NEW HOUSE - take 2. LOL! Well, we found another house and put an offer in. This afternoon it was accepted without a counter offer. Yea!! We will be closing on May 25th and moving sometime in June. We have yet to firm things up with the movers. We had to make sure we had a place to go first! We are very excited and are not expecting any problems like with the last house we put an offer on. Hopefully everything goes smoothly!

If you want to see pictures just send me an email & I'll send you the link.

What a roller coaster! LOL! I swear that is the only way to explain it. Our realtor checked out some houses for us and of the 3 we had picked none would work. But she found another that had just popped onto the market and she checked it out. She thinks it will work for us and really likes it, wonderful neighborhood too. So mom & Kiki will be checking it out on Saturday. (All of this from Wed I think) then our realtor calls yesterday with an update on the OTHER property! ACK! It gave us something to think about but after much discussion & soul searching and a talk with the mortgage broker we decided that we don't feel comfortable pursuing that property. It is still too risky and I just can't handle another letdown on that house just to have to start over yet again. So, we are going to stick with the possibility of this new house and see where it takes us. We will keep everyone posted.

There still seems SO much to do as far as the house & the move and when we add everything for Morgan's dance recital (pictures, extra practice, rehearsal, and show) along with end-of-the-year hs'ing and preparing for an evaluation on top of it and then try to add "see your friends" on top of that it just is NOT adding up! It is definitely causing me to feel overwhelmed and stressed out. Corey has had a really busy week at work this week and he's been stressed & quiet. Maybe this weekend we will have good news on a house, can get some more packing done and I'll feel like we are making headway. Oh, we did get our notice turned into the apartment complex so it is official that we aren't staying. ;-) LOL! Cross ONE thing off my list.

Still bummed. Blah, I hate feeling like this. We had a brief moment of hope when we had talked to our realtor and a lot of work was being done trying to find comps to move forward with the appraisal & the sale of the house. Unfortunately the numbers that came back were not good and are such that the sellers can not afford to sell. They owe more than what the numbers are coming back with. So the house & property that we REALLY liked are now completely out of our grasp. Totally out of our control or anyone else's really. We've been searching and have a small list of houses for our realtor (and hopefully my mother, brother,etc) to check out for us. I'm not thrilled about any of them because we are having to sacrifice outside space or indoor space. Even with square footage in the same ballpark the room sizes are different. Just frustrating as all get out. :-/ This is so not what I was expecting from our house hunt and move....which really takes some of the fun and excitement out of it. So far I've done really good with the up & down but right now I'm feeling really down. I just want to cry and be mad at someone...but there really isn't anyone to be mad at. Ugh.

The kids are doing good. We went swimming over the weekend and had a nice time. Morgan spent most of the day today sketching. She had me sit for a portrait at one point today. Tomorrow is art class, which she loves!

Sorry for being such a bummer. Hopefully we will have some good house/move news soon and I can post on that.

I must say that tonight is truly a bummer. We've been going back & forth with the phone calls from our realtor & mortgage broker. Seems there is a problem...the house can't be appraised. The lenders have tightened the reins on the rules that the appraisers work with. To make the appraisals they have to have comps (comparable homes in age, size inside, property size). The lenders have said that the comps must be within an 8 mile radius. Even going back 2 years they aren't finding anything except for a couple of houses that sold for over $10,000 less than what we are contracted with for this house. Since the house won't appraise the contract is void. Long story short...we are back at square one. Corey and I actually took it okay and made some decisions based on other information to not try to create a new deal,etc. Poor Morgan cried when she found out. :-( Such crap...the kids were having a hard enough time with the move and we had gotten them excited about the house hoping it would help and here we go. Ugh! My mom's theory is that it must have been too far away from her so it wasn't going to work out. LOL! Gotta love her. :-)

We will keep everyone posted on the goings on of our renewed house hunt. Wheee! I just love this roller coaster!

The kids had science today. They've just been loving what Doug has been doing with class lately. Last week they dissected sheep eyeballs...cut them open, removed the lens & the retina. The kids were all fabulous...some of the parents were hilarious. Today they covered brains. He brought in a sheep's head that was cut in half so they could see inside. The kids thought it was great. Seriously..this group of kids from 3-8 years old. LOL! He had removed the brain so they got to see that really well. Then he had skulls (just the bones) of various animals so they could compare the size of their brains (based on the brain cavity in the skull). A friend gave me copies of the 1st & 2nd grade books from the math curriculum she uses with her boys so I can check it out. We are in search of something since we will be working with both kids next year and we want to make sure everyone has a good grasp.

I'm hosting a Pampered Chef catalog show. I'm hoping to earn the hostess gift being offered for May. It has a pink breast cancer ribbon on it. They have some cute guest specials for this month as well pertaining to the ribbons. One is a stencil so could be used for any colored ribbon. I may get something for my mom since she's a survivor.

The kids want to go to the pool or the beach tomorrow. We shall see. With the price of gas going up I just don't know about the beach. I saw several places on the way home from science class that had regular gas at $2.97/gal. Just ridiculous! I wish our government would stop stalling and let the ethanol and other alternatives be produced so we can start moving past this. Of course everyone in power has their pockets and mattresses just stuffed from oil profits so they don't want it to go away. Ugh!! Something just has to be done.

On this day five years ago we welcomed a new member to our family. Alexander was born at 1:15pm. We celebrated his 5th birthday this afternoon with a small group of friends that he wanted to invite. It just so happened to be friends that are homeschooled so we had his party today. Worked out nice...no fighting for a spot at the park and no crowded playground. He had a wonderful time and was excited that his friends came to celebrate with him. Meanwhile, I can not believe that my baby is FIVE! I'm not sure how this happened or when it happened but it has...and right before my very eyes. I'm torn emotionally between sadness & happiness/excitement. It has been an amazing and wonderful five years. I am excited about the sweet, energetic, very funny and very smart boy he has become and the future that is out there for him. He loves to read, loves doing math and picks it up very quickly. He enjoys the science class he takes and being outdoors. He is getting used to the critters that the teacher likes to bring. LOL! He likes video games and bugging his big sister. And thankfully, he is still very much our snuggle bug.

There is a link on the right side to pictures of his birthday party today. I miss my baby boy but he has become quite the big boy.

We hope everyone had a nice Easter, however you choose to celebrate. Our spring/renewal holiday is Ostara which is on the Vernal Equinox (1st day of Spring) so we don't really do anything for Easter. It would all be duplicate. We do all the egg dying, egg hunt, celebrating, spring foods and such at Ostara. The kids get plenty of candy & treats in eggs & baskets. However, they know about the bunny so we let him visit. It isn't a big deal and they don't have anything to compare it to so no biggie. We've explained that after we move I will be sending the Easter Bunny a letter and asking him to stop by GC's house (my mom...GC is for Grandma Carol) and the kids can celebrate Easter there. They are fine with that and think it will be neat to share with GC. Anyway, the Easter Bunny brought them a basket of goodies and they got some cute bunny themed card games from GC and cards from several grandparents.

We spent the day keeping them away from all the candy. LOL! And doing a LOT of sorting, tossing & packing! We feel like we made quite a bit of progress. We have until June to be finished but we really want to weed out NOW so it will be gone by the time we get moving quotes (very soon!). We also have to fit it in with working, homeschooling, various dr visits (making sure we are caught up & set before moving), activities, dance recital, visits with friends, etc. Feels like *so* much but we will get it all done. If nothing else we are getting a crash course in time management. ;-) We sorted the living room closet, hall/linen closet, the kitchen, and a few bookshelves. Corey took 2 trips to the dumpster in the van, we have bags of stuff for donation, and we got a couple of boxes packed. This is on top of the stuff we got done yesterday.

I think it is finally sinking in good for both of us that we have the house. While going through stuff today we spent a lot of time talking about where things would go in the new house and what function we wanted from each room,etc. Fun and interesting. We will be doubling our living space and that is just a cool thing when you've been feeling sooo cramped!

WE GOT THE HOUSE!! We are so excited! We heard from our realtor in TN this afternoon and finally found out that our offer was accepted (the counter to their counter). We will be closing the 25th/26th of May and moving in June...anytime after the 4th of June. We must wait until after the dance recital.

Speaking of the dance recital...Morgan came home from dance class on Thursday with her costume. It is just precious! She got to try it on at the dance studio and Corey says it looks too cute. All the girls complained about the stretchy sequin band around their neck so I'll have to see what I can do to make it a little more comfortable for her. I didn't see her because I was home on Darvocet after having a root canal.

The root canal was the solution to the dental pain I had been having. The root died & was causing the infection. They were able to go ahead & do the root canal since I had been on antibiotics long enough. The Endodontist was fabulous and I woke up Friday morning with no pain! I thought for sure there would at least be pain in the area from the work done...but no. Woo hoo! After a week of pain it feels good to be pain-free again.

It feels good to no longer be *waiting* to hear about the house. Ugh, that is some stressful stuff. I know we still have more to go through to complete the purchase and do the move but still..this was rough. We are feeling MUCH better now.

We took the kids to see Ice Age 2: The Meltdown today. We enjoyed it almost as much as the first one. We also picked up some boxes while we were out so we could continue working on the packing. We went through quite a bit today and got rid of a few things.

Off to watch Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow...Apple's and Moses' mom. ;-) I'll let you know how it is.

The waiting begins...and with it comes the stress & anxiety. LOL! It is official, we've put an offer in on a house in Tennessee. They have until Thursday to respond. Please oh please let it all work out. We are so excited to have gotten this far but I feel like I'm going to explode with the waiting & the anxiety I'm feeling. Nerve wracking! We will keep you posted on what happens.

I'm still dealing with a tooth infection but hopefully an upcoming trip to the Endodontist will take care of the problem tooth. Gotta love dental issues.

Morgan is trying to adopt a little orange kitten we've seen wandering around outside. I think it is just from an outside, unwanted litter. It seems to take care of itself pretty well, is skittish around people, etc. She has put a bowl of water out on the patio & keeps it fresh. She has tried going on there when she sees the kitten but it runs each time. She has named the kitten "Tangerine" because of the orange color. We have had many discussions about the kitten being a stray and that we are not adopting it or bringing it with us when we move.

Geez, I'm beginning to think we aren't going to catch a break. After visiting the oral surgeon on Thursday I started having some aches & pain in my upper left jaw. I thought it was no biggie & went about my business taking some ibuprofen. Well, it continued and finally yesterday (Saturday) it just seemed too much. I was taking ibuprofen and that was only working for a couple hours, it was hurting up into my cheekbone and I was getting some swelling. I put a call into my regular dentist & when she didn't call right back (what can I say I'm impatient!) I called the OS. He called right back, said probably beginnings of an infection & called me in an antibiotic. He would have called me in pain medication but I don't like those, have issue with 1 common one and felt I could handle the pain with ibu & tylenol until the antibiotics kicked in. My regular dentist called an hour later and said she would have called in something as well and if the swelling wasn't better by Monday to come see her & she would give me Prednisone for the swelling. We think the culprit is a back tooth that needs a root canal. Ugh! How in the world to fit this all in?? The pain woke me up at 4:30am and it took 30 mins for the ibu to work enough that I could go back to sleep. This morning when Alex woke me up I was feeling okay but immediately took some tylenol. I've gotten 3 doses of the antibiotics in so far so I think things will be better today.

For even *more* fun...life just isn't boring around here for long...we had our van vandalized Friday night. We discovered it Saturday morning as we were loading up the kids to head to Home Depot for some fun checking out new paint & flooring options for our new house. The rear window was smashed to bits...they smashed all around the outer edge and then smashed a hole in the center near the bottom. There was glass everywhere but nothing missing. We called the county sheriff's office since we live outside city limits and they don't do non-emergencies on the weekend. Since nothing was stolen and we were "just" vandalized someone would CALL us on Monday to take a police report. Gee...why bother?? We got some of the glass cleaned away & covered the area with plastic. Then last night we get the first rain that we've had in 41 days...and it is a hard thunderstorm!! We desperately needed the rain but goodness couldn't I have gotten the window replaced first. *sigh* I haven't been out there yet this morning to see if anything got wet. I have noticed that the plastic is still covering everything so at least it didn't come off or sink it from the rain. That's a good sign, right?? Just humor me & say "RIGHT". LOL!

On a positive note....we discovered that Home Depot carries natural bamboo flooring. This is great for us because we like the wood floor look & feel but not what it does to the environment (cutting down of hardwood trees,etc). Bamboo is technically a grass and it grows back quickly and is a sustainable alternative for hardwood flooring. And the cost was comparable to laminate flooring. Eventually we will be replacing at least some of the carpet in our new house (thinking positively here) with the bamboo flooring.

Corey had to work half the night doing changes so poor guy will be sleeping a lot this morning. The kids and I are just vegging out trying to finish waking up. Hopefully today will be a better day!

Ache...pain...the joys of visiting the dentist. I am going to have to have oral surgery. Yuck! I don't want oral surgery. LOL! I am 38 years old and my wisdom teeth are "finally" causing problems so they must come out. They weren't hurting but causing problems to other more important teeth so a wisdom tooth sacrifice is needed. I went for a consultation with the oral surgeon yesterday afternoon. He was very nice and after checking x-rays, did a quick peek and a TINY poking around. Literally a little poke on each side of the 4 guilty parties. Well, don't you know since I was having NO pain or ache issues before one of them is now hurting. Ugh! Ibuprofen is my friend for now and I'm working on scheduling the sacrifice. Corey or another adult has to be with me so we have to find a place for the kiddos, early in the morning of course. Plus I don't want to mess up events & classes we already have scheduled...art, American Girl event, Alex's birthday,etc. Egads. On the good side, I like the oral surgeon & his staff and our dental insurance is very good and we only have to pay 20% of the discounted fees. Yea!

I'm starting to feel overwhelmed at everything that has to be done before we move. I don't see how it will all get done especially since so much seems to be happening *right* before the move. Ack!! Take a deep breath, take a paxil. LOL! My mom said to just mark things off my list and that is all I can do. I think I'm going to sit down and write out a very detailed list of what all MUST be done and do just that...check things off as we get them done.

Corey and I watched "Flightplan" with Jodie Foster last night. We thought it was a good movie and really enjoyed it. I'm usually on top of things and figure out who did what but I was caught off guard when all was revealed in the movie. I must be slacking. ;-) Tonight we will be watching "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" with Kevin Spacey. I'm not sure what to expect so we shall see. Corey is on call & has to work in the wee hours of Sunday morning so no real plans for the weekend.

Here we are again....me getting behind in updates. LOL! We are still in the waiting phase in regards to house stuff. Argh!! I can hardly stand it but it will all be worth it in the end. Corey has put in a call to our broker. Let's see if we hear back from him quickly. ;-)

Let's see...other updates:

I got my hair cut pretty short (for me) last Thursday. It was down a few inches past my shoulder and almost all one length. The gray hair is just coming in faster than I like and it was getting harder to color ALL that hair. LOL! Plus I had gotten into the "pull it back in a ponytail" rut and wanted help getting out of it. So...off it came. What the heck, it is hair & will grow back if I don't like it. But I do like it. :-) It is above my shoulders and layered but still kind of long around my face. The hair dresser said it would be "soft" around my face but I'm trying to figure out if "soft face" is worth hair in my face bugging me. ;-) Funny thing is that hardly anyone has noticed. Oh well...

On Sunday we attended a friend's wedding. We had a great time and danced a lot. It has been a while. LOL! We were exhausted when we got home but it was great fun. Here is a picture of the kids dancing together.



Tuesday (2 days ago) we went to a preview party for the grand opening of the Wild Oats store , which is a natural & organic foods store. We've been waiting for it to open. At the preview party they had Tyler Florence from Food TV doing a cooking demonstration and signing books. We got to meet him and have him sign some stuff for us. It was so neat! He seems very nice & funny in person. The kids handled it all really well. I think Morgan was as excited as I was to meet him. LOL! So far we've met 3 of the Food Network chefs....Emeril, Alton Brown, and now Tyler. One of these days I am determined to meet Paula Deen! We all just love her and her cooking! Here is a pic of the kids and I with Tyler.


I just finished reading _Can You Keep A Secret?_ by Sophie Kinsella (author of the Shopaholic series). It was really funny in parts and ended okay. It was nice to read a book just for fun again.

Last night I went to a fun Pampered Chef party hosted by a homeschooling friend. It was nice to get out. I'm going to host a catalog party in May. I have ZERO room for hosting a party, especially a kitchen party here at the apartment and it will be worse by May when we have more packing done,etc. I'm hosting one in May because May is their "Whip Cancer" month and the hostess gift and the guest gifts are breast cancer inspired. If you are interested in helping me out and checking out a catalog let me know. I would really appreciate it and Pampered Chef has some nice stuff.

Corey is on call this week but it hasn't been too bad. He has been building servers and getting the environments up and running. Busy busy but going good.

We will keep updating you. :-) Thanks for checking in with us.