Snapshots of GA

The crew in the car. Yup, I did the 14 hour drive home all by my lonesome. There was some screaming, but then I calmed down and we were okay. :) Actually, the kids were all really good. And a little bit of preparation goes a long way. I had gotten some little presents at the dollar store, and would chuck them one every few hours. And I broke the time up with movies, coloring, snacks, and stops. And I had everything I need to hand back to the kids within arms reach. I'm an expert at chucking to the back seat. :0) My favorite thing for car trips is our travel ticker on the ceiling. I write the names of some of the cities we pass through on masking tape, and we have a little car that we move along the road. So the kids know how far we are from our destination. It was my friends idea a few years ago, and she even sketched me the little car. I laminated it (of course!) and still use it every trip. Thanks Rachel!
We went to Georgia to visit my sister Dawnelle. Hi Nelly! These pictures are sorta backwards in order, but oh well. We did a lot of this.
See, look at me sewing! This is when I fired out my kids Halloween costumes. I loved sewing at Dawnelle's house because our kids would all play and basically leave us alone to sew. Woohoo!
My sister, as much as I love her, is a weirdo. Here we are trimming the tree before Halloween. She's got no principles.

Proof for these next few pictures that I did not have the camera. :)Shooting water rockets of the back porch. Both of my girls got clobbered in the face. I mean, we were watching them shoot up and then fall! Why are we not moving out of the way? I mean, oh, poor babies! {sympathetic face}
Staying well out of the way now.
The kids had craft time too!
Walking along a nature path that Dawnelle was sure was filled with hooligans hiding and waiting to snatch us and/or our children. Like any hooligan would be thinking that two ladies with six small children would be an easy target. :) We be crazy like mother bears, yo!
Mass bath. It's a good thing they have an extra large tub! :)
Playing in their backyard. I loved the backyard and so did my kids!! I want one!
At one of Carter's baseball games. Those were just a hoot! It was so fun to watch all these little kids running around in their uniforms. Carter has a good arm on him! Brighton really enjoyed watching and practicing with Carter at home. I'm not very sports minded; I really need to think more about getting my kids involved in sports.

Our main purpose in going to GA was to get all our stuff of our storage unit (being Dawnelle's garage) and bring it back to IA. Bit of a bummer, but at least I got a trip out of it! Being with my sister and her family was tons of fun. I stayed for about a week and a half, and it was over way too soon. Hopefully living in Georgia will be in our future!

Kicking the habit

What will we do for comfort?

Both of my girls have sucked their thumbs. Brighton stopped when she was five, using sheer willpower and the promise of a special dinner with dad once the thumb callous was gone. Logan had a pacifier at nap and bedtime until this past summer. He was sad when I took it away, but after a few days he was fine. A few months ago, Spencer starting sucking his index finger when I lay him down for bed. Can I hope for just a passing phase?

Brooklyn is having a hard time giving up the thumb. She was all set to stop sucking it when she was five years old, but now that the magic age has arrived, she's decided that she'd rather stop when she's six. I don't make a big deal about it, but she's started doing it more and more: at computer time, movie time, in the car, during reading time... it really does need to stop. So I tried this. (The seller is on vacation, but you should be able to get a good idea of the product from the pics.)

I really liked the idea of the soft thumb cover. First problem: Brooklyn is a tricksy girl, and slipped it right off. So I sent it back to be resized. Second problem: She started sucking her other thumb She told me that at first it felt funny but after a bit it was fun. Greeaat. {Shouldn't there be a font for sarcasm?} So I tried a reward- every day that she leaves the thumb cover on, she gets a piece of candy at bedtime. That worked for one night. We tried putting a glove over the other hand, to keep her from sucking that thumb. I don't want to buy another thumb cover! This morning she wakes up so excited to tell me that she didn't suck either thumb last night, instead she sucked her finger! And I have to laugh because she's telling me like it's the best idea ever and I should be so happy!

And I decided, not for the first time, that this girl is going to do whatever she wants to.

With one of her many bug friends. :)

My new favorite sound

Brighton was in a helping mood and vacuumed the stairs for me this morning. And I decided that I love the sound of my kids running the vacuum! It really did put a smile on my face. And reminded me of when I was younger and all of us eight kids would be doing our morning chores.

My mom probably just loved the sound of all that vacuuming, dish washing, dusting, wiping off- all done by her kids.

I think I need to have some more kids --- and some more vacuums. :)

Halloween happened!

Sadly, this is the best and only picture I have. I am just kicking myself now- but I'm hoping Grandma and Grandpa have better ones. I made the costumes while I was in Georgia visiting my sister Dawnelle. (Which was awesome, and needs its own post :)

Brighton is Princess Tiger Lily, Brooklyn is Tinker Bell, Logan was Peter Pan, and Spencer was a lost boy. Who had already lost his hat by the time we took this picture.

Our ward had a trunk or treat on Friday, we went door to door on Saturday, and celebrated James' birthday on Sunday. It was a sugar filled weekend!

I'm not a huge fan of the sweet treats- my kids don't get them daily- so I wanted the candy to be kept at a minimum. They all had a lot, so I told the kids that I would pay them five cents for every piece of candy they gave me. Brighton gave me a dollar's worth and Brooklyn parted with 30 cents worth. Logan said no. :) Of course, I do a little after bedtime sneaking. But it goes straight in the trash. I'm sooo not tempted by store candy. I'm not going to waste my time with second-rate treats. But if it's Dove chocolate or something homemade... that's another story. :)

Spencer

My little Spencer boy is one!! His loves right now:

Dancing- he loves to shake his bootie. He'll get mad at you if you turn it off.

Mooching food- if you have it, he wants it. He loooves to eat with silverware. He can be a picky eater though. He usually likes the first 5-6 bites and then he's done with that course. I have to be pretty inventive. Some of his favorites are black beans and olives. Weird kid. :) You can see from the pictures that grandpa is an easy target.

Blankie- he gets his blankie at bedtime and he's always excited to see it. He loves to wrestle and chew on it. I usually find him sleeping curled up on it. Spencer also started sucking his index finger (!) about a month ago. Right now it's just when he goes to sleep, and hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

Walking- he's been walking for a few months, and is pretty fast at it. He loves being able to follow the kids around.

Driving in the car- he sits next to Logan and those two are just silly together. He loves to look out the window.

Babbling- he talks to everybody, and it sure seems like he's saying something serious.

Spencer is such a sweet boy, and we all sure love him. Although I love my teensy babies, this age is fun too. He loves to try and do new things. Like buckle his seatbelt. :) Silly sweet boy.

Meanwhile...

Little update on what we're doing: we're still looking at buying a house. This whole process takes forever!! I would love to be in our own place by Christmas, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. We're working on consolidating our student loans, saving up money and finding a lender. We've mostly just looked at houses online and spent some time driving around neighborhoods. I don't want to talk to a real estate agent or go to an open house until we have a loan approved. And we're also busy getting other grown-up things figured out like health insurance. Sometimes I just want to go back to being a student! It's all I've known for the past ten years. This is all crazy new stuff.

We'll be leaving for Georgia this Friday to load up all our stuff and drive it back here. Well, James is doing that anyway. I'm going to stay and play for a while! Yay!!! The kids are all really excited. My sister and I are going to be working on Halloween costumes while I'm there, and I'm looking forward to having a crafting partner. Happy Fall everyone!!

umm, Hi!

I've been such an absent blogger this summer. I have several good reasons that I won't bore you with. :) The summer has been filled with lots of fun activities, so I'll give you a quick rundown of the highlights:

homemade pinata

happy birthday Logan

local zoo

rodeo

short and expensive haircut

starting school

first steps

potty training

terrible but cheap haircut

two trips to Nauvoo

Whew!! After tres months of being apart, James flew back to join the family in Iowa at the end of July. He has been working at Best Buy part time while he continued the job search. We've been apart too many summers. I think 4 or 5. It's just not good for us, we need to stop doing it! There have been lots of ups and down as far as the job search. James would get an interview and our hopes would be high for a few weeks, and then would slump down when he didn't get the position. It's been an awful and emotional roller-coaster. But last week he was offered a position at Genesis Medical here in Davenport IA. So yay!

Um, is it awful that I spent several days being really depressed about this job? It's a great job, really exciting for him. But I'm kind of bummed about it being here in Iowa. What is that about??? We moved all our stuff to Georgia, we felt so sure that that was where we needed to end up. And although the job is great, it's not like our financial worries are over. But there, that's enough complaining. It's going to be great, and we'll make it work and continue to have faith. That's what we Mormons do, right?!

So we're looking into buying a home, and boy is that another stresser. I go between wanting to close my eyes until it's over and needing to know every single thing about the home buying process. I currently have five books from the library about real estate. :)

I'll try to be better about getting on the computer and keep ya'll posted. Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes from everyone!