Vacation Work

How exactly is a vacation work you ask? It's when you spend your entire time off from work revamping your house. It all started because Kenzie convinced us to let her and Bekah share a room. So that entailed moving the twins out of their room and into Kenzie's room (bunk beds got put up in that room) and moving Kenzie and Bekah into the twins old room (they kept the boys captains beds that were in there). And of course, we couldn't just move stuff around...there had to be painting involved...mainly because Kenzie's old room was pink and the boys weren't too keen on that. LOL Here's the result of all our work over the Christmas holiday...

Kenzie and Bekah's new room, a lovely light lavendar shade.


Tay and Ty's new room, a lovely blue green shade...perfect for a fish bowl look. LOL


This will eventually be Keari's new room


And we couldn't just stop at those rooms...had to make sure that every room got in on the act so here's a pic of our spotless playroom. Did some major purging in here and now you can actually see the floor.


And here's a pic of Alex and Connor's room...again notice the floor (it's not often that you can actually see it. LOL)

And after all this work, I need a vacation from my vacation. LOL

Financial Aid

We finally got around to filling out the Parent Financial Statement (PFS) that the Gunston school gave us when Andy and Alex went to the open house last month. The PFS is submitted to the School and Student Service for Financial Aid (SSS) which processes the information and will then send a report to the schools requested and to yourself detailing how much they think you can afford to pay for schooling. We received the results back today (about 2 days after filing the forms). Boy, filing electronically is great. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they calculated what we could afford to pay for school at pretty much what it costs us for the homeschooling supplies for Alex. Of course, this doesn't really mean anything because it's dependant on how much financial aid the actual school can give out but it's nice to know the school won't (or shouldn't) be expecting us to fork out an arm and a leg because we can't. So, since this report says things are still within our means we'll go ahead with the next steps for Gunston which would be submitting an application for the school. Then he has to take a standardized test...like the SAT but I can't think of the acronym for the one he has to take...so he'll do that either in February or March. Then, assuming he got accepted into the school, we'd have to see how much aid they could offer us to see whether it's really doable or not.

We got new insurance cards for all the kids showing their new pcp except for Kearsyn which is the one we really need. They only put 6 cards in an envelope so I'm assuming the one that has her card in it got separated from the other envelope. I wish it would show up as the others got here a few days ago. I figure I'll give it til after the holidays and if we haven't gotten it by then, I'll have them send another. I know her pcp got changed because I can view the info online so worst case scenario, if she gets sick before we get the new card I'll just print that page out. Updating to say that we received Kearsyn's new insurance card today, 12/22, so we are all set for the new doctor. =)

We finally got our refund check from the over payments to the specialist office for Alex & Kenzie's broken collarbones. I called the beginning of November to request it so it took about a month and a half for them to get it to us.

Today we did some house cleaning since we are having a small piano recital here tomorrow. Will be fun to listen to the kids playing.

I've made up all my days for work where I was short on leave so now I'm free until Jan 2. Yay! I was even able to help with a couple of programming modifications that they needed done so my timing was perfect for this make up work.

Bekah is doing so well with her sign language. She walked up to me today and did the sign for drink and then milk to let me know she was thirsty and wanted a glass of milk to drink. How cool!

I unpacked all my regular clothes and boxed up my maternity ones the other day. Anyone want to take bets on how long they'll stay boxed up? And Andy, you stay out of it! ;)

I was able to get most of the presents wrapped today while the kids were over at a friends house practicing for the recital tomorrow. Still have a few more to do but shouldn't take long...finding the time without the kids around will be the problem. And trying to do it at night it's that easy because that's when Kearsyn is at her grumpiest.

Cleaning, Cleaning, Cleaning

Whew, I'm tired. I've come to the conclusion that we have entirely too big a house when it comes time for a major cleaning. Either that or there are too many people in this house to mess it up. LOL The kids did a great job helping with the cleaning. We did major amounts of purging and their rooms look awesome. I took the route of dumping everything loose into a box and then sorting through that box for things that were to be kept in the room, things that belonged in other rooms and things that were trash. By doing this, we were able to eliminate the majority of the clutter that had been stacked around all the rooms. It's amazing how big the rooms look once this is done. Now I really need to take some pictures so that we all remember how things are supposed to look.

Cleaning Time

With Kearsyn's baptism on Sunday, that means that the house needs to cleaned which I think is an impossibility around here. I'd get one room clean today, move to another and when I'd go back to the first, it would be destroyed again. How do you control all the stuff that seems to accumulate in a house and keep little one's from pulling out what you've painstakingly put away? I was able to get the tv room, Bekah's room, Kearsyn's room and the twins room picked up although the twins room now needs another pick up. Ugh! Tomorrow I've got to get to Kenzie's room, Alex/Connor's room, the bath rooms, the family room and the kitchen. The kitchen actually isn't too bad...really just needs the floor mopped. The kids have soccer games first thing in the morning. I'm not sure if that will be a good thing to have them out of hte house or not as I'm not generally coherent at 8am so I don't think I'll be doing much cleaning at that time. I also need to go in the closet and pull out my regular clothes that I had boxed up when I got pregnant to see what I can find to wear on Sunday. Not sure what I can fit into yet as I still have to lose 15-20 lbs.

In addition to cleaning, I also went and got my hair cut today. It had been months...actually probably longer than that...I'm not sure I've gotten it cut since I got pregnant...so needless to say it needed it and it was driving me nuts. And since I'm sure someone will ask to see a picture, I've included one. I don't look any different than I normally do...just got several inches cut off the bottom but style is still the same.

And speaking of Kearsyn's baptism, it occurred to me last night that I needed to get out the baptism gown. A good friend of the family made one for McKenzie's baptism which was also used when Rebekah was baptized. I looked in the closet where it had been packaged away and wouldn't you know it wasn't there. Ack!! Trying not to panic when thoughts of where am I going to find another baptism gown only 2 days before the baptism not to mention that gown was special since it had been handmade for us start flying through my head, I decided to check in Kenzie's room and thankfully found it in her closet. I'm not sure why it was in there...I think maybe she thought it was a play dress because I found part of it on the floor and the other piece kind of hanging up. Because it was out of it's packaging, it's gotten extremely yellowed so then I'm freaking out about how awful it looks. The only recourse I have is to try bleaching it although that makes me nervous because it's a combination of silk, lace, ribbon and beads and I'm not sure how the bleach will affect the three pieces. After much soaking the worst of the yellowing is gone...the lace and ribbon is back to a pristine white, the beads don't seem to have been affected and the silk is kind of a light ivory color...it should be white but at least everything is all one shade again and you can only tell that it should be white when the the hat is put next to the gown and jacket (the hat had been packaged separately). It shouldn't be too noticeable though. I do need to make a couple of small repairs to it. One of the ribbon ties on the jacket is hanging on by a thread and there is also a small tear in the sleeve of the gown. That one bums be out a bit but there's not much I can do about it other than to stitch it closed. Here's a pic of what the gown and jacket look like.

Can't Move

I did way too much today and now I'm in serious pain. My lower back, hips and legs are really hurting...especially my left side. I decided to stay home today instead of going to watch the kids play soccer as the kitchen needed some cleaning. I was really only going to mop the floor but when I looked closer at the table, I decided it really needed a good cleaning. When I got done with that, I noticed that the chairs could use a good once over. When those were done...which was no small feat since there are 10 of them, I decided that the window sills and wall behind the table could use cleaning. Cleaned those and a few other corners of the walls, wiped down the refrigerator, compactor and dishwasher and then I finally got around to mopping the floor...about 2 hrs after I originally started out to do it. I swept and washed the floor, then swept the hallway and stairs. Unfortunately, I couldn't sweep up the dirt I'd swept up from the hallway and stairs as the dustpan was across the kitchen and the floor was still wet....not good planning on my part. So I left the piles figuring I would get them when the floor dried. I then decided our bathroom needed some cleaning so I got halfway done with that before I realized that I just couldn't do anymore. My back and legs were hurting so much I could barely move. And by this point, my kitchen was dry but I couldn't bend down to sweep up the dirt into the dustpan...I hurt too bad. Thankfully Alex did that when he got back from the field.

So, I decided now was a good time to sit down and take it easy. I pulled out Quaker Mystery Sampler and was able to get Part 5 finished up. The colors are a little messed up in the pic but I didn't feel like fooling with it tonight. Only one more part to go...the alphabet at the top which shouldn't take too long to do. I'm going to switch back to working on Mother's Bliss for awhile, though, and then I'll come back to the sampler although I might through a mini rr in between to work on.

Other than that, it was a quiet day. You might want to check on me tomorrow to see if I'm able to move. I have grand plans of cleaning the boys bathroom and doing laundry but we'll see if I can even get out of bed in the morning. ;)