Tonight we tore down the mini bar between our kitchen and living room. We will need to replace the tile under the bar. I am very pleased with my new table I found. I have always dreamed of big Thanksgiving meals with plenty of room to sit. I am so excited.

Sorry for not posting in a while. John's dad is great he got my laptop up and running. Thank you dad! We did not close today like we hoped. They want an extension till the 30th. I hate waiting. We have bought a few new things for the living room. John picked out the mirror over the tv stand(the mirror is gold colored not white). I picked out the picture over the sofa. I found the chairs and the end table at a thrift store. I found a dinning room table today that we will pick up tomorrow. I will post pictures of it soon. It is still a work in progress. Just ignore the extra junk you see in the pictures. I realized after I took the pictures there was stuff next to the chair. Oh well, I am tired I had a house cleaning job today. John is still working the long hours at least till Wed. One of the foreman decided he didn't want to be a foreman. So John is finishing his job that is way behind. That has been a bummer. We are enjoying the peace and quiet of

our new neighborhood. I am so thankful. I love my new house.

We have had a fun couple of days. Tuesday night John, the kids and I went to the mall to walk around. We also went to World Market where I found some real nice curtains for the french doors. We ended the evening with watching Fly Boys. It was a pretty good movie. Yesterday we spent with John's parents. We had a blast. They came over for lunch. Then we played a game of Settler's of Catan. Which I won. That's always fun. We watched some tv on their projector and ate nachos for dinner.The evening ended with a soak in the hot tub. I have to say I feel like a spoiled rich girl when I soak in the hot tub. I am so glad John was able to fix the hot tub so easily. It had a few bad electrical connections. We have a very pretty view from the tub. In one direction is a bunch of beautiful trees. If you look the other way there is a fountain that lights up at night. Can you tell we are loving it here. The peace and quiet is so wonderful. The closing on the other house is still a go for July 16th. It would be so wonderful if it all went smooth. We don't have to make our first payment on this house till Aug.6th. That means if all goes well we won't have to make a double payment at all. Thank you for all your prayers. They mean so much to us.

I don't function well in a mess! I have been working hard on unpacking. I am sorry I don't have any pictures of the house yet but will take some soon. My wireless router isn't working for some reason. So I am sitting at the desk working on this. I have gotten so spoiled with the lap top. This morning I had to use dial up to go online to pay my bills. Three hours later it was done. I am so glad John got the dsl working. I am sure I will love the house when we get it fixed up but right now it is a little overwhelming. We keep finding things that need to be fixed. John tried to hook up the washing machine tonight and was not able to because of a problem with the pipes. To quote a Friends line "I need to get out of the bitter barn and play in the hay". I am really enjoying the peace and quiet. The kids love being able to play in the neighborhood.
Some great news we got is we have a buyer for our house! They want to close on July 16th. Please pray that all goes well.

We now own two homes. Don't we sound rich? I wish. I still haven't heard anything about the offer from the couple. Hopefully we will hear soon. I am dying of curiosity. The closing went well. We will be getting three hundred dollars back. That is nice. Every little bit helps. Also our mortgage payments were fifty dollars less than we expected. That was a nice surprise. We appreciate all your encouragement and your prayers. Thank you!

Today we close on the house at 5:00. Last night my realtor called and said that the people that came by yesterday are preparing an offer. The realtor said it would be a unique offer. I asked her what that meant. She said she would just have to wait and see. She didn't know what it meant either. So, we are playing the waiting game on that. I will post as soon as I know something. I am very excited about getting an offer. Oh, I forgot to say the realtor said it would be our full asking price.

A family came and looked at the house today. The husband and son were sold on it. The wife was a little hesitant. She thought it was smaller than the place they looked at before. The realtor was quick to point out that it had more square footage. On the way out I overheard them talking about the paper work. Oh, I hope the house sells. It would take so much pressure off of John and I. The closing costs were higher than we expected. We know God knows our needs. Please pray that all works out. Closing day is tomorrow. I will have Joy till late Saturday night. John might have to work on Saturday. I am glad we planned to move on the 23rd instead of this weekend. I will be so glad to get past the next couple of weeks.

I am going stir crazy. Tonight I did get out of the house. I couldn't take it any longer. It had been five days since I left the house. Even the kids who don't usually want to shop went with me while John watched Joy. We went to Target. My goal was to get chocolate and energy drinks for John. I found chocolate on sale! On the way home we stopped at the video store. I rented Breach. It was not very good but we enjoyed the chocolate very much. I still have John's shed to pack. Maybe he will help me tackle that this weekend. Friday is the closing. I can't wait to get that over with. Please continue to pray for the sale of our house.

I can't wait to move! It is not even 10:00 in the morning and they have their music blasting. Wait, now it is stopped. I thought it might have stopped earlier but no they were just picking out another song. Nice, it is quiet now. I feel sorry for the people in my neighborhood. Children run up and down the street with no parents watching them. Across the street the house that was rented out has fourteen children and three adults. It is three families. How sad is that. I have talked to some of my neighbors but to be honest some of them just scare me. Sorry to sound so depressing but it just saddens me at times.
On a lighter note John is done with his job. I am so happy! He will get Saturday off. Things are going well with Joy. Last night I gave her a bath. She is content watching Friends right now. Yes. I have warped her. Friends never gets old! The kids have been playing video games most of the day. Maybe today I will get more physical work done. Yesterday I did make a lot of phone calls and did some paper work.

Things worked out well with the survey paper. I talked to the title company this morning it is not a problem. She received our fax and it looks like we are a go for closing on Friday at 5:00. Yesterday was fun but I think I ate to many bad foods. Today I will behave so I can feel better. It is wonderful to see how the Lord is working things out. On Sunday our realtor ran an ad in the paper. Hopefully that will generate some more people coming out to see the house. We haven't had anyone looking for about two weeks. Hopefully once they work out the property tax issue people won't be so leery about buying. It is terrible I just don't feel motivated to do anything today. I need to tackle John's shed but am afraid. John is a wonderful husband but when it comes to keeping things clean he is lacking. He told me he uses up all his organizational skills at work. You got to love him! Well, I really should try to accomplish some yard work,packing,and the dreaded painting. Now I am stalling. Gotta go!

I am sitting here on my sofa. For breakfast John got me cinnamon rolls. Right now I have pizza and a diet Pepsi. I just order the Queen on pay per view. Today is my birthday that's why I am so spoiled. Life is grand!

Today was pleasant. I got a little house work done and took time to get some rest. I just got a email that my title company sent with a form to sign. It was sent on Wed. but was delayed for some reason. It was an agreement for a surveyor to come to our new house. Hopefully if I fax it on Monday it will be able to get done in time for closing on Friday. I tried to call the Title office but it was closed today so I sent an email back. I will call them first thing Monday morning. Please pray this all works out.

Today was a very productive day. More painting got done. I brought Joy home with me today. I will have her till the 16th. I plan to get some rest tomorrow. I have been going strong all week. We plan on staying home on Sunday. I am not comfortable taking Joy to church yet. Besides, we need to stay home and get some rest. John will hopefully be done with his job by Monday. He will have to go back to it a few more times to do the punch list. At least he won't be working ten hour days and Saturdays. I am hoping that tomorrow will be the last Saturday for a while. That will be sooo nice!

We got a lot accomplished today. I am very pleased. The boys have been such good workers(Nathan included)! Tomorrow I will try my hand at removing wallpaper. All the paperwork is in order for the closing on June 15th. Please continue to pray for the sale of our home. On Sunday Coldwell Banker will have a listing of our house in the paper. I will get Joy tomorrow. I will be watching her for a little over a week. While I have Joy I will finish the packing and do some painting on this house. I am thankful that God has given me the strength and good health to get things done.

Painting,painting,and more painting

So I hate popcorn ceilings. Painting them in particular. The new ceilings are cathedral ones.(living room only thankfully).The other ceilings are popcorn ceilings though. My arms feel like they are going to fall off. Dawn, Rebekah, and Elizabeth came over and helped me paint. It was very nice of them. I will keep painting the rest of the week. I will post some pictures of the house soon.

Restful Day:)

Today was a nice restful day. I had a great time playing Phase 10 with Evelyn. Jonathan and Michael both passed their drug and alcohol course they had to take before they get their learner's permit. I will have Michael wait to get his learner's permit till we move to Seminole county. In the mean time he can study more. I am looking forward to sitting in the main service at church. During the summer the Sunday school teachers take a break. John is on his way home from work with chocolate! Tomorrow afternoon we will probably just veg. I am ready to spend the rest of the weekend with John.

Today I cleaned Pat's house. After that I came home and packed a bunch more boxes. Tomorrow Michael goes to the drug and alcohol course required to get your learners permit. Johnathan is taking the class too. That means I get to spend the day playing board games with Evelyn. I worked hard today so that I can take a break tomorrow. John has to work tomorrow. His job is scheduled to be finished June 11th. I will be so glad when he is done. Things should slow down some. Hopefully he won't have to do so much overtime. The money is nice but I sure miss him. We will be closing on the new house June 15th. The week after that I will go in and paint the house. Then that next weekend we will move in. John's boss told him to take a week off after his job finishes so he can get the new house ready. We have some projects to do there. Please continue to pray for the sale of our home. That it is for now. I am going to veg and watch a movie.

I have to brag on my boys. They did a wonderful job in helping me clean today. Some girls some day will be lucky to have them. We got more boxes today so I packed everything but the bare essentials in my kitchen. The mound of boxes is getting very high. No lookers at the house today but hopefully soon. I think it will really help once we get our stuff out. Thanks so much for all your prayers.

Rest and then back to the real world!

We had a very nice Memorial Day weekend. We went over to dad and Ruth's. We played a game of Settler's of Catan. Ruth won:) Then we went to our soon to be house so John and Nathan could climb the trees there. John was in heaven. He loves to get out his climbing gear. The trees are very tall in our back yard. I love the pictures that Ruth took. Nathan is a little monkey boy. He climbs bare footed so that he can grip the tree better. It is a wonderful view from our back yard. You can sit and watch the planes come in. We spent today grocery shopping and getting boxes. I packed about 30 boxes so far. I can't believe how much junk we own. Please continue to pray for the sale of our house. Tomorrow and Friday I clean houses. The boys are coming with me tomorrow to help.

Keeping very busy

I am totally exhausted. The boys,Nathan, and I worked on cleaning the new house we are buying. It was so nice of the old owners to let us come in before closing to clean it. I have been sorting through stuff at our house too. It is very hard to sort through stuff and not make a mess in case prospective buyers come by. Poor John has a fever of 101 but he still has to work. Please pray for him because he is miserable. The boys are staying at grandpa and grandma's house tonight. Tomorrow I will go back to the new house and work on it till about noon. Then I need to come home and take a little break. Tomorrow night I have a cleaning job. Someone came through my house to look to buy it. When they were here they left a note saying they would like me to clean their house. So I called the lady she was very nice. Usually I don't clean at night it is family time. Right now we can use all the extra money we can get. Pray that all goes well with this job also pray that our house will sell.

Happy Mother's Day

The boys made me breakfast in bed on Sunday. I found this rug online that I fell in love with. You can't tell from the picture but the rug is more orange than red. John bought it for me for Mother's Day. I am so blessed with such a wonderful family! For my birthday and anniversary in June I am getting a new house. We had to jump on the house we were interested in buying before it was foreclosed on. So please pray that we will be able to sell our home quickly. I have not been posting lately because I have been so overwhelmed. I will post more soon.

The rug search goes on!

I took the rug back. It is to small and not right. I have looked in about ten stores and online. You would think I could find something. It is very hard to find a 5x8 rug.

Alison tagged me with this.
Here are the rules: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!


1. I have to have my bed made before I climb in it. John thinks I am crazy if I didn't get a chance to make it in the morning and I make it right before I get in it at night. It's a comfort thing.
2. I love to hear people tell stories about their life over and over again (some stories never get old). It make me feel like I am part of their family.
3. I love traditions! At Christmas time my family always puts out a big spread of snack foods instead of a dinner. It is nice because my mom could spend time with us instead of cooking all day.
4.I have probably watched the movie Stepmom with Julia Roberts twenty times or more.
5. I quote Friends lines all the time.
6. I love to ballroom dance with John at home not so much in public. I also like to dance when I am happy.
7. I know all the words to the country song I am an Indian Outlaw. Chris and I like to sing it in the car. I know I am weird.
So sad most people I know have already been tagged. So some of these may be repeats sorry.
I want to tag:
Darla
John
Jessica
Megan
Ruth
Gina
and a lurker

Tricia what do you think?

Today Tricia and I watched Music and Lyrics and Because I said So. Music and Lyrics was cute and predictable but enjoyable. Because I said So was a complete waste of time. Take my advice don't bother watching it. I kept waiting for the good part. Tricia gave up on it and proceeded to clean her house. You know it's bad when you would rather clean than sit and watch the movie. We also went shopping at Marshall's where I found this funky rug. What do you think? Be honest because I am not sure about it. We ate lunch at Hot Dog Heaven. That is becoming our tradition. I love eating there! I had a lot of fun today!

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My dad sent me this awesome video. It is definately worth watching!

I forgot to say how we would spend Christopher's birthday. Tonight we will eat at Taco Bell. It's his favorite. Then we will go shopping for video games. We will end the evening watching the Lost episode I recorded.

Happy Birthday Chris

Happy 14th birthday Chris. I love you baby. I can't believe my baby is fourteen. I thought this picture captures Chris' personality real well. He is a great kid and a lot of fun to hang around with. Chris and John often have foam dart battles with their guns. I had opened the attic to get something. Chris took full advantage and used the attic in their game.

Fire Caulking what was I thinking!

There is a reason that John looks like this everyday. John told me that they needed someone to do fire caulking at his job. He told me the lady that usually does it couldn't be found. Her name is Cricket. How cruel are her parents. Anyway, I thought if she could do it surely I could. So, John talked to his boss. The boss told him to let me try it out first and then he would hire me if I could do the work. He is a very very wise man! John described the job like cake decorating. You just climb the ladder (I know you don't use a ladder when cake decorating for all you smart alacks) ,squirt the caulk around the hole, and take your spatula and spread it around till it is smooth. Sounds simple enough right. So I drive an hour and twenty minutes to get to the job site. When I got there I met up with John and his boss Chief. Those who know me well know about Chief. I will just leave it at that. They proceeded to confuse me by telling what a fire wall is and a bunch of other junk. All of which I just nodded my head and acted like I understood. Then John carried my ladder to the spot where I would work. Oh, I forgot to tell you about my gorgeous outfit. Old jeans, John's tee shirt, a hard hat(my hair stuffed up inside I felt like a boy) , and work boots. I climbed up the eight foot ladder and realized how short I am. I would need a taller ladder. Great more of a ladder to move around. I have to say I hate hard hats. They make your head taller so you do hit things. If I didn't have the stupid thing on I wouldn't run into stuff near as much. Between the hat, the heat (no air conditioning),the horrible talk of the men around me, and my knee killing me from going up and down the ladder I quit after two hours. Poor John had to listen to me whine longer that I actually worked! My friends all had to listen to me too. Sorry about that. So my career as a fire caulking girl is officially over. No, I didn't take a picture of my outfit. Some memories need to be forgotten. The moral of this story there is a reason why Cricket couldn't be found and my husband is an amazing man!

Today John is working. I sure wish he was home. The kids and I watched Charlotte's Web and ate taco salad. Chris and I made some little Easter cakes for my Sunday school class. It was a lot of fun.

So far we have had three people look at our house. Hopefully one will make us a nice offer. Everyone has said how neat and organized the house looks. It is good to here because at 5:30 in the morning it gets annoying straightening it up before I leave. I have to say John and the boys have been a great help. Pray that we will get an offer soon.

Getting the house ready

We have been very busy this weekend getting the house ready. We have not had anyone look at it yet. Hopefully soon we will. We have been taking advantage of the time to get things done. We woke up on Friday at 6:00 to get started and worked till about seven that evening. John stayed home from church today to get more done. We worked till about seven this evening. Last night I made a cake for Tim and Evelyn. Tim helped us with some dry wall in our bathroom. What a blessing that was. Pray for us as we continue to work on things. Also, pray for the sale of our house if it is the Lord's will.

Hooked on cake decorating

Sorry about all the cake decorating post. I just love doing it. I need to work on my lettering. Next time I am going to try the press kit to make the letters.

Happy 11th anniversary Darla and Henry

We love you guys. When Tim and Evelyn come over tomorrow we will enjoy your cake. Wish you were here.

Little blue roses for my mom

Ok, I got bored. My house is all clean. I can't do the big projects alone. So, I made some roses. Next time I will make the roses in color. I think the roses look weddingish.

What we have been up to

Life has been stressful. We have put our house up for sale. We are looking at a house in Sanford. John and I have decided it is time to move. We are praying that this is the Lord's will. Please pray for us. The house we are trying to buy will be in foreclosure at the end of April so we need to sell our home fast. I know that God is in control and He can work miracles! John is at the end of a school building job. The next three months of his job get real crazy. He will be working overtime and Saturdays so it will not leave him much time to get things fixed around our house that need to be fixed. I have been doing all the projects I can but he has to do the others. Also the new house needs a lot of work. So please please please pray for us. On a lighter note Chris and I finished our first cake decorating course. We learned how to make roses, sweet peas,and bows in our last class. I will take some pictures soon. I am trying to practice at night so that the house is clean during the day. When I get out my supplies it covers my kitchen table.

We have been very busy lately. Last week I watched Joy. This week I have three cleaning jobs. Chris and I have been having a great time in our cake decorating class. As you can see I am still learning but I think I am getting better. I will post more pictures as I learn more. I decided that I need to just make a single layer cake. Chris got the other layer. That way we don't have so much cake a round the house. I am so bad I will eat it if it is available.

I think the lady in Taco Bell thought we were crazy because I was taking pictures. My boys are so easily entertained. It's great! Their favorite place to eat is Taco Bell. When I was a kid it was my favorite place to eat. We had nice day today. First we went to the downtown library. Then we went to this shoe store called Shoe City. The shoes were only $10.99 a pair. Today they had a special buy one pair get the second for half price. They probably are not the best quality but when you have boys whose feet are constantly growing the cheap ones work fine. They out grow them before they wear out. Michael is a size 12! I couldn't believe it. After shopping for shoes we ate at Taco Bell. They had fun acting crazy for the camera. In one of the pictures you can see the lady who works for Taco Bell starring at us.

A very pleasent weekend

We had a real nice restful weekend. I love cool and dreary days! On Saturday we went to Buttermilk's cafe for breakfast and even got the boys to go with us. I love spending time with them. They usually just want to stay home so this was a real treat. After eating breakfast we went to some yard sales. I found a set of sheets for the guest bed for only $4.00. I also found two cute pictures for fifty cents each. After that we headed for some pawn shops. I bought the boys a video. Needless to say they were thrilled. The boys were ready to come home after the pawn shops to play their new game. So we dropped them off and John and I went to walk around the mall. We ended the day by picking up some pizza. Sunday we went to church and then rested the rest of the day.

Sushi bargaining!

John bought some sushi from Costco but didn't care for it. So there was a lot left. The boys like sushi too. They ate some but there was still some left. We told Chris he could take it for lunch. He told us that everyone would want to trade him stuff for it. We told him that's ok if he wanted to trade. So today he got a chocolate rice crispie treat for one and .50 cents for two of the other pieces. To top his bargaining off he told his friends that he would eat the little cup of wasabi sauce plain if someone gave him a quarter. One of his friends took a taste of it and took him up on the offer. Chris ate the cup of sauce and got a quarter! I had to laugh! Life would sure be boring without Chris.

John got me this real cute accordion file. I love magazines but they take up to much space. Now I have a place to organize and keep my magazine clippings. Isn't my husband a sweetie!

I had fun playing around with paint today. John told me don't worry about what it turns out like just enjoy doing it. With that attitude in mind I had a lot of fun painting.

Today while we were out we went to Michael's. I signed Chris and I up for a cake decorating class. They had a special going that if you bought the basic kit for $20.00 you got four free decorating classes (2 hours long each). Chris is very excited.

President's Day

The boys had today off so we went to the park and flew kites. We also went to the mall and did a little shopping. We had so much fun together! It was great to sleep in too.

Weekend Fun

We had a blast at the rodeo on Saturday night. The kids had so much fun cheering the cowboys on. We got to eat there too. The pictures are a bit blurry because they move so fast.

Pathetic Puppy

We had to get a cone to put around Pepper. She has some very bad alergies (like everyone else in Florida).She has been scratching and biting. The vet gave us medicine but she just licks or bites it off. Anyway, she was a riot with the cone on. I couldn't help but laugh. She would run in to things and then just stop and not know what to do next. She would stand there for a minute or so. We gave her attention when she ran into things. She picked up on the fact we would give her extra attention when she ran into things. No joke she then proceeded to run into things on purpose. She actually would make wide turns just to hit stuff. How pathetic is that. She eventually wore herself out.

Happy Valentines Day

Today I made a nice meal for John and the kids. Each part of the meal was someones favorite. For Michael I made lasagana, for Chris a baguette,and for John cream puffs. We also got our veggies in with a nice salad. The cream puffs are John's mom's recipe. I have only made them four times since we have been married (16 years). They are hard to make. Needless to say John was thrilled. You have to see what John made me on his post. He knows I like to read the post secret site so he put up a post the obvious on his site. It is so sweet. Yes, I know how much he loves me. Check out his link on the right side of the page where it says my hubby's blog.

What we have been up to

We have been pretty busy for a while now. We got to visit with Ben and Gina right after Christmas. We had a great time with them just hanging out. John and I kept our regular schedules while they were here. Unfortunately, the boys had to go to school while they were here but at least they got to spend the weekend with them. John had to run into work in the mornings to make sure his guys were doing what they were suppose to do. Ben and Gina work at Dixie Stampede in Misouri. They were able to get us a great discount. So we got to see the show while they were here. Before they got here we were able to get the guest room and the bathroom done. It is so nice to have two bathrooms. No waiting or at least not as long of a wait. John and I were sick for about a week. Michael is home today because he is not feeling well. We have been waiting to here if Michael's school is going to close. Still there is no word. I hate not knowing. Please pray that it will stay open.
My computer had a virus. Thankfully John's dad who is a computer genius was able to fix. Thank you so much dad.

Our new guest room and bathroom

Angel's cleaning supply fetish

Yes, I am still alive. Life has been crazy. I will post more about what we have been up to. Just a weird note for now. After helping Darla clean out her house because she is moving,she gave me all her cleaning supplies. I was thrilled to get it. Thank you Darla. Anyway, I brought it all home. As soon as I got home Angel my siberian husky was all over the stuff licking it. I thought maybe she smelled Darla's cats. I stuck the supplies in my laundry room. Angel stays in the laundry room when we leave the house. When I came home she had chewed all of the SOS pads. She seems to be fine. I guess she has a weird cleaning supplies fetish.