Day two

Two days down.

This was my first day at church without Rod there to help.

And they had a potluck.

And I survived.

Barely!

Then I came home and did some projects.

Tyreque put covers on the outlets.

I installed a door in the cleaning closet.

Then reinstalled the door in the cleaning closet since the door was to tall.

Did three loads of laundry.

Picked up the house.

Gave the kids all extra chores to do.

Watched Extreme Makeover with the kids.

And now I'm headed off to bed.

Tomorrow is a school day and I have to get up early.

Day One

Rod has been gone for one day.

Nothing has exploded, died, plugged, clogged, starved, broken down, and fallen apart - yet!!

There was a bug (not just any bug but a BIG bug) in my living room.

I had to squelsh my fear of big bugs YUCK and, thankfully it was on a basket, take it outside and kill it.

My Mom says I should have just shoo'd it off but...

what if it was some mass reproducing bug,

or a bug with a homing instinct,

or just a big UGLY bug?

I played it safe and smashed it - DEAD!

And thankfully I was not attacked by an armegedon of big ugly bugs, cause then something would fallen apart - ME!

But alas, we are all still in one piece and hopefully they will all stay that way, at least for a few days longer!!

I got all my supplies to finish my "projects".

The ones that have been so loving bestowed upon me due to the well meaning indivdual in my life.

I'm sure there is a reason that God has put her there but I'm not seeing it to clearly right now.

Maybe after the sawdust cloud dies down I will though!!

Off to make sure all the doors are locked.

Then off to bed, again, by myself!

Nosy people

I have a love - hate relationship with Children's services.

I think that the work they do is for the benefit of the child - most of the time, although I've had kids that I felt should NOT be in the system.

Then there are times when I feel that they are just nosy.

Or that they are foloowing up on things that nosy people feel they need to call and talk about because they have nothing better to do with their time.

I had CPS come to my house last night.

They got a call on the hotline about me house.

The allegations:
1)paint peeling off the walls
2)hanging wires in the living room and kitchen
3)no safety plugs in the outlets
4)cleaning supplies left on the floor
5)a generally messy house
6)to many children for one person to take care of

So they came and went through my house, which was not messy, by the way, when they made their surprise visit. There is no paint peeling from the walls, no hanging wires anywhere, no cleaning supplies on the floor, and only half of the outlets had safety plugs in them (so shoot me).

They decided that there were a few things that I needed to fix
1)safety plugs in ALL the outlets
2)putting a lock on the porch with the garden tools because they might use the garden tools to bury each other out back
3)A door on the babies room because they need privacy -I guess the fact that I change them in the living room wouldn't go over to well!!!
4)Moving the cleaning supplies up a shelf - the regulation says they have to be up and out of reach but that leaves the interpretation as to how high and what's out of reach. The fact that they are on a shelf over the kids head was not reasonable to her.

They also didn't care that the one bathroom upstairs is not functioning since we are redoing the floor. I guess the fact that we have FIVE other bathrooms in the house makes up for the ONE half bath that's not operative at the moment.

So for all you NOSY people out there - GET A LIFE!!!

He's gone

I took Rod to the airport this morning at 6 am.

He's flying to LA, then to Japan, and then on to Singapore where he's meeting the ship.

He should be there sometime tomorrow night.

Don't know what the time difference is.

I don't think the reality has set in yet.

Probably will happen when the little kids realize that Dad hasn't been home in a few days.

Friday is the day!

It is official. Rod will be leaving on Friday morning. I'm not glad that he's leaving but I am glad to finally have a date. It's been hard with this every day could be the day thing. With bags packed and sitting in the guest room waiting, wondering. I'm thankful that he'll only be gone for 4-5 months instead of the anticpated 18 months. I'm also glad that Ahma and Poppa from over at Sea-Ami will be coming to stay with us for an extended stay. Will be nice to have the help and not have to be a single parent for to long!!

Flowerbeds are finished!

I've spent the last few days filling the beds the rest of the way up and planting flowers in them. It's so nice to walk out the door and smell the flowers or relax on the porch swing and enjoy the front porch. It's hard to believe that when we bought the house the front porch was so dark and uninviting. Defiently NOT a place that you would want to sit and relax. Now it's one of my favorite places to sit. I can't wait for the flowers to grow and fill in the beds.

I also hung the hose holder that I bought but haven't put it to use yet since we are still having to turn on the sprinklers every day to get the grass to grow. Once the flowers grow and fill in the beds they should hide the concrete "block" that makes our porch. It was so ugly to look at before. Now instead of seeing it you see the flower beds and the flowers. The next project will be to put in a path in front of the beds that goes across the front yard. Trying to decide if I want to gravel or just large stepping stone things. I'm leaning more towards stepping stones since the kids can't remove them as easily as they can gravel.

Another project while Mom was here

This was actually one of the first projects that we did. We moved the library to where all the clothes had been. Here is picture of all the bookshelves with the books back on them. Can you tell that I love books. I also love teddy bears and have a bunch of them on the tops of the shelves.

Then we moved all the clothes storage shelves to where the computers had been. Now they are round the corner and not one of the first things that you see when you walk into the room. This area used to be a second kitchen when we moved in. All of that has been removed but the walls still need to be redone. These shelves hide that well for now!
Than we got rid of the two small computer desks and moved the computers onto a long table where the bookshelves used to be. We also moved the tv with the Gamecube and the PS2 into the corner of this space. They used to be along the wall where the short bookshelves are now. When people played it was hard to get past them as they were in the middle of the walkway. Now we can see what people are doing on the computers and the tv and they are not in the way. So everything is still in the same room but it all shifted walls and makes a lot more space.

Cleaning the back porch

On Saturday we cleaned the back porch. This is where our washer and dryer is and also the freezer. It had been used to store stuff and we had never really cleaned and organized it. There was a variety of stuff back there.

We went through the boxes that were out there and got rid of a bunch of stuff.

Cleaned off the steps and reorganized the shelves.

Got all the stuff from behind the washer and dryer.

Put together a cabinet to hold stuff that needs to be locked (bleach, paint, etc).

Put up some hooks for the garden tools.

In the end it looked much better.

Quiet

Amah, Poppa, and WB headed off to the airport at 3:30 this morning.

I said my good byes before I went to bed as that's just a little to early for me.

Rod left for work around 6:30.

Took Brayana, Destini, and Jaleel off to the schoolbus.

Took Angie and Makkiah to school.

Took Ladaria to school.

Tyreque left for school the same time I left the house since it was a late day.

Then I took Jaleel's meds to the school and tried to register Kiah for kindergarten.

Their copier was down and one of his shots had been left off his shot card.

Headed off to the doctor to get his shot card fixed.

Stopped by the house to make copies for the school.

Went and picked up Angie and Kiah from Headstart.

Brought Taniyah, Angie and Ellie home to stay with the neighbor.

Took Kiah to his appt at the hospital where I was told that he's a classic ADHD kid. Hey at least now I know that he's not psychotic or anything!!

Headed back home to watch the little kids while Rod took the other kids to practice.

Did laundry.

Cleaned the living room.

Finally sat down in the living room which was not quiet.

Mom said she thought I would enjoy having only the two babies and everyone else gone today.

I don't think I stopped long enough to!!

Can't wait for them to come back in June.

I definetly get more accomplished with them here than I do with them gone.

Happy Easter!

Just wanted to write and say Happy Easter to everyone.

We started out the day at 5:30am.

Had to get the oldest 5 kids to a presentation by 8am.

That entailed making sure that all the kids were dressed and fed.

Making sure that everyone had clean ACTION shirts.

Doing the twist in 3 girls hair.

Getting the youngest 4 dressed and ready for my mom who was bringing them to the presentation.

Getting the van seats back into the little van and the 4 car seats buckles back into the seats.

After everyone was dressed and fed we left for the presentation.

The ACTION team and the ACTION juniors were asked to present at an Easter egg hunt.

The event started at 9:30 but we usually get there an hour early so the kids can run through any songs that need work, set props, and get on makeup.

They didn't wear the mime makeup as the church was concerned about scaring the preschoolers.

Jaleel plays Jesus in one of the songs and he wasn't allowed to show any emotion as they didn't want to scare the preschoolers. He did a great job of keeping a straight face. I was impressed!

After the presentation, the youngest 7 kids participated in the Easter egg hunt. All I want to say about that is - Some parents can be REALLY greedy about some small egg shaped plastic that is EMPTY!! Some of the eggs had prize slips in them so the parents were popping the eggs open trying to find the slips.

After the egg hunt we went over to our old church for their Easter service. We had missed the service at our church and thought it would be good to visit friends over at Faith. Some of them we haven't seen since we started going to New Seasons. It was nice to see them and we also chatted with Pastor Mark and his wife.

After church we came home and I cleaned out a few more boxes from the storage shed and then spent some time with Mom. She was packing for part of the day so I cleaned!

In all it was a fun and productive day. My house is FINALLY starting to come together, getting organized and in order.

Hope everyone had a great Easter!!

Shoe shopping!

My Mom took all the kids shoe shopping for Easter.

We made one trip with the youngest four. Got their shoes and were done in about 30 minutes.

Went home and got the oldest five.

Before they could go get new shoes they had to clean the storage though!

After the storage passed inspection we headed off with them.

Four hours and three stores later they all had shoes that they were happy with.

So at the end of it all these are the shoes that Ahma bought for all the kids!

Shoe shopping accomplished!!!!!

A few more comparisons

Here is a picure of the bottom right of our yard. The green grass is the neighbors yard. Our yard was covered in weed barrier and bark mulch.We took out the mulch and the cactus and the trees. The tall grass and tree are in the neighbors yard. We still need to replace the fence on this side of the house.
Here is the right side of the yard before we worked on it. There is grass in the picture so we've been here a while when I took this picture.We took out the fence which really served no purpose as you go around both ends of it. We cut down the yucca tree and other trees that were dead. The yard was tilled and we will be putting down new grass seed. We also painted the house.

Some transformations

I thought I would give some perspective pictures. We've spent a lot of hours working on the yard. Many hours of Rod and Poppa putting up siding, Mom and I priming, Rod and I painting, Rod and Dennis replacing windows, Rod and I replacing the door, Rod and I doing the front porch, Mom and Poppa babysitting while Rod and I did work, taking out the old fence, tilling the yard, putting in the flowerbeds, cutting down trees, breaking up blacktop, etc.

With the help of the Mom, Poppa and the kids we have gotten a lot of work accomplished and the house is starting to look great!

Very different from when we first bought the property.

Here you go.

Here is a picture of the house when we first bought it. Here is a picture of the house at the end of the day today from the same angle. Here is the front yard when we bought the house.Here is the yard from the same angle at the end of today.

Busy continued

Today we continued on with our busy stuff.

Rod went and rented a rototiller.















We tilled the yard on one side of the house from front to back.














We also leveled it so it's not so lumpy and bumpy anymore.














We also leveled out the front and raised the dirt up into the area that I created yesterday with my wall.














We also built the larger of the two flower beds in the front and side of the porch.














Tomorrow we are doing family pictures and then will continue on with our work.

Things are looking really good around here.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We are staying busy here.

My old couch is FINALLY gone.

I got rid of three large car loads of STUFF.

The old slide is gone.

Today we cut down all the trees in our front and side yard.

Rented a stump grinder and ground 14 stumps.

Built a small retaining wall to allow us to level out the bottom part of the yard.

Dug out a trench and laid 18 bricks to start our flowerboxes.

Tomorrow we are renting a roto-tiller to till up the yard in front of the porch.

It will allow us to dig out and level the yard easier.

We also are getting 5 yards of dirt to fill our flower boxes and level the yard.

We also are getting 200 bricks to finish the flower boxes.

Not so sure that ALL will be finished tomorrow but we'll get as much as we can done.

We are going to put gravel walks in front of the flower boxes but that's another project for another day.

For now the yard is cleared out and the kids can play in it.

We even took the babies out to play in the front yard for the first time.

Off to do laundry now!!

Spring Cleaning

Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

I have lots of it going out the door!

My Mom and I have been reorganizing, rearranging and clearing out.

My goal has been to go room by room through the house.

It has a place or it doesn't stay has been my motto.

I think I'm doing a good job with it.

I've sent several loads to the thrift store.

I've donated a bunch of stuff to a charity garage sale and

now I have even more stuff to go.

And just to think that I've ONLY done two rooms and a closet.

Let's see......how many more to go.......too many!!

My feet hurt!

New laptop

I got a laptop.

And then I got another laptop.

Two in one day.

The first one kept freezing and garbling.

Not good when it's only been out of the box for 5 minutes.

Decided to get a different brand when I went back.

Now I can get work done someplace besides the dark confines of the library!