A Look At Laundry

When we first came to look at our new house and I saw that the laundry room was in the general storage/utility room in the basement, I was at first a little disappointed. At the old house the laundry room was in the little entryway between the garage and the kitchen, thus making it very easy to get laundry started in the morning and keep up with it throughout the day. I wasn't sure how I would like having it in the basement, going up and down the stairs all the time, trying to remember to change out the loads.

Then, the second time we came to look at the house, we found this: Yes, it is a laundry chute! What fun!

Now that I have lived with the basement laundry room for a couple months, I have learned a few things. It is very nice not having baskets of dirty laundry sitting in our closets. The kids love throwing their dirty clothes (and ours) down the chute [along with toys, used diapers (Joseph is responsible for those-at least they are not poopy ones!), you name it, it's probably been thrown down]. I also have a lot more room to work in. (At the old house it was a tiny area through which people were always going in or out.) There is a cabinet between the washer and dryer to store detergent, etc. and Dan set up a table for me to work on. Then there is a mat on the floor, which makes it nicer on the feet. I have my ironing board set up down there (not that I have even used it yet, sorry, Dan). Another nice thing is that doing laundry in the basement doesn't heat up the house in the summer.

The only downsides to having the laundry room in the basement are:

• carrying the laundry up the stairs-good exercise now, but if/when I get pregnant again, that will be a burden-of course, when the kids get bigger, that will be their job!
• trying to remember to change out the loads. I usually don't hear the ding of the dryer and I haven't quite trained myself yet to remember by what time it is. I have found that I can listen down the chute to hear if the machines are still running, as long as I remember to check. Oh well, I'll get used to it, I suppose. Thank goodness for Downy Wrinkle Releaser!
• it is right underneath the kids's room and can get a little loud. So I just have to be careful during naptime.
• it is just not as convenient.

All in all, I find I don't mind having my laundry room in the basement. I think the fact that we have a laundry chute makes up for all the downsides! And that is quite enough about laundry for one day.

If You Drop a Can of Pop on the Floor...

...it just might explode.

And now you know what I've been busy doing this morning.

Big 3 Year Olds

As you might know already, we finished moving on the twins' 3rd birthday. We celebrated a little that day. Note the "wash me" sign on the top of the bookshelf. I guess I missed the tops of our 7 foot bookshelves in my regular cleaning. :) We mostly celebrated the day after with a little family party! Dominic and Anne intently study their cake, which Mommy picked up at the grocery store while they were napping. It was hard to find a gender neutral cake. I did find some cool, swirly candles, which mesmerized them.
Dominic got two new train engines for the train table. He was excited about them, even though you can't tell.
Anne got a baby carrier and feeding set for Pink Baby and the little Mommy went right into action.
She loves it!
Lest you think that I bought and wrapped presents the day after we moved, I actually did that a week or so beforehand and put all the party gear in a sack and carried it with me. See, sometimes I am organized!

You Know You Have a Bunch of Little Ones, #9

You know you have a bunch of little ones when you wake up at night and freak out because you hear the dishwasher running and then you realize that someone turned on the start delay feature.

Recapping the Big Move, #4

Moving Day #2
As anyone who has moved with small children knows, it is not a good idea to have the kids around while there are big, heavy things being taken out of open doors of a house to be carried up a fascinating ramp into a giant, mysterious moving truck. So my primary job was to keep the kids out the way. We drove around a bit, checking out our new little town, going by the closest grocery and other stores and basically going to the old house when a load came to the new house and then back to the new house when the movers arrived for another load at the old house. Since we picked the hottest weekend of the summer to move (I saw temps as high as 107. Yikes!), the kids and I just had to stop for some ice cream to share at the old house: Then back at the new house, Joseph checks out the backyard (yes, that is a little greenhouse back there):
And the kids get busy riding their bigwheels and taking their dolls for walks on the very large deck at the back of the house. The nice thing is that the deck only has a few steps to get to the ground (unlike the old house, where the deck was high off the ground and I was always afraid someone would fall off).
Joseph gets a lift from my brother after a long second day of moving. I am surprised my brother had enough muscles left to do it after helping with all our stuff. My brother, brother-in-law, and Dan's brothers, and a friend all graciously helped us to move. (If they had known just how many boxes there were in the garage and just how hot it would get, they probably would have all been "busy" that day.)
We took everyone out for a pizza dinner at the end of Moving Day #2. Since it was the twins' 3rd birthday the waiter kindly brought out some dipping sticks and chocolate, enough for all to share!

You Know You Have a Bunch of Little Ones, #8

You know you have a bunch of little ones when you have to check the settings on your dishwasher every time before you run it.

Recapping the Big Move, #3

Moving Day #1, Part II

Did I mention that the kids and I had to wait a while for the moving truck to come? Here is how we entertained ourselves: making funny faces, watching out the window, taking a nap on the floor, checking out the camera,
more funny faces:
At last the moving truck arrives!
We got to stay in our new house that first night and even sleep in beds that the guys set up for us. What excitement! And yes, there were doughnuts for breakfast the next day.

To be continued...

Recapping the Big Move, #2

After a month of packing and packing (Packing Tip: Don't leave half-open boxes laying around if you have small children, you may find you got more "help" than you wanted.) we finally got to Moving Day #1. This was also closing day. A friend of ours watched the kids all morning (brave woman) while Dan and I went to the closing. That went smoothly and on the way back we picked up the rental truck.

Here are the kids sitting in front of the old house: Two of Dan's brothers came to help and that was my cue to load up the kids and get the heck out of there. So I took them out to our New House:
We walked up the front steps and first thing Dominic had to check the doorbell. Yes, it works, and yes, I have gotten to hear it many times since. We also tested out the front porch swing -very nice. Each kid got to pack their most precious items in their backpacks, i.e. dolls, stuffed animals, blankies...
Here is our new fireplace, which is similar to the old one, except it is a real woodburning fireplace!
The kids loved to play in the empty rooms and explore everything, while we waited for the arrival of the first load.

To be continued...

You Know You Live in the Country, #1

You know you live in the country when you have to add 15 minutes of picking burrs off of clothes to your laundry time.

Recapping The Big Move, #1

The last 8 months have been quite a roller coaster. First there was the hunt for a house on a few acres out in the country. We were looking for a fairly specific kind of place: out in the country, but not too far so Dan would not have to drive a long ways to get to work; between 5-10 acres with the ability to have a big garden, lots of room for the kids to run around, and a good spot for a few animals in the future; a pretty place with trees; a house in good condition so Dan wouldn't have to spend all his spare time renovating; a little bigger than the current house; and of course, within our price range (which had to increase as we kept looking!).



I remember the first house we looked at because it was on our anniversary back in Feb. It was a big white colonial style house built in the 1980's on 5 acres in the right area. At that time it was more than we wanted to spend (funny, because we ended up spending more on the place we got!). But when we got there, the realtor informed us that a contract had just been signed on the place. Missed that one!



There weren't a whole lot of places for us to see, so we had to sit and wait for them to come on the market. It seems like we went to look at one every couple weeks or so. Some of them we drove by and ruled out on the spot! None of them seemed quite right. Either they were old and needed some renovating, or the location wasn't quite right (one was literally, right next to the highway, oh yeah, that would be nice and peaceful), or not enough bedrooms, or a little too far out, or something.



So it seemed impossible to place our house on the market while we were looking because one, we didn't have to move, so we could wait for the right place, and two, we didn't want to sell our house and then be stuck with nowhere to go and settle for something we didn't like all that much.



Then, in May we went to see a place and it seemed close to perfect: 8 acres, newer house not needing work, a big shed, fenced in fields ready for animals, great location with more of a country feel, but not too far away. The only downsides were that the house was about the same size, and the price was a bit too high. Then our realtor found out that the owners had bought it only 8 months prior for a lot less than they were asking and she found out that they had tried to sell it themselves on Craig's List and been unsuccessful. So armed with this information, we made a low offer (it was still more than they had just paid for it!) and at that point the owners were not willing to negotiate. So we just left it there and continued to look at houses.



It was about a month later that the owners of the house reopened negotiations. It seemed like the longest, most drawn-out thing. I was ready to give up and move on more than once. Finally toward the end of June a contract was signed. The inspection and appraisal went fine and everything with the bank was good and the closing was set for Aug. 1st. Meanwhile we were busy getting the old house ready to sell (painting and such, you know, erasing the evidence of 4 small children living in a house!). I should say Dan was busy with that, I was busy with the kids. Then we decided that we would wait to put our house on the market until after we moved, a little risky I guess, but we wanted to make a good first impression on the market, and trying to pack, show the house, and keep it clean with 4 sometimes destructive tornadoes living there seemed counterproductive.

Stay tuned for the next installment of The Big Move!

We're Back!

I can't tell you how giddy I am! After 2 months with no internet, it was exciting to have the internet guy come out and hook us up this past Saturday evening. My fingers were itching as he climbed up on the roof to install the equipment (being out in the country now, we can't get internet by phone or cable, so we are wireless). After 3 hours, he was done. I must say, he earned his installation fee.

So now, I don't know where to start. Yesterday I got on the internet for a while and flitted from site to site, paying a few bills online, reading a couple blogs, checking my thousands of emails (okay, it was only 500 and some, but Dan had cleared out some of them). Last night, I couldn't go to sleep as I lay there composing blog posts in my head, all of which were promptly forgotten by morning. I had a list going of blog ideas over the past couple months, but I can't find the paper on which they were jotted. St. Anthony hasn't pulled through on this one yet! Of course, if I accidentally threw it away...

So, my plans for the next while are to tell you (I'll have to go round up some readers, now, it has been so long!) all about our move to the country, our new house, all the unpacking, the selling of our old house, and all the other little various things that have been happening around here. And pictures. If I remember how to do it (lol).

Oh, and thank you to everyone who has been praying for our move/sale of our old house. It was so appreciated and I know it helped tremendously. Of course, the novena to St. Joseph didn't hurt either!

Bye for now.

Signing Off For a While

Hello all, as you may know, we have now just moved out to the country. We are getting ready to put our house on the market, so we currently have 2 mortgages to pay (yikes!). So, internet service does not yet make it into the budget. Therefore, we will be going on hiatus for a while. (Not to mention the fact that we will be busy unpacking!)

So, to all who may read this, please say a prayer that we sell our house quickly! I think I'll miss blogging, so hopefully I can start up again in a month or two.

Talk to you all later!

Say What?!!

"You had better get to the hospital! You are dilated to a 6 with a bulging bag!" my doctor said with big eyes. Words that every woman at the end of her pregnancy would love to hear! Well, in my case, it really happened when I was 37 and 1/2 weeks pregnant with the twins. I was a bit in shock, because we weren't really prepared to hear that. I had almost told Dan to just meet me at the doctor's office on his way home from work, as the appointment was at 4:30. We had Catherine with us and had planned to get something to eat afterwards. Luckily Dan had put my bag in the car just in case.


Then the doctor said, "I'll meet you at the hospital and we'll break your water and have some babies." So Dan took me over to the hospital and we walked up to the labor and delivery desk and I said, "Yeah, um, my doctor sent me over here because I'm dilated to a 6 and oh, yeah, I'm pregnant with twins." You should have seen the looks I got with that statement! I don't think they really believed me. While I got checked in, Dan raced back to our neighbor's house 20 min. away, left Catherine there, and raced back. When the doctor came in, I was dilated to an 8 and it was all so surreal. I had been having contractions every 10-15 minutes for the past few days, but nothing that wasn't tolerable, so I didn't think I was in labor. Go figure. A woman who used to deliver babies doesn't even know when she is in labor.

Then, the hospital bureaucracy kicked in and they said I had to go deliver in the operating room, even though we were planning a vaginal delivery, you know, just in case. So by the time they moved me there and everything got set, I was dilated to a 9, and remarkably, still fairly comfortable. The nurse next to me was just shocked that I didn't have an epidural. Then, the doctor broke my water, and my pain level went from tolerable to full-speed transition labor to the max in the space of about a minute. Yet, somehow, I was able, on that very narrow operating room table, with about a thousand people running around (okay, maybe it was 10), to sort of relax and breathe through the contractions.

After about 30 minutes, all of a sudden I felt that urge to push and so I did, and Dominic just came flying out. The cord was around his neck, but he just went through it. Wow, was I surprised. My next thought was, oh my gosh, I have to do that again?! Then 9 minutes later, at 7:02pm, Anne made her appearance. After a little bit, I sent Dan to check on the babies and take pictures, and then once they were done with me, they took me to my recovery room and brought the twins in so I could hold them. Wow, it was so amazing to see those two perfect little babies. Dominic and Anne, our precious twins, now big 3 year olds. We love you very much!

Happy Birthday, Dominic and Anne

Today is your 3rd birthday, twins! You are such a joy and blessing!
You started out so small, Dominic at 5#, 11oz, and Anne at 6#, 8oz,...

...that you could share a bassinet.
Then you started growing and growing and soon you were one!
You have always loved to play together:
We love you very much!

Today is the day we are moving to our new house, so hopefully it is going well. What kid gets a new house for their birthday?

Stay tuned for tomorrow's wild and wacky twin labor and delivery!

Twin Time

Today is the day we are closing on our house, so I planned this post a while back. I am doing a 2 or 3 day spread of the twins as tomorrow is their third birthday!

I will never forget the first time I saw the twins. At the time I worked part-time at a crisis pregnancy center, providing sonograms. I had the portable sono machine at home one weekend and on Monday, before I went in, I just couldn't hold out any longer. I put the probe on my stomach and was shocked when I saw two little babies. I almost couldn't believe my eyes and I remember I just started grinning and laughing. Then I had to call Dan and confess that I did a sono without him. And then I told him there were two babies and he didn't believe me at first. So he had to come home and see for himself. What a double blessing!

This picture here is about a week later and if you click on the picture you can see it bigger.
Then later on I had one of those fancy 4-D sonos and it was so cool. Here is Dominic:
And here is Anne:
This is me at 36 and 1/2 weeks along, about one week before the twins were born. Boy, was I huge!
Here they are! This is about 2 hours after they were born. I remember thinking that I didn't know who to look at first. And I just marveled at them. Dominic is on the left, Anne on the right.