PROPS to CHIP

Last night I was exhausted and went to bed at 9pm. Because Chip was going out of town yet again he said he would fold all the clothes. (He does typically help a lot with this anyway) When I got up this morning all of the clothes were neatly folded and the kitchen was clean. It was so nice!

rainy day fun

Last week when Chip was out of town we went to Hobby Lobby and bought some paint supplies to occupy us during the rain. They loved it, Ella esp i think. We painted little things to put in their bathroom on which to hang their towels. I love how they turned out. I think in my younger years I was a little more of a perfectionist. I don't know what I am now.

allergies

phlegm-provoking phlowers

apparently we (the kids and I) have developed allergies since moving. chip developed his in college. don't know what is so different 45 minutes down the road but it is. we do have tons of fruit trees in our yard. maybe that's it. i can hear nate or ella coughing in their sleep.

chip is out of town again. last week it was three days, this week its 4. not a huge deal just have to stay busy. i have sweet friends in town that are having us over for dinner one night this week, just like last week.

A good day

For one thing...out came the sun and dried up most of the rain. And the not so itsy bitsy spider did come into my house tonight. (not part of the good day, just a side note) Anyway. Here are all the good things. The first child awoke at 7am. Chip cooked muffins before he left for work. I weeded the front flower beds. Jadyn & Jill came over for lunch. The kids played well and we actually got to have a conversation (interrupted many times of course). Chip came home after lunch and hung the chandelier that a lady from our church gave us for our breakfast area. (He was going to be out late). I organized the book shelves in the den during the kids naps. I cooked a yummy dinner that included asparagus. I took two of the munchkins on a walk. At that point I decided it had a been a pretty darn good day. Thank you I'll have another...a good day that is, not a child.

The kids rode most of the way with their legs propped up like this. I thought it was so cute how relaxed they were. It was obviously a good call on going walking. They were a tad cranky before we left the house.

Why everyone needed a baby doll I am not quite sure. Although Streed was the Power Ranger scaring the fairies all over the yard he could not be left out of the picture.

ADIDAS

I wish I could type that subject in a New Zealand accent so that you could read it the way it sounds in my head. Streed got his first set of soccer gear last night. He is so excited and we are just waiting to hear from his coach at the YMCA as to when it all starts. Yes his ball is Nike. As are his cleats. So, why the ADIDAS subject? While in NZ years ago I was told that ADIDAS stands for All Day I Dream About Sports. This is the first thing that popped into my head when I took this picture. And here he is in the a.m.

Look Who's ONE!

He has a very unprofessional haircut. But, despite that he is still super cute. In this picture he is very proud that he just climbed into Chip's car all by himself. Ella is schooling him in a few things. Not good.

what i left out

• Another thing i love is that everyone and everything is so pro-LSU. Even the shopping carts at the Winn Dixie by campus are purple and gold (if i would have had my camera with me i would have been tempted to risk embarrassment and take a picture of them). Even though in the past 7 years i myself have never been pro-LSU, i can get excited about it now that i live here.
• I also like having a larger staff team. We had everyone over a few weeks ago to grill out after the guys won the whole pre-season intramural softball tournament. It was really fun to sit around and laugh with old friends.
  

what i should be doing

I worked my tail off in this house today. The kids rooms needed major attention. I am not Suzy Homemaker. I never have been, even pre-kids. However, something inside of my is being churned to need less chaos. I need simplicity wherever I can find it or create it. So, today I got their rooms looking really nice, even vacuumed. During their naps Chip came home (because he was working tonight) so that I could go to the grocery store. I ended up going to two different stores in order to take advantage of some sales. Because I worked this weekend, I am majorly behind on lots of things, namely LAUNDRY. However, I just had to sit down after feeding, bathing, reading to and getting the kids in bed. I just could not bring myself to fold clothes. I sat down with a bowl of cereal and watched 24. Actually I missed about the first 20 minutes and a few other minutes here and there because Streed & Ella got up. But, at least I sat down.

what i do love

I really do love it here.

• I love our house. (I need to post before pictures soon) I have a nice size kitchen with amazing cabinets. I have a fireplace! My den is large and has two windows overlooking the backyard. One day we want those windows to be french doors. The kids play in the backyard all day. The carport is on the back of the house and we have a long driveway that is fenced in. The kids can ride their bikes in the safety of our yard basically.
• Our neighborhood. My favorite part I think are the sidewalks. I may have only walked a few times but the option to is so great. I also love how quiet our street is. There is virtually no traffic. Our old street was a super speedway.

• I love our church. We actually have a family retreat this weekend with our church. They seem to heighten the word, community, and personal holiness. We take communion every week (every other Sunday morning service and every alternating Sunday evening service.

• There are many conveniences to living in a city. We are close to everything we need, this is good and bad. I love that it is close enough to Hammond that I still see some of Hammond friends. I live less than 10 minutes from a mall that I usually work in for Clinique. I have been looking at a Parents magazine today that is specific to Baton Rouge. It is full of calendars of events for the spring, information on stores, swim lessons, consignment sales etc...
• We are super close to a park. Chip actually took the kids a few times this weekend when I was working! I like my neighbors and Streed has some buddies on our street. He is learning how to work out differences and whine and cry less when upset. There is a girl Ella's age across the street. They have yet to be able to play due to illness or being out of town etc.
  
• Our associate pastor and his wife live between us and Jill (our neighborhoods kind of connect). They have 3 kids similar in ages to mine. We all get along really well. We grilled out this past weekend with The Williamson's & The Price's. The kids all played really well for the most part. Nate even took a nap over there.

what?!

I am almost embarrassed that i have not been on here in so long. I really did not realize it had been almost one month. but, I am not surprised. We actually just got wireless internet through Verizon broadband!!!! I am really excited about this. Thieving some neighbors unsecured wireless bit us. Hopefully all that was hacked was my email.

This move was definitely the hardest. Maybe because it took us out of Hammond, maybe because it was with 3 kids. I don't think so. I think it was just the finality of our time in Hammond and the starting over of so many new things here--new city, church, neighbors, friends, doctors, pharmacies, grocery stores etc. Very shortly after we moved Ella and Nate got sick. I had to take Nate to the doctor twice and get on two different antibiotics. During this time I got sick. I had to go to the walk-in clinic twice. Got 2 shots and ended up on 875 mg of antibiotics only to be sick for 2 whole weeks. So, my first 4 weeks here I was isolated from people for 3 weeks, including church. This really affected me. I was really down. I am doing much better now.