It Can Only Go Up From Here

Could a day get any worse? Let's see...it started out with Ethan getting into the fridge and pulling a shelf in the door down - picture glass jars meeting marble floor. Yep, mayonnaise and spaghetti sauce and butter all over the kitchen floor. So, I kick all kids out of the kitchen, pick up glass, clean up mayonnaise, sweep up shards of glass from all over the floor, and end with mopping to try to get all the grease. Then, Ethan tears apart a flower arrangement and pulls a glass dish out of the hutch onto the marble floor....thankfully it didn't break. Then he gets on top of the table (one of the twins left their chair out) and spills OJ all over the table and himself - time for a change of clothes. Then he (starting to see a theme here?) grabs a full container (we're talking the big ones, not the individual serving size) of yogurt and starts walking around while dumping it all over the floor. Another change of clothes for Ethan and cue the mop again. Last but not least, I find him banging a toy against a wood toy box making dents in the wood. He's in bed for a nap. Oh - and all this happened with THREE of us in the house. The twins are home from school today as Kenton wasn't feeling well and I didn't have a way to get Kaitlyn to school without taking Kenton.

The Unexpected

I was getting ready to type this post when I looked down at my keyboard and saw this tiny little inch worm. It seriously was "inching" across the keyboard! I don't think that I have ever seen anything like it before. I scooped him up on an envelope and told Kenton to take him outside. He just came back in and said, "Don't worry, Mom! I put him where it was safe and dry!" I can't say that I was worried - I just wanted him out of MY house:)

*****

Speaking of dry it's been raining A LOT this past week. I read online where March is the end of the North East Monsoon season and generally is when the rain picks up again before becoming drier through the "summer" months.

*****

"North-East Monsoon Season - December to early March

Northeast winds prevail, sometimes reaching 20 km/h. Cloudy conditions in December and January with frequent afternoon showers. Spells of widespread moderate to heavy rain occur lasting from 1 to 3 days at a stretch. Relatively drier in February till early March. Also generally windy with wind speeds sometimes reaching 30 to 40 km/h in the months of January and February." www.app.nea.gov.sg

*****

I don't mind the rain so much as it's made for cooler days around here - the average high has been low 90's and today the highest temp recorded has been 82 degrees. When I went to pick the twins up from school there was a cool breeze blowing and a smell of cut grass was wafting on the breeze. It reminded me of Spring back home and made me lonesome for my tulips! I know that they are poking up through the ground right now - and the rabbits have probably gotten to them as I doubt our renters would know to put blood meal around them.

*****

Ryan was in Thailand last week (in Phuket) and this week is in Australia along the "Gold Coast" area. He's been presenting to different groups within the company and has started visiting with customers. His first Six Sigma class starts up the third week of March and that will be here in Singapore.

*****

Apparently the previous tenant didn't pay all his bills! We keep getting ominous looking envelopes in the mail that we suspect may be from bill collectors that are addressed to the same guy. Ryan said that a few weeks ago a bill collector showed up on our door step looking for him - Yikes! One day in the mail we received mail for THREE different families who must have lived here in the past. I don't know how the mail works here in Singapore - if people don't notify the PO of change of address or if they are not efficient at forwarding mail.

****

I had the first of four scrapbooking classes last night with five other women. It was fun and I'm feeling motivated to start turning out pages - too bad my scrapbooking "things" are sitting exactly where I left them by the front door when I arrived home last night!

****************************************************************************

Kaitlyn likes to roam around the house listening to "her" music and singing.
Twins doing their homework yesterday on the couch. They usually have reading to do and Kenton has spelling words once a week that he needs to correct.

Bok Choy, anyone?

This morning the Newcomer's group that I joined back in January took a field trip to the Little India wet market. The leader's son, Aaron, just graduated college as a chef so he met us there to educate us on all the local fruits and vegetables and how to cook them. Some day I would love to go back and look at the rest of the stalls as today we concentrated only on the produce - I will skip the meat stalls, though, as the smell is a little overwhelming! It was very interesting and I'm looking forward to trying some of the local produce.

************

Egg noodles, anyone? These are used in stir fries. There were also bean sprouts (kind of hidden behind the lady on the left) and tofu. You can also purchase fried tofu - seems like that defeats some of the purpose of tofu but on the other hand anything fried tends to taste better!
This man was cutting up jack fruit. We all tried a piece and I wasn't too impressed. It's more of a melon-y flavor than sweet. We were told that it's better dried as the flavor is more concentrated so I'll try it that way first before I completely write it off. We also sampled some rose apple which was bland - not bad, though. The bright pink fruit behind the jack fruit is dragon fruit - it looks like a white kiwi inside but has a very bland flavor. Here is one of the fruit stalls - notice that there are a lot of recognizable fruits as well! There are mango's in the box by the lady with the pink shirt.

Aaron is explaining to our group the different vegetables and what they are used for. One that I want to try soon is called baby bok choy. I will have to post a picture because I'm not sure how to describe it. You steam it and than add an oyster sauce and dried shallots (type of red onion) to the top. I had it at a hawker's center once and really liked it...now it's time to try making it myself!
**************
I'm not sure if I already posted about a provisioner so if I have please forgive me. I had a man call me last week who is known as a "provisioner." He calls each morning, except Sunday, and asks if there is anything you need. He can deliver anything you can buy in a supermarket to your home - usually before 6pm that same day. He has been a life saver to me as he can usually get hard to find items - like Pillsbury crescent rolls:) I haven't used him every day but there have been times when I haven't been able to make it to the grocery store so I've had him bring milk, oj, spices, Coke, beef bouillon, applesauce (which I can't find), and Kosher salt. I also found an online butcher the other day where I was able to order brisket - a cut of meat that is hard to find here. Most things from back home are available here - you just need to know how to find them! We have pork ribs in the slow cooker for supper tonight:) YUM! Add some real mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and bakery bread and you have a good KC meal! Incidentally, slow cookers are very popular here - most likely because they save you from heating up the kitchen with the stove.
**********************
This one is for Dad R - I can hear a thunder storm moving in:) Days that there is rain it's so humid that you find yourself taking a shower 3 times a day!

***********************
One Last Note of Interest:

For those of you who have been following the news there have been several earthquakes in Indonesia (Sumatra, which is directly to the West of Singapore) this past week. It's possible that they are gearing up for another big one like the one in 2004 that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami. Singapore has been proclaimed by geologists as one of the safest places in the world, tectonically (safer, even, than Central Illinois should a big quake occur along the New Madrid fault line.) Since Singapore is a relatively young nation most high rise buildings have been built to withstand the tremors that we do feel from the bigger earthquakes. We haven't felt any of the past week's tremors.

If you are interested I posted a link below that will give you more information on Singapore and earthquakes.

http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=1199

Our Ship Has Come In

I've always wanted to say that:) Unfortunately our ship did not contain money BUT it did contain our life's belongings which is just as nice!

*****

WoW! What to say about move-in day? Let's see, Ethan's into everything, some boxes contain items from three different levels of our old place, I have a LONG list of things that we still need, Ethan's driving me crazy, we still don't have the promised patio furniture (I think that we're back to looking for it ourselves), the movers kind of dumped things out of boxes, and Ethan systematically broke glass on the marble floor.

*****

We are slowly getting unpacked - the kitchen is done, the laundry room and maid's room (storage room) are done, the dining area and living room are unpacked although not entirely put together, and I'm working on the office. The three bedrooms still need to be done but it's easy to just shut the door. I'm getting everything into closets and off the floor and than next week I'll work on organizing everything.

*****

We had an interesting experience the first night in the condo. After we went to bed we starting hearing a clicking noise - like the noise a barbed wire fence makes, or when you click two fingernails together. We turned on the lights and started rustling through all our clothes on the floor but the noise continued and we never saw anything. We went into the hallway next where we also heard the noise and figured out that it was coming from the floorboards. Our next thought was that we had some kind of pest living in the wood floors and were worried that our furniture would be next. There are a few of you who we called that first night that are going to laugh when you hear what we have learned that it was! Since the condo hadn't been lived in for awhile the noise was being produced by the wood floor because we had turned the air con on...:) Yep, it's from the air conditioning! I guess it was drying out the floor boards which had been recently varnished and causing them to shift and "click!" I'm just thankful that it wasn't the death-watch beetle...or geckos...or cockroaches!

*****

Anyway, today was another Singapore day but I'll save that for another post - some day I'll laugh but not today! Thank you to my friend who prayed for me at lunch:)

*****

Kaitlyn came home early from school with a 103 fever - stay tuned! Hopefully it is viral and will clear up soon. OH, YEAH! While I was picking her up from the nurse's office they were checking a class for lice...say a prayer that it avoids us!

*****

On Sunday we brought our first load over to our "new" place and Ethan kept climbing into the suitcases with the toys and playing:)

This is part of the kitchen. I will post a link to a podcast with a video tour once we've finished unpacking and everything is set up.

This picture is a little dark because of the windows in the background. The back wall is all windows and off to your right behind the screen are sliding glass doors leading out to a patio.

Another view of the living room. It's starting to look like home! We have a 2 hour free handyman service through our moving company that will come and hang pictures and my clock.

Boxes, boxes everywhere! This was the beginning of unloading us:) Here you are looking towards the front door on the right and the kitchen straight ahead. It's our eating area and the living room is directly behind me.

PS: I was having some trouble with formatting paragraphs so therefore the "*****" between paragraphs. Also my spell check isn't working so hopfuly i din't spel to much rong!! Better go save my things from ETHAN!

I was able to find a place to print photos last evening. Kaitlyn needed two pictures for school today - one when she was a baby and one from now. Thankfully I have a lot of pictures on our computer or she may not have had any baby pictures for the project.

Slowly but surely I'm finding most of what I need. I don't know if I mentioned the other day that I finally found a store that carries office supplies - it was tucked inside a book store and I NEVER would have looked there! I also found a bigger grocery store in that same mall - more choices, same prices. I found a box of Lucky Charms as a surprise for the twins - they are stale but the kids don't seem to mind! I was pleasantly surprised today when we opened a box of Wheatables from the same store that they are still fresh! That's a plus over here where the humidity is usually 70% or higher. The average rain fall for January is 7.8 inches - compare that to an average of 1.2 for Kansas city in the same month!

Kenton is home from school sick this morning and as you can see Ethan's thrilled that his buddy is home! I can't keep him away from Kenton so I'm praying that he doesn't get sick as well! He never sits on the couch when he's home by himself:) As you can see, Kenton is mad at me because I won't let him eat! That's the hardest part of the flu, I think!

Kenton's been into drawing Bengal Tigers lately:) Thought I'd share some of his recent art work! I like how they are smiling - are they looking at me thinking, "Lunch!"???


The video is from Ryan's recent trip to Macau up by China. He was there for the Adhesive Group's annual business meeting. He said that he was 6 stories up in the hotel and the water from the fountain was at least eye level with him at times! It is set to music which you may not be able to hear. He said that Macau was a lot like Las Vegas - just the China version. I think that he'll post his experiences for us sometime over the weekend:)

Yuuummmm! - Oh and Brian's back!

I discovered tonight that if you take Australian beef and add salt, pepper, onion, lots of cream of chicken soup and sour cream you hide the taste of the beef:) I suppose that also defeats the purpose of eating meat but it worked for me! The twins kept saying, "This tastes like Kansas!" I also found out today why it tastes different. I met someone from Australia today while the kids were swimming that told me the beef is grass fed instead of grain fed...she actually doesn't like the taste of grain fed beef...imagine that! :)

One thing this woman also clued me in on which I had already seen to some extent is how the Asians will stop in the street to touch and talk to your baby. She said they especially like little boys. BUT, it's not okay to do the same to their children! She said that sometimes you need to ask them to back off. She also said that they have ended up in a lot of pictures with Asians as they seem to think that we are something to take a picture with - like a scenic view! So different than back home! Can you imagine walking up to someone who looks different than you saying, "Can we have our picture taken with you?" Puts you on celebrity status, I suppose!

I got a "hand phone" yesterday evening so now I can call Ryan when I'm out and about and I'm lost! It's cheaper than the US even though they charge extra for caller ID and voice mail. I've already got about 5 people in my address book:)

What I have to say next will only mean something to those of you who were at our wedding when I almost married "Brian"! The flowers we received the other day were addressed to "Brian and Becky" and our Realtor sent an e-mail earlier to "Brian" - So I've concluded that it must have been "Brian" that I moved over here with! He has popped up every once in awhile during our (almost) 10 years of marriage!!

$6/lb???

Today was a crazy busy day so I apologize that I didn't get anyone called! I did try to catch up on a few e-mails while you were all sleeping but only had so much time - sorry if I haven't gotten to yours yet! For those who keep asking about our home phone - I fried our router and we haven't had time to figure out how to get a new one...Sorry!

We started off the day going to the Hong Kong Bank of Singapore to set up our accounts. We were able to take a bus straight there but had trouble getting a bus back. After we walked to the second bus stop and were looking at a map a nice man asked if we needed help and pointed out that we were only about a 5 minute walk back to our apartment! It was a nice walk and the good thing is that Kaitlyn and Ethan were ready for naps when we got back. True to form, since he was 2 years old, Kenton continues to resist naps even when he's falling asleep on his feet!! I was able to get in a short nap before a storm woke up Ethan and sent Kenton running into my room. It rained most of last night and quite a bit during the day today. We experienced our first thunderstorm but it was kind of a dud compared to the Midwestern whoppers! The twins think that it's so much fun to use umbrellas - we'll see if they still feel that way when we leave here:)

Later in the afternoon I made a trip to Cold Storage - the local grocery store that caters (kind of) to expats. I think that they cater more towards Europeans as there are more of them here than us. I was able to find an El Paso taco kit - and paid $6 US a pound for ground beef!! It was from Australia but it still tastes Asian. Thankfully the taco box told me exactly how much meat was needed - 500 Grams - or I wouldn't have had a clue what to tell the lady behind the meat counter what I needed! El Paso tacos here also come from Australia - isn't that a US brand? I noticed that Coca Cola is made in Singapore and Kellogg's cereal is made somewhere in Asia as well. That explains why it tastes different even though it looks the same:) I suppose we'll get used to it and come back to the US and think everything there tastes different. I'm compiling quite the list of things that I'm going to stock up during our next trip home. Or maybe someone who is coming to visit will be kind enough to bring some in their suitcase:)

We ended our day with more apartment shopping. We viewed two that are within walking distance of the Singapore American School - both were quite nice. We also went back through two - one from yesterday and one from Saturday that we also think will work. We're narrowing it down and will hopefully have come to a decision by morning! We are working on a list of pros and cons...

Anyway, I'd better post this before it gets much longer! I'm heading to bed as we've been having early mornings with the kiddos. That won't change as the bus is picking them up next week at 6:45am!!! I think that's crazy early for Kindergartners but there really isn't any other way to get them there - thankfully it's only until February when we can move into our new home.

Squares or Triangles?

I grew up with my mom cutting my sandwiches into rectangles or squares. And I always wished she would cut them into triangles as that looked so much more fun! So ever since the twins starting eating PBJ's I've been cutting them into triangles thinking that was a way more fun way to eat them. Today they complained that they want them cut into rectangles instead! I guess that I will continue to torture them with triangles and when they are old enough they can cut them into squares:) Maybe I'll post a new survey about this:)

ON to our day! Quite the day it's been so far and it's only 4:30pm!! It started with the twins waking up EARLY which I guess they need to get into the habit of doing anyway. The upside is that I can call family and catch them all late afternoon/early evening:) Than our shipment came at 10:30am which was exciting - until I started thinking "Why on EARTH did we ship this??? Where are we going to put THAT??" I guess you never know going into something what to expect so I keep telling myself that we did the best we could:) THAN, I decided to get our Vonage router hooked up so we could start using our home phone number again - well, I plugged it in and than "POP!!" and smoke. I tripped the breaker for the whole apartment and blew the router. I promised Ryan that will be the last time I will plug in something new without first checking with him on the proper way to use converters.

It took some doing before I finally got someone up here to fix the electric problem. Next the kids and I headed to Ikea for a few things. I discovered that they have a lot of "things" but very few of them were actually what I needed! I did get some hangers, a few plastic storage boxes, and a tool kit so we can assemble one of Kait's Christmas gifts that came today. Now, to figure out where to get batteries, a laundry basket, a cheap fan, and a bottle washer. I have all those coming in our sea pack that won't be until the first week of February.

We're mostly unpacked and settled in now - I need to finish unpacking the kids' clothes and than we'll be good until it's time to pack up and start all over at our "permanent" place:)

Kids Sleeping EVERYWHERE!

Last night (Saturday evening) after a long day apartment hunting all three kids fell asleep in various spots! Kait fell asleep in a chair which doesn't look very comfortable! I'm pretty sure my back would give me trouble if I tried to fall asleep this way:)

Ethan fell asleep in Daddy's arms! What a better way to end the day? He fell asleep at 4pm for what was supposed to be a nap and slept through until 4 am and was ready to be awake for the day! We tried to wake him during the evening but you can see the result of that below!
We were given an extra cot for the twins but some things never change! They prefer to share a bed still:) I'm not arguing with that as I know that those days are numbered.
Ethan in one of his happier moments. He's been a little pistol - getting into absolutely everything! He's been much more a "boy" than Kenton was - this evening he was sitting on the couch with Ryan whacking him over the head with a toy.
Kenton was sitting at the table playing (where K & K have both learned they need to be to stay out of Ethan's reach) when Ethan decided to "talk" to Kenton. They went on this way for quite awhile!

The Missing Has Been Found!!!

I'm overjoyed to announce that our missing luggage arrived this afternoon right as we were finishing up church services! It was like Christmas digging through them:) Of all the bags that were lost they were the two that we needed the most. I asked the twins today if they realized that God had answered our prayers that our luggage would be found:) BTW: They were routed through Hong Kong - I'm not sure why but I saved the tag from the bags! Thought that would make for an interesting scrapbook page - our luggage went to China!

One thing in those bags were all the Bath and Body Works soaps that I stocked up on before leaving home - it's so nice to have them sitting next to our sinks as a reminder of home:)

We had Sunday School this morning followed by a visit with brothers and sisters from KC over Skype. They were at a singing so we were able to visit a little before we listened to a sermon. We were so blessed to be able to experience fellowship during our first Sunday away from home! God is good!

It's been nice to spend today as a family without any worldly interruptions! After church the twins and Ryan went swimming for awhile and than took a walk. The rain drove them back home - we need umbrellas! We're all going out again for another walk after Ethan wakes up from his nap - we haven't had the chance to do a lot of that since arriving here and there are really nice trails close to where we live.

Home Sweet Home

Well, for another 5 days anyway! It's hard to believe that we'll be living somewhere else soon. I just figured out the other day that I've lived in this house longer than anywhere else since I left home for college. Makes it a little hard to say goodbye:(

Where's Ethan?

We've been playing a new game lately..."Hey! Where'd Ethan go?" I have learned that most of the time I don't really want to know the answer to that. He may be destroying Kaitlyn's room, or eating crayons, or breaking night lights, or - UGH! - swishing his hands in the toilet!! It's an adventure most days for him:) His favorite thing to do today is to climb on top of the Little Tykes picnic table and than chew us all out because he can't get back down! You would think that he'd learn...must be his daddy coming out in him...I'm smarter than that;)

Better Late Than Never!

Here it is, finally! This is a slideshow from the Annual Kellenberger Weiner Roast back in Sept. It took me forever to figure out how to make it and post it...So, here it is! To view the slideshow just click on the play button under the picture below. PS: I take no responsibility for pictures of people eating:)

Tis the season for....Stomach flu:(

Our home is becoming more and more cleaned out as the time to move gets closer and closer. We took a load of things home the last trip back and now Mom and Dad are taking the twins' bunk beds, the John Deere Gator, and odds and ends from our garage back to Illinois. We are going to get a new bed for the twins but we haven't decided what would be the best yet. We are considering a bunk bed with a trundle in case all three kiddos need to sleep in the same room for awhile...they do anyway...or a twin over a double. We went shopping on Friday evening for storage shelves and baskets as storage will be an issue over there. We also bought an area rug for Kaitlyn's room since none of the condos there have carpeting. Most people use area rugs but they are SO expensive there compared to here. This next week I am going to try to finish cleaning out every closet, under every bed, and the storage room so when the movers come we can tell them exactly what's going. After Thanksgiving we'll rent a storage unit and start putting things into storage that we aren't taking with us. It's such an ordeal to move 2 adults plus 3 children. I have a spreadsheet that says what toys, clothes, etc are going with us on the plane, which ones will be air shipment, which ones will be sea pack, which ones are going into storage, and which ones we are donating:)

We enjoyed a nice weekend with Dad, Mom, and Rachel. They leave tomorrow morning. Hopefully we didn't give them a present of the stomach flu. Ethan had it first early last week, than Kaitlyn on Thurs, and finally Kenton this morning. I've been washing my hands so much that they are raw!

The weather has been gorgeous - although a little more sunshine would have been nice. We were in the 70's today and tonight it still feels nice...maybe I'll stick K & K in bed and head on a walk. They are getting to stay up late since A. Rachel is here...

Prayers of the Innocent

Sometimes I wonder if anything I teach or tell the twins sinks in. Tonight I was given a special little glimpse into an innocent soul when Kaitlyn asked to say the bedtime prayer. After saying the "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" prayer I usually add a blessing on family and pray for any needs that we know of. Kaitlyn said the first part and hesitated before adding "God bless grandmas, grandpas, all our aunts and our uncles and our cousins, and bless daddy and make him come home safe to our house and tell (name withheld) that he needs to repent so he can go to heaven, In Jesus Name We Pray, Amen!"

Like Father, Like Son!

Last week while we are at my Mom and Dad's Ethan found the change jar. He figured out how to get the lid off and reach in and grab coins...he MUST take after his daddy:) He would stand there and swish his little hand around in the coins until he finally had a handful. Than, straight to his mouth they would go! I tried and tried to post the video of him doing this as it's pretty funny but I couldn't get it to work.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip and Other Things

Well, I survived my first field trip with a group of Kindergartners!! It was an ear splitting good time - listening to a whole bus load of 5 year olds sing nursery rhymes over and over and OVER isn't exactly my idea of a way to spend my morning! BUT, it was fun to spend the time with the twins and see how they are with their friends at school:)

Kaitlyn hit the slides with two of her friends - over and over again. Are you starting to see a theme here?!?

We rode a hay rack out to the pumpkin patch where we had our pick of tiny pumpkins to take home with us. Here is Kaitlyn with the one that she picked out.

Here is Kenton with HIS tiny, little pumpkin!

Kaitlyn decided to jump in with the boys and make a scarecrow.

Here is Mrs. Wiley's Kindergarten class - Fall 2007

Onto the "other" things. I thought that I'd write a quick update on Singapore. We've been keeping really busy doing all the little things that come along with such a move. I scheduled Hepatitis A vaccines for us next week along with our usual flu shots. That is really the only recommendation for shots that we haven't already gotten. I'm going to see if they will speed up Ethan's schedule as Indonesia has reported cases of Polio. We have interviewed two rental management companies for our home and now are making the final decision of which one to go with. Both want to start showing the house beginning of November to potential renters so we've been cleaning out and cleaning up. We've been filling out paperwork to get work passes and dependent passes for Singapore. We are waiting official word from the Singapore American School on whether the twins are in for the Spring semester or not. If they aren't we have a choice of a private Christian school or homeschooling until next Fall when they could for sure get in. We have the moving company coming in the middle of November to tell us what will fit in a 40 foot container and what the transit times are for our things. We also get a 650 lb air shipment of things that we will need immediately. I have gone through the house and made a very detailed spread sheet of what's staying, going, being stored, or donated. This way we know exactly what to tell the movers and we have a detailed shipping list in case something gets lost or damaged. We have started stocking up on things like our favorite soaps, diapers, summer clothes, printer paper, etc. to send over in our shipment. I have quite an extensive list of things to get in case they don't have it there, thanks to Lynn:) I am ordering a really good stroller since we'll be doing a lot of walking...We've also picked out area rugs to send since they are considerably cheaper here. All the condos have marble floors and I want to have cozy rugs:) We're also starting to collect medical records to take with us as well. There is SO much planning that goes into a move like this that it can be overwhelming at times! Than, we take a step back, a deep breath, and say a prayer that God will work out the small details along with the big ones...and so far He has!!

We have our first Parent/Teacher conference tomorrow and than we are heading back to Illinois for the weekend. Ryan's going to spend time in Peoria helping Grandma Joos get a few things done and I'm going to help the twins make a REAL pumpkin pie:) Should be fun! We're heading to Elgin for the weekend and than we are home until Thanksgiving while our families come and visit US:)

Peace and Quiet

Finally I have some peace and quiet around here:) The kiddos have been in bed since 8 although they aren't sleeping yet - well, Ethan is but the two that really need to be aren't! It was a rather quiet Monday around here. It was cloudy and cool most of the day so I stayed home and unmotivated. I achieved three things today - I got the twins off to school, I made supper, and I cleaned out the junk drawer. I think that last task more than makes up for the fact that I achieved little else today:)

Ryan and I nailed down the dates today for our move and he contacted the moving company to get everything confirmed. The twins should be accepted into SAS and our official acceptance letter will be here by early November. It's amazing how all the pieces continue to fall into place! When I start to worry about something I make myself take a step back and think about how God is completely in control of our lives and this move. It makes things easier for sure!

We hosted our last potluck:( yesterday. It was a very nice evening and it was fun to decorate my tables with nice dishes and tablecloths and centerpieces! With three little ones running around I don't get to do that often. This week will be a busy one. I have a meeting tomorrow at school for the Fall Party and than it's my day to volunteer in the classroom. Wednesday I head to Topeka for a little get together with my Sabetha friends - I'm really looking forward to meeting up with them and getting to spend some time without children...uninterrupted talking - how nice! Friday I head off on a field trip with the twins to the pumpkin patch - should be fun as long as it doesn't rain:) This weekend we head to Illinois for a wedding - October is going to be over before we know it!

Update on the cheesecake (and Thurs evening)

Kaitlyn in a finer moment...read on!

Well, my evening the other night did NOT turn out as planned...more about that in a minute....what DID turn out was the cheesecake and I ended up calling a (skinny) friend on Friday and told her to come and get the rest of it lest I finish off a half a cheesecake by myself - oh it CAN be done!

About the rest of that evening...Let's just say that Kaitlyn melted in a temper tantrum more than once and during the last one as we were cleaning up supper and getting ready to go to the Bible Study I told her that she didn't get to go to the bonfire and had to go to bed. She didn't receive that well but was in bed at 7:05...and was SOUND asleep by 7:10. I would say someone was over tired. I asked her the next morning if she'd learned her lesson and she said, "No." ARGHHHH!!! I was disappointed to miss the Bible study but she needed a consequence that would hurt - even if it was only for the 5 minutes it took her to fall asleep:)

PS to the 7:05 bedtime....she was wi-ide awake by 6:30am and in our room talking...we won't try putting her to bed that early again as I don't really like to see that side of 8am:) I know, I know...so I like to sleep in!!

The Culprit and The Damage

Okay, so it really wasn't too bad. He just has shorter bangs (do little boys have bangs?) than before and has a little tail hanging down that is all that's left of the hair he had.