No More Junk

We just moved. AGAIN! I am so sick of moving and I hope that we don't move again for a very VERY long time. Josh and I are coming up on our ten year anniversary and in those 10 years we have moved 8 times now. That includes a five month stay at my mother's house last spring and staying at my grandmother's place while looking for a house to buy and then waiting for our house to be built. I never felt like I moved all of the time until now. But hopefully we will be here for awhile. We moved into my Mom and Dad's house. They are empty nesters with a large house. My dad has Parkinson's and has a hard time moving around and stairs aren't easy. He also can no longer take care of the necessary things around the house. So we came up with a solution.... We are living in their house and will hopefully be buying it when Josh is done with school. And they moved into a smaller and more manageable house that doesn't have stairs.

Our kids are going to Blue Creek School now which is a small county school and they love it. I didn't want to move them from Big Sky until I knew that we would be permanent but I figure this is close enough. As of yesterday we are officially DONE with our other place and every corner and shelf was cleaned and the inspection is done. That is the worst part for me. I don't mind going through all of the stuff and boxing it up and hauling it all over. And I really enjoy unpacking and putting everything in the right place and getting it all organized. But having to devote days to scrubbing out an empty place that you are just leaving behind, well let's say that I would rather be cleaning just about anything else. My aunt and cousin helped me out with the kiddos and my sister pitched in to help me finish in time for the inspection. THANK YOU!

Now I have a large house in desperate need of attention. My mom still has stuff in most closets and on the walls and I have stuff.... everywhere. This is definitely a crazy move and someday when I get it all organized and pretty I will post a picture or two. Maybe. It is strange living here with all of my stuff in a house that I am so familiar with. My parents have never lived in a house for as long as they have lived in this one. We all still call it grandma's house. And we probably will for a really long time.

Four Eyes

Well, it was really only a matter of time before one of my children got one of my not so wonderful traits. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Ethan was playing his MarioKart on the Wii while he was about an arms-length away from the TV. Hmmm... it was a strange sight and not just the usual "I am a kid so I want to sit close" kind of situation. He looked really weird because he was standing up too. So I remembered that and figured that I better make an eye appointment for him. Of course I didn't. Then something happened a couple of days ago while we were out as a family so when we got home I grabbed a notebook and a big black sharpie. I had Josh hold Ethan on his lap and I wrote out letters in block format like at the eye doctor and we gave Ethan our own homemade eye test. He failed. Josh and Kendra could read it all just fine but Ethan was struggling. So we got him an eye appointment on Monday and sure enough he needs glasses.

He was actually really excited to be getting glasses and his prescription is strong enough that he will need (and most likely want) to wear them all of the time. I was glad that we were able to catch it early and before school started. But seriously the kid just turned 7! He is really going to be in for it. His mother can't even read the big "E" at the top of the eye chart. I am sure that his eyes will only get worse as he grows up like mine did. But in the meantime he is just happy to see the leaves on the trees and many other things that the world now offers him.

We got him two sets of glasses. One a little more contemporary and bolder then a nice pair of blue wire-rimmed ones. Josh and I both like the bolder, thicker frames and I was worried that he wouldn't like them as much, but they are his favorites! He is looking super stylish now and can't wait to go to school to show them off. We headed to the park right after picking up his glasses and I just had to laugh as he told random kids that he wears glasses. His excitement was too cute.

We have a winner!

For the second summer now we participated in the public library's summer reading program. The kids log the hours that they read and for every hour they get a ticket to put into canisters that represent different prizes. Also, when they go to the library they can do weekly activities and different library activities and for each one they complete they also get a ticket. Well my kids LOVE to read and Kendra was bound and determined to win something this year. Last year Preston won a mystery bag full of different books and things. Ethan was gung ho at the start but didn't last long and actually didn't get much reading done. Kendra would spend hours in her room reading all kinds of books. The library puts a five hour per day cap on it and there were a couple of days that she hit that cap. From the start of the program Kendra really wanted the Ipod shuffle. She put tickets in other canister too, but she really just wanted the ipod. She told me many times how much she hoped to win it. Well the last day came and they drew the winners and we went online to see if anyone had won anything what would you know....Kendra WON the IPOD! She was jumping up and down and screaming in excitement.

When we went to claim her prize she was shaking with excitement and the librarian could she just how excited she was. She got to have her picture taken in front of one of the prize cabinets.Kendra definitely worked hard to win that Ipod and logged over 40 hours of reading. GOOD JOB KENDRA!!