Happy Turkey Day!!!

Hope that you have had a relaxing Turkey Day. We made ours busy by traveling this morning. We left before 8 am heading to the lake to be with Derek's Parents. Enjoyed raking/blowing leaves (Derek and the youngest 2 kids along with Peque(Melissa's brother) and Dad), cooking (Mom, Grandma, Melissa, me and sometimes the girls), and visiting with everyone including Mom's brother Ben and his girlfriend Beth. It was 12 of us in a single wide trailer with 3 Jack Russell Terriers and a Rottweiler-Doberman mix. Fun times keeping our plates from being snacked on. Luckily the dogs weren't there during the cooking process. They arrived just as we were getting ready to eat. Enjoyed a full menu of Turkey, Ham, Stuffing (with and without onions and celery) Potato stuffing, Sweet Potatoes (with and with out cranberries and oatmeal), White Corn, Green Bean Casserole, Lima Beans, Mashed Potatoes, and (the kids favorite) Cranberry Sauce (with and without berries in it). Finished off the meal with a Cinnabon Apple Pie and of course a PUMPKIN PIE!! YUMMY!!!! We ate till stuffed and enjoyed each other's company. The kids did really well entertaining them selves. I was happy to see that Aric and Dehlia were helping to blow the leaves down to be burned and spent at least 20 minutes playing with Dad's Tape Measure. They were measuring everything. We left around 4 or so (I think). The sun was setting making a beautiful picture in the sky. Had to snap a picture it was so pretty.


Had a smooth ride home. Came home and let the kids watch the end of the movie that they had gotten half way through at the lake, then put them to bed since they were tired. We will leave tomorrow morning after cleaning up the house a bit to go to VA to visit my parents and grandmother for the weekend. Will head back here on Sunday morning to get ready for a busy week.

Had a good amount of showing , but no takers yet. It is getting tiring keeping this house cleaned up all the time, but will be worth it when it sells. Heading to Lake Wylie on Friday to have our preconstruction meeting and Derek's Christmas party for his new group that he's in. Will be nice to let the kids see where the house will be (other than in pictures and us telling them about it) and to meet the other people that Derek will be working with when he transfers down completely. His new boss is really nice. He has told Derek to take his time getting down there. Derek can stay until we all are moving down. Now just need to decide if we are going to try to move down before hand and rent something or if we want to hang out here in FV til the house sells or gets bought out. Decisions, decisions....

We found one!!

Well, we've gotten back from SC and WE FOUND A HOUSE!!!

Let me begin on Friday. Thank you MOM!!! She watched the kids so that we could go this past weekend to look for a house. She came in Friday afternoon and kept an eye on Aric while I dropped off the dogs at the kennel. Came back then went to get the girls from school. When we got back from school, Dad was here at the house. After Derek got home, we went to have pictures taken. If you get to utilize Portrait Innovations ever in your life, DO IT!! They are the best. They work with you and the prices are VERY reasonable!! We met, Matt and Melissa (Derek's brother and sister-in-law) and Grandma Hoover there to have family pictures done. They turned out great. We had gotten some shirts for Christmas 2 years ago and I told mom and dad that if we didn't get them take soon, Dehlia and Aric were going to outgrown them. Well, we got them taken. Took some other pictures of various arrangements of the group too. Check out the Flickr page if you want to see the rest of them. They turned out GREAT!!! After pictures were taken and picked out and paid for, Derek and I headed down to Charlotte to go house hunting Saturday morning.

Got down to Charlotte about 10:30 pm and went straight to bed. We were exhausted. Got up bright and early Saturday morning and met with our realtor at 9 am. We had done some homework before going down that helped us to narrow down how many houses we were going to look at. Had found about 9 to look at and also had found some neighborhoods that were building in and had houses ready to move into. Well, long story short there are people in SC not willing to sell their house right now. Out of the 9 listings that we wanted to see, 4 of them declined a showing. Keep in mind that they were called on Friday to let them know that realtor was going to be showing their house on Saturday to out of town clients. Their loss!! We went to one of the neighborhoods that we had found and fell in love with one of the houses that they had in there. They told us that they could build it in 4 months. That's fine, it give us til February to sell this one that we live in. Well, with all of the discounts and everythings, we are getting a house built!! We picked out a lot that is FLAT. 0.46 acres. We just couldn't pass up the offer that they were making to us.

Here's what the house will look like It will have a dark red door and dark red shutters. The stone will have red accents in it too. We are really excited. Going back down to SC at the beginning of December to show the kids where the house will be built at, where their school is, etc. They seem excited, but I think that once they see the lot and hopefully be able to see a house just like it that is already built, they will be thrilled!!!

The girls are tracked out right now. We got to start track out buying a house with out the kids and then came back to Dehlia having Pink Eye. took her to the doctor on Monday morning to get medicine and she is now better. Still have to finish the drops, but she is going to be fine. I have lost my voice. Woke us Yesterday with no voice. I feel fine (well maybe a little bit tired) but otherwise ok. Madison is feeling fine and Aric is feeling ok too. Aric got sent home from PReschool today because he got sick, but I think that he must have gotten choked on something because since he's been home, he's been his usual self. Derek is still a little stressed with work, but doing ok. Tired and busy and trying to figure out all of the $$ things that go into buying a house. Hopefully we will get to get everything tied up in the next day or two to let him breathe some.

Will keep you posted on how things are going with the house.

Changes.....

Wow have thing changed around here in the last few weeks.

Derek has accepted a new position at the South Eastern Engineering Facility of Deere which is in Charlotte. Therefore, we are MOVING!!! AAAGH!!! Our world here at home has been turned upside down with cleaning out the non essential things around the house and keeping everything straight and ready for showings. We have transported a bunch of stuff to Derek's grandmother's garage so that there is the feeling of space around here. The house is ready, just have to find the right buyer! Derek is officially on SEEC's payroll as of Today, but luckily his first job is to finish helping out the group that he is working with here. Sooo, he doesn't have to be in Charlotte til the beginning of the year. Yeah!! Derek and I are going down to Charlotte/South Carolina this weekend to look for a house. Grandma Birds is thankfully going to come down on Friday and watch the kids so that we don't have to truck them all over creation while we look at houses. We've had 2 showings since the house got listed. One on Halloween and one on Saturday. Hopefully someone will come along and feel that this is the right house for them.

Halloween was crazy around here since we had a showing. I spent most of the morning straightening up ( I hadn't done so the day before and paid for it) then had to go over the grandma's house to look for something in the boxes that are over at her house that I needed for Dehlia's Fall Party that was that afternoon. I touched every box twice, but still wasn't able to find what I was looking for. I figure I will find it AFTER we move and probably in a box that is still at the house here. Oh well. So I went from grandma's to Dehlia's party and thankfully Derek was able to come home on his lunch break and vacuum for me. I hadn't gotten a chance to get to that before I left. Since the showing was a 3:30, I was still going to be at the party. Derek was able to come home and get the dogs. We met up with his after school and went to the park. The kids are now begging to go back daily. Pretty sure that will be a frequent location to go to when we have showings. Especially since the girls track out on Friday. We got back to the house after the showing and had some dinner, then hung out til trick or treating time. Got the kids ready about 6:20 or so and headed out into the neighborhood. Derek's mom made their costumes again this year. THANKS MOM!!!!! Madison and Dehlia were High School Musical Cheerleaders and Aric was Donald Duck! The kids had a great time. They got a ton of candy. We were all tired by the end of the night.

Going backwards in the time line, Tuesday of this past week,
we also did something dramatic around here. Aric got a big 'ol haircut!!! Here's the back story.....Week before last, we got a note home from his preschool stating that there had been a case of Lice found in his class on Thursday. I didn't really think too much of it. We've got enough going on around here that I really didn't have time to think about it. Well, Tuesday came and I walked Aric in and they were checking heads before letting the kids stay in the classroom. Well, before the day was out, SIX of the kids in his class had it. I picked Aric up early from school that day and call Derek telling him that we needed to cut Aric's hair. Derek was thrilled. Derek had been wanting to shave Aric's hair all summer, but I couldn't let go of the curls. Well, this was a big enough straw to break the camel's back. Tuesday evening after dinner, we told Aric that he was getting a hair cut and asked him if he would like to cut Daddy's and them Daddy could cut his. He said, OK. Well, they would take turns back and forth (check out the Flickr page for more pics and a video) and this is what we ended up with. We only had one episode where Aric rebelled and didn't want to finish, but the half shaven head wasn't getting out of the bathroom. I had to put down the camera and have Derek put him in his lap, and I finished the job. There were tears shed by mommy, but I think missing out on the treat of having head lice in the house makes losing the curls all worth it. It is amazing how fast he grew up on us. He looks more like Derek now too. I am still getting used to seeing him without all of his curls. His hair will grow back. I just couldn't take the chance of him bringing it home and the girls getting it. Not right now with all that is going on around here.

Soccer has ended for Dehlia, only practices left for Madison's team, and Softball is over for me. My how our weeks have opened up. This will be our first week of the newer schedule. We are down to Madison practice on Monday nights, Faith Formation on Tuesday evening and then open the rest of the week. WOW!!! Madison will start Saturday practices back up in a week or so. There is a tournament in the area, so the fields are being used for that. Derek will still have Sunday games into December too. I guess we will have to figure out what to do with all of this free time that we have now. Especially since the girls will be tracked out come Friday.

Hopefully the house hunting trip will go good this weekend and we will come away knowing what we want to do and where we are going to move. Then we can take some time during track out to bring the girls down there and show them our new house.

Will keep you posted..........Til next time....