Friday is Ice Cream day

I sort of started a bad habit with the girls that we would get an ice cream on Friday's after I picked them up from school, or if we were running around doing something.

Of course now it seems a little more inconvenient to go and get an ice cream. It is only about 4 miles to Artic Circle to get an ice cream, but compared to our location before, it seems so far away.

This last friday the girls reminded me that it was ice cream day, and I wasn't really all that excited to go get ice cream... it seems like I am always so swamped with unpacking or organizing stuff to be more functioning. (It was just last week sometime that I finally found the girls' lunch boxes.) I was thinking also that it would be nice to go do something fun or something other than watch TV, now that we have it, and it was too cold to really go out and play. Sooooo.... we got ice cream.

For those who haven't been out in this area, when you drive into "town" if you want to call it that, you start here from areas full of houses and developments with entrances and then there is just like nothing but open farm land, maybe a few farm houses but mostly just open fields and then you reach the "town"area with a grocery store, a few fast food places, a gas station and a few banks and other little stores. While we were headed to "town" I noticed a deer, and then looked and noticed another, and another.... there where like maybe 50 of them. As I looked at them, I realized they weren't deer, or not the normal deer that we have seen out here before, they had white belly's and like a black and white head... they just looked different.

I of course am trying to show the kids as we are passing them so they can see them too. I am trying to recall our Yellowstone Guide that had all the animals on there and what they were, and I tell the girls, oh those aren't deer-they are goats, oh no they are long horned sheep, no wait they are pronghorned sheep... by this time Emily is saying, "They aren't sheep or goats mom!" I am still trying to identify them to the best of my knowledge of wild animals here in the state of Utah, and I am still struggling. I finally say, "I think they are pronghorned deer." And that is what I stuck to. There were just everywhere, all around this little farm house in the middle of this big field. We got our ice creams and headed back home, and saw them again. This time we see more, there are more on the other side of the house which we missed before coming in.

Of course this is bugging me because I am not sure what they are called. I come home and look up on the internet about pronghorn deer, and see the pictures above, and say...YES that is what we saw. Then Robert's mom comes out to our house and says, "We saw that big herd of antelope that Robert said you saw the other day." I told her I thought they were Pronghorn deer, she corrects me and says, no they are antelope. I guess even when you try to be right, you are still wrong.

If they are pronghorn deer or antelope, I don't know what is correct. But these are the best pictures of what we saw that I could find. There were at least 50 of them, if not more. It was fun to see them. Now I keep trying to think of things I might need to go into "town" to see if they are still around. I have gone a few more times, but it has always been at night - and of course, I couldn't see a thing.

Maybe next ice cream day we will see them again.

Emily's smile has changed abit

Back in Feb Emily got braces. She wasn't too sure about getting braces, we knew "one day" she would need them but then when her teeth didn't come down like they were suppose to then we needed to get them fixed now. Here is a picture the day that Emily got her braces on... this is of course BEFORE braces.... on Feb 29th 2008.

This is Emily right after her braces where put on... it took some getting use to but she did great with them on.

This is just today, this morning before we went to the Ortho appointment to get her braces off. Amber wanted to be in the pictures too.

Here is Emily again, just a few last pictures before her smile changes....

And Amber is getting a little more happy in the pictures now too. Emily's last smile on film with braces.... Now we have a BEFORE

And now AFTER! Look at that smile!
Amber was pretty caught up in all the talk of Emily getting her braces off, Amber kept saying she wanted to get her braces off too. Before that she was telling me she was getting her braces off too. She even tried to go back to the chair.

Here is Emily and her new smile for a while... 'til she needs braces again later.

Amber was so funny, the whole way back to school, she kept saying all the things Emily was saying, "It feels like my teeth fell out." or "it feels so wierd..." then she would repeat a few and then say, "my teeth are more wiggly now," or "can I eat some corn chips? Please" Emily would say something and then Amber would repeat it with some of her own adverbs...awesome, cool, freaky, dude... anything the other girls have said before. "That's just freaky!" (sounds funny coming out of a 2 yr old)

So now we are done with the orth....'til Jan when Lindsey gets her spacers and retainer! What fun it is to go to appts!

Samantha at 6 months

Okay so I have been so busy lately, that I didn't ever post anything about Samantha and her 6 month appointment. (Or did I?) Samantha turned 6 months on her cousins year birthday. So fun! She weighed a wopping 17 lbs 7.5 oz and was 26 inches. She is in the 78% for her weight, 60% for her height, and 71% for her head. Most all my other girls, excpet for Amber, have all been in the 90+ percentile for weight, and head circumference. Rob's Grandma says smart kids have big heads! I like to think so too! Samantha has gone down a little in height and weight as far as how she was growing before, but still is doing great. When I was nursing Samantha she was in the 92+ %ile for her weight. I thought Samantha was going to catch up with Amber in weight and all, but it looks like she is slowing down and may not catch her as fast as I thought she was. Amber is still just like 23 lbs.

Samantha is doing great. She is always laughing and giggling. She squeals at Amber all the time in the car. I will hear Amber laughing and then Samantha will just start squealing at Amber too. They seem to be doing better together. Amber will try to wake her up when they are both in the car, she will start laughing at Samantha and try to wake her up that way.

Samantha loves her feet, she grabs them and just loves to touch them. In fact, it is kind of any feet. When I change her diaper, I lay her down on the floor and I sit down on the floor with her between my knees and she grabs at my feet or pant legs. She is really grabby. She grabs faces, earrings, zipopers...anything she can get her hands on. She seems to also LOVE hair! She will grab my hair or one of the girls' and she will just squeal and get so excited. She still isn't super cordinated, so she wobbles and grabs things clumsily. She has 4 teeth on the bottom and 3 on top, maybe 4 on top by now. She LOVES to latch on to a finger, arm, shoulder.... whatever she can get her mouth on and chew or BITE really hard. She got my chin once, at first I was like, oh how cute she is giving me kisses, and then that turned really quick into get her off of me! She is sitting up by herself really good. It almost seemed like overnight that happened. She rolls over a little but hasn't quite used it to her advantage to go anywhere. She sometimes will get flipped over in her bed onto her belly and then will cry trying to get back on to her back.

She has been such a wonderful addition to our family. I love to just play with her in the morning after she has eaten and before her nap. She is also very tickleish. Especially under her chin or around her neck. She has been protesting lately about getting into her car seat, and when she is upset, she won't bend to sit down when I try to sit her down on the floor. Guess she knows she gets put there and then ignored too often.

I was hoping to do like a bunch of photos from when she was a baby 'til she was 6 months, but I will have to do that later. Here's a few pictures that I found on my computer and camera.


Here is Samantha with her cute flower headband on. The other girls kept trying to get pictures with her doing the same things Samantha was doing.


Here is Lauren holding Samantha, this is her actual 6 month day.

Amber was trying to smile for the camera with Samantha. Anytime I get the camera out, Amber thinks it is all about her. (Normally it is, Amber is too cute!)Amber was giving Samantha a kiss, I kept missing the kiss so I kept having her do it again. Samantha wasn't too happy about it as time went on.

This picture cracks me up! It is quite the funny picture of Samantha.
Here Amber is trying to talk to Samantha.

And this one has nothing to do with Samantha, but it was too cute, I had to add it!

And this would be my all time favorite of Samantha I think so far! So cute!!!

Fox 13 News

This week the cool school on Fox 13 news was Saratoga Shores. The 1st graders sang Rubber Ducky with their principal. You can click http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=8044826&version=1&locale=EN-US to go see it.

I am not really sure how to do the links, so I am hoping that does it, if not I think I have also added it to this post somewhere? I am hoping so anyway. You can see Lindsey to the left of the principal, and Lauren is way on the right side of the group, next to a girl with blonde longer hair with a flower headband in her hair... it is harder to see Lauren.

The girls were WAY excited to be on the news. I set my TV to record, but somehow it totally missed it. It stopped recording about 10 minutes before they sang. I was so glad to see this link on the news.

Pictures from WA trip last Aug.

Since we had to get a new email account, I have been trying to go into our old one and get some of my emails out of there. Especially the ones with Pictures. Lots of times I never save the pictures, I just go back to the email. Teaches me I need to SAVE them each time I get them huh! These are some pictures my sister sent. They are from our WA trip during this last August. These were great pictures one of my sisters took, I just had to post them and SAVE them too!

Lindsey and Lauren

Amber with her cousin Destiny

Emily next to the fountain she was helping to build and decorate. (btw Emily most likely decorates better than I do, and is more creative with it. Not that I always like her ideas, but she is great for her age I think! And she isn't afraid to state her opinion or idea.)

Grandma Karen (my mom) and Sam

Aunt Lorri, Grandma, and Sam

One of those days!

The girls had a pretty good day yesterday at school. It is hard to adjust here, on 550 West, there were SO many kids to play with, my doorbell didn't have a chance to rest. Amber got so everytime the door bell would ring she would say, "It's Madison" or the one I loved the most was, "Jacob's home!" She really loved all the girls friends especially Jacob. Here the door bell only rings when we have a repair guy or a tech of some sort here. We finally got TV yesterday afternoon, which was nice. It doesn't seem there are many kids to play with on our street, or maybe we just haven't found them yet. We are going to go ask people about this cat here, figure that will be a good way to get to know our neighbors and find out about the cat. Robert said we need to adopt it (I was shocked he even offered that) or take it to the pound.


The poor tech guy, everything seemed to be okay until the girls got home from school. The girls asked if they could play with the neighbor girl who is 5. They had to wait until she got home from school since she is a "later gator" and wouldn't be home for another 40 minutes or so. The girl next door has a Doberman puppy, that is pretty big and seems to be pretty hyper. The owners are constantly chasing her around and trying to take the dog back home, she seems to wonder a bit when she is out. When the girls were finally playing, they had the dog on a leash and they were taking turns walking the dog.


One of the girls came running in the house saying they needed help walking the dog. I went out to see what was up, and Emily said, "You know how on cartoons someone is walking a dog and the dog is pulling them on the ground while the dog is running away, that is what happened to Lindsey." Lindsey seemed to be okay, I told them maybe they should stick to the girl only walking the dog. I go back inside...


While I was outside I noticed another girl out there with her dog, the dog wasn't on a leash. It seemed that the girl was having trouble getting her dog. I then hear some major barking, and again the girls run in to tell me that the dogs are fighting. I go outside again, to find the dobberman on the leash with the little girl holding on with all her might and holding onto the back bumber of our car to hold the dog back. The other dog (a springer spaniel looking dog) is going crazy barking and running around the other dog and my car. I go out and try to talk to the dog on the leash to calm it down. (I don't know why this was my job or even why it would work.) Finally the little girl asked me if I could hold her dog. I do. Again, I am not really sure what I am going to do... then she asked if I could walk her dog home. We do... the little girl had big scrapes on her fingers from holding back the dog so much, she was bleeding and my girls decided to donate a few bandaids for her. I go back inside....


Emily comes in and tells me that the other dog (spaniel type dog) is bothering the cat outside. This would be the cat that came with the house that tries to get in all the time and fights with our cat. Emily said she was trying to get the cat our of our garage, I was telling her to just leave the cat, it will fend for itself better than we can protect her. I go back inside again....


I talk to the tech guy for our dish system, then I hear one of the girls coming in again... This time the dog was bothering our rabbit. I told them to just try to keep the dog away and then I would be out in a minute. The dish system was just finishing loading or whatever it does to start up. Everything was installed and we were just waiting for it to be done doing its configuring or whatever it does. Then I hear horrible screaming outside and Lindsey comes in running and yelling that the rabbit got out because it was scared and Emily was trying to calm her (the rabbit) down but the rabbit got loose. Now the dog is chasing the rabbit all over the yard. I can hear Emily screaming and crying outside. I think the worse, that the dog is gonna eat the rabbit, or that it has already, I run outside look around see the rabbit zig zagging all over the street and the yards of ours and the neighbors, I tell Emily to hurry and help me. She still crying and now Lauren is all crying and freaking out too. I run barefooted across the rocky asphalt to the neighbors where the rabbit was running wild. I atempt several times to grab the rabbit or the dog. Finally I grab the dog and the rabbit runs through a fence. Emily is still out of control, I tell her to reach through the slats in the fence and grab the rabbit and pull it through, I will hold the dog back. She gets the rabbit. I tell her to give me the rabbit and she can take the dog and I will take the rabbit back. Emily isn't going for it, I am afraid she will get scratched to bits from the rabbits razor nails. I take my jacket off while still holding the dog and tell Em to wrap the rabbit up in the jacket so it doesn't scratch her, and go put the rabbit back in its cage. All is good. Although I am still holding the dog, and I mean really like holding it, like carrying it. The older girl (maybe 7-9yrs) asks me if I can carry her dog back to her house. I am like, NO. The girl tells me she knows where she lives, guessing that maybe she is new to the neighborhood, I tell her I will help her out a little bit. (Meanwhile, my little girls are sleeping in the house with the tech guy for the DirecTV. ) I take the dog down the sidewalk a bit, then let the dog go. The girl is running and the dog is chasing her. Then she stops and the dog runs back toward us, I tell the girl to run again and call her dog and the dog will follow her home... Why I didn't think of that earlier, I don't know...


I decided that last night was a good BATH night, I left Robert setting up the tree and I took a nice HOT bath. I do like the bigger tub here! I even was productive while my tub was filling, I folded laundry.


I look forward to a productive day today, hopefully. I also sent out emails of my new email and phone number. If you didn't get it, call my old number and it will give you my new number. As soon as we get our new internet up, I can get a new email set up.


I better get on with my day, I hear Samantha awake upstairs and Amber just notified me that she is stinky. It wouldn't be so bad, but I remembered that she took off her diaper and put her jammies back on with out a diaper while I have been on the computer. Nothing quite like a big mess in footed zip-up jammies, she is walking around a little funny. Duty calls! I guess it is time for Amber's bath... good thing we have hot water.

Things are looking up!

The girls had a better day yesterday at school, Lindsey and Lauren even wanted to ride the bus to school, which I let them and then ran Emily to school. She (Em) refused to go to class so she waited until she was late and then requested that I walk her into school. I hate to say NO, I know she is doing pretty good for what she use to do. Today the girls missed the bus so I took them to school and then did my running around. When I dropped the girls off at school, I reminded them they WOULD be taking the bus back home, I would not be there to pick them up. Emily started in with, "I don't know where to go..." and I again told her go to your class and ask your teacher where it is that you are suppose to be lining up at. Lindsey just took Emily and said, "I will show you!" and then Lindsey and Lauren took Emily to go line up and they walked by the bus they were to catch later, so Emily could see what bus it was. That is what I like to see! Sisters helping each other out. It made me so happy.



About our house situation, we finally got HOT WATER last night! Yahoo!! It was about 9 pm when the guy left and said it would be about an hour before we it would be ready. I was so anticipated a nice HOT bath, but decided I didn't want to wait that long, and I wanted a HOT bath not a luke warm one. When I was getting ready for bed shortly after 9, I noticed the water wasn't FREEZING anymore, so that was exciting.



We are suppose to be getting direcTV today, since no reception is really here. We tried one antenna and it didn't seem to really work that great, so we decided to go with the dish of some sort. I really don't like the dish systems, I don't like the idea of having cartoon access ALL DAY long, for the kids. I don't appreciate all the garbage that comes with it, and would like to just basically get local channels. I do like some of the extra channels but of course you can't really just get animal planet for the kids and Fox Sports for Robert. And of course they lock in into the whole thing by signing you up for 2 years, and this rate is only good for the first year! GREAT! Oh well.



Our new internet that we had was through Verizon, an air card or something and it was like $60 a month, so I didn't want to do that. We went through Digis now, or will be. They will come out and hook us up later this week. In the meantime, my email account doesn't work. I log in and it tells me this is no longer valid please close it or we will automatically close it in 5 minutes. I really dislike the whole changing email addresses. I should just get a yahoo account or something to keep it always the same. Until then, it seems there is a wireless network somewhere around us that I am able to tap into. Nice!



Our old cat, from the other house has seemed to adjust okay to this house. He still seems to get lost, he will meow really loud until I talk to him or someone else will. He really wants to go outside. I let him out today, he just sneaky-ly (if that is a word) walked around on our porch, and then Amber shut the door on him which freaked him out. As soon as I opened the door to the house, he ran back inside. There is a cat here, that I am guessing use to live here, she (I say she, but I haven't really looked to see if it is a she or he) sits at the patio door and even comes in the garage. The girls this morning left the door open and she ran right in. She did that twice and one of the times I had to chase her up the stairs. I guess she knew what was coming. GATO (our cat) doesn't really care for her. He will look out the slider from the dining room and she will be out there. They both just hiss and growl at each other through the window. Poor thing, they both think this is their house.



While running errands today, Amber kept talking to me. She cracks me up. This is what she would say in almost every store we went into...



Amber: Say, I

Me: I

Amber: Love

Me: Love

Amber: You!

Me: You!

Amber: Now say, I Love

Me: I Love

Amber: you so much!

Me: you so much!

Amber: Good job, you did it! Now put your fingers up.
(she uses the sign for I LOVE YOU.)

Then she would say things like, I..... Tinkerbell.... I...... Dora..... and make me repeat her words. She was cracking me up. It reminds me of my nephew who is now grown up, when he was little he was sitting on his Grandma's lap and asking her, "Grandma, what color is this?" pointing to a color on her shirt, just copying what she had done before. Kids learn fast, and I really enjoy watching them learn and grow.


Which brings me to another thought.... I got my "free" snapfish photo book back the other day. We had taken a trip in the summer of 2007 to Yellowstone and I had always wanted to put it in a book and make a scrapbook out of it, and so that is what I decided to do for my free book (from the Oprah giveaway). I read the book to the girls last night, and they were really delighted to have a book of their vacation. But looking at the pictures in there, Amber looks like Samantha in there and the twins look so YOUNG, they were just barely 5. They have grown up so much since then. It kind of makes me sad. It makes me want to embrace all my girls and the stages and ages they are, since they will never be back there again. I am definitely going to miss the baby stages that we are closing too fast each day with Samantha. I am afraid I am going to blink my eyes and I will be Grandma Karla and all my girls will be grown with families of their own. I better stop there before I make myself cry!

Saratopia....

Last night we had some family over for a birthday desert kind of thing. It was nice to have a place big enough for a few extras without all separating into various locations. After our desert (left over Thanksgiving pie) we went over to one of my neice and her husband's house to see all their Christmas decorations. As we are driving back to our house Lindsey says, "When are we going back to Saratopia?" I kind of had to laugh. Saratopia, is that a good fit or not, I am not sure. In some ways it is, and in other ways I am way out of my comfort zone here.

Funny thing is on Saturday the girls and I walked down the street to see if one of the neighbor girls could play, and who do we see.... the Allens driving around. It was pretty funny!

We talked to the PPM guys that looked at our hot water heater, sounds like the part will be in TOMORROW! (fingers crossed!) This no hot water thing is something I have totally taken advantage of before.

Today the girls went to school at their new school. Emily kept saying, "I don't like today" which is what she says to anything she doesn't approve of or when she gets out of her comfort zone. Emily cried at lunch when she didn't have a place to sit and then Lindsey got lost after school when it was time to go home, she couldn't find her way to the meeting place we set up. Other than that, all went well.

I brought the cat over today... to make a long story short, he freaked out in the car and ended up peeing all over my lap. YUCK! Cats are great aren't they!!

Problems with the new house...

Okay so you know what this is right... obviously it is a burner for a electric stove. Although if you are really creative or desperate perhaps, this also doubles as a way to heat up water in a gas water heater. It seems like all you need to do is run some wires to this and then plug those wires in. Or so that is what previous owners/tenants (or someone) did at our new house.

I think I told you we got the water on, but didn't have hot water. I figured it was just because the tank was just filling up, but it turned out that the pilot light was off. As Robert was trying to light the light (it was suppose to be a self-ignighting hot water heater... I don't know much about all this) it wasn't working. We decided to call someone that knew what they were doing instead of us blowing our house up. I call Questar, they said they can't do it, but they could walk me through it on the phone. Yeah -- no thanks on that!! We decided to have a service call to the guys that did our furnace at our old house and they could also check out the furnace at the new house to make sure things are all good. Robert had mentioned that something felt loose under the water heater. Still no hot water though, no problem, guy comes to look at it on Tuesday, we move on Wednesday.

I go out to the house on Tuesday to meet the repair guy, he comes back up from the basement with this electric burner from a stove with two wires connected to it. He said this was the problem there is no hot water, this was under the hot water heater, and the REAL parts are missing and no where to be seen, we will have to order new parts. I am just looking at the heating element just laughing thinking, what was that all about? "Can't wait to tell Robert about this one!!" Turns out, that the parts won't be in until maybe Monday, and if they get them in early monday they can fix it but if not, it will have to wait until Tuesday. The whole drive home back to the old house I am just chuckling, thinking of Robert saying, "something just doesn't feel right there, it is all loose." Now we know why it wasn't lighting or turning on and the gas was just coming out doing nothing.

Then on Wednesday we had hired some movers, which we thought would be easier and faster, make one trip not have to worry about everything... that was a mistake. When I talked to the guy on the phone he told me the time started when they got to the house and it ended at the new house when they were done. No paid travel time. Well, they charged us for that. I called the guy I talked to back, and he won't return my calls and I get put on "hold" and end back up at the main menu and dial his extention again just to get his voice mail. Man I am mad about it all! It was quick and it was nice to have someone else do it all. They just didn't meet my standards I guess. They stopped once at our old house "for a break" and then once again at our new house "for a break" while they did various things from smoking to talking on the phone. And why should I pay them to have a cigarette or call their wife? (Okay, I don't know who they were calling, and it wasn't that they were smoking that bothered me, they could have been reading the BOM for all I cared, but why should I pay them to take a break to do that?) Still a little upset about it all.

We got all our stuff to our new house, the furniture it pretty much in place, all boxes went to the garage. I had numbered most all the boxes and then put a master sheet together of what was in box #1, #37 (which happened to be shoes which I had to find today) and then where it belonged. So box #37 was to go to the "loft" since they were everyone's shoes to be sorted out in the middle of all the bedrooms. I had over 140 boxes crazy huh! Now when I am looking for something, I go to my list and find what box and then go get that box. Okay back to my point, we got all our boxes unloaded, some of the boxes are damaged, since they didn't really care what was on top of what boxes, and I have sugar leaking out of a box somewhere because I unloaded a kitchen box that had sugar in it.... can't wait to find that box with my #10 can sugar that has gotten opened I suppose. They broke a few of my crates and totes that had stuff in them. The movers just weren't real careful. I opened a box today with some colored decorative bottles in them to find one was broken. Bummer! Oh well, at least we are done with that part.

Meanwhile, we are here at our new house.... enjoying the space, washing hands in cold water, heating up pans of hot water to do dishes, and boiling water to add to the washing machine to wash clothes... fun huh! It almost feels like a fancy way to go camping.

Oh yes, speaking of washing clothes, I got one for that one too. Our dryer has the "wrong" hook up for this house. Our dryer has a 3 point cord and the outlet is a 4 point (I think is what they call it) so Robert rewires our outlet so the dryer can plug into it. We get the dryer going, YIPPEE! When we hooked up the washer, there was a little bit of leaking from the hoses, figured some white "teflon?" tape would do the trick or some tools to tighten it would work, all which happens to be at the old house still. We get the right stuff and hook all that up, no more leaks. I start filling the washer up with clothes and turn it on to wash some colors... since I haven't really washed clothes for several days and hadn't done much before that since I was focusing more on moving then laundry. I keep adding clothes in the washer, and then notice all this water coming out from under the washing machine, getting my bare feet all wet. I think, "Man, this dumb washer! The hoses must not be tight enough, how did that happen?" I turn the machine off, only to keep hearing a GUSHING of water. I scoot the washer out a bit so I can get a look behind it to see that the drain hose had came off the back and now the water was just gushing out everywhere, going on the floor, under the dryer, under the washer... I am looking for anything right there to clean up the mess. I find some towels and some sheets (which sheets don't really work so great) and start soaking up as much as I can. I get myself sort of lodged behind the washing machine and the wall and the washer is shoved up against the door so it can barely open. I hear the girls shouting and all excited. They then yell, "Let's go tell Mom!" They run into the laundry room, telling me there is a flood in the basement. I am thinking, you have got to be kidding! This is rediculous. I climb back over the washer, across the dryer, squeeze through the narrow doorway and go down to the basement to find the celing dripping with water and foamy bubbles and puddles on the floor. After some cleaning and testing, it turns out the water just came through the floor, but I thought the water lines where leaking. Phew!!

What a time, what a time! I am hoping by Monday we will have hot water, and then that will make things much easier. We got the whole washer things solved. It is great except for the part of trying to get hot water or warm water to wash clothes. Cold water seems to really make the soap just clump up and not do any good. Good thing for a big pot of water and a stove to heat it on.

The phone guy said that someone had taken like half the guts out of the phone box outside. I am wondering if someone was trying to fix things themselves, or hook things up themselves. Weird huh! The more things we find out the more we get nervous of things to come.

Sorry about the long post... I just had so much to say, or should I say vent about. Oh... another thing, they don't have DSL here... or not through Qwest like we had. We can get a "air card" is what they call it I guess, it is like faster internet which goes through verizon cell phone signals, does that make sense? Not sure how I like that. But... if you go over some many Gigabytes or whatever it is, they will charge you extra. How do they determine how we do that? I am not sure, but I am sure they will let us know. I haven't let the girls even touch the computer until I know how much it is going to be for the stuff Robert and I do on the computer. Okay, I really should get to bed, I am exhausted!!

Time for a catch up post!

Has it really been that long? It seems like months! I have been so busy and so stressed that I haven't had time to get on here to post, and yet when I have thought I would like to take a minute to post, then I haven't had a computer hooked up or had Internet access. (Apparently there is only dial-up out in our area now... FUN!) That is another story in itself, but first things first!

Before our move, it seemed like Amber was going crazy making mess after mess and and unpacking each box she could get her hands on. Some of them she wouldn't unpack, but just unorganized so the books would be all flopped down or the items would be arranged in a way that I would have to redo them so that I could get more in the box. What a time! We somehow ended up with Oreo's or should I say name brand Oreo's (since I am cheap), it must have been an impulse buy, since I normally don't buy cookies. Amber was eating the cookies, and she would eat only the middle filling part and then put the cookie back together and put it back in the container. You definitely didn't want to eat any of the ones that looked skinny or a little on the soft side since she would also kind of slobber or suck on them.

The girls one day were play restaurant where Emily would order their meals and then bring them back to them. I was selling some scrapbook paper and they stacked up to make a lovely table I suppose, and even seats too.


I think the cat must have figured out that something was going on with our packing and all, he started sleeping with Samantha, which is a big NO NO. But I couldn't resist getting a picture before I scolded him and kicked him out of there while I told him what a bad cat he was.


Last Saturday we had access to the house, we had closed, got our keys (well kind of) and I thought I would take the girls out and we would do the cleaning of the cabinets and shelves and the bathrooms and all that fun stuff. Robert's parents had gotten into town the night before so they were coming out to see our house and to help clean.

I get to the house, look for where I thought the keys were to be, can't find them. I am trying to use Robert's cell phone, which I am totally unfamiliar with, I feel like such an idiot with it, I have a hard time answering a phone call on it, much less make a phone call. I call our agent, he tells me where the key is again, I look for it to find a bees nest under the compartment that I have to get into to get the keys... I am thinking NO WAY! I brave up and open the compartment to get the keys and softly shut the door. I guess the bees where too cold to really care.

I go get the girls out of the car and tell them they can get out now, since I have the keys and we have access to the house. I unload all my cleaning stuff and misc. stuff I was bringing of Rob's and all. I shut the door and hear the "click" of the locks. I remember and notice at the same time that I left my keys (which were really Robert's set of keys) on the front seat. Great! No problem, when Robert is done with the Turkey Bowl, I will have him bring me my keys if they are not in my purse already. (I totally forgot to look for my keys or tell Robert that I locked myself out.)

I get in the house, turn on the water... no water! Great! I go to another faucet, nothing. I think back and remember that the water was SUPPOSE to be turned on. I go to the basement where I remembered seeing the water valve, turn it on, Yippee! Water is flowing! I am cleaning, the girls are helping a little, Robert gets to the house, his parents come, we talk and I clean more and get all done, we are ready to go back to our old house to go to a birthday party. As I walk out to the car, I remember I don't have keys! Oooops! Robert then has to go all the way back home, get my set of keys (which were not in my purse) and come all the way back out. Which then made us super late for our birthday party we were suppose to be at. Of course I am thinking, now I am stuck here, nothing to eat, the girls are starving, I am done cleaning all I can clean. And we are just stuck here!

Here are a few pictures the girls took and some I took too. This is the side of our yard, the back part. It is really shallow, but the sides are deeper, if that makes sense. We have two levels of rock walls on the side, which will be fun to landscape with. The yard is total weeds, mostly stickers! It will take some major time to fix up.

This is at the top of the stairs, looking into the loft area where the kids will have their toys and TV for movies or what not. It should be a nice place for them to play.

This is Lindsey coming up the stairs. The stairs have this railing all the way down and around the top edges too. It is kinda fun!

This is the top of the stairs, the railing goes around to the master bedroom, and you can see down to the front door through the railing on the stairs too, it is all open.

We seem to have a cat too! This cat seems to think it lives here! Who knows, maybe it does. The girls named it Carmel and now they have changed it to Pumpkin Pie, they call it Pumpkin for short.

A sweet moment

I have been so tired of my girls fighting and their lack of love toward one another. I keep trying to tell them that one day they will be best friends. Emily wanted to go to Savers the other day, so I told her we could after school, IF she could be loving to her sisters, since it seems like she is the one that starts it all. I even found a note on the floor the other day that said, "I hat you Lauren!" I am pretty sure it meant hate, and didn't have anything to do with things you put on your head. Of course when I asked the girls, no one did it. They even went to extremes of saying, "I have nicer handwriting than that..." I don't really think it was Emily, she spells really good, so I would have guessed she would have spelled it correctly, and Lauren most likely would not have written herself a hate note.... leaving Lindsey as the person responsible. It bothers me too, because we don't even allow the word HATE in our house, yet here I find this silly note. I am sure it was out of anger, but that is my whole point. It seems that every day they are angry or are mean to each other. I don't really remember being that mean or unthoughtful to my brothers and sisters as I grew up, but maybe I am not remembering correctly. I remember not getting along all the time, but not like what my girls do.

We tried to go to Savers after school, but before I even got Amber out of the car, we were having issues with the girls NOT behaving and showing kindness to each other, so I said I am not going in. Emily wanted a new skirt, since the skirt she was wearing is too small, I told her she needed o retire it, but it is her FAVORITE skirt. Too bad for Emily..., I wasn't going to put up with them acting out in the store. I dislike it so much when we are in the comfort of our own home, that at the store it so drains me and makes me so tired!!

This has been going on for some time.... I am SO tired of it, and I have tried several things, having them do secret acts of service for one another, having dinner discussions, going around the room and telling something you like about someone else or something that is special... I was wondering when I would see any happiness. Don't get me wrong, they do play together sometimes, but it seems like the fighting definitely out numbers the quiet playful times they have together. Many times too, Emily will pick one of the twins to play with but then leave the other one out, and very obviously dislike the outsider. I was hoping maybe with the new house and more space the girls would get along better.

This morning, I get the girls up for school. I had gone to Savers last night to return some stuff and look for a skirt for Emily. I found one that she would like, along with a pair of pants, and 2 shirts and a pair of snow boots for her. I was showing her the things and asking if she approved. She liked them all. Then she was telling Lindsey (who was protesting that she didn't get anything) that she could wear one of her new skirts. Lindsey was pretty excited about that. Then Emily told Lauren she could wear her skirt from the day before that she is suppose to "retire" to them. The whole morning the girls were being so good and Emily was letting them wear her clothes (which she normally NEVER does). She even helped Lindsey find a shirt to go with the skirt she was wearing. I thought, what a sweet moment! I LOVED every minute of it. Emily then got them all little jackets (of hers) so they could all be alike in the clothes they were wearing.... all wearing skirts and shirts with tank tops or shirts under them, and then boots, and these light jackets Emily picked out.

I was smiling so much inside! I complimented the girls on how well they were doing and how pleased I was with them for getting along. When I dropped them off, they told each other, "Let's play at recess! Meet me at the tree...." I was wondering where MY girls had gone, and who were these girls that were acting like best friends? Again I was so touched that for whatever reason, prayers answered, the girls growing up, the new move coming up.... whatever it was, I was so pleased and relieved to know that maybe someday they will not constantly fight and seem to be enemies all the time.

Maybe tomorrow or even this evening won't go as smooth as this morning, but for the sweet moment of this morning, I can take it knowing that somewhere in there, there is love and kindness. What a glorious moment!!

It's all in the family

I saw this pic, and thought the twins sure looked like Samantha... can you tell which is Lauren and which is Lindsey? Both of the girls were about 3 months old. Emily was just over 2 years.This is Samantha at about 4 months.