A little sleepyhead girl on Christmas morning

She perked up quite a bit by afternoon though...  So much so that she turned into a faerie!!

Here are some recent quotes and definitions from Heike, my fearless 3 year old!

Swim soup - The thing you wear when you go swimming.

Spongebob - The thing you wipe the counters with, as in "Mommy, can I wipe the counters with the spongebob?".

Kitty feathers - The fluff left behind when petting a long haired white kitty, as in "Mommy, wipe the kitty feathers off my dress!"

Lady - The dress-like thing that you wear to bed, as in "Mommy, can I wear my lady?"

Holder - The 'handle' part of the broccoli, as in "Mommy, I ate the holder!" (a big accomplishment!)

And of course, don't forget the Air Porch, which is that place where airplanes land.

When galloping her imaginary horse up a rather steep hill and pausing to catch her breath, "My horse is tired!!"

The other day I started singing the "Chin Up" song from Charlotte's Web, and Heike informed me that I was not allowed to sing it, because I'm not a spider.

And one from Brannan, who, for months would constantly refer to "the buddy". For the life of me I could not figure out who the buddy was, and he talked about the buddy all the time. "The buddy fixed our car." "The buddy is on the phone." " I saw the buddy at church." Then I finally had a lightbulb moment when an ambulance passed us, and he said "They're goin' to help the buddy!" The buddy = somebody!! "They're going to help somebody." "Somebody fixed our car." Life made so much more sense after that! 

I woke up to a loud chicken-related ruckus outside. I have a friend at work who used to have chickens and she had warned me that they can be a little loud when they're laying their eggs. Soooo…. since it could be any day now and I have no idea what sounds an egg-laying chicken makes, I got all excited and ran outside to check, but nope. I was half-asleep when I heard them, so I don't really recall all that well, but I'm guessing something just startled them. Oh, well….. someday soon.

But, since I was outside, I got to see something as equally impressive as the long-awaited eggs. First though, let me explain… we see hot air balloons all the time. During the late spring, summer, and early fall, they are a daily occurrence. They take off just about every evening about two miles from our house, usually two or three of them, sometimes only one. I think five is the most I've ever seen at once. We can see them from our house, but they're always in the distance and floating farther away. Sometimes after work, we'll be driving past the little airport just in time to watch them take off too. That's always fun! Those are the days when I enjoy the stop-and-go traffic jam… we're surrounded by farmland (which is not common around the Seattle area), and it's just a beautiful site, very peaceful. Anyway, we do have a tendency to take hot air balloons for granted around here.

Back to this morning….. I was checking on the chickens and I heard the distinctive "ssshhhhh" sound of the hot air balloon, and looked up and one was directly overhead. We've been here 5 years, and I've only seen one float by our house once before (I think the sunrise runs take off from a different location. I'm sure they've probably floated by our house more than twice in all that time, but I've only been awake and outside to witness it once before… ). The other time, the balloon was a lot closer (I could see the people!), but I think this time was really cool, because it was directly overhead! I got to see the hot air ballooon from the bottom up, which was an interesting perspective. It was overcast today and the clouds were really bright, but I managed to get a semi-decent picture. 

In case you've ever wondered what a hot air balloon looks like from directly underneath, your curiousity can now rest at ease!   Personally, I think it kind of looks like some kind of jelly-fish.

So, things have been crazy, crazy, crazy around here (and HOT). On Saturday, we went to the wedding of one of my co-workers, actually two co-workers (they met at work!). It was a beautiful wedding. It was outdoor on a "rent-a-farm", the kind where they do corn mazes and pumpkin patches in the fall. They rent their old milking barn (now fixed up like a farm-themed banquet hall) for events like weddings, birthday parties, etc… The wedding was great except for the fact that it was soooo hot and it was outside in the sun at 4 in the afternoon. I think a couple of the guests might have melted.   But then we got to go inside for the reception so it was a little cooler in there.

Matthew is in the process of trying to go from professional house painter to professional photographer, so they actually hired him as the wedding photographer which was very cool! He has done a lot of other types of photography, but this was his first wedding! I'm so proud of him! So, while he was an official guest, he was also working so I didn't get to spend much time with him since he was running around taking pictures. I think he sat down for about 15 minutes to eat dinner and then he was off again.

It was so hot and tiring that Brannan actually fell asleep at the table!

I was a little sad because the wedding was at the same time as the high point of our town's annual celebration. I was hoping to take the kids to the parade and some of the other things (frog jumping contests, bed racing, etc…), but we missed it all. Oh, well… the wedding was great and I'm very happy for them, so I'm not too sad!

So the rest of the weekend involved scrambling around trying to get the house ready to have a real estate agent go tromping through the house. Carpet cleaning had been on my to-do list for awhile, but with an agent coming over in a few days, it turned into a "I need to do this now" kind of thing. So, I rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned my carpets. Did I mention that it was 98 degrees? I know in other areas of the country it has been over 100, but 90 is warm for us here, plus we have terrible humidity. I've been told my countless people that our humidity makes it seem hotter/worse than it really is. So, when it's humid like that I just add 10 degrees to even it out…. So that would make it 108 degrees.    (Seriously you can feel the air touching your skin. Just imagine walking around smothered in a soggy, hot quilt.  )

Matthew worked all weekend, so while I was carpet cleaning, I was home alone with the kids, very hot and grumpy (me, not them). Thankfully, my mom came and whisked them away to the park, a horse show, and the carnival. I know they definitely had a lot more fun with her than if they'd stayed home with me and watched me clean the carpet…. And I was able to get a lot more done and not feel so guilty for being grumpy when they walked across the wet carpet for the twenty-second time.

Yesterday, I took the day off from work to try to get a few more things done around the house. I also had to meet the refrigerator delivery guy… Remember a month ago, the refrigerator door fell off my almost new fridge? (Click here for a reminder). Well, it was pronounced "unrepairable" and a brand, spanking new one was delivered yesterday afternoon (no cost, as it was under the factory warranty).  And, in case you're curious, the door only fell off for the first week  , then the repair guy was finally able to come out and get it to sort-of work. The bottom hinge which is normally three bolts was only being held in by one stripped bolt that couldn't be tightened too much or would have stripped out all the way. So, it was like that for the last three weeks. Every time you opened the door you could feel the bottom rubbing and knew it was only a matter of time before it finally gave way again and thumped onto the floor. But I don't have to worry about it any more (Yay!!)

And the final news is that the real estate agent did come out yesterday and gave us a recommended asking price. We thought it was a little low. I realize that trying to put a price on your home is difficult and can be a little emotion-driven, but trying to be realistic, Matthew and I both think it's worth a little more than some of the comps because it has a "unique-ness" factor. I know when we bought it, it was only $4K more than another similar house a block away. On paper they looked very comparable, but in person, there was a world of difference. We thought we got our house for a steal and would have willingly paid more for ours if the asking price had been higher. So, I'm hoping that's still the case. Without trying to take advantage of any potential buyers, we do need to clear as much as possible if we sell it. I'm not too worried about that though, since if we really do ask too much, then it just won't sell…  However, I just want to get the price right the first time, for us as the sellers and for whoever the buyer might be.

Trixi had mentioned the idea of doing a "Tour of Homes". It was kind of funny because I had already been planning on doing a post on our house similar to what she mentioned, since it's such a cool little house and the Lord really led us to it… To quote the real estate agent when we bought it, "I've NEVER seen a sale squeak by like this and still actually close." She went on to tell us we must have the best luck in the world, and I don't remember our exact answer, but it was basically along the lines that it wasn't luck at all, but the Lord making a path for us. It was really our little miracle house. If it sells, I am sure I will cry. I could be wrong, but I really feel like this is the Lord's will, and it's time for us to move on now. So, that makes it a little easier. I will try to post about the house on Friday as part of the tour, but with everything going on, I won't make any guarantees!

And I would appreciate prayers! This is a huge thing we are embarking on and we really want to make sure we are in His will!

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Sorry that this post is kind of rambling. My mind is going a thousand miles a minute, and my fingers don't always keep up! Hopefully everything is coherent! 

Today is our 7th anniversary! AND it's also Heike's 3rd birthday, so she is stealing the show this evening with her birthday party!

It's so hard to believe that my baby is 3 years old!! Where does all the time go?

Let's see, this weekend was busy… Matthew was working all weekend. On Saturday, Brannan got to go with his cousin to the local children's museum and then to Chuck E Cheese for pizza (it was his cousin's 4th birthday). Brannan's never been there before, and it was apparently such an amazing experience that for the rest of the weekend, he would randomly announce to us, "I love Chuck E Cheese".    Of course, I wasn't there, so this picture was shared with me, but I just love the look of concentration on his face. 

Soooo… the boys were gone, and Heike and I got to have a fun girl's day and hang out together. We don't get to do that often, so even though we didn't do much, it was still fun!

I don't have any updates on the sprayer situation… Other than insurance might cover it, but the deductible is $500, so it would only cover half of the value. Which is better than nothing, but that's still a big loss. Oh, well.. To be continued.

Well, I need to go celebrate a birthday! (and an anniversary!) 

Last night, I drove my husband's work truck to Target, and while the kids and I were inside, someone stole his paint sprayer out of the back. It was tied down and covered with a tarp, so it wasn't really visible. Who would have thought someone would steal something in broad daylight in the middle of a busy parking lot?

As we walked back to the truck, I saw that it was gone right away, so I went back inside and asked for the Security Guard. He looked thru the tapes, and sure enough, someone just pulled up next to the truck and fiddled with it for about 5 minutes and off they went. Unfortunately, the tapes weren't clear enough to get any useful details, like a license plate number or anything (So what's the point of security cameras? Just to confirm that yes, someone stole a car from the parking lot or kidnapped a child? Why don't they have cameras that can provide useful details???? ) I called the sheriff's deputy and someone came out so I have an official report. But it's not likely that we'll ever see it again. This is an $1100 machine that he just bought 3 weeks ago and used once, AND it was a replacement for one that was stolen out of our backyard a few weeks before that…. I'm not sure if insurance will cover one or either of them… that's $2600 worth of equipment, and my husband can't work (he's a painter) without a sprayer. It's kinda depressing….

I just read a quote the night before. I've heard it said before, but it was fresh in my mind last night… it's something like, 'If money or hard work can fix or replace it, then it's not worth worrying about'. I agree to a certain extent. I am happy and grateful that my family is with me and healthy, that I have a roof over head, etc… but sometimes it's hard to not worry about the 'stuff'.

Anyway, if you remember to keep us in prayer, I would really appreciate it. This just seems like one of many things that keeps going wrong, and I'm really having a hard time with it all.