Well, we've rented our house out! It's pretty much settled that my friend is moving out by the end of this month and we'll be taking our time and moving sometime next month! It's hard to believe that we'll be moving! I have mixed feelings. I love the place we're going to but then again I'll miss the little town we're in now. We can go on great bike rides around town and walk to the playground and know several people here. We're excited about this place too but it will be different! So we'll see how we like living farther away from a town. At least we're just renting so if we decide we'd rather be more in town, we can always move back!
Here's some pics of our house!
The house with my friend out front
The shed - there isn't a garage right now...
My son is playing with the dog that we may get with the house!
The kitchen and dining room. I love the open floorplan!
The open area with the living room on the right.
I forgot to take a pic of the living room!
Our master bathroom with the jacuzzin tub!
Unfinished basement with lots of space and a walk-out!
There's more to the basement but this will be the main play area!
Semi-finished room in the basement where my husband will make his office for our ink business (www.encoreink.com) and his transcription work.
The back yard area with the fire pit and deck
Our sledding hill down to the pond. It doesn't look quite as big here as it is...
The "pond" area. There's not a lot of water in it - you can't see the water from here, but there is some water. Enough for frogs and all! There's also a ravine that runs down into here.
Bingo the dog that they may leave with us! He's a border collie.
One of several tree forts. I think I want to make this one a bit safer!
So thats the place! Soon we'll be moving - hard to believe!
We recently had a friend of mine ask if we would be interested in her house. She is going to be moving to the Twin Cities with her family and would like to rent her house. We went to see her house last week and it's exactly what we would love to have. It's on 5 acres of woods and has so many great things about it. There's a ravine that goes down to a very small pond. There's a garden already in and a swing set. The house is new - it's a modular that was put on a full basement with a walkout on one end. There's in floor heating in the basement and plenty of insulation.
Anyways, we're now looking for a renter for our house so we can rent out our friends' house and hopefully own it some day. We've had a number of inquiries off of my listing on Craigslist so we'll see what happens! I would be so excited to move to a great place with a great sledding hill for this winter! We just want to make sure that it's the Lord's place for us. So that's the news here!
Just a quick update! I'm now about a week from my due date so any time this little one could be making an appearance! I'm starting to get more excited and ready! I've been having more sporadic bh contractions that make me think things are gearing up anyways. My earliest singleton baby was 6 days early and my latest baby was 1 day late so we'll see when this one shows up. In the meantime I'm continuing with life as normal. I got our garden watered tonight so at least that's done for a couple of days if the baby comes. All in all things are pretty well in order. Maybe my next message will be with news of our little one!
I've been gone too long these days! Mainly it's because we have only had one computer and now that my husband works from our home, he's on it most of the time. I must admit it's been good for me to not have a computer to use much. I lean towards spending too much time online so it's been good for me to see how little I really need it. So now that I have a new computer that I can use regularly, hopefully I'll not go overboard with my computer time. Anyways, it will be good to be back here a little more!
Otherwise, we've been doing well. I'm 36w pregnant now! Can't believe I'm getting down to the last bit of being pregnant. It doesn't really hit me until about the last month that I'm really getting ready to have another baby. Hard to believe I'll have 7 little kids! It sounds like a lot! The kids are starting to talk about it more now. We still need to pick a name. My mom has been on me about making sure the baby is named by the time it's born. My brother had a baby in April and they waited a day before they decided for sure on the name and boy did everyone bug them about it for that day or so! Then today I heard about someone who has a baby who is 5 weeks old and still isn't named. It's between 2 names and they can't decide! So I'll have to tell my mom that!
We got our garden mostly put in even though it's been a pretty cool spring here. It's still only made it into the 70's a handful of days and last week it frosted twice. I'm excited to see plants growing all over our garden. We also put up some fencing to hopefully keep the critters out more. We'll see...!
Well, I'd better go for now, but that's my update for the time being. God bless!
Not a baby at this point... We got 9 mo. old Hooper off freecycle a couple hours from here. We picked him up on Sat. so are adjusting to life with a dog! Our last of the 2 cats that we had for many years died the day before we got him. He's a black lab / German shepherd mix and is a really nice dog! The mom of the family he was in was going back to work soon and they already have another dog as well and didn't have time for him but he's been trained some and been neutered and all so it's a really good deal we couldn't pass up! The kids are loving him and we're getting used to the whole thing! Here are some pics of him and the kids and my dh!
Our 10 month-old loves crawling on Hooper. He is very good with babies!
I just have to share my excitement about the week-end ahead! Collin & Nancy Campbell of the Above Rubies magazine are coming to the area not far from us to do a family retreat! They will be about an hour from here and we have friends who live only a couple of miles from the church they're speaking at. We're planning on all going and sleeping overnight at my friends' house! My friend has a 12yo daughter who will be helping with our kids during the retreat so hopefully we can hear part of it!
I'm also excited to receive my Above Rubies magazine! My article about Kids and Computers is in this issue! If anyone doesn't know about this free (by donation) magazine, check it out at www.aboverubies.org ! What a wonderful ministry the Campbells have!
Things are going pretty well getting settled. Our new project is to put up a clothesline. Any tips from anyone for a fairly cheap but good way to do this? I want it sturdy and am hoping it may double as a place to hang a baby swing for my 7mo baby.
Anyways, here's some pics from our new house!
Kids playing at our sand table on our deck! I love the big deck!
The back of our house. The area at the bottom of the back of the deck is where one of our gardens will be. Right now it's all sand that's grown over with grass in many places. The kids have enjoyed digging and playing in it! I'll probably keep some sand for them close to the deck where there is more shade.
Picture taken from our kitchen. I LOVE having the kitchen, dining and living rooms all attached! I'm also loving 1-level living!
Our more formal living room. A few things aren't staying where they are in this pic!
We're all moved and settled (mostly) into our new home! The moving process went very well. We had great help on both ends and were able to get all the work done quite quickly! We were settled with the kitchen unpacked and the beds put together by the end of the moving day. Of course this is the 3rd time we've done it in the last year, so we should have it down!
The only slight glich was losing our cat for a bit right when we were ready to leave! I was starting to get pretty worried when after about 15 min. of looking we hadn't found him! I did take a last walk to look for the cat by the river and was able to see that in the beaver dam area there was a new beaver lodge that had sprung up in the few days since our last trip down there! We had never seen a lodge before and were wondering if the beaver was still around. That was neat because my ds was able to take a quick walk down there to see it before moving. Anyways, the cat did turn up and all was well!
Since moving we've enjoyed walking out on the property that we back up to. Some day it may be developed and there's a road roughed-in that lots of people walk back on. It's gorgeous back on that land and you can get to the big river that runs through by town from close to the road. We also have enjoyed walking on the roads (very quiet roads) in town. Our town's population is close to 100 (was around 78 but with our 8 and another family or 2 moving in soon, it's going up!) so there isn't too much traffic or anything! It's only a 5 min. walk to the park by the river in town.
I've loved having our new house. We only have 1 level and I love it! Everything in the house is so convenient and the living room/dining area/kitchen are all attached in one big room. I LOVE that for watching the kids while cooking etc.! We have one more bedroom than we used to and also have a great big deck which I love! Anyways, things are going great settling in here. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us here. I'm excited to meet people and find people to witness to and serve!
So far so good with the moving! Here's our truck and my incredible brother working tirelessly to load our truck! We got a lot done today and all went smoothly. Thankfully we have beautiful weather with it being 70 and sunny! So tomorrow morning a few people are coming to help and the hard work begins of getting everything finished here and unloading and unpacking there! The kids are all pretty excited so that's been fun!
Things have gone well thankfully for moving. My ds got better by the next day so I think he may have had food poisoning. Everyone else is well in our house thankfully! We're mostly packed now. I mostly have some kitchen things left to pack and a few misc. items that I'm waiting until the end to do. My dh will get our truck tomorrow afternoon and we'll start the loading tomorrow night and finish up in the morning. Hopefully we'll be able to get the house cleaned up so we don't have to come back to clean another day. Then we'll drive the hour to our new house and get unloaded and hopefully have time to get a few things put away!
Then it's on to making our new town our home and settling in. Hard to imagine being in a different area. I'm grateful for a friend in town. I'm hoping to meet other homeschoolers out there. I have heard of a couple of coops that aren't too far away. One is a Christian group, the other isn't. I may check them out, although I'd mostly like to check them out to just meet some people who I could get together with regularly. I praise God that he is with us wherever we go. I can be at home with him wherever I am!
The house with my friend out front
The shed - there isn't a garage right now...
The kitchen and dining room. I love the open floorplan!
The open area with the living room on the right.
Our master bathroom with the jacuzzin tub!
Unfinished basement with lots of space and a walk-out!
Semi-finished room in the basement where my husband will make his office for our ink business (www.encoreink.com) and his transcription work.
The back yard area with the fire pit and deck
Our sledding hill down to the pond. It doesn't look quite as big here as it is...
The "pond" area. There's not a lot of water in it - you can't see the water from here, but there is some water. Enough for frogs and all! There's also a ravine that runs down into here.
Bingo the dog that they may leave with us! He's a border collie.
One of several tree forts. I think I want to make this one a bit safer!
Our 10 month-old loves crawling on Hooper. He is very good with babies!
My 8yo ds is so excited to have a dog!
My dh is trying to wear him out!
Dh and dog!
Kids playing at our sand table on our deck! I love the big deck!
The back of our house. The area at the bottom of the back of the deck is where one of our gardens will be. Right now it's all sand that's grown over with grass in many places. The kids have enjoyed digging and playing in it! I'll probably keep some sand for them close to the deck where there is more shade.
Picture taken from our kitchen. I LOVE having the kitchen, dining and living rooms all attached! I'm also loving 1-level living!
Our more formal living room. A few things aren't staying where they are in this pic!
