The Passing of Time

Well, the last time I posted anything was in October of 2011. A lot has gone on since then. In November the kids and I went to Dothan and visited my family. Rachel and Deborah got to come on the weekends and see us ( and Mark, too :) ) and Deborah got some personal days to spend with us and Rachel had a day off school and got to spend extra time with us. It was a very fun week. We got to go to the Peanut Parade, which is a tradition, and we also celebrated Luke's 8th birthday! The trip up went much better than I anticipated, which helped relieve some of my apprehension about future trips. When we got back to Fort Lauderdale (I almost typed Pensacola) we hit the books hard to finish up our last six weeks of the semester. We didn't quite finish, but off we went a week before Leigh to visit in December the week before Christmas. Leigh flew to Panama City on Christmas Eve and Dad went and got him. We spent Christmas Day together, and then we left on Monday to go to Kansas to celebrate Leigh's Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was nice to see some of Leigh's side of the family, with some extended aunts, uncles, and cousins. We drove two days up, spent two days, and then drove two days back to Dothan, and spent one day and then drove down to Lauderdale. We've been busy, busy since then.
School's going well, we passed Lesson 100 a few days ago, which means we only have 70 lessons left! If we double up every day we'll be done in 7 weeks!!!! Buuuuutttt, we're not going to do that. I've actually been only doing one lesson a day, because I don't have a goal to be done for this six weeks, and it's made our school week much less stressful. I usually try to get six lessons done in a week, just to get a little extra done, and because we started later than we usually do, but I think we're pretty much caught up, although I do want to start doing some extra, so we finish the middle of May. We'll see. I'm also trying to plan a "Spring Break" or whatever you want to call my next trip. :)
Our church is having revival services the last week in February. There is talk of a ladies retreat in October, at either Camp of the Pines, or Bill Rice Ranch. Hopefully I'll be able to go. Leigh would have to get a day off work.
Valentine's Day is coming up, so I've been trying to plan some things. I think we're going to have a Valentine's party the Friday before to make cookies and valentines for our friends at church. We also might take it as a Holiday because February 12th is Abraham Lincoln's Birthday. Luke found this information out in one of his books he reads and keeps reminding us, so I'm thinking of making him a cake! Ha. I've also been planning a date night at church for Valentine's day, providing childcare at the church for the couples who want to go on a date. It will be presented this Sunday, so hopefully people will sign up. 
We've started looking at houses to buy. Last Saturday was our first time out, we only got to look at two and neither one of them were any good, so we're going out again tomorrow. We have absolutely no idea of how long this will take. Hopefully not too long..... There doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there with our criteria.
Anyways, That's all for now. It's getting rather late and I need to get to bed. The baby has had a fever today without any other symptoms, so I"m afraid it's his ears and I might be up all night-seems to be a trend with him when nothing else presents itself. I hope not!!
TTFN!!

Funny Sayings

The kids are always saying funny things. I always think I need to go write them down, but by the time I have time, I've forgotten them.
One of Josiah's favorite things to ask is: "Yes, you said?" He'll come and ask a question, and we'll answer him and he almost always says, "Yes, you said?" Even if we say no.

Josiah: "Did God tell Daddy he could go to work?"
            "Where is God's house?"
            "Did God say not to break the cup??"
            "Did God say not to throw the cup on the floor?"
(These were all asked at supper tonight)

Josiah: "What are we having for supper?"
Me: "Lasagna"
Josiah: "NO, It's BITzagna"

Luke while reading his God's World book about bees enemies: "like Winnie the Pooh"

Timothy has started screaming at Josiah, so Josiah screams back and then quietly says, "yourself" to the effect of "AHHHHHHHH,.... yourself."

Tonight Josiah saw a picture of Aunt Rachel on the computer and he said, "That's my favorite Rachel."

Timothy was wearing a shirt with a bear on it (not Winnie the Pooh), and Josiah says, "Him's wearing Winnie the Pooh, Mommy. You gotta be kiddin' me!"

Luke's prayer at lunch today included prayer for Emily to close her eyes, and for Josiah to not eat while we pray.

Josiah: "God said no to get on the cabinet."

Josiah: "Mommyyyyyyy"
Me: "Yes, Josiah?"
J: "Umbrellas don't like dogs. Specially Pongo. But not Cooper... he's a big ole boy!."

After we got home from church today, Leigh got out of the van and when he opened the kids door, he said, "It's gusty out!!" and Luke says, "Wow, it even made your hair move!!!"

Play

Timothy has learned to climb in and out of the stero cabinet. Today, Josiah climbed in with him and Timothy was not pleased, so I made Josiah get out. I'm not quite sure how Josiah got in without hurting Timothy, but he sure did!! Timothy also has two new teeth coming in on the top on either side of the two middle ones. He stood up today from bending over on a toy. He's standing for longer periods of time. Luke and Emily have learned to roller skate! They've been going outside almost every day and "practicing." They're doing pretty well! I need to take them down to the park and see how they do. Maybe we'll do that this weekend!!

Flowers

The day Leigh went and took his drug test, he brought me home some flowers!! They were so pretty and fun!!

Tickets

A couple weeks ago a member of our household received a ticket. It was quite interesting the mail we received several days after that. We got 8 different ads for traffic school and/or law firms to get the case dismissed. We've received about 1 or 2 in the mail every day after that.

(The ticket was for "speeding" in a school zone, and a stop sign had just been passed, so it couldn't have been much over the 15mph.)

kiddos

The kids are doing very well in school. Some days are harder than others to keep Josiah occupied. There was one week he kept snitching food out of the kitchen. (My dad would say I should feed the kid!) I had made chocolate chip cookies - that was probably the problem - and they sat in a container on the cabinet. The cabinets in this house, excuse me, the countertops, in this house are not as deep or as tall as the ones in Pensacola, so if something is on it, Josiah can get a stool and easily reach it. That week he ate cookies, crackers that I had made for Timothy (although Timothy won't eat them), graham crackers out of the diaper bag, graham crackers off of Timothy's high chair tray, two of Emily's skittles, part of one of Luke's cookies at lunch, and drank out of everyone's water bottles. No, he's not starving, he gets plenty of food, I think he was just bored that week or something. I don't remember Luke or Emily ever snitching as much as he does.

Timothy started saying "uh-oh" a week or two ago. And, he uses it appropriately. He has started playing the "throw my food off my high chair and say uh-oh" game. It is very cute though. If he drops a toy while he's playing he says uh-oh, too. He was playing with a dinosaur at the coffee table the other day and it sounded like he was making it roar. He was making it "walk" down the table and he was doing a very good job!

Josiah entertaining himself at school with address labels

that we got in the mail.

Update

Well, we had a good week this week. Leigh started his job on Wednesday. He went in and took a drug test on Monday, and they said it would take 2-3 days to get the results and then they would call and he could start work. We didn't think he would get called until Wednesday, so we were expecting him to start on Thursday, but they called on Tuesday, and he was able to start on Wednesday, so he didn't quite get finished all that he had hoped to before starting work, but he was able to finally finish most of it this weekend. After about a week of him being home after all our company left right after we moved down here, I didn't think I was going to survive with him being home every day. It was driving me crazy, because I was trying to unpack boxes and keep the kids busy, without interrupting his computer time where he was trying to find a job. I find it's easier for me to stay patient and just take care of things when it's just me, versus him being in another room to just ask to do a "quick" something. It was better when school started, because the kids and I were more occupied and weren't in and out as much, and we kind of got into a routine. Well, we must have been doing pretty good because I got right used to him being home. (Neither one of us has ever thought that we would do well with him working from home. We would have to have a detached shed or something for his office if he did.) After they called and said he could come to work on Wednesday, I was sad that he would be leaving! I was lonely on Wednesday, but it didn't take us long to get back into a new routine. I packed the kids up Friday pretty soon after he left for work, and we went to the library book sale!! Yay for book sales!! I was able to find several kids books, and a sewing book and a craft book for myself and it all cost under $4.00!! The kids books were .25 and .10 which were good prices I thought for a book sale! On Thursday and Friday, he came home for lunch, which was a fun highlight in our day and helped us not miss him so much.
Leigh's new schedule is later than it was in Pensacola, so that will take some getting used to, especially on Wednesdays with trying to get him supper and get to church on time. It's a good thing we don't live far from either, otherwise we would probably just have to meet him at church!! On Saturday, we went and did the Lowe's project, which was a monster truck with a green blinking light on top. The kids seem to enjoy it and it's a fun, free activity! That was about all that happened this week! Very exciting.....!  :)