And She's Off

Well, Natalie is crawling. In the last three weeks, she's mastered sitting on her own, very confidently, and now crawling. I'm not saying she's a crawling master yet. It starts as scooting, and pushing her toes into the carpet and lurching forward. In the last few days she's been putting the crawling motions with a little more speed. Today when I got home from work, she crawled to me..albeit slowly, but she did it. Yesterday she was sitting, leaned into the crawling position, then sat herself back up...the time's a coming....baby gates will reign.

She so wants to be where the boys are, and has developed a fascination with paper and tags. The boys didn't crawl at 7 months...not sure if she's a bit ahead of them because she's a girl, not a multiple, or not behind from the get go like the boys were...but needless to say I think I'll have a walker on my hands before her first birthday comes around. She especially likes to have the boys read to her...she pays great attention to them, and they love it that she'll sit and listen to them read to her.
Matthew Reading to Natalie

Lucas trying to read to Natalie..while she crawls around!

The boys are almost second graders! They have 9 days left of school, and are so ready for summer. Admittedly, so am I. I am ready for a lesser schedule, staying up late, and being outside a lot. Lucas was asking me yesterday if we can have Tuesday and Wednesday be "water days"...we'll see. They are starting "Camp Northwood" today, complete with tie dye shirts, bug journals, and trail mix for a snack. They were allowed to bring their sleeping bags to school for reading time and store them in their cubbies. Everyday they have mail call, and get letters we wrote from home. Sounds very cute, and definetly an end of the year activity.
What's next for the Hursts? Vacation and VBS...Daniel's graduation from HS and send off to basic training, as well as all the other fun summer stuff like the zoo, parks, etc.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

We've waited and waited, and we are finally in our house. We moved in on April 23rd. I had to sacrifice going to the twin sale..after I had tagged and sorted all my items to sell...to move into our new house. This has been such a great lesson in patience for us. Normally, for us, God's lessons in patience involve frustration, hurt, irritation, etc. This one came out on the positive end...with a lot of answered prayers. We are SO thankful for our new house, and all the space it is affording us.

Matthew and Lucas tested and passed for their yellow belts. They had to answer a series of questions in front of Sensei. Then after class, they were presented with their belts. Glad they both passed...can't imagine the drama if it had been just one. We celebrated with blizzards after karate, then on Derrick's birthday, the 30th, we celebrated with blizzards again. I don't think that I had two blizzards all last summer...and we had them within one week of each other..

We went to Bowling Green last weekend for Darin's graduation. It's so cool to watch younger siblings/siblings in law...graduate. Derrick's other brother, Daniel is going to graduate from Fairbanks in about three weeks. Can't believe it! Then it's off to basic training for him and the National Guard.

Mother's Day was a celebration of Darin's BG graduation and mother's day. We went to the Hurst's for lunch, then to my parents to visit for a little bit. After being gone ALL day Saturday at BG, and Sunday for Mother's Day, it was nice to come home. I did some cleaning, and Derrick worked out in the garage a little bit. We can finally get our cars in the garage, with lots more room than we had in our old garage.

I had Lucas to the pediatrician yesterday. Thinking he had strep throat, but the test came back negative. Then, she sent us to have bloodwork done to test for mono. That rapid test came back negative, so who knows what is going on inside that little guy's body. He was home from school Monday and today. On the way home from Children's Close to Home, after several minutes of silence, Lucas informed me that they have 9 more birthdays until they get their driver's license...guess he's started a countdown already! He also thanked me up and down for taking him to Children's "because the needles at Marysville Hospital are probably a lot bigger". Too funny.

We are looking forward to the end of school, and vacation of course. It's a surprise for the boys. We aren't telling them where we are going, until we are in the car leaving. We are heading out the day I get out of school. Derrick and the kids are picking me up at work, and off we go!

Spring Break 2010

Our spring break started on Friday. Derrick and I ran errands while Joey and Kristin took the boys to the LEGO store to spend their gift cards. We picked them up and went home to have pizza and relax. Saturday was fairly normal, with Derrick and I working on cleaning stuff up and packing. I dread packing. I hate packing...it puts my home in disarray, and that is something I'm not comfortable with. Nonetheless, it needs to be done. The best part, for me, is the purging and pitching of things we don't need. Not only are we packing to move, but I am pricing and tagging stuff for the twin sale on the 23rd, AND we are packing for PLI in St. Louis..which also means packing up the kids for a week at grandma's. Anyway, we had Ladies Night Out for church on Saturday. We went to Casa Fiesta, while the dads and kids got together at a family's house to play and have a cookout. It was Matthew and Daddy night, because Lucas stayed home with my parents after complaining of having a sore throat all day and a fever. That leads to Sunday...I skipped church to stay home with a sick Lucas, and ended up taking him to Children's Close to Home for a strep swab, which came back positive. So, he was down and out for a few days. Finally on Thursday, the weather broke nicely. It was in the 80s! We were outside ALL day. I think the boys thought it was the only day of summer...they picnicked, rode bikes, played in the sandbox, we went to the park, had popsicles..everything but got out the slip n slide.


Easter we had church in the park. We had about 30 people or so. It was sunny and beautiful. Then we had a balloon launch afterwards and an Easter egg hunt for the kids. We came home and changed, took some pictures, and headed off to my grandma's for lunch. We had ham, noodles, salad, etc. It was fabulous as always. Then it was time for the egg hunt. The little cousins-Matthew, Lucas, Mabry, and Charlie, lined up and on "Go!" they were off to find eggs. After they collected them, they sat on the blanket, and had to do various tricks, sing songs, etc. to collect prizes. The hit was the kites. Matthew and Derrick and Lucas and my mom flew kites for what seemed forever. They did a really good job with them. After playing outside for awhile, we headed over to the Hursts' for dessert and more Easter baskets. Over break they spent a lot of time doing crafts. Earlier in the week, Matthew made all 8 creations out of his bendaroos, and then they got these kits to make a frog and a cat out of foam. Very cute, and kept them VERY busy!

Matthew's Dreams

Matthew had a cute dream the other night. He dreamed he saw Jesus. We were all in church, "the Hurst family" he said. Jesus looked like he had dark hair and a beard. Everyone else was crouched behind their chairs because they were afraid, but everyone in the Hurst family was sitting there looking at Jesus. He was up by the altar in church. How sweet!

Life Changes....

Well, what we've waited and prayed for has finally come. On Monday we got an offer on our house, and we accepted it. We had it on the market this past summer/fall, and took it off when it didn't sell. After much deliberating, we decided to give it another shot and put it back up at the beginning of February. We had several showings, but each one had something to complain about, or it wasn't the house for them. Selling a house is stressful. Sitting around, keeping it clean, and waiting for someone to schedule a showing, THEN waiting to hear how they felt about it is stressful. Saturday, we had two showings scheduled. Sunday morning, I checked my phone for emails, expecting the usual weekly deals from Target, an update from Money Saving Mom, etc. Along with those, I saw a feedback email from the showing company. The first agent to submit feedback from Saturday had nothing to say. I debated on scrolling through the rest of them, not wanting/caring to see more that say they aren't interested. But I checked anyway. It said, "Could the listing agent please call me? We would like to make an offer....etc." So, our realtor took care of it, and Monday the offer came. We deliberated....it wasn't quite as much as we had hoped, but it was reasonable. We took it! They want to close on April 15, with possession a week later. We need to start house hunting! We've found several that we like within the parameters of our neighborhood school that we like so well. It's so exciting to house hunt, but I didn't realize how stressful it would be. My insides feel all jumbled up...excitement, stress, we are going to be at PLI the week/day they want to close, so that means we want to be fairly packed up before we go to PLI...Easter, getting the kids packed for a week at grandma's, putting an offer on a home for us to buy....waiting for acceptance of that offer, it's so much to think about! Finally, yet another life change for us. We must thrive on those....or so it seems!

Blue and Gold Banquet

Last night was the Blue and Gold Banquet for Boy Scouts. It is a night when all the dens get together and have dinner and then are recognized for their achievements. First we had dinner, catered by Bob Evans. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, and pie. It was delicious. Thankfully they started with the Tigers first...they were hungry little guys! The boys downed their dinner, and asked for seconds. Not surprising from Lucas, but Matthew also asked. This from the kid who had to be bribed to eat no matter what I would put on his plate...or eat his chicken on the same bite as his rice because he didn't like it...but that's for another time. Anyway, they were called up and recognized for different achievements in their manual. They received beads for making a food pyramid, visiting a fire station, making a fire safety plan...things like that. They are so into their badges and getting them. It was very cute and a nice evening for the four of us. Natalie stayed home with Grandma and Papa for the evening. She rolled over today without any help and landed on her tummy...without her arm stuck. That is officially rolling over in my mind, and I got it on video. She is SO smiley and talkative lately. Derrick really gets her going with cooing and laughing....a very cute sound from the other room. We are starting her on vegetables this week. We'll see how that goes. She's been eating fruits and rice cereal for a few weeks and seems to like them pretty well. She weighs 14 lbs as of last week, so she is growing rapidly. She's almost doubled her birth weight. Enjoy the pictures!

A Cute Story About Lucas

On Thursday, we had our parent teacher conferences for the boys. Miss Fisher does an excellent job of keeping them separate during our time with her, and she also does well with not comparing them. Anyway, when we were talking about Lucas, she shared with us that he had a small breakdown that day in school. While they were reading "The Magic Treehouse" on the carpet, most of the kids were talking and being squirmy. So, Miss Fisher quietly (without warning) closed the book and told them she wasn't going to read anymore because they weren't listening. Lucas was listening...she took them to get a drink and go to the bathroom, then sent them to their seats for some writing time. While at his seat, Lucas put his hands over his face and started crying. She asked him why, and it was because he was irritated that everyone was talking and caused her to stop reading. He was so into the story...and he is SO respectful and loves Miss Fisher....that he was very upset she stopped. So, she told the class that Lucas wanted to hear the rest of the story, and if they behaved they could earn it back in a little while. They must have listened, because they did earn it back. Sweet Lucas can be so sensitive sometimes!