House Hunting

I think I will write on here just how horrible and annoying I find house hunting so that sometime down the road when I have forgotten and am toying with the idea of moving again, I can read this and remind myself how much I hated it. ;) It is seriously not pleasant at all! We have been really lucky to have my mom and dad in Marion while we can't be to look at houses first and weed out most of the duds. I am not even sure at this point how many have been seen. We have seen, lets see, 9 or 10. My parents have seen at least twice that amount. I am completely amazed at the truly horrible houses that are out there. I am also annoyed at how real estate agents and people classify rooms as bedrooms when you couldn't even fit a twin size bed in the room. That is not a bedroom!! The whole point of a BEDroom is that you can put a BED in it!! To make matters worse, the very first house we saw, I LOVED. I loved it. It was 2016 sq feet. It had 5 bedrooms and a room we could use for a playroom. It had a nice enclosed sun porch. It was in our price range. It was close to the kids' schools. It wasn't perfect but it was pretty close. We got to see it once, and then it suddenly got pulled off the market. Apparently the guy that owned it took out loans against the property and could no longer provide clear title so he couldn't legally sell it. Lovely. So it was a no go. There were a lot of duds after that one. Then we found another one that we liked. About 2000 sq feet but only 3 bedrooms. But they were big bedrooms so we could have made it work. It had no yard though and it shared a driveway with a truly horrible, falling down house. The neighborhood was not very good either. We were still interested though. Then their contract ran out and they re-listed HIGHER than their previous price. We found out that they were hurting for money and couldn't really come down on price anyway. So we lost interest in that one. The next one we didn't get to see but my parents did. It was a bank repo in a good area. It was a newer house with four bedrooms and around 2000 sq feet. It was an awesome price. BUT we found out the taxes would have been 3000 dollars a year!! Seriously. Last we heard, it had 6 offers on it anyway. The next house that we liked had 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and about 1700 square feet. It had an unfinished basement which I like for storms. We actually made an offer on it but then my dad went back in there and found a huge amount of problems with it that couldn't be fixed. So we just walked away when they counter offered. I feel like we have been looking at houses forever. So, if I start waxing poetic about moving in the future, someone thunk me on the head and remind me to read this....K?

Wow...It's been a long time.

I had forgotten all about this blog. LOL. Obviously, since the last time I wrote anything on it was in June of LAST YEAR. Hahaha. Well, let see. Since I posted last....we had a tornado hit near our town, we cut some dead weight out of our life, I got pregnant again and we are going to be moving in the Summer. Oh...and Matt got diagnosed with ADHD. We are not having huge luck with meds for the ADHD so far but apparently that is normal. Ben is going to be 2 in 4 days....I can't believe it. I swear that he was just born a few weeks ago. We are pregnant with a GIRL!! Her name is Lillian Alvera Marie Durall. She is due January 11th. They put me on progesterone shots for this pregnancy so she doesn't come too early. She will probably be here by Christmas though. We are going to be moving in the vicinity of Marion in the Spring/Summer. We are super excited. It's going to be a fresh start away from this stupid, dead town. Hmmm......I actually don't have too much to say today.....maybe I'll try to put a new post on another day. LOL

Fathers Day

This was definitely one of the best fathers days ever! I was able to properly spoil my hubby....well....almost properly. lol. I started the day out by making him something that he has been craving. Strawberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast. I served it with bacon and sausage as well as a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice for my handsome hubby. He watched some Three Stooges and played some Red Dead Redemption. Then the kids started hollering for lunch so I made stuffed Bacon Cheeseburgers and Seasoned French Fries. I made Mathew some chicken patties but Kelsie ended up eating three of them! After we ate, we got everyone in their swimsuits and headed to David's mom house. We swam and played around for quite a while. With the exception of the extreme sunshine...it was really fun. Audrey took the baby out of the sun after about 15 minutes and then took him inside but he really seemed to enjoy the water. We came back home and David and the kids played Beatles Rock Band while I made supper. I made David his favorite homemade chicken chimichangas and I also made Gringo Dip. Kelsie had regular nacho dip and Mathew had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into the shape of a fish (haha) and a Danimals Yogurt Drink. He hasn't really been eating today. He has developed a rash.....well....let me rewind a bit for this....

On Saturday the 12th, David's cousin Brian got married to a wonderful girl named Kim Howell. We went to the wedding, which was beautiful by the way and then went to the reception. We had all three kids with us so we only stayed until 8:00 and then took everyone home. When we got home, Kelsie was complaining that she had a headache (not uncommon for her, poor thing has migraines) and that she was really cold. I felt her forehead and she was burning up. I gave her a dose of Motrin and sent her to bed. She fell asleep right away but woke up a couple hours later saying that she was hot. I felt her and she felt even hotter. I took her temp and she was a little over 102! I stripped her down and ran her a lukewarm bath. She was awake and aware but not making a whole lot of sense. I gave her the bath and dropped her temp to 101. She said that she felt better so I gave her a cool washcloth for her head and went to lay back down....not really sleeping though. A couple hours later she was back up saying that she was cold again. I took her temp and it wasn't quite 101. I gave her more Motrin and a fresh washcloth and put her in bed with me. David, being the awesome man that he is, slept on the couch. The next morning she seemed fine except that she had a few little spots under her arms. I thought that they were heat rash. She popped up a small fever during the day and didn't really eat much but she seemed ok. The next morning when she got out of bed, she was covered in spots. My first thought.....chicken pox. None of the kids has had it yet. I looked up chicken pox online and hers were nothing like them. She didn't itch or hurt....they were flat...they weren't crusty or weeping. I was stumped. I called mom and she was stumped. The next day they were brighter. I looked up rashes online again. I tested her for um....meningitis or something. She was negative according to it. She felt fine. On Thursday, she still had the spots but acted completely normal so we let her go to her MeMaw's. Before they went, Mathew got a small fever. A little over 100 degrees. I thought that maybe it was just from playing outside but gave him motrin and warned Audrey anyway. He was fine after that. Yesterday, Kelsie got up and came out and her spots were GONE! Just like that. Huh. Now today, Mathew is getting them. All I can figure is that it is a virus. I'm not sure what kind. Mathew probably won't have it for long though. He always kicks illnesses ass before it gets him down. Hahhahahhaha.

Anyway.....I need to go..this got longer than I meant. I need to go look for a Dvd from Family Video that no one can remember bringing home. I don't know what is going on but it's not good. hahahhaha

Andrea

Annoyed

Yep....the title says it all! I am annoyed! I am annoyed to the point of being pissed off. You! Person that I am pissed off at! I am getting really close to shutting you out of our lives!

hahahahahhahhahahhahahhahahhahahahha

A Day in The Life

Ah......awesomeness. hahahahhahahaha. whew. Haven't laughed like that in a while.........no.....scratch that. I laugh like that at David all the time. He cracks me up.

Anyway.......it's been a pretty awesome weekend for the most part. I didn't get my diapers as I had hoped but as of last night....they are en route from Missouri. They should be here tomorrow! Yay! 12 more diapers! Thank God for that.

I've been feeling good. The kids have been good. Well.....the baby won't sleep through the night..but....eh. I have coffee.. :D On Friday, I scrubbed the heck out of the stove and cleaned the main part of the house. Today I'm hoping to have all the laundry done and put away. I also hope to clean our bedroom and tackle at least one of the kids rooms too. I feel like myself and that is awesome. Hahahhaha. I've started walking for exercise. I do about 2 to 2 1/2 miles a day. My new shoes kick my butt while doing it. I'm amazed at how bad some parts of our town look. We have some freaky people living around here. Thank goodness they aren't on our street. Thanks in large part to our own Neighborhood Nazi...Sandi. Hahhahahha. Thank God for Sandi.
We did have a little bit of a scare on Friday though. Mathew was riding his bike around the block (we can see the other street from the alley and he doesn't cross any roads this way). We were inside and Mathew comes running in and says "I was riding my bike on the sidewalk and there was a man walking on the sidewalk and he talked to me and he knew my NAME!" " He said "Go on there, Matt." I asked him how he knew me and he said that he knew me from students going to peoples houses"
I was completely freaked out and told him that he was in for the night. I told him that even though people may seem nice, that doesn't mean that they are. People that want to do bad things almost always seem nice at first. David and I have drilled this into the kids heads since forever but they are still kids and don't really think that anything bad can happen to them. Anyway.
About an hour later, our doorbell rings. It's the man. He ended up being a solicitor of magazine subscriptions. He didn't know Mathew at all. He didn't know our names. We were just a house on his route. My guess is that Mathew stopped to let him pass on the sidewalk and he said "Go on, Man". Mathew probably thought he said Matt. He went to all the other houses in the neighborhood and we researched on his company and everything. Still. A normal day in our for the most part normal life.
I should probably stop....I lost the train of thought that I was originally going to write this one with.....so now I'm just rambling......oh well. Back to life....hahaha

Andrea

Hahahahhahha

Oops.....hahahha. I think that somebody got a little cranky! Hmmmm.....should I apologize??? NOPE! I haven't got anything to apologize for. Love it or Leave it. The choice is yours. Hahahhahhahahhahahhahhahhahahhahahhahahahaha! I think it is hilarious when people get all worked up and they don't even know what is going on....... ROFLMAO

Adventures in Mice Catching

This all started a couple of weeks ago. I was up with the baby around 3:00 in the morning and I saw something run across the dining room floor. It was right by the doorway to the living room where I was sitting. My first thought was...hmmm.....that was awful big to be a waterbug. We have waterbug issues because we live in a house that is over 120 years old and we have a basement that is not finished. I had sprayed, which unfortunately makes them come out in droves so that they can die where I have to clean them up. Haha. Anyway. I kept watching the doorway while feeding Ben and sure enough....about 5 minutes after the first time...I saw it run back the other way. It was a freaking mouse!! Now I don't have a fear of mice but I also do not want them in my HOUSE! Especially not running back and forth on the floor where Ben has his floor time. I went and told David (he does have a fear of mice) and he got up to see it. It just kept running back and forth until almost 6:00. David ran to the store and got some traps. I baited them up with peanut butter and placed them where the mouse had come out of and where it had been running to. We didn't catch it. The next morning when I checked the traps...the peanut butter had been licked cleanly off of the traps! David then got a different brand of springy death traps. I did less peanut butter on these thinking that maybe the mouse would have to get closer and spring the trap to get the treat. Next morning.....same thing. No peanut butter but no mouse either. The next night we were both up with Ben at around 4:00 in the morning and we saw that there wasn't 1 mouse! There were 2!! It was a freaking family! David had found one a few days before this started in the bucket of catfood that we keep in the back entryway but we had assumed that it got in just to get the catfood and then got stuck. We now had to assume that it had been part of this mouse family. David went out that day and got a live trap and the sticky glue traps. I'm not a big fan of the glue traps because they seem so mean but David was beyond the point of mercy with these mice. He even slept with his shoes on one night because they were freaking him out so much. The first night with the new traps.....nada. The second day, I moved them. I wedged them in between the wall and the cabinet that they were getting behind. Early nightime, we heard a scratching noise. I thought it was the live trap but I checked it and it was empty. So I checked the glue traps and sure enough we had the young mouse on it. The scratching sound was the plastic trap scraping against the wall. It didn't squeak at all though. Speaking of which....the one that David found in the catfood didn't squeak either.....we have never heard a squeak out of any of these mice! Anyway......I picked up the trap with tongs and we put it in a WalMart bag and David threw it in the outside trash can. We moved one of the other traps to the same spot that we caught the little one and hoped that the mama would come out and get caught too. NOPE. The next morning I heard the scratching again and looked over at the trap to see it standing straight up in the space between the wall and the cabinet. I grabbed it with the tongs but the mouse had escaped! This mouse was too dang smart! I got online and looked up how to catch a mouse that avoided the traps. I learned that if you wedge a nut down in the trap, they couldn't help but spring it while trying to get the nut out. I set up one trap with an almond shoved in it and hoped to hear a snap during the night. We saw and heard nothing of the mouse for DAYS! I was almost convinced that it had gotten glue in it's mouth and died behind the cabinet. Not a pleasant prospect for me. We left the traps out anyway. This morning, as I sat down Mathew's scrambled eggs and toast....he looks over and says....."Oh. You caught the mouse!" "Cool!" I looked over and sure enough....the trap with the almond was flipped over on top of a dead mouse. EW. I called David and told the kids not to look..which of course prompted them to stare at it as hard as they could. I threw it in the trash.....trap and all which prompted a call from David saying "AW! I wanted to see it!" Hahahahha. Well, thus ends my two week adventure in mice catching. I feel much better. Now I can do picking up at night when I'm up and not have to fear the mouse. hahahahha.
Well, hopefully the next entry will be more entertaining. LOL.

Andrea