Resurection Day!

Have you been looking for the Easter Bunny? It turns out that she's been hiding incognito at my house:

All joking aside, Justin and I went back and forth about Santa Claus for a very long time. In the end we decided to go with it. We figure that we can tell the story of Saint Nicholas and how it all relates to Christmas. We haven't felt the same way about the Easter bunny, so he/she/it won't be stopping by our house.

As our girls went to bed last night, Justin read to them about the women waking up early in the morning to go and anoint the body of Christ. When they wake up, we will take the bottle of perfume that Kate chose and the spices that Gabby picked from the spice cabinet to anoint the Jesus that Kate drew on Friday.

We wrapped him in a piece of paper and placed him in an envelope tomb that Gabby colored and we sealed.

They will find this in it's place.

I love this activity. It had to be compact because of the move this time, but we made a bigger tomb last year--you can see it here. I'm sure it will become more elaborate as the kiddos grow older, but it was so neat to see Kate's expression last year when she found that Jesus was missing.

And while the Easter bunny doesn't come, our kids do get Easter baskets--my sister and I went shopping while she was here. Nate got stiffed this year, since he can't use stickers. play with play-doh, or eat candy. He did get a new pair of kicks though. I always get the girls a pair of spring/summer church shoes for Easter.

I also made this cake.

I learned about it from the same girl who taught about the morning trips to anoint the risen Jesus. It's made to look like the empty tomb. Unfortunately all my cake decorating things are packed away, but it's still a cute little cake, with a York Peppermint Patty for a boulder.

Happy Easter to you!

I've been a off line quite a bit this week because we had company! My little sister came to visit.

We kept her hopping. She got to see Kate's gymnastics class, run errands with us, took a trip to the park, played in the yard, and helped out while I got a few things done around the house.

The munchkins with Aunt Holly


Kate and her favorite Aunt, who cares if she's the only aunt--details, details.


Gabby, who is so much like her Aunt it's scary!


The little guy gave her a run for her money, but she did get some good smiles from him.

I'm sure she's enjoying her nice quiet house and sleeping during the day like a vampire--I guess I'll excuse that though. I sure am glad to know there is someone on the other end of the line if I have to call 911 at 3 AM.

Thanks for your visit Holly. Next time it shouldn't take nearly so long to get to us!

POD

We moved in PODS a couple of years ago. It’s Portable On Demand Storage. They bring a storage container on the back of a truck and leave it in your driveway while you’re loading it. Then they come back and pick it up. At that point they can take it straight to your destination or they will store it for you.

We had a one month delay between the time we left Alabama and arrived in Kansas, so we stored our things with them for a time. This time, we’re packing up all that we can to make our house less cluttered and make the inevitable end of packing up the house that much easier. Hopefully we'll have our garage, save some tools, cleared out this weekend, along with a good bit of stuff from in the house. It’s an exciting and stressful time.

It’s pretty interesting to watch the machinery work, though I can’t stand to see them swinging it back and forth with our things inside, today it was empty, so I was able to take some pictures.

They drive up.


Back it in.


Move the frame of the truck away from the POD.


Raise the POD in the air.


Move the truck out from under the Pod, and set it down.

His First Meal

I've been waiting to feed Nate his first cereal. Generally four months is considered a good time to start, but we hadn't had his 4 month appointment yet. I haven't been getting much sleep with this little fellow, so I finally gave in last night and let him have his first taste of cereal! By the way--it didn't help--he was still up three times.

Hmm. This highchair tastes good.

What's that?

What are you thinking?!

Maybe that's not so bad.

Busy

Boxes


Boxes


Everywhere!

I've obviously been a tad busy lately. I've packed every single one of these little guys (plus several others) all by my lonesome, despite two little gals who are sure they should be allowed to wrap our breakables in the cool paper, right after they color on it and rip it to shreds of course!

I grabbed a baggie of spaghetti sauce out of the freezer to thaw today--we're having to eat our way through our freezer too. Two bags came together. I evidently froze them to each other. Boo. I had to separate them with running water. I will say that's better than the time I put spaghetti sauce on the wire rack in our freezer on the fridge and it oozed through the wire rack and froze that way, making it impossible to pull the baggie out until I thawed out the freezer!

Then as I picked up the little guy,

Yeah, this one,

He had the biggest spit up he's ever had. Over my shoulder, down my back, and splashing on the floor. Kate disapproved loudly!

Banking and Mortgage and Selling, Oh My

As everyone knows, the economy is not excellent at current, making selling a house more challenging (no one expects their house to depreciate by $10,000 in 2.5 years). We expect that we might be able to get right about what we owe (so much for our down payment and the extra money I've added to the principal every month, huh?). That sounds okay--breaking even, but then you have to add in the thousands in realty fees.

The agent I spoke with yesterday recommened a short sale. In this you take what you can get for the house, the bank accepts the lesser amount, writes off the difference, and you're done. Sort of. You do have to pay taxes on this as income and you get a bad mark on your credit report.

Rather than do the easy thing, Justin and I had decided to work out a payment schedule with the bank to pay off the difference with interest. I called the lender yesterday and the guy was somewhat sympathetic. He said he knew we were trying to do the right thing, but that they would still list it as a short sale, even after we paid it off--making it harder to get a good interest rate in the future, plus we'd be giving them the money we should be saving for a down payment. He said they will write off the difference--basically, just telling us to take the money and run.

I don't get it. One would think that they would want their money. We have perfect credit--always pay on time, always over pay. I would think we'd be as safe a risk as they come.

Now to decide what to list the house for and what to do about the bank.

Girl-isms

Kate, about the train whistle she'd recently been complaining about: It's like music IN my ears.

* * * * *

Me: Gabby, take the potty ring off your head.
Gabby: I needs it.
Me: Gabby, it needs to go on the toilet.
Gabby: I needs to wear it.
Me: Why?
Gabby: I need to wear da wing so I can be mawied to you.