Friday, October 25, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Moving is Hard
So today is another one of those long Mondays. Not because the kids are naughty. They are actually doing really well today. But because moving is hard. I'm sad. I didn't think we'd ever get here...2 weeks away from moving. It always seemed so far away that it would never come. But now it seems too close. I'm going to miss New Salem. Johnny's sad too. It's hard to comfort him when I'm crying too. (Being pregnant doesn't help that either.) Lu Lu is excited though. When I was trying to make Johnny feel better by telling him all the good things about moving, Lu Lu was so excited she was jumping up and down yelling yeah.
Josh and I spent the first 5 years of our married life here together. We have a lot of memories and friends and places and church and an awesome small town community that we will really miss.
And it's scary too. Our lives are going to be very different.
I just got a phone call and now I'm done being weepy. Anyway. Josh feels the same about moving. This is what he told me in an email this morning:
I feel the same way about moving. Sad. It is the end of a fun and educational part of our life. The next chapter is going to be a lot different, but I think in the long run will be much better for our family. The unknown part about moving is scary and that wont change until the move is over and we are settled in.
He's always good at making me feel better.:)
I suppose I better switch out my load of laundry. We're selling the dryer tomorrow, so I'm washing all the sheets one more time. I'm not exactly sure what we'll do when it's gone since my clothes pins are already packed and it's been crazy windy or raining for the last week or so. I guess we'll just have wet clothes hanging all over the dining room chairs for the next two weeks:). Maybe we'll just do what the boys always tease about and turn our underware inside-out, so there's less to wash and dry;-).
Josh and I spent the first 5 years of our married life here together. We have a lot of memories and friends and places and church and an awesome small town community that we will really miss.
And it's scary too. Our lives are going to be very different.
I just got a phone call and now I'm done being weepy. Anyway. Josh feels the same about moving. This is what he told me in an email this morning:
I feel the same way about moving. Sad. It is the end of a fun and educational part of our life. The next chapter is going to be a lot different, but I think in the long run will be much better for our family. The unknown part about moving is scary and that wont change until the move is over and we are settled in.
He's always good at making me feel better.:)
I suppose I better switch out my load of laundry. We're selling the dryer tomorrow, so I'm washing all the sheets one more time. I'm not exactly sure what we'll do when it's gone since my clothes pins are already packed and it's been crazy windy or raining for the last week or so. I guess we'll just have wet clothes hanging all over the dining room chairs for the next two weeks:). Maybe we'll just do what the boys always tease about and turn our underware inside-out, so there's less to wash and dry;-).
Monday, October 7, 2013
October Snow Storm for the Records
So I know I said I wasn't going to post again til after we moved, but we had a huge storm and some pictures to go with and Josh is studying and I'm tired of working (the kind of work that stay at home moms do when they are moving soon and soon to be selling their stove/oven and dryer...so the same kind of work I always do just adding in the packing;).
So last Friday we got a snow storm. We woke up to rain in the morning. Josh said he had heard it raining as early as 4:30. There had been a strong north wind all night long, so it was freezing in our bedroom...Neither of us wanted to get up. And yes, as usual, that was the morning Josh finally took out the air conditioners. It always has to get real hot before we get them in and real cold before we take them out. The day before I had spent all day picking the squash, gourd, pumpkins (a 50 ft x 50 ft garden worth) and 9-50ft rows of beans. It took me all day and several trips to the house because Lu Lu had to go potty. By evening I was wiped and Josh (after picking apples at a house in New Salem) helped me pick the last row and bring all our harvest to the house. It was late, so we skipped the popcorn.
By the time we finished breakfast, it was already snowing outside, and Josh went out to pick the popcorn in the snowing/sloshy blizzard. He came back in to get gloves. He picked about half and decided to quit because his box was full and he was covered in snow and cold.
It snowed all day long and was windy. Josh went out a few times to knock snow off the trees that had branches over the house. He also had to cut a branch off a tree that was hanging on our power line. He cut it off with our little tiny tree pruners. We had taken our chainsaw and generator to Mom and Dad's the weekend before...Bad Idea. The kids also went outside to play for a while in the snow. They were super excited to have the first snow. It was pretty cold out though and they didn't last long. Johnny lasted longer than Lu Lu. We ended up getting around a foot of snow.
All day we canned apple sauce out of those apples Josh picked. It turned out really well. It was so cold in the house that the furnace was even running even though the kitchen was more than warm. By the time we were canning the last batch and trying to get supper cooking, the power was starting to flicker. It went out for a while, but came back on so we could finish our cooking and eating. We made plans to all sleep in the living room. The kids got all their bed stuff out and had fun playing "night games" with Daddy in the dark. The electricity was working at this point, we just weren't using it.:) Since the power was on and hadn't flickered in a while we decided to watch a movie with the kids. (Cars and Oceans were the only two not packed and since we just watched Oceans a couple weeks ago...Cars was the choice.) We were about 5 minutes into the movie when disappointment hit our house like the blackness of the western prairie on a cloudy night. Boy was it dark! Johnny and Lu Lu were very disappointed that they couldn't finish their movie, so Josh promised them that whenever the power came back on (even if in the middle of the night) we could finish the movie. Well guess what? The power did come back on. But not in the middle of the night. We were almost asleep (at least I was) when it turned on. Of course the tv turned on by itself, so the kids had to finish their movie. It was only a little after 9, but I couldn't force my body off the comfy air mattress to watch the movie with the kids. Josh snuggled with the kids on the floor and watched it with them. We decided to try to have movie nights and sleepovers in the living room more often. But next time we'll start the movie sooner, so the kids aren't up til after 11...ooops.
Okay, so I'll start uploading those pictures now...
Playing outside during the storm
Josh was worried that the kids' snow coats was all packed. I hate to say it, but the only one who will fit into a snow coat is Jerry. Johnny and Lu Lu were growing out of their's last spring. Jerry's the only lucky one with a hand me down coming.:) Hopefully this was the only day we are going to use snow gear for a while, so I can get a chance to go shopping.:)
Assessing the damages...
Mud after the storm. It was gorgeous on Sunday, so we spent some time playing in the mud and snow. Josh and John also worked on moving out some of the broken branches. Jeremiah doesn't have rubber boots, so as you can imagine, he was a little cold and wet by the time we went inside for baths. As you can imagine, I've been doing laundry everyday, so the kids can wear their outside stuff again the next day. I'll be happy when we are dry again.
One of the things we'll miss about living in New Salem is the great mud puddles in the driveway. They are fun to play in and you usually don't get stuck. I put Jerry's boots on and sent him out the door thinking that Josh was still right out in the yard. When I came out a couple minutes later Josh was just getting back from bringing brush down and asked me what happened to Jerry's face. I'm not sure...We found out later when he did it again, faceplanting in the mud.:) He had a blast doing his little Jerry shuffle (a dance he does when we're all dancing in the kitchen) in the mud puddles making the water splash.
We played outside in the mud again today and moved a few more small branches to the brush pile. While we were down there I saw Faye, our neighbor. She and Don are the ones who did our chores when we were gone for the weekend. Don has been on hospice care with bone cancer. She said he's in heaven now. We're sad to see him gone and will miss him. It was hard not seeing him working in the garden this summer. He was in a lot of pain, so we are glad that he can be with Jesus now. Johnny has a hard time with it and he says he doesn't like heaven. Oh well, maybe he'll understand better when he's older. Johnny really likes Don and Faye and has been missing seeing Don all summer too.
Today was a Monday by the way. A long one. Josh said he had a long day at work and thought it odd to have a long day at home. He says his days at home are never long enough. I know it sounds funny now, but none of these events were funny to me at the time. Here's just a snapshot of a few things that made my Monday seem long:
I suppose we'll have more muddy fun tomorrow since the snow isn't even quite melted yet.
So last Friday we got a snow storm. We woke up to rain in the morning. Josh said he had heard it raining as early as 4:30. There had been a strong north wind all night long, so it was freezing in our bedroom...Neither of us wanted to get up. And yes, as usual, that was the morning Josh finally took out the air conditioners. It always has to get real hot before we get them in and real cold before we take them out. The day before I had spent all day picking the squash, gourd, pumpkins (a 50 ft x 50 ft garden worth) and 9-50ft rows of beans. It took me all day and several trips to the house because Lu Lu had to go potty. By evening I was wiped and Josh (after picking apples at a house in New Salem) helped me pick the last row and bring all our harvest to the house. It was late, so we skipped the popcorn.
By the time we finished breakfast, it was already snowing outside, and Josh went out to pick the popcorn in the snowing/sloshy blizzard. He came back in to get gloves. He picked about half and decided to quit because his box was full and he was covered in snow and cold.
It snowed all day long and was windy. Josh went out a few times to knock snow off the trees that had branches over the house. He also had to cut a branch off a tree that was hanging on our power line. He cut it off with our little tiny tree pruners. We had taken our chainsaw and generator to Mom and Dad's the weekend before...Bad Idea. The kids also went outside to play for a while in the snow. They were super excited to have the first snow. It was pretty cold out though and they didn't last long. Johnny lasted longer than Lu Lu. We ended up getting around a foot of snow.
All day we canned apple sauce out of those apples Josh picked. It turned out really well. It was so cold in the house that the furnace was even running even though the kitchen was more than warm. By the time we were canning the last batch and trying to get supper cooking, the power was starting to flicker. It went out for a while, but came back on so we could finish our cooking and eating. We made plans to all sleep in the living room. The kids got all their bed stuff out and had fun playing "night games" with Daddy in the dark. The electricity was working at this point, we just weren't using it.:) Since the power was on and hadn't flickered in a while we decided to watch a movie with the kids. (Cars and Oceans were the only two not packed and since we just watched Oceans a couple weeks ago...Cars was the choice.) We were about 5 minutes into the movie when disappointment hit our house like the blackness of the western prairie on a cloudy night. Boy was it dark! Johnny and Lu Lu were very disappointed that they couldn't finish their movie, so Josh promised them that whenever the power came back on (even if in the middle of the night) we could finish the movie. Well guess what? The power did come back on. But not in the middle of the night. We were almost asleep (at least I was) when it turned on. Of course the tv turned on by itself, so the kids had to finish their movie. It was only a little after 9, but I couldn't force my body off the comfy air mattress to watch the movie with the kids. Josh snuggled with the kids on the floor and watched it with them. We decided to try to have movie nights and sleepovers in the living room more often. But next time we'll start the movie sooner, so the kids aren't up til after 11...ooops.
Okay, so I'll start uploading those pictures now...
Playing outside during the storm
 |
| Too cold. Need to come in |
 |
| Johnny making snow angels |
 |
| Slumber party set up |
 |
| This big branch landed on the entry way roof when Josh was getting ready to go shake snow off the trees. It was pretty loud. |
 |
| Cedar spent the weekend inside |
 |
| Jerry's first mud experience |
 |
| Snowball fight |
 |
| Baby Kitties. Dumbo showed the kids where her kitties were last Thursday (we thought she had lost them all). During the storm she moved them up to the house. Today they were gone again. Hopefully we can find them again. |
 |
| hauling branches...What a mess. We thought we had it bad until we went to church on Saturday night. There are branches (big ones) down all over town. Some young trees the city had planted around the time we moved here were just completely snapped off. |
 |
| Johnny's working hard. I got of picture of the smallest branch he carried. All of the other ones were much bigger than this. |
 |
| What snowy day would be complete without a snowman? By this time Jerry was freezing a ready to go in, but he was intrigued enough to not be crabby while the big kids made their snowmen. |
 |
| Playing with Daddy, while Daddy pretends to sleep. He was like the sleeping giant, waiting to attack the kids when they got to close. |
We played outside in the mud again today and moved a few more small branches to the brush pile. While we were down there I saw Faye, our neighbor. She and Don are the ones who did our chores when we were gone for the weekend. Don has been on hospice care with bone cancer. She said he's in heaven now. We're sad to see him gone and will miss him. It was hard not seeing him working in the garden this summer. He was in a lot of pain, so we are glad that he can be with Jesus now. Johnny has a hard time with it and he says he doesn't like heaven. Oh well, maybe he'll understand better when he's older. Johnny really likes Don and Faye and has been missing seeing Don all summer too.
Today was a Monday by the way. A long one. Josh said he had a long day at work and thought it odd to have a long day at home. He says his days at home are never long enough. I know it sounds funny now, but none of these events were funny to me at the time. Here's just a snapshot of a few things that made my Monday seem long:
- Jerry dug in the dirt my pots so many times that I moved the one he was digging in into my bedroom.
- I found that Lu Lu had broken one of John's kid's carnival toys from the church fall dinner on Sunday. After throwing it away I hear crying and find that Johnny and Lu Lu were fighting over Lu Lu's necklace from the carnival and broke that. I told them that they were even now.
- Johnny couldn't fall asleep at naptime. He had 3 cups of water for lunch and had to go potty 3 times before I said he could just stay up.
- After telling the kids it was time to go inside after playing in the mud, it was trying to get Jerry's boots off at the porch when I felt mud splashing all over my back...Thanks Johnny!
- I took off Jerry's pants, socks, and boot off and ran into the house to throw them in the wash machine. When I came back outside, he was running to the mud puddles in just his diaper and t-shirt.
- Jerry got out of the tub and I got him dress. I got John into the shower and ran to the entry to close the door, so Jerry wouldn't go back out into the mud....When I came back to the bathroom, Jerry was down to his elbows in toilet water. I guess I closed the wrong door. Needless to say, he got another shower.
- The list could go on, but Josh was commenting on how long this post is getting.:) My day was immediately lightened as soon as Josh got home. And I can now laugh at what the kids did today.
I suppose we'll have more muddy fun tomorrow since the snow isn't even quite melted yet.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
September
We finished up CSAs the second week of September. We've been picking edemame in the garden and still have the popcorn, soup beans, and pumpkins/squash to harvest. Which needs to be done today since we're forecasted to get 8-10 inches of snow tomorrow. And I thought we were done feeling stressed with the gardening. You should have seen Josh pacing the floor this morning after he saw the snow map. We just moved the rest of our outside stuff to Mom and Dad's last weekend-snow blowers, generator, etc. At least we still have our snow shovels.:)
I've been spending most of my time packing, resting and feeling nauseated. Yes we are expecting again! We are very excited to have baby number 4 and can't wait to have a baby while living in town without the extra work of the 'farm'. We are due April 16. I'm starting to feel less tired and more hungry, and looking forward to the second trimester.
Josh has been spending his time studying for the PE and packing. He told me last night that he's getting bored of studying. I am too. We're all looking forward to him not spending a couple hours every day at the table with mountains of books surrounding him.
Johhny's been helping us pack, playing outside (he's a pretty good baseball player and football kicker), coloring, and reading library books. I have most of the kids toys packed. They are getting pretty bored with the few that are left.
Lu Lu has been playing packing, asking why random things are in boxes together, and being very loving to everyone (except maybe Jerry). She tells everyone how much she loves them and always gives great big hugs when she sees family and friends. After mass she runs up to Fr. Selva in the back of the church and gives him a great big hug. It's pretty cute.
Jeremiah has been spending his time unpacking, eating lots of dirt, cutting teeth, growing like crazy, and talking a lot more. He eats dirt in all places, outside in the driveway, in the garden, inside out of my pots. He likes taking things out of the garbage and he just starting throwing away things that shouldn't be thrown, like Johnny's cars. He's communicating a lot more and is a real ham. He LOVES to snuggle. He runs up to the kitties saying, "arf arf arf" in a high pitched scream. Some of them don't run away.
Okay, so here's what you've been waiting for...Pictures:
Blaise's baptism weekend
One of the things we will miss about New Salem is the huge sky. I went to feed Cedar early the other morning and the stars were just beautiful!
In October, we plan to see the last of the packing and studying and the last of living in New Salem. Josh's PE is on the 25. We close on the house in New Salem on the 28th and on the house in Valley City on the 29th. So we will be homeless for a night. We hope everything goes smoothly and are looking forward to being done with this month and the stresses of it. Josh is very excited to start his job at KLJ and me and the kids are excited to live in VC.
I better go. John and Lu are running around the house getting dress while Jerry is singing in his bed.
Signing off, probably til November and the big move-Christine:)
I've been spending most of my time packing, resting and feeling nauseated. Yes we are expecting again! We are very excited to have baby number 4 and can't wait to have a baby while living in town without the extra work of the 'farm'. We are due April 16. I'm starting to feel less tired and more hungry, and looking forward to the second trimester.
Josh has been spending his time studying for the PE and packing. He told me last night that he's getting bored of studying. I am too. We're all looking forward to him not spending a couple hours every day at the table with mountains of books surrounding him.
Johhny's been helping us pack, playing outside (he's a pretty good baseball player and football kicker), coloring, and reading library books. I have most of the kids toys packed. They are getting pretty bored with the few that are left.
Lu Lu has been playing packing, asking why random things are in boxes together, and being very loving to everyone (except maybe Jerry). She tells everyone how much she loves them and always gives great big hugs when she sees family and friends. After mass she runs up to Fr. Selva in the back of the church and gives him a great big hug. It's pretty cute.
Jeremiah has been spending his time unpacking, eating lots of dirt, cutting teeth, growing like crazy, and talking a lot more. He eats dirt in all places, outside in the driveway, in the garden, inside out of my pots. He likes taking things out of the garbage and he just starting throwing away things that shouldn't be thrown, like Johnny's cars. He's communicating a lot more and is a real ham. He LOVES to snuggle. He runs up to the kitties saying, "arf arf arf" in a high pitched scream. Some of them don't run away.
Okay, so here's what you've been waiting for...Pictures:
 |
| Johnny's first deer hunting trip. He didn't like to sit still for that long. |
 |
| Labor Day weekend and Grandma and Grandpa's house. |
 |
| Potato harvest |
 |
| The kids were very helpful picking potatoes! |
 |
| Playing in the mud. |
 |
| Olue's muddy too |
 |
| Playing in the house |
 |
| Great Grandma reading to the girls |
 |
| Great Grandpa with Jerry |
 |
| Loegering cousins |
 |
| The two Jerry's and Vika |
 |
| Johnny and Steena |
 |
| Grandma Loegering and Blaise |
 |
| Vika pulling the girls around |
 |
| Johnny sledding in a wagon |
 |
| Football Game |
 |
| Susanna and Johnny |
 |
| Susanna kept following Josh around during the fb game. |
 |
| More FB action |
 |
| Jake and Roger |
 |
| FB Fans |
 |
| Duck Hunting |
 |
| Rainbow |
 |
| Sleeping in the truck while we move another load out. |
 |
| Playing at Grandma and Grandpa's |
I better go. John and Lu are running around the house getting dress while Jerry is singing in his bed.
Signing off, probably til November and the big move-Christine:)