Ok, I'm back....been a while!

Sorry I've been absent - so much has happened that I've had no spare time for blogging!

Just after my last posts, we headed out for my family reunion - it was so good to go. I had thought about not attending as my father (who's side of the family this was for) passed away last August. But my mom came up and so did my brother, Tom, and my sister, Lisa. I'm so glad I did as I didn't know it, but it was the last time I saw her for a long time as she is moving to San Fransisco (she's on the road right now). We had planned to get together once more before she left, but it just didn't work out! Bummer!

Here's my oldest and youngest daughters loving on a 1 week old baby that was at the reunion:


Then left for a week long campout - it's out church campout, but we start camping long before the "real" campout! We left Monday afternoon (7/30) and stayed up there until 8/5 - I came home on Thursday do catch up on emails and be here for Amanda to ship out orders, so there wasn't any glitch in shipping!

We had a great time camping! I even did a lot - biking, volleyball, paddle boating, and a little hiking! It was nice to be neither nursing a baby or pregnant at camp - haven't done that is so many years I can't even begin to figure out how long!

Here's our campsite:


At least this is part of it - you can see the tent city for the big kids, and our firepit, and the table. AND you can see my super cool bike with the kiddy trailer! That's a recumbent tricycle - great for your back, and so easy to ride - works especially great with the trailer as your bike stays put if you have to attend to the kids!

We found some really unique "flowers" - but I'm not sure if they were flowers -


Anybody know what they are??

Here's out happy camper - if you tell him he can't smile, he always does!



And here's our "I only in camp long enough to eat and then I'm back in the volleyball court!" camper -



And here's what happens when my DD gets ahold of the camera = she takes a picture of me - I hate having my picture taken, but I'll put this one in because I look like I'm having a lot of fun - and I was!


and here's our camping kitties - remember they were born last time we were camping - now they came along and were quite the attraction for kids at the campground:



Here's my favorite photo - this is Daddy's second snuggle from our princess - and she wouldn't come to me even when I offered to take her - this is such a sweet, "I just woke up and I need some cuddle time" photo:



And last, but not least, here's a great shot of Renee, my best friend and fellow mother of 10 ("A Bakers Dozen" blog is her blog - see link on the right side here) eating a licorice - I took this shot just to show that she isn't quite as crunchy as she lets on - LOL!



She's too young to have 10 kids! And that's the truth - you'll have to check out her blog!

This blog was all her doing - she convinced me that I should start this and even she is amazed at how popular my blog is (it gets about 30 - 40 hits a day!).

Since the camping trip, we spent a week recovering (laundry, laundry laundry, and the work , work, work).

This week is the county fair and two of my DDs showed dogs, so that meant I spent 2 days there, and inbetween I've been busy keeping up (my shipping gal, Amanda, and her mother who sews for me, is on a 3 week vacation and my #1 DD is at the fair, so it's all up to me!) with business and getting our mobile home ready to show!

That brings me to the best news of all:

OUR LOAN IS APPROVED! after all we went through, we are finally out of final review and we can start building again - they are going to be pouring the footings tomorrow!

Here's where we are as of today:


The only change from the last time is that the sand is mostly leveled - and there's less of it (it's down our bathroom drain! LOL! I've never bathed my kids so often in my life - I'm just not going to do a thorough job of wiping behinds covered in sand!).

I'll up date as often as I can as we build now!

Hope you enjoyed this long update!

So much to do, so little time!

This is an ever present problem around here! There's never enough time in the day, and if I could add more hours into the day, then I'd have to also add more energy into this ol' body of mine!

Here's a sample of my schedule today:

	Mom's Thursday Schedule
05:00 pm	Devotions with D
05:30 am	Quiet Time
05:45 am	Make Bed/Tidy Bedroom/switch loads/collect and sort D&R's Laundry
06:00 am	Sew Nursing Pads/boil
07:00 am	Wake Kids Up/switch loads – Nursing Pads with Whites/
07:30 am	Breakfast and VITAMINS
07:45 am	Pocket Quarterly and paypal for Michael
08:00 am	Taxes (Switch Loads – Jessica start her laundry)
08:30 am	Sew SL Fleece Pockets
09:00 am	Sew SL Fleece Pockets/Switch loads/Ship Nursing Pads
09:15 am	Snap SL Flece Pockets & Fleece Covers
09:30 am	Switch loads –fold kids' laundry
09:45 am	Curves
10:00 am	Curves
10:30 am	Stock Fleece pockets
11:00 am	Stock Fleece Covers
11:30 am	Switch Loads fold laundry
12:00 pm	Lunch
12:30 pm	Emails/Switch Loads
01:00 pm	Stock S4L
02:00 am	Stock S4L
02:30 am	Stock S4L
03:00 am	Shopping Lists
04:00 pm	Kids Chores/Hot Spots
04:30 pm	Dinner prep
05:00 pm	Dinner cooking/table set
05:30 pm	Eat Dinner
06:00 pm	Devotions
06:30 pm	Seamstress bins
07:30 pm	Family Time
08:00 am	Brush Teeth/Pajamas
08:30 am	Read Story
09:00 pm	Lights Out!

Looks great eh? Too bad it doesn't go as planned most days!

I've gotten most things on the list done so far today - just a few gliches I didn't expect - like:

not being able to find my log in information for doing my sales tax quarterly online,

and having to wash one of every size of trainer to recheck sizing (it turns out that our new FOE doesn't shrink as much as the old, so they are now running a little larger than before!)

and not being able to go to curves today because of the aforsaid unplanned events

and two toddlers having WAY too much fun eating chocolate chip cookies and the playing in the sand - chocolate and sand is hard to clean up without removing skin - so they had a bath

like waking up too early, so I spend the time doing email and miss my morning quiet time - which I really needed today!

and so on....and so on...

My schedule for tomorrow is just as bad...Calgon...Take me away! NOT! The problem with escaping is then when you return you are that much further behind than you were before!

Well, it's 4:30 and we I haven't gotten to anything on my schedule that is listed after 2:30 - and here I am blogging - maybe this is my new escape?

"This Schedule was brought to you by..." Renee or "A Baker's Dozen" blog fame (see link on the right" as I was talking to her yesterday about my schedule and a few other large family type things and she thought it would be a great idea for me to post my schedule that I make for myself most days!

She also wants me to blog about our dishes - but I need a photo for that one - maybe tomorrow when I need another escape!

We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With a little help from a few sources, we will have enough money by later today!

Our DS in Okinawa sent us some help, and our other son is purchasing my bike!~

Plus some funds from Daryl's pay this week to round it out!

So we made our goal!

If I wasn't so tired today, I'd be doing the happy dance (and my kids would think I had totally lost it!)

Thank You God!

We couldn't do it without him pulling a few strings for us - like the thing with Jeremy - he was waiting at the airport to go to Korea for a month where he will probably not be able to contact us at all, and I happen to mention our situation to him and he sends nearly everything he has to us - and only asks that we spend it on his truck when we are done "using" the money! What a great kid, eh? But just in time - if I had not mentioned it, or waited like 20 minutes longer, he would have never known and would not have offered to help! Amazing!

Now to de-stress a little - anyone got some serious chocolate they'd like to share???

LOL!!

Here's a few fun shots!

Here's a few fun/funny things from life around here:



See - I told you he'd sleep anywhere! Here he is asleep in the kitchen on an old office chair!



Here is "Sacajawea" - she is named this because she is so adventurous and determined - she was the first to walk, first to get out of the box, and the first one out the door - always looking for the next adventure! The little boy from this litter is usually right behind her, so we named him Lewisonclark, of course!



And here is our bathing beauty - looks like she should live in Whoville! Jessica was having fun with her at bathtime and came up with this "Who-do" - maybe she should try out for playing a roll as Cindy Lou Who's baby sister!

Building Update...

The appraisor came out Monday, real nice gal, and she is working on it this week. She should have it finished and at the bank by next Monday and then we'll be heading for the final paperwork phase and back into building around the 7th of August.

We also found out that the Mobile Home has to be removed before we can live in the house! ACK! We will be homeless! Well, not exactly, but close! Depending on the timing, we will be living in Daryl's shop (we'll pull out camping trailer in there so we'll have a kitchen of sorts) for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. It's a nice shop as shops go - heated, insulated, sheet rocked, and has a bathroom too and that's big plus - but no shower, washer/dry, and even smaller than our mobile home - will make for great memories and expanding our appreciation for the new house when it's done even more! I'm hoping this will be very short term!
Maybe this delay will be in our favor then - originally we would be finished with construction right around Christmas - not a nice time to be living in a mechanic's shop! With this delay, it will be close to February or March. Still cold, but with the possibility of the kids playing out of doors anyway!

Miracle, part 2

Well, it may not seem like a miracle, but it's close - I got the refund on the charge from the banker today! Yeah! After all I went through, I really didn't trust that it would be credited until I saw it with my own eyes! But it's there today, so we are that much closer to our goal!

We did find out yesterday that we really need to show the funds in the back by the first of next week - so that gives us 2 weeks less than we thought to have it there. We are getting close, but it looks like we will be short unless God sends another miracle or two our way.

Daryl's truck didn't sell on Ebay, bummer, but he is talking with a guy about it and it sounds at least somewhat hopeful.....He also has some wheels and car parts we are going to try to sell as well.
I am going to be contacting local music teachers to see if any know of students looking to buy violins or cellos as we have a VERY nice cello that is no longer in use here (Jason is on to more important things now, like working full time and restoring his 70s era camaro), and several violins as well (1/8, 1/2, 3/4, and a fullsize) - we are keeping one just incase, but we just aren't into the strings like we used to be - you know, phases of life and such!

We are also going to list my recumbent tricycle on Craigs list - that bike cost us more than some of our cars - we bought it last summer! But I found a great deal on another recumbent at a garage sale this past June that is easier for me to use, so now I don't need the first one.

So we are praying that a couple of those items will sell and then we'll be all set!

Miracle...stage 1

Well already God is showing what He can do!

My brother has been wanting to purchase one of our cars, but due to some problems, couldn't come up with the money for it. Well. God worked it out that he will be able to purchase the car and we can get the money for it this week! Funny that it worked out just right now when we have been talking with him about this car for nearly a year!
So we are 1/3 the way there to our goal already!!

Yeah!