School has begun

J started middle school.  6th grade is middle school here.  He described his first day as scary, long, scary, stressing, um, enjoyable.  He got in the car after school with a smile on his face, so I think it went alright.  As did the rest of the week.

My A is now the oldest grade in the Elementary school.  The words she chose to describe her first day are exciting, fun, sort of funny, not boring, busy.

S says her first day was exciting, interesting, fun, busy, enjoyable.

D has only had one day of school this week, today.  His recollection of the day goes something like this: fun, play, the carpet is not for wrestling, fun day.

As I reflect on this week I have two thoughts:
#1 When did I get old enough to have a child in middle school, and
#2 I am incredibly thankful that our Heavenly Father has blessed me with these darling children.  Each one is so different and each one blesses me and helps me learn in different ways.  I love them all so very much there are really no words to describe it.  I feel like each one of them holds part of my heart in their own, and my heart is only complete when I have them all with me.  I have missed them this week being gone at school.

I didn't totally abandon my blog, just mostly...

but we are here.  I am not in a any way going to even attempt to try and catch up.  :)

What happened to us? Tons! but for starters, we bought a new car, sold the van, and moved. :) All is well, very well! and for that, we are grateful.

Here is our new car, a Cheve Traverse.  Mike totally spoiled me.  His reasoning to me, "If you are going to be attempting to drive around in the crazy snow, you need all the help you can get. I want you and my kids to stay alive, after all." Thanks for the confidence, Babe!  This car practically thinks for and drives itself. AND the front seats have bum warmers (and coolers for the summer).  I love it!

Here are a few shots of the property we are renting.  While the house is not as big as our last home, the yard MORE than makes up for it...

the front (where we practically never go, because it borders a decently busy street), but we hope to have reason to go this summer, to pick the peaches and apples in the trees. YUM!

the back, which is where we spend a TON of our time because it is fabulous!

and our tire swing.  Who doesn't love a good tire swing!

And here are a coupe of sunsets that welcomed us here. ( I know, not nearly as awesome as the sunset over the harbor, but it is close!)

And these sweet fellas are our neighbors.

dd-A has become quite good friends with them. (these photos were taken in December, hence the DEAD looking field)

They spot her over on the side and come running...

They know she has bags of carrots for them (I keep a few extra bags of real carrots in the fridge for these guys)

Waiting patiently, this time, some times they are not so patient. :)

She loves to go feed them and pet them.

We were also welcomed here the first week by this crazy storm and tornado warning.  The hail storm was very frightening, I was driving in it, trying to get under cover, while my windshield was being smashed.  I had little shards of glass falling on me.  I also had my mother in law with me and all four kids.  The kids were screaming in the back, things like, "We are going to die!!" and such.  Luckily, we were all safe,  and after waiting for 6 hours or so, we were rescued by Mike and then a tow truck driver and made it home. My sweet S, for about 2 months or so after this, anytime it would start to rain, she would start to cry and say, I don't want another hail storm. Poor sweet girl!

dents on the top (the hood looked the same)

this one was the hugest dent...probably about the size of a softball.  NO JOKE!

The car is all fixed up now, back to it's original, beautiful self, thanks to our insurance.

I'll stop here for now, but I have more to post, hopefully tonight. :)

We love our new place and are so thankful our path has come this way. :)  We feel so strongly that this is the right place for our family, and have completely felt our Heavenly Father's hand guiding us.  The kids have all adjusted well and are doing fabulous in school.  We feel lucky, for sure!