A House?!?

I planned on blogging a lot more of what's going on daily at the new house, but I come home so exhausted that I'm not doing very well at that! The bedrooms in the old garage are framed up, the new hole to the basement is through, but the staircase hasn't been moved. The plumbers came over yesterday to move and cut in the new bathroom arrangement, and approved my garage sale potty!! I got a Kohler toilet at a garage sale for $3.00, and had them check it out. It was the right size to fit and it looks like a go! That is good news, as it may be the only item that comes in under budget!! I got all the siding pulled off and we burned it Tuesday. I got a lot of the shingles pulled off, but could only go so far. They were mostly waiting for the fire so they could "wrap" the house. Don't ask me on that one, but it's some kind of waterproof insulation/barrier that will keep out moisture but still allow the house to "breathe." Strange stuff these boys carry. Mom and I picked out all the lighting on Wednesday last week, but have had many changes come up since then! Things can look so different just from the house to the store! Our electrician is a real fireball. He roughed in all the boxes and put up some cans and the main light fixture encasements, then grabbed a sledge hammer and helped Michael take out the fireplace. That took the longest and the most equipment!! But now it's gone, and we have a new wall and a lot of new roof! Yesterday we put up the rafters on the garage and gave it some walls. That's me running the forklift! Sorry, Mallory was doing the photography and she didn't get that part! Hoping to finish the roof today. I need to get down there soon and spray for bugs. The kids and I are getting eaten alive!! We spend the whole day scratching. So I wanted to get over there with the Tempo before work begins and see if we can have a better day! I'd best get moving. I'll post later when I see the house and remember what all I forgot to post!!

Long time no post

Been a while, but with reason. Computer geek that I am, I've been trying to reformat my computer for a while now. After I finally got all the flash drives I needed to get everything backed up, I actually had to back everything up. That took about a week. Then to start the reformat. It wasn't working, but I felt like I knew that the problem was the keyboard and that the computer wasn't recognizing it in time to start the reformat, so I'd pretty much given up on the idea. Then I found a fifty cent keyboard at a garage sale and picked that up with a lot of other computer parts. A few days later, I remembered that was the hold up, so I decided to clean it up and give it a try. Well, it worked... but that was actually the bad part. At that point, I really didn't have time for a reformat, but there I was in the middle of one. So anyway, now I'm trying to restore everything I need to get back up and running. I was going to post a picture, but I'm missing some kind of driver. It thinks my camera is one of the flash drives. So this will continue, I'm sure...

Morgan lost his first tooth yesterday! Mallory and I were doing some craft sorting and organizing when he came in with a bit of a wiggly tooth. We all made some comments about the pliers and the string, etc. He said he'd do it himself, and about three minutes later, he comes back with a tooth in his hand!! It still had nearly a quarter-inch root on it and my eyes watered with the thought of the pain, but he was fine with it. He was more interested in the cash. He had to call Dad at work and tell him all about it, but I could hardly hear him. I figured this was some man-to-man stuff, so I left the scene. He came to me with the phone and Michael asked if I could hear them. I told him the scenario and he said he believed it was more secret than that. Morgan had told him that he was getting $9 from the tooth fairy. No idea where the figure came from, but keep in mind that I haven't started him on the financial class as of yet. But he seemed sure that's what he'd get. The other two got $1.50 per tooth, so I'm not sure where the bonus kicks in, but hey.
As the day drew on, we were all in the kitchen with Grandma when Matthew made some comment about me being the tooth fairy. Mallory was all over that. I told her when she lost an eye tooth last weekend that as soon as Morgan stops believing, the gig is up and no one gets paid anymore. Matthew is all about truth, and I have to like that. On the second tooth he lost, he asked me if I was the tooth fairy and I had to lay it all out. But I told him, too, that now it's all about Morgan and if he blew it, no cash. So anyway, here we are in the kitchen together when Matthew spills it. What can we do? Mallory tried to get him alone to warn him, but he was all about blowing my cover. We continued on and ignored him and later as we were packing them to go camping at the river, I asked Morgan what he'd do if the tooth fairy didn't find him at the river. Daddy said I'd get the $9!! That was pleasing, but Morgan didn't think so. So later Mom and I went out to the China Buffet for supper since we had no menfolk or kids to feed and I had to get nine $1-bills to put under his pillow. She couldn't believe I'd actually meet his ransom, but I figure if Matthew wants to shoot his own cash-cow, he can watch his brother reap the benefits. I went to put it under his pillow, but can't find the tooth. I have a feeling he may have taken it to the river. I'm wondering if some other tooth fairy will find him there, but all the better. Let Matthew watch him get paid twice!!

New Neighbors

These are my new neighbors. Mama Fox dug a burrow a couple miles from our house and had four little kits. They're getting pretty big and come out and play a lot more in the evenings. I'm a little concerned about one little guy. He's not as big as the other three, and not as red either. Not sure Mom's teaching them about road safety, because they're usually out playing in the road when I come home. They take off for the ditch when I get close, but not necessarily the den. They like to watch me, too. Mom tends to take off the other way in order to confuse me as to where the kits went, but they just don't seem to obey much better than little kids. They hide in the grass, but don't go all the way to the den immediately. Like I said, they like to watch me, too. Last night, the little guy tried to go with Mom instead of going back to the den as he was told. I wonder if he got supper before bed. I'll post more photos if I can get anything better. My little camera wasn't made for this much zoom!

Quickie Trip to the Zoo

Aunt Betty got us a zoo pass for the year as our birthday/Christmas gifts for 2006. Easy for her and oh, what a gift to us!! We were anxiously awaiting a trip when I finally figured out that I was waiting around for nothing. With a pass, it's not wasted to just go for a couple hours here and there. It is an hour away, though, so it has to be a good trip, but we finally quit waiting for a full day. So last Tuesday, we got all our school done in record time and as soon as Daddy got home from work at 1pm, we took off. I really wanted to get there before school got out for the summer and it got really crowded. Also like to avoid Saturday and Sunday. So we got through several attractions before the park started closing. Morgan was pretty disappointed we didn't get to ride the train, but I later found out that it only runs on weekends right now. Still not sure I want to drive alone in Omaha, but maybe I'll make it just up to the zoo now. It is right off the interstate, but it's still Omaha. I can probably talk Mom into going with me, too. The kids may not let me wait too long!!

Exciting Morning

This was the cake from this week. It has been extremely fun!! Took most of the week, but every step was so fun. The appreciation from everyone at church was so fulfilling. I just live for this stuff!! I'll write more here later, but wanted to get the picture posted for now.

More to come...

Morning alone

Wow, a morning alone. Don't even have the radio playing. Just quiet. Amazing how peaceful and yet how lonely. My folks took Mallory to see her cousin, Abby. Michael took the boys to a basketball tourney, and I have 2 cakes to decorate and about 300 roses to make for a wedding cake next weekend. Yet, I just can't get past how quiet it is here.
The two cakes this morning are for first communions. I got some sugar crosses like we use at the grocery store, so I'm really excited about how those will turn out. I'm doing one in chocolate icing, so I think that will be really sharp. I did an open Bible Easter cake last weekend for my Grandma Rose. I think she was impressed.
I'm really excited about next weekend's cakes, too. We have a grand opening for our new church addition and they wanted cake for 225 people. I think the easiest way to do that is a stacked wedding cake, so I started making plans toward that. I can't believe how that gets my blood going. Some things are just so exciting you can't stop thinking about them. This is one of those things for me. Then a couple days ago, Michael ordered a cake for 100 for the Friday of this same weekend. He's going to get the same thing! I thought it would be easy, but one is Friday and one is Sunday, so there will have to be some coordination. It will be nice to have the smaller one for practice first. But I plan to get a serious number of roses done for them this morning, so I'd best get going on the project. I just wanted to take advantage of the silence. It's not the most frequent sound around here anymore!

Countdown

Countdown to what? Sanity? Not sure, but I'm counting. I was a little shocked to see my blog was still here. Thought they'd have booted me by now. We've just been so busy. The first weekend in April was the homeschoolers' conference, and wow, I was just really taken by it. It was really settling to get next year's curriculum all decided and ordered in one weekend. This usually takes me months and can even change my mind several times, but this time it's a decision I'm going to live with. Stop second-guessing myself. I looked through everything Friday, then brought Michael to help me make final decisions on Saturday. What was really nice was just to talk it all over out loud and let him know how the kids do best. So those have been arriving bit by bit and I've been getting them organized and ready for next year. We also learned so much from the workshops. I was really ecstatic to have him along. One thing that I pulled from a speaker has settled many a fight around here. Mallory has always done all dividing and passing out of anything that needed split. One of the little tidbits I learned was to let one child split and the other child pick. That way, things look more fair to all parties. It really has been fun and I see them work together more.
Ok, anyway, back to the countdown... we just found out that the bank that has been making us jump through one hoop after another and made us wait until our banker got back from vacation before returning any of our calls, really didn't want our loan anyway. They didn't like how much of the job we planned to do. Fine, but did we really need to get Federal flood insurance and wait 3 weeks for you to call back and tell us this? When I don't plan to loan someone money, I simply tell them "no," which is something else I've been practicing. Another speaker at the conference spent a lengthy amount of time on the simple linguistics of saying "no." For instance, did your teacher take knucklehead calls from CitiBank while you were in class? No, so don't answer the phone. Put the answering machine in the basement and take care of its business after class. Easy. Did the church call your second grade teacher during spelling class to see if she could bake six dozen cookies for tonight? No, and lack of preparation on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part. Well, that didn't really have anything to do with the bank or its rudeness, but anyway, my head is just swimming and I thought I'd just get some of it out!
We had a really wonderful Easter, and I was going to attach a photo of six of the cutest little girls one family can produce, but I think I better get back to my class before downloading this weekend's photos. 2/3 of my students seem to be outside somewhere and I think I'd best channel some of their excitement towards higher learning. At least 1/3 is almost done!!