A MILLION THINGS TO SAY!!!!!

If I were to wake up tomorrow and realize that this has all been a dream, I wouldn't be surprised. This is has been the craziest week EVER and if I had all the time or words in the world, I wouldn't be able to truely capture it for you, but here is the shortened version. Take a deep breath.....
Monday- Got mostly approved for our rental house.
Tuesday- Sherry and Myrna took me out on a surprise shopping trip. It was the greatest, most thoughtful, most awesome thing anyone has ever done for me. Every time I put on my new clothes, I can't stop smiling because I know without a doubt that I am loved.
Wednesday- Got in my first fender-bender in 12 years!!!!! I was distracted by the U-Haul people (will most likely never rent a truck from them again) and merged into a college student's truck and lost my mirror. THEN I found out that it would take a week to get water and electricity in our new rental house.
Thursday- Mimi got lost in our crazy mad rush to pack the U-Haul. Kalea went to sleep about 11PM crying for Mimi. My eye started twitching and Steve and I were both running on severly high amounts of panic. We found Mimi close to midnight in the back of Kalea's tricycle.
Friday- Entire body twitching in our mad rush to pack and clean. I wish we could have cleaned more, but we ran out of time in the end. We signed the papers to close on the house and found out that our morgage company hadn't paid our taxes yet so we had to pay twice. Our Beta fish had to ride in a Sonic cup to Mansfield as we drove in the wind and the rain. The kids SCREAMED the entire time and Kalea cried for her best buddy A.L. all the way there. We got to our rental house and it still had electricity and water on and is the most perfect house for us. I LOVE it! Steve drove the U-Haul straight into the mud, got it stuck and had to block the entire street until he and my brother could unload it enough to make it light enough to move it out of the lawn and into the driveway. I am so thankful that no one got hurt during the loading and unloading process.
Saturday- We spent Friday night at the nicest people in the world's house. After a super good breakfast, we made a mad rush to finish unpacking the U-haul (in 30 degree weather with an artic wind blowing everything over) before 12 so that we could return it. We took our lease to the library and got our cards (YEA!!!). We unpacked, rearranged the boxes and started setting up our new house.
Sunday- We visited a new church with the people whose house we're staying at. It's pretty cool. They have three computers in their Preschool and Children's department. You type in your phone number and it prints out your labels for you (one for you and one for your child). Kalea's room had the special window so you could look in on the kids without being seen. She was very sad without her best pal, but her teacher was super good. She was a volunteer who had eleven 2 year olds all by herself and they were all seated on the floor reading a book when we came by to get Kalea. She was clean, dry and well taken care of.
We are not planning on getting internet until I get a job, so it may be a while. I miss you guys already and will check my e-mail as often as possible.

No news yet....

I thought I'd put that first, because I am sure that's exactly what you were wondering. :o)

I realized yesterday that I've wasted this week being 100% grumpy when I should have been 10,000% thankful. Ever have those weeks?

Warm Bed with a Side of Hotel Fire

So it's the night before Thanksgiving and I am busy being thankful (with my eyes closed) for the hotel that my in-laws paid for us to stay in so that we could spend a few days in Katy with them. It's a brand new hotel and the bed is so comfy and my kids are so tired that for the first time in a few months I find myself sleeping through the entire night. This is a moment of special lights and angels singing because sleep is a true gift and blessing for a tired mommy such as myself. At 5:30AM, however, all of the special lights turn into those flashing fire lights and the angels turn into orb like alarms screaching a melody that no mommy wants to hear, ever. Barely awake, Steve and I jump out of our warm bed and into action. We don't even think to turn on the lights so we are groping for coats and shoes in the dark. I grab Kalea and Steve throws Nathan's shoes on him and we take off down the hall and down the three flights of stairs with our new best pajama clad friends. At the second story, the smell of smoke hits us and in his panic, Nathan takes a tumble down the carpeted stairs. There are so many people that a pair of pajamaed legs breaks his fall and he is up and running in an instant. As we step out into the crip early morning air, the bite of the cold weather takes a delayed moment to hit us. I can feel Kalea trembling in my arms as we take the que from other families and run for the car. Fumbling in the cold morning air, it takes Steve a while to get it unlocked and started, but we were super grateful for the warm air that poured out of the vents. As we settled in, the horrific notion hit me that I left Kalea's beloved Mimi in the hotel to be cooked by the flames. As Kalea's shaking subsided, the fire trucks arrived, and Steve and Nathan giggled as the pajama clad Chief jumped out of the truck and into the hotel with his fully dressed companions. After almost an hour, we were able to head back into the hotel and back to bed. Kalea and I snuggled in and went back to sleep greatful that Mimi (and ok, I guess the hotel too) was ok while Steve and Nathan chatted excited about the morning's event. We never did find out exactly what had happened, but in the end we were all thankful that no one was injured or killed by the fire.

Nathan's funny sayings for the week:
At the Gem and Diamond exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science- "Mom, people can't wear these, they're just rocks."
On the way out of Walmart on a super cold day- "I don't need Germ X, the germs already froze off my hands."

Test

Here's a true test to see who actually reads these...... a very nice family has decided to buy our house and if things go well, then we should close on December 14th (the same day that my parents will be closing on their house to move to Virginia). We are both terrified and extremely excited about the next three weeks. We are fully aware that whatever happens from here on out is completely in the hands of God. Please pray for us through the inspection and through the other family's financial process.
Every young girl wants to marry a rawk star, but the trade in is that rawk stars are great with guitars but really bad with home repair work. I may be needing to trade my hubby's guitar skills for your hubby's home improvement skills if the inspection warrents. Thanks so much for your prayers through this crazy process.

Sitting instead of cleaning....

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Blog-tas-tic

Just wanted to say that I am feeling better. A big thank you for those who prayed. We have a definite 'maybe' on the house and have had two people look at it this weekend. Go figure that the one weekend that I don't feel well and that Steve is gone, is the one weekend that people actually want to look at the house. I was at the bottom of the well on Saturday when the agent called about showing the house. I gathered every last bit of energy I had to clean muttering "I can do all things in Christ Jesus who gives me strenth" under my breath and while I cleaned, the 'un'children uncleaned. It took me a while to realize what was going on and when I finally realized what my beautiful children were doing, I had to take a 'come to Jesus' minute. If I had been feeling better, I might have killed them, but since it would have taken too much energy, I just made them sit on the couch with the 'No No Spoon' at eye level while I continued to slowly make my way through the house. While we waited for the house to be shown, we went to the mall where we did a driveby Santa visit. Peeking through the white gate, Nathan whispered "Mom, I think that one is the real Santa." (He has issues about taking pictures with 'fake' Santas.) When I asked him if he wanted to go say 'hi,' Nathan shook his head no. Nathan has never liked taking pictures with Santa. We gave up trying when he was 3. I don't think wives of Educators were meant to get Santa pictures of their children any way. It's funny how Educators help to develop great talent and academics in this world, and they get paid the least and have the worst insurance.

"Grubby"

When I was pregnant with Kalea, I temporarly worked fulltime at a day care so that we could afford her birth. Because I was in a church, my super cool, super large classroom shared space with a Sunday school class. On my first day of work I noticed a small fish bowl sitting solitarly in the corner of the room filled 2/3s full with green murkey water and a moldy looking fish I dubbed "Grubby" for obvious reasons. Sharing space with a Sunday school class, I assumed that Grubby was part of a Sunday school experiment gone terribly wrong. I am not a big fish person, so every day I hoped that Grubby would go to the big pond in the sky, but every day Grubby kept on swimming in his earthly disaster of a home. Months went by and the water grew greener and greener and much to my displeasure Grubby just kept on living. As I waited for my class to come, I spoke to Grubby every morning, encouraging him to go towards the light, but the moldy fish never did. By late November, a new teacher joined our ranks, taking half of my class with her as well as my pal Grubby. She only showed up every once in a while to clean Grubby's bowl and to yell at the kids, and after a miserble month or so, she was asked to leave. As much as I was hoping she'd take Grubby with her, she left the small, smelly thing behind. Christmas came and went and pretty soon it was time to have Kalea, so I gladly packed my bags and left my job leaving Grubby to the mercy of his Sunday school pals. Surprisingly enough though, not long after I left, I learned that my pal, Grubby, did not belong to the Sunday School class after all, but to the teacher before me. Poor Grubby had gone months without being fed or cared for and had somehow survived. He had adapted to living with nothing. After I left, a good pal had taken Grubby in. She cleaned his tank until it was sparkling, fed him, talked to him, and most likely given him a good name......needless to say, it wasn't long before Grubby went belly up. The poor girl killed him with love.
It's a good thing that people don't die from too much love, because then my children wouldn't have made it past their first few months of life. It's not just us who love them, but we have an entire church who loves them and cares for them. About two weeks ago, we received an envelope with enough money in it to pay for our car to be fixed. It was an enourmous debt that weighed very heavily on our hearts, and someone loved us enough to pay that debt for us. No one, especially us, deserves such a gift as that. As a general rule, we never deposit gifted money into our account until we write a thank you note, but our gift was without a face. I placed the envelope on our kitchen counter and every time I passed it I got so overwhelmed by the generosity and love and the unworthiness we have for it, that it brought me to tears several times. Since the car broke down, I had been begging to see the face of God, to at least feel His presence during this time away from Steve, and He was there all along. He was in the faces of everyone at church, of everyone who loves us and has been praying for us. I am so thankful for whoever gave us that gift and I pray for them every night before I go to bed, because they opened my eyes to remind me that God is not so far away.

Prayer requests- I have denied being sick every way possible, and somehow I thought that refusing to talk about it would make me feel better. I feel like the world's worst mommy because I am all my kids have and I am so sick that by the time night comes I absolutely cannot care for them. I think it's just the strain on my heart, but I am walking around with my hands completely numb and the entire world swimming around me willing myself not to pass out. My pal Jenny has been a HUGE blessing for me, but we're on our own this weekend, so if you could please, please, please pray for me, I would really appreciate it. I feel like we're jumping from one crisis to another and I am really sorry, I am really not that kind of person who has a different emergency every day of the year. Once we make it out of the desert, we should be fine. If you could just please pray for my heart and God's healing for it, and for the safety of my children that I don't pass out while caring for them, I would really appreciate it.