What having a great friend looks like:

Thank you Stacey! For cooking dinner(meatball soup *YUM*) for my family, for helping us pack(and your coming back tomorrow!) for being a great friend over the past 4+years! I appreciate everything you are doing for us more than you will ever know! THANK YOU!
I think we actually found a house. Its huge WAY bigger than I wanted and its two stories(I really wanted a one story) but the neighborhood just doesn't get any better and the lot is over 20,000sq ft and gorgeous. There is a hideously mirrored wet bar in the family room(with the counter top that lifts up so you can walk into it), it makes me laugh out loud. The kitchen has an island that's longer than I am tall and it makes me long for Christmas and the baking + candy making Rae and I do every year. I think things are starting to fall into place.

whaaaaaaaaa

I'm so sick. It sucks and there is just so much to be done! My head is THROBBING my nose is running and my neck has been out for the past week and I cant turn my head! No, complaining about it didn't make me feel any better. We have to be out of our house in 16days. We are about 70% sure we are going to buy another house. We have two in mind but wont be able to act on them until next week. It makes sense to me. We would be buying in a down market and then when the market recovered we could sell and have equity in two homes to put into another home. We are going to have some big changes around here. My mom who has lived with us since before Olivia was conceived is moving out. She is moving into the house we own down the hill(the one that is too small for our family) with her she is taking our two dogs. It will be a good move for her, but hard on us because the kids are so attached to having Nana around. I'm also quite used to having a second "mom" around at all times. I just finished looking up PODS. I think that is how we will have to do this. We will have the PODS delivered and hire movers to fill them(3-4by my estimate) then we will have them stored at a POD storage facility. Then we will move into an extended stay hotel until we wait out an escrow. Once we closed escrow on a new home we would have the PODS delivered and hire movers(again) to unload them. So I think that is the plan, well about 70% sure.

In case your ever wondered

what it looked like to move after 5years and the addition of 8 children to our household(4 who are here forever). This is how I will spend my Mother's Day! Happy Day MOMS! P.S. Stacey see the tote towrds the front? Those are the clothes for you to sell in your store...come get them! :D

lease signed, deposit and first month's rent collected!

Now we have to find a place to move to. Tenant's are set to move in June 1. We will know Wednesday if we are going to go ahead and buy a home or if we are just going to lease. I'm excited our house rented so quickly but now I'm even more stressed because I have no idea what we are doing! Ah well either way I have lots of packing to do!

S'mores

The other night I had a craving for a S'more and what do you know yesterday when I went grocery shopping my Albertsons had an end cap display set up! I couldnt resist. This was my girls first time ever having them! It was the perfect before dinner snack :) YUM!

This can't be happening to me........

Love the shirt, it was a gift from Raechelle(who went to Stage Coach without me, the nerve!)The shirt says: My Give a Damn's Busted! Lets all pretend like we can't see that flabby underarm shall we? F*ck gravity!

My 2 and 3year olds are giving up their naps. I put a tv/dvd combo in their room this week for mornings. They both wake up way earlier than I do and besides I don't like to get Marissa out of her crib until after she has pooped. So now they are watching a video in the morning. Our TV is never on during the day and not until after the kids are in bed at night anyway. So I'm not going to feel guilty about having a TV in their room. I will have to resist the urge to turn on a video now at nap time...because really I would like it if they would sleep. What they do now is jump up and down in their cribs saying such fun phrases as "Shake my booty, I'm shaken my booootie" don't ask me. Marissa loves to take all her clothes and diaper off and toss everything out of her crib...Mackenzie wont try it though shes got the fear of my wrath in her already---I'm still breaking Marissa in slowly *grin* when I walk in after nap "time" Mackenzie always says "oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh mommy Marissa ohhhhhhhhhhhh sooooooooooooooooo saaaaaaaaaaad" <----parenting with love and logic. So that's my not-well-thought-out blog entry of the afternoon. ta!

When "hooking up" has nothing to do with the opposit sex(or the same-sex for that matter)...

I stole that quote off of a member at a support board Im a new member of. So many machines for such a small little person to carry.

Fantasy

Its amazing how one's fantasies change when they have a special needs child. I day dream daily about the perfect bedroom for Marissa. But I'm not thinking about the color of the walls or the perfect valance or rug...I think about a stackable washer and dryer just for her laundry alone(3++loads per day--keep in mind I have 3other children plus myself and my spouse--oh and my mom lives with us and rumour has it she likes clean laundry of her own as well) Then I imagine a counter top with space underneath for her refrigerator and trash cans(yes multiple) and then installed cabinets above the counter top with door that close to conceal all of the medical supplies. Then I think about the floors, carpet is not an option...I steam clean the carpets in her room right now every.single.day. I want to have wood-look vinyl floors installed. Since we will be renting I will have the flooring ppl roll up and store the carpet in heavy plastic in the garage so that when we move out I can leave the room how it was when we rented it. I also want a ceiling van and an air filter to help with the odor. For anyone who has a child on TPN and lipids you know there is a very distinct odor. I have a hyper sensitive nose but I'm sure anyone familiar would recognise the smell immediately. Even my car smells strongly of TPN. Oh and I want to install a dimmer on the light switch so when I go in and out after she is sleeping to give meds or hook her up or unhook her I can have just enough light to do what I need to do. If we were buying a house Id also like a sink in that counter top and maybe even a small dishwasher---I'm already going to have to get the owner to agree to have a 240volt outlet installed for the dryer and the wall opened up to access pipes for the washer---who knows maybe they will agree to a sink too? I think I will have a contract drawn up for them stating that we will have the room put back to its original form before we move out. I hope I can find a landlord willing to work with us on this. In feeding news....we are doing stage one jarred baby food with digestive enzymes via the infinity pump for 8hours per day at a rate of 30mls per hour with guarded success.....