Ooops!

The other night as I was feeding Contessa, it dawned on me that we never gave the kids their "Big Brother, Big Sister" gift.  So in the morning, two days after Contessa was born, we gave the kids their gift.  When a new baby comes along Nate and I try and have something special for the older kid(s).  For this birth I found some special things at St. Vincent's and Goodwill.  At St. Vincents I found a Thomas the Tank Engine blanket that washed up beautifully, a Black Beauty chapter book, an adorable "I spy" board book and a four Kumon workbooks.  At Goodwill I found four Sesame Street Library books and a Smithsonian book that added to our collections at home.  The kids were so excited and I was happy that we were able to get them such a nice gift for so little money.

Thankful for Hand-Me-Downs

Layla sporting a cute leopard print skirt from her cousins.  Notice how willing she is to pose.  Layla's loves animals prints which is interesting to Nate and I since we are not very big fans of it.  This girl has shirts, skirts, pajamas and even coats that are leopard print.

Julius is not happy to have his picture taken in a cream cable-knit sweater that many, many cousins have already worn. 

Gunnar isn't too excited about the camera either, and he wears hand-me-downs almost everyday as most of his clothing was his older brother's.

We love hand-me-downs because they are so good for the budget!  We recently got several trash bags of clothes from some older cousins.  I don't think I am going to have to buy Layla any clothes for this upcoming spring/summer season because we were so blessed with the clothes given to us!  That is always good news!

Making Progress

So I am making some progress with my to-do list.  We all know that there are always parts of our to-do list that are easier to get moving on than other parts.  "Sorting bins and packing away too small clothes" has been on my list since September!  It just seems to take more effort to go to the basement, bring up bins and work my way through all the baby and kid clothes.  I am trying to donate items that I am not especially fond of and throw away anything I may have stored that is stained.  My goal is to end up with a few empty bins to store the large laundry basket of small clothes I have hidden in an upstairs closet.  I hate spending money on more bins if I can find some to use in the house.  One sad moment did come when I started sorting through a "mystery" unmarked bin.  It contained some 3T girl clothing, an 18 month boys winter coat, and a small pile of boys 9-12 month clothing that I never got to use with Gunnar.  There was some really cute things in there and it made me want to cry that I never found them when they would have been useful!  It just serves as motivation to really get the rest of my bins sorted and better organized.  I am sure there is bound to be a few more mystery bins discovered. 

So my list is looking more like this now:

• Get back to daily school work 
• Finish "Ruby Holler" chapter book with the kids
• Wash all the dirty towels and sheets
• clean both bathrooms
• clean off fan blades in our bedroom (it's gross!) - can you tell I am avoiding this?
• Use up any remaining food in the fridge and grocery shop  - um, I really need to do this tonight to avoid anymore take-out dinners!
• Sort through clothing bins and store away clothing that is too small - Progress is being made!
• Find good dinner roll recipe for Thanksgiving - I am thinking about this recipe
• finish Christmas gift ideas for our kids - some progress, but need to write a complete list and more importantly order stuff online

This publicly made list is helping hold me accountable.  If you feel you need an additional push of accountability, add your to-do list to the comments section and see if making your list public helps you accomplish more!

New Van

Well, it's here. We were able to wrap things up this afternoon. I am so amazed at how God always provides for us and exceeds our expectations. When we first started looking we were discouraged at prices. When we looked at the possible trade in values of our other vehicles we were a bit discouraged then, too. But Jarred found a 2004 with 49,000 miles. He told us the van would be around $8,000. He then gave us very good prices for our other vehicles and we were able to walk out the door with tax and title for $5,385. Praise the Lord! Nate and I were really hoping to get the van for $6,000 or below. I had asked the Lord if we could get it for $5,500. The Lord gave us more than what we asked for.

Thanks Jarred for working so hard and quickly to get us some reliable transportation. You have been so good to us with the past two vehicles.

Testing, Testing

We drove a van yesterday which we liked. Our friend Jarred gave us a price quote on the van that we really liked. Then he gave us trade in values on both our van and our car that we liked even better. If all goes well we could be purchasing the van on Monday. Jarred was sending it to the shop for some maintenance and if everything looks good we will have some transportation by then. Keep ya posted!

Sick of Being Stranded

So we have been stranded at home for since Monday. We found out our van needed over $1300 worth of repairs, some being pretty major and we began to contemplate if it was worth putting that much money into our van when it has 133,000 miles on it. We only buy vehicles in the $5,000 to $6,000 range anyway, so we wondered if it was better to put that $1300 towards a new van.

Our friend, Jarred, said he had a van coming in today that would be in our price range once we traded in. We are going to see and drive it today and have the auto shop check it out to see if it is a good fit for us. Keep us in your prayers that the Lord will show us favor and that our vehicle needs will be met. The natives are a bit stir crazy after being stuck at the house for the past week! I will keep you posted.