we've landed....

We arrived here Wednesday afternoon after a very long journey from San Diego.
Its been an interesting time getting moved in! We had a pipe burst because apparently the heat wasn't always being used in this house which has been vacant for awhile, and its been VERY COLD here! We've had some issues with the washer hose in the same pipe as the dishwasher hose, oh yeah the dishwasher is between our washer and dryer, which makes it very interesting! We've had to mop up water twice already! Josh is working on it! We had to have the plummers return again to get the water running in our only full bathroom. So we think most of our plumbing issues are for the moment taken care of for the house! Other than that the house is perfect!
Jonas is happy to have lots of other 7 year old boys on our street, which we met within an hour of being at our house! There aren't too many girls that we've seen yet. The kids start school on Monday, barring any snow that could come this way. (Keeping fingers crossed that this doesn't happen as we need to get things unpacked without distractions!)

Hey We're moving today!

Just thought I'd share one last thing... we're moving today! It's hard to believe today is the day! Josh will be helping us move then he will return to San Diego and then he will be doing 3 weeks of training before he leaves to go to Kuwait. Anyway, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we make this journey again across the country. Those of you that live in Norfolk... we'll see you soon!!

Weekend Adventures!

We had a fun weekend while Josh's parents were here. On Friday we went to LegoLand, which if any of you get a chance to go, DO IT! It is especially good for children ages 5-10 in my opinion. Eliza was able to ride a lot of the rides, but there were some she was 3 inches too short to ride.


It was neat to see all the stuff made out of Legos, and funny to know that it's someone's job to build things out of legos... how cool would that be?? Maybe I should try and convince Jonas to do more stuff with is Legos! Oh and the bathroom signs had us all laughing!
Saturday we went Whale watching, we did see a few whales, but it wasn't like them jumping out of the water. It was them coming up for air and blowing a bunch out of their air hole and then going back underwater. We saw lots of dolphins, and that was neat. We all managed to feel a little queesey, but didn't toss our cookies thankfully! I don't think Jonas was overly impressed by the Whales!




On Sunday after church we celebrated Jonas's 7th Birthday with cake and presents! Its hard to believe he's 7... it makes me feel old! We had to improvise because we only had 3 birthday candles, so I wrote a big 7 on his cake with sprinkles... but he didn't seem to care!


He got some clothes, Lego Batman for his Nintendo DS, he got $7, some dinosaur eggs, and a lego land puzzle too.
Josh's parents had to leave on Monday, we are glad they were able to come and enjoy some fun times in San Diego with us before we head back to Virginia.

Little Hensley Zoofari

Josh's parents came out to see us for a long weekend (the kids are out of school tomorrow and Monday). So we got Jonas out of school early and went to the San Diego Zoo.
Jonas and Maddie were too little to remember going to this zoo, so it was a lot more fun today to take them. They had a lot of fun seeing all the animals. Althought Wyatt couldn't have cared less, he slept a lot in the stroller about half the time! We saw some very PINK flamingos (see Eliza's pointing to them)

We saw the Giraffe's and the Elephants,
but unfortunately this is all we saw of the Orangutan's their exhibit was closed for remodeling.

This was about as close as Maddie wanted to get at the petting section in the kids zoo, and all in all we had a very fun time!
Tomorrow we're Legoland...more adventures lay ahead so stay tuned!

Thank you presents

I decided to make something for Maddie's teacher as a thank you before we leave. If you haven't noticed by previous posts, Maddie loves her teacher. She will really miss him and her class. I had to do it in the next few days because I'm packing up my stamp room this week. (sniff sniff) So I made this little chalkboard clipboard, so I hope he likes it. I thought it turned out cute!

We have a house!

So thanks to Heidi and Jenn we have a place to move into when we arrive in Norfolk! After looking on-line, I found a few places, and then the girls went and checked them out for me. It was nice to have someone that could say, there's no way you would like that, or yes you'd like that but it has this about it or that, but you can live with it right? I thought I'd found the house to rent in mid January, but it got rented out because it was too soon to send an application in. So I had to keep searching, and decided after everything that I wanted to live in Larchmont (which those of you that live in Norfolk know where that is), so Heidi and Jenn went and saw the house and said it was a yes. Heidi got to go inside with the realtor and got some pictures for me. We turned in our application, and it's going to be ours! It's no longer on line or I'd have you all go and view it. It's a 4 bedroom house with 1 and 1/2 baths. I'm just happy to have a home to go to! Here are some pictures, sorry I don't have labels for what each room is, but you can mostly figure it out! We will be leaving in 2 weeks! Wow, it's coming fast!

Maddie's birthday card to her teacher

Maddie informed me the other day that today (Friday) was her teachers birthday. I asked her if she was planning to make him a card, and she said yes. Apparently they discussed what he was planning to do on his birthday. So this is what she wrote inside

which I will translate: it says:
Dear Mr. Lagarda,
Have fun playing and rolling around in the mud in a pig suit and in the hot tub on your Birthday. You have to give us no homework. Love, Maddie.

Then the other side is pretty self explanatory! I thought it was hilarious!

The Birthday Party Pics and a little side project

Here they are... Wyatt had a good time with his cake as you can see, and so did everyone else. It was crazy having 11 kids (and just from 3 families too!) at our house! They all had a good time helping Wyatt with the little cars we got him and the other gifts he was brought too. He got a ball, some bubbles, and this cool rattle that can be annoying after awhile I must admit.
On another note this weekend we decided to get the kids all their own dressers at Ikea. We will put them together when we get to Norfolk.
Maddie and Eliza have been sharing, and it's definately not working. They have way too many clothes. So we're going to get rid of 2 dressers, but the one dresser Wyatt has had for his clothes I thought I could still use for me, since I need a dresser! It has really needed a new paint job.We bought it used on Craigs list in Virginia, and I just never got around to painting it. Whicn as you can see it obviously needed!
I finally decided to paint it today, and use the knobs I had bought at Target for Maddie and Eliza's dresser but never put them on. I think it turned out great! It's amazing what a new coat of paint can do! Here's the after photo:

Happy 1st Birthday Wyatt

It's amazing how in just one year they go from this:



To This:


We're having a little party tonight with friends and having some Pizza, cake and ice cream! I'll post more pictures tomorrow!

Got to the breaking point....

I've found that my children really seem to know how to push my buttons. As I mentioned my children have for some reason or another been difficult to get to bed. They get up there after we brush teeth, read stories, say prayers, and then give kisses goodnight. Then we hear them talking which is fine, but then we hear them out of bed, and then we hear someone crying, and then it's Mom, so and so hurt me. Which obviously wouldn't have happend had they been in bed. So last night we reached our breaking point. I told them they were going to lose t.v., computer, and the wii if I had to tell them one more time to go to bed. So they lost 2 days worth, and then were STILL acting out. So rather than take the entire week away... I tried something different. My friend mentioned her husband and her do this when they have trouble with their kids going to bed. I don't know if this is exactly what they do but this is what I did. I had them all come downstairs, they had to face the wall, and hold a book (it wasn't big) over their heads. They thought it was funny at first, but after 20 minutes they were crying to go to bed. They went upstairs, and Maddie and Eliza ended up doing some more minutes, but after that we didn't hear a peep out of them. I will definately try it again because it was definately more effective than a spanking ever was, and better than threats. Let's hope that tonight will be better for going to bed, and that they can behave to earn their favorite things back by Wednesday.

This is me trying to get the kids to bed lately...

This is how I feel every night trying to get the kids to bed, either me or Josh is up trying to threaten the children to bed. It's no fun. It's like I just want to say: "I'll get you my pretty's.... and all your toys, computer games, wii, and any fun you want to have too! ha ha ha ha ha!"
Yep... that's me the wicked witch of the west!

30 days...

This is what my downstairs playroom is starting to look like. We have 30 days until we plan to be fully packed and then pick up our moving truck to get it loaded. I should feel stressed, but I don't yet. We have a deadline, and have been doing a little bit each day. It has been surprisingly nice to pack, because it has forced me to go through things I haven't gone through in a VERY LONG time. When the military moves you, you don't really worry about how many boxes you have because it's their dime. But with us moving ourselves, it's a completely different story. We are having a yard sale with some friends next weekend, and if we don't sell it, it's all going to the goodwill. And I feel like we're getting rid of a lot. So it feels really nice! So as much as it is a pain to move ourselves, I will be shocked if we haven't gone down in the pounds category when the military moves us again!

Post Birthday Celebrations

Not to be outdone by my Norfolk Girls... my California Girls Amy and Becca took me out last night for my birthday. It was a total surprise as to what we were doing. First we drove and got honked at (because they wrote on the windows of the car)to Coranado and took the ferry over to San Diego.
While on the boat I opened up my birthday present a Twilight T-shirt made by my friend Amy, and a Twilight movie poster!
Then we took a bike taxi to this wonderful place called Extraordinary Desserts... and OH MY GOSH it was awesome! (as you can see what we go from the photo)
But here's what some of their dessert display looked like... sooo yummy!

then we went back to the ferry boat, back to Coroanado then went on base and saw the Twilight movie! (yep I've seen it 4 times, but on base it was FREE!) We had a great time, and stayed up way too late! (I'm feeling it in my old 31 years today!) Thanks for the wonderful Birthday California Girls!!