Moving Day!

For anyone who has moved, you are well aware of how crazy moving day is! Taking pictures is the about the last thing you're thinking about. :o) Thus explains why our wonderful moving crew is woefully unrepresented, but enjoy the few pics we have! :o)

One family came with their six children--the oldest three girls helped me pack my last remaining boxes inside, while the youngest three played outside with my two! Who knew how much help play buddies could be?!?

Come dine with us . . . :o)

A brief peek at the dining and living rooms the evening of the move. Thankfully the bedrooms were reasonably settled by early afternoon for some much needed rest time. (Chris and I were up till 4:30 that morning installing closet shelving, etc.!)

So now we unpack! :o)

Painting & Prep

Well, the last few week were filled with last minute preparations for the big move! :o) Praise the Lord for friends and family who came along to help!

The first room to get paint was the kitchen since it had to be painted before cabinets were installed . . . Thanks Dan, Debbie, Heather, and Adam!

Another green kitchen! :o)

Bryan and Janie graciously extended their "vacation" for a week after Janie's brother graduated to help us with kitchen cabinets and more painting! (They also joined us for our week of celebrations.) :o)

The kids have been well-trained to cover their ear for loud noises. :o) It's pretty funny to watch them going around with hands over ears while Chris or Bryan are using power tools. :o)

Yeah for cabinets! :o) (We'll be using plywood and shelving for counters till the budget recuperates.) :o)

More painting! It was much more enjoyable painting the living room than the bedrooms since the bedroom color was so light you could hardly see it going on the wall! :o)

And sadly unrepresented in photos, my mom came the week right before the move and helped scrape windows, paint trim, pack, read to grandchildren . . . :o)

Thanks everybody!

And celebrating at Red Robin's . . .

Who wants to cook on their birthday?

I most certainly don't! :o) So I signed all of our family up for the Red Robin birthday club so that we got free meals, and we went to Red Robin's on my birthday! :o) (The birthday coupons are good for a two week period, so we were able to use coupons for Hannah and Chris, too!) We had a wonderful time! And it was especially fun to share it with Bryan and Janie! :o)

They sang "Happy Birthday" and we got three free desserts on top of our free meals!

Our whole crew!

Balloons are great!

And that's about all I have time to share this afternoon . . . but I promise, the next posts will be updates on our new house and the results of MOVING DAY! :o)

A Birthday Party

We all thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Hannah's 4th birthday (two weeks ago now!) :o)


She was pretty excited about the decorations Mommy and Aunt Janie put up while she was sleeping, even though the day did start with a rather ordinary breakfast of Cheerios. :o)

Peter enjoyed the balloons every bit as much as Hannah! :o)

Hannah had been "planning" her birthday party for months, so even though our schedule was absolutely insane, we knew we had to try to do something for her. SO . . . we invited all of her friends and their families from her Sunday School class at church and had a big family picnic at the park. What a blast! :o) The Lord even had the pavillion set aside just for us (without a reservation!) :o) (And all I had to do was bring dessert and decorations--no games to plan!)

Since we live so far from family, our church family is very precious to us! What a blessing it was to have them share this special evening with us.

What a cute group of girls! :o)

The boys were not as inclined to line up for pictures, but we'll keep them too! . . .

Hannah was so excited to share her goodie bags with her friends and her grin stretched from ear to ear as everyone sang "Happy Birthday!"

Time to blow out the candles! (I was so glad she wanted a pizza cookie like Peter - I had neither time nor energy to do something more ambitious!)

And she was just as excited as any four year old about opening presents. :o) Crafty stuff was a definite theme this year (including a Crayola art desk which will show up in day to day pictures I'm sure.) She was very excited to receive her very own pink "princess tape." Another one of those requests which had been brought up for months! :o)

And after presents, more play time! :o)

We were so glad to have Uncle Bryan and Aunt Janie there with us, too! (Mommy was especially glad because the afternoon was pretty crazy and Aunt Janie was a HUGE help in getting ready for the party!) Everyone enjoyed watching Uncle Bryan fly his airplane!

Playing in the bubble with Mr. Dan

Swinging High!

Sharing the day with "Barry the Birthday Clown" from Hannah's teacher at school

And a special birthday pic with Mommy and Daddy!

What a blessing to share the day with our friends and family!