The girls are earning money these days by helping out around the apartment. SO, they LOVE to go to yard sales & spend their money. Mackenzie bought a gingerbread house kit last week, so they got to decorate it yesterday....kinda like Christmas in July (almost!)
Also, have I ever mentioned that my kids LOVE dirt?? Whenever we go to the property (or "croperty" as Jenna calls it), they find as much dirt as possible to get into. Here's a couple pictures from last night:
(note the dirt in his hair!)
Camden woke up this morning running a fever - I think it's probably just him cutting more teeth. He's working on 2 molars. He has no other symptoms of anything, so hopefully it won't turn into anything else!
Lastly, I took the girls to their sibling class at the hospital yesterday. They said they liked it. We also got to see the birthing suites while we were there. They are HUGE! There were like 40 people in our class & everyone fit in one of the rooms!!! Plus, they have wireless internet, so Tom will actually have something to keep him busy while I'm in labor :) That also means that we can post pictures on the blog like right away! Well, assuming we're not too busy with all our visitors - ha ha!
I thought I'd put a post of what the kids have been up to.
The girls are very into "surprising" us. They are constantly trying to hide somewhere & jump out & say "scuprise" (yes....scuprise....Jenna can't say surprise). They think it's a great game!
They also are into "pets". Everything is a pet...rocks, leaves, happy meal toys, etc. And all the pets have strings tied to them so that they can go for walks or whatever. It's actually irritating cuz I go to throw something away only to have one of them be very upset & let me know that I just threw their pet away!!
And they are also into "instruments". Again, I put it in quotes because anything they can make noise with is their instrument. Salt packets from some restaurant, 2 straws, a package of teddy grahams just to name a few. And once again, don't even think about throwing these things away!!
As for Camden, he just dinks around & plays with his cars. He loves to chase the girls, and especially loves to be outside! His ears are tuned to the door opening, and he's out in an instant if it's open long enough. And he thinks he's big stuff going up & down the stairs by himself, which is VERY stressful to me! These are not stairs that he should be doing by himself since he could trip & fall and land on concrete. He's always getting scratched up knees, and somehow always manages to scrape his forehead as well or his lip. BUT, he's pretty tough and rarely cries about it.
The other day he managed to cut himself right by his eye with something. I have no idea what! He was fussing for a minute so I went to see what was wrong & saw the little cut by his eye. Kinda scary, since it was so close to his eye! Just tonight he scraped his knee up even while I was holding his hand! He just tries to go too fast & gets tripped up.
We've still been going to the pool quite a bit. I took some more pictures today, but also a video. The girls are doing really good swimming (Mackenzie w/no floaties or anything, and Jenna with just arm floaties). Camden is no longer afraid of the water, and is constantly doing stuff that makes my heart skip beats!! I can hardly stand watching him because he is so confident, so I took a video today to show what kinds of stuff he does...
Many times he'll do more than just stick his foot in the water...he'll lay on his belly & put both hands in, or sit down on the side & get both legs in. Problem is, he's always so unstable, that you just never know when he's gonna lose his balance or something & fall in.
Lastly, I'm taking the girls to a "big sibling" class tomorrow at the hospital where I'm going to deliver the baby. Should be interesting...
They've actually been doing some work again on the house. Here's some more pics from yesterday & today:
The footers in the back are ready for concrete:
Camden is ready to drive the bobcat
Poured the concrete floor today
Went back later this evening when it was pretty dry
These last two pictures are because Tom is very perplexed as to all the footprints on the new floor as well as the dirt. As he has told me a ton tonight "Who in their right mind would walk on a brand new concrete floor??" He is convinced that it's women's footprints (guess he's an expert on male vs. female footprints now), and thinks we need to buy a camera to put on the property to see who is walking around our house when we're not there. He got very upset with me when I asked what the big deal was about the footprints....some day they'll have carpet over them. I pointed out that in order to cut lines in the concrete to help prevent cracks later on, someone had to walk on it, but that thought never occurred to him. He's convinced that some neighbor kids (never mind that there are no kids in the neighborhood!) came out & walked around on it. I'm sure we've got stalkers out there who are just waiting to see what they can do to "mess up" our concrete floor!!! Oh well....guess we just have a difference of opinion. I don't see it as a big deal, and he does. He also said he thinks it is very uneven and thinks they did a horrible job. I think it looks just fine. Oh well....
SO anyways, here's the pictures of the footprints & dirt:
Tom just got home from work a little bit ago, and had good news! He said he's pretty sure he escaped being laid off. As he put it "They're done doing layoffs in VTS group, but there are supposed to be more layoffs in durability group tomorrow." Maybe that makes complete sense to some of you, but basically VTS is the group that he works in evidently (shows what I know!!). So, yeah!!
I promise I will try to put a couple new pictures up later tonight of the new stuff that's been done at the house. Plus, tell you about my day today!
Sorry I completely forgot to post an update yesterday! No news really, other than he still has a job...until Monday at least! All they told him was that they wouldn't have any more news until at least Monday. So, that's it for now...
I will try to post pictures later today of the progress on our house!
Tomorrow (Friday) could be a big day for Tom. Harley Davidson is laying off a bunch of people I guess, and obviously since he is "new on the block" I guess there's a possibility that he could get laid off. Somehow I hear everyone in Fort Wayne cheering & clapping, but anyways, we'll see what tomorrow holds. Supposedly tomorrow is the last day for letting people know who is getting cut, but then again, he's also heard that they have until June 30th to make all final decisions.
Somehow I keep telling myself that surely there's no way God would have moved us down here & then have Tom lose his job just as we're starting to build a house & getting ready for the arrival of baby #4, but as Tom said..."God works in mysterious ways." So, yes, it would be VERY mysterious to me, but as always, if it is in HIS plan for us to take this unexpected change, then He will take care of us as we figure out what in the world we're supposed to do!!
So, as much as I wasn't even gonna bring it up, I just thought at the last minute that I should probably post that it's at least a possibility that our lives could be completely uprooted again! That way, it won't be a complete surprise to everyone if he does lose his job, and if he doesn't, then we can once again praise the Lord for watching over us when it seems like he probably should have lost his job since he has basically no seniority!
I'll keep you posted...(and as always we could use your prayers!)
I keep forgetting to tell you that Tom has been enjoying one of the perks of his new job at Harley - driving motorcycles home! His first time being able to drive one was on his birthday (May 30). I forgot to take pictures of the first couple that he drove home, but I finally took some yesterday of the one he has this week. Basically he gets a different one each week....it's much cheaper on gas than the mustang. He's not allowed to have anyone ride with him (lucky for us!) but he loves to go for rides early in the morning on the weekends before any of the rest of us are up.
Next, Tom wanted me to let everyone know that he's not the only one who gets flat tires! (For those of you that know Tom, you know he has issues with getting flat tires ALL the time!) Anyways, last week after they got our basement walls in, our builder was supposed to work on the gravel and getting the footers dug, but ran into TWO flat tires in one day, so that put him behind a couple days while he got them fixed. One was on his trailer, the other was on his bobcat. And, Tom took this picture of 2 vehicles parked next to each other here at our apartments....note the back right tires. Hmmm....maybe that parking lot is bad luck??
Lastly, here's a couple pictures from last night at the property...the footers are dug, and gravel is down. Not sure what else to say...I guess just that some progress is still being made :)
We have some basement walls! I finally got pictures downloaded from yesterday as our basement walls were put up. The back side of the basement will be a stick built wall, which is why there are only 3 sides right now. We spent about 3 1/2 hours at the property yesterday watching the walls go up. It was HOT! The kids watched for a while, but then all resorted to playing in the dirt, which kept them all happy.
So, here are some pics...
Friday, June 6, 2008
It's been a fairly quiet week actually, which is probably good! We've been busy going to the pool every day (sometimes twice!) and working on a nice tan :)
I'm now 31 weeks pregnant, and I wouldn't say I'm really that big yet as usual, but I thought I'd finally post a picture for those that are wondering how I look.
Other than that, we hit some yard sales (they don't call them garage sales down here) today, and that's about it.
Jenna made a really funny comment last week that I thought I'd share as well: After visiting our property, we got in the van and this was the conversation... Jenna: "I wish I were a builder" Ruth: "Why's that honey" Jenna: "So I could build houses. I also wish I was God" Ruth: "why?" Jenna: "So I could build the ark"
It was such a random thing that I just burst out laughing!!! What in the world the ark had to do with anything is beyond me. And the fact that God isn't the one that built the ark anyways was pretty funny. As usual, you just never know what they're gonna come up with next!
