Busyness

Things have been busy around here. I have tried all week to get this house cleaned up so that I can get some free time to work on Blake and Lauren Huggins' paintings (by the way, the Huggins are all at home and they are all doing well!!! Praise God!! What a Miracle!) for their nursery walls. Today I cleaned the house from top to bottom all before noon...scrubbed 3 bathrooms, vacuumed the whole house, cleaned out the fridge and pantry, mopped floors, dusted, organized the toy room, cleaned the kitchen and the oven, and cleaned the downstairs windows...all this while trying to keep the kids occupied. I felt guilty all morning for not playing with the kids but I was on a roll and just wanted to get that stuff done! So while they were napping, I watched TV! Something I hardly do while they are napping!

These pictures were taken a few days ago...notice Caleb's new quilt on his bed that my grandma made him for Christmas. Eventually the bed that is in Caleb's room (the white one) will go in Ariel's room and the quilt that my grandma made for her will go on it. And the red twin bed that is in Ariel's room now will be Caleb's. This transition will happen once Ariel is ready to move out of the crib...probably a year from now. In the third pic, Ariel was playing in the toy room and there is also a picture of her room (just in case anyone was curious as to how their rooms look now that I have hung blinds and got the window darkening under control).

Yesterday, I watched Hailey for Shannon Allen while she went and had her ultrasound done at the Women's Clinic. We were all hoping and praying that this one (since it is her third child) would be a boy. Low and behold she is having girl number three! She says that if anyone wants to make donations to her wedding fund she would greatly appreciate it! The baby looked great and I think now that the shock of having another girl has settled, she is very excited to have a healthy baby inside of her.

Ariel is doing much better since she has had three full days on antibiotics. The past two nights she has gone to bed like normal...change her into her pj's, milk while rocking and singing to her (she would just push me away the past few nights and cry while I did this), brush her teeth and then put her down with no tears! She is soooo much happier now!

Tomorrow Dan has leaders training in the morning at Church from 8-12 and then I have my first meeting at the gym for Fit for a Lifetime at 1:00. They will be taking pictures and measuring body fat and inches and weighing us tomorrow. I went today and stocked up on all the food that I will need. Thanks to Leah who let me borrow her food journal, I knew what I needed to buy. I will keep you posted on the progress I am sure because that will probably be all that I think about the next 12 weeks!

I don't think I told everyone this last week but we finally got a tenant next door! Hallelujah! Now we are getting their rent checks to help with our mortgage. They are a really nice couple in their early fifties. He is a truck driver during the week and she is a manager at the Sam's Club home office. Their kids are grown and they have no pets. It's just her Mon-Fri so their place is very quiet. I am sure they can't say the same for our side because of our kids who tend to be loud at times. We are looking into ways to soundproof our walls (even more than they are) to help muffle everyday noises. If you happen to drive by our house on the weekends, you will see the semi that our neighbor drives parked in the driveway...at least it is white and it matches our house!

Caleb is learning to write his name. He does such a great job. He still tends to write his A's like H's and he adds an extra line now and then to his E's but he is still doing wonderful! I used the "tablet lines" to help him get his letters straight, this helps him a lot.

Here's daddy's little monkey!

And the kids playing in Ariel's room.