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Showing posts from 2008

In Transition

First of all I have been without internet for 3 weeks. It was terrible, but I survived and probably got lots more done in the last 3 weeks than I would have otherwise. We signed the papers on Daves 34th birthday. Happy birthday you just got a 300,000 dollar present that will cost us double that by the time we pay it off. I think his birthdays are covered no until he is 64. We finally moved in on Saturday the 22nd of Nov. After a very insane 2 weeks of driving between houses, painting, overseeing a heater repairman, the carpet cleaners, the well project, and cleaning. We were exhausted and excited to get into our new home. We were blessed to get everything ready to go by that weekend of the move date. We almost didn't have any water because the well pump needed to be replaced. And I could have followed Kashanns lead but the Wendys was more than 10 miles away. Now after nearly 3 weeks we are starting to feel pretty well established but we still have a lot more work ahead of u

Halloween 08

Okay, I know that Halloween is old news now but I just downloaded my pictures off my camera so I wanted to do a post. As every other year I scored at the thrift store for Halloween costumes. My biggest Halloween purchase was Ari's ruby slippers but those are dual purpose and then makeup was the next biggest item. But now I have lots for the future. My greatest costume creativity was Dave's costume (who did not fully appreciate my efforts) I used a soccer medal/medallion and glued some jewels on the back to make him a great vampire medallion. But since he refused my attempts to put makeup on him he turned in the Wizard instead of a vampire. Toms costume was the easiest and cheapest just $2 at the thrift store and it was 50% off too. He loved the built in muscles and was sure he was going to win the costume contest. Jacob's was probably my favorite costume. We decided on Harry because he just got his glasses and has read the first two books. Ari made a cute Dorothy even

Packing, Grime and feeling slimed

First of all packing, I am trying to pack ahead and save myself a huge scramble to the finish. I have found things I have never used since I moved into this house 3 years ago but yet instead of putting them in a pile to Goodwill I am just packing them up and moving them to the next garage. What is it about all the stuff we get. Grime- I am also deep cleaning this house so we can get all our money back for our deposit. We move in clean(or atleast that was the theory) and we move out clean. I just wish I could work it out while we lived here. I have found that grease dust(the stuff in your kitchen) makes a pretty good sludge after 3 or mores years of neglect. If I could only figure out a way to power my car with it I would be in business. Feeling slimed- what is it about buying a house. There are more people involved than it takes to build a house and everyone has their hand in the pot. They talk about sellers cost but come on I am writing the check for 300K. They are just redist

Community Organizer the word of the year and other election ramblings

I am so sick of hearing about community organizers. Since when did that word become synonymous with Mother Teresa or the epitome of social/political achievement? So if black people are so bad off that they need some "economic justice" why do we have people like Obama, Powell, Rice, and so many more that have achieved wealth and status far above my poor white self? I think I will be voting for a black man this election. I am not a fan of McCain though I am highly intrigued by Sarah Palin. I like her fresh look in Washington. But I think my vote will go to Alan Keyes. What I am really looking forward to is the election being over with. My husband has spent the last 3 weeks walking our neighborhood and now has about 30 signs up. It is great to look around and see the support for people in our neighborhood that still have strong family and moral values. Make sure to vote next week.

No Place Like Home

Finally a House!!! After 6 months and walking through too many homes and a roller coaster of are we going to get it-no we are not, we signed papers today. November 20th is the closing date and we are on our way to a home. We will be moving 15 miles into the country and have 2 acres all to our self. We are so excited. At least I was until I started calling our mortgage people and very quickly started getting a headache. Dave is so excited he doesn't know what to do. He has been dreaming of acreage since he was a boy and it is hard to believe that it is finally here.

Doughnuts for Prop 8

Every fall I get a craving for homemade doughnuts. The cold air and changing season just makes me want to start frying. Last night we hosted a Prop 8 campaign meeting and so it was the perfect excuse to make up a batch of doughnuts. They were delicious. And the recipe made about 6 dozen good thing we had a good turn out that way I only ate about 3 not including holes but those don't count. We had cinnamon-sugar, glazed and chocolate glazed. Good thing I only indulge about 1 a year.

Importance of Prop 8

Article from Manteca Bulletin- Everything your kids need to know about marriage they can learn in kindergarten Dennis Wyatt Managing Editor Depending upon your perspective, you may view the battle over Proposition 8 on the Nov. 4 state ballot as a moral issue, a religious issue or a civil rights issue. But there is one thing for sure. It is definitely a political issue since it is on the election ballot. Which brings us to a blessed event - or unblessed event if you are for Proposition 8 - that took place at San Francisco City Hall on Friday. Eighteen kindergarten students took a field trip to City Hall to toss rose petals at their teacher's wedding. Their teacher happened to be lesbian and was marrying her partner. One of the public school kindergarteners was even sporting a "No on Proposition 8" button. So much for state laws banning kindergarten through 12th grade teachers from promoting political views in a classroom setting. Actually, Creative Arts Charter School te

We hate our kitchen floor!

Not only is the floor white and never looks clean but it has now claimed one of Lily's teeth. Ari and her were playing at the kitchen table and it was one of those moments that I said to myself that I shouldn't let them do that because they might crash. Sure enough Ari tipped her chair over and Lily fell right on her tooth. I called Lani a friend who has a dental surgeon husband and a child who lost a tooth as a toddler. She told me to look for the tooth on the floor or maybe it had just got pushed back in. After mistaking for a noodle a cherrio and reminding myself how dirty white tile floor is. I finally found the tooth root and all. This is Lily pre-accident and today after lunch with Mac and Cheese all over h er face and one tooth missing. I guess I better I've got to get used to her new look because she will be like this for the next 7 years or so.

1+1=6

It all began 9 years ago my first Sunday in the singles ward after graduating from High School. Dave was there for a summer job. We went on one date and then spent several months in limbo while Dave agonized how "young" I was. Then he finally got over it and we began dating in October and were married 1 long year later for which Dave got a lot of grief from my family for being so slow to pop the question. Thank goodness they didn't scare him away. Four kids and 8 years later I couldn't be happier. Dave has always been my best friend and I am happy to spend eternity with him.

Offer 7 & 8 today..

Does anyone know about FHA loans? We were planning on conventional but we hear that FHA loans look better to REO banks and we really need help actually getting a home that we offer on. At least the economy is in our favor. Homes here have dropped almost 40% in the last 2 years. What was utterly unattainable is now within our reach. It is crazy & sad though that what is a great benefit to us is ruining the lives of many others. There still aren't any 30Grand houses out there though. I guess you got to move to Buffalo for that.

A Bunch of Nerds

I have never wanted one of those families where everyone wears glasses. They are always nerds. And to top it off the thing that grosses me out most in the world is the eyeball. My kids can wipe boogers on me, throw up on me or bleed all over the place-that doesn't bother me so much. But ask me to clean their eye or touch their eyeball- it sends shivers up my spine. So then Ari comes along and she needs glasses. How unlucky is that but I guess Dave's family has lots of kids with glasses- I think to myself. Then Lily has the same problems as her sister. Oh well at least its just the girls. If I do my family planning right I can avoid girls, glasses and more hair to do all at the same time. We will just have to stick to boys from here out. Then last week Jacob got a physical and the doctor said he had bad vision on one of his eyes. Sure enough, I got him in this week and he is in need of glasses. So now just me and Tom are the hold outs and maybe that will change when we
Heather tagged me so here goes.... The rules of the game are each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. 10 Years Ago: I was 17 and just starting my senior year. 5 Things on my to-do list today: 1. Go walk the neighborhood for prop 8. 2. Wash the kids laundry, 3. Saturdays Clean my house, 4. Make poppy-seed bread 5. Make dinner. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: I would buy a very nice house with 20 acres, never shop a walmart again instead go to Target, give a million to prop 8, buy exotic foods to cook new recipes that I read about in fancy cooking magazines, buy new furniture for a change and maybe even a working TV, pay someone to scrapbook for me, and then invest the rest because I like having money in the bank. 3 of my bad habits: 1. Spending way too much

Yes on Prop 8

Lately I have been rather consumed in the effort of protecting traditional marriage. Four justices have deemed the effort in 2000 to be unconstitutional and so now through the Protect Marriage coalition, I am out walking the streets for prop 8 which is a constitutional amendment that says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Currently same sex couples have been given licenses to marry. I feel the need to become active in the effort of preserving traditional marriage because I am scared for what the future holds if this fails. There has been cases in Canada where homosexuals have been protected by discrimination laws that pastors have been prosecuted for "hate speech" for speaking against a homosexual lifestyle. So if anyone who reads this blog wants to help in this effort there is a website protectmarriage.com that you can sign up or donate. And then we just pray that the silent majority comes out in full force in Nove

To Buy or not to Buy...That is the question

When we moved to California 3 years ago, we moved to one of the most overinflated homemarkets in the country. Like any other couple with a good paying job we were anxious to buy a house. Everyone told us that it was a great investment and now was the time to buy. Of course most everyone you talked to had some job tied to the real estate business. But who would blame anyone for trying to make a measly 12K(on a 400K house) for just shoveling large amounts of paper work in your direction. Well about every couple months my husband would start to feel the urge to buy a house and we would go on these house hunting excursions. But the truth of the matter was we couldn't afford anything out there except for the house with a hole in the exterior wall and the one that included a semiautomatic at signing as a welcome to the neighborhood. Being the supportive wife I am I would accompany my husband as we looked at the homes and then come home and talk some sense into him. Needless to

Success only a mother can love

I realized that Tom really doesn't get a lot of mention on the blog. He is of middle child syndrome. He just likes to watch and observe and then suddenly surprise us with all that he has learned. But he doesn't like a lot of foods at meal time. Since he first began eating solid foods he has rejected nearly every fruit or vegetable and mostly everything else unless it is BREAD. As a survival instinct he has learned to eat unnatural portions at breakfast because it is heavily laden with carbs. As a two year old he would consume 3 adult size bowls of frosted flakes or frosted mini-wheats. When dinner rolls around he seems to only have room for the bread. We have made a lot of strides over the last year and a half. He now loves beans especially green beans, he eats pickles and pickled asparagus, and applesauce and my homemade strawberry freezer jam. Not sure why it must be a processed fruit/vegetable item to be able to make the cut. Lately I have been on a Tofu kick. We

I finally get a break from Birthdays!

In the last two months I have had three birthday parties. I am so glad that they are done. Jacobs was the most recent and we threw him a Pokemon party of cours e. I planned lots of little games then tied it into a pokemon character. Then they put them in their Pokeball in a little folder that I made. It was probably the most fun birthday party where I spent the least. The biggest expense was probably all the ink I used on my printer to print off the pokemon. This year I put all my energy into the party and so the cake wasn't very exciting. I love to give my kids birthday parties and sometimes that just means cake and ice cream, other times it includes games and a meal too. I do not feel any pressure to perform to a standard of birthday party excellence- No jump houses, party hall destinations, and extensive party favors(does a piece of leftover cake count?) After growing up surrounded by extended family, I just don't feel it is a birthday with just my family sitting arou

Ebay Here I Come

So this last month I have been working on a huge project. Dave and I took a risk and bought a whole storage unit(like a 30 ft one) of stuff. It included a lot of furniture, same place where we got our couches, beds, dressers, armoires, table&chairs, and various other large pieces. But then there were 40 surprise boxes that contained so me china we were told but otherwise we really didn't know. We figured that we were getting our value the furniture so what ever we got of value in the boxes would just be icing on the cake. I am both cheap as mentioned before and minimalistic. I don't want to spend money on decorative items that could only be broken or if I looked at clearance section there was a reason why it was there. I could probably count on one hand the decorative pieces that I have in my house, especially if you exclude living plants because that is Daves thing. If it doesn't serve a purpose like providing light or holding pictures I am not going to buy it.

A New Couch or...

At least the first one we paid more than 30 dollars for. So we have been married for almost 8 years and we have had numerous ugly couches for the duration of our marriage. One of our "honest" friends used to describe our fashionable furniture as Early Dumpster though maybe more accurately as Post Dumpster . Here is a review of all the couches we have owned for all those of you who were never privaledged to have known and sat upon them( maybe you are the lucky ones. 1st faux velvet brown velvet couch Which we left in UT when we moved-free 2nd our worst one yet a scratchy off white couch that lasted about 4 months $10 3rd A smokers couch this time the faux velvet thing again but with lots of flowers. (Actually it looked a lot like the couch in the previous post.) We left it in the UMN greenhouse for about 2 weeks as we daily sprayed with fabreeze. Couch Free, Fabreeze$10 4th A very heavy sofabed couch that was white with pink flowers, came with matching chair$30 5th A co

Full Circle

For Ari's b-day this year, I bought her a matching doll and dress. It was then I remembered a picture in my baby journal of a similar present. I even had the doll cake like Ari. Minus the couch and the really bad photo of a photo, I thought it was fun to compare the pictures. This is one of the most amazing things about being a mom is watching your babies grow up to be big people. It takes a picture like this to remind me that I was probably once a whiney 3 year old myself and I think I turned out okay.

Our Pre-Camping Trip

We have a family reunion coming up in a week for my husbands side of the family. We are going to yosemite for 5 days of blissful camping. We wanted to make sure that we were thinking of everything we would need so we decided to have a pre-camping trip. We went just down the road to a camp/RV park. Luckily everyone slept at night and were suprisingly well behaved. Thank goodness or I would be coming down with Mono or something to avoid repeating a miserable experience. Otherwise it should be a lot of fun. I just wish we could Lily to walk by then. I forgot to include this picture of the snake we saw by our tent. Okay maybe it wasn't by our tent and Dave convinced me it was a water snake so Dave and the boys watched for about 10 minutes. And they felt pretty lucky for finding it. I think I would have been okay if I never saw it. I made sure and zipped up my tent extra tight that night.

Jacob of Green Gables

Dave took the boys on a father/sons campout several weeks ago. While there Jacob found the best stick "in the whole world" because it had a sharp pointy end. (I'm thinking it was probably the worst stick in the world) He loved this stick for about 10 minutes then became curious if it would float in the river. I guess that it did and floated down the river. As he watched it float away he suddenly realized that the stick that he loved more than life itself was gone. He quickly burst into tears and hysterics about his stick for the next 2 hours. For a moment that he calmed down he asked his dad "Did you get a picture of the stick?" Finally he stopped talking about it or so we thought but now 2 weeks later we hear about it every other day. "I just can't stop thinking about my stick" complete with tears and everything. I have recently been reading Anne of Green Gables and I have to say minus the red hair, Jacobe could pass for Anne any day with

Good old Days at Eisenbergs

It has been 3.5 years since we left the frozen chosen in Minnesota and the student budget. Thank goodness! It has taken several years but I am learning to spend money with the best of them. But some things never leave you and that is my desire for cheap produce to can/freeze. When you are canning things you want to feel that you are not only going to enjoy the taste difference but that you will also be saving money. That doesn't always happen and usually I end up spending a lot to put up my peaches or other fruit. Back in Minnesota they had this dumpy store downtown St. Paul one of few that bagged your groceries though. They sold fruit and produce that wasn't the top of the line but had the best prices in town. That was how we canned peaches and made jam and ate any veggies while we were living off of $15K a year. I could never pass up a box of overipe peaches for $2 and then go home a make the best pie with them. Though my budget is much larger, the neglected fruit stil

Reminding me to laugh

Kids just know how to make you laugh. As of late it has been my 6 year old Jake who never stops pondering the questions of life. Here are some insights into his brain I suppose. After receiving a birthday invitation for a Sunday birthday party he was telling his brother about how he would not be able to go. (I guess the Sunday and FHE lessons are sinking in) "Come on Tom I can't go to the party on Sunday. What is more important a birthday party or Eternal life?" Then a few minutes later Jake asks "Mom what is Eternal life anyway?" This week also as he was discussing school summer vacation and how excited he was for it. Then he said "How come we don't have a church vacation mom?" Lastly today he came and told me he had something figured out. After he had touched something dirty like the dog or his mouth or who knows 3 times then he would wash his mouth out with soap to remind himself to keep his hands clean while emptying the dishwasher. So t

The Most Beautiful and Dreaded word in the World

Last night in the middle of the night Lily woke up and was crying but for the first time she was saying "Mama." I loved hearing her get my name even though it seems that babies say "Mama" only when they are sad and "Dada" when they are happy. However I am wishing that the rest of my children could just forget how to summon me periodically throughout the day.-Like when I am in the bathroom or on the phone or into various other projects or at 3 in the morning. Lately that has been one of the most challenging things keeping up with everyone's demands for "MOM" "I'm Hungry" "I need help" "I'm Thirsty" and my all time favorite "Wipe my bum".

I'm not just LUCKY!

All right here is my rant. I am tired of hearing how lucky I am to stay home with my kids. I agree I am blessed to be at home with my kids. But I choose to be at home. I choose to forgo an income and am investing in my children. I choose to cut my expenses. I don't have cable. I don't carry a cell phone. I choose to be with my children. I choose because that is the best way to enjoy the real thing that makes me lucky- four healthy beautiful children . So please don't make it sound like it is easy for me but much too hard for you. It is all about choice and my children and yours are worth it. So make the choice that puts you in the home more and then you won't just say you wish you were lucky like me!

How do you know when you have a girl?

So let me tell you. I am amazed at the differences between my boys and my almost 3 year old. She is spent all afternoon in and out of her room trying on different outfits. She must have changed at least 10 times. Most were very creative and it seemed to keep her busy and happy all afternoon and since this is just a new thing with her I am not tired of it yet. I just think that it is so funny and cute. I am sure I will be singing a different tune next week. The other thing she loves to do is put on socks and shoes. Don't expect that just because you are wearing one sandal that the other should match in anyway. I mean that would ruin the effect you are going for with the purple and pink sock. Ari first started thi s fetish by raiding the mismatched sock box(why else was it by the shoes in the laundry room). Now I think she purposely takes apart matched socks and puts them on that way. I guess I at least don't have to match her socks anymore. I really need picture docu

Glasses on Babies

Yesterday I picked up glasses for my 8 month old baby. She looks pretty cute in them! I am not looking forward to keeping them on her face. She has a condition called Nystagmus which is a technical term for her "jiggly" eyes. She has the same thing that her older sister has and that was how we knew to take her in. However, the glasses aren't for the nystagmus but for her myopia(near-sightedness) although there seems to be a slight beneficial decrease in the jiggling with her glasses. I have been amazed at how well keeps them on for being a baby but the bigger challenge is proving to be putting them on her. It seems she is sleeping or eating/nursing so often that I am taking them off and not putting them on.