So much sadness.

There is so much sadness around here right now. We have two family members both VERY sick, and on the verge of passing away. The first we got notice of was my great uncle Paul. We found out that he has cancer on his lymph nodes, and was given a year to live. He started chemo, and things just aren't looking good. Last weekend the call was put out there to "call the family just in case." And while it looks like he has pulled through this episode, they aren't sure how much more he has in him.

Next is Todd's great aunt Carol. She fell last weekend and broke five ribs, and has a hematomoa on her lung. Well, this is only one of many in a string, and she just can't heal before another incident happens. She lives in Tucson, AZ, so Todd's grandma (her sister) flew down to be with her. She was moved to hospice on Wednesday. We were told last night that she many not make it through the day today.


And you know how they say death always seems to come in threes? Well, that seems to be the case here too. We have a friend at church who was diagnosed with colon cancer, and has had other things go wrong. While they were able to operate and get the tumor out with the cancer, she is no longer strong enough to go through chemo, due to the other things that were going on. The family yesterday was presented with two choices. The first would be to try to get IV nutrion and get her stronger, which probably wouldn't happen since she couldn't get up to walk around, and gain some physical strength. Or they could move her to hospice and keep her comfortable until she passed away. They opted for the second option after being presented with the options. Its so sad. She's only in her 50's. WAY too young. We dont' know how long she will have, but it sounds like a month max.

I know being a Christian that I can have faith that these people are moving on to something bigger, something better, and something wonderful. But at the same time its not easy to go into this without sadness, and a feeling of loss, as they will no longer be with us. I don't think it will ever be easy, or ever not hurt to lose someone you love. Even though I know whats next for them.

Beyond that, we're still dealing with house stuff. And this proves to be another point of sadness for me. We've tried to get some work crews together to work on our new house. All people that Todd has helped in some way or another, and also some family members, who he WOULD help, in a seconds notice, either of us would really. And its hard, because we just found out that NO ONE is coming tomorrow. No one. And it hurts. It hurts me to know that this upsets my husband. He is so giving with his time. He' do anything for anyone, and when he needs help, it seems that there is no one there to help him. And I feel even more horrible, because I could be at the house helping him out with things. He and I could be working together, but I have to be with the kids. I don't have anyone to watch the kids for me, so I have to be here with them. And it just hurts me to know that this is how we're starting out the memories of our new house. With upset, and disappointment.

The house itself is proving to not be very nice to us as well. Its been COLD here lately. And inside the house is currently 55 degrees. Even if the temps OUTSIDE get to be in the 60's, it stays COLD in the house. So last night Todd wanted to get the vents cleaned out of debris, and get the furnance working. Turns out the induder motor is broken. He's looking around to find a new one, and its looking like its going to be a minimum of 400 bucks to fix. Oh the joys.

On top of all the stress, pressure, and sadness, I am now sick. No one else in the house is, just me. I'm wondering if it isn't just my bodies way of saying OK! I've HAD ENOUGH!!!

I want to end on a happy note, so here are some pictures of my kiddos from this week, and also some pictures of our finds from shopping the other day.


Here's Gabe. He's now officially lost TWO teeth. The other wiggly one came out the other day while he was eating. We have no clue where the tooth went, we're thinking he may have swallowed it! You can't see it in this picture, but its the bottom front two! Just in time for picture day!!!
My funny little clown Kaleb.
Dallas. He's getting so big, and so grown. I can't believe it!
Bubby again.
All four kids being silly.
Gotta love footie pj's when its cold outside!!!
Kendyl girl and her new old find. It's been in her toy box and she pulls it out from time to time. She got it for her second birthday! Its her new favorite though.
Kaleb and his "beer". Another stuffed animal they've had for a while, but its his new favorite. He calls it a BEER. Something I'll have to remind him of later in life!!!!
This little boy just makes me smile! He's ALWAYS happy!
Kendyl playing shy
Kendyl escaping from the new house yesterday, while we were there to take pictures!
Come on bubby! lets get out of here!
We have a MILLION of these little guys in our yard at the new house. They're all out and about getting food before it gets too cold! This little one stopped, looked at me, walked closer, gave a good sniff and decided I wasn't too big of a threat and kept oh his mission. Shortly after this picture he found a crab apple, and the twins giggled like silly fools while he scampered up the tree with it!!!
Here he is just before his big find!!!
This is the new bath vanity we bought at BMO. Its oak with double sinks. We also got the counter top there! The best part? The vanity was only 270 bucks, and the marble counter top was only 50 bucks!! WOO HOO for good deals!!!
Closer up of the pattern on the sink. The color doesn't show up well. Its a chocolate brown, with tans, browns, and others mixed in.
They also had ALL the kitchen cabinets we needed! We were so excited! And they had them in a finish we could live with, and a finish where the insides of the cabinets were finished too! WOO HOO!!!!
They're considered a "pecan" color. We got the ENTIRE kitchen cabinet set for about 1,800! Another great deal!
They are now living in the living room until the kitchen is ready to house them!
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Yet another update of the housing kind.

Todd and I went last Friday to the local Home Depot while my mom and dad watched the kids for us! We talked with the woman about the lay out we wanted to see in the kitchen and she helped us come up with one. I felt a little bad, because we don't actually intend to BUY one from them, we're going back to the bargin housing supply place, but we could NOT visualize the kitchen without a program like this, and they offer it for free, whether you buy or not. This is the plans we came up with with her, and the plans that we're hoping to follow pretty closely!!!

Please ignore my messy handwriting on the first one! I was just jotting down some notes for if we DID decide to go through them. And please keep in mind, these aren't the colors we'd chose, etc. This is just their sample plan!






On the other side of the kitchen sink is the dining room area. So that will over look not only that, but will give me a view out the dining room window to see the kids playing in the yard. I'm really excited to go tomorrow to look for cabinets to see what we can come up with!!! YAY!

Mommy moment monday

My mommy moment happened last Friday night. Todd and I had dropped the kids off with my mom for a couple of hours so that we could go to Home Depot to talk about kitchen designs that we could take to the outlet place to get cupboards from. We were gone for about two hours. And when we got back, we got a really good report from my parents. The kids all did well, ate well, behaved, etc. They always do at my moms, so it wasn't a surprise to us! Then my mom mentioned that Gabe had a bit of a hard time eating because his teeth hurt. We noticed last week that Gabe has his bottom front two adult teeth coming in BEHIND his very wiggly baby teeth. And they've been hurting him. I explained this to her, she inspected his mouth, and wiggled the wigglier of the teeth. She told him "Gabe, just pull it out and you'll feel SO much better!" He was scared, and didn't want to. So he went and talked to Todd. Todd started to wiggle it, and told him, you just need to pull or twist it and it will be out. So, Gabe listened to daddy, and WALA! Out popped the tooth! He's been waiting for SO long for this!! Ever since Dallas lost his first tooth and he realized that the tooth fairy left money!!! He's a money HOUND!!!

The giggles that were heard were so cute. Gabe still very much has a belly giggle! I love it!!!

Here is my big boy, with his first tooth gone, just in time for picture day! With his whopping .75 cents from the tooth fairy! He was so exctied to get it!


And here's a little better picture of the new smile!!! He's getting so big!!!

If you want to share your mommy moment this Monday, let me know, and I'll link to you here!!!


Playing along:

A tale of two Twinkies

Way back When-sday!

Today we're going back to the big-'ol-twin-belly times!!!! This is a picture of me when I was pregnant with the twins, actually about 1 week before they were born. I was HUGE, I was miserable, and I was ready to meet my babies. I reached the size of my singleton babies pregnancy at 17 weeks, yes 17 weeks, with the twins. And I just felt like my skin couldn't stretch any more!!!!!

so, here I am smiling for my bi weekly pictures. This was 36 weeks.


I wish I could find the one of me at 17 weeks, so you could see the comparison. Its on the old hard drive though, and I don't have the time right now to look it up!!!!

Head on over to Twinfatuation for more way back fun!!!

A house update.

Here's a small picture update on whats been going on with the house stuff. There hasn't been a ton of change lately, but there is some. Todd has today off, and is working over there for the day. Hopefully at the end of today I'll be able to show more progress. These pictures were taken last Monday, to show the progress. These are over a week old.

These are two of the windows that have been replaced

Kitchen window. You can see how far in they had to frame that one to make it fit. We didn't have a choice though, it was as close as they could come.

The attic window was replaced too.

This is Kalebs window from the outside. Hard to believe they got that big of a window for only 90 bucks! Its an awesome store we found!!

Other kitchen window. This was just a drop in because it was a perfect fit!

The old bedroom window that is now boarded up. The new windows will go in soon.

Other window boarded up. The one next to this one will be boarded up too, and the farthest one down will be moved a little

Mud going up in the nasty kitchen so we can kilz it all, and then paint.

More patched holes

This is inside the new bathroom, you can see where the two new windows will be going.

Other wall, with junk in the way, but you can still see it!

Everything is still down to stud walls back there.

The squares got painted in the boys' room that weekend, with the help of my wonderful Aunt! it was really a comedy of errors!!!

Other side

The ONLY room in the house with stuff actually in it. Go figure.

Kendyls room. Sorry, its a bit dark, but thats her new window.

This is all the paint that's getting peeled in there. It was so bad!

And we scraped off the popcorn ceiling in there! YAY!

Kalebs windwo from the inside

The attic in Kalebs room. This will be a "fort" for the boys. We'll block off part of the attic, but they get to use this part. can't you see that being an awesome fort?

This part of the attic will be closed off.

Peeling paint in his room too.

More patched holes

Kendyls window from the outside

Thats all for now. The whole process is still proving to be really frusterating, so I'll just leave it with picture updates for now.

Mommy moment Monday!!!

It is once again time for Mommy moment Monday. Wow, I can't believe its been another FULL week. Wow. The time just flies. I swear!!!!


My mommy moment happened yesterday, with my three boys! We went out to my in laws house while Todd, his brother, and his dad all worked on the new house. We went through a bunch of clothes my mother in law got the kiddos, and then we took the kids out back. My father in law built a HUGE teeter totter this summer for the kids, and its been a hit. Gabriel LOVES that thing. He giggles like a silly fool whenever he's on it! You can't help but laugh along with him, because its those nice hard belly laughs!!! Yep, he still has them at 6!!! So, anyway, we tried many different configurations to get Gabe to be able to have fun. Dallas and Gabe can ride it together, and Dallas is just a little heavier, but Kaleb wanted to ride too. So we threw him on with Gabe, so that that side was just a little heavier. And they had a BLAST! The laughter out of those little boys was AWESOME! I was almost in tears laughing right along with them. They bounce the other end off the ground, which would send the other end bouncing up in the air, and then they'd reverse it. I wish I'd had a video camera at that exact moment, because the sound was just music to my ears. For a whole 20 minutes the fighting was gone, the whinning was gone, and they were PLAYING together, and LOVING it!!!!!!


If you feel like sharing a mommy moment from your last week, let me know, and I'll link you here!

Playing along:

Nicci