I'm lovin' it! (by elevenses)

Yea! I finally have a few minutes to blog. Jer actually took all the kids to the park and I have finished a little project I have been promising the girls (more on that later in this post) so here I am on the computer again. We managed to move and survive the ensuing chaos and are just about completely feeling at home. It took way longer than normal since we spent the first full week here putting in some raised garden beds (that'll be a later post) and then Jer went on a high adventure trip with the older boys, was home for a day and left for scout camp with Spencer.
I am SO thankful this whole moving thing is (please, oh please) behind us. I am sure other people are too--my father-in-law keeps having to drive trucks for us and Strati has helped us with every one of our last four moves I think (since we pretty much move every year it seems). Be careful who you make friends with Strati! :-) We will never be able to thank everyone enough for all the kindnesses and efforts on our part--several people fed us meals and many people on that end and this end showed up to help without us even asking. I hope we'll be those kind of people for others. Every little thing that someone did made it that much easier for us and was SO appreciated.
I made a few awesome discoveries too:
1. my sister-in-law Sarah is a wonderful nurse (she saw me and 3 of my kids through the nastiest stomach flu one day right in the middle of the move)
2. my mother and father-in-law have become like parents to me--I actually felt teary after they each left which I usually only do when my own parents visit and then leave
3. we have incredible family and friends--when people come to support your son graduating from high school and/or just send a little gift for him it just feels amazing--the lion king song--can you feel the love? comes to mind :-) Thank you to all!
4. it is so true that Heavenly Father will never let you catch up in the blessing department--I did something (and it was pretty lame) for someone pretty close to our move that I thought was nice of me and then they paid me back pretty much a hundredfold
5. it is also true that Heavenly Father answers prayers--I was stressed about this move in particular because our son was graduating at the same time, family was visiting and I have 6 kids now- one of which is not even a year old. I was worried Jer and I would be at each other's throats so I prayed we'd be able to get along--and what happened was an answer to that prayer but not in the way I expected. The day we were to pack the trucks I was very sick and couldn't fuss at Jer all day, then the day we had to clean the house, Jer was sick and I couldn't fuss at Jer all day--Heavenly Father knows me too well! But hey, it all got done thanks in huge part to the family that was with us and the friends that came to help and since we hardly saw each other-we got along just fine. :-)
6. I love having a one story house--it is the best thing ever!! The only thing I miss is how pretty two story houses can be from the outside but that's a dumb reason to buy one.
7. I love our ward, they have been so friendly and they even gave us over a month before we had to speak or get callings (we'll be called to something Sunday)
8. we have been so blessed for a long time that we haven't had any car problems because it just wouldn't fit into the budget, so here we are about to make a little money on this move and BAM--$1800 worth of car fixins' in one week pretty much. Goodbye Christmas right, but hey, we HAD the money and that really is amazing
9. moving into a place in a rockin' school district might have a few drawbacks--Nick has an assignment due within 5 days of us registering him!
10. one of the things I had them do to our house really has become my favorite thing--the double set of french doors on the office (was originally a dining area I think) so we can keep an eye on the computers and at the same time keep the baby out of the area--it's like I'm a genius or something
11. living near cousins again is way fun and I get along with my SIL Suzie really well and she loves to craft too--could life get any better....oh wait, yes it could--another SIL I love (to be honest I love all of them, how lucky am I?) will be moving to this very area in a few short months...

I'm lovin' it!

This part here if for people interested in Cricutness. So what do I do with the first hour of peace I've had in what feels like months? Use the Cricut of course. I had wanted to do this project for the girls but was going to wait until I could buy colored vinyl. Remember I have no patience though.
So I got out my cheap white vinyl--cut out the lettering and frog, weeded it, then colored it with Hannah's prismacolor markers which at first I thought wasn't going to work because they are very "wet" markers. So I used a paper towel to rub off the excess and it worked like a charm! Then I used drywall tape to carefully lift the letters and position them on the door line-by-line. I had silver contact paper still for the crown so that was easy. The next thing I want to try to do is the freezer paper/ t-shirt thing. And I now have a huge area (to me) in my room for my crafts--I didn't realize I did so many different things until I started unpacking stuff we've had stored for a long time--paper crafts, crocheting, cross-stitching, sewing, wood craft, painting, jewelry, etc. It's like a mini Hobby Lobby in there. :-) I'm lovin' it!