Fun With the Fam

Since we are all in Texas, we got to spend Thanksgiving Day with Mary and Micah at their house in San Antonio. Colleen lives a mere few blocks away, and Dad came down from Big D. It was much fun! Aunt Colleen was wonderful and braved the Wednesday traffic to come and pick up the girls a day early so they could spend the night with her. It took them three hours to get back to SA. Scary!! Thank you, Colleen for a great night to ourselves!! It was pretty weird waking up without the girls Thanksgiving morning, but they were full of fun stories and were thrilled to get the extra time with the aunts.

Everyone pitched in and fixed a couple of dishes, and there was so much food. We wound up with quite a crew: Mary, Micah, Colleen, Dad, the girls, Me, Todd, Micah's sister, Melissa, Karanda, Rudy and Ann. Karanda, Rudy and Ann are friends of Mary, Micah and Colleen who wanted to hang out with our crazy family for the holiday. What were they thinking? Oh, and I can't forget the two dogs who about dragged me all over the neighborhood while we were taking them for a walk! (Bishop and Brooklyn) Seriously, the circulation in my hand was cut off trying to keep Brooklyn from running off. She actually did get away from Jessie once, and Emma commented that she was hot and sweaty when we got back because they were so much work!

Karanda holding Emma, Me holding Aubrie, Colleen, Jessie and Mary (Judah is in her tummy.)

Todd is holding Emma in this one - he was napping when we took the full family pic, and Melissa had to go to work before we took the one of the girls.Melissa is holding Emma, and Micah is on Dad's left.

Aubrie and Dad playing a duet.

Well, my goal for this week is to finish unpacking boxes so we can drag out the Christmas stuff. I haven't had much time to devote to what we may do special this month. I think I may keep it simple and just do our advent wreath. The girls love it, and I think it will be so much fun this year since they're older (of course, they're older, it's a year later than last year...) and starting to appreciate the meaning behind things much more. The box thing may be a really lofty goal with how tired I am tonight. Maybe I'll get a good holiday second wind. I could always watch White Christmas or Polar Express to get in the mood!

No News is Good News

Friday night...

Well, since we didn't hear from the attorney's office otherwise, I will assume that our house closed without a hitch. Yeah! We had a rather eventful day yesterday trying to overnight some notarized documents back to MS. Apparently, delivery time with UPS depends upon the area in which you live. For instance, in MS delivery is between 10 and 11 in the morning. Well, delivery time here is guaranteed for 7 in the evening. Thankfully, we got our packet by 4:30, just barely got it notarized at 10 til 5 and dropped it off just a few minutes before the UPS man came by to pick it up. We had a back-up plan in place, but it was such a load off my mind to get it taken care of.

I need to tell you, though, how great the sale of our house was. We had been trying since August, when Todd left for TX, to sell the house by owner, and I had worked and worked and worked on it trying to get it ready for two open houses which were pretty unfruitful. We had finally decided that the time had come to hire a realtor so that we could all be together just a little while ago. A friend from church, Lonnie, listed the house and was really optimistic about getting it sold. Long story a little shorter, the day Todd was coming home to help us pack up, I saw Lonnie at church. I was joking with him because he had shown the house on Sat., and I had all of about twenty minutes to get it ready. I was shocked when he said that he would probably have two offers for us Monday or Tuesday! The rest is history. Before we left for TX we had a contract on the house. We are so grateful to have that part of our move taken care of!

Now it's Saturday...

We are continuing to get settled here in Bastrop. I made my first trip (since living here, anyway) into Austin today for a Christmas market that is very similar to MS's Mistletoe Marketplace. The Austin event is put on by the Junior League and is called A Christmas Affair. Much fun! Todd kept the girls all day, and I had a great time. I had some difficulty finding the mall where the shuttle was running, but if it hadn't been for that, I would have been to the market in half an hour - not bad. I love alone time and got to browse and sample to my heart's content. Got lots of great Christmas ideas and got more acquainted with a really neat part of Austin. Since Todd was super wonderful, he encouraged me to explore downtown Bastrop once I was done in Austin. There are some really great antique stores, gift shops and restaurants that I can't wait to visit again. Well, I guess my shopping trips aren't complete without a visit to WalMart so I ended the day there and bought some t-shirts and cute fabric (They still have fabric at this WalMart - so happy.) to make Christmas shirts for the girls for our card pictures. If they turn out well, I'll post pics...I only have until Wed. to find out!

Getting Settled

I realized when I was just reading my last post that I need to post about the sale of our house. I'll try to do that next time. We're supposed to close the 21st so please pray everything goes off without a hitch. Thanks!

I wrote this the other day because I didn't want to forget our first day or so in our new home:

When we pulled into our driveway in Cedar Creek, TX, Sunday night, Aubrie wanted to know where are animals were. In fact, the next few times we pulled into the driveway, she asked again about our animals and where they were. She’s apparently very excited about the prospect and has been paying attention! (By the way, don't know if I've mentioned that the place we're renting has 5 acres, goat fencing and a chicken coop so we're all set.)

Monday was supposed to be cleaning day since the moving van was coming with our stuff on Tuesday. I say “supposed to be” because like most best-laid plans, not much cleaning took place. We were in need of quite a few things from WalMart so we headed off to Bastrop which is about ten minutes away. Now, I wasn’t sure if there was a WalMart, let alone where it was. So, I pulled into McDonald’s, laptop in hand to get on the internet to find out. Todd asked me later why I didn’t just go inside and ask someone, but I really didn’t want to hear the possible answer that there wasn’t one. Turns out, the WalMart is just about a block away from McDonald’s so I was really glad I opted for the internet; that would have been too embarrassing.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the store with all three kids, and like I said, we needed quite a few things. I was worn out when we were done. We were headed home when we realized we needed to look up a couple of more things online. Back to McDonald’s we go. This is where things really started to go awry. My car wouldn’t start after we were done. So, the nice people next to us give us a jump and back to WalMart we go to have the car looked at. I was pretty proud of myself (first sign of trouble; what's that about pride and a fall?) Now, I had already eaten at McDonald’s the day before (which is difficult for me in the first place), but that’s all there was at WalMart. While they’re checking out the car, we eat our fish and chicken. We then find out that they are not able to detect anything wrong with the car. (Jill, you will remember that this happened once before at church.) However, the nice man at WalMart said that the car was starting now. Off we go again.

I unload the stuff at home only to find out that several of the things I bought were the wrong size – mainly different light bulbs we needed and some sheets. Now this seems minor enough, but it was enough to get me near the edge. What happened next sent me over. We (okay, I) decided that it would be a great idea to put all the girls in the same room to sleep so that we could have a play/school room for them. This was the first sleep time that I had put them all together. Not such a brilliant idea, but remember, I went to WalMart w/three children. I have no brain power left. Skip ahead about half an hour. Aubrie locks the door to the girls’ bedroom, and I can’t get it open. Neither can Emma. I lose it now. There is screaming (I’m sad to say) on my part, tears on theirs, and I call Todd to ask him when he is coming home. While the girls are upstairs not getting a desperately needed nap, I am crying, cleaning the kitchen and wondering how long it takes to get from Buda to Cedar Creek. Meanwhile, the girls are not getting along and Jessie scratches Emma’s face – looks like she was in a fight with a cat. Lovely. I'm now feeling like the worst mom ever. Ever.

Anyway, in the midst of my meltdown, I thought about Africa. I thought about how much more stressful the days’ events would have been in a different culture, in a different language (that I wouldn’t know very well, if at all), where there is no WalMart (not that I'm a particular fan of WalMart; it's just so good and cheap). I have to say, and not in a trite way at all, that the last of my Africa grief is gone. I am now very content to allow the Lord to work out His plans for our future in His timing. And that, despite the days events, was very valuable to me.

So Much to Say, So Little Time

Things have been so busy lately that I've barely had time to read a blog let alone post to my own. Let me catch everyone up really quickly, and I'll try to do better in a week or so.

Todd came home Sunday to help get us packed up for our move to Cedar Creek, TX. Monday, we changed our movers and our load date to Friday. Tuesday, our realtor came to our house with two offers on our house. Wednesday, we signed a contract on our house. Today we continued to pack like crazy. Todd is still there while I sit at Judy and Jerry's house with the girls asleep (finally) and get caught up on the blog world that I've missed. After the truck comes tomorrow, we'll spend another night here and then head to Grand Prairie.

We'll stay there a night and then head to our TX house on Sunday. The plan is to clean, sleep on air matresses and hope to get some sleep until our stuff gets there on Tuesday. So, I may not be back for a while. I have all kinds of pictures from our church's fall fest which was so much fun that I'd like to post when I get the chance - may be close to Thanksgiving by the time that happens!