At the moment......

......the kiddos are in the basement trying to have a sleep over, but Landon is driving everyone crazy. We have a friend over whose parents went out of town.
 
At the moment, my ears are still plugged. I finished my antibiotic for my ear infection, but my head is still muffled. Very annoying to hear everything inside your head; with the worst being brushing your teeth and washing your hair!

At the moment, our house is still on the market. We are having an open house on Sunday, so hopefully that will generate some interest. Darin says we give it a few more weeks, as long as the houses we like are still on the market, we will keep trying. (more on this below.)
 
At the moment, Landon is asking me to read to him. (which I do and finally have the4 kiddos in the basement calmed down. The boys are sleeping, and Jordan and her friend are quietly talking. )

At the moment, I'm feeling blessed and grateful that our basement did not get flooded; while at the same time my heart is breaking for those in our ward who were completely flooded and had to evacuate. I just feel so very sad for them and others who had any amount of water in their homes. We've been there-it's horrible!

At the moment the mouse on my laptop is driving me crazy-the key you click on sticks so it won't do what I want unless I click at precisely the right spot.... very frustrating while editing pictures. 

At the moment I'm getting excited about my night out with friends tomorrow night. We are going to Wolf Trap to see the Sound of Music Sing along. Yay!!

At the moment, I'm thinking of my sisters and wondering how a certain family issue is working out. I miss them a lot and many times feel so bad that I'm not there to help them and take the burden off. Missing my mom, too.

At the moment Darin is upstairs, the kids downstairs and  I am sitting in the dark in the living room alone. It is quiet. What do I do? Go to bed....sit her a bit longer....keep typing.......

Keep typing wins out. I just heard giggling, so I'll wait a little longer to make sure the girls go to sleep. I just wanted to get a few things down to remember this time in my life. It has really been a rough couple of months. Summer flew by-and I mean flew by. It seems like it was just the last day of school, and here we are starting again. Seems like our summer vacation is so much shorter than other places.

Darin and I were able to go to the temple last weekend, thanks to a great friend taking our kiddos at the last minute.  We did a session and Darin happened to have one card for each of us in his bag-we were going to do sealings, but got half way there and realized we hadn't grabbed the cards. Good thing he had the ones in his bag. Anyhow, the name were from Darin's family and I had the name Lanora. I really fell in love with it-it would be so cute if we ever had a baby girl. We could call her Nora. I love it. Darin had the first name Presley. He was not as excited to use that one:)

But I digress...I wanted to write about leaving all my cares and concerns at the temple. I really tried to focus and feel the spirit and know what we should do about the house, kids, etc. Then Sunday was fast Sunday. I realized that I am forgetting the important things in life.

I am letting go. I have to. I am now putting the selling of the house completely in the Lord's hands. I have done my best to get it ready, keep it clean and ready to be shown. Emotionally, I must stop torturing myself. Each time we have a showing, I wait and wait to see if our realtor calls. I can't do it anymore. I now feel that if it is meant to happen for us...at this time...the Lord will make it possible. If not, we aren't meant to move right now. We will try again in the spring.

It's really trying to strike a fine balance-I'm not saying I'm giving up hope-just changing it from us making it happen, to more divine intervention.. I want desperately to have a larger home for our family-that has not changed. Believe me. But I now know that comparing our situation to others (so and so got a new house, so and so's house sold so fast), taking the rejection of potential buyers personal, and stressing out  and yelling at the kids about keeping it perfectly clean are getting me nowhere. We are where we were 5 months ago, so obviously it is less effective.

So, here we are-facing Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines and potentially Easter with no decorations, photos, momentos,  etc. I have thought a lot about this-almost ending in tears-well, ok, I have cried about it.  It makes me so sad to not have our things for these special family times, but then when I look on the bright side-it will be fun to make new traditions. Maybe we can have Christmas tree with all homemade decorations! Things shouldn't make our home, anyhow. We do. I have my family with me, and that is what is important. 

Well, I think that's enough deep thoughts from Wendi  for now. The kids are pretty quiet and I'm tired, so goodnight!














 
Wow, as I type this, it feels more real to me. It's true-there's a plan for our family, and if we aren't meant to sell our house right now, I accept it. I'm moving on.

Fort Washington

On Labor Day we decided to head to Fort Washington in Maryland. I have been wanting to take the boys there since my friend took her boys there and they enjoyed it. It wasn't a long drive, either. Just over the bridge. We used to see it all the time across the river from the GW parkway when we would drive to church in Mt. Vernon. Also figured a little history would be good on Labor Day. 

When we got there we went to the marina area first. It was a big hit. I didn't realize there was a little lighthouse down there. It was a nice little area. I also didn't notice that it was right at the river. The kids really loved that part as well. I was a bit nervous about the guys fishing and my loud kiddos....ah well!

 We had lots of fun throwing things in the water.....until we realized that it probably wasn't 

conducive to the men fishing actually catching something....

 There's something about throwing sticks and rocks into the water.......

 We were going to go back to the car and drive up to the actual fort, but Landon had a different idea. He wanted to walk up the hill to the Fort. So I gave in-either that or chase him and carry him to the car. It really wasn't that bad....but boy am I out of shape. And is was so humid that day.

Here's a view of the fort from the bottom. Looks like remains from an older fort or something.

 A view from further up the top.

 Some of the views inside the fort. I loved the wheel for the huge doors, and I loved that they were green.

 The boys had a blast on the canons.

 Awwww....brotherly love!

Noah...where are you?

I started this post last night, but as I type, it is still raining. When will it stop?

We need Noah to come build us an ark. I am watching it rain, still. It has been raining for days on end. Well, I think it is officially day 3, but it seems like forever. We didn't even have this much rain when hurricane Irene came through last weekend. It is really too much-especially when there are places like TX in huge droughts who need it desperately. We had a realtor come the other night and just before the side walk was flooded. I prayed that it would lighten up so that the water would go away. It did, thank goodness, but then rained more later.

But today it is a torrential downpour-I mean it!! It is raining so hard right now.

Are we close to the second coming?

I think so.

Here are the views out our front door:





 A more wide view:


 Yes, the yards are a marsh. Let's hope it goes down before any realtors call  to see the house.

Huntley Meadows fun

We had a fun week last week watching  a fun little boy named Sean. His mom was Spencer's preschool teacher Ms. Laura. The kids all loved him. And he was pretty easy to watch. One of the days we went to Huntley Meadows. We had lots of fun. Although we didn't realize the boardwalk was closed and the walk was much longer than I remembered. The kids were pretty tired and it took quite some time to get back. 

Here are Sean and Spencer on a fun tree stump. Sean says "dat was coowl" when I got him down.

 

Landon walking on a log. We stopped at many logs to take a walk. 

The boys have some serious log walking skills!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sean really loved his sticks!!

Our one spotting of wildlife for the day-a little frog in the water.

Did you know that stuffed elephants and pet shop purses are a must for a leisurly walk in the woods?

 Sean says "I diggin' for worms." He is sooo cute!

Spencer can't walk any further so he just sits down. Poor fella. Mommy made you walk pretty far!

I wanna go back....back.....

......back to school again!!

Let the 2011-2012 school year begin!!

Jordan Elizabeth. 8 years old, 3rd Grade

The new fancy backpack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spencer James, 6 years old, 1st Grade


 And the new backpack.

Brother and sister all ready to go!


 Jordan was thrilled to get an outfit with a matching one for her American Girl doll!

Great Country Farms

We spent a super fun afternoon at a fun farm last week. It was a certifikid a while back and since our friends were getting it, I dedided to as well. It was well spent money. The farm is located in Bluemont VA, about an hour and 20 min away. It was nice drive, especially since we were able to ride with friends with an 8 seater and a dvd player:) It is such a beautiful area of Virginia.

Spencer having fun on a John Deere. 

My grandpa would be so proud!

Not sure what Spencer is doing here....

It took a while, but then Jordan decided to try out a tractor, too:)

We found this little chicken coop. It was filled with little chicks. All the kids spent quite a bit of time there. Before we know it, Spence had caught one. I went to see what they were doing, and realized that they were crawling under the coop....um, gross.

This farm had sooo much for kids to do. One cool thing was a the corn bin where they could play in corn. It was pretty dirty, but they all had fun.

Here are Jordan's feet after playing a while. Nice.

Fun in the corn bin!

A fun spider's web to play in.

This is the jumping pillow. The kids loved it!! I wanted to go on, 

but it was only for kids up to 12. Bummer for me.

 

Landon loved the animals. We got some free food with out entrance fee, and he loved it. 

There were a ton of playground/structures all over the place. 

If we lived anywhere near this place, we would for sure have a family membership!

(the picture below this one is of a weird rabbit. At first I wasn't sure it was even a rabbit, but it was in the big bunny enclosure with all the other rabbits.)

Here we are on the wagon ride. Usually they would go up to the orchard for a while so people could pick the fruit. The nice driver took just us up to do a loop around the orchard. Not that there were many people there anyhow.

I'm hoping this comes up again for a certifikid next year so we can go back again! I would even consider it to pay full price! It really was such a great time. 

Birthday time again!

August was bit birthday month in the Maney house! We had 4 different birthday celebrations-2 for each kiddo. Jordan's birthday was while we were in Utah, so we met cousins at a spray park, then went to see their new house. It was a fun day. Spencer's celebration on his actual birthday had to be moved to a friend's house when we had a couple realtors come right during the time we would be doing cake. Then we had their parties last weekend.

First was

Jordan's Party
She wanted a sleepover, so I said ok. She had some girls stay for the party part, and go home, then two girls got to stay over. It was fun because the Murphy girls got to come over since they had to evacuate Virginia Beach due to the impeding hurricane Irene.

Here are the girls who came to Jordan's party:  This was supposed to be the nice picture, but that obviously did not happen!And a goofy picture; which of course are always so much more fun!!

Due to in part laziness of the mother of the birthday girl, and in part the idea of giving the girls something fun to do, I colored the frosting and let the girls decorate their own cupcakes. Turns out it was a wildly successful plan:)

After cupcakes, I put in Wild Kratts for the boys to watch so I cleaned up, but as you can see, and the girls ended up watching it as well.

And finally, present time. I love how they all love to be right there for the opening of the presents.
The happy birthday girl!!

Like I had mentioned, Jordan wanted to have a sleepover for her birthday. Most of the girls stayed until about 9:00 or so, and then 2 were left to sleep for the night. The had a lot of fun, but were still asleep at 1:30 am!! After multiple warnings, I finally gave up and went to bed; so I don't know exactly what time they went to sleep. Then Darin said the were up at 6:30 am. Jordan fell asleep on the couch at 5:00!




Spencer's Party
Since Jordan's party when she was 6 years old was to take some friends to Silver Diner, we did the same thing for Spencer. He had some friends from church and school and was completely thrilled.

I did orange frosting for Spencer's cupcakes. Everything in the world is better for him if it is orange!!



And the boy crew!! These are some pretty cute boys. Spencer had a few from his class that he hadn't seen all summer, so he was thrilled about that. The one next to him on his left is Esteban-his best friend from his class. He was so happy to see him.
And the goofy picture with the boys.