Let me give a summary in a nutshell of things I can remember right at this moment that have happened since last June.....the kids are doing unbelievably great! Meeting all their milestones no problem, no issues, no developmental things, nada!!! So blessed and grateful for that! They are starting to really talk and understand, and of course, know more than you do already...."I do it, I do it" and No!!!, those are their biggest vocabulary so far, oh wait, and "bite!!" "bite"!!!, They have already started tattling on each other and turning each other in as to who is the biter, thing is, if you ask who they say did it, he says......nothing. Complete and utter silence.....hmmmm, can't wait until they are older, this otta be fun trying to find out who did what!
So, what I can remember, right now, with each kid, here we go:
Maverick: Doing great in school, totally into Beyblades, being the awesomest big bro!!! Now that we have sold our house and are living with our neice, bless her crazy heart, he is so excited to be able to walk to school. We always lived out in the country-ish so I had to drive him every day....I am just as excited that he gets to walk as well. He is still our little snuggler, he's 8 almost 9, and I am not sure when that will end, but for now, he still needs a hug and cuddle, although I'm sure he wouldn't want that as front page news, but for me, it's something to cherish. He knows "smoke on the water" on guitar, and that's pretty much the only song he wants to play. Patrick took him to Home Depot last weekend to be able to pick out his own lawnmower since that is his outside chore now....he picked the most basic one, because he said "simple is best"....did that really come out of my kid's mouth??? Sweet! Let's hope is not just a phase :)!!
Mia: Oh, sweet Mia!!! This girl, I tell you, sometimes if not for her, I would be in serious need of estrogen therapy!!! When you live with 5 boys.....well, those of you who do, know what I mean. She is such a girlie girl too, which is nice, although, she does like to get dirty too, so good combination. She stands still to get her hair done, amazing...., she is a complete shoe fanatic!!! Better start saving for that shoe fund :). She has the greatest smile and loves to sing and dance.....that's my girl!!! Love her!!! One of the cutest things she says right now is " you hay" and she points to your hair. So, now we all have "hay" on our heads and not hair, lol, which sometimes is true depending on the time of day, mornings.....definintely "hay" :). She loves her daddy too but she comes to tell on him if she doesn't like what he is doing.....good girl......I have an informant on board!
Racer: Racer is like a little Robert Redford. Blonde, good-looking, and suave....lol, for a 2 year old! He is good with the girls.....he can be a real flirt . He talks very clear and can pretty much say anything you can, he may not know what it means, but he has good mimicking, so it won't be long before he knows, time to be careful what we say around them!!! He is a good runner, can get away with anything if you are not up for the challenge of chasing him around the entire house and outdoors to get back whatever it is he has taken, little stealer!!! :)
Ryder: Ryder, is the most like Maverick was when he was that age. He is tough, like nails, but has the sweetest little heart. He checks up on his brothers and sis if they are in "time-out". He watches out for them if mom has told them not to do something, he tries to enforce the rules, that is, unless he is the one breaking them, haha. But....on the other side of that coin, if he wants something, you better just move out of the way because he will get it and never look back!!! He likes to wrestle dad all the time and gets the biggest kick out of tackling him to the ground and sitting on him. Know what he did this past fall??? He had a belt and was throwing it around, trying to get Max....and yes, he got him....right in the mouth.. Broke one of Max's front teeth clear to the root.....Max had to get it pulled out and he won't get another one til he's like 8, omg!!! Max, is a whole nother story, that kid!!! But, Ryder, also, a Robert Redford look-alike, is boy to the maxxx!!!
& Max: Oh, Max, Maxim, Maximus, Max-a-million, (no joke on that one), this guy is one of a kind for sure.....from the curly gold-blond hair, the big brown eyes, the one-tooth wonder, the dancer who's got the best moves, still lovin' the sucking on fingers, (ewwww!), who hates cheese of any kind, lol....this little guy is going to be something, I don't know what yet, but he surprises us every day!!! He has that mysterious factor that we cannot figure out just yet, maybe we never will, maybe it comes from him fighting so hard to live to be with us or lol, maybe it's just the fact that he is with us, and the baby of 4 that he needs to break out in his individuality, whatever it is, this little guy has got the "it" factor :).
Went to Hawaii in December with the whole clan, yep, even gma and gpa, lol, we were a site, I can only tell you!!! I have lots of pics to come from that when I get a chance to write about it.
Went to the Ayers Cabin in December.....always fun times!!!
My grandmother died in January at 96 years old. She was a great old lady :) Spitfire for sure. The anniversary of my dad's death was on the 20th of January. I turned 38 in January. January, is never my favorite month.
February, is better....Our 14 year wedding anniversary and love him every day more than the day before!!! Bought the house. Anniversary Dinner with our great group of friends!
So, that is so few details but the short of it for now.... Our house story, that's what's on our minds right now and I can give details about that because it's an every day thing right now working on it!!! So, here goes....
We put our house up for sale (July 2011), sold it (October 2011), and moved in with our neice (November 2011) with the plans of building our "dream house" to house all of these kiddos, like our 20-year plan house. We had it in our heads that that was the best thing to do. I must say, though, we really have learned a lot just in the last few months, since November, that changed our minds and led us to make some totally different choices than what we had in mind at first.
We had lived on 2.5 acres for 13 years. Then we had Quads, obviously. That changed everything. Too much land and not enough house was our problem. The land would have been great, say the quads were 6 or 7 years old already, but those are some long years in b/n with five kids and having toddlers for a long time, when you need to take care of that much property and the house, just not a good lay-out for all of us. But of course, just as soon as we begin to get things the way we wanted them, so kind of a sad deal......or so we thought.
We moved into our neice's house, 9 of us in 1600 sq. ft, yep, it's getting to be on the other side of crazy.....like busting at the seams now. But... so gracious of her to do so we could a place to live as we built our house. Well, as we realized very quickly, there is something to be said about "neighborhood" living, which we hadn't done since living at home as kids, since we lived out on the property. One block from the school, a neighborhood with lots of kids, on a cul de sac, a fenced in yard where you can see the kids play, parks nearby, stores nearby. Wow, this was so different for us!!! For me, it kind of felt like "home" because that's how I grew up, within 3 blocks of each school I attended, 2 blocks from the grocery store, lots of friends lived close, actual side-walks to walk on, lol, not just gravel roads and pasture. Not to say that I didn't like living in the country but, this little bit of "city" life, lol, as if you could call it that anywhere in the TC, but it's nice, really nice. So, the more we looked for land to build and the more we realized how much the kids need a space to be contained in, we started looking into smaller pieces of land and could not find anything we liked. Then, we thought, how nice it would be for a while to just live in a smaller house, less to take care of, like the one we are living in now with our niece, but not 9 people of course, haha, just our little group of 7. (sometimes this stuff sounds so oxymoron-ish), but really, they are little people so it's not the same :). Super long story short, we came down to this option....build an interim house until the kids get into school, a 3-5 year plan. Sounds good. It wouldn't be our custom house plan but we could get something that would fit us for the life we live now and give us time to figure out what we will need in the future with so many kids who will not be little for long! Then, I happened to find a house that was a flipped house, super good price, still needed some work ( in my opinion), but could be do-able. Patrick, not so much with that idea. He found a house plan he liked, wanted to build, and be done. I was totally on board with that, but couldn't let go of this other house for some reason. With a new house, even building not our custom house, there is still so much that goes into that....mostly the yard stuff that the kids really need right now and we would be working on....again...working on something for probably another year to get anywhere near what we needed or wanted.....not sure I can go through that again with having all these 2 year olds!!! Then, we decided to look at the difference in numbers....clear down to the last bill we would owe. With the new house, we would be still in the same situation, owing bills and taking longer to pay them off......if we did this other house, even if it needed work....we could be debt-free in a year to a year and a half, with nothing to owe but our house. How awesome would that be??? With five kids??? So, it was kind of a no-brainer, although, it's hard to turn down a brand-new 3200 sq.ft house with 5 beds and 4 baths, that could last even longer than an interim house if we needed it to or wanted it to, still in a neighborhood but with having to do a back yard...doesn't sound that bad, right? So we prayed and prayed and decided to come up with plan A and B. Plan A.....if the builder could come in exactly in our budget, which we had already met with him about, then we would just go ahead and do that because we possibly could stay in that house for a long time, even if it wasn't our custom plan that we have in our minds....which is really a hard thing to let go of when you know what you want.....and when you want to decorate your heart out.....and....have enough rooms for everyone... a playroom separate for the kids.....huge kitchen...., lol, oh, yea, get back to the budget Felishia.....(I had to be a serious "self-talker" to keep my head in the right place).....and if he couldn't, then we would put in an offer on the flipped house, which still needed work and I would have to go back to driving Mav to school...etc.... but the price was almost too good to not do. So decision time, we are at the realtor's office.....the builder comes in at $5,000 over our budget price. But, it's "only" $5,000 more".....(me, silent prayer "please don't want the big house, please don't want the big house, stick to your guns!!!) So, we did. We said no, even though it was "only" that much above our budget, but all I kept thinking was, if that happens now.....we will be at our budget for building our custom home by the end of it and then we should have just done that if that was going to be the case, right?? Makes sense. So, we offered on the other house. Left feeling pretty good. Drove right back to our neice's house.....and the next door house is for sale!!!! What??? That sign was not there when we left 2 hours ago.....what's the deal? So we call our realtor, just curious of course (wink, wink), and ask to see this house if possible, (even though we just put in an offer on another house a half-hour ago), she graciously says yes. It's so new on the market, though, it's not even in the computer yet, they had just put the sign up while we were gone. We had thought before this even happened, wouldn't it be nice if a house right around here went up? No joke!!! And....here it was! So, we go look. Ummmm, took us about 5 min. to decide we wanted this one!!! It was the same plan as the other house, 6 years newer, had been loved and well cared-for, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, nice yard, fenced, concrete, cute colors on the outside (because you know that's the stuff I was looking at :) ). Then......looked in the back yard.....after already deciding, I NEED a place to do hair, I miss it, and was going to do that in the house we just put an offer in, a little hair shack out back.....and open the back door......No Stinkin' Way!!!! The cutest, little house-looking/shed thing..... ummm., that is my salon, yep, all MINE!!!! Could that have been a more perfect scenario??? Basically, same price as other house because we wouldn't have to do the work we were going to have to do on that one.....AND.....one block from the school, kids in the neighborhood, cul de sac, fenced yard.....price right to be able to meet our goal of being completely debt-free except for mortgage (and medical bills from the kids, but that will always be a thing in our future sadly )!!!! We withdrew the offer on the other house put in an offer on this one, had it the next day!!! Unbelieveable!!! Now, of course, I have to say that in some ways I am a total glutton for punishment, we could have moved in the way it was and it would have been fine........but......I absolutely did not want to move in and have to work on it at the same time and living next door, how is not that not the best???
So, here we go on this new adventure.....gutting and redoing a house, which we actually love to do, but we don't have to live in it at the same time!!! That's awesome in itself.... so, now I can finally start sharing (for those who care to read about it, lol) or just writing down for me to remember, haha, what, why, when, & all that stuff about redecorating our new little perfect house, in our cute little neighborhood, with our cute little yard, and cute little kids!!! I'm surprised really at how good we feel about this decision, being that we decided not to build our "dream house"....but living simpler and getting out of debt......I have a new attitude! Life is never going to be completely simple for us with our situation but as a family, we can make a choice in our lifestyle, live simply, spend time together, have fun, be close in a little house, and have lots of friends we love over in our little house :), haven't you heard......"love grows best in little houses".....can't wait til it's done!!! I'll hopefully now, keep on with writing this all down. Designing, decorating, woohoo, let's do this thang!!! Oh....and if anyone wants to help, lol, come on over!!! :)
