OW!

Nathaniel learned the word OW! Unfortunately, he says it when hes hurting you. LOL he will walk up, pull Elie's hair and say ow. Now to teach him not to do it:)

New Car?

Mike got an offer on his car. Not as much as he wanted but I guess we need to be more realistic. So, we took a family trip to the auction yesterday. Mike picked up a 96 minivan for cheap. He is going to seal the deal with his car- kind of sad we have had that car almost as long as we have been married, but we will never really have the money to restore it. He is going to have a mechanic check out the van so we can decide weather to licence it and make it the 2nd family car or sell it, get the money back and try the auction again. Its always a gamble there but our new car is working out very well

The City Museum

We joined a new home school group recently. We had our first field trip Friday to the city museum, which although pricey was lots of fun. There were tunnels, giant slides, big ball pits,a magic show, craft rooms...
Eliana and I took a rag doll making class but we seem to have lost our dolls:( Now that we know how we will be looking for new scraps and trying to make more.
The new group seems full of friendly people and has lots to do. Once again this year we are facing the full calender and how to trim down outings to make sure we get enough school done. Ironic isn't it, that the objection to homeschool is classically "socialization". We have so many activities I can't possibly do them all.

Moved in Again

We are two weeks into our new home. I realize I didnt post even once this whole summer but it has felt like its been one VERY long day. We got moved in and unpacked and painted at the house. And the doctor called. Nathaniel had a very high lead count. When it became aparant that the landlord was unwilling to fork over the dough to do an abatment, we packed up and moved... AGAIN. We had to stay in mil's house for two weeks while we searched. We are finally settled (hopefuly for good- we have renewed our commitment to not move for two years) Everyone likes the new house- there is lots of room. Oh yeah there was a new job thrown in there. Maybe I should rename this blog crazy house.

New Examiner title

Saint Louis Breastfeeding Examiner

I dont live in Springfield anymore, and STL homeschool examiner was taken

Moving`

The story of this move actually begins last summer. For years Mike had worked from one contract to another, a really bad time would be when it took three weeks to get a new job. Then all of the sudden the economy crashed and he was out of work six months. When he was offered a job in Decatur we couldn't really pass it up. We were tired of moving and went there intending to fully embrace the town. I even started looking for jobs my parents could do there hoping they'd move near us. The only flaw was, we really didn't like it there.
Meanwhile, Michael was trying to work things out with Kelly (Bryan's mom). At first she was fine with modifying visitation, since we were now five hours away and every other weekend wasn't going to work. But then she changed her mind. Barring lots of money (and I mean LOTS) and a friendly judge there really was no forcing her. SO Michael want to his boss and after a few weeks of negotiations got approval to telecommute from the STL area. We had already taken a vacation from both jobs during the second week of May, my parents were also off as we were supposed to visit them. So we went house hunting and found something we liked right away. We packed up, booked a uhaul, and sent my parents a train ticket. Instead of visiting them they would come to us and vacation in STL.
The only problem was... the owner of the house kept postponing meeting to sign a lease. So we came back to look at some other houses on Sat (move in is booked for Monday) and found something, amazingly. Its right near the kid's friends and down the street from a park. Of course the first house was at the bottom of our affordable range and this is at the very top but... we will make it. On Monday afternoon we hit the first glitch, our old landlord who has always been pretty nice decides that he wants to replace all the carpet so he's keeping all of our deposit. Further evidence that while an honest landlord isn't non-existent its rare. But at least hes not trying to get more money out of us so we let it go.
The house hasn't passed inspection so we stay the night with my MIL. All eight of us. We pass two nights which she is asking for payment for (to pay for extra gas and electricity) and in other ways making everyone uncomfortable. So we spend the third night at a hotel (and this is when the uhaul starts racking up fees) We tried doing activities with the kids but even that wasn't that much fun because the car was stuffed with luggage and people and everyone was stressed about how much money we spent. Finally we got to unload the truck on Friday. Saturday we drove my parents back to Kansas City. Sunday, we started cleaning. The last tenants left the place pretty trashed. That's what took so long to get moved in. We are finally getting settled in but, we have gone through all of our savings and we need another vacation!

Head Coverings

I cover my hair on Shabbat. Some of my freinds do all the time. Some of you have no idea what I am talking about LOL whichever camp you fall in, check out coveryourhair.com
I love their products and have found myself wearing their hair accessories many times when it has nothing to do with religion, they are just nice looking!
Plus if you join their facebook page, they have giveaways all the time just to get the word out about their products!