Crazy busy thankful

Life is crazy.

And by that I mean absolutely positively unimaginably insane to the nth degree. And then some.

Popcorn sales for Scouts. As treasurer,
I've had my hands full.

Daniel and I helped unload a tractor trailer full of Christmas
trees. We'll be spending every spare moment at the Scout
tree lot until the last tree is sold.

Sarah celebrated her 14th birthday - and had
basketball games on the same day. The 3 oldest
are all playing now - so life revolves around
basketball AND Scouts.

The Dude and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.
Still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I sat down during my break this morning at work and paid bills - and officially paid off the last of my debt. All of my old debts from my previous lives, all of our medical bills, all of my credit card bills, the van - those payments are all gone. GONE.

I am literally debt-free..... until.....

The biggest thing of all right now.... is the house situation. I haven't really said a whole lot about it since I posted those pictures - but I'll fill you in now.

I officially made an offer on it last week. The seller countered, I countered his counter, he countered my counter of his counter....and it went on for several days like that. He was being obstinate and pretty much refused to budge on anything. We finally reached an agreement and I did all of the loan paperwork on Monday. The inspection is scheduled for December 9, so as long as everything goes well and there isn't anything major wrong with it, I'll close on January 25.

Here's the catch. The seller - is stubborn. He doesn't want to do anything to the house. He doesn't want to allow room in the price for repairs. He just wants to get rid of it. So, if there's something wrong with it, we'll either have to fix it ourselves or give up on the house. I am trying desperately not to get my hopes up because I know that it'll just take one big bad thing on the inspection to lose this. I have the day of the inspection off from work, and I plan to follow the inspector around so that I can see first-hand what needs to be done - and then I can make a decision as to whether or not it's something that we're willing to do.

Needless to say, I'm an anxious nervous wreck right now. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Give the boy a camera...

Today was the last day for basketball. Last one. Final. The end. No more.

Until next season, of course.

The day wouldn't have been complete without drama. Jared stayed with Ex1 last night because he wasn't feeling well and we weren't sure if he was going to play today or not - but he woke up feeling fine and so we were all going to meet up at his game, which was the first one of the morning.

We were already rushing, but I wasn't worried about getting there a few minutes late, since Jared would already be there. And then it happened.....

Emily realized that instead of having HER jersey in her bag, she had Jared's.....which meant that Jared had hers. Which meant (duh) that he didn't have his, and his game was starting in about 45 minutes. And we were still at home, 30 miles away.

GET! IN! THE! VAN! NOW!!!!!

We may have broken a few land speed records, but we got there with 30 seconds left on the warm up clock. Jared got his jersey on and was ready to play.

When his game was over, we took off for Emily's game, praying to the gas gods that we would get there without having to push the van because there was no time to stop and get any. But we made it. Barely.

Now Alex does not like to sit still for me. Trying to get him to sit and pay attention to a basketball game is next to impossible. He'll do it for his father, or for anyone else, but he will not do it for me.

However, hand that boy a camera....

Granted, I had to occasionally swipe the camera from him in order to get a few pictures of the games, but he kept himself amused through both games like this. Maybe it's time to find him a cheap (indestructible) digital camera to have for himself when he needs to be able to keep himself occupied.

I can NOT look at these pictures without giggling.

Races and ball games and all sorts of Kansas-y stuff

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for Scouts. Alex raced as part of his pack and Daniel raced in the Outlaw class (non-Scouts). Neither of of them placed, but they had a great time and it was a great experience for them. After the races were over, we spent the night there as a "camp out" - which consisted of tents set up in the church basement and boys staying up until way after midnight.

But they had a blast.

Putting the finishing touches on his car.

Very proud of his first car.
(That's not dirt on his face. That's chapped skin.
Gross. I know.)

He had to show off his toy too.

Our very own indoor tent city.

Basketball games on zero sleep.

Kansas Day is coming in a few days, which is the anniversary of the day that the state became....well, a state. A local museum had some festivities to celebrate, and since I only had Daniel today we took full advantage and went and spent a few hours playing around.

We're sunflowers!

Beanbag toss.

Using an antique tool to make a mess.

Making box turtles out of egg cartons.

Of course I found a quilt. Duh.

Ooooohhhhhhhh.....

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.....
I so wish I had the patience to do this.

Using an old-fashioned gadget to get
the kernels off of the cob.

Making real kettle corn.

Feeding the goats.

Ready to work!

He loved that popcorn!!!

Oh, lookie! Another quilt!

And we got to take a wagon ride.

This is only a small fraction of the pictures that I took over the past 24 hours. I took so many that I literally killed the battery in my camera and couldn't take any more until I got home and got it charged up again. Ooops.

After we got done there, we grabbed a bite to eat and then came home - and Daniel promptly fell asleep in my lap at about 5:30. I fully expect him to just sleep right through the night. Of course, I might have dozed off a bit while I was sitting here at the computer too......kind of odd to have the house this quiet so early in the evening. But I'm definitely not complaining.

It's all about Alex

So today was Alex's 7th birthday. It's hard for me to believe. In the grand scheme of things, I know that 7 isn't old, but he's getting older!

And if he's getting older, that means that I am too. I'm not crazy about that idea.

Anyway, I'm honestly just not in the mood to sit here at the computer tonight, so if you want to read his whole birth story you can. He probably has one of the most interesting stories out of the 5 kids, so to me it's worth reading.

Today consisted of basketball (both Emily and Jared had games) and then lunch at home...and then a few hours at the park....and then frozen yogurt....then home, and supper, and cake. So nothing amazingly wonderful, except for being able to run around the park for a few hours wearing nothing more than jeans and tshirts and being comfortable - how does that happen in mid-January in Kansas?

A few pictures of the birthday boy....

Trying to keep him amused at one of the games.

Couldn't get a picture of him standing still to save my life.

I can play too....

The cake had issues. But it was good.

Random stuff and a personal request

A little bit of crafty stuff....

I'm participating in this quilting swap thingee. I can't think of what it's actually called right off of the top of my head, but basically there are 5 people in a group. We each make a row. Then we send our row to the next person, who adds a row. Then it gets sent to the next person, etc etc etc. So when we get our first row back, it now has 4 more rows attached to it, all made by different people all over the country.

Anyway....this is the row that I got from one of the ladies in the group. She is going with a "rustic fall" theme.

I laid it out on my bed and stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what to do with it next. I had a couple of ideas but decided against them and decided to just make some more traditional squares.

Of course, I wasn't paying attention on the first square, and it came out way too small, so I had to start over. But as of right now, I have 2 squares done, and I'm hoping to get the other 3 done this week so that I can get them attached and mail her row on to the next person - and then wait for the next row to come to me.

It's a fun project, and something that I've never done before - so I'm really anxious to see what my quilt looks like by the time that I get it back - although that won't be for several months yet.

In other news, I've been on a quest for a new datebook for the past couple of weeks. I had bought my typical little cheapie from the dollar store, but they changed the format of the pages in it and it just wasn't going to work anymore. I looked online to try to find something, but I didn't really like (or couldn't afford) anything that I saw there. I had to take The Dude to the dentist today and when we got done there we had to go to WalHell to get his prescriptions filled and so I looked at the datebooks that they had there.

It's a little bigger than I wanted and it was a little more expensive than I wanted (I'm a cheapskate. I admit it.) but it has lots of room and I think that it'll work just fine. I already started transferring information into it while Emily was at basketball practice tonight - when I wasn't dealing with argumentative kids who wanted to do absolutely nothing but irritate the snot out of me for the entire time that we were there.

Now....for the request.....

Please forgive me for the vagueness of this, but I just can't go into specifics because of the situation.

I have a friend, a dear friend from high school. Our lives went in different directions after graduation, but we stayed in touch for years and then lost each other, and then found each other again through the miracle that is facebook, and got to see each other live and in person last summer for the first time since graduation (I think), and I got to meet her kids, and it was wonderful.

Anyway, she is now going through something that I believe is probably the worst nightmare that a parent can endure, short of the death of a child. I had heard about the situation before, but didn't realize that there was a connection between it and her until today, when we exchanged some brief messages. My heart is breaking for her and her family right now, and I can't even begin to imagine how she is feeling. She is devastated and heartbroken and there is nothing that I can do to help her except to be there for her and love and support her from afar, and it just doesn't feel like enough.

So I am asking you to please, say a prayer for her and her family. Or if that's not your thing, send a happy thought or a good vibe or something to her. Go out and do something to help someone else. Make a donation to a charity. Something. Anything. She's in the midst of hell right now, and something good has got to come out of it. Somehow. Some way. And I don't know how else to do it.

There's too much bad crap happening in the world. Go do something good.