Guess what...

I'm pregnant! Totally unexpected but were very thrilled! Only 8 weeks along so I"m not feeling well, but it will pass!























Just so there is no confusion and for those that DID NOT check the comments I want to verify that we ALL know that this was a big APRIL FOOLS JOKE! There is no baby comin' nor will there be (Sarah and Selena!!!!)!

Hope your April Fools day was good!

Laughing so hard...

thanks Becky! This is so exactly what I hear everyday... minus the Louis of course!

I forgot to mention...

Can you believe I forgot to mention ANYTHING in my novel from earlier? Well, I did... today is Matt's 29th birthday!
The extra delicous birthday cake... from DeBoer, almond cake with raspberry filling adn buttercream frosting! Seriously DELICIOUS!
The kids and I decorated the house...
Waiting for dad to get home...
The one armed man attempting to open a birthday card!
Matt opening his present with Bailey's help! (It was a wratchet set, very exciting I know!)

This weekend...

We had a good weekend, I was in a crazy bad mood for most of it, mostly with the kids unfortunately, I think I had just had enough! That last paragraph from my previous post just carried over for the rest of the weekend.

When we took Landon to his baseball practice it was in an almost unmarked building (which we realized we were familiar with the building later), on a random side street so we drove around for over 20 minutes looking for the place, I was so irritated that Matt didn't just get directions from the beginning, I couldn't even talk b/c I would have said something that I shouldn't have. Eventually he stopped to get directions (which took another 10 minutes for some reason, the whole time I'm just getting madder and madder). We found it finally. We ran to Target to return something and then returned to watch the boys! They were doing good but I'm a little disappointed that we only know one other boy on the team. Landon's already informed us that he doesn't want to do baseball next year, but would rather do a different basketball program. I dont' care what he says though, he's finishing this year, he can not be a quitter. We knew going into this that baseball wasn't his favorite or strongest sport so I'm really not suprised! (It's not mine either).

Then after baseball we looked for Matt's birthday present (a marine radio) and din't find one at all so we decided to go to Kobe for dinner for his birthday. What a joke. I have to say that I normally LOVE Kobe, LOVE IT! THis time not so much. If you've never been it's one of those places where you sit around the grill and watch them prepare you food. You get a ton of food normally and it's very yummy! You could easily end up sitting next to complete strangers if you go with less than 10 people. Well, we only had 5. The couple that sat next to me kept asking me to move over, they didn't have enough room. I will admit that it was tight, but if Imoved over any more E wasn't going to be able to use the table for his plate (and his highchair didn't have a tray). I was already irritated at that and then as we were getting closer to finishing up dinner (we were by no means finished) our waitress came with boxes and pretty much scooped up my kids plates from underneath thier forks and boxed thier food up. And then she said that she was sorry that she was making us leave, but she needed the table. WHAT????? Since when is it ok to kick people out? There was another table open that they could use (and actually we must not have left quick enough b/c they did end up using it). We definately didn't enjoy the dinner as much as we should have, we were only there for about 50 mintues, normally a meal should take at least (minimum) an hour and a half.

After that we came home and played outside for a little bit when we came in Matt could easily sense my anxiety and told me he would take care of the kids so me and my computer disappeared upstairs all by ourselves! That felt good!

Sunday we got up and went to sunday school and church (where I was once again reassured that God wants me to go to Africa). After church we came home and made a leftover type lunch, laid E down for a nap, grabbed a quick one myself and then when E woke up the kids and I went to get matt's birthday present while he continued to sleep. That was enough to drive me crazy, me in a terrible no good very bad mood and three kids, one of which is extrememly strong willed and trying to be independent right now!

Dinner and bed after all that... I talked to Sarah for a little bit in the evening adn I think that helped my mood a little. Not sure why, maybe I had just had to much family time this weekend! Who knows! I definately feel better this morning!

E hasn't been sleeping all night in quite a while, he wakes up around 4am saying "Mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy... mommy...", but it's almost like he's talking in his sleep b/c I go in thier and he's laying down with his eyes closed still. Unfortunately I can't sleep through that, Matt doesn't have a problem with it though! Finally after an hour of up and down I made Matt go in thier, Matt told him it was time to go to sleep and the child did it! What's up with that?

I did notice the other day that he has two teeth coming in on top, not the ones you would expect though, I think they are molars even. That could be part of the reason for his lack of sleep, but I wonder if he has an ear infection too??? No fear though we are going to the doctor this morning for his 18mo appt so we will have him checked out! Wish me luck, I'm taking Carson too, so we and two kids 2 and 18 months. I'll be back later with an update!

Were home from the doctor, all went well! Little boy sat on the table the whole time they were looking at him (normally they put them on mom's lap), he sat still and let them do whatever they wanted, then the poor little guy had to get a shot, we weren't planning on that at all unfortunately. He doesn't have any ear infections (both relief and disappointment, I was hoping there was some kind of curable explanation for the night wake ups). It's probably b/c of his teeth that he is waking up though, and maybe a little bit of habit too! Lovely! He is 32 1/2" long, 25 1/2 pounds, both 50th percentile. He's a healthy little boy!

I Love THIS Saturday...

Seriously, I can't remember such a relaxed Saturday in a LOOOONNNGGGG time! I was in my pajamas until 10:30! For the past few months we have had to be somewhere doing something for sure before 10am, which is normally fine and I'm not complaining b/c truly I can't imagine my life without all the busyness, but there is something about this relaxed pace that we are enjoying too! I let Matt sleep in, played with the kids, watched cartoons and made waffles, then we all got dressed and headed to Sam's Club. Picked up a few things and stopped a few other places, now we are home, just waiting to bring Landon to baseball practice. Matt, myeself, Bailey & E are going to look at a few houses while we are out and we are going to go get Matt's birthday present (which he will be picking out) after practice is done! I may stop by World Market too, just to look though!

Despite this slow pace, I'm feeling a little "anxious" right now. Like I'm going to yell at the next person to look at me funny! I was like this last night too, not sure what the problem is but I can feel the tension from my shoulders and neck all the way to my toes! I just want the house to be quiet for 10 minutes, there are always noises, arguing, fighting going on and it's driving me NUTS! Matt keeps telling me to "look at this house" on the internet and while I would love to find a great house for a great price, we need to sell our house first! So why bother looking for a new house? OK, I need to go rest or something... enjoy your weekend!

Relief and Disappointment all at once...

Everything in HIS timing, right? Did you notice the ticker above? My Africa trip is getting delayed b/c of some unforseen circumstances, many of them actually! But we are still going...just not until January 2009! The school that we were going to dedicate isn't going to be finished, the well that was supposed to be dug by then isn't going to be finished (or even started for that matter), some of the people that weren't going to be able to go b/c of health/family issues will be able to go... the list just goes on!

So, if you were thinking that this would be a great trip for you but were intimidated by the dates we were traveling, now the door is open again, I would encourage you to pray about it!

4th grade spelling list & booster seats

I definately don't have a huge vocabulary, but these words are just WAY above me.

Check this out...
dodecahedron
desolate
disconsolate
ominous
tollbooth
expectations
epilimnion
cacophony
phenemenom
idiosynchrosy
valuable
awkwardly

Yeah... and if you want to know the definition of any of them go ahead and look them up on dictionary dot com!

Did you hear at all about the new law that kids up to age 8 and 4 foot something have to be in carseats starting in June or July? Bust out that booster again Bailey... she'll love that!

Crazy Bounce Fun

Look at those lips going after my boy! Aren't they cute despite my blurry picture?
We had a great time at CB yesterday, it not only wore out the boys but it wore me out too! I've been so tired lately, I've even been hitting snooze or just flat our resetting my alarm clock, so unlike me!
We were even able to play outside again yesterday, me without a coat! The boys blew bubbles, Elliot ran into the road, they pushed the lawn mowers around, it was GREAT! I'm so ready for all out spring! Today is dreary and gray, not a favorite kind of day for sure!

Tonight we get to go to Fun Night at Landon's school, Matt has to help the kids with games b/c I get to work so that should be interesting! We'll see how that goes!

An Open Invite:

What: Playdate at Crazy Bounce
When: Wednesday, March 26th from 9-11am
Who: Anyone who has a child 7 or younger that knows me or Sarah
Why: For some fun for the the youngins
Cost: $7 a kid (includes 2 hours of jump time as well as drink and popcorn)

We have been before and it is a blast- please join us!!!!!!

How was your weekend?

How was your Easter more specifically? Did you love celebrating in the snow (again?)? No outdoor Easter Egg hunts, that's for sure! We woke up early and did our little easter egg hunt, the bunny hid some pre-filled plastic eggs (courtesy of my 7pm Saturday night trip to Target) adn some of the eggs we colored. Elliot even shared in the fun of hiding those things. We almost thought that the bunny didn't bring an easter basket for the kids this year, but then I caught a glimpse of one basket (which looked to belong to Elliot b/c of one of the toys on top) and led the kids to it, they pulled it out and it was a FULL one, quite large too... all for Elliot???? No way, that bunny was tricky this year, he only left one basket with small gifts for each kid inside. Lots' of jellybeans, HSM2 for bailey, a bubble blower for E and a football adn word search for landon! What a great bunny!

After that we dropped the kids off at Sunday school and Matt adn I went looking for houses, it's kind of our sunday ritual if the kids have sunday school and we don't! And, like every other time we didn't find a thing! That's ok though, we have time!

Church was great, although I shed a few tears. I hate crying in public! During the announcements they were talking about a man that died while his daughter was singing hymns with him (this happened easter morning), and that just struck to close to home for me. When my mom passed away I was reading a Psalm to her, I saw her take her last breath while I was reading! Once I recovered from that I was able to enjoy the sermon and the thought that my mom is in heaven with Jesus all becasue he died on that cross for us! I was struck by the wonder that God actually gave up his son for us, so that we could go to heaven and how hard that would be. I often think of it as a removed thing, it couldn't have bothered him to let his son die because he knew that he would be alive again in three days, but to watch his son suffer like taht must have been absolutely miserable. Dann also talked about Abraham giving his son Isaac as an offering, but God stopped him before he actually killed him. I can't imagine getting even that far. I DO love God and I do trust him with most things, but that may be a bit much for me to wrap my mind and heart around. I guess that just means that I still have some work to do in my life!

After church we headed up north to my grandparents house for lunch. Ham, potatoes, veggies and some yummy desserts! Then it was home again for a little bit and then off to Matt's dads for dinner (hamburgers). We didn't get home until about 8:30 so it was a long day and another messed up nap day for E. Two of those in a row, it makes me a little worried!

Not a whole lot going on this week. BSF tonight. Bailey has sharing night at her school on Tuesday night from 5-5:30 where she can show us all that she has been doing and working on (have to find a babysitter for that yet)! Church Wednesday. Thursday is fun night at Landon's school. Nothing on the books for Friday yet (Matt and I may have to go out for his birthday though). Saturday Landon might have baseball practice (it's a rumor we heard)! All in all it feels pretty tame right now, I'm sure it will fill up though, it always does!!

I didn't even take a whole lot of pictures yesterday for easter, I am SOOOO sick of taking the same pictures over and over and over. I'm so sick of being inside, I just want to go outside and play in the yard (not the mud though), enjoy the sunshine, be able to take my coat off, mow the yard (yup, I'm even ready to mow again), draw with chalk, blow bubbles, put a for sale sign in our yard again... you name it I'm ready for it! Come on spring... come quick!

Exausted

The first game of the 3-on-3 tournament that Landon played in was a forfeit by the other team (the game was supposed to be at 7:30), luckily we found out last night at 10 so we were able to sleep in a little, but not to much though b/c then we didn't know when his first game would be, turns out it was at 9:30. They played thier first game with one win under their belt already, how nice is that? They played at 9:30, then not til 1:30, then 4 and 4:30. Unfortunately one of thier players was on day eight of having the flu so they only had three for a three on three which makes three boys very tired by the time the game is half over. They played hard though. They had a really good time too, which is always great. There were tears after the last game was finished unfortunately, they were so disappointed! Matt and I are exausted along with Elliot. I'm realizing how much work it is for me when Matt has a cast. Elliot was a bear for the second game (the 1:30 game, normally he would be sleeping during this time), he wanted to get down and run on the court in back of us (big guys) and then on Landon's court... he was all over the place, so I held him down on my lap, literally had to force him down! Thankfully Matt's mom watched him for the last two games (THANKS MARILYN)!

So that was our day... lot's of plans for Easter tomorow to keep us busy again, I'm ready for another weekend already and this one isn't even over yet! Happy Easter to you!

They accepted

They accepted the counter offer so pending inspections and stuff we SOLD A HOUSE!!! Now we need that kind of luck with this house! (Wouldn't that be great if we listed and it sold in a week????) That would NEVER happen though, not in this market at least!

Oh yeah...

We countered the offer! The offer probably won't go through unless the house get's painted and get this... the people placing the offer are willing to paint it themselves! And his dad is a professional house painter, so worst case scenario the loan doesn't go through and we have a feshly painted house! Certain loans (AFA I think) I guess are hard to get with chipped paint and in the price range we are in we are going to get a lot of those types of offers (or at least any offer we get is likely to be AFA), so we will always run into the paint problem and I am just not willing to paint the house right now! So anyway, this is a little less than I wanted to get in the end, but working it all out it is worth it!

E got his first haircut today (see 365 blog for pictures). I can't believe that he is 18 months old already adn that we waited this long for his first haircut. It's quite short and eventually I want to grow it out, but we had to get rid of the "yucky" stuff first. He's so darn cute!

Bailey's bruise is improving, it's now green so that is color number three. First purple, then yellow, now green! Perfect Easter colors!

Tomorow is Good Friday. My mom passed away on good friday, in 1991, I don't remember the exact date, just that it was good friday. I don't ever really get upset on a certain day, especially now with three kids and easter upon us (and a few other things on my plate), I think I'm just to busy to think about what this day represents as far as my mom goes. I do miss her every day and I do think about her every day, in little ways at least!

Me again...

Does anyone know of a "free" nero type software (for dvd burning)? I NEED to burn some dvd's with pictures and stuff and while I could do it on cd's it would take me 100 cd's for a portion of my pictures. I'm running out of room on my hard drive so I need to do it soon, I have them all on my external hard drive too, but I like to have them at least 2 places so I can't delete them from my internal hard drive yet... does that make sense?

A few people have shown interest in donating money for my trip, while I hate to solicit money, I definatley appreciate any help I can get, i fyou are interested please email me your address so that I can send you a form... lynettebell@chartermi.net ! I hate asking for money so much that I have to stress that this is in no way me asking, I'm responding to those that offered up front!

More Big News

If you haven't read the previous post please read that too (it will explain the ticker above)!

I just got an email from our realtor in St Joe. My grandpas house officially went on the market on Monday, she said that immediately after putting the lock box on the house there were several people through it and today we received 2 offers already!!!!! Did you read that? TWO offers on day 3!!!!!!

Update: So, it's 10:00pm and I haven't received offer #2 yet, still a possibility though. I think we will probably decline the other offer (which makes me nervous, but it's just not enough money and I don't think it will even fully be approved b/c of the type of loan it is), but we have to talk more about that in the morning. The realtor had a realtor's open house today too and 30 realtors went through the house, so even if only 5 of them have a client go through that would be excellent!