glad that someone showed up! At 10 minutes till 12:00 Dan comes home and lets Caleb use the bathroom and then we all went to the park again. I meant to bring the camera to get some pictures but I forgot it. After the park, we went and walked around at the Farmer's Market on the Bentonville square. We were going to buy some honey from a local farmer but it was so expensive and we couldn't justify spending $11.00 on some honey so we ended up leaving empty handed. We went home and had lunch and then Saturday evening we had Seth, Kelsy, Rylan and Cameryn over for dinner. I cooked Dan's favorite...spaghetti and meatballs, the Vannaman's brought the salad and then we had Lemon Bars for dessert. It was great having them over for dinner!
Sunday we went to early service at church. I sang in choir and then sat with Dan during the sermon. After church we went home and fed the kids and then put them down for their naps at noon. We had yet another open house at 2:00 until 4:00 so we needed to get the kids at least an hour worth of a nap. It took Caleb a while to get to sleep but Ariel went down right away. The open house went well for a holiday weekend. We had three families come and one family was a return from Saturday. We decided that we will still have open houses every weekend but only on Sundays from now on. Two days is just too much for us...especially with the kids.
I took the kids to the mall during the open house. I needed to get some gifts for Bunco since I am hosting this month and I also needed to get Kyle and Chiristie Huggins little twins a baby gift for their shower this coming weekend. The kids did excellent at the mall. Caleb even got out of the stroller in stores and stayed near me without touching anything! I was so proud! Dan ended up calling me when I was in JC Penney and as soon as I got off the phone with him I dropped my phone on the floor. This usually isn't a big deal, my phone gets dropped all the time since I have a three year old that likes to play with it all the time, but this fall sent the phone over the edge!! It cracked the screen and I can't see anything at all!! And now for some reason it's not even making or receiving calls. I have an old phone...one of the silver samsung flip phones with no camera that I got about 2 and a half years ago so I was in need of an upgrade!! Below is what my phone screen looks like now!
Today I was able to sleep in until 8:30!!! When I got up, Dan had fixed the kids eggs and toast for breakfast and it was so nice to not have to worry about cooking at least one meal for them today! I get so tired of cooking all the time. I mean I love to cook but since I don't buy many things that are already made I spend a lot of time preparing meals on my own. After the kids were done eating, Ariel went down for her nap and then I cleaned the kitchen and dining room and did a load of laundry. Caleb and Dan went to the garage and got started on building my dining room table!! It is going to be so pretty! I will have to show pics and tell you guys about it when it is complete. After Ariel got up from her nap, she and I went to Wal-Mart to check out the deals on their cell phones. I think Dan and I decided that we are just going to go ahead and get the RAZR phones. He really wants a blackjack but he is pretty sure that it can wait until the future. Ariel and I came home, I fed the kids lunch and then they took a nap. I watched tv for nearly 2 hours...something that I rarely do in the afternoons! When they woke up I got the elmo sprinkler out for them to play in...they hate sprinklers!! Caleb didn't want anything to do with it and when we put Ariel near it she just crawled away. I decided instead that I would just fill up the pool and then let them play in it for a while. I will post more pics of the pool tomorrow. The kids were dog hungry after playing in the pool and it wasn't quite 5:00 yet. I fed them some Velveeta shells and cheese and some carrots thinking that would hold them for a while. Well at 7:00 Caleb was telling me he was hungry again so I made hamburgers for all of us with french fries. It is 10:15 now and Dan is still in the garage working on the table. He is so excited about it! It will be gorgeous!
Crazy haired Caleb eating a clementine.
The pool is so much more fun than the sprinkler!
