I was going to update and write a post this week.  I started it, but never got to finish it yet.  My family took ill and caught the tummy flu bug this week.  Jordan had it first on Friday night all the way to Saturday.  We decided to stay home from church to rest and not spread the bug to other people.  And then, Sunday night all the way to Monday, Aubrey had the bug.  Unlike the others, she also got a little fever.  We didn't get any sleep all those nights.  Then Monday night, Jeb caught the bug.  He was so miserable that night that he had to miss work the next day.  Both kids are doing well now.  Thankfully, it is just a 24-hour bug and goes away quickly.  They just needed a lot of rest, cuddles and story time and sips of Pedialyte, then they were able to get over the bug quickly.  Jeb is just starting to feel better and keep his dinner down.

I am hoping and trying not to catch the bug.  I have been very careful to wash my hands all the time and clean / sanitize surfaces that we would normally touch.  But if I ever do catch it, I hope it would be after everyone is healthy again.  It is no fun being sick while the family is sick too.

UPDATE:  I am starting to feel the queasiness in my tummy now too, so I might be getting sick.  I will need to cut this post short and just publish it.  I will try to write another post later when everyone, including me, are feeling better.

By the way, don't forget to check out my "What's New..." section to see all the updated and added albums I just did for 2009.

Movie date night
My hubby took me on a movie date tonight.  We watched "Blind Side" and we really liked it a lot.  It wasn't overly a chick-flick so guys will enjoy watching it too.  Let's just say it is a "football-flick."  It is also nice to see God included in the movie.  It is hard to find movies right now with God in the picture.  It will be a very good date movie.

It was very sweet of Jeb to plan a movie date for me.  I have been a bit too overstressed, frustrated, grumpy and moody lately, it was time to take me out! :)  It definitely was a much needed and wonderful breather for me.  I actually can say that I really enjoyed the evening out without having to think or worry about the kids.  One of my many "stress-relievers" besides prayers and meditation is crocheting.  So, after the movie, Jebby also took me to Walmart so I can stock up on my yarn to create many crochet projects through the winter.  It is a very nice and sweet gesture for him to do for me.  I love my man! :)  I'm blessed to have him.

Thanksgiving week/end
Like most my weeks, this week has been a busy week.  We had a great time spending Thanksgiving and the weekend with Jeb's family.  Chad, Lora and their kids came up from Kansas to visit and it was wonderful spending time with them and the kids enjoyed all the cousins company.  I did however, missed my family immensely.  I think it is also because of the fact that my sister Cheryl and her daughter Shoshy is visiting my family in the Philippines right now.  If only I could... I would have hopped in the plane with my sister and haul all the kids to the Philippines.  But then again, I might just be talking without thinking... that trip might be a nightmare having all 3 kids with me!

Thanksgiving week was also deer gun-hunting week.  Jeb tried to sit out in the woods and try his luck in shooting a deer, but with no luck.  The deer might be too smart for him.  We see deer all the time when he is not hunting, mostly when the sun is down.  The day just before the hunting season started, the kids and I saw a 6-pointer buck run through the woods and in front of the chicken shed and then walk in front of the driveway and back into the woods.  He circled the woods and the chicken shed 2 or 3 times.  It was so awesome to see.  The kids were so thrilled to see a buck, they were jumping up and down and had to call daddy to tell him all about it.

Moving again...
The unpacking has recently been on a halt for the last 2 weeks.  I did however painted the downstair bathroom.  I also started painting the fireplace wall as an accent wall, but I ran out of paint so just half the wall is done.  I do have my paints again and I will need to finish painting that wall.  Although, it looks like that I will need to paint the entire living room area now the same color as the fireplace wall.  That is A LOT of wall to paint.  So, right now... I am stalling :-p  Well, also I have been sick and tired out a lot the past week.

We also found out recently that Jeb's company is shutting down the facility here in Fond du Lac, and moving us to Illinois.  We will need to wait for our house to sell first though before we move.  Right now, there are no offers on the house yet.  The real estate market here in Fond du Lac is not good at all.  So, it will take a lot of prayer to get our house sold.  We are thinking of moving in the Spring, April as the soonest.

Update on the kids

The kids have been doing well.  Jordan has started to learn how to read.  I have been working with him in sounding his alphabet on and off for a while now.  And just recently, he can sound out and read some short words.  It is really amazing.  It is not perfect, though but at least it is gearing on the right direction for him in learning to read!  Also, a good site that I learned about from a friend is starfall.com, in teaching kids their phonics and learning the basics of reading.  You are able to download a whole workbook in PDF that you can print from your computer to aid with your homeschooling.  I do this with Aubrey as a starter in learning her letters and sounds.  Aubrey sits along with the "classes" and joins in once in a while too, when I do the reading with Jordan.

Aubrey is so into princesses too.  Her favorite bedtime routine lately is Daddy giving her (as the princess) a pony ride to her bed.

Both of them love drawing and painting too.  Jordan also built his very first wooden toy the recently.  I got him a wooden toy train that he can put together and paint.  Jeb helped him with this but mostly he did it by himself.  I will have to show a picture of that sometime.  I also got the kids some needlework projects that they can do with my help.  They love "crocheting" with me when they see me do it.  I got Jordan a simple hook-and-loop kit, and Aubrey a picture stitching kit (comparable to doing cross-stich only you don't do the X's).

Amberly is 6 months old now and is growing bigger and learning new things each day.  She has been fighting a cough for about a month now, since after the Feast, so tomorrow we are bringing her in to see her Doctor.  She is getting really good with the rolling over and can actually get around pretty well with just rolling.  She sits up quite alright for a few seconds to a minute without us holding her, but she still slops forward when sitting.  And she loves playing with her toys.  She is the most content baby I have.  I can not complain... God has blessed us.

 

We're officially moved in.  It has been a crazy series of events around here lately in my part of the world.  Just before the Feast, we decided to move out to the a vacant property that Jeb's parents own out in the country, and put up our house for sale.  Since then, we have been busy packing, and cleaning and getting our house fixed up a bit to sell.

Sunday of October 25 was our moving day.  We got some help from Jeb's parents, Jason, James Roth, and Matt to move most of our big stuff.  By 6 pm we were settled in our new place and started to put our and the kids' rooms back together.  It is quite interesting moving into a house where it has been vacant for a while.  Some of the issues we ran into were:

• laundry dryer won't work due to wrong outlet switch installed in the wall
• stove/range won't work -- so we didn't have any cooked meals for about a week and a half (eating out and PBJ sandwiches can get old fast)
• we had to evacuate the house Wed/Thur night due to gas leak in the house.  We spent the night at Jeb's parents house for the night.  I thank God for my good sense of smell... I might have just saved my entire family
• the next day we went back to the house after getting the gas leak fixed, we didn't have water.
• and the heater won't work because there was no water -- heat runs from hot water running through the pipes.
• dishwasher don't work right.  I ran it once and my dishes came out all icky and greasy and gross smelling.
• you have no idea how dirty filthy a house can get when no one lives in it!

Anyway, everything is working fine now, thanks to Jeb, and his parents for fixing things.  We have pretty much the entire upstairs all unpacked and set up, master bedroom, kids room, living room, kitchen, dining, upstairs bathroom; and for the downstairs, furnace room (Jeb's workshop), laundry room, downstairs bathroom and the office are all set up and unpacked.

Other things that happened since we moved here:

• Jordan celebrated his 4th birthday in our new home (October 28)
• We got a puppy (for Jordan, but mostly it is our family pet).  She's a blue heeler / border collie mix.  We named her Sheba.  She is one smart dog.  And the kids just loves being around her and playing with her.  Interestingly, Jordan was all into the puppy in the very beginning while Aubrey was scared of her (all dogs in general), but now Jordan doesn't pay much mind to her but Aubrey loves playing and spending time with Sheba.  I'm glad she got over her fear of dogs.  She still gets a bit scared of Sheba especially when she scratches her or jumps on her but otherwise she loves her, and takes walks with Sheba outside while helping Grandpa take care of the chickens and sheep.
• We got a new dishwasher! Yay!  And Jeb got an awesome deal on it too.
• We have internet again... and TV!  Moving out here, we knew our internet options are very limited.  We were searching for some options and came down with either radio internet or mobile internet.  None of them gets any signal from this house.  We have another option, satellite internet... so we went with that.  I say it gets getting used to getting an 18Mbps speed (while we were living in town) down to an almost 1.5Mbps speed.  However, it is not that bad... it is still a pretty decent connection and a lot faster than the very last option that is out of the question... dial up!  No way!

I will try and get some pictures up of the house as soon as I can, and post some videos of the kids.  I still don't have a camera but my camcorder that can take still shots will work for now.  So far, we are enjoying living out here at the tree farm.  It is absolutely gorgeous looking at all the fall colors on the trees.  Our house is practically in the middle of the woods. :)  And it has been interesting to see all the wildlife out here.  I already shrieked like a sissy girl when we saw a garter snake while going around the property for a walk.  Jordan wanted to pick up the snake and pet it! (I later learned that Jeb and Jordan actually found a snake and Jeb let Jordan hold and play with the snake when they went out here on one of the moving trips). I know it would have been perfectly harmless, but still... I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES... or anything creepy-crawly, just the thought makes me shudder.  The kids were laughing at me and picking on me for screaming like a crazy person, and running to the house for cover. LOL

A week ago, we got the kids their early Feast presents.  Jordan and Aubrey both like trains and wanted to build on to their Thomas & Friends set.  Last year, we got him a T & F wooden train set, and I like the wooden set a lot better we decided to keep and build on with the wooden train set.  Well, you all know that Thomas & Friends wooden trains are not cheap and if you buy the character trains and the wooden railways and accesories... it all adds up!  Here's a great deal we found and put together.  At Target, they also have the cheaper brand Circo for wooden train sets.  They have a 120-pc wooden train set w/ Drawbridge for only less than $50 (with all the tracks, trees, people, etc -- that would have cost maybe twice if more for the Thomas set).  We tried it with the Thomas wooden tracks and it fits perfect.  So, we decided to go buy the 120-pc set from Circo (the kids wouldn't know the difference) and just get the Thomas & Friends train character (that, they will notice) one at a time.

When we took it home and set it all up... the kids just loved it, they played with their train set for hours!  And they wouldn't have noticed the difference of the tracks and accesories being different from their other Thomas tracks.