House Hunting and more...

These past few weeks have been really interesting around our house. Basically, Larry and I finally decided that now is the time to really get ready to sell our house and upgrade to a bigger house with more space for our family. We've been thinking about doing it for the past year or more, but it finally feels right. We have already looked at two homes of people that are planning on selling in the near future. They both let us have a walk-through- and both are what we are looking for and in our price range. Maybe Larry and I are just easy to please- It is exciting to think about a home where our children will grow up, become teenagers, and then leave the nest for college and missions. (After that, I want to move into the country).
We've already begun fixing up our house to sell with painting and hiring a contractor to remodel our master bath. I think this is also the only time that I've been excited to deep clean. Of course, I get to sort through everything we own too (which I love to do- I LOVE throwing things away). Larry and I also moved some things around last week to make our living possible for the next few months- we set up Kara's crib in our office and moved the bookshelf and other things that were in that space to other locations. We put the boys bunkbeds back together and moved them to the other side of the room and put the bookcase in there for the boys to store their toys. I was AMAZED at how hard it was to find different places to store the items that got displaced! We really DO need more room. I also cut down my college textbooks to just three. And I think I own less than a dozen novels and church books now. I think it's really freeing to get rid of stuff.

Randomness

There has been a lot going on lately, so I thought I'd just share a few tidbits:

1. Larry and I got all motivated to paint our room after getting a new bedspread. After getting all the painting done- it appears that the paint color should have been called "Fry Sauce". It is a weird peachy-brown color. I guess we'll be painting again soon.

2. We had a contractor come out to see about fixing our bathroom and adding on to our house. I think we will fix the bathroom, but the add on probably won't make much sense. We're hoping to find a 5 bedroom home maybe this summer. We may even move just across the street- our neighbor took us on a walk-through of their house and they say they want a family with children to live there. I'm not sure they're ready to move, though...

3. Derek informed me that the kids and his teacher at school call him "the scientist".

4. Larry's work is getting VERY busy right now.

5. Miranda is all excited to start a 6 week basketball club with her friend next week.

6. I am back to the gym now that Kara is old enough to go to the childcare there. Yay!

7. We have been listening to books on tape with the kids at night. We recently heard, 'How to Eat Fried Worms', 'Frog and Toad', and we're now on 'Mr. Popper's Penguins'.

8. My mom and sister just recently came for a visit. We did lots of shopping, facials, and a trip to the Shanghai tunnels under Portland.

9. Spencer was in a Christmas program at his preschool. He did all the songs and actions just right. It was so cute.

10. Derek got a "real" camera after we returned his junky Clone War's one he got for his birthday. He likes to take pictures of everybody in our family.

11. Due to the snow storm, our recycling cart FINALLY got emptied this week! Four weeks of recycling materials accumulating around our house= one disgruntled mother!

12. Lindsey likes to eat raw carrots now. She begs me to open the frig so she can get the baby carrots out. The only other fruits of vegetables she likes are cooked potatoe chunks and cucumbers.