Today I am meeting with a landscaper. I had her come out a few weeks ago to look at what we want to do and she's coming back today with the plans for the front of our house - I'm excited to see what she's come up with! We'll be able to take those plans and do all the actual planting ourselves which I'm looking forward to - it's been awhile since I've gotten to dig around in the dirt. We'll start on the revamping next Spring. For now I'm going to plant a bunch of tulip and hyacinth bulbs - here's hoping they come up next Spring!!!

Finally...

I'm finally unpacking and organizing the last few things in the upstairs that had gotten shoved to the side for the past few months! Mostly it was stuff that I could get rid of - I figured if we didn't need it in the past few months than why keep it around? Next will be on to putting summer clothes away (they are still in their drawers!) and organizing the toys in the loft. Hopefully next week I can start working on the basement. There are still a few storage boxes down there that need to be unpacked and all the toys that landed there need to be organized so they can be put away each time instead of scattered all over the place! That won't happen though until next week at the earliest as my sister Melissa and her family may be coming up this weekend and that would just be counter-productive!

Mostly every one is settled in - the twins like school and have made friends both there and with the neighbor kids. They have made friends at church as well although we don't see those kids during the week usually. Ryan's job is keeping him incredibly busy - we're hoping he gets some help soon to do some of the busy work. Ethan keeps me busy - he likes to jump off counters, take baseball bats to the walls and furniture, play ball in the house, eat anywhere but the kitchen, get out one toy after the other (I'm working with trying to get him to put away the last toy first, ha!), and tell me continually - "I hear the bus!" He misses the twins while they are away at school:) He likes climbing and I find him at the top of the entertainment center reaching toys, in the pantry reaching the top shelf (scales the shelves!), and IN the fridge also reaching the top shelf (or any shelf that looks like it contains something he's interested in eating!) If we had a house with tall, mature trees I'm sure we'd find him at the top.

I took the kids last night to the fellowship center at church to help pack health kits for kids down in Mexico. Even Ethan helped for quite awhile filling the bags. Today I was going to meet my sister-in-law to do some shopping but Ethan woke up in a horrible mood so we stayed home instead. He's walking around the house crying and wanting to be held so I wonder if he's coming down with something. Right now he's walking around saying, "I'm busy! I'm busy!" Maybe I'd better go check and see what he's busy with...

So - that's a quick update on us. Not too exciting:)

Hmmmmm

I have been having loads of trouble trying to log onto this account. I will keep posting here for now but eventually may have to make the switch to http://beckyweiss.blogspot.com. There is a post on that site for now that says to continue checking this account but in the future if it's been awhile since I last posted check the other site to see if I've had to make the switch. I will also try to send out a mass e-mail with the new address if I need to do that. I'm really hoping that I don't have to start over!!!

NAPS!!!

Ethan has resumed his naps....YEA!!! Four days in a row now so hopefully last week was just a bump in the road because of taking the nuk away! As my mother can attest he's a completely different kid once he's taken a nap...

SUCCESS!

I made Mary M's caramel rolls today for the first time on my own since she taught me how this summer. I have to say...they are a success! Now, they don't look anywhere near as nice as hers but they sure taste good! Biting into one is like biting into a little slice of lunch on Sunday's in KC...!!! I have always had trouble rolling the dough out so that each roll is an equal size. My middle is usually fatter than the ends - and I'm not talking about me...although I supposed there is truth to that...:) I've tried and tried to roll the dough out more evenly but have never had any luck. OH WELL! When you place them all in a 9x13 pan to bake on top of caramel it doesn't matter much unless you really want them to look nice.

My parents are headed up tonight through Saturday after lunch so I'm looking forward to that! It's been a bit of a rough week emotionally so I'm ready for a good distraction. Mom wants to look for furniture tomorrow and Anne M is joining us so it should be a fun day. Now, if I could just convince Ryan to babysit the little rug rat named E...

Speaking of E, he NEEDS me right now so I'll close.

Blessings,
Becky

Ethan-isms

"Pass the salp, please!" (salt)

"I want to hold you!"

"Scoo-Doo" (He sleeps with Scooby Doo every night. Why can't he latch onto something cuter?)

Ethan, what's 1 + 5? "Baby!" (He said this tonight while we were drilling the twins on their math facts!)

"I need a pork!" (fork)

"Mommy, can I have some cudding?" (pudding)

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I have to say that I thought taking the pacifier away from E would be much easier then it's turned out to be. The twins cried for the nuk for two nights and that was it (and only at bedtime.) For Ethan it's been 5 days and he STILL asks for it all day long AND has decided to give up naps completely. Today was day 3 of no nap! This is not going as well as planned! I seriously considered giving him one I found the other day just to get him to take a nap. I needed the time as much as he needed to take the nap:) Oh Well, guess this means that he'll be going to bed much earlier at night now. He fell asleep last night on the way home from an evening with the Weiss's but unlike the twins you can't carry him up to bed once you get home. He wakes up. I used to be able to carry the twins in at nap time (as long as they hadn't been sleeping for 30 minutes or more) and bed time without them waking. I've had one grumpy two year old for 5 days and my family has had one grumpy mom for the pasts 5 days!

Overheard...

"Make it BIG, mommy!!!" - Ethan after waiting 30 minutes to eat his ice cream.

Tonight as Ethan was falling asleep next to me I coughed. Ethan said, "Don't scare me, Mom!" He then fell asleep with the blanket pulled up over his head.

The twins were plotting in the back seat last night how they were going to tease a kid at school the next day. I could hardly believe what I was over hearing and we had a talk about being nice to everyone. I reminded Kaitlyn about how upset she was when she got off the bus that afternoon because a little neighbor kid was teasing HER. Incidentally Kenton did NOTHING to stand up for her. We had a talk about that, too! And in case you were wondering 7 year old's tease each other about having boyfriends/girlfriends...think that will change some day? =P

Family Room pics

The color didn't turn out in this picture but it shows where I'll be hanging the clock - over the table with the lamp and pictures.

Notice who's in the chair? We took the nuk away two nights ago and since then my non-snuggly baby has needed to be rocked to sleep:) I'm enjoying it since I didn't get to snuggle with him as a baby.

Painting

Sooooo - yesterday I was feeling pretty homesick for Riley Street. I was sitting in my family room feeling sad when I decided that maybe if I painted the family room the same color/s/ I had in KC it would help me feel a little more at home here. So off to Home Depot Ethan and I went. I had previously decided which shade of red I wanted so it was really just a matter of picking up the paint. The first coat didn't go on so well - in fact I ended up calling Behr paint because I've never seen paint do what mine did yesterday - and I have painted A LOT. The best way to describe what happened is to tell you to imagine what it would look like if you tried applying paint over wax. It was not good and very frustrating. I ended up making a 2nd trip to Home Depot thinking maybe it was the paint. Turns out we think it was the paint underneath that was creating that effect and not the red paint it self. A huge pain but one more coat and it will look fantastic. Thankfully that only happened on one wall since the other three walls were a different type of paint. Anyway, two walls down - two to go...AFTER I drop Ethan off with my sister-in-law. Let's just say a 2.5 year old and paint don't mix. While I'm LOVING my red walls I'm not really loving my red floor:) It did come up but I'm done with painting while he's around!

Ryan gets home tonight with the camera so I'll try to get a few pictures posted in the next day or two of the completed room. Also I will try to get pictures up of our house furnished. Just realized the other day that I never did that! Just for you Melissa!!!

Craziness

I've been debating for awhile now whether or not to keep up the blog. I wasn't sure if people were even still checking it or if they were even still interested in reading about our semi-boring lives in the US. Then I realized that I need to do it for ME. It's been a good outlet - I've always liked to write - and it's fun to go back and read about the bad days and laugh (because the tradegy of the day is finally passed) or read about the good days and smile while remembering. SOOO - for anyone who doesn't want to hear about the details of our lives...don't check the blog! And for those of you who do (thanks to my true-blue FB friends!) keep reading! I've got more pictures to post but am waiting for a computer that consistently works and a camera that stays found long enough to get the pictures off:)

Now, on to the craziness! We were on a three day camping trip last weekend up to Tunnel Trails in Wisconsin. It was a great, fun, relaxing weekend but we came home to the news that my brother-in-laws father had passed away early Sunday morning. This brought about us keeping company from West Bend, IA on Tuesday night along with the visitation that day and keeping my two nephews that afternoon. The funeral was Wednesday and Wednesday evening brought Brent Kellenberger for supper and overnight while he was in the area on business. Thursday evening I hosted a Pampered Chef shower for my sis-in-law to be Amy and Friday I spent part of the day helping my sis-in-law Jamie and packing the kids and Ryan for a camping trip that they ended up not going on. They went for supper and came home to sleep as the weekend was just turning too busy. I went to "Club" on Friday evening with a group of ladies from church and fell into bed EXHAUSTED at 11:30pm! Ryan was supposed to spend Saturday in Chicago at a trade show and then meet up with the kids and I in LaCrosse, IN but thankfully his plans changed at the last minute. That means I have some help around this morning while I pack and make cookies!! We leave this afternoon and will be home late Sunday. We are in an out of town potluck group that I think last met before we left for Singapore so we are REALLY looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up:)

Now you know the "craziness" of our lives this past week!

Pictures!!!!! Part 1

We had sweet corn one night for supper a couple of weeks ago and found a double ear

Kenton helping shuck

The twins are really excited about their new play house. Thanks U. Joe and A. Joan! I will try to remember to post a picture of it all painted.

It really took two of them to change THIS light!

Ethan was given this scooter to ride around on until our shipment came by a neighbor.

We have three window wells in our basement where we usually find toads. Occasionally there has been chipmunks, too, and one day we found this baby bunny.

Mom W. and Alison came to help us straighten out papers one day. We have learned through our many moves that if we don't do this time consuming task we usually end up throwing out small but important parts.

We paid the twins 2 cents for each sheet they straightened out. They complained while doing it but once they were in Wal Mart spending that hard earned cash the pain of work was forgotten!

Here are my lovely hanging baskets BEFORE I started killing them...good thing they were half off!

Ethan and Kaitlyn spent one morning watching men pave our street.

Our "new" house. I purposefully chopped off part of the garage as I wasn't comfortable posting our house number on a public forum.

Taking a break for fresh berries

This picture is for those of you who voted on my washer and dryer poll. I ended up going with front loaders from Whirlpool and so far I'm pretty happy with them.

Laundry Room

Front Living Room with all the boxes

When we first moved into the house we had to make do with what we had until our shipments of "stuff" started arriving one by one. The kids loved eating their cereal out of cups for about three mornings and then they complained:)
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More pictures coming soon - I'm too tired to keep going tonight! I have two of Ben and Melissa's kids along with my three and Ryan is in Indy so I'd better head to bed. We are getting closer and closer to being settled though and are slowly starting to feel like we are "home" again!

Our shipment of furniture from Singapore came on Friday morning. The guys unpacked all the boxes and left great big piles of "stuff" everywhere! Ryan's Mom and sister came yesterday and helped for awhile and my Dad and Mom are here today helping.

We are heading down to Forrest for the night and then on to Cissna tomorrow for church to spend some time with G and G Rink. Ryan heads home tomorrow night and the kids and I stay until Monday evening to help do sweet corn - yea!!

About Those Pictures...

I can't find the cord to transfer the pictures from my camera to the computer. I have this funny feeling that I may be waiting until our shipment comes before I'll get them off!! Sorry!!

Wind + New (to us) House = Scary New Noises

It is storming here and while its not a bad storm there have been a few gusts of wind that have made me jump! It causes the windows to creak in a way that I will have to get used to, I guess.

STAY TUNED: PICTURES COMING SOON!!!!

I've been taking pictures the past few weeks and would like to get some posted soon. Since it's once again LATE at night when I finally get around to the computer I am planning on getting them up tomorrow.

We had a fun, busy day helping do applesauce at Mosers followed by supper here with Ricky & Amanda and John & Alison. Thanks to a motivated brother-in-law the yucky blue light bulbs in the front entry light have been changed to a happy, yellow light! I know, I know, not very energy efficient but at least now the front entry feels warm and welcoming instead of cold and sterile:) Also the playhouse from Joe & Joan was taken down to the basement and assembled. Ryan's setting up to paint it tomorrow so the kids can start playing in it ASAP. They are VERY excited, J & J and I have a few pictures to post of that as well!

All my boxes from our KC shipment have been unpacked and now all that's left is to take some of them down to the basement for storage. The movers are supposed to call on Monday to schedule a day to pick up all the boxes and packing paper. Tomorrow we'll work in the morning and then we're planning a fun day together as a family at a park or something. If it rains we'll just have to find something inside to do.

Have a Great Weekend!

Home Sweet Illinois

We are back from our week long adventure in Kansas City and are working on getting settled into our new home. The movers are here as I write this unloading our KC shipment. It is mostly storage items, china, and all electronics. Good news/Bad news: I have a vacuum again which I desperately need but now I have to work:( We are looking for our Singapore shipment sometime next week and then we'll be well on our way to being settled again!

This morning we headed over to the school district office to look into registering the twins for second grade. They weren't sure what to do with the fact that we were coming from another country. We go back to the office next Tuesday where the twins will take placement tests - doesn't that sound more like college then second grade???? We also stopped by the library to get our library cards and to check out books to start knocking off the summer reading list. I managed to grab a book for myself, too:) It's a nice library but smaller than our last Johnson County library and more crowded. We need to find a better time to go, I think!

We spent the afternoon with Jamie and Co. hanging out here at the house and the park. It's been fun for the kids to run around an empty house!

Not much on the calendar for this evening other then unpacking this fresh batch of boxes! Ryan won't be home until late and Ben and Melissa are stopping in after dropping my parents off at the airport. It's not really on their way home but I'm excited they are making the effort to "swing by"!

TTFN!

Paint, Paint, Paint

After our KC Realtor mentioned to us 5 TIMES that we really should repaint our living wall I did just that. While the packers were there today packing everything up I went to work repainting my lovely red living room a blah light tan color that matches the other walls. I have to say that I DON'T LIKE IT!! But, I guess if it helps the house sell then so be it:) I go back tomorrow to do the second coat while everything is loaded onto the moving truck and then that project is DONE. Joan and I were there yesterday and cleaned everything and Ryan and I will head over this weekend to work on trimming bushes and shampooing the carpet. Then it's good-bye to Riley St:(

This week has been harder than I anticipated...

One Step Closer

We closed on our "new" home last Friday and immediately went to work repainting a few rooms and ordering blinds for the windows. Katie and my cousin Anne came for the afternoon and helped paint the kitchen and the boys' room - we were able to pretty much get both rooms done before they left and then I touched up the kitchen on Friday night and the boys' room on Saturday morning. We checked out of the hotel on Saturday morning and spent the day painting, cleaning, and installing blinds. Ryan's family came and helped us for most of the day on Saturday. We are blessed to be able to have such great help:)

Our appliances and beds were delivered and set up so we were able to spend at least one night there before packing up and heading out AGAIN - this time to Kansas City! We drove down to Forrest for church on Sunday morning (it was fun buzzing in and out of there!) and then met up with Joe and Joan's in Lincoln for the drive to KC.

Another busy week is planned here packing up the house, meeting up with old friends, getting pictures taken, and shopping:) I will try to get pictures of our home posted next week once I have my computer back and the Internet is set up. If you want our new phone number and address you can e-mail me.

Moving On

Thanks for the comments from my faithful readers! I was just thinking today that since I probably didn't have anyone left reading it was time to retire the blog. Guess I will bore you a little more with my wonderful life:)

Everyone is better (for now) - gotta love when an illness is bacterial so that it can be treated with antibiotics! Mostly this week we've been busy with running errands, filling out loads and loads of paperwork, finding appliances (needed washer/dryer and fridge), shopping for blinds, and picking out a bunkbed for boys' room and a king size mattress for us. We need a new mattress so I convinced Ryan to upgrade to a bigger mattress - this way we have room for the kids:( The hotel is starting to feel a little small so I'm glad for some fourth of July plans this weekend!

It was so surreal going to Wednesday night church in Elgin - it still feels like we are here on vacation and will be heading home soon - where ever that would be! I'm sure we'll get used to it with time and moving and settling into a house will probably help.

Here are where things stand so far with the whole house thing. We are hoping to close on July 10th. We have a carpet cleaner lined up to be in the house the day before we close so we don't have to worry about staying off the carpets and so they will be done before any furniture gets moved in. Hopefully we get in early enough on the 10th that I can work on getting the kitchen and bathrooms cleaned. We have an air shipment sitting at Ryan's parents that is most of the kitchen, toys, bath towels, etc that we can start unpacking. I would also like to start taping the kitchen and family room so that when I return from packing up the house in KC I can start painting. On the 11th the appliances and beds will be delivered. The kids and I will head down towards Tremont on July 13th to pick up Joan and Collin and head to KC for the week. Our house there gets packed up on the 15th and delivered the next week. It's mostly storage and some furniture that we didn't want to haul all the way to Singapore. Our sea shipment from Singapore will be arriving sometime between the middle of July and the middle of August.

It's hard to answer the question "Are you settled yet?" Seems like the answer "yes" is going to be a few months in coming! NEVERTHELESS God is faithful and we know that all things work together for good for those who put their faith and trust in Him!

Happy Fourth of July to everyone and I'll try to get pictures posted of our new home soon!!

Need New Name For Blog!

If there is anyone left who is still reading this blog: I need suggestions for a new name.

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We had a great, relaxing two and a half weeks down in Forrest and are now settled into our temporary housing up in Elgin. Lord willing we are here for only 2 weeks before we move into our "permanent" house. The kids and I checked in on Saturday night and Ryan arrived from Singapore at 7:00am this morning. He took Kaitlyn and Ethan to church while I stayed home with Kenton - after a second trip to the doctor this evening he's finally on antibiotics for strep. After church Ryan rested up while I ran out to stock up on a few groceries and to get a few things for supper. After an early supper we headed out to drive by the house and spent some time at a park before heading to Ryan's parents to grab a few things from our air shipment. They are kindly storing all 20 boxes until we close on the house in a week and a half! By the time we left there Ethan was sick so when we took Kenton back in on our way home we also had E checked out - he has an ear infection and a sinus infection. Poor guy! At 12:00am everyone but the mom is safely tucked into bed and sleeping.

Off to bed I go!

Goodbye Singapore!

In about 30 minutes we head to the airport. The twins are ready for the flight and have been asking for the past hour if it's time to leave yet. They don't have the same fear of flying as their mother, thankfully! Ethan has a horrible diaper rash so I'm hoping that we don't have too much trouble on the flight. Cream and Motrin helped him fall asleep for his nap. We all woke up early this morning. Ryan took Lovel to her agency because we've run into a major problem with getting her to Norway and I took the kids and met Karen and her two kids one last time at the pool. Before we left Kenton and another neighbor boy, Levi, were running around playing with a cockroach...YUCK! Since then we all took showers and finished up our packing. Kaitlyn was asking about plans for later this week and it was very surreal to look at my calendar and see Singapore activities and US activities all planned for the same week. We are looking forward to getting our trip started (and me to getting it over with!) and meeting up with my parents in LA. We get the straight through flight from here to LA and then we will be spending Monday night there before flying out Tuesday morning for Chicago.

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

Wacky Hair Day

Kenton and his friend Grant on a recent play date after school. Grant has a twin sister Gracie who is a friend of Kaitlyn's. They came in January and are both in Kaitlyn's class.

Recently the twins had wacky hair day at school. This day goes along with a book they read in school, "Stephanie's Ponytail." They all have fun with this:) I tried suggesting wackier hair for Kenton but had to settle as this is the most he would do. Still wacky!

Kaitlyn was fighting me as she had a different style in mind. She and Gracie were going to match but I didn't think it was wacky enough. She ended up being voted wackiest hair in the class so I guess mom was right after all:)

Ethan

Ethan's been an expert on giving us sad looks lately! So I finally grabbed the camera this morning and snapped a quick picture. It's a little blurry but it shows his lower lip out and the sad eyes! He wanted Kaitlyn's DS and I had told him no:)

Not quite as sad anymore but not yet happy!

I will post more from the twins' parties at school but I this was one of my favorite pictures from the day! In a sea of white and navy school uniforms sits a little boy with a bright red shirt. Now, from the looks of things you would think he's being a REAL good listener! The truth is that he stayed like that for about the amount of time it took me to take the picture and then he was off creating chaos and havoc everywhere he went!

I came home one day at noon to find that he had fallen asleep in the chair rather than in his bed upstairs. Guess he wanted a change of scenery. Please don't pay attention to the fact that he is still in his PJ's and its noon!

Our budding tattoo artist! He had even managed to draw on the bottom of his feet. Thankfully it was all with dry erase marker which came off very easily. That was something to be thankful for!

Last Day of School

Today was the last day of school and was very bittersweet; looking forward to new experiences and saying goodbye to special friends. Kenton and his friend Jack walked to school together for the last time.

Kaitlyn and her good friend Sophie

Getting ready to head out to the door for the last day of First Grade! So hard to believe that they are ready for Second Grade and that they are 7!! Where does the time go? (Ethan obviously isn't included in what I just said!)

Kait and Sophie watch as the buses leave. Sophie is also leaving SAS and heading to Austin, TX. She and Kaitlyn had one last play date before we all head out.

Kaitlyn and Sophia getting one last ice cream from the ice cream man who sits outside the back gate. When we first moved here the twins were asking for ice cream every day after school so I quickly made the rule that no ice cream until Fridays and ONLY if they didn't throw tantrums on me walking to and from school. For only S$1.00 you get some good ice cream!

Buses lined up and ready to leave. I have posted a video below of this final farewell - it was fun!

Kenton saying good-bye to Mrs. Coole

Looking at the playground, covered playground (underneath circle building), and the rooftop playground. Behind me is the back gate where a guard stands to let you in and out.

The primary division of SAS

In front of SAS - the administration offices

Kate is one of Ethan's playgroup friends. She loves wearing her winter hat so much that they have a picture of her on the beach in the sand with it on! So cute!

Jack, Kenton, and Charan enjoying "stoplights" after the pizza and fruit.

Tyler, Ryan, Kenton, Charan, and John-Paul

Gracie, Kaitlyn, Orla, and ? (need to ask Kait!) The PTA sponsored pizza party on the last day of school for the primary students is always a hit!

Kenton's class on the last day of first grade

**WARNING** Turn your speakers down before starting this clip as it's quite loud! As the first buses start leaving SAS they all start blaring their horns while the spectators all clap and cheer until the last bus is gone. All the teachers are lined up along with parents and students and wave at the kids on the buses until the last bus is gone. It may sound like chaos to the untrained ear but to a sentimental mom who's not ready to let go it was quite emotional! Enjoy!

MRT Mishap

I guess I get to leave Singapore with a bang! I had lunch this morning at DeliFrance at Causeway Point Mall with a friend, Julie and then hopped on the MRT to find some answers to our Lovel dilemma. Not too far into the trip I closed my eyes for a few minutes - and opened them an hour later to find myself in a stopped and deserted train at the end of the line! I had missed my stop by about 4 stops so instead of going back on the next train I decided to find a cab instead. I was a little miffed that no one including the conductor bothered to wake me up. When I woke up he was well on his way out the door! I guess I'm officially a "local" to be able to sleep on the MRT!!!

On a different note things are moving along for our move. After spending a relaxing day on Sunday (church, naps, and pool) we hit the ground running this morning. I worked on paperwork before heading to lunch with Julie. After the hour long MRT ride I spent another 45 minutes at the Ministry of Manpower finding out how Ryan can cancel Lovel's work pass. (She's in Singapore under my name so we were concerned he wouldn't be able to cancel her pass.) Then I headed in a taxi over to Paragon shopping center on Orchard Road, picked up Melissa T, headed home, dropped off things, and walked down to school to pick up the twins. The evening has been spent sorting things for the movers and getting our air shipment ready. They come Wednesday morning to pack that up.

Since apparently I am tired, I'm heading to bed! Good Night!

Phuket

Finally I have the pictures ready to post of Phuket. Click HERE to view the slideshow. Please note that since I haven't had a lot of time there may be misspellings, blurry pictures, and a few doubles.

Enjoy!

First Goodbye's

I'm trying something a little different. I've had much trouble uploading pictures lately so I'm going to post a link to Picasa. It's the user, not the software!

A few weeks ago we said our first goodbye to Brian and Fay and their two children. When we finally left that evening everyone was sad on the way back home. We've really enjoyed getting to know them and are going to miss them! We're working on getting them to move to Chicago:) To see pictures of our last evening together click here. (Then you will need to click on the collage to view it bigger.)

I'm STILL working on our Phuket pictures and hopefully will have them available soon to post. I also need to get around to posting pictures of the twins from wacky hair day at school a few weeks back.

Ryan and I have slowly been checking off our "to do" list! Most of the paperwork is done - for now - and I've been working on sorting and packing up a few things like toys, books, and linens. I need the moving company to bring more packing paper and boxes so I'm at a stand still on that for now. We also purchased tickets for my parents to meet us out in LA - plans changed and the kids and I will be spending the night in a hotel because there isn't a Southwest flight out the same evening that we get in from Singapore. So my parents were willing to come out and meet us to help with the rest of the flight back the next day. I made 48 cupcakes today (but still need to frost them) for the twins' parties at school tomorrow. Then Saturday we have their birthday party at our pool from 3 - 5. It's kind of a going away party/birthday party. Tomorrow evening I'm going with a few of my friends for a little farewell get together. Sunday is a free day before another busy week begins.

I can NOT believe that we are down to 5 days of school left and 11 days until we leave here for good.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Here is a video of Kenton's turtle research project.

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Kenton asked me after school today:

"Mom, which came first the chicken or the egg?"

ME:

"UMMM, the egg."

Kenton:

"Nope. The chicken."

ME:

"How do you know that?"

Kenton:

"Well, God made the chicken and then the chicken laid eggs."

Ryan was able to knock buying a car off my to-do list - we got the same van we had before moving here except it's a little newer and a different color - silver. We were happy with it so decided to stick with the tried and true:)

We also put in an offer on a house. It's a short sale which means it will take awhile for the bank to approve our offer and then to close on the house. There is another offer on the table for it as well which means it could fall through if the bank accepts the other offer. We don't want to get into a bidding war so if the other party raises their offer above ours we are back to looking again. We figure that we have time so are not going to rush into anything. We will be in temporary housing in Schaumburg for the first two months that we are back home and then may have to move to a rental place if the paperwork is still being processed for the house and we can't close.

Ryan also brought back my new cell phone. I was planning on sticking with the phone I had before but since I'm switching cell phone providers I had to get a different phone. So we're trying something new - we are not going to get a home phone and just use cell phones. We had talked about doing this a few years ago but were too nervous. This seemed like a good time to make the switch and by the time we actually get to move into a house we will know if it was a good choice or not! I've been busy putting all my contacts into the phone so that I'm ready to go when we land in the US:) I will get my new number out to family/friends as soon as I get a new one assigned. When I ordered the phone I told them which area code I wanted but for some reason they gave me a KC one instead - maybe it's a sign!

I'm heading to lay down - I have had a headache for the past few hours and am hoping I'm not getting strep. Ethan fell asleep on the chair and it's only 5pm so I hope he isn't getting it either!

Moving Update

What laundry day at the Weiss's looks like!

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Sorry to leave you all hanging by not posting another update! I still plan on posting pictures from our Thailand trip but since we took so many I'm working on a slide show with captions to post. We had a wonderful time there and it was very relaxing - just what the doctor ordered as it's been hectic since then!

I spent the first few days this week tracking down a few things that family requested us to bring back and now I'm glad to say that we are officially done purchasing things here other then food! Ryan's back in the US this week meeting his new co-workers, looking for a house, buying a car, and picking up my cell phone that I pre-ordered. I figured that was easier then dragging three kids out cell phone shopping! I knew what I wanted anyway so it was just a matter of ordering it.

As far as a house I will keep you posted! There has been a lot of looking at places and back and forth about where to live, which house to put an offer in on, that I haven't really written about it. Sometimes our decision has changed daily about what to do so I don't want to publicly say anything until we've put in an offer. That could happen tomorrow so stayed tuned - like I said things can change:)

Today is a huge paperwork day for me - I'm taking care of looking into cancelling Lovel's work pass so she can move on to Norway, filling out shipping insurance paperwork (in case they damage or lose our shipment), filling out the billion documents that they need in order to process our move, and cleaning out Kenton's room and the office. I've done these two rooms recently so it's just a matter of making sure it's all organized before they come in to pack us up. That way it should make unpacking a little bit easier.

Tomorrow we have student-led conferences and my last shift at the PTA Sales office. Saturday is the last of the twins' baseball/softball games followed by a little awards ceremony and then I can relax the rest of the day:) I'm always all for relaxing! Sunday is another day of no plans before another busy, busy week begins!