Missed blogging

Long time, no post. The family has been

*trying to make this house into a permanent home. (The china has actually been washed and put into cabinets!)

*rescued Bandit a year old male kitty from the humane society. He was to be a friend to the lonely Skittles since her big sister Checkers died. Turns out we were wrong. She is scared of him and he is taking advantage of this fact. He has a little stomach issue and is quarantined. Fun times at our house! Luke keeps asking me if Bandit has to go back. I don't think I have the heart to do that... but I KNOW THERE WILL BE NO MORE ANIMALS IN THIS HOUSE! You can quote me on that!

*looking for a job... with 10% of the country. I am so grateful Ed is bringing home the pay and the benefits! When nurse jobs are scarce... times are tough. Right now, I am applying for part time work in Des Moines and will bunk with my families. Hoping for 12 hour shifts. The drive and time from my family will be a sacrifice, but the money will be good and I hope to soon work at the hospice I love at least PRN!

*Getting ready for school. Shots, pencils and new clothes. The kids are taking care of the sibling rivalry... so Mom won't cry on the first day of school. She'll drive away from the school humming such a happy tune! Only 6 more days..... ONLY SIX MORE DAYS =-))))))))

*We are close enough to Des Moines to go shopping, garage saleing and hugging cousins!

*Our new home feels like home, we are learning the roads and the ropes. Life is good even if it is busy. God is good.


P.S. The camera cord has vanished into thin air... if it ever appears, I will post pictures of Bandit. He looks nothing like Checkers. No one will replace my baby.

We are home

The house is slowly reassembling a home. I am desperately wanting to empty boxes for our friends move. We will see them at the ordination, so my goal is unpack 75% of boxes by the 17th. Oh is that Friday, and today is Wednesday? Back to reality... I am making myself sick, or maybe have caught a virus. I am taking tonight off to REST. I am really hoping to stop dreaming about the ordination. I'm trying not worry, but my subconscious is working overtime. Ed and I are both exhausted and need TO TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES as we want to really enjoy it all. Christy... don't worry you will have a nice number of boxes on Sunday, and I just realized I only live at most 90 minutes from you.... so I can bring you boxes every week and maybe even spend an afternoon helping you fill them. WE ARE GOING TO LOVE BEING SO CLOSE TO "HOME". It has been so long!


I'll try to post pics of the new house soon, but am going to bed to be radiant on Sunday :-) All eyes will be on my husband and what God is doing through him, and I don't have to be in control of anything.... so I'm going to pray this as by last thought and hope to have only refreshing sleep tonight. YAWN, GOOD NIGHT!

Who did you mean?

The appliance man today called and asked if Pastor would be willing to help him move in the refridgerator on moving day. I told him the Pastor would have already moved to his new town by then. There was pause, until he clarified MY HUSBAND was the Pastor he was referring too! Seeing it in print and hearing it feels weird! I have to get use to it though.... ordination is in only 12 days!

June is almost over

Time to get moving... quite literally. I have one more day of work. Many blessings to have kept working until July! But, much packing is still needed. I'm not blaming it on procrastination, more on my aweful memory. In my past 4 moves, I have realized if I pack slowly, day by day - I have no idea what is in the boxes! So I can now go room by room and have a much better chance to have a clue what my codes are.

We had a great weekend. We celebrated baby H's FIRST birthday! His parents know how to throw a great BDAY bash. There was lots of great company with family and friends. Baby H just took it all in! Another special guest was Baby E. (8 months old) They are beautiful and we love them! We are so happy to be closer to DSM to see much more of them!


I also got to play with the my sister's three C's kids. Baby C is 3 months old and smiles and coos all the time. Soon she will say "patty" and melt my heart even more. Ed wouldn't let me take a baby home. It's just as well. Being with so many adorable nieces and nephews makes me tired!


Today was church, meeting a very nice missionary family from China and packing up my sewing and crafts. I also got in a little nap and take out mexican. Just can't beat that kind of day!

More crazy times

Well we can cross a few things off our list.

* Bought the house, just need to meet the inspector tomorrow and send lots of copies to the lender.

* Completed VBS and dance recital. Wow. The dance recital was 10 times crazier then VBS. I know this from first hand experience as a "back stage Mom", barely worth the front row tickets for the last night. But my little gymnast had a blast and did an amazing job!! I am scared we are hooked on dance though and will need to add finding a dance studio to the moving list.

I am back to working after a week off for VBS and having Lightening Mc Queen for 8 days! It was a blast... a tiring blast with alternating fun and sibling fighting. Good times. The kids did get to OKABOJI and bought caught 2 fish!!

This weekend we are sending out the ordination invites, and going to Des Moines for an Aunt's birthday.

Then I can really start packing and finding a job. Closing on the house is sometime between July 13 and 20. It's all getting really real!!!

Last day of school

The students are happy, the teachers are HAPPY, why is the nurse crying?

I will miss it!!! I never thought any job could replace hospice. My little guy has really touched my heart. The toughest part was not being able to say a real goodbye forever. Actually, maybe it is better in this sense. For all the little guy knows (or cares about me), we will both be back on Monday. I did write a thank you note to his parents. They know I'll miss him. I know I'll miss him. He knows that Mom drove him home and he doesn't like the work of school. He likes recess and sometimes art! I've learned to like recess and art too!


I think he liked me some... today he signed "help" to get him out of a time out! I know he liked my pushing him on the swing!

I have updated my resume. Since the house financing is out of my hands for the moment, I will be job searching. Of course, hospice is my first choice.... but I am much more open this year. God may just have something better in mind!!!!


P.S. Say a little prayer for me and my sewing machine, "Jan". We are putting (more correctly attempting) to place button holes in tote bags for the VBS kids. The older LWML ladies made it sound soooooo easy. ah sure!!!

Many reasons for delay in blogging

graduated husband and awaiting pics from family (still struggling with camera issues)
buying a home ..... financing YUCK!!!!!
starting to pack ... thank goodness we kept all of our boxes
preparing for VBS and nephew,Lightening McQueen, to stay a week
preparing for Leah's dance recital
preparing for transition in my job from school nurse to audit nurse (THANKS to God for the work until we move!)
Celebrating Luke's 10 th BD yesterday with 2 celebrations. (yes I let him turn double digits YIKES)
Finding a new job
Planning an ordination!!!
catching up with laundry from 5 days in Seminary City and Des Moines
Baseball, lots of games and T ball

There is more I'm sure..... but this is making me tired and stressed. Last day of school is Friday.... I'm actually sad to leave my little guy and his classmates. But there is no way to say goodbye to him. It's probably best that he thinks school is just done for the day or the weekend. I'll miss the job and seeing great teachers at work. I will not miss winter recess though!

Lots of changes ahead!

Yesterday I drove to new hometown and looked at houses to buy or rent. Wow. We set a budget and hoped the buyer's market would deliver. NOPE. Our experts say we can do a higher budget, but we are not ready to buy our future house without lots more planning. The tax credits just aren't worth that type of stress!!! We do have more time for the "magical-great bones-fixer upper house" to appear next month just begging for me to "flip" it. I have done all my homework... you know my degrees from TLC and HGTV and my favorite show Property Ladder! If it can be done on TV... it can't be that hard right?

Actually there is such a house that needs a garage and some fresh paint and flooring. It is a part of an estate and right now their numbers (probably based on emotion for their childhood home) and our numbers are WAY off. My heart fluctuates between wanting to love a home again and set down roots versus renting for another 6-9-12 months. Ed and I have lots of decisions, discussions and prayer!

I visited my children's future school, heard the children singing for their upcoming spring program and wanted to cry "mom's happy tears" right in front of the principal. Seriously. I was so happy my heart is swelling!!! I know this is the right school... even if we are homeless right now!

I didn't visit the hospice house. I learned my lesson the last time I visited a hospice house that didn't have a job opening for a year. Just broke my heart!! I did go to the hospital and saw 3 job openings. It's a little soon to apply. I don't think the hospital wants to hire me to just have us wait to finish vicarage, move, ordain my husband and then decide to show up for work. But the wheels are in motion and the time will fly!

P.S. still waiting to have the washing machine fixed. And I hand washed Thursday's undies. But my car decided it wanted to see the repairman too so the washing machine had better just need a little TLC repair, or this Momma will be hand washing lots!!!

Love of Seminary City

We are slowing recovering from our excitement over call day, getting back to work and school and recovering from colds... no fevers so we are certain it's not the swine flu! I was pleasently surprised that Luke came to tour our new home town so willingly and we heard only great things about his visits to school, friends and boyscouts without tearful demands to stay!

His creative writing assignment this week shows his mind is still there.......


My house in "seminary city"

I would build my dream house in "seminary city". I would either have it in the city or near the city. I would be a five story house with a huge basement, and a brick bedroom in the basement with no windows and a flat screen TV. I would have 5 bedrooms one for everyone and my cats even get there own bedroom. I would have a swimming pool that goes 20 feet deep. The best thing in the house is my room with a flat screen TV.

I copied this in his words and spelling. I do feel I need to clarify... the brick bedroom is not a cell... just good tornado protection and a TV to keep by the minute updates! We are hoping he outgrows his fears of storms and becomes a meterologist!

Blog block

This is a severely neglected blog. Poor thing, you could call blog welfare and it still would be neglected. My head and heart just don’t have the energy to find the words to describe the call process. I am really trying to put my faith and trust in God. I feel like I’m doing it and then I break out in zits (won’t they be lovely for Call Day!) I love Chris Rice… and this song gives me comfort and makes sense to me.

The Chorus.....

Why does the past always seem safer?
Maybe because at least we know me made it
And why do we worry about the future?
When every day will come just the way the Lord ordained it
You can believe it, yeah, just like the 8th grade

You may have noticed the change from KLove to Luke 12 last month. I truly know God is in control. Thanks to GOD!, if I was in control... what mistakes could be made. Praise to God for his faithfulness and prayers for help to keep trust in HIM! I a prayer that Call Day comes quickly!

Cousins

Meet the whole family!!! I am PRAYING to be even closer to them. Since we have returned to Iowa, we see them every 6 weeks or so and we miss them even more. My sister is having a ball with pink in her laundry now and Princess has grown so much in the past 2 weeks. I feel like I'm missing out.


Lightening McQueen is starting soccer, finishing preschool, wanting sleep overs at Aunt Patty's and is over all a great guy!! He just turned 5, 4 months younger than Leah. He is a huge fan of his big cousin, Luke.

"Snuggle Bug" is now "Little Man", but I was strongly leaning towards the AKA of Tazmanian Devil (somedays I may still call him TAZ) He just turned 2. We were worried he wouldn't like giving up his baby role to Princess, but is handling the adjustment pretty well!

Now for some Pink from the Princess!

Surgery update

My doctor really wants to use the Robot and the surgery to be at a certain hospital... enough that he opened up one of his days off. March 6 is the big day and I am relieved. Turns out I have enough to keep me busy until then with physicals, EKG and getting insurance records etc... The surgery nurse says to plan for 3 to 4 weeks off. That's much different then the Doctor's input of 2 weeks.... so we shall see. Then there will be follow up in DSM in 2 weeks and hopefully a princess niece babe to see born and my month of March should be pretty exciting. Then the exciting month of April with Call Day on the 22nd and then graduation on May 22. These are Ed's big days.... but the seminary women out there know that these are big days for the family as well! Packing in June, and vacation to CO in July. Exciting times ahead! I am glad to be getting this trouble out to the way.

Random Bullets

My blog has been seriously neglected! Here's what we have been up to the past 2 weeks.

* Yesterday was GOTCHA DAY. 9 years ago the Judge said YES!!! The kids have so much fun (and so do Mom and Dad) just having a special day for the 4 of us. We celebrated a night early by going to finally get Leah's 5 year old pictures, pictures with American Girl, Marissa and some retakes of Luke's fall school pictures. Then we dined at IHOP. Luke's favorite..... funny face pancakes. Luke loves rehearing the adoption story and we love sneaking in extra hugs and whispering the judge said "YES". We are also sadly praying for good friends of ours that recently heard a "NO". The tremendous blessing of adoption and God's precious ways of creating family is not lost on us.

*SATURDAY MORNINGS and some afternoons are spent around YMCA boys basketball. Luke has decided this is his sport and really gets into it!

* Preparing for a NEW NIECE. Last weekend we went to DSM and helped finish up her nursery. My sister kept saying it's not PINK enough. Turns out Leah is a little jealous.... pink is her color! Sorry Leah.... but take heart there is enough glittery pink for many girls! Folding Leah's hand me downs into the new princess' drawers is a huge eye opener. The past 5 years have flown by!

* I am 90 percent sure I will be having "female surgery" on Wednesday in DSM.(Male readers can turn away now) The past 6 weeks have been spent in some pain and getting tests and second opinions. My doctor wanted to do a robotic laproscopy to save as much as possible... but scheduling has been difficult as the Robot is pretty popular. I definitely need my left ovary removed and endometriosis burned. But on Friday, my doctor decided to do a complete hysterectomy. I am actually looking forward to a completion of this!

* I am also planning a trip to Seminary City in 58 some days. Not that we are counting! We did find out that we will be moving somewhere hopefully in Iowa. Ed will be getting a smaller church and our vicarage church will be looking for a Pastor that can continue the Vicarage program that has been a blessing to the church and the seminaries as well. A pastor needs to have 5 years of experience before training a vicar. We have been grateful for this experience and are anxious to hear what plans God has for Ed and our family. Soon we will be getting out the boxes.

More changes and more Blessings for our family!

Meet Jan!!!

Meet our new best friend. "Jan" as in Janome the sewing machine. Aunt Karen and Uncle Bob gave her to Leah and myself as an early XMAS present as mine was lost in the moving 3 years ago. "Jan" has more tricks and gadgets than one could ever imagine. We are having a blast with her. Tonight we set her up and just from an old shirt -- made Marissa a new tank top. Don't look to close at the seams. Tonight was just for fun and practice. Leah thinks the glitter and glam is missing....but is so excited to learn. It's the best!!!!

Grandmas for the weekend

We are at Grandmas!!! Only 3.5 hours from home. We can drive down on Friday nights and home on Sunday afternoons!!! We love living in our new home. Today we are seeing my nephews and going to a birthday party. Tomorrow we are seeing Baby H's baptism. (and meeting Schmoo and Boo.) What JOY!!!!

Off for some family fun............

EWWWWWW!

EW EW EW EW!!!
I am trying to be a big girl here.....but I don't know if I can bear it any longer. My biggest fear was being given a country parsonage.....and I was relieved this was a town vicarage. Driving on country roads..."NO problem". Isolation from the living in the country...."Piece of Cake". Critters such as Mice sharing my home. "OH MY!!!!" I couldn't bear it. For 48 hours I have known there is a mouse in the house. I'll hold the dreaded details but there is a workman's hole in the garage that must be fixed ASAP!!!!! I know the church has far more concerns than Vicar's wife having a mouse.....but this one ate the peanut butter off the trap....and probably has invited all it's friends for a little more Jif. I bought the $4.80 traps now...guaranteed to work. But until the hole is fixed....no restful sleep for me. My cats have no apparent worries.... lazy creatures!!! The neighbor next door is trying to convince me to use live traps... so is Aunt K. I DONT THINK SO! Trying to be a big girl....do not throw a fit..... BREATHE, BREATHE, BREATHE!

Just like I thought!

I can stop looking for my can opener. I found it just hours after I bought a new one!

We are home!!

One week gone in a flash!! I now have the Internet!!! Perhaps the only wrinkle in our move was 'Elizabeth's mess up" in our phone and Internet order. I have no idea who Elizabeth is......but everyone at the local phone company wanted to blame her. Poor Elizabeth!! But they wrote off the service fees and Mr DSL. was here this morning and fixed everything.

Iowa is so refreshing and we feel right at home! Some of the best parts in no particular order.

10. child friendly....the kids have found close to 580 friends who all seem to live on our block. Everyone watches out for the kids and the kids respect our rules. I had to call Ann at small town life to check out modern day protocol for small town kids. Thanks Ann!!

9: Christain radio that plays my music! I can get KLOVE...but found a local station that plays contemporary and inspiring hymns with occasional interruptions of local news and weather. JUST WHAT I HAVE BEEN MISSING!

8: We are 2 blocks from church. Ed walks to work and also back for lunch everyday.
He gets a whole hour to catch with us a home.

7. Awesome church, Pastor and congregation. Everyone seems so friendly. I missed the installation ceremony due to a horrible flu. But it sounded beautiful!! We went to a potluck to feed some bike riders for Life. To our surprise...one of Ed's confirmation classmates who is now a Pastor was riding and yet another Pastor who is from our Lutheran church and day school. Ed had a great time catching up.

6. I found a used well priced washer and have been actually enjoying putting the wash out to blow in Iowa's fresh air!! I'm sure this may wear off in the dead of winter and with working...but right now is AMAZING.

5. We have been meeting family this week....an just by chance ran into one of Ed's cousins at the pool. I have lots more to meet!!

4. I haven't made it to my Mom's grave...but find my self remembering lots of my childhood and her love for us. Walking down a sleepy main street on our errends with my kids is awesome. My kids even found a way to fight over which hand they held. My poor 4' 11" mother had only 2 hands and 3 children. She still made us all feel loved!!

3. A couple of church members have made it a mission to help me look for job openings. I did apply for one and will go in person to check out some on Monday. Right now....I am content to be a SAHM!

2. I have lost 8 pounds with the Flu and moving. I drank Dr. Pepper at the end of the Flu and have actually lost my taste for it! I was astonished and so were the kids! Leah reminded me Dr. N said I should give it up anyway!! I am working at keeping to off!

1. THE WEATHER!!! I will miss St Louis winters....but the summers here are awesome!! We love being outside!!

Did everyone make it the the end of this gigantic post? Thanks!!! And there's lots more to love here!! We do miss our friends back in MO, but feel that God has led us to a perfect place for us!

We're here

We are here, save and sound but NO INTERNET for 24 hours. Wow.....this addiction is as bad as the Dr. Pepper.

and has anyone seen my CAN OPENER???

Coming Home!

I LOVE BEING 'HOME'!!!! Crossing the border into Iowa created such a feeling. Something like accomplishment...but more like relief. Something lifted off of our shoulders. Iowa has changed a little, we have changed as well. But, we feel comfortable here....and it's not just the low humidity. (but that helps a lot!)

Today, Luke and I went to see Dr. C. She has been our pediatrician since the day of Luke's pyloric stenosis repair at age 5 weeks. I trust her completely and as crazy as it sounds....I am more than willing to drive a couple of hours to have her examine my children. She has the most incredible memory. Including, calling Leah "Heaven", just as she has since she was in foster care! She tells Luke she takes care of my sister's children as well. Most importantly, she examines every inch of my children, even checking every reflex that is in my nursing books. Just what this anxious nurse Mommy needs!

Tomorrow Ed drives to our new home and will spend the night with a good friend who was just ordained and will be 10 miles away. I know that D and M will be a tremendous gift in this new chapter of our life. The kids, cats and I will drive to our new home on Thursday morning. I am so excited to see our new home and church. This is one of the communities we drove through last September and stopped at the Hyvee to buy flowers for my mother's grave. I wondered with each community...just what would it be like to live there... soon we find out!

The kids are at a baseball game and Ed and I just came back from dinner and a movie. We love being 'Home'. At the seminary, we are taught that home is where you hang your coat....We get this and will make a home in our new small town, just as we did in the big city. Now if I only could find a job like the one I had!