Wordless Wednesday

Happy Easter!!

(Sorry I can't get the paragraphs to seperate...ugh....)

Whew! It's almost 9:45pm and it's about time I sat down to fill in what's been going on! This post will be about a few things, so stay with me! :)

(There are pictures at the bottom!)

First, HAPPY EASTER! Hope you all had a great day with friends and family to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord! We started off the day with church and then lunch at Olive Garden before heading home for nap and a lazy evening. (Well, lazy for the kids...I've been keeping busy with cleaning, sorting, organizing, purging our apt of stuff, etc!)

So, Friday morning at about 7:40am, we left for Nebraska!! I had the boys sleep in their clothes and made banana muffins the night before and got a bunch of fruit, etc ready so the kids could just get up, have a few muffins and jump in the car...and that's just what they did! We drove straight thru to Columbus NE (Ariella slept the whole time!). It took about 3 hours and 20 mins, so not too bad! The drive home went just as nice and ended with Nathan and I playing the ABC game with words on the billboards...he won...and he was driving...pathetic... :(

We had 3 places that we were going to look at. 1) a duplex (cheapiest) 2) a 4 bd ranch home (second cheapiest) 3) a 5 bd house (most expensive). We called to look at the house first. The house was "on the other side of the tracks"....literally....and they say that phrase for a reason... This was in the part of town you'd rather not be walking in at night. Run down houses, junk and garbage take the place of the grass in the yard, and lots of minorities. We pulled up to the house and I jumped out to take a look first while Nathan stayed in the van with the kids. The guy showed me around the house, and yes, it was fairly big. There was 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 4 flights of stairs...plenty of places for the boys to play hide and seek. BUT...it was a dump. It pretty much matched the rest of the houses in that area. It made our place in Garner look like a palace...and you know what our place was like there!! So, this was a big fat NO!

The second place we looked at was the duplex. I'll spoil the suspense for you and just say that this was the place that we will be renting. After looking at that house, pretty much anything would be better than that, so this duplex looked fabulous to us! :) It's an okay size, not huge but not tiny...probably about the same size as our apt is now (minus the walk in closets). It's a 3 bedroom, 1 bath place with a nice size laundry room right off the kitchen! THAT will be nice! It's been 2 years since I haven't had to pay per load or since I could access a washer and dryer without having to leave my kids (or take them all with me) or coordinate doing laundry when Nathan's home! Anyway, the place was fully remodeled 2 years ago with all new flooring, paint, etc and the guys who own it also own a heating and a/c business so that aspect of the duplex should be very nice! He said it's very energy efficient and even has an air purifier! It also has an attached single garage. I don't have any pictures of it right now, but i can guarantee you i will post some when we move in!!

The third place that we wanted to look at, the 4 bd ranch, was already rented. I was a little disappointed because I had made sure the guy wasn't going to rent it out before Friday since we were driving from MN and he said that it would be available. But when I called him, he said that he wasn't going to show us because he was going to choose this other lady to rent it. I thought that was a pretty easy answer though....not going to be that one!

The thing that's interesting about finding the duplex is that it was never on the list that I got from the realtor. We found it this way: Remember that guy who I talked about a couple posts ago about having 100 rentals in town?....Well, he took note of my name and number and called me back the next day with a couple names of people who might have a rental. I thought it was very nice of him to call me back with some info. Of course none of those were open, but he did say that he drove by a place earlier that day with a 'for rent' sign out in front. He thought it was owned by the heat and a/c guys so he gave me the number to their store and had me go from there. I called and the nice lady put me through to the voice mail of the owner. He called me back and said that he did have a duplex and it was available! Whoo hoo!! The strange thing?...there wasn't a sign out front when we were there on Friday....hmmm...

We think it was a total blessing from the Lord that Mr. Jones saw the sign that day and made a point to call me. It was because of that, that we found it! So we gave our deposit and we were on our way!

We stopped at the park (the pic from the previous post) and ate our picnic lunch before heading back. We also stopped at Walmart in Columbus on our way out of town and got a plug in for our laptop so the kids could watch a movie...great idea! :)

How's Columbus for a town?...Well, it's about 25,000 people, with lots of Mexicans. We felt like we were the minority at most places we went. It has a Walmart, a new Hyvee (grocery store), Dollar General, Family Dollar...everything I need...hehe :) But really, it has most things ya need. It will be different being in a big town compared to Luverne and Garner, but it will be nice not having to drive 30-45 minutes to get to a Walmart, etc! But the bad part is just having the business of a bigger city. Our duplex is on a pretty busy street, so that's a bummer, but what do ya do??

**Side note** While I ran into Walmart to get the plug in for the computer, I walked past the infant/toddler clothes since I picked up diapers too and I saw some super cute little girl dresses. This is what thought ran through my head "Oh, those are so cute! I hope someday I have a little girl so I could buy something like that...." Then it hit me! I DO have a little girl and I CAN look at that stuff to actually BUY!!! But since all the fam was in the van waiting for me, I just glanced at them for a few seconds and smiled and walked away. I'm still not used to having a little girl. I often think I have a boy that I'm just putting in pink :) But I assure you, Ariella IS a girl! :)

Speaking of Ariella...do you know how much she weighs?!?! I weighed her last Sunday, 8 pounds...remember? Well, I weighed her today, one week later, and she's 9-1/2 pounds!!! Holy smokes girl! A pound and a half in a week!....3 pounds in 3 weeks!...what a little pig! I told you she eats like her brothers!! She's even big enough now where Nathan doesn't mind holding her because she's not "as fragile" :) My baby's already growin' up!

Oh, just an FYI: Nathan thinks he'll be done with work this week and that we will be signing a year lease with the place in NE (we don't have much choice, that's just what they do there since the rental market is so hot). And speaking of that, if you need work, move to Columbus!! Everything is growing there that every business is insanly busy and people are moving their like crazy. It's an extremly hot market there right now. Also, because of that, the owner of the duplex told Nathan that if he needs work next winter after the line is done (they are saying that it's going to be done in December) and before the next one starts, that he's got at least a years worth of work that needs to be done at his other sheet metal business, so Nathan could work for him if he wanted/needed to. What a blessing!

Well, Ariella didn't fall asleep until about 12:30am last night so I'm a little tired today (although I got to take a 2 hour nap!!) so that's about all for now! Have a great night!

Ariella in her cute dress she got from her Aunt Christine! I thought it wasn't going to fit for awhile but she's getting bigger a lot faster than I thought she would!!

(sorry the pic is turned!....her booties say "Thank Heaven...for little girls" :)


Sweet Angel


Taking a pic of these 4 (especially the older 3!) is a lot harder than it looks!



Kisses for sister!

Our four blessings!


Sweet Easter girl


Before we went to church.... (after this picture I changed my clothes to match the rest of the family....white button up shirt and a jean skirt :)

Brayan was throwing a small fit and in the middle of it, he backed up into a pot that was on the floor (don't ask me why it was in the middle of carpet...ask the kids!) and he actually fell right into it! He got stuck in it and that didn't make him any happier...Nathan just had to snap a picture! :)

Hanging out with Daddy in the afternoon on Easter, watching Veggie Tales and singing along!

Coming Soon...NE!

I don't feel like typing much tonight...busy day and I'm tired!!! (plus Ariella is eating right now so I'm only typing with one hand!) But I wanted to post something for y'all tonight! I'll type out my update tomorrow about our crazy, quick, adventurous successful trip to Nebraska yesterday!!

Sorry, can't get the pic to turn!! But can you tell her double chin is getting bigger? :)

The playground a couple blocks from our "new" place in NE

I told Tiernan that he could have a snack when the big hand got on the 12. He stood on the arm of the couch and watched the clock exactly like this for 20 minutes....I'm not even joking!

The boys got into Brayan's room which has a lot of stuff in it right now with getting ready to move and all. It was organized.....Amazing what the boys can do in less than 2 minutes!!

What a mess!

"Uh....BOYS?!?!!!!

Ariella hangin' out with Mom, eyein' up that banana :)

Again, sorry it's turned...... So sleepy

Peace & Quiet?

Well, this was going to be a Wordless Wednesday, but there's too much stuff going on with us to remain 'wordless!' :)

Right when I start thinking we can't possibly have any stuff that we can get rid of because we just went through our stuff 5 months ago, I find 'stuff'! We have the back of our van full of 'stuff' to go to the goodwill! I'll hopefully be able to drop that off tonight on the way to church so I can load up more! It's such a good feeling to not have any more junk than we need!

I encourage all of you to do some Spring cleaning and go through old boxes (and even new ones for that matter!), closets, drawers, etc and get rid of anything that you can live without. You will feel incredible when you're done!!

Yesterday, the boys went to Jen's house for the morning hours to give me some much needed peace and quiet! ...but the time went all too fast!! I dropped them off a little after 9am and then headed to the store quick and to visit the 93 yr old lady who still works everyday at her store that she owns on main street. She hasn't seen Ariella yet, so I thought I would take her there for Margaret to see! Once I got back to our apt, it was already a little after 10!

I struggled with what I should do with a quiet apartment and only about 2 hours to go....should I sleep? Should I try to get stuff done? Should I just sit in my glider rocker and snuggle with Ariella in the silence? ....decisions!... But I decided to use the time to call people in Nebraska to see if there is anything available to rent. Bad idea!!!

I was supposed to relax during the time I didn't have the boys, but I got myself more stressed instead! I made 42 calls during that time frame, yes...42!, with pretty much every single one saying the same thing...."it's already rented" or "we don't have any available" or "good luck with that since everything that I know of, even the motels, are all full" etc etc etc.....

I called someone from all the surrounding towns, probably within a 45 mile radius of Columbus and they too are all full. There was a house that was for rent about 45 mins from Columbus that I got from a realtor that was just posted. I called about it and they said that because they've had so many applicants that they are showing it for the last time yesterday afternoon and then making their decision after that. I also spoke with a guy who owns over 100 rentals in the Columbus area and he's full (of course) but he said that he gets at least 10 calls a day from people looking for a place to rent. Seriously, it's THAT crazy!!!!

BUT....I was able to find a guy with a house that has it still available yet but he is super picky about who he rents to so even though he's had a gazillon people apply, he hasn't rented it out yet. He told me that we can look at it on Friday while we are in town. I'm ready to sign for it even without seeing it. I don't even care anymore, I just want a place to live!!!! But this house does sound nice, it actually sounds pretty perfect so we are praying that he really likes us (we will leave our kids in the car!! ...hehe) and that he'll offer to rent to us!!! He would even take care of the lawn work, which is something that was in our "wish list" since we don't own a lawn mower anymore etc. Plus, he pays for the garbage, water and sewer, which is way more than any other landlord was willing to do. PLUS, the price is decent. Oh, and it's a 4 bedroom ranch house so sounds like it would be enough room for us!!! Sooooo, we will just wait and see....but prayers are so appreciated!!

There's also one other house that we will look at. It's a 5 bedroom, 2 bath split level home but it's quite a bit more expensive than the ranch, but at this point, we don't have too many options. So we are praying that one of these (preferably the ranch) will work out.

We could also rent this big, fully furnished house for $2400 a month....ah, I think NOT! But it was nice of the guy to offer.....they usually rent it out for $700 per week. Yikes!

So anyway, all those calls with maybe 2 options....so we still plan on traveling down there for the day on Friday and check them out. In the meantime, I'll continue to get rid of 'stuff!' :)

8 pounds!!!

Our little girl is becoming 'not so little' anymore!!!....(okay, she is still little, but it won't be long before she's not!) I weighed her last night on our digital scale and she is exactly 8 pounds! That means that in 2 weeks, she's packed on over a pound and a half! She's already eating like her brothers!! (a lot!) :)


Last night I swaddled Ariella in the Miracle Blanket for the first time. Since it's kind of an awkward blanket, I wasn't sure how I'd like it, but since I know of people who swear by it, I thought I'd give it a try! I wrapped her in it and she almost immediately fell asleep (which I guess isn't unusual for her so I didn't think much of it)...but she fell asleep around 8:30pm and we went to bed around 10:30pm and she was still sleeping. I laid her in her pack n play bassinet, figuring she'd be up in a few minutes once she realized that she wasn't in my arms, but to my surprise, I was able to crawl into bed with her still in the pack n play! She didn't even move a muscle! She was still all snuggled in the blanket at 3am when I decided to pick her up and try to feed her!! She had slept thru that whole time! Then once I fed her a little bit, she was fast asleep again until 6:45am this morning when it was my idea to feed her again! I guess she liked the blanket!! I'm excited to see if tonight is the same or if it was just a fluke thing. They say that because of the way that the baby is swaddled, that they'll sleep for longer stretches at a time since they don't wake themselves with their movements, and that was definitely true for Ariella last night!

I've started going through every single box of stuff we own and, once again, getting rid of stuff we don't need. I'm sure we are the only people that I know of that goes through their things (and I mean everything...every cupboard, every dressser, every box in 'storage', everything) every few months to get rid of more!! :) One good thing about it is that I can guarantee you we don't have any 'junk'....if we don't use it on pretty much a daily basis, we don't have it!

We are still planning on moving to Nebraska but I have yet to talk to anyone that gives us any glimpse of hope of finding a place down there to live! I think we are going there on Friday to check things out. Either way we need to be out of this apartment by April 30th so we hope that we can find a place and that the next job will be starting by then!

Nappin' with Dad

My, what big eyes you have Ariella! :)

How Ariella snuggles with Mommy every night!

So sweet

This was not prompted...it's what the boys always want to do with her....kiss her!!

First attempts at all 4 together

...again :)

Little toes...

Here We Go Again!

So it's becoming more and more likely that we are moving to Nebraska in a few weeks. Whenever we are about to move, I like to call a few places to see what they have available to rent, etc. If you remember our move to Iowa, it was not fun trying to find a place in or around Clear Lake IA. That town just happened to be a tourist town where every place for rent (apartment or house) was booked within the whole city and surrounding area. I made about a hundred calls (or more!), spoke with realtors, called owners of vacant houses, everything...and nothing was available. Well, ya all know how that ended up....we found a place in a town 11 miles from Clear Lake and rented an old, small, creeky, 2 bedroom apt. (That suited us fine, but we have to laugh about it now....click here to read about the stuff I don't miss about that place!)

Anyway, so today I began the search for a few places in or around Columbus Nebraska....and I started having flashbacks!! Ugh! Every apartment complex in town is full, especially the 3 bedrooms, which we need because we have too many people by most laws to rent a 2 bedroom. (And today was the first day that I answered the "how many people in your family" question, and I was like "6"...then I thought about it and I'm like "Holy Cow!! We have six people in our family!! Whew!) Anyway, so every apt is full and the people I've called about some houses say that by next weekend (when we might plan on visiting Columbus) they will be taken. Apparently places are going like hot cakes and no one even advertises rentals anymore because just by word of mouth they are gone lickity-split!

Why can't we move to a town where they want people to rent and where you could actually work a deal with someone because they need your money instead of begging someone to keep their house available for a few stinkin' days so we could actually look at it!

I asked the realtor that I spoke with about why there are so many renters and she said that within the last few months, they've brought 500 new jobs to the area and 1000 new jobs within the past 12 months so everyone's renting right now. She said they can't even build apartment buildings fast enough! So anyway, we need prayer that if NE is where we are supposed to go, that we would find a place to live!! (...and if I got my way, it'd be a house with all the appliances, with a fenced in yard, at least 3 bedrooms, and CHEAP!) ....but that cheap part probably won't happen...not when they have renters chompin' at their feet!

Who wants to pool some money together to build a rental place in Columbus?? :)

Fireproof

The weather has actually been cooperating very nice with the baby being born. Let me explain....when Nathan was at my parents house with us last week, he took Monday-Thursday off. Well, it turns out that his crew didn't even work Monday-Wednesday because of the rain, etc. So he only ended up missing one day last week! Then, this week he was home Monday, Tuesday and yesterday because of the wind!! Also, last Saturday he got home early just because the rest of his crew didn't feel like working a full day on Saturday! So this is really the first day, besides last Friday, where I have been by myself for the whole day with all the kids! Every other day Nathan's either been home early or all day!! And he's definitely helped out with the kids and meals. I have been so blessed by him lately and for that I am so grateful!!

We went to church last night for our "Fireproof Your Marriage" study. It is very good and again, I encourage anyone who has not seen the movie Fireproof to rent it and watch it with your spouse!! It is a fabulous movie with great values. I also dare you to buy the book The Love Dare (as seen in Fireproof) and read it and apply what you've learned from the book! Anyway, study went great and the kids love playing while Mom and Dad love their 'alone' time for an hour and a half!....well, this time we weren't exactly without kids since Ariella came with us, but she was held the whole time by my pastor's wife, so it was almost like she wasn't there....not that I didn't want her there....oh, you know what I mean!! :)

We said our official goodbyes to Al yesterday morning. He's moved out of his apartment and is now basking in the Florida sun before heading to the Bahamas before returning to France. (Rough, huh?!) The kids clobbered him with hugs and kisses and I know they will miss him.

After getting home from church last night

"Goodbye Al....we'll miss you!"

Pretty girl

First bath with Mommy! She loved the warm water!