Fun Times with Hannah

We have been so blessed to be able to enjoy Hannah (and her parents too) quite a bit the last few weeks while they are here in the US waiting on the birth of their 2nd little girl! We even got to spend a couple of days with just Hannah while Daniel and Rachel had a Babymoon :) While they have been here the weather has been so nice and we have been able to head down to the park.

Hannah reading books


Madison and Hannah


Hannah at the park


Hannah and Daniel sliding


Taylor and Caleb


Sweet Madison

Caleb's Blue & Gold Banquet

Last month Caleb has his Blue & Gold Banquet. This is a big deal in Boy Scouts. They were also celebrating 100 yrs of scouting! There were games and crafts for the 1st hour and then we were served a meal worthy of Scouts....hot dogs and chili! There were yummy cupcakes for dessert. After this we went in to the auditorium for the boys to receive their badges. The older boys "bridged" over to cub scouts to boy scouts. All the smaller boys were in awe watching the ceremony. While we were waiting Matt told me all about his "bridging" ceremony :)

Caleb making a card for a child at Children's Hospital


Playing Bingo


The food


Matt pinning Caleb's patch on

Sleeping Beauty!

There is nothing like a freshly washed, sleeping baby!

Our New House!

We are so excited that the house hunting is over! It is great to have found a house that everyone loves! Everything is moving along very fast and we will close on April 12th! We are going to do some painting in the kids rooms and 1 of the master bed/baths before moving in though. And yes, you read that right, the house has 2 masters...one on the main level and one in the finished basement. We are very excited about that. We are also really excited about the 500 square foot deck for entertaining! We asked for the home owners to leave the patio furniture (there were 2 table/chair sets and both had umbrellas and a covered swing) and they did. I foresee many meals outside on the deck.

We had a pretty long list of wants for our house.

1. We really wanted a nice yard that was bigger than a postage stamp which is normally found in older homes.

2. We wanted a little privacy aka we didn't want to look out our window and into our neighbors house.

3. I really wanted an updated kitchen and baths.

4. I wanted hardwood floors throughout the house.

5. We were also looking for something that had separate living quarters for my parents as well as a dining room that would hold my mom's dining room table and hutch.

6. We wanted a 2 car garage also.

We got all of our wants with this house. The upstairs has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, updated kitchen, dining room, separate eating area in kitchen, family room with a beautiful stone fireplace. The downstairs has a huge rec room, 2nd master bedroom and bath with a huge walk-in closet, another full bath, laundry room, a half kitchen and lots of storage. There is a laundry shoot in the kids bath and goes directly to the laundry room...hoping this will make them want to put their dirty clothes up and praying that Caleb doesn't put non laundry related items down the shoot!

The kids are so excited about the new house. Taylor is looking forward to having her own room. I am looking forward to not having to have all 3 kids clothes in the same closet! Caleb is excited about the fort in the backyard. Madison hasn't really picked 1 thing in particular to be excited about. They haven't even seen the inside of the house yet except through pictures. We tried house hunting with them but it was too hard. The younger 2 got bored quickly and Taylor loved every house and she got emotionally attached to the houses. We found a great house early on and after looking at it put an offer on it only to find out it was already under contract and she cried when she found out we weren't going to get it (too be honest, I cried too)! Plus we could look at houses alot quicker w/o the 3 kids....1 Saturday we looked at 9 houses in 3.5 hrs while dragging the kids, everyone was miserable at the end.

These aren't the best pictures. I have none of the inside but will get some to post after we close and before we start painting.

I would vote for him....would you?

Last week Caleb came home with all his papers from school for February and in there was an essay titled If I Were President. And for your reading pleasure here is my son's wise words of what he would do if he was president! Please hold your applause until the end and let us know if you want a yard sign :)



If I Were President by Caleb Aytes


If I were president I would make all the banks give me lots and lots of money so I could be rich. (see, he is totally going to fit in in Washington with this attitude)

Also there would be no smoking or lidring (littering) there would be no robbing or killing and no pollution. (high expectations son, high expectations)

Also no drugs and no guns (the NRA is going to be all over him for that last one)

Also there would be no squwids. (yes you read that right...squids. our son hates squids!)

And there would be no devil. (not sure how he plans on accomplishing this one but I say kuddos to him for wanting to get rid of that bad guy)

These are the things I would do.

We have always told our kids to dream big and they can do anything so "Look out Washington...our son is going to come clean you up!"

Our Crazy Life!

Things have been so crazy around here lately that blogging has been the last thing on my mind. Our whirlwind of activity began Valentine's Day weekend. We had plans to go to Smokey Mountain Wilderness for the weekend with Matt's family. Everyone was so excited. We started out the weekend with Madison waking up with the earache. Sure enough she had an ear infection. We got her started on antibiotics and off we went. After enjoying 2 days at the water park Madison started throwing up and having diarrhea. She spent the last 2 days of our trip watching everyone else play. That started our 10 days of diarrhea. She ended up missing an entire week of school. We had the pleasure of collecting a stool sample and having it run for parasites. Nothing showed up in the cultures so we still haven't gotten to the bottom of that. Things are better but not completely normal.

Next started the fun activity that is picking up, sorting and delivering 200 boxes of girl scout cookies. Thankfully we are down to only 2 orders left to deliver. I am glad we only sell cookies once a year.

We are also getting ready for assessment at school. This is a little stressful for me since it is my first year and we will be assessed on a day that I am there. Everyone says it will be fine but I am not as sure. The preschool has always taking pride in the fact that they are a 5 star program and I don't want to do anything to mess that up. In 2 weeks assessment will be over and I will feel much better.

We are also in the process of trying to find a house. We have blessed to be where we are right now but have run out of room. We are looking for a particular house though and it is proving to be harder than I thought. Mostly b/c we are trying to stay in the area that we are currently in so that the kids don't have to change schools. We are looking for a house that has separate living space in the basement. That is harder to find than we thought it would be! We spent last Saturday looking at houses, found the perfect one and then found out that there was already a contract on it. We are still hoping that somehow we might end up with that house. In the meantime we continue looking at houses. We have houses set up for this weekend...maybe we will find the one!

Last weekend also included subbing at the preschool on Friday followed by a Teacher Appreciation Lunch at Gettysvue Country Club. That night I had Girl's Night Out. Saturday morning was spent looking at houses. Saturday afternoon/evening was spent at Caleb's Blue and Gold Banquet for Boy Scouts. Matt got that 24 hr bug Saturday evening. Sunday morning we had church and then Madison and I were off to a birthday party at Build A Bear while Taylor and Caleb went home with Amy and Aaron. We all meet up at H2H that evening. It was such a busy weekend. I am very glad it is over.

This weekend involves more house hunting and 2 Girl Scout cookie booths that Taylor has to be at.

We are looking forward to seeing Matt's brother, his wife and their little girl Hannah next week. They will be with us for Tuesday through Saturday and we are excited.