Strawberries and taking a little break

Most days I drop my two older boys off at school at 9am and go straight out to the new house. We have a routine now where I have the two youngest ones and we stay at the new house working on projects until 3:30pm when we have to go get the older boys. It still amazes me how fast that time can go. It amazes me how well C has done entertaining himself and even when he watched Cheaper By the Dozen three times yesterday he still didn't get bored....he just thought we needed more kids! It amazes me that even though baby T will do her fair share of crying and wanting my attention, she also will fall asleep in her stroller and then continue to sleep for three hours while I paint and get work done.

Today we took a little break though. I was in charge of preschool and there really isn't a lot of space in my house for five 4year old boys to play around amongst all the boxes. We heard about some other friends going to pick strawberries and decided to tag along. It seemed to fit the preschool theme for the week too since it was food and the outdoors. We traveled about 30 minutes to get to a very cute strawberry patch.

I will say I was surprised at the price. I thought if you pick your own fruit, you were saving money but when we got out there we found out it was 5$ a quart! It ended up being more than double the cost of the grocery store. Oh well, you go for the experience right?

I have to say I have been apple and peach picking but never strawberry picking. It's a lot of crouching down to look for those red things and you get all the prickly stuff on you and the gnats were flying all around my head. The thing that made it better was looking up at these cuties and their smiles ....can't get much better than that! ....

Progress and Finding the Beauty

There is progress being made on the house. We are about half way there ..well we have to be because we need to move in a month from today. A whole recording studio (don't ask!) has been taken out in the basement, old carpet taken out of all bedrooms and basement, new carpet put in. All bedrooms painted and most of basement has been painted too. Laundry room painted and waiting for pretty new appliances, overgrown ugly bushes have been removed, all bathrooms have been completely regrouted and look like new, siding has been taken down and house has been wrapped in protective Tyvek stuff. There is progress....

Then there is the list ..the long crazy insane list to be accomplished in the next month. The one that if I were to actually type it out on this blog, might make me hyperventilate. Both my husband and I have good days and bad days. Days where we get excited about the progress and feel like we will be ready to move in soon and then there are the other days. Days where we feel like selling it and running off to the beach and forgetting the whole thing.

Either way, not having two whole big houses to take care of will be nice. Not having to travel back and forth a couple times a day will be nice. Even when I'm working on a project in the house after we move in, at least I will be able to do it while the baby is taking a nap and not while she is screaming because she wants to be home in her crib. She has fallen asleep twice in the new house. Once I had her in the stroller with the seat laying back and she cried herself to sleep while I was painting. The other time was even more pathetic. I was vacuuming the rooms with all the new carpet. It was taking awhile because it had all those new carpet chunks that I was trying to get up. She followed me around crying from room to room. I would hold her and try and vacuum for a while but then my arm just couldn't take it anymore. We were finally to the last room which will actually be her room after we move in. I was almost done and I looked over and she had fallen asleep on the floor. Hmm...I'm really hoping this renovation period doesn't scar her for life.

I do feel bad. I know we have abandoned so many of you. This has become an all consuming project that has meant not really getting to go to anything extra right now. We just don't have the time or energy. Having food on the table and clean clothes to wear are feeling like it's all we can do. It's half over though...there is a light at the end of the tunnel...yes a very very very long tunnel...but I see a light. I think I caught a picture of that light on my camera the other day when I was out at the new house. It was as though this flower sprung out from no where to say..."It will be okay...it will be home before you know it!"