not sure cottontail is a baby girls name....

Some of you have asked for house pictures...but honestly we had no Internet for the first 2 weeks of moving in. Torture I know. But even if we would have had Internet, I couldn't find my camera. Which was the real problem. Still haven't found it. We finally broke down and got another one. Which I will not complain about, because honestly I didn't like our last bulky camera. And honestly I'd rather be without my right arm than without a camera. O.K. well not my right arm since I'm right handed...but definitely would rather go without my left hand than be without a camera. Just not so fun to shell out the cash.

Since we moved 2.5 weeks ago....things seem to have gotten a lot easier in some areas. For one...we are back into a routine. Now that we are home more, rather than back and forth having work nights...there is time for the kids to do regular chores. I rather like that aspect.

Jack handles the dishes, Isabella folds most laundry and William as you can see matches and puts away socks. I'm so thankful for space and the room to let them be in their own rooms doing separate jobs.

Another fun thing since moving has been the rediscovery of things that had been packed away for months. Last weekend my sister Holly babysit for us and then stayed the night...which gave her little girl Makayla and our kids some good cousin time.

Don't know if you can tell...but the wedding veil they made for Suzy is made out of bubble wrap. Yes, daddy is proud. (Donovan works for Sealed Air that invented it)

This is looking from the kitchen to the living room area. It's one big room.

Suzy rediscovering treasures that have been unpacked.

Our bedroom.

....and bath.

little sweetness.

One thing that had/has been a challenge since having kids is coats, hats, mittens, school bags, lunch bags, boots, times 4....it was a challenge since our kids were old enough to wear the items. HOW do you keep them organized? When building this house we kept this in mind. We took what would have been our laundry room and made it into a mud room for this purpose.

And since hubby was kinda busy contracting this house....it was on the back burner, that is until last weekend.

Look what hubby copied out of a Pottery Barn picture??? I love his skills. Someday I'll get more pictures of how it looks now with all the coats, snow pants, backpacks all neatly tucked away into each of their homes.

Isabella snug in her favorite spot. The girls share a room now. And the boys also share a room.

Instead of 2 sink bowls, I decided to go with one big bowl. Not knowing if down the road I might regret it. We found this sink on a good deal at Lowes. I love it because the only time I wash anything by hand, it is a big pan or cookie sheet that fits very well. My Suzy fits in there well for a bath too. :) So far there are no regrets.

SO thankful for the white Christmas we are having!!!

This is the road coming to our house. Love, Love all the snow. I have to say it like my friend Rose did on facebook.....and I quote,

"How I love you Mr Snow.....You make me happy down to my toes. Remember I only love you in small doses so don't get crazy and stay around until March! Thank you, Your friend(conditionally)"

My feelings exactly.

a rare moment when everyone gets along nice and sweetly.

For Christmas from my secret sister from church I got a fun hot chocolate set for Donovan and I, and for the kids...she gave them a miniture gingerbread kit. I hope you read my blog secret sister. You gave my kids hours of fun with this kit. We loved it!!!!

Some did more eating than decorating which is fun too.

And as if we didn't eat enough gingerbread candy....we got this fun treat from our neighbors. Oh how I love Christmas. I hope you are doing fun traditions and things this week.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours.


quote of the day:

Donovan was reading Suzy a bedtime story (Beatrice Potter's- Peter Rabbit)
after the story this is what I heard:
Donovan: "Suzy when you were born mommy wanted to name you Peter if you were a boy."
Suzy: "If William was a girl was he going to be Cottontail?"

cabin fever

I wish I could find my camera right now....there are photo opportunities all around me. Boxes are stacked 3 and 4 high. Why I'm not filling more is a good question. If I would know where my camera is right now I would take pictures of all the piles...to remember why we should NEVER move again. I would take pictures of our little children sleeping soundly in the loft all stacked neatly side by side in the loft.....for one last night. I would take pictures of our cozy little bathroom...to remind myself of days when all 6 of us needed to be in the 7 X 5 foot space together. I would take a picture of the coats all hanging behind the kitchen table. That fall to the floor at least once a day when someone walks by....to remind myself of how nice it will be to have a closet for coats once again. I would also fondly take a picture of the kitchen sink and little itty counter top...to remind myself to never complain when I tire of emptying my brand spankin' new dishwasher. There are so many memories of this little cabin by the lake, and oh so sweet to have such an opportunity as this. But I shall be utterly gitty for the rest of my life to not be in such tight quarters with the ones I love.

Tomorrow is M day. As in moving. Who knows how long before we'll have Internet again.....and when we do get back in sync I'm sure I should probably be unpacking boxes, wrapping Christmas gifts, or making Christmas goodies. Speaking of unpacking....I probably should finish packing so we can unpack them in the days to come.

Love, Heather

2 voices in my head.

When Jack (age 7) realized he was going to have 4 days off of school...he began planning breakfast in bed for me. Don't ask me why....he thought I should have it. I wasn't going to argue...I loved the idea. So on Thanksgiving day while Donovan got up in the wee hours of the morning to work on the new house....hours later I hear someone them get up at the ripe hour of 7:30 and hear all 4 of them messing around in the kitchen. I got up and was instructed to get back into bed. Another awesome idea! Isabella took the role of head chef and instructed the rest of the crew on things to do. Like..."get me the bread, put this in the toaster, get a cup...no not that one a big person one...." Then I heard Isabella tell Suzy to ask me what kind of jelly I wanted on my toast. Pitter patter...here comes Suzy...."Mom, do you prefer grape or strawberry jelly?" I LOVE it! Isabella also "encouraged" cards to be made. This was my favorite part......

If you look close you can see what William (age 5) was thinking....

You can see his sister helped out by labeling his turkey that he drew. I needed just a little help figuring out what he wrote. "it tastes like chicken"
I love it! I wonder how many cards Hallmark made this year that had those same words??? And really how many moms get breakfast in bed on Thanksgiving?

I'm so lucky...to have these people in my life.

Like the rest of you...I am in a coma of turkey related awe. Yummy yummy...to feast on all of the awesome treats of the season. I love the relaxed atmosphere of the holidays. Sitting around and playing cards or looking at old photo albums.

My immediate family was not able to get together this year...my older sister had another small stroke 2 weeks ago and my younger sister had a sick child. That leaves the baby sister that just came home from college for the week. So we went to visit her and happened to stop in at just the right time....for lunch.

I wonder how many of you had egg rolls, sticky rice, curry turkey, ham, and roasted turkey this week?

Lovin' the eggrolls.

Who knew...how much time painted trim took? Well I guess we "did" know this last time we built...but some how we blocked it out of our memory. In between the Thanksgiving feasts we've been spackling the small nail holes, sanding them, caulking, and then taping off the trim getting ready to spray the final coat of paint on the trim. It's a nice look but right now in the midst of it...we are ready to shoot ourselves.

quote of the day:
William: "You know I have two voices? One in my head and one in my mouth and I can hear both of them at the same time."

warnings

This past week I used Donovan's van to pull a borrowed trailer loaded with our new cabinets (the bottom half anyways.) Since the fine work was crafted by a local Amish man...I did the "hauling." I dropped him and his wife off at the building site along with the cabinets and then went into Goshen for some errands I had to run. It started with some Christmas shopping, lunch, groceries, and then before I knew it...it was 30 minutes until the kids got out of school and I still needed to pick up the cabinet knobs. I had just enough time, if I had NO delays. I pull up to a line of traffic that was waiting for a train. The guards were down with no train coming. Just waiting. And waiting. So I looked both ways two times, and then proceeded to go across the tracks...feeling pretty cool about myself avoiding this delay while the other suckers were waiting endlessly on some "malfunction" on the tracks. Let's face it sometimes it feels pretty fun to live on the wild side. So I just barely get across the tracks to see in an open parking lot around the corner is a police officer. Waiting and watching me. Talk about a sinking sick feeling hitting you smack dab in the face. I knew I was sunk. I knew I was toast. He pulled slowly out, put on his lights, and over I went. All the while feeling the sick, sick awful feeling of regret. Mr. Officer came around the car and while I shook with remorse I struggled to get my license out of my wallet that has never been removed from this wallet. I'm just gonna insert here that I have not been pulled over for 16 years. I'm just sayin'. While Mr. Officer was checking my registration and license...I sat there and just cried. Cried silent tears of sheer worry.....silently crying because I didn't want the 3 year old to ask questions I didn't want to answer. Knowing all the while I was going to get what I deserved, and why was I so stupid? Thinking of the ticket I'm sure I will get....regretting the money I didn't want to spend on a the ticket I deserved. Letting the stress of the week pile up and release in these minutes while I saw a printer printing on Mr. Officers dashboard....while looking on my rear view mirror.

While I waited I couldn't help but correlate the similarities between this judgment and the doom that I was headed before before Christ ruled my life. Thinking of how knowing at one time in my life I was doomed for hell and deserved it. I had committed the sin and deserved eternal death. But having Christ come in and save me from death. Paying that price for me so that I can live with him eternally. I think it struck me so profound...because so few times in my life do I feel like I am on the "hot seat" waiting for the judgment to be given. And it spoke fresh to me that afternoon what a high price it is to die for someone else, for something they did, and knew was wrong. How awesome our God is!

So...the rest of the story. The officer walked up and took one look at me, and had a questioning puzzling look on his face. He said, "it's NOT that bad. You put your life and your little one's in danger..but a ticket's not that bad." I told him in some jumbled up mess of an explanation that by now I was probably going to miss my kids getting off of the bus, the bus driver probably wouldn't leave off the kids because William is just a kindergartner and I HAVE to be there for him to get off, and told him I was mad at myself for being so stupid, and that I know I deserved the ticket...but how I'm mad I was in such a hurry...and blah blah, blah....

And then he hands me what he printed. A warning. Just a warning. He told me to get going...and to be more careful.

Again I was in awe. How do I get out of that...which I deserved? Why did I get grace? I felt so undeserving. So very, very undeserving. Much like God's forgiveness and grace in my life.

P.S. I did make it in time for the boys to get off the bus. :)

Quote of the day:
Suzy: "Mom, I need my boots today because it's raining, right?"
Me: "No, Suzy it's not raining today. God made a beautiful day."
Suzy: "NO mom God makes it rain. Jesus makes a beautiful day."

people who encourage us

For the last week and a half...the kids are getting dropped off at our new building project by the bus. I find a little spot for them and they work on homework and then it's movie time for them and work time for us. Donovan had all of last week off so we started our days there around 7:30 and stayed long into the evenings. Depending on how well the kids did.

We've had some people along the way who asked to come help....like Donovan's parents, my sister, and in the above picture Aunt Gloria. Wished I could have gotten more pictures of all of our fine help. We also had the huge blessing of having different people take Suzy for the entire day so we would be able to work "3 year old free." As in no distractions! :) Thanks Marlys, Mom, Arlene, & Charlotte! I know Suzy had way more fun being with friends & family rather than painting with us.

And then we got the call that our entire small group wanted a project and was willing to come and work, including bringing dinner!

What a huge boost...physically and emotionally to have this group there that evening. Rose cordinatted a meal and it was so very delicious. We are so blessed to have this small group in our life!

Al and Jake (2 pictures up) worked on plastic sheeting on the the basement walls, Ed and Jb worked on storage/canning shelves...with a little help from Mussie, Noah, and Ryan.
Donovan was working on everything in between....breathing in the paint fumes all the while.

Jason worked on electrical and putting up light fixtures.

Norm was helping on that project of lighting/electrical.

Here's the whole group...well almost....just a few couldn't be there. I love these people!!!

Here's the living room with the finial coat going on the ceiling. Thanks Ed for the use of the scaffolding.

In the midst of this crazy time in our life...came our annual Ikea trip to Chicago. I was feeling like I would need to sit this year out...but Donovan encouraged me to go. I didn't hesitate. It was one night of pure fun, laughter and girl time. Much time was spent eating, a little sleeping, building friendships, and quite a bit of shopping. :) All things I L.O.V.E.!!!

quote of the day comes from my step-mom who stopped in the night we had our small group there for the work night.
Khankeo: "Billie, (My dad) we gotta get a new small group...one that doesn't take their teeth out at night."

I think she'd like some canning/storage shelves made.