Life Is A Grand Adventure...

...most of the time, anyway! The rest of the time goes something like this:

We finished packing and cleaning the other house and made it up here in one piece. I completely expected to be able to just unpack everything when we got here...the house was supposed to be clean. Our landlord had made his wife seem like a very anal person when it came to cleaning. First thing I noticed was that all the fans were dusty...very dusty. "Not a problem," I thought. I'll just wipe them off, no biggie. Then downstairs, there are dusty cobwebs everywhere. I was a little bit miffed, but still thought that was ok, I could do that, a broom works wonders! This morning, I woke up and got ready for the day, fed the kids and sent them downstairs (thank goodness for cable being set up already...it's a lifesaver) so I could start unpacking without "helping hands". The kids were fighting over toys and teasing and pestering each other like crazy, I kept telling them to stop it, to TRY to get along today, just for a little while. I started opening kitchen cabinets to put stuff away and noticed....they were NOT clean. This really, REALLY ticked me off. I mean, really, I just got done cleaning one house, didn't really want to clean another...it wasn't on the top of my list of "happy things" to do. I got to work opening up boxes to find my cleaning stuff to get busy. I started on one end of the kitchen and thought I'd work my way around - couldn't open the cupboard because of the grease build-up. Oh boy.

I finally got ONE set of cupboards washed and scrubbed out and heard the kids fighting in Terra's room and then heard a big thud...boom....bang - then some crying ensued. I asked what was wrong and James came from Terra's room and this is the conversation that followed:

"Terra didn't push me or hit me, I just fell." (through sobs)
"Well, you'll feel better in a minute."
"But, mommy..."
"Walk it off, James, you'll be fine."
(sob, sniff, CRY, sob)
"But...but..."

I glanced at him at this point (yup, that's right, I'd been ignoring him completely up to this point) and realized that he was bleeding (gushing, by the way) down the side of his face...it was coming from his eye. I screeched and jumped from the counter top, grabbed a clean rag, got it wet and then started pressing it to his head as I walked him to a chair. He was screaming, telling me I was hurting him, and trying to bat my hands away from his face. The gash was about an inch long and a quarter of an inch deep (I honestly didn't know that a cut could go that deep without cutting into the eye). I immediately grabbed my purse, ran out, started the car, threw kids into the car, told Terra to make sure that rag did NOT come off his face, ran back in, grabbed shoes, diaper bag (only glancing in to make sure there was more than one diaper in there...not even checking the sizes) and then ran out the door, calling Chris along the way, and then calling a friend to ask where the nearest ER or Urgent Care Center was...Chris didn't know and my friend wasn't available at the time. I dashed to a local family practice around here and asked if they did stitches and they said no and then gave me (what turned out to be faulty) directions to get to an Urgent Care. I drove and drove, following the directions and not finding anything. Ran in to a Walgreens and asked for directions and they gave me more faulty directions...I finally called 411 on my cell, the operator came on and asked if I needed an ambulance, I said...well, more like screamed..."no" and she immediately connected me and I finally got directions and wound up in the parking lot of the right place. By this point in time, my "mommy brain" is screaming at these people for giving me the WRONG directions because MY SON IS BLEEDING TO DEATH. He wasn't really, in fact, most of the bleeding had stopped by then. I got in to the building and my friend called me back and offered to come get the kids, which was a VERY wonderful thing. We were in the waiting room for about 2 hours (after being told we might have to go to the actual ER...it was determined that we didn't need to) and then when they called us back, it was another 45 minutes before we were out of there. They didn't do stitches, but just glued him together with DermaBond. I could have done that at home! LOL, oh well!

This wasn't exactly the "welcoming committee" I had expected. They asked me for his regular pediatrician and when I mentioned that he was down in Parker, they seemed flabbergasted that I would drive that far just for a pediatric doctor. I would then mention that we had just moved in yesterday and their response (each time) was, "Oh! Well, WELCOME to the area!" Gee thanks!

Oh, and a side note - I think I need to have a serious talk with Terra about the inappropriateness of making comments to an already histerical little one! The whole way to the Urgent Care, she kept telling James he was going to have to get shots...that's what he was crying about mostly because he didn't want a shot. THEN, she whispered something to him and it made him scream. I couldn't get anyone to tell me what she had said, so I dropped it, but after my friend took the kids, James crawled on my lap, started crying again and said, "Mommy, I don't want my eyeball to fall out!" I had to reassure him that his poor eyeball wasn't going anywhere! KIDS!

If you cut your hair at school...

...and mommy finds out -

...you may or may not be happy with the outcome of her "wrath"! I warned her that next time she cut her own hair, it'd be short like daddy's and the boys' hair is! That seemed to do the trick (one could hope anyway). If it looks uneven, I blame the fact that she wasn't really holding still...that and the fact that I'm not a hair stylist!

Tiny Toons and other Crazies

So, since we're moving, we decided it was time to downsize our "farm". The people that gave us the goat took him back along with 2 turkeys. Their neighbors (some other friends of ours) bought 5 chickens (although at the time, it was an undisclosed amount of chickens they'd be taking...more on this later in the post). A while back, we brought home a cat that needed a home...he was going to be Tyler's kitty. Our existing cats did not appreciate his presence here. After a while, they tolerated each other. Soon, we sent the girls off to get spayed...while they were gone, Junior roamed the house and thoroughly enjoyed not being bullied by the girls. When they came home, however, he was now ruler of the roost and they didn't like it one bit...all fights were back on and truces were called off. We decided it was time to send him back to where we got him (she said to bring him back if it didn't work out). I felt bad because he was such a loving kitty and would have been perfect for Tyler (too fat for him to pick up and maul!) I jokingly asked Chris if we should get him a hamster or something and let it run around the house in one of those little balls. Instantly an old commercial came to mind. Do you remember the anti-drug campaign that was going on in the 90's?

"This is your brain." (they show an uncooked egg in a jar)
"This is your brain on drugs." (they shake the bottle violently, causing the egg to break open and scramble instantly)
"Any questions?" (they would then set the jar down and flash some information on the screen...I never did really take the time to read that)

Now, think of the cartoon Tiny Toons...imagine that little character named Elmira. She would LOVE those animals until they all went insane and tried to escape her overly loving antics. This is how almost all our animals are with Tyler. I feel rather bad for him watching this but can't help but think of how they must feel. Now let's go back to the hamster in a ball. Now that I've told you of these two specific things (the commercial and Elmira), I can't see that the hamster would last too long in Tyler's care. It'd probably end up like that egg on the commercials...we'd have a majorly handicapped hamster by the end of the day, I'm sure! So, we decided against getting him a pet anytime soon!

This morning, I got woken up by kids coming in, coughing, complaining about ears hurting, sniffles, the whole works. Didn't we just go through this a couple weeks ago? I'm fairly certain we did...but maybe I'm just losing it here! I started practicing my "witch-doctory" on them and I'm hoping this all works so we don't need to go to the doctor this time. I also had to call the Girl Scouts and tell them Terra wouldn't be participating in today's activity. We got up and got kids breakfast and got ourselves dressed.

Chris went out to feed and water the animals and noticed feathers ALL over the yard and chicken coop. He then noticed a couple of carcasses in the outer pen. Then he started to explore and count how many were missing...keeping in mind that the friends I'd mentioned above were coming by today to pick out which chickens and how many of them they wanted. He counted 10 left, which means that around 5 were gone. There is one in particular that I was rather sad was missing. We'd nicknamed him "Midget". He was one of our hatch-lings that we hatched in our incubator. There are others that are the same age as he is...and he's a quarter of their size (actually, its a "she" but we can't seem to stop calling it "he"). We wanted to keep her and see what kind of eggs she'd lay (if any) and how big she'd get. She's one of the ones missing. While surveying the damage, our friends showed up so we gave them 5 hens and kept the remaining 5 chickens (1 rooster and 4 hens). Miraculously, the ducks and geese were untouched. Stupid foxes. We found paw prints all over out there and there's a hole in the fence they made bigger. The hole was patched up and repaired and the outer pen was closed off to the animals. We herded them to the coop area and closed the gates. We're kind of hoping that a couple of the chickens are just bunked down somewhere and will come out of hiding, but we're not holding our breath.

All this and the day isn't even halfway over yet!! But, on a positive note...that chicken feed we bought yesterday...it'll last a LOT longer than we'd anticipated at first!

Oh, and by the way

That email/post about us moving was an informative thing, not an invite for public debate. Thank you for showing concern and love - we really don't want to leave our friends either, but the Lord is guiding us, please know that!

One of THOSE days

You know the kind...where you get crapped on?! Well, today, I literally did! Celeste woke up with the squirts...and its not just slightly runny...it's the type of runny that flows EVERYWHERE and defies gravity. Every time she stepped anywhere, there was another mess to clean up. Normally, I'm fine with this...feel bad for the poor little ones, but as long as they're otherwise acting normal, I'm fine. Under today's circumstances, however, not so much. She woke up drenched in brown, and needed a shower of sorts. So I stood her in the sink and hosed her down - needless to say, she avoided me for a while afterward, constantly giving me a very sober evil-eye. She went again after I'd already started the laundry going...there was outfit #2 in the wash (yes, I just counted her jammies as an outfit, so what). So I gathered towels needing to be laundered and started load #2. At lunch time, she was in the high chair and started to scream. I thought it was because no one was paying attention to her, but no. If it not for the towel that I hadn't removed the night before, we'd have a puddle to clean up...thank goodness for laziness sometimes, right?! I got her changed, yet again, but decided I was just going to throw her in the tub for a few to let it wash off. While I was getting her ready to go into the tub, I rolled up her shirt, so as not to get poo in her hair (hind-sight says, who cares, she's going in the tub anyway, DUH) and yanked...it got snagged on her chin and when it finally gave...poo splattered everywhere - including on me...and my face. Um, yeah, that wasn't really what I had been prepared for. I slowly undressed her the rest of the way, careful to not let the diaper drip anywhere (I know, it's gross, I'm sorry) and carefully put her in the tub to play. I immediately ran and cleaned myself up and changed - throwing load #3 in the wash. I washed her up when I got back (yes, bad mom moment - it was a moment of desperation I assure you) and got her dressed. When I came to the family room, Tyler was undressed clear to his diaper - he didn't take that off because he knows he'd have to use the toilet then! James also decided that he wasn't going to pause his playing to use the bathroom, so we've just had one of THOSE days...you get the idea.

On the upside, both dogs got "fixed" today and now have to wear "the cone of shame". Its a sad but funny thing to watch them get used to, but, the vets said they were both healthy dogs (even though Shadow was a few pounds overweight). No more worries about anythign that has to do with that stuff anymore for me! WOOHOO! So, now that I've sat here typing this, I guess I should go see what the kids are up to right about now!! I'm slightly afraid!

"Tomorrow Is A New Day..."

"...with no mistakes in it." ~Anne of Green Gables~

I've been putting off writing this email (or blog post - wherever you're reading it) because it seems when I write it out, or say it out loud, it's so....final! We're moving - again! This time, we're not staying in our ward (our Church boundaries - for those that aren't familiar with what a "ward" is), we're moving over an hour away from the area we've called home for almost 5 years now. It's insane to think about how close I really am to uprooting and leaving what I'm familiar with. I'm trying to stay positive about it, but it's been difficult. Today, I've spent a good portion of the afternoon in tears out of frustration (also due to much reflection). Chris is gone on another business trip, packing isn't going the way its supposed to (the way I've envisioned it - but what really does, come to think of it?!), I spent time with some very dear friends today and thoroughly enjoyed that time spent, which makes my leaving even harder to deal with. Terra's having a very rough time with leaving...she's 6 and a half now, so she gets the fact that this move will put her in a different school away from her friends here. She's cried about it and has had a few issues of her own since learning of the move. She's become more clingy (also brought on by school bullies), has informed us that she WILL be picked up from school from now on because she really hates riding the bus, and sometimes before going to bed tells us she's decided to not go to school in the morning. Well, she still rides the bus, there's no option about that one, and once she's actually AT school - she's jut fine! My afternoons are filled with a LOT of packing and I rather enjoy that time without helping hands (although Tyler still thinks he can "help" me out). Our new place of residence will be in Berthoud, CO. We signed papers last week and started moving this week and will be moving throughout the month of Feb.

Terra will be starting school March 1st, but there are no openings for James in any preschools up there this late in the year. Tyler will be starting preschool around his 3rd birthday (state mandated...he'll be going on under the pretense of a child with handicap even though he's not handicapped, just delayed in some ways...he'll grow out of those). It hasn't sunk in to James that he'll not be going back to school after Feb...not until Fall that is - when he starts Kindergarten. I'm sure he'll realize what's up when both Terra and Tyler are going, but he's not. Terra will be going to half-day kindergarten but has been doing all-day and is in the top of her class academically. I'm sure she'll be ahead of some of her classmates there as well, we'll just have to keep finding ways to challenge her...I have a feeling that many many trips to the library will be in order!! Well, I'd better get going. I have to get up early to put Terra on the bus to school since Chris isn't here to take her. I hope this finds you all well and I look forward to hearing from you all to get updates on what's new in your lives!

Love to you all -