Just To Be Clear...

...my new blog is here!

http://searshouseonhill.blogspot.com/

It's where all the cool kids hang out!

Happy Birthday to...

The Gingerbread House Saga!

I've been blogging for 3 years today!

Here's my very first post!

In that time we've:

• Started homeschooling
• Done some laundry
• Had some birthdays
• Had some first crushes
• Ate some chocolate
• Gone to some high school musicals
• Made some gingerbread houses
• Shoveled some snow
• Hosted a Fresh Air Fund kid
• Lost some teeth
• Gone camping
• Changed from an-old-lady-car-driver to a I'm-STILL-too-young and cool to drive a-minivan-driver
• We played some baseball
• We've visited Canada
• We welcomed a new little monkey (Shoey, just to be clear) to the mix
• We've said hello and goodbye to a stray pitbull
• We've visited Virginia
• We've played some soccer
• We've moved to a new town
• We've survived the chaos and have enjoyed every minute of it!

Go here: to see what the next 3 years holds

The Mama Files: "Idle Hands Are..."

So our fall is filling up really fast....like lightening speed. I love and hate it all in one!

I'm pretty excited for the MOPS crafts I'm planning to do this year (obvi.). *Note to self: raid Mom's fabric stash for more material ASAP*

We have soccer for 3 kids (I assist. coach for 1)! Which is crazy, but, like I recently told a friend "the kids play soccer for me and little league for Marc". So it doesn't really feel like THAT much of a chore carting them around.

I just got home from a meeting for the art classes I teach at a local private school. One class is 9 little girls grades 2-3, which is exciting. Another class is 8 little boys (and 2 girls) grades K-1, which is frightening. Hopefully we all make it through alive!

And off course there's the regular life stuff- cleaning, laundry, dishes, etc.

I've recently come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to be the lady that has a perfectly cleaned and organized house. There's just so many other things I'd rather put my time into. I'll just have to settle with a semi-almost-halfway picked up house.

Thank goodness we now have a house that can be that way and I don't feel like I'm drowning in housework/laundry/children! :-)

Happy *almost* fall!

A Fun Fact About Me:

Fall is by far my favorite season and I think it's because at lot of the clothes are orange and brown!

Sweet Progress

I had a VERY productive weekend! YAY!

It started on Friday when I went to Joann's and found absolutely NOTHING that I wanted to create curtains for my living room out of. But, things got better once I played soccer with a lot of the ladies from my high school team (ah, memories!) and had a bonfire at my former coach's house.

Then, we had a fun Saturday morning of Youth soccer (I have 3 players this year) and I came back to do TONS of lawn work while Shoey napped!

Finally today I cleaned boxes out of one spare room and organized the other spare room (We have TWO spare rooms! How cool is that?!) so that one of my brother-in-laws can stay with us while he's home on break from college.

Now to just find some fabric for those curtains...

I hope the rest of the week goes as well!

The Gingerbread House *Saga*, continued.

New Plan:

I haven't gone into this before now because it's such a crazy unbelievable story and I wanted to know the ending before I explained it all. Well it doesn't look like I'm going to know the ending for quite some time, or maybe this is the ending, who knows.

Anywho, 8 years ago our county went to Marc's grandfather and told him that he had rights to his deceased sister-in-law's house. Assuming he really did have rights, he came to us and asked if we wanted to buy it. In August 2003 he signed it over to us and we bought it from the county, for really cheap.

Now when we went to sell it in June we found out that Marc's grandfather didn't have rights to it after all. As it turns out it should have gone to her side of the family not our side. So now we have had to contact all of her heirs (all 18 of them) and try to get them to sign off on it. So far we've gotten 7 to do this and we are still waiting on the other 11.

Since it's taken so long our buyer has withdrawn their offer which is completely understandable.

So now the only option we have left is to rent it out until we get this whole mess sorted out.

I have mixed feelings about this whole situation and have decided that all we can really do is just go with it. It's just another bump in the road.

This built in cabinet opens on the other side too! It's huge and useful and I love it!

How Am I Spending My Day, You Ask?

Oh just pulling out 537 of these little buggers from my bathroom windows.

*okay so that might be a slight exaggeration, but it is taking forever.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to photograph the porch. There's really no way to capture it's amazingness. I've never EVER lived in a house with a porch, it's AWESOME! And one day I hope to be able to have enough time to actually sit on it.

I haven't started on painting yet in fact I haven't even made it to the store to BUY paint yet. I started looking online for color scheme ideas and got distracted. I've decided I'm going to paint the woodwork in my 2 bathrooms...wait for it....WHITE! Boring I know but I want to keep the feel of the upstairs bathroom really clean because it's a small room with a big tub. I'm not entirely sold on what I want to do for the down stairs bathroom yet. It's really odd because it's this big room that has a toilet, sink and now washing machine (and eventually dryer) in it. It also has a big open double doorway (yes my bathroom downstairs doesn't have a door on it yet) and 2 big double windows. The reason this room is up in the air is because we haven't decided on what we are going to do for a shower yet. At the moment I'm thinking about just putting an add on shower on the claw foot tub and then keeping the downstairs bath just a half bath. But then again that's just my idea today who knows what I'll come up with tomorrow.

Are You Ready....

for a week full of blog posts?! I'm down to one child (plus a babysitting kid) for a whole week! Which usually equals boring. Maybe I'll paint something! I doubt jacking up the house would ruin a trim paint job in both bathrooms. Now to decide what color...stay tuned.

2 for 1

1. Look at this sweet little BLUE eyed girl! I can't believe she's going to be 1 in a couple weeks. Her favorite past time at the moment is trying to eat out of the dog's dish (just playing in his water is fun too). She's a bundle of energy and determination, but I love her for it!
2. Isn't this giant heating vent (register?) cool?! I love it.

Check Out Some of the Crafts We're Making in MOPS This Year!

Don't ya wanna come?! :-)

To Do List:

1. Rearrange the girls' room (I have a feeling this is going to be an on going thing).
2. Paint a bench.
3. Start packing my 3 eldest for camp.
4. Buy a new pair of black shoes for my SIL wedding.
5. Order my second batch of curriculum
6. Laundry
7. Dishes
8. Clean the bathrooms
9. Reschedule an appointment for Gaius
10. Unpack my bedroom (yeah, it's still not even close to being done. I also want to rearrange that room too)
11. Finish reading this book : Just Do Something, By: Kevin DeLong
12. Start running again
13. Come up with a couple more ideas for my MOPS group.
14. Install baby gates on our stairs
15. Sleep

*So far I've gotten one thing done so far today, let's hope this afternoon is more productive!*