Never Would Have Thought...

It's midnight, there is a dark figure standing next to my bed.  As I slowly awaken from a deep sleep I hear... "Mom, I texted you, why didn't you come to me?"

Welcome to the year 2014 (almost 2015).  It used to be my name being called in the night.  There have been times of bells ringing if I was needed and calling for me was painful.  But texting??

Now my phone sits next to my bed, ringer as low as it will go so that if my children need me during the night, they can text me.  That feels funny just typing it.  But over the last few days, we have been waging a war against influenza.  Thankfully I have escaped it's grasp so far, but the rest of my family hasn't been so lucky.  Micah, not one to want to bother me, will usually either handle things on his own or come downstairs and quietly ask for my help.  The other two... Well they stay in there beds and send me messages as to how they are feeling and I send reply's.  Sometimes, my reply's get me out of going upstairs and sometimes they don't.  Two nights ago, I think I climbed our stairs 20 times throughout the night. 

I am praying we are over the worst of it and over the next few days we will slowly regain our health and our ability to join the community again.  Although our sickness did interrupt Christmas party plans, New Years plans, and spending more time with Tim and Melissa while they were here, I am not complaining that it has forced us to stay home and spend time together as a family.  That was a real blessing.

Praying your family had a Wonderful Christmas Celebrating the Birth of Our Savior and will enjoy the Blessings of a Happy New Year!

A Trip to Midtown

While in New York Tim and I took a night and went up to Time Square.  When people think of New York City, this is what I think people picture.

I took this picture moments after Tim and I got off the subway.  Just for memories sake... I need to note that while Tim and I were waiting for the train, there were rats running over the track.  Tim's comment to me was that they were small ones.  I was very excited that for the remainder of my stay in NY, I never sighted any "big ones".

Tim took this one of me in Time Square.

If you have never been to NY everything is bright and flashy.  Neon signs are begging at you to look at them around every corner.  It can be stimulation overload!

Tim and I did a lot of walking that night.  We hit all the main touristy things.  This is me by Radio City

It's kind of hard to see the sign... you can see it a little better in this picture.  It's a vertical sign that looks kind of pink in this picture and it's just to the upper right of my head.

Rockefeller Center skating rink. Notice the Lego store in the back left corner.  I sent that picture to Micah, he could have cared less about the skating rink, he just wanted to see the Lego store.

Of course you have to get a picture of the Today Show.

The next place we walked to was Grand Central Station.  If you are ever in NYC, I highly suggest you go see this amazing building.  You will encounter crowds, but don't let that stop you!  It is an amazing historical building that is well over 100 years old.  It started as Grand Central Depot, then the name changed to Grand Central Station and now it's name is Grand Central Terminal.  But most people still refer to it as the 1901 name... Grand Central Station.  

Pictures just don't do this this building any service at all.  The architecture is amazing!  

I don't even know how many miles we walked that night, but I had a lot of fun seeing all the sights with my brother!

Gettting Back to Blogging

These past six months I blogged only a handful of times and although I felt bad for not updating more, it was a really great break for me.  I am discovering my love of waking in the morning and sitting at the computer and writing again.  It feels good to get life memories back down "on paper".  I'm excited to show you things that are from a few years ago that I have rediscovered in the past week or so.  It's kind of reliving wonderful memories and who doesn't love to remember all the good while all the bad slowly gets forgotten.

I am going to start by going back not quite a year.  I need to finish up my New York trip.  Especially because I am getting very excited to see my Tim, Melissa, and Lina in a few short days.  Tim sent an email just the other day telling us that Lina might take her first steps here in Grand Rapids!!  Now that is exciting!  First steps are a mile stone that you just never forget.... at least for your first born.

Here are a few pictures that I took of Lina on Sunday January 12th.  Tim's birthday is the 13th so on Sunday we met Tim and Melissa's family that lives in NY for brunch.  This is a picture I took of a Daddy and his little girl... Neither of them is smitten with the other.  I love how he has no problem throwing a flowery burp cloth over his shoulder all in the name of Lina.

These next two pictures I grabbed while Lina was sleeping.  Who doesn't love a sleeping baby!  For that matter I still love to look at my kids while they are sleeping, it's kind of like glimpsing Heaven... the peace is like no other here on earth.  I took these pictures early in the morning.  Lina loved (at that time) to get up before the sun and while I was there Tim would bring her to me so they could sleep a little longer.  Lina would fall back to sleep and on this morning after I took these pictures I fell back asleep too and thats how Tim found us sound asleep.

And for good measure... another sleeping baby picture.

 I took a video of Lina "talking" to Melissa and smiling and being so absolutely cute!  But since videos are my nemesis on the blog,  I'm posting this picture of her sweet little expression while she conversed with her Mommy.

I know that when I see Lina in a few short days I will be blown away at the little girl she is becoming.  Just last night I was looking at my nephew Ryan and thinking how he is looking like just a little boy!  He was running around with all the other kids at the Christmas party last night having a great time and it seems like just yesterday I was babysitting him doing everything I could to get him to crawl! 

Thats it for today, off to go unpack some more of these unending boxes!

There is a WHAT in Our House?!

I think it was early last week that the farmer cut the field down that runs along side of our property.  My Dad made a comment about watching out for mice since their homes were just cut down.  Not two days later did I have a white faced little girl racing down the stairs to tell us that she heard an animal rolling around above her bed.  Sure enough there was something up in the attic rolling around and scratching.

We were prepared mentally for the possibility that we would have to deal with a mouse since we were living in a old house.  But we were really hoping that it wouldn't be an issue.  Well... apparently it's an issue and if you have been reading the blog since the beginning you know how our family loves mice. The first step of eradicating the unwanted house guest has begun and hopefully it hasn't moved it's family into the attic as well (I know wishful thinking).

Poor Jilli had to fall asleep pretending she was Cinderella and the noises she was hearing was her little friends making her a pretty dress to wear to the ball.  I also turned her radio up a little so hopefully she would concentrate on that instead of the rolling, scratching noises.

Not much other news to share right now... unpacking is wildly boring and not really picture worthy.  I still have boxes all around us.  But our Christmas tree did make it up!  That was spurred on by Jilli who just wouldn't let it rest that our tree wasn't up yet.  Thank goodness for our little Jilli, it feels much more festive now.  It still doesn't feel like "home" yet, it kind of feels like we are just visiting.  I think that will change when we start putting our stamp on this house.

I will leave you with this picture from a road trip we took about a month ago.  We needed to get out of the trailer for awhile and decided to ride up to Ludington.  We took country roads all the way there and had a really fun time.  Romeo obviously came with us on our day trip.

This picture was taken at the Consumers Power Reservoir just south of Ludington.  

Blessings!!

Old House Living

Well last night was night #4 in our "new" house.  My computer finally has a place to call home in our "loffice"  the word we coined to lovingly call our office/laundry room.  Blog posts will now be happening more than once a month!!  YAY!!

Some things that I have already discovered about living in an old home.  Not all the rooms heat the same.  Our "bedroom" (formally a formal dining room) is COLD.  Last night we added another comforter to our bed.  That makes 2 comforters and 1 quilt that we are sleeping with at night.  I guess it's good Kevin likes it cold when he sleeps!  Even though there is only 1 heat register in the upstairs the kids have been plenty warm.  Thats where all the warm air from the main floor goes!

I get sidetracked very easily by the view outside my kitchen window.  I just stop and stare in amazement gazing at what God has blessed us with.  I look at my big red barn and dream about days gone by and days to come.

I'm not the biggest fan of our well water.  We have a water softener on it, but it tastes funny.  I guess that's what you get for being raised a city girl.  Thankfully my Dad has taken water samples before and after the water softener and is having it tested to see what can be done about the salty sulfur taste.  Good news is that I don't pay for water anymore!

Romeo LOVES being out in the country with room to roam.  I played with him outside yesterday for about an hour and couldn't get him back in the door!  His nose takes him all over!  I call and he starts running and then he smells something and the breaks go on and he is off on a new trail.  Thankfully his taste buds likes treats more than his nose likes smells.  I am a little concerned about being on a busy road and his lack of experience with busy streets and cars/trucks.

I am starting to learn more everyday about country life, what things are called, why they were/are used and the importance of it all.  Much of this comes from my parents.  Mom was raised in the country (well some of it, some of her childhood was in the city too), but I think her heart loves the country.  She is a wealth of information, who needs wikipedia when they have Sheri!!

I am now entertaining the idea of raising my own bull calf for beef.  What a great experience that would be!!  I need to put up a pasture fence again, but the barn is ready for cattle.  I can already picture the blog posts about Jilli trying to ride Stanley the steer and Tyler laughing as she falls off again while Micah comes racing in to tell me to come watch what Jilli and Tyler are doing now...  I'm thinking there is no better place for our family to grow and love then here on this little patch of earth God blessed us with.  I'm so excited for our future here!

Things I miss about living in the city... nothing really.  The only thing is our church is now 20 min away instead of 3 min when we lived in the trailer.  But it's a small price to pay for this house we are making into our home.

It's been a week since we started moving the stuff into the house and the craziness of moving is still very much alive and well.  I have boxes everywhere! As soon as I get a box emptied, 2 more show up that needs to be unpacked.  Moving is a process that overwhelms me.  I am having to go through every box and decide yet again if we should keep it, find a place for it, or store it.  We have more stuff than this house has room for.  It's the simplifying that is soo good to do, yet so hard for my brain to mutter through.  I don't want to be one of those people who move and 20 years later there are boxes that still haven't been opened.

Hopefully I will be able to start posting pictures soon.  There is still too much clutter to take a picture and have you see anything but boxes.

Oh I almost forgot!!  Yesterday I took a trip into our local hardware/everything store (my Dad's new favorite place to go) and asked to talk to one of the owners.  His Dad was born in this house!  His Dad is now 92 years old and is still living.  He is going to either bring his dad over to our house, or I am going to go to his nursing home to get the stats on this here home of ours.  I would LOVE to get copies of any pictures that the family has of the house "back in the day".  Kevin and I have already started to piece together some of the changes that this house has gone through over the years.  The information that I can gleam from this gentleman will be so helpful!  Apparently he loves to talk the house and his childhood here and since I love old people and love to listen to their stories, I think we will get along fabulously!!  I can't wait to share what I learn from him!!  It will be like hearing the house talk for the very first time!  Can you tell I am excited??

So thats about it for today.  I need to get back to unpacking boxes and laundry.  One of my best friends moved just before us and she told me it took about two weeks to get her house set up.  So, I have 1 more week before I start having a breakdown.  The frustrating thing is that this is such a busy week for us in the evenings when Kev could be helping me move furniture, we are gone running kids to different activities.  Our church's musical performances are this week, Jilli has a main part so there were added practices for her and tonight is the first performance.  Tyler has a speaking part ans he is part of the black-light dancers.  I'm excited to see it all put together!

Blessings!!