The most amazing woman I know...

Having just read Rebecca's most recent posting, I'm more convinced than ever that she represents to me the finest woman I know. If her list of 'facts' represent the worst confessions she can possibly divulge (& I think they do), then one would certainly be hard-pressed to find much fault w/ not liking to 'get ready for bed' or 'putting away laundry' (who really does?) or not be able to keep the home spotless at every moment of the day. On the contrary, such a sordid revelation would rather lead someone to conclude that Rebecca must indeed be someone rather remarkable. With imperfections as minute as those, who needs mention strengths...they surely speak for themselves w/o saying any words.

Despite Rebecca's burning desire to keep beautiful order & cleanliness in our home (which she somehow manages to maintain amid the often familial mahem she courageously faces every day), Rebecca consistently chooses the 'better part' (as the story goes w/ Jesus, Mary & Martha) when it comes to taking time to help Isaac w/ his homework & compliment him on his work, or answer one of Joseph's many wonderful, but sometimes perplexing questions, or comfort Alyssa as she displays a teary performance worthy of an Oscar, or letting Lincoln tug at her pant leg, to which Rebecca quickly relents & scoops him up to attach himself to the favorite spot on her hip.

This, of course, all transpires while trying to make dinner one-handed & thinking about the laundry list of tasks she wanted to accomplish during the day, but has succeeded only in bringing happiness, love & harmony into our home. WOW!!! What a woman! I love Rebecca for all her patience, her devotion, her unselfishness & her desire to follow our Lord & Savior. How blessed I am to know her & to be a recipient of her sweet love & association. How grateful I am to my Heavenly Father that she is the mother of our children. Surely, any greatness they will acheive will in large part be due to their Rebecca's nurturing influence. I love her dearly & pray for an eternity together with her by my side. Love you babe. Your #1 fan, Swen.

3 More Facts

I thought of three more facts to add to my list that I started a couple of months ago. This is how fast things get done in my life. Actually, the truth is, after working my fanny off trying to get my house clean today, I'm treating myself to a little ME-time. I don't know if I deserve it or not, but I'm going to take a little anyway! (Today I washed 7 sets of sheets, cleaned up lots of nasty poop and throw-up, washed, folded, and put away about 7 loads of laundry, cooked a nutritious meal for the fam, and kept the sink empty of dishes. If you came over right now you would have no idea that I worked so hard, but I did. I also helped the kids catch up on about 3 days of homework. Just thought you should know.) Anyway, on to the facts...

1. I SERIOUSLY DISLIKE GETTING READY FOR BED, so I only wear make-up a few times a week. When I don't have make-up on, all I have to do is brush my teeth, say my prayers and hop into bed. People who come to my house at noon on a normal day wonder, I'm sure, why I still look terrible. But most of the time, my image is not as important to me as is NOT having to spend 3 extra minutes getting ready for bed. By the time I've spent an hour making dinner, an hour cleaning up dinner, and an hour putting the chickies to bed, I'm simply too tired to wash my face. Silly.

2. My main dislike in the homemaking job description is putting away laundry. Folding it is not too big of a deal to me. My mom would die, but I usually wash about 6 loads at a time, lump it on the couch that night, and stay up late with Swen watching a show and folding laundry. I then either keep it folded in the laundry basket or set it by the kids' doors until I can bring myself to put it away. Once I get started it only takes a few minutes, but it's something that I put off if I can possibly help it.

3. I LOVE newly washed sheets, clean floors, and sparkling counter-tops. If my house is a mess, it really affects my outlook on life. I begin to get overwhelmed and discouraged, and all I want to do is escape into sleep or a book. If my house is clean, I have seemingly unlimited amounts of energy-even if I've only gotten 2 hours of sleep. With 4 kids, however, it's hard to keep the house as clean as I'd like it to be. It seems like the second I get the kitchen clean, the kids decide it's time for a snack. I vacuum the floors and someone accidentally drops and steps on a saltine. I wash the sheets and someone throws up all over them. You get the idea. I really have to force myself to stay happy in spite of the mess.

Family Picture Pandamonium

We have tried several times in the last month to get a decent family picture taken for a Christmas card. Nothing too fancy, just all of us smiling at the same time. Simple, right? Wrong. Between Isaac's love for looking abnormal in pictures, and Alyssa's dislike for posing, it's impossible. Add in Lincoln's lack of knowledge about what he's suppose to do when someone hides behind a small silver box and talks about cheese in a high pitched voice. Then there's Joseph who can really get laughing when something is actually funny, but faking it doesn't come as naturally. So here are some samples of our efforts.

We finally did get a photo that will pass, and maybe I'll get it out in time for Valentines Day. Who knows? I guess with a family, you just have to stay flexible.

"I'll Be Home For Christmas"

It's always hard to move. We have lots of experience, but saying goodbye to friends never gets easier. The only consolation is that hopefully everyone will stay in touch. It's not like we've moved to the moon, or even across the country. We're only 40 minutes away from where we were. But, sadly, relationships do change when you can't have that daily or weekly personal contact. So, please, old friends...don't forget us!

This is the happy part of moving. We are so excited about our new house. We still sort of feel like we're in a hotel. Everything is so clean and new. The hard thing will be to keep it that way with 4 kids. It's kind of tricky moving at Christmastime. 5 of our 10 moves have been in Nov. & Dec. I wonder if I should bother putting up all of my Christmas decorations when Christmas is coming in about 1 week?

BROWN carpet...Great for appearing to be clean, even if it's not!

My lovely iron thingeys. I can't remember what they're called, but they look great!

My new bathroom. YEA!

This is what we're going to do with the walls in our main living areas as soon as we get a whole lot of energy from somewhere.

I let the boys decorate the Christmas tree themselves this year. I thought I'd have to do a lot of tweaking, but they actually did a great job! They keep seeing little mistakes and making adjustments, but I haven't really had to re-do anything. I'm not stressing too much about how things look yet since the rest of the house isn't decorated yet.

My parents came up to help on Friday. It was fun to visit with them. It's always a little embarrassing to have my mom see all the ways that I am disorganized, since she is the epitome of cleanliness and organization. But she still loves me anyway.

Christmas Cheer

For a good laugh...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1318036595

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1318367032

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1318596895

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1308070836

Fun Sundays and 6 Facts

Sundays have become my favorite day of the week. Now that Swen works on Saturdays, it's our only day to be together. He does have Tuesdays off, but we have mutual and scouts on that night, so Sundays are our only real family days. We usually get to see one side or the other of the extended family too, so that's a bonus. Plus, we get delicous food, AND we get to go to church. I have always liked going to church, but now that I'm older I really love to go and have my "spiritual bucket" filled. It gets harder and harder to have quiet spiritual time the more kids you get. Anyway, these are the reasons why I love Sundays. A few weeks ago, we had a particularly wonderful sunday. We played Charades, which I took pics of and posted, we jumped on the tramp, and we just spent lots of great time together.

Joe as a donkey

Swen as a gorilla

Me as a chicken (that is the WORST picture that anyone has ever taken of me-oh my goodness!)

Ike as a frog

Lissy as a sheep

O.K. This is another WORST picture. There were other cuter pics, but this one made our whole family laugh because I look so lame, so I thought I'd pass it on. I was trying to be Lightning McQueen with the "vroom-vroom" sounds. "Silly-Boo, Mama!" as Lissy would say.

GQ

Pack meeting fun

Face painting gone BAD!

My sister-in-law tagged me to share 6 facts about myself/my family in our blog. I'm going to have to do it in shifts, though, because...


1. We are buying our first house! Can I hear some shouts of happiness from everyone, please! We are really excited. I'm in the process of going through every paper ever saved, and every box of "essentials" that we have carried around with us for years. I have spent hours, and taken many trips to the recycle bin. We also have a huge pile for DI, and one for the dump, too. I really don't like moving. This is our 10th move in 10 years of marriage. I'm ready to settle down for a few years! We are moving on Sat., Dec. 1, and will be staying with Swen's parents for about a week until our new house is done. Yea! When we're there, I'll have more time to add my other 5, but for now, I probably better run...

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! It gets more fun every year as the kids get more into it. We all had the stomach flu last week, and Lincoln hasn't been able to get rid of his. He's had a high fever and no appetite for almost a week. I only put his costume on long enough to get this picture. Little Smiley doesn't look like a happy camper, does he?

Isaac was feeling very independent this year. He had one goal in mind- get as much candy as possible as fast as possible. I kept having to remind him to stay by me, they I decided to ease up a little. That's hard to do with your first! Swen had to work, so I took the kids around my parents' neighborhood while Link stayed at their house. Then Swen came a took the boys for a second round to his parents' neighborhood while I enjoyed hot cider and pumpkin cookies in their nice warm house with the two youngest.

Mr. Cool Ninja and his cool jack-o-lantern. He's been sharing a little too much candy with me. Ugh, I think I've gained 10 lbs. so far.

The cutest little black kitty ever. (Actually, all of the kids have worn this costume when they were this age. They've all been the cutest ever. I have to watch the compliments, or the boys ask, "What about me?"

We didn't get Lincoln alone in his costume. We'll have to take his picture when his fever goes away. Here's a cute fall picture of him, though.

Ghost on the move...

We had fun carving pumpkins this year. Alyssa thought they were a little scary, so I tried to help her do a surprised one-like "Wow! It's Halloween, I'm so excited!" But it ended up looking like a scared pumpkin. Oh well.

The artist in Swen comes out when he carves pumpkins. He gets very serious about it. He stayed up until 11:30 carving a very cool pumpkin. It looks like it's a few sandwiches short of a picnic, or like it's elevator doesn't go quite to the top. But it's still very cute. When I failed in giving Alyssa a non-threatening jack, Swen had to do it instead. He definitely succeeded.

The finished product

I had to post this pic. of the "Buggerfields". This is Swen's sister Allie, her husband, Ted, and little Chloe Butterfield. Ted is a cool and unique guy that drives a Harley, but also loves to sew. He made these w/o a pattern. Amazing!

Some of the Howard cousins

Earlier in October, the kids had a few days off school for Fall Break. We had so much fun! We went to Ratatouille-or however you spell it- Gardner's Village, hiking up part of the Timp. trail, and the boys saw Harry Potter 5 with Swen.