Parting is such sweet sorrow :(

What a sweet evening these beautiful little girls had last night on their first and only sleep-over. We ate pizza, made a fire, roasted marshmallows, watched the American Girl Felicity movie (the girls' dollls are best friends in the American Girl world), made candy necklaces and watches, and THEN they stayed up until almost 2am. This morning they were up around 7:30 when they played American Girls some more, had breakfast in bed, and ended the play date playing outside. What a fast, furious, and fantastic sleep over for two sweethearts. We will dearly miss little Mariah. I don't know how Anna will be able to find such a wonderful, perfect friend again. I can't tell you how tragic this loss is for our family. Mariah lives only a minute away, and HER mom does most of the transporting for the girls. Mariah is the youngest of four while our Anna is the oldest of four. Isn't that cute? I love that Anna goes to their house and sees intense homeschooling in action. It gives her a peek into our future. :) I need to add that buying Anna's American Girl has been a great decision. All that agonizing I did over it, and my initial decision wasn't right!! Oh, well. It's not the first time I messed up with these kids.

A Little Giggle

How often do you fall asleep with a toy horse standing on your chest?

Trains, trains, trains

You can't wonder why we love the Thomas wooden trains after seeing this picture! You also can't wonder why we need so much track. How else can three kids play on one track??

I am completely amazed at the little engineer Jonah has become. This train set is an amazing educational tool, and he thinks it's a toy. Ha! We were at Books A Million one day looking at the Thomas trains, and a lady commented to me that some of the risers for the track look nice but they fall down even after gluing them. I didn't really understand what she was saying until we left the store. Now, I'm wondering who on earth would glue the track pieces together? Doesn't everyone know that the value in the train set comes from engineering different track layouts? The train engines are just decorations! I wish I could go back and show her the light. Jonah and I have fun one-upping each other trying to make the fanciest tracks.

!!!!!!

Mark unofficially has a job! He had dinner tonight with his new employer-to-be, and everything went very, very well. The district attorney has to get board approval to officially offer the job to Mark, but other than that issue, the job is his!! Mark was told to expect a call early next week. We don't know $$ yet, so we are holding our breath until we get the call. We are planning on taking the job regardless of the pay, and then figuring our next move. If it isn't enough and it doesn't get better, we will have a short stint in Madison, MN. If it is great and Mark loves it, we may be there for a very long time. We were only given two options for a rental, so at least we don't have to agonize over the choice there. Mark drove by our first pick today, and he said it is beautiful. So beautiful that we might like to buy. The problem, of course, is that buying in this community seems to be a forever choice. Houses stay on the market for years. Yikes. If we do buy, it had better a forever house.

Quick Update

I'm running on about 20% today. Yesterday I went to the doctor for antibiotics since I finally figured out that I must have a sinus infection. My cold has been getting much worse day by day, so it has to be more than a cold. Well, that's what I think. Today has been just terrible. Oh, well. Maybe the kids will behave better if they feel sorry for me. Anyway....Mark is still in MN. He's waiting for a job offer from his interview in Madison yesterday. He is hoping to find a place for us to rent beginning Feb 1 so we can move directly there. We certainly have a lot of pieces that need to fall in perfect alignment for everything to happen smoothly. I'm glad that I don't have to think about any of it, because I honestly don't have the capacity to do more than exist today.

More Matching

Yesterday morning I found Jonah dressing Eli. Here are the outfits Jonah picked out: Do they look matching to you? Then, Jonah's shirt got wet. After that catastrophe, here is what I found the boys wearing:

These boys are a riot. They are creating more laundry than the girls! Who would have thought that they want to match? I suppose if I made them match, they wouldn't like it. Today is another interview for Mark. Before the interview, he's stopping by yet another district attorney office to line up some volunteer work in case he doesn't get the job he's interviewing for later. Wow. That was a mouth full. Mark went winter wear shopping yesterday and found almost all of the kids' clothes on clearance. Score! We only have winter wear through size 3T, so Anna & Jonah needed almost complete outfits. My cold continues to hang on. These constant sinus headaches really wear on me. I am very fortunate that the older three spent most of yesterday outside playing dinosaurs. I'm not sure if I could have handled their normal level of noise and commotion anywhere near my head.

Day 3

We made it through! My cold has gone backwards, so I spent most of the day with a hazy headache. Our list of to-dos will continue through Tuesday. Mark felt positive after his interview. They aren't making any decisions for a couple weeks. Going into this one, we didn't expect him to get the job. We assume that he is up against people with quite a bit of experience, especially since the job is located smack dab middle of St Paul. Tomorrow is his interview in Madison, MN. Literally the middle of nowhere. We were looking at real estate listings, and some of the houses have been listed for years. Obviously, it is an economically depressed area. The current economy probably isn't having much of an impact on their community. Well, we are really, really hoping for this job. We love everything about the job and lifestyle. The only problem is how far away it is from everyone and everything.

The Mall

Maybe I should type it like this - THE MALL. I don't do malls with kids. Ever. My husband needed to have his watch fixed before he left on his trip. Trying to be a wonderful wife, I agreed that I would face my nemesis and help him out. It didn't go well. How could that be? Well....read and feel my pain. First, we went after lunch and before naps. Not a good time to be anywhere with four kids. I gave my instructions before we got out of the van....going to be fast, stay with mom, just in and out, stay with mom, don't touch, etc, etc. We made it to the watch repair kiosk with no problems. Thumbs up for my group. Woo hoo!! Then...................we retrace our steps directly back out of the mall. Remember, mom said it was an in-and-out trip. We're walking in a line like ducks according to age (big fun for group). Mom's talking to everyone making sure they know they are supposed to be in the line. One little duckling stops following and starts up the stairs. Yikes! Give me credit. I calmly instruct said duckling to get back into the line. What do you think happens? Little mischevious smile and further progress up the stairs. What to do? I know this little duckling is fast and mischevious. I know I am not fast while carrying a 20lb+ baby. Hmmmmmm. I put Anna, Jonah, and Sarah in a corner and instruct them not to move. At. All. Sarah starts crying. I run up the stairs and catch little Eli by the back of his shirt just before he heads into a store on the second level. Now you can see the smoke coming out of my ears. I grab his wrist and clearly instruct him to walk with me. He cries and wiggles trying to get out of my very, very tight clasp. NO.WAY. This kid WILL NOT get away from me. When we get back to the other three, they are surrounded by concerned mall workers. My heart skips a beat. Oh, no. Now we have to make a fast break. That's not a good thing to have mall workers asking your kids where their mommy and daddy are. So, I pick up Sarah (while maintaining my tight clasp on little Eli), thank the concerned mall workers, and quickly leave. Does Eli come along nicely? What do you think? He starts crying and laying on the ground. I tell him to get up. But, as I already know from having two older kids, you can't make a kid walk. You can only pick them up. Well, I didn't have to think about it at all. I picked him up like a sack of grain under my right arm, carried Sarah nicely with my left arm, and booked it out of the store with Eli crying, screaming, and flailing all the way. Never have I been so happy to leave a mall!!! After a couple days, my mommy hindsight thinks this was a good experience. Eli and I need more of these little showdowns. That kid certainly needs more training. As proof, he traveled too far away from me at the park later that same day. One of the moms in my group told me that she was glad I didn't have him cooped up in a stroller or in one of those tether things. She even said that he was the kind of kid who a lot of parents would think "needed" that. Hmmm. Those would probably be the sane parents. But, no, it's not for us. If he didn't have the ability to get away from me, I wouldn't have the need to correct him. He would never learn that running away isn't acceptible, and even worse, he wouldn't learn that his job is to stay with me. Maybe those other sane parents know different ways to train their kids. I don't. And, the good news? We went to Walmart the day after THE MALL, and little Eli did a fantastic job of listening to me and coming back to me when I told him to. So, maybe, just maybe, THE MALL was a good thing.

Memory Box

Our very blah memory box. We started the year with a new concept - the Family Memory Box. Throughout the year our plan is to put momentos into the box. Then, at the end of the year, we will go through the box and have a fun family memory evening. I think this should be fun. My plan is to decorate the box a little, but certainly not before we move. So, here it is just begging for some decoration. I haven't even taken off the instruction papers that it came with!

Day 2

We survived another day! Our objectives for today were: (1) church @ 8:00am, (2) take down the Christmas trees, (3) catch up with laundry, and (4) thank you notes. Well.....all missions were accomplished!! Jonah just makes me laugh. He wants to match Eli. So, they wore red shirts to church today. I laugh because I'm not the type of person to dress my kids in matching outfits. Pretty ironic that my kids are that type of person. Here is the girl of the hour. See that missing spot in her smile? Anna decided (with tears) today that she needed her tooth back. So, she put a note in the tooth fairy pillow asking for it back. Well, this morning.....wallah....it's back! The tooth fairy asked her to keep her tooth in her special box.

Here are Anna and Felicity eating breakfast. You may not have met Felicity yet. She's our new addition. I still can't believe we have a $125 American Girl doll. Yikes!!! She does everything with Anna, and Anna is doing a great job taking care of her. Anna used all her savings to buy Felicity a jean outfit and a vanity yesterday.

Anna just came up with a great idea. She's thinking about leaving her tooth under her pillow every night and getting money from the tooth fairy every night. Is that how it works? Will the tooth fairy know it's the same tooth? Hmmmmm.....we'll see. Mark has an interview this afternoon and another Wednesday. We can't wait to see him back here in Texas.

Day 1

We made it through the first 24 hours without Mark. Last night everyone cried at bedtime. It was tough. Tonight just a few tears from Anna. Big milestone - Anna lost one of her three front teeth tonight!! It is now safely resting in our new tooth fairy pillow. (Thanks, Ellen!!) She was wiggling it all night, and seeing the tooth made Jonah queasy. He even told me that he didn't want to grow up. Isn't that funny? We're doing something new which I LOVE. I've assigned a dinner helper for the past three nights. The kitchen work sure goes much quicker with help. I hope all our chore routines are easy to re-implement after we move. We were out and about quite a bit today. It's been good training for Eli and for me. He did a great job today. I was quite surprised. What a far cry from our mall experience this past week! Oh, well. The mall experience just reinforced my belief that the mall is not a place for our family for so many, many reasons. I guess I am now officially anti-mall. :)

Epiphany

We celebrated Epiphany for the first time this year. In preparation for the feast, we have been reading The Legend of Old Befana and The Three Wise Kings, both by Tomie dePaola. One of my goals this school year is to celebrate the liturgical year more fully. We'll see how it goes.

My grand plan was to make a King Cake. We tried, but it was a flop. I think I killed the yeast. Oh, well. Mark saved the day by picking up a cake on the way home from work.

After dinner, we put the play silks on the kids kinda like the kings wore. Then, they had a treasure hunt to find their Epiphany gifts. Anna read the clues while Jonah audited the numbers to make sure they were going in the correct order. Eli just ran around while Sarah tried to make a break for the stairs.

After they found the gifts, we ate our cake and I read the bible story of the three wise men. It was a fun evening! Notice the stategically color coordinated dishes. Yep. That was unplanned.

I think we are done with special events until after we move. It's only 2 weeks away!

January is making me tired.

We updated our calendar this morning at breakfast, and W-O-W. What a month. Mark works all this week and then drives to MN on Friday on the 9th. He interviews on Monday the 12th and then drives home. Then, the packers come on the 21st, the movers come on the 22nd, we clean on the 23rd, and then we leave TX on the 24th. We should be in MN by Feb 1. Whew!! Why, oh why, are we moving to MN in January??

Cuties

If you are looking for Little S, this is where you are most likely to find her. She stealthily waits until our backs are turned and then she makes a fast and furious break for the stairs. That little girl is fast! She goes up the stairs almost as quickly as E2. Here are the little cuties together.

And here's E2 being cute. He voluntarily headed to the corner for a picture. Guess he knows his spot. I must say that he is finally talking up a storm, and he's darn cute at it.