wall washers

Yesterday afternoon, I was washing our walls with the new magic erasers that I bought. Which BTW, if you haven't tried them, they are amazing! Apparently it looked fun, so I got a few helpers. They all volunteered to wash our walls. Usually, if my children burp at the table, as punnishment, they either loose 50 cents out of their allowance, or they have to wash a wall. I thought that they wouldn't want to help, but seeing the handprints and the grime erase before their eyes, they were excited to help out. Crayon erased too, with no scrubbing! Our nieces left us a few pieces of wall art to be erased. I thought that they all looked cute scrubbing away.

Yes, I know, it is the afternoon, and Penny is still in her pj's. It was that kind of day yesterday. We got a frantic phone call from Erin saying that she had left her tights @ home and needed them for her dress rehearsal, for the talent show. I loaded up the kiddies, and took her some tights. Then we drove to the new house to make sure that the power was on. Then it was off to the bank and then to Target to get a few cleaning supplies. So, had Erin not called and we had more time to get Penny dressed, she would've been in her day clothes and not her pj's. But once we got home, we ate lunch and put 3 children down for naps so again, why get her dressed to take a nap? I packed some more boxes once I knew that the babies were all asleep. Wow, do we have a lot of things that we can surely live without! :)

new name

So after a week long of debating, we have finally named our puppy. drum roll please...
Her name is Uno.
Clyde came up with it last night. I know there isn't anything star warsy in that name, but since she is our numbero uno dog, it just fits.
Oh- Happy Leap Year day!!

boxes and more boxes

This is what my house looks like right now. There are boxes upon boxes everywhere! Some are packed up and ready to be moved, while others are awaiting to be filled. It is amazing the stuff that is accumulated thorough out the years. When did we get this much stuff? I am a bit of a pack rat too, so this doesn't help matters at all. In preparation to de-clutter, I went through my fabric closet today. Yes, I have a closet full of fabric. Some people have yarn coming out their bottoms, or die-cuts, or scrapbooking supplies, I have a smidge of that stuff, but my thing is fabric. Whenever I see something that makes me say, "ooohhh" and if it is on sale, then I buy it. I cannot tell you how many times that cache of fabric has saved me for gift giving. I have sweet linens, suedes, corduroy, eyelets, flannel, denim, cottons w/ some of the coolest prints on them, toiles, netting, upholstery fabric, and the list goes on and on. I haven't mentioned all the notions I own either...buttons, zippers, embroidery floss, cross stitch stuff, hoops, thread, or embellishments. I have told myself, as I go through our clutter, that I have to ask myself, "where am I going to put it in the new house?" If I don't have an answer for that question, with whatever the item is, then there is no reason whatsoever to keep it. However, when it comes to my fabric, I'll make room!! :)

*** I do have to add a thank you shout out to Dennis and Audra for giving us these tremendous boxes! You guys are the coolest! Thank you, Thank you!!***

dentist appt.'s

It was that time again, the 6 month dental cleaning/ check-up. Our dentist's office sends up reminders in the mail, which is a good thing, because I can't remember everything. The cool part is that I make 1 appointment for all five Wardlings. This time when I called the office and told them my name, she knew exactly who I was and that the appointments would be made for all five children. Not bad customer service. Granted, I wonder how many patients have 5 children in the same family. They don't call us back individually, it's the Ward Family. I like that. This morning, I arranged for them to have the 1st 5 appointments the office had. The only thing that I would have them do differently, is to have each of the kids in their own chairs. We occupied the back 2 chairs and the kids rotated in. Then once their teeth had all been cleaned, then the last 2 stay in the chair and the dentist comes in to do her thing. Good news, no cavities in anyone. I am so proud. All of our nightly and morning battles to get them to brush their teeth have paid off. The older girls do have to go back though. Erin needs to have 1 extraction, a baby tooth that has hung in WAY too long. It's wiggly, but won't come out. I am hoping that Erin can wiggle it our prior to Monday's appointment. Then, she has 6 of her 8 permanent molars and they need sealants. All in all not bad. Libby on the other hand has to be measured for some spacers and bands. She has a small mouth and a bunch of teeth. She has spaces between her front teeth, but I guess that's crunching her back teeth together and still not giving her enough room in her mouth. The other teeth need to be moved forward. She'll need braces. Libby is thrilled to get these spacers. I think, she thinks that they are like braces, of some sort, and to her, it's a status thing. Wahoo! Penny was a trooper. She only bit the hygienist once, but it was hard. The guy yelped. I had to hold back a giggle. I know, I'm sick. I did tell Penny not to bite anymore and that it wasn't very nice to bite. I guess that the hygienist has to expect that out of some children. She didn't break his skin, so really, mission accomplished with her cleaning. Josh was another trooper. He sat and had his bite wings x-rayed and had such a good spirit. That's Josh though. The only bad face he made was to the taste of the fluoride that they put on his teeth at the end. Jacob did cry a bit. He has had some bad dental experiences. He has fillings on his front few teeth, and we've had to go back several times to have them repaired. He didn't like that, and so we have had to use the papoose board a few times. Today he was just upset during the cleaning, but was all smiles for the actual exam. Yeah...no cavities!

puppy love

We still do not have a name for our newest Wardling, but here are some cute babies with the new puppy. Today has been annoying with the puppy. I have to put her in time out, just for some peace...and I mean that for me. The arguements and high pitched sqeals, are enough to drive anyone insane!

house and stuff

We have been under contract with the brown house since November. We got a call last week saying that all was in order and that we could close on the house Friday. Then, a few seconds later the gal realized that it was President's Day week, so they were 1 work day short in their week, so Monday would be a better bet. I was so excited and yet hesitant at the same time. Then on Wednesday-ish we learn that there was a lien on the house, prior to our sellers. So, our heart sank yet again. Long story short, today, we are officially homeowners. The majority of the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed. We read over our closing papers to learn that they put the wrong name on it...David instead of Clyde. That had to be changed. On the rest of the documents they were correct, so we thought. Our agent called me to say all was good. Then within a few minutes he calls back and says that our earnest money check refund had David's name on it instead of Clyde. Go figure. That was our good news for the week. YYIIPPPPPEEEE!!!! The bad news is that, even though we are month to month and have been for over a year, because we didn't tell them on the 15 of Feb. that we were planning on moving, we now have to pay March and April's rent here. (did I mention that we didn't know that we were closing until last Tuesday, so there wasn't any way we could have told them...again not their fault.) I absolutely hate nickel and dimers. They do not terminate contracts until the last day of the month, so no pro-rating either. This just bites! SO, if we have to pay, I am going to take this whole packing/ moving thing slow. We can move the things that we don't need right now and get them out of the way. They toss everything that we don't need. Things have always been like this, just when we think we are clear and free, we have to pay 2 more month's rent. Go figure.

This past weekend was way busy. Friday night, I had my sewing class with the 3 girls from church. That went very well. Then it was off to movie night with a few pals. I was so tired coming home, that I took a right on a street too soon, and felt way embarrassed. However, to my defense, it was after midnight. I am so glad that I set my alarm on Saturday morning, because I would have slept alot more on Saturday morning. Why set an alarm on Saturday, huh? Well, I agreed to alter a wedding dress for Claire. I had done quite a bit of work on it, but because I don't own a dress form, there was no way that I could hand sew all the sashes and the bustle on it correctly. It wouldn't hang right on the hanger. Sister Dunlap, from church was so nice to let me use a dress form. I had to get up early on Saturday to 1- take some $ over to my sister, for my share of my Mom's birthday present and b- Sister Dunlap's costume shop opened @ 9am, so I wanted to get there as soon as I could do all the work. Sis. Dunlap and I got the dress form, put the dress on it, and I began to sew. I sewed on a sash, and bustled the dress all by hand. The sash goes from the back of her dress, from the zipper, all the way around to the front and then cris-crosses each other and down the front of her dress, to the floor. Thankfully, I did some research on bustling and found a really pretty one called a ballroom bustle. It's different from the American and french bustles, and because of her dress, it only required 4 bustles. A few years ago, I helped a friend with her dress and because her train was a cathedral length train, it required 40 of them. Trust me, 4 is alot less tedious. (I didn't bustle my friend's dress, with the 40 bustles.) It took from about 9:30 a.m. to after 1 to be completely done. I have to give a huge thanks to Clyde for taking all the kids with him to church. He was ref-fing 2 basketball games and so they just went with him. As a rule of thumb, I try not to have all the kids there during those types of events, because they are a bit hard to watch. They all want to go and do different things, so we either have children running like banshees throughout the building or we have pouting, miserable, crying children because they can't run around the church building like banshees. It's a lose-lose situation for me. Clyde handled it beautifully. They pretty much stayed in the nursery and were allowed out a few times to either use the potty or for a drink of aqua.

Sunday, was our 12th wedding anniversary! TWELVE years!! Where does the time go?? This year, we decided that we wouldn't do big gifts, because of buying the house. The house is our anniversary present. :) We wanted to return to the big apple, like we did a few years ago, but we thought that we needed to be the grown-ups and more responsible. Sunday morning was fun. When Clyde and I got up and went downstairs, we had 5 Wardlings looking up at us, and said in close unison, "Happy Anniversary!!" Then they had made directional signs for us to follow, that lead us to the table. There we were given some play money and some menu's. The waitress Erin, took our order. The waiter Josh brought us our drink of choice...me- chocolate milk and apple juice for Clyde. Then the chef, Libby made us our food. I chose waffles, as did Clyde. Clyde wanted some leftovers from dinner the night before, so they were kind enough to reheat them. We had a lovely breakfast. Penny ate the majority of mine, but I didn't have to make anything so I was happy with that. I've never heard of the guests of honor doing their own dishes, but hey- the breakfast was worth the dishes. Saturday night, Clyde and I went to Tyler and Claire's open house/ wedding reception (they are getting married on the 29th). We got a couple of babysitters for the Wardlings. I am looking forward to not having to pay for sitters anymore. We only stayed at the open house for an hour. We saw some good pals and had some yummy appetizers. Since our anniversary was on Sunday, we went out Saturday night instead. We went to Tripps. I haven't been before. I had the salmon and Clyde had a steak. It was delicious and perfectly cooked. We had a great time alone!

So that brings us to Sunday. Lou and Rochelle came up to us pre-sacrament service to tell us that on Lou's morning run, he found an abandoned puppy. The puppy couldn't be more than 4-5 weeks old. We wanted to get a puppy once we bought a house. That gave me some reasoning leverage with Jacob when we would go look @ houses and he'd rather be playing the Star Wars Lego game. "Hey- we can get a puppy once we buy a house. So, let's go check these 1,000 out to see if there is one that is right." (houses, not puppies...) We went last night to Lou and Rochelle's house and checked out the puppy. We are pleased to introduce the newest Wardling...oh- we still don't have a name for her. We are trying to come up with something that sounds pretty cool, especially for the times when we are screaming it in our new neighborhood. We want it to be a Star Wars something. Any suggestions? Clyde likes Jabba the Pup...

hamster tradition

A few months ago, we moved our hamsters upstairs to the kiddies' rooms. Since their move, Penny has had to rub a few of them each night before she goes to sleep. She will stand in her crib, grunt and point to the hamsters that are closest. She has begun to use more signing, to communicate, and her little hand is adorable rubbing her tummy, for the word please. The 3 girl hamsters are in the girls' room, while the 2 boy hamsters are in the boys' room.
Here Penny is holding Karate Kid. Yes, she is a girl. Josh named her and the name stuck. Erin calls her Angel. I like Karate Kid. Josh has always come up with interesting names for hamsters. My favorite was Saraka. Saraka was a brown hamster and was the sweetest! She unfortunately died in her sleep, causing much sorrow. Hence the new hamsters, Princess Leia and Hans Solo. And with those two new hamsters, we have had a total of 27 born to our household. Thankfully we have found loving homes for the hamsters that made it. The last litter was very dramatic. Mama Leia had something like 14 babies and only 7 of them made it. We still have one from that litter. His name is Spiderman. Jacob named him. Karate Kid is from the 1st litter, along with our other hamster, Skunk. She is black with a white stripe down her chin. Skunk is the sneaky one that got out and was AWOL for about a week. We caught her on the first day of school. She is a skunky hamster. We have tried to breed her twice actually, one for a school project and the other as a crazy family idea, and nothing. I believe that we have an infertile hamster on our hands. That's a good thing to me.

She is getting another squeeze and sniffs from Princes Leia. The hamsters are all very tame and haven't tried as much as a nibble on Penny. She in return is quite soft and loving. Ahh -hamsters. They are containable, for the most part, and don't require a huge hole to dig when they die.