So. I have finally uploaded some new pictures! We switched computers and it took way longer then needed. But hopefully I can get up a lot of photos I have in limbo.. at least before the next vacation comes along!
We are all well. Loving Duluth. Loving work, school and the house. And most of all this inspiring fall colors outside against the lake. I hope you are all well and I hope once the weather cools down. Things will go a little slower around here. So I can get back on here and update you all about our little adventures! Love!

We made it! We are here! (we are here, we are here, we are here, a little Horton hears a who..). I feel a little as if we are actually living on a small little speck at times. I am happy as can be living here so far. This is the first weekend we have been either home or alone! And it is perfect outside. I have abandoned any hope, yesterday and today, of inside duties and have spent the entire two days outside. We have now seen two deer, a pack (pride? FLOCK? hehe) of foxes, tons of chipmunks, the BIGGEST crows I have ever seen (all the houses in our area are these big old mansions, so the crows look super creepy hanging about) and WATER! Love the water. The house is HUGE! A bit on the ridiculous side.. in the fact that, when you forget to put socks on the kids as you are heading out the door.. I have to think really hard if I want to climb all the way up to the third floor and get them.. or if they can just go sock-less. I am going to have calves of steel! Speaking of steep inclines.. we don’t live in FLAT Detroit anymore. I took the kids in the bike trailer today just to go up and down some of the streets in the area. It would have been alright all by myself. But when you add the 100+lb’s of the bike stroller and the kids.. the hills were evil! We have a pretty steep hill in front of our house that peaks a few blocks up. So I strapped the kids in and chugged up to the top.. it was a few blocks down after I had caught my breath that I realized I hadn’t peddled yet. And that I was in fact riding the break. What goes down must come back up. IF it ever wants to get back home. I continued down the hill for awhile till I was fully rested and then started back towards home. I was on 36th and we live in the middle of 22nd. It was ALL up hill ‘cept for those last few blocks! Whew. I had to walk for a bit, or I might have started rolling backwards! We then DROVE to the park I had intended on going to in the first place. This is at one of the slowest moving areas of the river. We went on a wonderful little walk up and back around the other side of the river. The kids were so happy to be “on our nature walk!” Giggling in delight at all the rapids and the BIG waterfall, that the big boys were jumping into. Eeeek! It was so fun. I am pretty sure when this picture was taken (with my phone..) Jack is thinking “Oh, how I would love to just JUMP in!” After all the exploring and supper we took a bath. In the BIG bathtub. We found that the jets make for awesome bubble bath starters! I washed them up and then O begged and begged for me to turn on the bubbles and THIS is what transpired:

There is about three inches of water and 12 inches of bubbles!! I am sure this will be very tough to say no to at bath time, from now on! We really are happy to be in our new home. It feels so good to be out of the BIG D and into the little d.

We got a call from the moving men in Duluth, Wednesday afternoon. They want to move up the date and pack and load the house on the 25th, now! Yikes. This is good and bad. Good because our furniture and items WILL be in Duluth on the 4-6th as planned. Bad because we are not flying to Duluth till the 3rd of June! Yes. That is 9 DAYS and 9 NIGHTS of no beds, No Furniture, No Toys.. an Empty house, living out of the suitcases we pack and sleeping on an air mattress and sleeping bags. J thinks this is perfectly okay, for some odd reason. My guess is because he WORKS from 5AM – 5PM (and sometimes later) everyday. I just keep avoiding thinking about it. Maybe with all this stress, I can use it as a diet start up. Ha!

On top of the moving stress we have the SELLING stress as well. I have to clear out and scrub down the house every other day or so for another inspector/appraiser/realtor/buyer/nosy neighbor, you name it. Every time that phone rings my heart jumps and I make a long mental list of all that will need to be done in the next hour. I am always reminded of the commercial awhile ago, where the mother is bathing her two children, water splashing everywhere, trail of toys strewn about them, and the realtor asking if they can be ready in an hour. That commercial, that is me most days. The house would be so much cleaner if the kids were just statues.. I have gotten some of my best workouts in, since we listed this house, just cleaning it! We still have the offer on the table and now we are just waiting till everything is said and done and we no longer own the house. Selling this house makes me NEVER want to buy a house EVER AGAIN. Unless. We live there for the REST OF OUR LIVES! or. We try to sell AFTER we move out.

The kids are both excited about the move. And are constantly packing their Backpacks full of toys, for the move. It is very cute. Olivia has a tendency to tell EVERYONE that looks at her for more then 10 seconds, that we are moving. If she gets a response she then tells them it is yellow and it is big and has a secret stairs and lots of toys. From that point her story usually changes. Sometimes we will have a puppy, other times the house has a “hole”. I still can’t figure out what the “hole” reference is about. But she insists it has one. I worry that once there they will realize we are not coming back and be sad. I can only hope we can stay busy enough to keep their sadness at bay! Sooo.. COME AND VISIT US!! I love having house guests and visitors. And we will have TONS!! of room. Even if you don’t want to visit WITH US. I am sure you can more then easily avoid us if you visit, using the secret stairs or maybe even going down into the mysterious “hole” if you can find it..

Olivia has been on the cusp of figuring out what this reading thing is all about, for what seems like forever! She is always telling us tidbits of information. “J starts with Jaa, mom.” “Well sweetheart J makes the Sound, Jaa.” “Ughhh. Mom I already told you that a thousand times..” She makes me giggle. Her memory and knowledge is amazing, to me.  Last year before Easter we were getting our hardwood floors refinished. And had to spend the night ‘camping’ in the basement, the night before Easter. I had completely forgotten about this. And when I started getting various Easter decor out. Olivia was so excited and jumping around that  Easter was almost here so we could go camping!! I casually told her no, and then reminded her the real meaning of Easter. To which she got a little annoyed and reminded me that she knew about Jesus and all, but we got to go camping in the basement last time. Then I remembered it was at Easter time last year we were banished from the main floor! I am constantly having to keep on my toes with that quick little whip of a mind of hers!

Another Olivia story.

This weekend J bought O a little kite and we went to the school grounds to go and fly it. She was so happy about her kite and she stood there proud getting  to hold onto it while it soared up into the sky. That was until she just let go. It was quickly up and out of our reach. Which we still find odd since there was hardly any wind to begin with.(We are NOT expert kite flyers and maybe this is normal behavior for an abandoned kite?) And unlike you would think a normal kite would do, and pitter around for a bit and fall. It SOARED high, HIGH up into the sky. And just kept going until it was a tiny little dot and disappeared. O was soo so sad. She bawled and bawled. “I MISS MY KITE!” We tried to help her get over the fact and have her go play on the playground equipment. NO! I miss my kite too much. Then suddenly she said in one of the most sad voices “Maybe if I exercise a little I will get happier.” To which she walked over to a piece of equipment that you bounce on. And with extremely exaggerated facial expressions. She started with sad, “not yet mom” to indifferent “not yet” to small smirk “getting happier” and slowly going into full blown giggling “I’m happy NOW! I’m Happy! It worked!!” Her happiness sure made all the rest of us happy too.

Mothers Day I was presented with flowers and a present. It was a lensbaby. I have wanted a lensbaby forever! Years ago I came across a ladies crafting blog, that took the most amazing photos I have ever seen. I know now with all the photo editing software you can achieve similar effects.  But! I GOT A LENSBABY. I am very excited and have been photographing everything from the coffee maker to the kids with its amazing tilt shift technology. I was a very happy momma this year. Although, I am everyday of the year, with my sweet little family.  I love you guys.

First step is admitting your addiction..

I admit it. I admit it full on. I am fully addicted to Etsy. 98% of the bookmarks saved on my computer are links to etsy items. I have to have! Need to have. I don’t think I could live without for another day. Sadly.. the only purchases I have made from Etsy sellers have been gifts for other people who probably don’t even know the beginning of my heartbreak, having to part with the gifts!

I am a window shopper. Sometimes I go through my closest “big box store” loading my cart with things I MUST HAVE! Once the registers are insight I duck into an isle and assess the damage. And end up only buying what we really DO need. example: toilet paper.. lame. shampoo.. whatever. toothpaste.. ugh. (I AM SO SORRY WORKERS OF MY STORE! -or any store I have been to. If I impulse anything frozen.. I ALWAYS make sure I at least take that back. But I can’t risk running into something else I NEED!! – you must understand?)

So, moral of the story. Etsy is the perfect place for me to shop. Because I can shop away and walk away. Sometimes dreaming that I have the items I have found.. is just as good as HAVING the items I have found. Sometimes.

We went to the zoo yesterday! Took our first “road trip” in the NEW car. It was Jack Hannah’s zoo in Columbus Ohio. It was a nice and BIG zoo. The kids had a lot of fun. Last year Jack was too little to jump in and out of the stroller. It is so cute to see how much more fun he has, having a little of his own freedom to explore. He was really good at holding hands and getting back into the stroller. Luckily both our babies are not runners! Jack had a few moments but he always came back when I would tell him he had to hold onto my hand. They never went off out of our site. But we still let them do a little exploring on their own, within reason. Some parents at the zoo are SO rude. With their giant strollers right stuck in front of the animals. Half the time the stroller is empty. And they just stand there while their naughty and loud children are banging away on the glass clearly labeled DO NOT TAP ON GLASS. Jack and O got to touch a few snakes. I was surprised O did it at all. She is so nervous nelly of things. But Jack was all for it, I think she didn’t want to be left out. It was a really a wonderful day with my wonderful little family.

I found this cute little poem today listed on someones etsy item. I NEED IT. Of course. It has been saved in my bookmarks. They didn’t have these photos.. or the whole poem.. but I love them and how cute the poem is.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear

We are busy little bees lately. Lots of coming and going. Jarrod got his new REDD FERD EXCLORER (as O calls it). FINALLY!
It is a very pretty and comfortable ride. And Jarrod has probably logged more hours in the car then in the house since he got it. He is by far the most excited member of the family, about his new car..err.. baby.
Moving plans are coming along, the ball is rolling very, very quickly. Sometimes too quickly, in fact. It is a little stressful how fast it is coming along. My eye starts to twitch a bit thinking of all the work not even close to being done yet! I told the kids we will be moving “When the leaves are on the trees”. Which is happening much quicker then I had planned. All our trees are budding away. And I forget how much I love this house in the spring and summer time. This year our lilac bush is bursting with lilacs. I have not seen this many flower buds on it since the year we moved here. Now we are leaving it seems the tree is sending us a huge farewell. I can’t wait to smell their sweet scent while sitting on the deck. There are so many pieces of Harper Woods I am really going to miss.

(lilac bush photos – by me – 2005)

An elderly gentleman approached me as I parked my car at the not so great neighborhood CVS (I wouldn’t normally stop at such iffy spots, but it was across the street from the USPS and I desperately did not want to drive the opposite way 15 minutes to go to my nice, safe, comfortable and familiar Postal Service. Instead I took my chances and pulled in, so I could check one more thing off my to do list for the day.) He mumbled something and I started to do my normal aversion technique. But I couldn’t. He started a little louder this time and said “Excuse me Mrs. could you possibly get me a bag of chips?” (Another side note: Olivia has a very big heart and anytime we see people asking for change or standing on the corners she does not stop talking about them making up a huge story about how we can build them a special bedroom house and usually ends up drawing a house later that week for them to live in so they won’t be cold or hungry. We always try to make sure our children know we should be nice to all people and so this picture is usually heartbreaking.) I was surprised by his request but said “Sir, I don’t have any cash but I would be happy to grab you a bag while I am inside. Will you be out here awhile?” He replied yes and I asked him what kind of chips he liked. Still finding a bag of chips for a potentially very hungry old man an odd request. But I went in picked up my few items and the bag of chips that he requested.  This was one of my more quick trips into and out of a drugstore. Partially because the place was..well, icky.. and partially because the carts wheels didn’t all touch the ground at the same time making it almost impossible to push the children. OH! and because I had a man outside waiting on me for some chips, so I thought. Only to find the man was nowhere to be found when I exited. I looked all over even after I drove away, I watched up and down the streets. He had disappeared in the five minutes I was inside. Maybe someone else got him the chips he needed. It was weird. Needless to say that was the start of a very, very, very long afternoon, that involved crying not sharing children, way too much wind causing me to be a litter bug across a five lane 50 mph street and having to scold my children for their obnoxious behavior at the post office of all places! And I fully believe that maybe that  man was a figment of my imagination brought on by my diet! It really makes sense.. I can’t eat chips. So make up a poor suffering homeless man begging for chips, of all things.

The kids and I ate the entire bag on the way home. (it was only the 99 cents bag!!) Although I did share!  -and didn’t cry.

I have officially got the packing bug. I am tackling the basement first. First is the “craft/sewing closet”. I am more then happy that my shared closet space will soon get its own ROOM! I have not worked on projects in ages due to the lack of room to just leave everything as is. You have no idea the excitement I have knowing that I will now have space to lay out an entire quilt AND it will NOT be stepped on because it is laying in the middle of the kitchen floor. Who knows I might even finish the dozen or so quilts that have waiting.. begging.. to be finished.
Poor Jarrod ordered a new car almost month ago. It was made almost a month ago and he still does not have it yet. After this experience with just a car getting hitched up. We will NEVER be building our own house. Ha! He gets way too into the process. Its exhausting!
Jack and Olivia are getting stir crazy again now that the cold weather is back. It was so nice letting them run wild out the back door for those few weeks. I think its going to be a good summer now that Jack and Olivia play together better. They are such cute little buggers.

The United rep. came and surveyed our house today. Apparently we have more then the average bear. He informed me we would more then likely take up an entire van with all our junk.. err.. worldly possessions. To make the estimate easier he was going to submit it as a full pack from his boys. Which means I just sit and wait.. which means I get to go completely crazy waiting week after week until moving day. I might break down and just start doing some of it regardless. I have already weeded out a lot of our clothing and other belongings, getting the house ready for showing to sell. Which we have only had one couple actually show up for showing. Unfortunately we have not had a lot of luck selling so far. Jarrod keeps telling us we can keep this house as our “summer home in Detroit”. As if we would ever want to come summer here! But who knows it might just have to be..