Happy Birthday

Tootles turned 3 last week, time flies by so fast. He is daddy's little shadow. Every waking moment that Peter Pan is home, Tootles is only one (three year old) step behind.
He was so excited with his gifts: 4 loud Tonka trucks, a backpack and a pop-gun from Vision Forum. He is a bit younger than recommended but with so many older brothers, he is always watched.
While I am wishing Happy Birthday's I should say Happy Birthday to my Grandmother in CA, and our cousin in NJ who will also be 3.

Answered Prayer

Back in January I posted about our desire for a more permanent place to live, with an area for a garden and animals, well God blessed with this and more. We have almost twice as much space in the house, along with lots of built in cabinets and a fireplace. The house is in much better shape,too.
We have space for our garden and a couple of animals if we choose.
We were able to move in almost immediately, and had help from some friends to get us moved quickly, which allowed us to be settled in before Captain Hook's busy end of senior year, I will post more later.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the place is cheaper, and our old landlord allowed for our deposit to stand for our final rent payment. Thank you Lord for our miracle.
Captain Hook put pictures up on facebook, but I can't seem to get them at this time.

Major Score...

I think I found my new favorite store.The Sonshine shop, some moms from co-op had been talking about it so when passed it by accident, I figured I would check it out.The worst deal I got was saving about $2.00 on coconut oil over my food co-op’s price but I needed some. The best deal I got was some toothpowder that I love normally $4.29 through the food co-op but I paid $0.79. Everything else I know was at least half what I would have paid at the food co-op and if I compared it to Whole Foods, my savings would be even bigger. I completely filled a small buggy (shopping cart for those not in the south) till it was overflowing --things were falling off the top with all of the organic foods and herbal teas and tooth paste for $100.00 including our almost 10% sales tax on everything, even food.

Update

It has been quite some time since I last posted, we have been extremely busy so here is what we have been up to since I last posted. We got another big snow--they actually had to send out the snow plow, I didn’t even know they had one. We got a good four inches, it was so beautiful before the snow plow came as the snow was untouched over the yards and roads--just one big blanket of white for as far as we could see.
We replaced our old Suburban we had for several years in CA with a 12 passenger van – I love the van. I can get from the front seats to the back seats without getting out, comes in handy with little ones especially when it is FREEZING outside.
The washer stopped spinning so we had to replace it. I decided to get the front loader type, so far I am glad I spent a bit more to get them. Toodles can help with the laundry so much more now that he can reach the buttons.
Curly turned 16; I am getting old, I am thankful for the little ones to keep me young. We have entered the birthday season, Captain Hook starts us in January, Curly in March, Tootles in April, Smee & Tinker Belle in May, Me in June and Peter Pan finishes us up in July.
We took a trip to visit my dad – it was a great visit except for us all getting the flu. Most of us got it while at my dad’s, one was sick while we drove home and Captain waited until the day after we got home. I pray that my dad and step mom don’t get it. Even the weather was perfect ,70-80’s tucked in between the snow storm and return of the cold.
I have been having fun with my friend’s serger. In one afternoon, I made five wash cloths and one cloth diaper – well I sewed/serged them as they were already cut out. Some look great, others….well, let’s just say they work.
The big bathroom tub has become Smee’s green house for starting plants, he has tomatoes, bell peppers, and flowers which are already coming up. I think he is going to sell the started plants and take some to church for the community garden since we have too much shade here.

Snow days

Being from CA and able to drive to the snow and leaving when we have had enough, I do enjoy looking out my window and watching it snow. The dead trees look so pretty with their dusting of snow. When we first moved here we thought it funny to hear 6 inches of snow causes whole towns, even cities to shut down for at least a couple of days. After being here for several years now, we have seen it snow several times and when the snow actually sticks, it is unusual to accumulate more than an inch. We have seen the road covered but not the yards because the road didn’t get salted, but it is rare to see the snow actually cover the grass. As I sit here typing I wonder if today might be one of those times, when I got up this morning, our yard was white, the grass is still taller than the snow.If it keeps going, Peter Pan may not be going to work.Hard to believe it was almost 60 degrees here yesterday.I do wish for enough to play or sled in, but it seems silly to drive to snow when it is snowing at your house.

Diapers and diets

Tinkerbelle has been having diaper rash off and on since moving to this house, I was beginning to suspect something in the water as I haven’t changed my diet or washing of her cloth diapers. Shortly after she got healed up she had another rash, we tried all the variations of washing, stripping the diapers as well as different rash creams and even disposables would give mixed results. I recently replaced the diapers we had used for Toodles as 2 ½ yrs of washing had turned them to rags, so I really wanted to figure this out so I could use them. The new diapers are a newer size of the standard prefold, these are so much softer and fluffier than the ones we had been using and the size fits just perfectly into her Bummis snap cover. Well it seems she has a yeast rash, confirmed by the use of plain yogurt as diaper cream and she was noticeably improved after the first application, unfortunately I had used a friends salve that had made it worse over the course of a day, which means I get to change my diet. I have wanted/needed to make some more healthful changes anyway, so now I have a real motivation to cut all the bad stuff out and add in some good. Hopefully I will have some health benefits as well as weight loss for myself and a nice rash free bum for my little Tinkerbelle.

Catching Up

It seems I’ve been doing a lot of catching up these days, so why not here too. The week before Christmas, I took Captain Hook and Tinkerbelle to see my family. We stayed with one of my cousins. It was great to get to know her and her family since we never really spent much time together as we lived 3000 miles away. We were so blessed to be there, we were able to see all my family except one cousin, we missed you A! The best part of this trip was being able to see both of my grandmothers, and letting them meet Tinkerbelle. We then went to visit my Dad and step-mom for a long weekend trip. I only had two complaints about the trip: both children came home sick and we got stuck in the airport for a few hours due to a weather delay.

We got home a few days before Christmas and spent until just after New Years with colds and a stomach bug. I am very thankful that I never got sick, I took vit. c and a pro-biotic which seemed to work. The boys took some too, but they weren’t quite as diligent. We missed several celebrations during this time but everyone is healthy now.

We got healthy just in time to start back to school both at home and our co-op. Now that the spring semester has started back up, we have lots of planning and paper work to do. Graduation, proms, not-proms, college tours, and all the other stuff that goes with the senior year of high school and unfortunately it is all new to us, as we have to do all the work that the school would do. Thankfully we have those who have gone before us to help us along the way. Everything is in order so far for Captain Hook to start college this fall.

Tinkerbelle is now crawling and pulling herself up making nothing safe and creating the opportunity for the floor needing vacuumed hourly. She is no longer content to be held for any length of time, she just wants to go, go, go. She loves being held to walk.

Toodles loves helping--with everything--cooking, cleaning, Tinkerbelle, and whatever else dad is doing at the time.

We are considering allowing Smee to get back into gymnastics. We found a gym run by Christians just under 30 minutes that has older boys who enjoy gymnastic for the sport it is. Smee will be able to get back in shape and do what he loves and either do it for fun or begin competing again next year depending on what he wants to do. We are taking him next week to a practice to see if he likes it. He will be sore as it’s 2 1/2hrs long.

We have found a church; unfortunately it is over an hour away. They are like a large extended family (which some are) but they have welcomed us as if we have been a part of them for years.

I think that catches me up on one more thing. On to yet another.