It's been a great couple of days around here. It always seems terrible to couple such statements with, "James is gone!," but... ! Ha! Just so there's no confusion: I DEARLY LOVE MY HUSBAND. Nonetheless (!), it's always so nice to be home alone for a couple of days. (If having three kids and a dog can even qualify as being "alone!" Ha!) It happens very, very rarely (the whole family usually goes wherever he goes) and it just seems so nice and relaxing. I feel like kicking back and vacationing or something. We've just been on a 3 week vacation, but it was the exhausting kind! Anyway...

James left yesterday morning and the kids and I spent the first part of the day getting the house in tiptop condition before realtor #2 came to take a look at it. We had a market analysis done a month or two ago, but it just seemed smart to get a second opinion before settling on what price to list the house at. The lady that came yesterday is the realtor who sold us this house when we moved here 4 years ago. She seemed pleasantly surprised--to put it mildly--at the changes we've made around here. I don't think of it much until we actually take somebody room to room and show them everything we've done... it's a LOT!!! This entire house has been made over except the den--because it was already perfect with the nice brick fireplace and cedar walls that Uncle Jerry put in back when this was his house. Anyway, the lady just seemed to be more "wowed" the farther we went. I'm hoping that potential buyers will be as impressed with this place as the realtors have been! This lady will be calling on Monday to let us know what she thinks the house will sell for. It will be interesting to see how close it is to the first number we got.

Once the realtor left all of the pressure was off and we just had a nice, relaxing day. So relaxing, in fact, that I can't recall anything that we did! Ha! Tammy cancelled her other plans for the evening so she could come and hang out with me. What a pal! With us moving away from Texas we won't have the opportunity to be together very much--and once James gets home things are going to go into warp speed and I'm afraid I won't have much "hanging out" time in what's left of our time in Andrews. So we didn't want to miss a chance to have a girl night! She ended up staying until nearly 1:00am, I think! Sam was going to pick her up after he finished up at the newspaper, but he was encountering some technical difficulties that made for a very late night--for us all! That's okay, though. It was fun. Tammy made brownies while I put the kids to bed. It was Joe's night to sleep with me, so I let him crash on the couch for a while and even let him have a brownie. Lucky dog. ;-)

What a great little worker! :-)

We finished up in the garden and came in for lunch. Left-overs. We played games for a while, then sat down and built with Lego's together before nap time. It was so fun! It's been a long, long time since I've done that. Maybe that's why these couple of days have seemed so enjoyable--I'm living in denial of all the things that need to be done and I'm just hanging out and enjoying myself! It feels so good to just spend time with the kids outside of school time and the "have to do" stuff. I went out and tossed the football with Joe for a little while, then "played baseball" for a few minutes, too. It's been so great!!!

While they were down for their nap (not that anybody actually fell asleep!) I got all of my stuff together for teaching them Sunday School tomorrow. I got my supplies collected and the chocolate pudding made--I just need to swing by the store to pick up some Oreo's in the morning. Who wants to join us--it's going to be a great lesson! :-)

I got the meat/bean mixture all cooked up and ready for lunch tomorrow. (Sam & Tammy are coming over for taco salad after lunch--yum!) The kids have been sooooo good the past couple of days (GOD HAS BEEN ANSWERING MY PRAYERS and we've had such good, sweet fellowship with one another--I couldn't be happier! Or more thankful!!!) and had been earning lots of stickers, so we had a pizza party tonight to celebrate! Watched a really great Gunsmoke episode, so that made the boys happy. They were highly concerned throughout most of it though. Festus got shot in the very beginning and the gunslinger who did it was waiting around the whole show for Matt Dillon to get back into town so he could kill him. Matt finally got back and the guy did outdraw him (at which point the boys were about ready to die!), but while he was laying on the ground with a bullet in his shoulder he got the drop on the guy and made for a happy ending just in the nick of time. ~sigh~ They just don't make shows like that anymore! Ha!

Saturday night is always bath night around here and tonight was no exception--especially with how sweaty everybody has been today! Afterward we played one more round of Uno, then had devotions. I put everybody to bed and went to take my shower. Then I went and got Katie out of bed (it's her special night to hang out and sleep with Mom) and we watched a movie together while I worked on my quilt. Ah yes, my quilt. This would be the quilt that is supposed to go on Sam's bed. The one that matches the one I made for Joe's bed. Two years ago!!! The quilt that has only had a few hours of work left on it for months and months now!!! Isn't that pitiful?! All it needs is the binding--that's it!!! How can you keep putting something off for so long when you're sooooo close to finishing it?! Well, I finally got the inspiration. Probably because I figure my opportunities to work on such things are over once James gets home and we get into "moving" mode! Ha! I finished half of it tonight and intend to have the rest of it done in the next day or two. That will make me very happy. :-)

And one more shot of Sam. That kid has been in full costume since the moment we got home from the big trip. For real--within 30 seconds of walking in the door he had made it to his closet and pulled his cowboy boots on. He switches from his cowboy garb to his fireman stuff to his army guy paraphernalia to the gladiator get-up to the cop uniform to the pirate attire... and then starts all over again. And sometimes he wears multiple costumes at one time, in layers or all mixed up together. Goof ball!




~Rebekah~