Time flies when you are so busy with 4 kids

I need to figure out my password so I can write a nice long update from my laptop (signed in automatically on my PC, which I never go on anymore…so still not sure what my password is).

I have lots of pics to post and lots of exciting things happening. Stay tuned…

Has it really been this long since I posted on here?!?!

I really hate it when I do that, it seems life just takes over and I never have the time or want to post on here.

I stumbled across the webpage and was utterly mesmerized by the old posts and photos and the ramblings of my little monsters. I vow to keep up this blog from now on. I know I’ve said it before, and I am sure it will happen again…but I am going to try to keep it up.

Things went crazy when we sold our former house within 8 days of putting it on the market. We hadn’t even found a house we wanted to move to when we got the offer, and so everything turned a little mad.

We eventually found our dream house a couple of days after getting the offer. It was in the process of being built…all 2800sq ft of it! – 5 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, large eat-in kitchen with granite counters and stainless steal appliances. Large upstairs playroom…walk-up attic AND an un-finished storage room with a window that we plan to finish to make the 6th bedroom.

We actually made an offer on the house while it was in the framing stage! Yep, we couldn’t even see what it looked like, or would look like…but I just knew it was the one. I looked at the paper plans, walked through the framed rooms (just wood, no walls or anything) and I just wanted this house.

We ended up closing on our former house at the end of September, but our new house wasn’t finished being built. We had to go live in a temporary apartment 45 minutes away from where we lived. It was a very stressful, unsettling time.

The day we closed on our new house (October 30, 2009) was such an awesome, happy day! It made everything worth while. Our house is amazing and I am forever thankful and blessed that we all get to live here. The space is wonderful, the kids love it. We will have many, many happy years here.

We had the backyard landscaped 2 weeks ago. It took 2 days to complete and we are very happy.

We chose to save on costs and do a few things ourselves, so we still need to add a border around the pine straw and we’re adding edging around the swing set and filling it with rubber mulch.

This is where they completely removed a tree stump and roots…it looks so much better.

We had new seed put down so hopefully the grass starts growing soon!

Got some nice photos this week with Crit’s Canon Rebel.

I tried to do a few photo-shoots but the kids really didn’t cooperate…we did end up with a few nice ones though.

I have too many to resize, so here are just a few…

My fave of all four…it took awhile to get!

View Full Album

It’s rare that NC gets snow, so waking up to 4 inches of the pretty white flakes was pretty cool. It carried on snowing until late afternoon and we ended up with around 7 inches.

Ricky took the kids out in the morning to play. I stayed inside with RJ. They had so much fun. Tayah even made a snowman!

Our back deck. This was towards the end of the day.

Making snow-angels and her snowman.

Our house and daddy with Kyne.

Kyne before he went out.

We went to the animal shelter last Friday to look at cats for Tayah (for her birthday). We took our time and made sure we picked the perfect cat for our family….

And boy did we!

His name is Milo and he’s a 6 month old domestic tabby. He’s like a dog! He loves the kids, follows them wherever they go. If they’re upstairs, then he’s upstairs. He lets Kyne pull him around (although we don’t let him of course), lay on him (we also put a stop to this) and he loves hugs and kisses (gross).

The kids are so happy and it feels just right having him here. I must admit I detest the litter-box though!

Pics:

It’s been too long since I posted….I have just been major busy with Christmas etc. We had mum visit for a week, lots of colds (Kyne was very sick, now Rhys is), Ricky was off work for a week, Christmas and all that comes with that…it’s just been a busy month. I am glad things can get back to normal now, but I sure do miss Christmas being over already….it was one great Christmas this year! (We already took our tree and decorations down….the house was too crowded with all the kids Christmas toys and we needed the room back!)

Mum’s visit was awesome! We did lots of fun things like seeing the Christmas parade in our hometown, eating out, shopping etc. We had our own special early Christmas and opened up lots of gifts. The kids got spoilt (as always) and so did Ricky and I. Here are some pics:

This was at the Christmas Parade. It was the coldest days we’ve had here so far I think (the last few days have been in the high 60’s to 70′!

Our ‘first’ Christmas with mum.

Our actual Christmas was so nice. We spent it at home just us (and Crit was here for the present opening). We made a lovely roast turkey (18pounder!) for lunch and I got some awesome gifts! - In the evening we had Becky and family over. We had snacks and played games (and opened gifts) and I drank far too much (I haven’t had that much to drink in 4 years, well ever really….it was a lot!).

Christmas Eve

Tayah in her Christmas Eve gift (Snow White dress).

(Continued soon………….)

Well first off our minivan has lost it’s heat…we took it to get checked out and it’s gonna cost $600+ to fix Apparently the radiator is cracked and leaking.

As for the kids, they are doing well. Kyne is sick (he always seems to be sick!) again. Tayah has been getting on my last nerve with her attitude (she is talking back all the time, like a teenager!), Rhys is being very good (he is such a joy these days) and Talon is his usual self (sometimes good, sometimes bad). Overall they are great though.

I managed to snap a few pics of the four of them on Thanksgiving. We went to Becky’s in the afternoon (well her mom’s) and then we did a big dinner here in the evening with Crit and Phoenix. It was a fun and tiring day!

All four of them……these were so hard to get!

My attempt at Thanksgiving dinner…..it was great homemade food (but I didn’t make it;))…

It took most of the day Saturday and part of Sunday to get almost finished. I even helped mow (with a push-mower!) part of the front yard. Ricky worked so hard to get it looking better…I am so proud! It looks amazing. We still have another bag or 2 of pebbles to get to go around the mail-box and we need to trim the edges (the trimmer broke), but it certainly looks 100% better than it did.

Before:

After:

I didn’t take a before shot of the front of the house (too tired to walk up the driveway! ha), but this after shot came out really nice.

You can still see the old border up here (it stops where Talon’s bunk-beds used to be).

The changing table/dresser combo we got off Craigslist for $40. It still needs to be re-touched (the paint) and we need one more basket and the changing pad put on.

Close-up of the bedding set and the matching canvas paintings I did to go on the walls.