I Like It!

For her birthday this year, Eliana received a gift card for The Learning Express from her Grandpa and Ms. Susie.  I told her we could go to the store and she could help pick out something to buy with "her money".  She was very excited about that!

The first couple of things she picked out were a bit over the top, and might have been influenced by a certain big sister.  A stuffed giraffe that is about the size of an actual baby giraffe, and costs $100 did not seem reasonable to me. 

So, we moved along through the store.

Eliana squealed when we got to the small book section, which also has coloring and activity books.  She cried out,"It's Buddy!"

For anyone who doesn't know, Buddy is a dinosaur.  My daughter loves dinosaurs.  And she really loves a little show called The Dinosaur Train.  Buddy is a Tyrannosaurus Rex whose egg ended up in a Pteranodon's nest.  He is adopted into their family and they ride on the Dinosaur Train and visit different time periods and dinos throughout the whole Mesozoic Era.  (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

Back to the store...she had spotted a Dinosaur Train coloring book.  It was a must-have!  And then came another squeal!  She also saw a Diego activity book...this also would have to come home with us!

We wandered around the store, and checked out all the different activity sets and pretend play things.  There are a lot of cool things in there, and fun games.  But nothing was catching my fancy, nothing shouted out,"I'm a great choice!"  We headed back towards the front of the store to pay for our amazing finds.

While I went to get in line Michaela saw a little table set up with four miniature sandboxes laid out on top.  They each had a theme.  One was Garbage Works, another was Doggie Camp, there was a Dino Land, and a Big Builder set.  They were so cute!  Michaela and Eliana both spent a little while playing with the small sandbox toys that came with the tiny sets.  I asked them to choose one that they liked.

Michaela looked on the back of a couple of the boxes and saw that there were different ones other than what they had on display.  I asked behind the counter if they had others, and they told me they could order the one the girls liked, and they did.  I went back to get our Mermaid Sandbox play set, and ended up with a Fairy Garden set as well.

I love these little sandboxes!  Aside from the fact that no animals can come along and use them as personal potties, they are quite entertaining.  And not just for Eliana.  All three of my kids have spent a long time playing in these mini sandy conatiners.

When they play with them, I set a towel down on the floor and then put the box in the center, hopefully so that most of the sand that escapes (because it will escape) ends up not scattered across the entire house.  (I'm like the Princess and the Pea with my feet...I hate stepping on any kind of crumb, be it as tiny as a, well, grain of sand.)  This part of our dining room is right next to where I sew, which is where I have spent a lot of time lately, so it worked out really well as a play spot.

It just so happens to be a great dirty clothes spot, too.  Please ignore that part.

Michaela has had just as much fun as Eliana with these sandboxes; she spends a very long time setting everything up just right, paying a great deal of attention to the tiniest of details.  And believe me, there are some tiny details!

We live a little dangerously around here.  She put the giant rock out of the Mermaid Sandbox upside down in the Fairy Garden Sandbox in order to make a pool for the fairies.  Blue sand in the green sand sandbox?  It's too much for this obsessive-compulsive mama.  I just kept taking pictures.  It helped the control freak in me stay sane.

Ha!  Did you hear me make a joke?  I said,"...stay sane."  I know you're laughing, too!

They really have had a lot of fun, hours worth of fun, with these toys.  I am so glad I bought them.  I recommend them for your home, or as a present for someone you know.  They were a little pricier than I would normally buy, so I was glad for the gift card, but I think they are a great idea.  (Amazon is cheaper than the store I went to.)

I don't have a picture of this, but one of my favorite moments was when Christian and Michaela ran to get our box of plastic animals (we have about 500) and then went about getting them all involved in the Mermaid Sandbox.  There were elephants and knights, even.  And Mike thought we should get rid of those little plastic nuisances toys!  Little did he know how very useful they still are!

I just really like these sandboxes...no one paid me to say it, and the folks who make and distribute and sell these toys have no idea who I am or that I exist, Amazon being just one of the sellers.  It was just easy to link there. 

Moving Along

I've been wanting to write about our move for a long time and I always forget! 

I have ADD!

It's kind of a crazy story.  Mike and I have been talking about buying a house for quite a while.  We have lived in Dallas for almost four years, in two homes, both owned by our church.  We are in a great neighborhood, and since our house is church-owned it is obviously conveniently located as far as Mike's job, Christian and Eliana's school, kids' choir, Bible study, piano lessons, and numerous other things for which we head up the block. 

However, the house that we live in now, like the one we lived in before, is old.  There have been updates, like new flooring in the kitchen and central air/heat, and while those things are nice, it's just the truth that it's hard to add those things to an old home and have it work really well.  It's a big house with a lot of character and a lot of problems. 

Now, I know that any house has problems, new or old.  This older home has some troubles that make it make sense for us to look to buy; plus, financially it's wise to put money into owning a home rather than renting.  (Look at me sound like I know what I'm talking about!)

Anyway, we looked online about a year ago, half-heartedly checking out some homes that were relatively close and then some that were quite a ways out.  To buy a home in this immediate area requires a 12-digit salary.  Even if we could manage to find a house that was low enough to purchase (which we couldn't), the property taxes would send us out of the neighborhood for sure.

I am the kind of person who doesn't like to wait, so once the idea was put out there that we might move, I was all,"When are we leaving?  When can we go?  Can we go look at these houses?  Could we do it before the end of the year?"  Mike, at that point, needed to finish his dissertation and that was a priority, so looking at houses got put on the back burner.  I had my eye on a really cute house that was about 10 minutes away and not too high (relatively speaking!)...but I had to give up on going to check it out and as I monitored it online I watched as it went under contract and then finally sold.

The year went on (2010 now) (Does anyone else find that really hard to believe?) and we didn't really talk much about moving for a long time.  Then about a month ago one of the pastors at the church announced to the congregation that his family had received and accepted a call to another church in another city.  They were moving.  They are friends of ours and I was saddened at the news that they were leaving.  I spoke to the "her" half of the couple later that day and told her how surprised I was at the news, but she was happy and at peace, so I was too, for them.

At the end of that week Mike passed the "him" half of the couple and jokingly (or not?) said,"Hey, we should look at your house!"  Our friend passed on a bunch of info to Mike, improvements that they had made on the house, square footage, and other pertinent stuff that you would want a potential buyer to know.  He told us we should come to dinner that Saturday and check out the house.  Finally, they needed a decision as soon as possible since they were getting a realtor on Monday but wanted to give us a chance to get the house without a realtor involved.

This was on Friday.  As in, three days before Monday.

I was a little freaked out when Mike told me all of this.  I mean, I know that amazing things can happen in a three-day time period.  But making this decision so suddenly seemed crazy.  Nutty.  Totally insane. 

We went over on Saturday and they gave us an official tour of the house, telling us of the changes they had made, which included new hardwood throughout the bottom floor, remodeling the kitchen, stuff to the bathrooms, replacing key features/parts (something to do with the garage door, and the AC unit, for example) and yard improvements.  I have to say, the yard improvements alone are amazing.  We have visited with them several times during the last few years, and I can tell you that the difference in the backyard is great, between then and now.  He made the changes himself, and he did a wonderful job. 

We had dinner with them and then headed home.  We had that night to think about it, as well as Sunday and part of Monday.  But he needed an answer by Monday sometime, and it was only fair since getting a realtor as soon as he could made sense for them. 

I struggled with it, y'all.  I lay in the bed, tossed and turned, thought and prayed.  Mike and I tried to talk about it, but it is very hard for me to talk about something like this.  He wanted to know what I thought, and I didn't even know what I thought, so how could I tell him?  It was frustrating.  I didn't know what the best thing to do was.  I thought about how much the kids like it here, how convenient it is to be so close to the church, how late we are all the time and we're so close...how were we going to be on time ever if we moved further away?  Christian was so upset at our last move, and that was just around the corner!  Literally, the same block, just the opposite corner.

And that's not even mentioning the convenience of our location in general, related to stores/malls/restaurants.

Sunday night, after refusing to tell Mike what I was thinking (mainly because I couldn't decide what I was thinking) I had gone to bed and was lying there, totally miserable.  I felt like I was trapped.  I had asked him if I didn't give him an answer would he tell them no, and he said,"Yes."  It seemed like it was all up to me, and I hate making decisions.  I can't even figure out what to make for dinner, let alone make a life-changing, whole-family-affecting decision.  I couldn't sleep, and all I could think about was what we should do.

I wanted very much for God just to tell me.  Give me a note or something.  An email?  Facebook?  Anything to let me know which direction was the right one.  I was going over the house again in my mind, thinking of all that they had done to make it a sweet and lovely home.  I thought of the small downstairs and how simple and easy it might be to take care of.  I thought of the carpeted upstairs and how I could get it vacuumed fairly easily.  I thought of the smaller bathrooms and the newerness (that is totally a word) of them.  I thought of the wonderful yard that the kids could play in, that had grass (!) and not dirt all over, and which I could see from the kitchen.  I thought of the laundry room that is right next to the door that leads to the garage, where we would come in and I could take the kids' clothes off from school right there, send them to the bathroom right next door, and then on to get new clothes for the rest of the day, around the corner in their rooms.  Finally, I thought about the nine-year-old next door who was homeschooled...and I couldn't get away from that thought.

Here was the Lord handing us this huge blessing, cutting out all the work for us - all the time looking, driving, dealing with the kids running around like maniacs while we tried to check out house after house and pay attention to someone who was trying to make a sale.  Here was a house that we knew had sweet owners, dear friends who had made it a home while they lived there.  How precious was it to think of buying a house from someone we knew and loved?  Which was next door to a homeschooling family?  With a daughter the same age as ours?!

Suddenly I knew what we ought to do.  It seemed like not accepting this opportunity would be like looking at God, who had a giant box wrapped in beautiful paper with a gorgeous bow, and yelling,"Where is my present?!" like a spoiled baby.  I knew at that moment that I knew better.  

It still seems fast a lot of the time, and I can't say that I am looking forward to the move...but I do feel a peace about it.  We are losing a great deal of space, but I think that is a blessing, too.  I can't manage this big house.  It's too much room to take care of, and we have too much stuff.  This is going to force us to get rid of things, and we are going to donate a lot of what we don't need to a couple who are adopting from Africa.  They are having some yard sales to help with their adoption fees, and it is an honor to think that we might be able to participate in helping them bring home their baby.

No house is perfect.  But I think this might be just what we need, in order to live a more sane, and more normal life.  We will be afforded the opportunity to live like regular people, which is something that we have never done before.  That sounds ridiculous, but it is true...from being in school, to Mike having a job which required him to travel half of the time (in Louisville), and then to living in a neighborhood in which we don't truly fit in and which allows us to live in a kind of dreamworld, we have always lived in this strange not-quite-real-world reality.  I think after 13 years, we ought to give the real world a shot.

I wish I had pictures to show, but I don't yet.  I might soon, but it may be another month before I can take pictures over there.  Our move won't happen until early next year, which is fine with me!  I have a little time to go through things and try (really try!) to get organized and to do this well. 

That is also something we ought to give a shot!

So, that is the story...and it's the kind that doesn't really have an ending, but instead is actually a new beginning.  We'll be writing it as we go along!

Sometimes the Giants Win

While I should be doing the dishes, I am instead thinking about the Rangers' final game in the World Series.  It was so exciting to watch them come so far.  It is a bummer to see your team lose any time, but in a chamionship game...ugh. 

I didn't grow up liking or watching baseball.  My grandma Lillie did, though.  My dad will have to tell those stories, though, because she was a quiet fan.  She watched the games and cheered her team on kind of silently.  No one in our house really cared for baseball, so I wasn't exposed to it until I got married, and even then not really until we moved to Texas. 

Mike grew up as a fan of the sport.  He collected baseball cards and knew stats.  When we got here (Dallas) and the kids were old enough to be happy participants in such outings, he started taking them to games.  They had a blast.  I even went to a couple (and had fun!  In a public place!).  This year they didn't go to as many but we followed their success all the way to the play-offs.

And they kept doing really well.  And then they beat the Yankees!  Soon it was on to play the San Francisco Giants.

Michaela had a great scenario for them to play out.  Since they were playing the Giants, it was going to be just like David and Goliath.  In the last game (you know, where each team had won three games and were now playing the seventh, and all-important, one) the Giants were ahead, 3-0.  It was the bottom of the ninth, the Rangers had the bases loaded and David Murphy was up.  He hit a homerun and, of course, the fourth run brought the Rangers victory.

Unfortunately it didn't happen quite like that.  We were rooting for our home team, but they didn't make it tonight.  I just want to say for the record that we are still loyal fans, we love our Rangers, and we'll be waiting for next season with great anticipation.

I think this is just the beginning for them, not the end at all!

Really, the thing that is most disturbing at the end of the day for me is that I look a little too much like Tim Lincecum.

All right, I have better teeth than he does.  But...if you had seen what I saw in the mirror you would also have noted the strange resemblance.  It was uncanny, I tell you.

Never Land Like Never Before

We did something we've never done before.

All five of us dressed up this year.

It was fun.

Have I ever mentioned that Mike has a mean right hook?

So Many Things, So Little Time

I want so badly to blog each day.  I have many things I want to share, or just remember.  But, I can't seem to carve out a bit of time in which I can actually gather my thoughts and form coherent sentences and create an entire post about a given topic, whether it be our costumes for tomorrow, or the World Series, or Michaela's sleepover, or our move, or the cheesepie I made.  I want to give each thing its own post.

Especially the cheesepie. 

It's a cheesecake wannabe, but it is a pretty successful imitation.

Just so that your mind is at ease regarding what is going on in our home that is keeping me away from this blog, I will share one thing.  Although it's been busy around here and my laundry has thrown down the gauntlet and then slapped me in the face with a white glove, things are also just as weird as they are normal.  Okay, weird is normal here.  I can't fool you.

I found this jar on this bookshelf in what is now called the Fun Room.  Here, in case you can't tell what it is.

Seriously.  What is a Fun Room without Sweet Hots?  My kids were so excited to see that these were around!

The truth is I don't have a clue where they came from.  If you have any inkling as to why there are sweet pickles and peppers in my Fun Room I'd love to hear from you.  Hey, I'd love to hear from you even if you have no idea what this jar is doing in my house much less my kids' play room.

I hope after this weekend I can sit down in the evenings and get back in the game.  Maybe scarf down a couple of Tony Packo's Sweet Hots.  Possibly cool off with a Peppermint Patty I confiscated.  Stay safe if you are headed out and about...and don't eat too much candy before you pass some of it out! 

Ha!  I bought mine tonight, so there is less of a chance that half of it will be gone before tomorrow evening!

P.S.  And Mindee, I can't believe my stellar photography and brilliant use of lighting (or on-camera flash) isn't your favorite on the whole internet!  Cut to the heart, that's me!

P.P.S.  Mindee, I'm just kidding.  I was being endearingly self-deprecating.