Lots of pictures

I am just going to write about these pictures as they posted, since I'm too lazy to organize them differently. Sorry! I do have many things to write about, like birthdays, but this will have to do for now.

This was taken after they moved Levi's crib in our old house - can you tell what it is? He must have had dirty feet....but I had to take a picture before I cleaned the wall.

This is a view from my living room window. It's much better in person, every time I come around the corner into the room I see this and am amazed at how pretty it is. You'll just have to come see in person, I guess! The morning after we got here we watched the tractor cut the hay (or whatever it is). That was pretty fun.

This is one mural on Ian's walls, there's a whale and many fish.

We found a place maybe 10-15 minutes away to hike. And, by the way, the little boys love their family reunion tie-die shirts!

On the way to where we hiked.

This pheasant is almost always in our yard, or seen with another pheasant walking the neighborhood.

Levi blowing his horn, and then in the chair driving. He and Caleb are always driving something - a firetruck, garbage truck, recycle truck, whatever.

Notice what's in Levi's hand, half eaten? A peanut butter sandwich - that's right, his first meal that I didn't make him any special food! He's getting there, for sure. Still he can't (or won't) eat a lot of things, but he's getting better!

Caleb has turned into Linus, he carries his blanket everywhere and wants to be "all snuggled up."

Eating a pudding popcicle.





Caleb and Levi have found some nice times to play together, amongst the pushing and fighting.....

Ian at his new school's playground, which is only 2 houses away!

For some reason Ian wants to go down the stairs this way.....








Ian has renewed his love for Legos, and plays for hours during Caleb and Levi's naptime.

Just because it's cute :) We made a box into a restaurant.

I need to take more pictures of the house, but it's really a mess right now. We still have a lot to unpack and figure out where it goes, and then maybe I'll do a photo tour. But here is my new long term food storage room - under the stairs! It wraps around all the way under the other set of stairs, too. I can get a lot of buckets in there!

It is different living here, in a smaller town, but nice so far. It cools down at night by 8pm, so we can open the windows and turn on fans to cool it off (no AC). That's great until a skunk comes around...... We got a new phone book and there are 23 towns listed in the book - and with both white and yellow pages it's less than an inch thick! I could actually fit it in a phone book drawer, if only I had one! We've found lots of parks and met some friends there already, Ian is excited about school starting and mostly about the ice dispenser on the front of the fridge that came with the house :) Levi likes his purple room, Caleb wants to go back to "my other house that doesn't have any stairs." I'm glad they are good at walking up and down stairs, since this is a split level house, but Caleb doesn't really like them. All in all, it's nice to be here. John is still learning his job, the boys and I have explored a few of the places around here, and today a friend took me to buy fruit and corn to can/freeze!

More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys

More good news

I have so many things I could write about, and fun pictures to post that may or may not ever get done. But, the good news - Levi is finally starting to eat! I have doubted at times that he'd ever get it, ever get to where food didn't gag him as soon as it touched his tongue. But, he's eaten some crackers, and he's eaten a few bites of other things like muffins and pancakes. It has to be on his own terms, but he's starting to do it! One of these days, I can stop buying baby food - hooray!

And in other good news, we're ready to move! Within three weeks of accepting a new job, we'd sold our home here and bought a new one in our new town. John is already there working, and in a few weeks we'll be all moved and starting to get settled in our new place, before school starts (which school is only two doors down from our house!). It's going really fast, that's for sure!

Good news

It's been a very long time and I have a lot to say about the last few months....but who knows when that will happen. So, for now I thought I would share the good news - John has a job! He starts in 2 weeks. The bad part of it is that the job is in another state. I've tried not to say anything on here about our name or where we live, and I still won't - so if you want to know more details, leave a comment and I'll email you where we're going! It sounds like a good company to work for, and moving to a smaller town will be a new adventure for us! Now we have to do a lot of work to get our house ready to sell - and hope it sells quickly! Our ideal plan would be to be moved before school starts, so that Ian can start first grade in his new school and not have to transfer. But, we'll see how things go. For now we feel very blessed to have found a job so soon when there are so many people out of work right now.

The rest of March, 2009

The biggest and best news of the month is that John finished his schoolwork! He finished writing his project paper and had to present the project he did for his Masters Degree and he did it (very well, I might add) and they signed it off! So now the minor details of getting it all turned in and he's done - hooray! Caleb and Levi still tell him he needs to go sit down and do his homework :) They're not sure what else he's supposed to do besides homework!

Ian lost tooth #4 - so now he has no top front teeth. He's finding it a little harder to bite things these days :)

He has had spring break this last week and with sick brothers (and thus a tired mom) he has had a lot of time to do what he wants. He's written recipes and is writing some stories - here's a recipe he made for a banana split (he's never had one, but there's one in a book we like to read):

"Pell Pelen off 2 Banana’s put it side by side in a blow Add rasbere’s Choclitalte chip’s melted Choclitalte Add Vnelua Ice Cram Then wipped Cram Then Add a cerry on the top.
IANS
BANANA SPLIT Resupe"

And here's part of a story he wrote about a Valentine's Party Piglet and Winnie the Pooh and their friends have:

"Piglet looked at the resupe it said add 4 eggs then he mix it up he added 3 cup sugar,flaor vunela 1 cup cram 1 cup hauf cram hauf milk 2 cup milk then pink and red hreats he walked cerfle to the table with a cake on a flat dish in his hands."

I can't believe how much he likes to write!

Caleb and Levi have both turned into reading machines! That's all they want to do. Last week they were all sick, Caleb with pneumonia, and reading (or watching a movie) was the only thing that kept Caleb happy. They'll sit and listen to books, often the same one over and over, for a really long time. I get tired of reading the same book several times in a row before they get tired of listening! I'm glad there are libraries where we can go and get something new to read! They like to look at the books themselves, too, and can quote parts of their favorite books.

Here's Levi just relaxing.

I love the way they sleep sometimes! This is Caleb, sound asleep.