Hello Again!!!!!

Wow!!! I cannot believe that it has actually been almost 3 months since I last posted anything. I guess we have been just a little busy.

The new house is just wonderful. We are loving being out in the country and loving the peace and quiet. We worked our rears off and had the whole house pretty much put together and fully decorated in about 2 weeks (did someone call me a drill sergeant?). We were able to have a cold, wet Thanksgiving with no stains or mud on the carpet. We also had our Sunday school Christmas party here.

So much seems to have changed since I last posted. The kids aren't crazy anymore. Life is so calm. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! But seriously....

Austin is doing well. Well, actually, he is sick right now and I am hoping that he doesn't have strep throat. But in general he's doing well. He is still making great grades and running his own business. He had a great Christmas and got lots of cool stuff. He played a skunk in a Christmas play at school. He was pretty shy, but had a great costume (he knows a great seamstress named mom).

Jacob is still wild as ever. He is doing great in Ms. Polly's class and still loves going to school. He's really into cars and playing (cheating at) the game Memory. We have to play that everyday when Nicholas takes his nap. He's developed newer quirks. He only wants to sleep in the clothing that he wore all day and right now is wearing two pairs of underwear. My mother thought that was weird, but I have other things to fight about in a day. Two, three pairs of underwear are the least of my concerns. In fact, Austin wore 3 pairs of underwear the other day on a field trip.

Nicholas has changed the most over the past three months. We have finally decided to keep him and I'm no longer threatening to get my tubes tied every other day. He turned one in November and stopped breastfeeding!!! He got his first haircut just this past weekend and looks so stinking cute!!! His two favorite things are still me and his thumb. Oh wait, I forgot he prefers to suck his thumb while sitting in my lap with a finger from his other hand shoved in his belly button (unless he can get his hand down the front of his diaper. That has just started in the past few days). He has also started ripping his diaper off whenever he gets a chance. I never experienced that stuff with Austin. Jacob was a diaper digger. I have my ideas that Nic is going to be too.

The boys love the new house. They love their bedroom. We have two sets of bunkbeds, a total of four twin beds, so most nights they sleep in one bed together. Jacob wetting Austin's bed twice hasn't even stopped them from sharing!!! At my sisters house, it was a war every night to get them to stop fighting about sharing a queen size bed. Kids are weird. We built a HUGE playset for Christmas. It cost a pretty penny. I usually look out and see both boys on one swing!! I should clarify that "we" did not actually build the playset. Ralph pretty much single-handedly built it himself. It said 5-10 hours for build time. We think that it meant 5-10 people. Ralph did get it done in 2-3 days and it's great. Jacob only learned a couple new words from Dad!!

We love the new house too. We don't have any grass. We have LOTS of mud right now. It seems like is has rained everyday for the past week. We don't have any plants because we don't have a fence to keep the cows out yet. Cows are NOT like deer. They will come up to your house and lick your windows if they can.

Ralph and I are doing great. Ralph is taking a welding class a couple nights a week so he can start building us lots of stuff. Well, he isn't actually going to build a bunch of stuff, but he has always wanted to know how to weld and it will come in handy at some point. I am working on my Doctorate (heheheheheheheh). Just seeing if you were paying attention. I pretty much do the same stuff I was doing a few months ago, except cleaning 2 more potties, and several more rooms. I am taking charge of Vacation Bible school at our church so that should be alot of fun.

Well, I think I am done for the evening. I have got to get to bed. For some reason my kids have started coming in early the past week or so. I had Austin and Jacob in bed with me at 6 this morning. Good thing I didn't need a shower too badly huh?

I will hopefully get to post some pictures soon. Not too many pictures though. We have satellite internet access. Way more expensive, but not as fast as dial-up. Apparently uploads are slower than downloads. When I told the satellite guy that we used to upload, like, 100 pictures to Wal-mart and have them printed, he laughed at me and said "no, you aren't going to be doing that anymore." But, IF my kids happen to do anything interesting, I'll try to get a picture of it.