Saturday February 19

After a week of 12 home showing, we had a few hours to get our yard ready for the Open House on Sunday afternoon. We finished raking the leaves in the back and side of the house. No it is not fall, but after our first year here we learned not to worry about raking all the time in the fall, because the leave fall until March. We mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, spread mulch, and scrubbed the back deck. We all worked together to beautify our already cute house.

Now if you know Halle, you will know that she LOVES messes, especially those that involve spreading something (peanut butter, tooth paste, lip gloss, pudding, lotion, mud, water, just to name a few things I have scrubbed out of couches and carpet.), so I put her in charge of scrubbing the back deck.Yep, she loved it. And diligently scrubbed for over an hour.

Her work (and everyone else's) paid off. Sunday evening we had a close to full price offer. We couldn't refuse. We countered back a few closing cost issues, but in the end the house SOLD in 9 days. They are letting us rent it back until we need to go in June. We are very blessed. Moving will be extremely hard, but we know that it is the right thing for our family.

Blue and Gold Banquet

Wild Wild West Style

Last week was the "beloved" (can you hear the sarcasm?) annual banquet. With Aaron as the Cub Master, Me as the Primary Presidency member over Cubs, and Isaac being a Cub Scout...we were up to our necks in it. It turned out great. We all ate BBQ chuck wagon style.

Aaron is so good at planning activities that celebrate boys being boys. They had Buffalo Chip Flippin', Greased Hog Catchin', and the Pony Express Relay.

As a team they had to flip the buffalo chips in to the garbage can using spatulas and having their hands tied together.

Then they had to move the greased pigs from one pig pen to another without dropping them.

(for the mothers, we had the boys wear "protective" gear so clothes wouldn't be ruined)

Then Caite started crying saying she didn't feel well...to my surprise she had a fever. So that was the end of my stay there. No other pictures were taken. All in all the boys had a great time.

What are people thinking??

Since living in Arkansas we have been exposed to some wild names. I posted some last year, and many of you added some good ones, you can read them here.
The latest is a Mom has three daughters named:

Amillion

Abillion

Azillion


When asked why she skipped Atrillion her response was, "well that's a boy name." duh, of course it is!

Chardonnay is another good one. Why do people need to name their kids after alcohol?

Fast

Tuesday we got the lock box for our house. The MLS listing didn't actually post until Friday morning. The realtor called Friday afternoon and said we had a showing in 30 minutes. I told her I needed an hour...Keep in mind I had 6 kids at home and snow clothes everywhere. We got everything cleaned up and left. Last night (Sat.) The realtor called again, saying we had an offer! Are you kidding me, was my response. Not the offer we wanted, so we will counter or deny it all together. But it's still an offer. We don't feel rushed to take it, I think we have time to wait for more to come in. After all, we have only shown the house once and it has only been listed for a few days. None the less, it's exciting to know other people like our cute little house too.

Snow Days #3,4,5,6

We have had a lot of snow for Arkansas over the past 2 weeks. Last week we were out Friday (not worth being our in my opinion) and this week we were out Wed.-Fri. The snow storm this week was "the big one". The news said it goes down in the top 10 snow storms in Arkansas history. We got a whoppin' 6 inches (yes, that's a lot for Little Rock). But the northern part of the state got as much as 24 inches.

Either way you look at it the kids had a great time. We love having snow days, but it's always a pain in June when we have to make them up.

Isaac and his buddy Zachary being pulled behind the "Big Bad Dune Buggy".

It's now Sunday and the weather has changed dramatically. The snow is mostly gone and it will be in the upper 60's by mid week. Now that's what I'm talking about. Bring on Spring!

Working

I have been working really hard at getting our house ready to go on the market. Closets have been dejunked, walls and doors have been "magic erased" and touched up, and baseboards have been painted. We signed realtor papers yesterday, our house was the main subject in a photo shoot, and we have a lock box on our front porch. I think it's ready, except the for sale sign in the front yard.

Now the main task is keeping it clean while having 3 little ones trying to destroy it all day long and then having my big kids mess it up in the evenings. This morning Halle wanted Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast. I jumped in the shower and got ready while she ate. Then Amy dropped off the boys. I went in the living room and there it was...frosted mini wheats and milk ALL OVER THE COUCH AND FLOOR! Our couches need to be thrown out. Anyone want to buy me new ones? I'm not joking when I say Halle is going to be the death of me. I think I need to send her away until our house sells.

While I have been busy at home, Aaron is on wards for 2 weeks. Which means he has to but aside his nice Chief hours and be an attending over a hospital ward. Since Saturday he has worked 63 hours...that's assuming he gets home at 6 tonight, which probably won't happen (last night it was 8, both Sat. and Sun. it was after 11). Too many sick kids!

We have started working on finding a house in Cincinnati. We have Ardene (Aaron's cousin who lives there) doing drive-bys on houses we find on Craig's List. It's nice to have her there. She has been a great source of information. It will be really fun to have some type of family close by.

hole

Hayden has his first hole in his smile. He has been waiting and waiting. So with some help (or a smack to the mouth) from his brother, his tooth went flying (literally) out of his mouth and landed on his bed. He was thrilled Tooth Fairy found him. With his money this sweet little guy wants to buy a special sucker at school for himself and Caite.