An update on a song Todd did. . . .

I know I posted the link to "Persevere" a while ago, but they've updated the video, and you can see Todd!!! He's in the back, in the maroon shirt playing mandolin!!!


I'm proud, and had to share!!!



Todd and Persevere

Bipity-bopity-boo!!!

Where oh where has MY fairy God mother gone??? I'm telling ya I could sure use one first rate, Disney princess style, fairy God mother right about now!!!! One who will wave her magic wand and make all my wishes come true!!! But you know, more than ALL my wishes coming true, I'd just settle for her coming in, waving her magic wand and in one swoop clearing away the boxes, clutter and moving mess! It of course would magically show up in the exact perfect spot that it should be put away to. Places that are logical, and easy to find. Places where I won't have to hear the bellow of "MOMMY!!!! Where is ____ (insert favorite toy from each child here!)!!!!!!!" Some place easy enough for my husband to find without having to walk through the house opening cupboard after cupboard trying to locate something that in the end was right in front of his face. Yes, I definitely thing that a fairy God mother is in order!!! Come to think of it, I think every mommy could use one in her back pocket for those "running out of options" times!


If you couldn't tell from my rant there, I'm still unpacking. I'm still trying to settle in. And I'm STILL trying to find the right home for the many odds and ends that are left to be put away. Oh. . . .and did I mention that this is only talking about the main level?? Yeah. . .I'm still just working on restoring order to our main level of living. Many many MANY things just get brought to the basement, to the area that will eventually be the kids' living room in the basement. I have a pile down there that's growing bigger by the box full that will be for a garage sale. I have a pile down there that needs to be sorted through. Its all the out grown baby clothes that now go up to size 3T for both boy and girl. I'm going to thin it DRASTICALLY. Half of my girl clothes already get passed on to my nieces, but the other half get saved for IF my brother and his wife have a girl someday. . . and ALL the boy clothes have been saved. So I'm going to go through and pick out the best of the best and save for them, and give away/sell the rest. I just can't keep holding on to it all any more. They have told me MANY times that they will need the hand me downs from my kids, but they're not expecting, and I don't even know that they're to the point of trying. So its all starting to add up quickly and I want it GONE!!!

I've been reclaiming areas of the house slowly but surely. But its NOT an easy process. There are still many parts of the house that have work to be done on them, like the basement. That's why its collecting all of the boxes right now. It wasn't ready to be a kids living room, so its storage for now. And the entry room still needs some tile work to be done, and getting situated. This is the room that I'm the most anxious about. It will be my "day care room" It will be where my changing table gets set up, where the day care tables, and toys will be housed, and in all reality its the most important room in the house to get finished!!! Right now it's still housing tools, and supplies, and things that I'd HAPPILY see go out of the house. I'm going to be starting day care here in June with an ADORABLE little boy. I can't wait!!! His mommy and I went to high school together, and just reconnected last summer. I'm very much looking forward to the honor of watching their little boy, and getting to see more of her, and her husband!!!


I guess the long, and the short of it is we're getting there. We're settling in, we're working on things (and by WE, of course I mean ME because my husband is always busy and has a million other things going on!) And its slowly starting to resemble something that I think I can call a house. Something that can even start to think of as a home. Sort of!!!

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to still keep working on it, and get it to a point where I'm ready to show pictures of it. Right now I don't want to share them. Its boxes, clutter, and mess EVERYWHERE!!! No pictures happening!!!!


So again, I say "bipity-bopity-boo Fairy God Mother WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!?!"

Way back When-sday!

In an effort to get back on track, I'm trying to get back into some of my favorite blog posts, like Way back Whens-day!!!


In searching through my pictures, I came across these.. . the first time Dallas had a star kiss from Dairy Queen! It made me smile, because just two days ago we were at Dairy Queen with the kids and I had four very colorful little kids!!!! Dallas would have been. . . .probably around a year and a half in these picture, maybe a little older!








For more way back fun head on over to Twinfatuation.

Telling the kids proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would.

I didn't expect it to be so hard to tell the kids about the bird being dead. They weren't especially close to her, and in most instances they didn't like her out of her cage because she flew (couldn't clip her wings because of the dogs!) and then she'd land on them. And then of course they wanted to pet her, and she wanted no part of it. I expected a few tears, or a few "why did she die?" questions. . . but what wound up happening I didn't expect at ALL!

The last time they had to "deal" with a death they were too little to really understand what was actually going on. Dallas was only 18 months, and Gabe was just a few weeks old. That was when Todd's grandpa died. There have been a select few other distant family members that have passed away in the inbetween but the kids were never brought along to the funeral. They didn't know the person well, if at all, so we didn't feel it necessary to expose them to all the emotions that people were feeling when they wouldn't really understand. So, knowing that there may be a few tears I waited until Todd got home.

We Sat all four kids down together and Todd began talking to them. He started the talk with asking if they knew what happens to everything as it gets old (even though the bird was only about 10 years old, and they can live to 40 and beyond, we opted for the age answer to why). The only one of the kiddos who got the explination was Gabriel. He answered with "they die?" In a very questioning way. Todd then asked them if they knew what happened to things when they die. And in unison they all said "Go to Heaven". Todd then broke the news to them about Charolette. The twins didn't understand at ALL at first. Gabriel seemed to understand but didn't seem much for showing his emotions, and Dallas immediatly began to sob. Uncontrollable sobs. My heart just broke. I sat with him, and talked with him as Todd kept talking to the other kids. Todd asked the kids what they would like to do. Did they want to help pick a spot to burry her? Should we put her in a shoe box before that? And the answer to both was yes. I hadn't done anything with the bird other than to cover her cage, figuring we'd want to do something like that with the kids. Just as we were getting ready to go outside, Dallas said "this means we'll never get to see Charolette again. We'll never get to have her here again." And that is the point that it hit Kaleb and Kendyl. They BOTH started sobbing. Kaleb almost uncontrollably. He just kept saying "I'm going to miss my bird". Kendyl cried more quiet tears. Gave several loud sniffles, and headed outside.

Both of the boys asked to see her. So Todd put her in the shoe box and let the boys look. They looked at her, and inspected her closer than they've ever been able to before, becuase she was always on the move. Both boys gave her a little pet, and were surprised by how soft she was.

After Todd had the hold dug in the spot that the kids picked (right outside the boys' window well) Kaleb took the box and put it in. He didn't want anyone else to do it, HE wanted to do it. He told us "I have a magic touch. I'm going to make charolette come back alive." It was heartbreaking to watch.

After she was burried, the kids all kind of looked around like "what do we do now?" That's when the "why did she die" questions and the "can we get another bird and name her Charolette" questions started. We addressed each one, and headed inside to finish making dinner.

Kendyl came in and asked if she could call Grandma. That's usually what she does when she's upset. I'd given my parents, and Todd's parents a heads up that this might be coming. So Kendyl called my mom and choked out that charolette had died, and just cried on the phone with Grandma for a little while. She seemed to feel a little better after that. Kaleb asked to talk to her as well, but his sobs became more uncontrollable the more he talked about it.

While I was getting the kids settled down to eat Todd took the cage and stand out to the garage and put it in the rafters. He was hoping that the out of site, out of mind philosophy might help some.

The boys still woke up this morning a little teary about the whole thing, but I think the worst of it is past. I certainly wasn't expecting it to hit them as hard as it did. I've never had to face death through a childs eyes before, and I can tell you that it is much harder than dealing with a loss on your own. My childrens hearts were broken, and that just shattered mine to pieces.

Some days its really hard to be a mom.

Not looking like a good start to the week.

I started to unpack more this morning, and I happened to think that I haven't heard my cockatiel Charolette tweet today. She usually greets me good morning, and chatters on from her cage. When I went in to check on her I found her laying on the bottom of her cage. She must have passed away sometime between yesterday and today, because she was tweeting yesterday.

We wondered how she'd handle the move. She's gone to other houses before, while we're out of town and what not. But this was going to prove to be a bigger move for her, since this was to stay. She seemed to be doing ok, since we'd been in a week and no signs of stress. But in the end, it looks like the stress got the better of her.


She could be a nasty little bird, but she was MY bird. She usually only let me hold her, only let me pet her, and she reacted most to me. She had a few fun traits too. She would mimic the beeps of a phone dialing. She had it down, she would give 7 beeps, or 10 beeps and in the exact tone of the phone! But our personal favorite was that she mimiced my laugh. This was her trait that often made us wonder if Charolette wasn't infact a Charley, since with cockatiels its mostly the males who are vocal on a level like that!!!!


I will miss that little bird, even if she was a little mean. She was still our pet, and still part of our family. The kids don't know yet. I'm debating how I want to handle telling them. I'm sure we'll have to tell them tonight.

Here is Charolette just a few months ago. Its not a very good picture, but its the only one I can find at the moment.

Good bye pretty bird. You will be missed.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! The crazy is almost over!!!!!!

We're officially IN the house. And we have everything out of the other house. I'm SO glad! SO glad! It really has been quite the process to get here. But we're here and I'm SO thankful!!! The biggest hurdle is over. We're in! Now, the settling in, and unpacking can begin!!!! I'm not really looking forward to that part, but I'm looking forward to it being done, and being able to say officially "we're home" and having it feel like we're home!!!!

We had our final "final inspection" today. And everything passes, which means that we're no longer accountable to the city. We're done having to do major work that requires a permit! We're able to just LIVE! We're able to work at our own pace, and do things our way! I'm so excited about that part! I'm glad everything passed, and that we're past that hurdle! It can be nerve wracking when you're waiting to find out if all the work will pass.

I think we made it in just in the nick of time. They are scheduled to start road work out front of our house here in the next couple of weeks. We go to the meeting tonight to find out all the information, and the ins and outs of what will happen. I'm really pretty curious to know how it will work because they'll be totally tearing up the road in front of my house, which means we won't have access to our driveway. Are we supposed to park on the streets off to the side? What are the rules on that? How will it effect our lives with noise, and caios? I'm really very curious!

So as you can see, things are still crazy, busy, and full of happenings!!!!

I'll update more soon!

I'll have to tell you all about what's been shaking here. . ..like the construction worker who felt it appropriate to come ring my door bell at 6:30 this morning while I was still sleeping. It was SO much fun!!!!

Happy 8th birthday Dallas!!!

I know I've been HORRIBLE about posting lately! But we're in, kind of, and are making progress towards REALLY being in!!! But today I had to take a break from it all, and wish my biggest boy a very very happy 8th birthday. 9:38 pm 8 years ago today I became a mommy for the very first time!!!


Here's the birthday boy. I'll post the party pictures later!