economically friendly

I found this site and thought it was a good concept for saving ink, therefore saving money, all the while masquerading as someone VERY concerned with saving the environment.

Now for another cool link. I have been contemplating which type of flooring I want for my kitchen. It has to be inexpensive, easy to install, clean, add to resale value and if possible be "green".

I love tile, but its expensive, work to install and not very fun to clean.

Wood floors aren't good for kitchens unless they are finished after installation and that is too much work. (I'll put cork and bamboo in this same line)

Linoleum--although it doesn't add much value to your kitchen--is inexpensive, easy to install, clean and according to this website (and this one)is very "green". Something to think about. Maybe when we sell we can play the "green" card and list all the environmentally friendly items in the house and profit off of it. Am I cheap? Yes, but thats what green can be about, having less waste, wasting less money etc. Although it's not always cheap to be green.

If all Cheapo's save money and all Lauren's are Cheapo's, and all Lauren's are Green does this mean that all Green saves money? Yes! BUT All Green does not equal Cheap. I failed.

Also even if we choose not to go with linoleum, we currently have it, and that link assured me that the landfill is the best place for it when we tear it up!

Laminate is what we have throughout the house because of ease of installation, and its pretty! Apparently even laminate isn't harmful either! Though not a good idea for the kitchen as it's not water proof.

I'm having a good day!!!

christmas

Christmas is quickly approaching! We are all but finished shopping and only slightly in the hole!! I wasn't able to decorate for the holidays as much as I would've liked but next year I'll do better! I bought these pretty cool solar powered light strings for the front bushes. It works out well since we have no outdoor outlets and they have built in sensors/timers AND no extra amount on the electricity bill! They are white(bluish) LED's so they have a unique look!

On the green tangent we are doing really well recycling. I have to purchase another bin from the township building as our current bin is overflowing constantly. Our waste is really diminishing. Even when I shop now I check the packaging and either try to get things with no packaging, or ones with a recycling symbol. One example would be that I stopped buying bottled juice and now get concentrate--except orange juice. A lot less waste and space taken up. Some people may think that I am to into recycling, but at this point it has really become a way of life! I don't give it much thought at home and I love not having mounds of trash going to sit at the landfill forever, but rather smaller amounts of mostly organic materials. Although I was told by an answerer of a question I posted on Yahoo Answers that her community offers organic bins for anything from food to tissues. They take the stuff and compost it and make it available to farmers and such...awesome...

Our water bill was almost $100.00. Our toilets all leak. After much research of dual flushing low flows I have however found some low flow, single flush Kohler's priced very well--which we will purchase when our taxes come back. So much for being green; 11,000 gallons in a month. I am more concerned with conserving water for financial reasons than green ones--although financial reasons are also green!

The kids are doing well, finally the thick fog of chest and head cold that has been lingering for almost 2 months is lifting. Evie has started to say "ma ma" which is a delight! She's making her way all the way up the stairs now and enjoys eating anything we have for dinner cut up small.
Asa has been as busy as ever. He likes making "drinks", concoctions of gross sorts, that I find in the mornings sometimes. Today it was: juice, a whole clementine, cereal cheese, an egg--with the shell mixed in, and butter. He also has been getting into christmas presents. I definitely need to keep my eye on him constantly.
Tyler has been getting excellent grades this first part of third grade. He also made a friend on our street which has been nice for him.

Oh, and Bella. Bella is a black four year old pomeranian that we have opened our home to. A close friend is moving and can't bring her so she now resides with us. The dog is pretty perfect. She doesn't shed, bark, chew things up. She's very friendly and loving and easy and CUTE!

I hope everyone has a great holiday season this year! I most likely won't blog again until the new year comes!

ok

I feel like I am actually getting my work done now! I mean I still have so much to do, but I feel so much more motivated seeing a lot of things done. Evie is pulling herself up to standing and already cruising. She is amazing, although I am her mom--so I would think so!!

Christmas is going to be low key this year, but I think it'll be a great one. I still don't have decorations up other than the tree. I want to buy some garlands and a wreath and maybe some outdoor lights since we actually have things to put them on out front.

I am thinking about putting some baby items on Craigs List but am a little worried about letting strangers know where I live. I am not typically a paranoid person-but this just makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I was thinking of telling whoever may possilbly want my items that I would put them in the middle of my circle by the mailboxes for them. I guess I sound crazy. Maybe I should just see if anyone would want the stuff through someone I know.

I need to watch a good movie..it's been a while. Our electricity bill was 160.00 in November, up from 120 in October and 65 in September. That makes me feel bad. I know that our home is insulated poorly. When we work on the basement walls I want to put more insulation in the walls and on the ceiling over the patio. When we do the kitchen and remove the soffet I want to insulate through the ceiling (which is our bedroom floor) over the front patio. Both of those places where the floor is above the outside are sooooo cold. I need to price how much it is to use that spray insulation. I was also thinking of pricing the cleaning and sealing of our tiles in the bathroom. The tiles aren't cracked but some of the grout isn't as pretty as it once was. I know they can fix it and make it look beautiful again, I just wonder if it's other worldy expensive. Someday these things will get done!!

I really want to get one of those HP touch smarts. I love the fact that it is so streamlined. I don't like a lot of wires going every which was on the desk. It'll fit great in my built in desk that I am going to make :) Maybe someday. The basement is SOOo cold though. AH I can't imagine being down there on the computer.

I read a lot about seafood recently. Monterey Bay Aquarium has a lot of interesting information about what fish we should eat. Personally it sometimes goes a little overboard in the enviromentalism issues--but nonetheless there is good info among them.

Anyway I better go finish my scrabble game, this dude who is destroying me really wants to end this so his rating can go up!!!!

Monday

I wish I had a creative hobby. Actually I wish I was motivated enough to just get everyday things done let alone creative fun things for myself! I love creating things. It feels so fulfilling to make something that looks nice. My house is my project now I guess. And I can't even keep it clean!

I want to purchase an area rug for under my dining room table since it's in the living room. It collects so much dust under there and I am constantly sweeping. While it's probably cleaner to have no rug, it looks cleaner to have one! It will need to compliment the new beautiful area rug I bought last week. I stopped at a store since they are going out of business and saw some berber area rugs for about $30 so I couldn't pass that up. I had my brother with me because he was working on my bathroom and we needed to run out and get some hardware at the store. I asked him if he liked a particular berber I had pulled out. He didn't seem very impressed, he was meandering over to the expensive rugs with cool colors and prints. He pulled one out and said, "I like this one!" I agreed that it was pretty but it wasn't in my price range and I headed back over to the berbers. He said that the one he was looking at didn't have price tag on it and brought it up front to the cashier. They said to him that they would give it to us for $30, even though it was obviously not the size, or style of those of that price. I saved a bundle! On sale that rug should've been $120.00!!! After I paid the woman said to me that I got the deal of the night. I am still so happy with it, it's cool blues and browns and tans in like a checkerboard four square style that has a Japanese floral print going on in the squares. Very nice, and looks awesome with my floors, couch and wall color! So glad I brought him with me! There was another rug in the "cheap" bin which actually complimented the one I bought and I was thinking maybe for the dining area, only it was pretty thin and it might get really wrinkled when the chairs are moved back and forth on it.

We all lost our voices today. And I thought we were getting better!
I think we should all buy soaps and cleaning detergents that are made with plant bases versus petroleum product bases, it'll help lessen our dependence on oil. Recycling plastics DEFINITELY helps as well. I am trying my part. Moving out here has been a real gas saver as well. I spent $37 in the last two weeks. Usually I spent upwards of $140...because I drove further and because the gas prices were higher. Right now they are about $2.29/gal and when we were in Strasburg last week we saw some for $2.09/gal.

Mark has been playing Fallout 3. It's pretty interesting I guess. He will be done his degree at Eastern this February. I can't believe how quickly that went. It will be so nice for him (AND US!) when he doesn't have anymore schoolwork to do. Although he was mentioning his Masters with another school. This online program has really been awesome for us though. He has done so well and has been home with us!

Christmas will be here before we know it. I am not looking forward to the financial part. We'll see what happens. This year I wanted to do something different regarding family gift giving. In past years we've bombarded our kids with gifts and emptied our pocketbooks doing so(and it still didn't compare to what some of there friends got!). They in return seemed overwhelmed and unappreciative. They didn't see the value in the little things. So this year I wanted to get them involved in the giving even though they are so young. I figured that if each of us buys a gift for each of us then everyone will have a gift and have given a gift to everyone. I think it'll be more special and we can focus on giving rather than receiving--and MAYBE not spend as much.
I threw out our Christmas tree when we moved. It needed to be chucked because we had kept it in the mold infested basement and it had a yucky smell. It still worked though, so that was hard. We didn't have a lot of room either so I had to part with it. Last year after Christmas at Home Depot they were selling gorgeous fake trees pre-lit and tall for $10-$30 I almost did it, but I didn't know where I'd keep it and didn't even know our moving situation, but BOY I wish I had one now :) It'll be fun to put lights up this year on the bushes in the front. We had a sterile concrete patio at the last location and I could only decorate with pots.

I need to go to bed :)
Goodnight

THe WhoLE StoRY

So for the past few months life has been busy, crazy and fun. We are chipping away at house work. Mark is just about finished the floor in the basement. That makes all the flooring in the house done, except the kitchen, which we are re-doing in the spring and the upstairs hallway which just needs to be re-situated >>? Evie just got over he first stomach virus. That was really tough for me. Asa had the same thing a few days before. She has mastered the army crawl and can crawl "for real" for short periods of time. She's getting really big too at 6 months she's 16.14 lbs(50-75%) and 27.25 inches(90-95%) tall.

I am so glad the election is over. No more hoping or caring. Now we know and don't need to discuss anything anymore. I didn't vote for Obama but I am at peace with him being our president. God is ultimately in charge anyway. I voted for a Libertarian who I thought would be an excellent choice for Auditor General, but he didn't even come close. I blame that on ignorance more than anything. I think a lot of people vote straight party because they haven't researched the candidates. I am actually guilty of this in the past. Enough of the political talk though!

I still haven't hung anything on the walls yet. Evie's room no longer has a lamp either( i knocked it over and broke the glass) We are still kinda camping, but really settled in as well. I want to get a sectional for my basement and two bookshelves. There is a built in book shelf down there and I want to turn it into a office space, like a built in computer desk and my files can go above it in the shelves. It will be very streamlined and space conscious. I am excited about that. My brother came over and helped us put the light up in the powder room. Now all we have to do to that room is patch the drywall, sand and paint. The flooring in that room will be replaced with the kitchen floor.

We had Empire Today come and put our carpet on the stairs. They did it as quickly as the ads say and at a better price then a local carpet store with remnants, I was impressed!

Our family had some fun outings as the pictures suggest below. Last weekend we went to Strasburg Railroad for FREE!! We got tickets from a friend and some more from my mom and some other tickets for the Choo Choo barn. It was a perfect day for the trip and maybe we can make it an annual event.

The week before that we went to Highland Orchards and also had a great time. I bought this hummus called Bobbi's, I have to say I think it's the best I've ever had! They also had milk there with re-useable bottles. I wish my local stores sold milk like that. I wish we never stopped being so less wasteful like in the past. Everything is about convenience now--but I believe that really comes at a bigger price!

My township just upped their recyling program and will now take plastic #'s 1-7 and all kinds of papers and cardboards and even empty tin cans and aerosol cans plus all the regular stuff like glass and aluminum. Last week we had only two kitchen bags full of trash to throw out. I was so proud :) That is definitely my new goal to have 2 or less bags of trash a week.

Tyler had his hair dyed for the Phillies if you are wondering from the pictures. He got to go to the parade too. Sounded like a lot of fun! Very excited about the phillies. But I am kinda a bad fan who only watches them when they hit the World Series. Oh well!

Thats All for now!

fall

First we have hiking behind our new home. It's a truck graveyard and very interesting place to explore.









Then We have our new home. Evie's room and the color on the Living Room Walls. However I know I need some better pictures, both quantity and quality-wise.







Then We have Highland Orchards and Strasburg Railroad mixed together. Good Times.









And a random picture of Evie in her Halloween Costume: pink bunny. I need to get pics of Asa and Tyler(or should I say Obi Wan and Darth Vader)

your input is needed

Could someone give me advice on the color of my powder room?

We are running low on funds, so I am trying to cut corners while still making the place look nice!

Here is my dilemma:
I bought 3 gallons of Valspar Lyndhurst Castle Sand for the living room and only used just over one. I LOVE the color and am thinking about putting it in the powder room too, since i have so much and haven't bought the Behr Fountain Spout yet(which I also love) Is it a faux pas to have two rooms on the same floor painted the same color? I was even thinking of doing the same flooring in the powder room as well. Maybe I am over thinking it?

almost in

We move in in 2 DAYS!!! Very excited and overwhelmed. I am almost finished packing, running a little low on boxes when I thought we had too many!

We still have to paint the kitchen, powder room...hallway upstairs and entryway, but those things can even be done when we move in. I changed some of the colors from my earlier post: Living room is Valspar's Lyndhurst Castle Sand. Kitchen is Olympic color match to valspars: morning sunrise. Olympic makes zero voc paint, thats why i chose it!

I need to lose some extra pounds here, about 12 to be at a comfortable weight where i can actually fit into my clothes instead of pry myself into them. It's still not my pre-pregnancy weight from before Asa, but it's a fine weight. I hate the changes that happened to my body from pregnancy. It's so irritating to see people survive pregnancy and childbirth virtually unscathed. I did not get those genes. I don't want to make it overly important to me but it does upset me, some days more than others. Even if I can't make myself look good underneath, I can shed some extra weight and get in shape. It's so hard to find the time to exercise these days. This is a crazy time of life, i know, sometimes i just want to go drive somewhere and hide. I am a wimp. Things will be easier when we are moved in and settled--I hope. It will be nice to be closer to friends and family.

I got another bug bite last week. A large ring formed around it and I went to the doctors. She is treating me for Lyme's again. The first blood test they did came back negative though(like last time). They are also testing me for different kinds of Arthritis. I have MUCH joint pain.

Evie and Asa are doing well. Evie just pukes a lot, all over me(like just now) and Asa is really into calling me names. If I never get called a "punk", it'll be too soon. Today he was being very rude to me so I told him I didn't want to talk to him anymore. He got very upset and kept saying, "Please forgive me Mom!!" I said, "You don't even know what that means!" and he said "Yes i DO!". I said, "Well how come you don't change whenever you say you are sorry and ask for forgiveness?" He said "I will be a good boy!" I said, "How?" "I will change my heart!" I thought that was pretty cute!!!

I scrubbed his rug in his room yesterday, but am pretty sure the stains which I couldn't get out will be the cause of the loss of some of our security deposit. Oh well!!!!!

I will post some new pics of the progress at the house when they get emailed to me! My camera is not flashing twice, so all the pics come out black...:( I have to read the owners manual, which is somewhere in box stacked in a pile of major confusion.

PRAY FOR ME. Sometimes I don't think I'll survive the day.Wow this post title should be titled: Crybaby!!!!

paint colors

I have chosen some paint colors:

Living Room:
Behr Contemplation
Behr Pinedale Shores

Kitchen:
Ralph Lauren Lafayette

Powder Room:
Behr Fountain Spout

Master Bedroom:
Behr April Mist
Behr Lion

Boy's Room:
Behr Carribean Coast

Evie's Room:
Behr Pink Amour

Upstairs Bath:
Behr Aqua Smoke

and now it's gone..

I feel so guilty for not keeping up my blog. Where do I start?! We bought the house. Settlement was easy and fairly quick. We started cleaning up the house the next day, all the carpets were ripped out and we began TSP-ing the walls. I love the house, despite all the work that still needs to be done! After only a week of trying to clean her up we accomplished tearing out all the rugs and staples and cleaning 80% of the walls and ceilings. Then came vacation on August 23. We had a great week at the beach. Great weather even when poor weather had been for casted! Evie had a great time and loved the beach! She was so good all week. Asa had a hard time because his eczema flared up terribly and caused him to be irritable, I felt so bad for him. In fact, next year we are going to break our 6-year streak of beach going because of how Asa reacts to the sun, sand and salt water :(.


On the third night of being there we went out on the beach at around dusk. My brother Andrew and Dad and brother Ben were all fishing. I was watching them when all of the sudden far out over the water appeared this bright cluster of star-like lights--maybe 10 of them. They didn't move and didn't fade for 15 seconds or so. It was bizarre! They vanished just as quickly as they appeared. I ran to everyone around me asking them if they had seen it. Most had, and then it happened again, just slightly to the south. WEIRD! We were thinking it could have been an emergency flare. Unfortunately after the second set of light disappeared we pulled the camera out and they never came back. A while afterwards we saw the coast guard fly out to where we saw the lights. They hovered there for a while and then kept going.
In the midst of all of that Andrew caught a shark! It was amazing to see! It was about 3.5 feet long over 20lbs in weight. I got a bunch of pictures. A cool experience!

So vacation was great, and we got home and started working on the house again. We picked up the flooring, all 6000 lbs of it. It looks beautiful, I can't wait till it's all laid out.Mark's parents have been working at the house a lot, replacing floor boards, cleaning and spackling. All we have left to do is, finish cleaning the kitchen ceiling and walls, and the upstairs bath as well. Some more wall paper needs to come out of the eating area and Evie's room(quite a chore). Tonight we are going to start painting the ceilings upstairs, because we have to start the floors this Saturday! I think we are also going purchase the appliances for the kitchen!

Asa turned 3 on August 12th. We took him to Chuck E Cheese with his brother and cousin, grandparents, and some uncles :) I took all of the pictures on his grandma's camera so I haven't gotten them yet.
I have a sore throat again, very strange and Evie and Asa have colds!
Tyler turns 8 today! We will have to have a party for him this weekend.
Lots of pics for you!: Living room

the summer is flying by...

real quick:
Mark turned 31 over a week ago.
We visited with family from Canada last weekend.
Our 4th anniversary is tomorrow!
Evie has been using the walker - but basically just to play with the toys on it's tray!
Asa is fully potty trained!
We make settlement in just over 2 weeks!
We received a free washer and dryer!
Tyler is super tan.
I still can't get anything done around here...although--
Scrabulous was deleted - I'm waiting on the new Scrabble application to work right!
...time to watch Lost--nevermind it's too embarressing of a movie to mention!

so much is happening...

A lot has been going on around here lately. Sometimes its good to be busy, other time there can be too much happening at once. I wish I could blog more. We do a lot of fun things as a family, and I take a lot of pictures. I don't post them all because it feels too late. Evie has been good. Asa's been slightly sick, but happy. The weather hasn't been great. Life is so fragile. Someone is always sick or hurt or dying. I like to think about all the "what if's" in these situations, but it doesn't matter what if, because things are supposed to happen this way in life. Maybe to teach us how to deal better for situations to come or maybe just to make us feel less comfortable in our temporary location: earth. Somewhere is these packages of sadness, is joy, although a lot of the times it seems hidden--especially lately.

Mark is going to see the new house tonight. The inspector is coming and will go over everything with him. I asked him to take pictures and do some measuring.

The house is 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. It's got a finished walk-out basement and backs up to an open field and beyond that, woods. It needs a lot of work as the owners were extremely heavy smokers. We're going to take about a month and half to fix it up, new floors, new appliances (hopefully new cabinets) new bathroom sinks, bathtub and shower...lighting.. new paint throughout. It'll be a lot of work but we are blessed with many people having offered their services. I absolutely love the location of the townhome and am so thankful it opened up and we were able to get it.

We had a carribbean party for my mom's 50th last saturday. It went really well and was really pretty! I had the task of bringing exotic fruits...yum. Although as we were leaving things went awry: Asa scratched his eye with sand and it was horrible looking, Tyler was throwing up and Evie was crying for food. I was so tired and stressed when we finally got into the car. All I could think about was how I had nursery the next morning and how tired I would be. BUT all the kids fell asleep on the way home and we were able to go to sleep early and wake up on time for church! WOO HOO!

FINALLY!

Our offer was accepted on the townhouse we wanted! Praise God. It's been a long haul, but I think the first phase of relocating is over! We'll end up being here until probably the end of september--to give us time to fix up the house. More to come...

random

There if finally some relief from the three long days of hot hot heat! We survived.
Asa has been potty training again. Evie has been grinning and talking, thats been fun, and she's sleeping better too! It'll be six weeks since her birth this friday, It seems like so long ago, but then again like yesterday..

Last Week we looked at the townhome i mentioned in the previous post. We loved it and put a bid in two days later. Unfortunately someone else bid the asking price so we lost out. There was another home we looked at the same day which needs more work and isn't as pretty, but it's cheaper and closer to the middle of where we need to be. We still aren't sure we're going to bid on it though, because it's located at the corner of a slightly busy street. We're supposed to see it this Saturday, I'll keep you posted.

I am really getting sick of paying $65+ every couple of days for gas. The monthly gas budget is more like a car payment now. I wish Mark's work, our families, Tyler, and church could all be close together, like within walking distance...or at least bike riding distance. I bet peoplein the city aren't being affected by the rising costs, at least not as much. Food is crazy expensive too. We have been eating out..or ordering out way more than we should be doing too, so thats not helping our budget..

On gas prices:
"I don't think it's going much lower, and it could go higher," McCain said on NBC's "Today Show." "I don't think so, not when you've got a finite supply, basically, and a cartel controlling it

Who the heck is McCain, the new gas price expert? They might as well have asked me. Anyway his answer is pretty safe. Sorry I just think it's stupid that he is making predictions--even if they are safe. I feel like he doesn't know very much, just army stuff. I especially don't think he knows much about our economy or whats really happening with the oil industry. I am still going to vote for him..the lesser of two evils. I feel that just like our country shouldn't be SO dependant on foreign oil, we-automobile drivers, shouldn't be so dependant on the oil companies... I am so excited to think of better electric cars and cars which use way less fuel for way more miles. My insurance company Progressive is offering $10 million to the winner of a contest in which the goal is to make a 100-mile per gallon car that people actually want to--and can afford to--drive. How cool is that? I just feel that even if the oil companies are making extremely high profits, that's there freedom--this is America, they shouldn't be regulated. We can change their pricing by demanding less oil... I know it's crazy to think about since right now we are so incredibly dependant. I definitely think that this is a good thing for us, a wake up call to be better stewards of this planet and be cleaner and more efficient.

I have ranted enough!
I have this website that I check pretty often. It's called Popsugar, a celebrity gossip blog. I know, I know, how shallow!!! The blog has different categories in it, like home, fashion, beauty ect..
I was reading it the other day when I came across a link. It said, something like "Urban Outfitters opens a new line of stores called Terrain" Right away I thought about a place I drive by very often called "Terrain at Styers" it was recently re-done and is now open. I've been wanting to go in because the design of the place is so intriguing! Anyway, I clicked on the link and saw that Urban Outfitters acquired a nursery near Philadelphia for their first store(the same nurseryI drive by). I was so excited!!! I can't wait to check this place out! I love Anthropolgie and was really into Urban Outfitters as a teen. This new store is even more up my alley being garden center!

Ok I'm done!

Already June

Yesterday Evie had her one-month appointment. She weighs 10.6 lbs and is 22.5 inches long. That puts her in the 95th percentile for both categories! I had a feeling she was big, but it's hard to tell when you see her every day. She is perfectly healthy though so, yay :)

I buzzed Asa's hair today, not too short, but it looks cute and summery. I like him with very short hair, it's much neater. I actually enjoy cutting hair. It's kinda scary just because I taught myself and still don't have much confidence that I won't completely screw up the cut. So far everyone has been pretty happy with their new do's though. Tonight is Mark's turn.

I bought a lock for the door. A sliding lock for the top--so that Asa can't possibly reach it. He has been escaping again.

Asa is very interested in Star Wars...to say the least. Today he rode his Pooh rider into the kitchen with a long red Marble Works tube and said he was Anakin on his speed racer with a red light saber. Then he got up in his chair to eat his raviolis and whispered very dramatically, ..."water..." with a tinge of whininess authentic to Anankin Skywalker's character. I said, "Would you like a cup of water?" he said "Yes....Master..." again, just as the character would.

It's raining out. We found a townhome that we liked. We are going to look at it tomorrow. I really hope this is the one for us and everything can go smoothly. It would be so nice to actually "live" in a house again. These boxes lining the walls are getting tiresome..

animal planet expo

Evie is a month old!



We went to the Animal Planet Expo at Hibernia Park today.
I got to meet Jeff Corwin.

It was really bad weather though. Torential down pours and lightening and thunder. Evie did pretty well in her sling though. Thursday we bought a double stroller(which i love!!!) it is now soaked and covered in mud!
It was still really fun to be there. We saw some cute animals!

3.5 weeks

Evie's been here almost a month now! She is doing great.

We had a nice memorial day weekend. We had picnics at both sides of the family's and got to visit with some of the kids great grandparents too...I can't remember a more perfect day weather-wise for that holiday! I am so excited that the weather is warmer now.

Evie is starting---just starting--to get on a schedule now, and it's been getting easier to live :) she takes good long naps, so I am able to start getting things done around the house and play with Asa too. He just got this card game for matching pictures like a puzzle, and for matching items that are somehow related to each other. He can match every one of them and it's for 3+. I was so impressed, it's fun to play those kinds of things with him.
Here are some newer pictures of everyone:


The boys playin Star Wars and Evie in the background swinging, plus our new hamster Olivia in her cage. (she was named after Asa's favorite pig)



Asa and Tyler swinging at the grandparents.

adapting

Evie Elizabeth is now over 2 weeks old. She has had her first outing to a public place (good ol' Happy Harry's) and first visit to church! This past Saturday she even went on her first hike! She is doing excellently. By her 10th day she was 5 ounces over her birth weight. She is a great eater and a pretty good sleeper. She also is very happy. She has smiled many times...today when I was playing with her nose. She is very alert and follows people with her big eyes.

Asa is having a hard time mostly with sleeping. He loves his little sister and is very proud of her. He is very thrilled when allowed to hold her and lets everyone know she is his sister :)

Tyler is loving having her around also. He has been really helpful with Asa too.

Mark has been getting good sleep on the couch. Evie likes to sleep in my bed with me versus her bassinet. So hubby gives the bed to us and helps us sleep better :)

I had a pretty bad bout of Mastitis with fevers and the whole bit, but thankfully that is gone now and I am almost finished with the antibiotics. That was extremely difficult to bear...thank the Lord it only lasted for a fairly short time!

I was able to bring her on the hike in my new sling. It worked really well and I LOVE IT! She loves it too. It was also helpful when I went to the pharmacy with the kiddies. Asa went in the cart while she stayed in the sling.

House hunting is really slow right now. Nothing is coming up. Hopefully something will soon!

back home

The delivery went so well. Baby Evie is here and all is good. She is beautiful: 8lbs 1oz and 20.5 inches long. We are glad to be back home and have a beautiful day to have on her homecoming.