2 and a half weeks later

Sorry for not blogging for such a long time. We have been a busy family. I thought about emailing everyone, but this will be faster and everyone who looks at this would be the people I would email anyways.

The last two weeks have been kind of a blur. Isabelle started school this year, as you know, and her first week of K was great. We took her out for ice cream after her first day of school, just the 5 of us, and proceeded to ask all sorts of questions. As all you parents know, she said "I don't no" and simply "no" throughout the entire conversation without taking her eyes off of her ice cream cone practically. Duh to us I guess. Later that night though, she launched into a story about what happened at school, so that was fun.

This week, she has been loving school. Last night (Monday) she broke into tears because she didn't want to have only 4 more days of school left and then a weekend. We didn't mention that it is Labor day and she will get an extra two days off next week too!!! She loves going to school. She tells us all sorts of stories and sings us all the songs that she learns. It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life to see her changing so rapidly. Someone remind me of this when the conversations turn to boys. On that note, Isabelle had her first boy approach her at school. Of course, it was at recess. We don't know his name or age, but he told Isa that she is the nicest girl in the whole school and he likes her because of that. She doesn't remember his name either, so apparently I need not be worried.

Gideon has had a altering two weeks as well. He has become even more emotional and clingy. I feel bad for the poor kid because his ali (how do you spell that) in everything is now gone. He has done well switching and playing w/ Syd but she isn't the happiest with all the attention focused on her. She has resorted to swinging at Gideon anytime he is within arms length basically. Anyways, Gideon has quieted down a lot during the daytime when Isa is gone. He plays games alone (or w/ Syd if she will cooperate w/ him) and just seems to be doing ok. When Isa comes home, he turns into crazy child and his volume increases, speed of movement doubles, and amount of tears and cheers triples. Needless to say, it is tiresome in the evening now. (Not to mention that Syd has caught on to the "NO" word and runs after Gideon shaking her finger screaming NO at him and even stomping at him sometimes.)

Sydney has learned so many new words lately, including, lights, soap (which is soda), swing, play, outside (seeing a theme here?). She adores swings. She will sit on the swings outside for 20 minutes just rocking back and forth if we would let her. She refuses to wear shoes longer than 15 seconds - which is a problem in a home where we are REQUIRED to wear socks or shoes (which she won't wear socks either). Everytime we put them on her, she takes them off, points to her toe, scrunches her nose and furrows her brows, and simply says with a questioning tone "Owie". This stemming back from about 3 months ago now and there is no owie anymore, but the shadow effect of the wound must still be there.

Leann and I have been mondo busy as well. Our family has lived in 3 different houses in 1 month now. We moved out of Nelson, into Bolin. We moved out of Bolin (because it isn't licensed yet) and into Harrold to take the girls during a week. We moved back to Bolin for 5 days to move furniture in and continue setting up the residence. Finally, we moved back to Harrold and have been here for 5 days or so working with the girls again. Oh, in 3 days, we move back to Bolin for our time off. We are REALLY ready for the new house to be up and running.

The state came out the other week and looked at it and signed off on it finally. We have to get a whole bunch of signatures though from the state before we can move girls in. We are hoping that in the next 2 weeks that will be taken care of so we don't have to move again.

On Wed, our furniture came in for the house and some new furniture for another house. There were 100 pieces of furniture to off load on the semi. The driver just kind of chuckled when I told him it was just us. Luckily, we had some volunteers from our church come out to help us, which was great! We spent three hours unloading the furniture almost and the next 7 unpacking it all. We ended up getting our whole house unpacked in on day/afternoon, so we are no longer waiting for any furniture to move in. The furniture is amazingly beautiful too. Leann and I just love to sit in there (which we were able to do for about 1 hour on Thur because we had to move on on Thur afternoon back to the other house). We are pleased with how the house finally ended up.

As for Leann and I personally, we have had some work problems that we have worked through in the last couple weeks and things seem to be settling down there too. We just made our voices heard and that was enough for us to know that someone knew how we felt. We have been trying to make the adjustment of having 7 girls, a kindergartener, an on campus school, and a lot of extra running around. We have managed so far and in a few weeks, hopefully some kinks will be ironed out in the process.

Now as for myself, I have never been so in love w/ Leann than I am right now. We will have been married 10 years in December this year. I just can't believe that it has been that long. Today, I was just smiling because as she was talking to me, she was making faces exactly like Gideon's, and it thrilled my soul that he has such a unique part of her in him. Also, Leann is one of the best Christian women I can think of. Her grace and patience w/ me and the kids always astounds me. Even in the midst of her anger, she can control herself to the point of trying to honor me and the kids. She has become more beautiful with age and I catch myself staring at her just to admire her. (Usually her response is a Gideon face and a "What?" comment, to which I just chuckle.) She has been God's greatest blessing to me.

Well, I have gushed and sputtered enough for now, so I will go do some work. Next week, hopefully we will get some pictures up on here and maybe even a video or two - don't hold your breath though.