The Lumberjack's Wife

Hold on to your pants, folks.

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

And not one bit of it matters in the grand scheme of things.

***

 The three eldest graduated from Awana last week.

My poor Handsome Dude . . . his glasses broke mere seconds before going on stage.

Are we surprised?

No, we are not.

The poor lad was all turned around and cross-eyed and full of bewilderment while being commended for his achievements.

Daisy Mae finishing up her 2nd year of Sparks.

Are you confused on what this so-called “Spark” is?

You are not alone, dear reader.

This was Sweet Pea’s shining moment.  She has been waiting for this plaque for three, long years.

She stood up on that stage, held her head high, and was trying her hardest not to grin.

Are you wondering where Sweet Pea’s glasses are?

They are lost somewhere in the hotel from Jason’s wedding. 

Are we surprised?

Yes.  We are.  And feeling quite poor, might I add.  And a little like we need a better game plan in the glasses department.

***

The girls had a friend stay the night this week.  They spent all day preparing and playing “church.”

Their church was called, “A New Life.”  They had the lesson and then the congregation (and by congregation, I mean, myself and the rabbits) had to stand and sing songs.

Daisy Mae was the “music” and just hummed loudly whilst sitting atop the 4 wheeler.

The girls had even made us little homework books to take home and work on.

The church service ended abruptly when the girls switched to singing songs from “High School Musical” and Little Dude decided to grace us all with his pants-less presence.

Classy, Little Dude.

Classy.

***

Handsome Dude is growing up fast.  Perhaps it is because he eats about 10 slices of bread a day.

He has taken to riding a bike, sans training wheels, and is quite the speedy little guy.  He loves it if I take him up the road to see the bison.

Yes.  I have bison on my road.

Do you?

He absolutely loves this shirt his Aunt Lisa found for him:

100 (meaningless) points to anyone who can guess why.

***

I spent the entire day on Saturday getting all of my curriculum sorted out for next year’s homeschooling adventures.

And I use the term “adventures” quite loosely.

Quite.

I was super excited to get a smokin’ deal on the Latin curriculum I was purchasing.

I saved like $25 by finding it on Ebay!

This excites you, too, doesn’t it, dear reader?

So, yes.  My kids might be from Ruralville.

However, they will be those hoity-toity kids from Ruralville who live near the bison and the nudist resort and can speak Latin . . .

and refuse to pull their pants up all by themselves.

Latin!

Look at me and my bad, homeschooling self!

Don’t pretend you aren’t impressed.

David:  Why are you teaching them Latin?

Me:  I don’t remember.  But the book I am following said to, so we are doing it.

David:  Sounds good.

***

I am kind of, sort of liking living in Ruralville.

*!*

I know, I know.  Tis shocking.

But we have had such lovely weather these days and I have been able to sneak out of the house and walk up and down the driveway, enjoying the sunshine and pretending that walking for a half hour a day will solve all of my swimsuit issues.

My genius phone has an app for recording your distance/calories burned.

Plus, my I can listen to Pandora whilst feigning to work up a sweat!

I love it.

Hmmm.  Maybe I don’t love living in Ruralville.  Perhaps I just love my phone.

Something to ponder.

***

Whenever Little Dude is in the process of being disciplined these days, he just wails over and over again:
“But I LOVE you!  I Cokey!  And I LOVE you!”

Nice try, Dude.

***

Daisy Mae asked if there were cars back when David was born.

***

What did the boy mushroom say to the girl mushroom?

“Why don’t you like me?  I’m a Fungi.”

Get it?

Do you get it?

Do you?

***

Yes.  That joke was uber dumb.

***

Little Dude asks me daily if I have a baby in my tummy.

Perhaps I should up my walk to 35 minutes, instead of 30.

***

Nah.

That’s crazy talk.

***

The other day I saw an elk.

Fascinating, I know.

I noticed the elk was in velvet.  Naturally, I had to inform David post haste that the elk were in velvet.

This was not news to him.

However, I found it most enjoyable to prove to him that I do, in fact, retain bits of information from his endless, dronings-on regarding the mysterious ways of wild game.

100 (meaningless) points to anyone who knows what I mean when I say the elk are in velvet.

I am full of meaningless points today, aren’t I?

***

David and I might go on a D-A-T-E tonight!

Woo Hoo!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Happy Monday!

A Thursday List.

1.  I missed a golden opportunity this week.  Golden, I tell you.  UPS had delivered a package to us that did not belong to us.

Fun Fact:  I have the world’s friendliest UPS man.  He visits with the kids, asks me how homeschooling is going, and even feigns to enjoy Lucy jumping all over him.

I think it is because we live in the country, now.  My UPS man when I lived in town never spoke to me once.

There is like a country code out here.  You seem someone, you wave.  Someone comes to your door, you are nice.  It’s the rules.

But that is neither here nor there.

2.  I walked down the road and could not find the house that matched the address.  So I had to call a 1-800 number.

My children cowered in fear as I looked like an insane-crazy person shouting “Agent!  Agent!  Representative!  Anyone!”  at the darn automated voice system.

I really hate those.

In the end, UPS called the rightful owner and rightful owner told them he would just take a stroll down yonder country road and pick the package up from me.

3.  And this, dear friends, is where I missed my golden opportunity.  We haven’t met many of the folks that live in these here parts.

And this man was nice.

He visited with all the children.  He even understood what Little Dude said without need of me as an interpreter.

Apparently he and his wife are retired school teachers.  And they miss being around children.  And they love it when they hear the sounds of our children playing outside.

*!*

Why did I not ask him if he wanted to just teach my children?  Problem solved!

Win, win, win!

(Name that TV show)

4.  Has anyone ever noticed that my lists don’t make any sense?  I just start a new number whenever I feel like it.  This blog sure is top notch.

5.  Speaking of “top notch blogging,”  I was picking my girls up from piano yesterday.  The lovely teacher asked my boys if they were feeling any better from their illnesses as of late.  Daisy Mae informed her that they were fine except they still had diahrrea.

Which was not true.  But that is not the point.

The teacher looked shocked and said, “Wow!  Well, that was definitely more information than I needed to hear!”

Which got me thinking  . . . my blog is basically an entire collection of things people probably don’t want to hear.

I have talked about diarrhea so much as of late, that I don’t even need to check how to spell the word diarrhea anymore.

And that is a pretty hard word to spell, admit it, dear readers.

6.  I have discovered why I will always have a flabby belly.  It is my lot in life and I shall not ever be able to change it.

It will forever be a thorn in my side, my burden to bear.

Allow me to explain:

I wrote about this a long time ago, but do you remember when I started using that weighted hula hoop?

And I messed up my neck really bad because I was apparently holding my neck all special-like while hula-hooping it up?

Well.  My new sister-in-law, Holly, is one of those “exercising” types.  Yes.  She likes to sweat and push herself and abstain from scores and scores of peanut M&M’s.

Yes.  She is one of those people.

So I pleaded with her to help me.  And she sent me a pilates DVD.

And guess what?

MY NECK HURTS . . . REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Apparently my neck is my own worst enemy and will never allow me to adequately do a decent abdominal calisthenic.  Therefore, I shall always have a muffin top.

Darn neck.

8.  If you would be so kind as to vote for me in this here contest, I would be much obliged.

I am currently number 6!

Woo hoo!

Click here to vote.

Thank you, kindly.  I really appreciate it.

Happy Thursday!

I must inform you all that my Handsome Dude is changing a bit.

I think the days of his extreme shenanigans are coming to be a thing of the past.

Yes!  I’m serious, Reader!

These days, he prides himself on doing what he is supposed to do.  For example, here is a conversation Handsome Dude and I had right after swimming in the pool at the hotel this weekend:

HD (short for Handsome Dude . . . keep up, people!):  Mom?!  Did I splash?  Or no?

He was standing in the hotel room, dripping wet, with his hand up in the air, almost as if he were taking an oath.

Me:  No!  You did not!  You listened to Mommy.  Thank you, buddy!

HD:  Mom!?  Alex!  Did Alex splash in the pool?

Alex is Handsome Dude’s uncle.  Remember Alex?

Alex is basically a grown up version of my dudes.  You never can be sure of what he is going to do next and you must always keep an eye on him.

Me:  Yes.  Uncle Alex did splash a bit in the pool.

Alex was doing cannon balls and cartwheels into the pool and roaring and chasing and all sorts of naughty things of the like.

HD:  But I not!  No!  Not me!

His hand is still in oath-taking position.

HD:  Alex needs a time out.

Yes.  Now, Handsome Dude prides himself on making the right choice.  And he is assuming position of the morality police and starting to become a bit of an informer of the wrongs of others.

Kind of annoying, but much better than his previous position of Chief of Driving Mother Insane.

Now, my Handsome Dude, loves to help me out.  Without me asking, he will go throughout the house, gather each hamper, and deliver all of the dirty clothes to the laundry room for me.  He also loves to round up all of the trash cans, empty them into the main trash, and take the trash out for me.  He even asks if he can go pick up trash outside.

Oh.

Be.

Still.

My.

Heart.

And, yes.  We have garbage outside.  We are some of those people.  But it is not our fault.  It is the fault of our dog, Lucy.

LucyFur

Anyways.  I figure I am always telling you all of the naughtiness my Handsome Dude causes.  But I wanted to make sure I remember to tell you that he is also a precious boy who warms my heart.

When I handed him his ironed shirt the other day, he hugged me and said, “Thanks, Mom!  You’re the best!  The BEST!”

When his Aunt Lisa had surprised him with some new clothes she found for him while garage saleing, he was overcome with joy, hugged the clothes and shouted, “Mom!  Lisa is Ca-Ray-Zay!”

Attention Lisa:  I am pretty sure he means “crazy” in a good way in this instance.

When he opened his gift from Jason and Amy for his services as Ring Bearer Extraordinaire, he proclaimed, “Amazing!  Just amazing! Thank you!”

The Dude is ravenous these days.

It is not uncommon for him to eat TWO sandwiches at lunch and then tell me he is “wee hungry” about an hour later.

“Mom!  I just so hungry all the time!”

Yesterday, I pulled a fast one on him and fed him a tuna sandwich instead of his favorite peanut butter and jelly.

“Mom!  I just can’t eat this!  It’s so icks-dusting!”

Lest any of you are confused, icks-dusting is more commonly pronounced “disgusting.”

But my starving boy ate every morsel of his icks-dusting sandwich and even informed me moments later:

“Mom!  I just so hungry all the time!”

I know the doctor told me he was going to grow to be about 6’4″, but I did not expect for it to happen before he turned 5.

***

Random Topic Quick-Change!

I decided to try and do a little preschool with the dudes yesterday.  My girls knew far more about letters and such at the boys’ ages than the boys do now and I am feeling a tiddly-bit worried about it.

So, yesterday we started with the letter “A.”

A fine place to start, don’t you think?

I wrote a letter “A” on each of their papers and asked them to try to copy it.

Oh, for the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

They just cried and drew circles.

It was almost as if their hands were possessed and could only move in a circular fashion.

It was incredulous.

I fear I have a long journey ahead of me, dear Reader.

But, they learned what the “A” says.  So that’s encouraging.  And they also learned the number “1.”

And we had a breakthrough.

They were both able to write the number “1” and it did not look like a circle!

Progress!

So, now Little Dude has another chant that he repeats over and over again.

Remember his original chant?

“My bunny’s name is Screamer.  I’m two.  I’m this many!”

(He would say it holding up 5 fingers)

Now he repeats:

“A says ‘a’ like apple. One!”

***

Random Topic Quick-Change!

I was having an issue with my IPod.  You see, dear readers, we had this laptop many moons ago that had our ITunes on it.

But it broke, on account of the children.

Fun fact:  We blame everything on the children.

Anyways, it broke and now our Itunes is locked away on this broken laptop, rendering our IPod frozen in time.

Because, and correct me if I am wrong, if I tried to ever load another song on it from a new ITunes account, I would lose all my other songs.

I think.

So, I have this friend.  Her name is Brandi.  And her husband is one of those computer genius types.

So, he told me to bring me the IPod and new laptop and he would fix me right up.

And he did!

Holla, Bob!

But I had a horrifying remebrance as we drove away from Bob and Brandi’s house.

David got me that IPod for Christmas one year.  Apparently, you are supposed to “name” your IPod.

Well.  My husband named my IPOD:

“Taylor the Hottie.”

Now, I fear that Bob thinks I am uber conceited

Plus he goes to my church.

And he leads the music.

Awkward.

Bob and Brandi have a  three year old boy.  He was very excited to see David and I when we were there picking up our laptop and conceited IPod.

David is his teacher at church.

Anyways, David and Bob were talking manly-man computer-ish stuff and Brandi and I were bemoaning the fact that she was 39 weeks pregnant and saw no end in sight.

Her little boy came up to me and squeezed me in the *ahem* northern regions and happily said:

“I’m gentle-gentle!”

Now, that’s stinkin’ funny.

And awkward.

Poor little guy.  He had to have a lecture when we left about not groping guests.

Happy Wednesday!

Yes.  Hello.  We have returned from the wedding festivities.

On Saturday, we departed at 6:30am.  We made excellent time and arrived at the hotel around 2pm.  The kids were fantastic, I kid you not.  However, when the rehearsal started that night, the boys decided to become not-so-fantastic.

Convenient.

It turns out they don’t like to “conform” or “do things that strangers are telling them to do.”  They weren’t awful.  But they could have been a little more participatory.

I would love to show you all some pictures.  However.  My favorite camera is broken, my cell phone cannot take a decent picture if someone moves, and the camera I had is too advanced for me to figure out how to use it.

Such a shame.

Do y’all remember that Handsome Dude broke his glasses on the eve of our trip?  Well, my handsome Lumberjack was able to repair them!  So, he did have his glasses on.

But then, he broke them again at the rehearsal.

And Uncle Alex was able to repair them.

It’s not Dude’s fault this time.  The new lenses he got are about four times as thick as his previous ones and I don’t think they fit right in the frame.  Anyways, the poor guy just keeps having the lens pop out.  He’s a good little lad about it and promptly brings me all of the pieces.

The wedding was on Sunday at 3 and we needed to arrive by 12 for pictures.  As you can all imagine, this is when things became stressful.

You see, dear readers, it wasn’t easy to be me on this trip. 

No. 

 No, it wasn’t. 

I had the privilege of getting two boys looking like ring bearers, two girls looking like flower girls, and one, extremely uncooperative husband to look like a groomsman.

Unfortunately for him, he was not able to wear his dressy Carhartts for this occasion.

Tough luck, Lumberjack.

Anyways.  When I woke up on Sunday morning, I knew I had a hard day of trying to de-Ruralville-ify my kin ahead of me.

David decided to take the kids down the hall to breakfast while I took a shower.  I got out of the shower and adorned myself with the world’s tiniest, hotel towel.  Promptly after the towel adornment, I received a knock at the door.

It was my mother.  She had found Little Dude wandering the halls and was delivering him to me.

Dang.  David is on top of things, isn’t he?

So, I discreetly pull Little Dude into the room.  He informs me that he wants me to take him to the pool.  I tell him no. 

This displeases him and he begins to throw a fit.  This is not uncommon for Little Dude these days.  I decide to go look for some clothes when I hear the door close.

Yes.  Little Dude opened the door and left.

So me and my tiny towel got to run down the hallway to get him.  And by “get him,” I mean grab his shirt and yank him back to the room before the tiny towel fell off of me.

Don’t judge me, reader.  You would do the same.

Now Little Dude is livid.  Oh, yes.  Livid.  Yet, during his fit, he decides he needs to potty post haste.  However, he is too furious at me still to allow me to assist him.  And he has an accident.

So.  There I am.  Standing in a hotel bathroom, draped in a tiny towel, trying to shush my naughty son, all whilst standing in a puddle of his urine.

It was a moment that belongs in the parenting hall of fame.

Needless to say, I was a bit miffed, oh yes, miffed at David when he returned.

LJ (short for Lumberjack who is also known as David.  Keep up, people!):  What’s wrong?

Me:  Well.  You lost track of Little Dude.

LJ (aghast):  I did not!  I told him to go back to the room!

Me:  HE IS TWO.  You cannot send a two year old to find a hotel room.

LJ:  But look!  He’s here!  See?  It’s all good.

*sigh*

I chose to procreate with this man.  I have only myself to blame.

In the interest of being fair, David did tell me that he was looking for Little Dude and saw that my mother had him. 

Now the beautification process has begun.

I begin to iron, iron, iron while David feeds the children scores of peanut M&Ms.  Daisy Mae becomes ill and throws up while I am curling her hair.  And Sweet Pea cannot find her glasses anywhere.

She hates wearing glasses, so she is on cloud nine.

We made it to the wedding.  Barely.

During the pictures, Daisy Mae asks if she can take pictures with my way-too-advanced-for-simpletons-like-us camera.

I hand it to her and inform her that she is allowed to take 10 pictures.

She thinks 10=900.

So, the pictures I am about to show you are not good. 

No. 

But they are the only ones I have.  None are in focus and most of them are taken by children or David.

You have been warned.

Now, my Dudes did pretty good on wedding day.

I did have to do many, many, “hand checks” with Handsome Dude, though.

Classy.

Nice.

Fantastic.

Precious.

Jason and Alex.

Poor Little Dude.  He had suspender issues.

The wedding was beautiful.  You cannot tell from my pictures, of course, but everything was gorgeous.  They got married in this barn and the decorations were so beautiful.  And I LOVED her dress.  She looked very pretty.

My precious boys did a good job.  They walked down the aisle and “stood” up there the entire time.  They didn’t even need me to perform any hand checks.

Holla, boys.

Holla.

Daisy Mae loves her Uncle Jason.  And Jason and Amy are always kind to her.  And they were kind to her when she stood at the receiving line right in betwen them and helped them welcome their guests.

She even tried to join them at the head table.

Don’t worry.  I promptly nipped that in the bud.

Here is a random picture of me, doing what I do best:

removing unruly boys.

I thought this was a fun shot of Hansome Dude:

He likes to move it, move it.

There were hundreds up on hundreds of awkward, terrible photos on my memory card, courtesy of Daisy Mae and company. 

I think Alex was getting a bit annoyed at her, but was kind to humor her for a bit.

“How YOU doin?”

“I call this one, ‘The Smolder'”

(Name that movie)

Alright.  So, hopefully Jason and Amy will share some beautiful pictures with me.  As you can see, mine are not-so-great.

The wedding was gorgeous and I am very thankful that we were able to be a part of it.

Happy Tuesday!

 

I was so busy posting about our “story” that I haven’t told you all what has been happening this week.

Let me sum this week up for you:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little Dude had the world’s worst stomach bug. 

It lasted from Sunday-Thursday.

You might notice in each photo, dude had a glass with him.  He insisted on throwing up in a cup.

I really appreciated that about the sick little fellow.  I found it quite thoughtful of him.

As you may or may not know, we are leaving tomorrow morning at 6am to head to the land where Jason and Amy dwell to attend their wedding festivities.

There are many things to do in preparation for this momentous occasion.  The boys were in dire need of haircuts.

And I know not how to cut hair.

My girls, bless their hearts, decided to each cut a chunk of their hair right snack in the middle of their foreheads.

?

Should not we be past the haircutting stage?  Of course they choose this, the week that they shall be flower girls, to perform the haircuts.

So, on Thursday, I planned to head to get haircuts and take Lucy to our friends.

And now, dear readers, I would like to present to you:

The Tragedy that was Thursday

By Taylor Maliblahblah

Thursday started off full of promise and hope.  I was able to pack all of the childrens’ clothing for our upcoming road trip.  I even had time to bake some cookies for the poor souls who were taking Lucy in.

The cookies turned out mediocre at best.  However, they were made with love and that is all that matters.

Little Dude had not thrown up all day.  He was, however, quite lethargic, so I put him down for a nap a little early.

I decided I should give Lucy a bath.  It’s the least I can do for the poor souls watching her who have nothing to comfort them but mediocre cookies.

So, I haul all 70 pounds of her into the bathtub.

And wouldn’t you know it, she jumped out, full of soap and everything, and I had to chase her down?  It was something out of a Beethoven movie, I kid you not.

I got her all spiffed up and started to clean the tub.  I looked at the time and made my usual departure announcement:

“Ah!  We are late!  We need to be driving out of here in 10 minutes! Go potty!  I don’t care if you don’t need to!  Go!  Go!  Where are your socks?  Go potty!  Wash your hands!  Your shoes are on the wrong feet!  Did you go potty?”

Remember my lethargic Little Dude?

He was still asleep.

So, I ran downstairs to fetch him.  When I opened the door, I was greeted by a most offensive odor.

Little Dude had diahrrea.  Everywhere.  And he was sound asleep in his own filth.

I never knew I could move so swiftly, without a single care for the stink that was upon me.  My hands were covered in it.  But I kept pressing on.

I bathed Little Dude, bleached the tub, and got all his bedding in the bathtub and we were only 10 minutes late.

Holla, Taylor.

Holla.

Lucy was a tiddly-bit naughty for the car ride.

LucyFur.

She would jump from the way back, to the girls’ row, to the boys’ row, and back again.

This is not permissble when one is navigating the highways and the freeways and such.

Plus, she ate Handsome Dude’s crackers.

Handsome Dude was not pleased.

It was a horrible car ride.

And I am hoping the poor souls who currently have her will enjoy the mediocre cookies so much that they will ask to have LucyFur for forever and ever.  Amen.

After we dropped Lucy off (darn) we had to rush to the optical place to get Handsome Dude’s new lenses in.

Is it sad that I am on a first name basis with the peeps that repair my son’s glasses?

And I know of their family lives?

And I send them Christmas cards?

The new lenses that Handsome Dude got were much stronger than he has ever had.  I will never forget how he looked at me the moment he put them on.

His eyes got all big and he smiled:

“Mom!  Everything is so wiggly!”

Wiggly?

Next up were haircuts.  The boys each got a cut.  The girls needed to get bangs from their scissor-happy moment.  And I needed a bang trim.

I have the world’s most patient hairdresser.

I even talked her into waxing my eyebrows.

Clearly, I do not have time to maintain them myself.

It was a first for her:  waxing someone’s eyebrows while all 4 of her children stood by and watched, horrified.

I know you are all probably aghast that I attempted this.

But its a wedding people!

I can’t look like that homeschooling mom from Ruralville!

***

So that was Thursday.

And this is Friday.

And right before bed, Handsome Dude broke his new glasses, and therefore he will be cross-eyed for the entire weekend.

Fantastic.

But at least my eyebrows are well-maintained.

My boys are ring bearers.  My girls are flower girls.  David is a groomsman.

And I shall be performing random hand checks on my boys throughout the ceremony.

Wish me luck!

I will try to post updates from this weekend on The Facebook.

So, if you’d like, you can like me on The Facebook.

Or not.

The choice is yours.

Happy Weekend!

PS-  I took a walk around my property this week and I saw a snake!  A SNAKE!

PPS-I took it as a sign that I should never, ever exercise. 

(To catch up:  The Story of Us, part one, The Story of Us, part two,  and The Story of Us, part three)

We were now a family of six.  Life just kept moving along:  Sweet Pea was in kindergarten, Daisy Mae was in preschool, Handsome Dude was naughty busy, and Little Dude was chill.

Fun Fact:  “Chill” is what cool people say when they are referring to someone who is relaxed and/or easy going.

Consider yourselves informed.

I became worried about Little Dude during his first year of life.  He simply would not smile.

Ever.

I would jump all around, sing silly songs, clap, hop, skip, fall down . . . and he would just stare at me.

Around his first birthday, I heard this strange sound coming from him . . .

He was laughing!  I had never heard it before!

Turns out he was feeding his breakfast to our dog, Mabel.

And from that day on, he would giggle and smile along with all the other kids.

Mabel had made her place in our family.  She was getting older and had calmed down quite a bit.  The kids loved to read books to her, sit on her, and take her on camping trips with us.

She was definitely part of the family.

The kids were growing up quickly.  I started to notice that Little Dude didn’t look quite the same as the other kids.  Little Dude takes after my dad’s side of the family, where the other kids look a bit more like David.

(Don’t mind Little Dude’s shaved head.  It was all David’s fault.)

I started to become a bit paranoid about Little Dude not looking like the others when complete strangers began to make comments like:

“Oh!  Is that one adopted?”

“Do they all have the same dad?”

“Are you sure they are all yours?”

Yes.  Good times.

I even had an encounter with the world’s rudest dermatologist who insisted I was confused and Little Dude was not from the same dad.

I would like to take this moment to assure all of you that Little Dude is, in fact, mine, and he is, in fact, David’s.  Even though David does like to give me a hard time about it.  (This post has a funny story about that towards the end)

In December of 2008, my dearheart friend Bimlissa, tried to convince me to start a blog. 

First of all, let us discuss Bimlissa.  Bimlissa is really Melissa.  Daisy Mae called her Bimlissa for a time because Daisy Mae went through a phase where she put the word bim in from of everything:

computer=bimputer

capris=bimpris

Melissa=Bimlissa

Melissa and I went to high school together.  She was too cool for school and I don’t remember ever talking to her.  And, I can assure you, that I most certainly did not have a very clique-y group of friends and I definitely did my best to socialize with people outside of my clique.

Or something like that.

Anyways, years later, David and I started going to this new church and I reconnected with Melissa through working in children’s ministry together. 

We became fast friends on account of my winning personality and ability to overlook her past snootiness.

ha!  Oh, darn, she’s going to be bim-mad with me.

Anyways, Bimlissa started a blog.  And she wanted me to read it.  And I did not understand why, to be honest with you.  We saw each other often.  She would email me pictures.  We were on The Facebook. 

Did we really need another way to connect?

So, she talked me into starting a blog.  And I did.  And I never posted in it. 

It sat there for about 5 or 6 months.

Then I decided that maybe my Auntie Datenutloaf in California or Sister Meagan would perhaps enjoy looking at pictures of the children and seeing what we were doing.

So, I decided to give posting a try.  And I wrote the world’s lamest post. 

And Bimlissa never even commented on it.  But I’m not bitter.

Soon, I discovered that blogging was a fun outlet for me.  If I had a really crazy day, I would just write about it.  Then I would laugh because of how awful it was.  I would publish the post, cry/laugh some more, and then eat a brownie and go to sleep.

It was like therapy for me.

I was going through a hard transition then.  I wrote this post on how difficult the years were with young kids and it was comforting to know I wasn’t alone.

Now, I write in it for therapeutic purposes and also to record our daily lives.  I hope it will help David and I remember these years.

I went through blog identity issues.  At first, my blog had our last name in the title.  But then I decided I wasn’t comfortable with our last name being shared, so I had to come up with a new name.

Bimlissa, her sister, her mom, and her sister’s husband’s cousinwere the only people reading my blog at the time and we thought that the title The Lumberjack’s Wife was uber funny, seeing as how my husband feigned to be one. 

Hence, the name The Lumberjack’s Wife.

Then I had a creepy commenter, so I decided to switch to the children to the code names that you know and love today.

And that is why I am so sneaky-sneaky.  I like to think that you don’t know their real names or our location.

I also hope you think my last name is really Maliblahblah.

***

Alright, back to our lives.  In early 2010, we decided to start looking at a house with land. 

Never mind our current house was not yet finished.

Still.

When David saw the Ruralville house, he asked if we could go look at it.  When I heard it was in Ruralville, I said, “I will never, ever, ever live there.”

And you all know what happens when I put my foot down.

The house was a short sale and was a horrible process.  We put an offer down and didn’t know for four months if we would get it.

In the meantime, David and I went to Cancun to celebrate our 10 year anniversary!  I wrote all about it in about 7 posts if you want to go back and read it.

After we got back from our trip, David got to work finishing up our house in case we wanted to sell it. 

As you all know, we did end up buying the Ruralville house and David finally finished working on our house the same week.

He did a great job.

After 7 long years, the house was finally finished.  Do you remember when David first found that dump of a house and told me,

“This house will make us money.”

He was right.

It now rents out as a vacation rental and pays for itself.

Perhaps he does know what he is doing after all?

So,we moved to Ruralville.  Because of the location, I decided to homeschool.  This past year has been a hard transition for me, but I am adjusting.

Mabel became sick and died in September.  She was ten years old.

We decided that we would like to get another dog . . .

So we welcomed Lucy.

Lucy is naughty. 

Sometimes we call her Lucy-Fur.

Get it?

***

And lastly, I wanted to give you a bit of a who’s who of the people that are mentioned in this blog.

Of course, my husband and children are located on the right sidebar if you ever need to put a face with a name.

My Family.

My parents:

Grant and Connie.

You will oft see them in a Goober Parent Update, such as this one.

There is Brother Danny and his wife, Tonya. 

They have two children.

Sister Meagan.

Here she is with my pa.

Meagan is responsible for me saying things such as “uber, totes, and holla!”

David’s Family.

I refer to them often, my crazy-kin inlaws.

From left to right:

Back row:  Jason, Lisa, David, Alex

Front row:  His parents:  Paul and Jackie

Lisa is married to Jack and they have two little girls.

(They are huckleberry picking, an activity that I loathe)

Jason is getting married to Amy (in 2 days!).

 

Alex and Holly got married 2 weeks ago.

Lastly, I wanted to give you the background on a few pictures you might see a lot around here:

Here is my favorite Alex picture:

(For the story behind it, click here)

When I was writing my posts about our trip to Cancun, I included this one of David and I:

And it reminded me of this hilarious picture of Jason:

So you will oft see this picture of Jason, simply because I find it humorous.

And of course, there is my dad:

This is him trying to listen to ITunes.

***

Did you read that entire post?

That was crazy-insane long.  Sorry about that. 

Take heart!

I am all done.

Thank you for reading this rubbish.

Have a Happy Friday!

To catch up:

The Story of Us, part one

The Story of Us, part two

So, we were finally in our new home.  You know that phrase: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”

Having our own home again was so wonderful.  I had longed to have our own house again for such a long time.  I couldn’t wait to decorate, clean, and cook.

Clearly all the post-partum emotions were taking a toll on me.

We were happy. 

However, the dogs were driving us nuts.  I was home with a 2 month old and a 17 month old, and I did not have the time or the patience to deal with the world’s naughtiest dogs.  We knew Jack was the naughtiest of the dogs and that Mabel was much more mild-mannered.  And so, we decided to give Jack away to a family friend. 

We decided that we would like to start camping with our new, little family.

You may ask, “Taylor!  What do you mean start camping?!”

Yes, readers.  We hadn’t started camping yet.

I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock.

Remember!  I’m not the wilderness type.  All we had back in the olden days was a tent.

A tent!  ha!

I laugh at the thought.  I’m too much of a camping snob now to camp in a tent.

But, alas.  We were still broke.  We did, however, find a ginormous, old camp trailer that slept 8, had brown carpet, orange cushions, and a funky smell for $800. 

That trailer was David’s nemesis.

 And so, the era of camping was born in our family.

And as you all know, we have been camping ever since.

***

And so, life continued.  Here are a few, random bits for you:

1.  We decided to heat our new house with wood, so David became quite the Lumberjack in those days.  He determined to get himself about 10 cords of wood each year.

As you have probably already surmised, the days of shopping at The Gap, tanning, and highlighting hair were long gone.

2.  I even went wood cutting with him once.

3.  For our 5 year anniversary, we went on a cruise to Mexico.  I cannot remember one, single happenstance from that trip.

4.  David kept working on the house.  He ripped off the old siding and put up that Tyvek paper.  Then he ran out of time and our house sat covered in Tyvek for a year.  I’m sure the neighbor’s appreciated that.  He ripped out the kitchen floor to redo the plumbing and lovingly set up a “plank” for me to walk across to get to the laundry room.  I did dishes in the bathtub.  There was always sheet rock dust everywhere and random drill bits lying about.  It was the project that would never, ever, ever end.

5.  In 2006, I discovered I was pregnant for the third time.  Since all we could create were girls, we knew to expect a sweet, calm, new little girl.

6.  God looked upon our sweet little family and declared, “Let them have a boy.”

In March of 2007, our son was born.  He melted my heart from the beginning.  He was so handsome and precious.  The girls were enthralled with him and were helpful “little mothers” to him.

7.  We decided it was time to upgrade our trailer to one that didn’t have mold and a nasty smell. 

Here are pictures from our first camping trip in our new trailer:

You can’t tell from this picture, but I can assure you that David’s heart is overflowing with joy in his blessings.

8.  Remember how I got pregnant with Daisy Mae when Sweet Pea was 6 months old?  Guess what happened when Handsome Dude was 6 months old?

9.  My 4th pregnancy did a number on me.  My body began to fall apart.  I developed a heart murmur and some gnarly varicose veins. 

See?  Gnarly.

10.  In June of 2008, we had our second son.

He was the world’s easiest baby.

10.  Sweet Pea was entering kindergarten that year, and I had planned on homeschooling her.  But going from 3 to 4 was the hardest transition for me.  Life was spinning out of control.

And would you like to know whose fault that was?

Handsome Dude’s.

When Handsome Dude turned about 15 months old, he became a tiddly bit naughty.

So, David, concerned for my mental well-being, told me we should enroll our daughter in school.

It was the right choice at that time in our lives.

***

During all these years, I was growing up and learning fast about how to be a wife and mother. 

David and I were married young.  We grew up together.

I used to get upset with him when he would be home late from work.  I thought a good wife was a wife who had a tidy house and dinner on the table when her husband walked through the door.

David would tell me he would be home by 6.  And often, he would call me at 6:15 and tell me he would be home in an hour.

Oh, it would drive me nuts.

Didn’t he understand how hard it was for me to time everything out?  Didn’t he know how busy I was with these kids?

But my husband is a hard worker.  He does what it takes to provide for our family.  I had to realize that he wasn’t being mean to me.

Quite the opposite.

He was doing whatever it took to make sure he did what his boss wanted of him.  And if that meant working late, he would work late.

It is not easy to bear the burden of being the financial supporter of a family of 6.  I have never seen anyone who can work as hard as my husband does.  He gets up at 5am and works long, long days.

He comes home, cheerful and happy to help me.

The day I realized that he didn’t care about dinner was a good day for our marriage.

It’s okay with him if the house isn’t perfect and dinner isn’t ready.  He would rather come home to a bowl of cereal and a peaceful house, than a cranky wife trying to keep dinner warm.

In all the years that David has been an electrician, he has not been out of work once.  That’s quite the feat for that line of work

So, I have learned to trust him.  If he says he needs to work late, that’s fine.  It does not happen every night.  He still makes time for us.

In your comments from the last two posts, some of you said that I was a saint.

Trust me.  I’m not a saint.

But I have been learning to let David lead and to trust that he knows what he is capable of and he sees things that I don’t.

I’m thankful that he is willing to work so hard for us.

Alright.  I’m hoping to finish this up tomorrow.

Happy Thursday!

(To read part one, click here.)

Soon after our first child was born, we realized our little house was becoming far too crowded.  And so, we began the hunt for our next home.

I really wanted a clean, brand new home.  A home that we did not have to work on at all, like our last one.  A home that was ready for my sweet, new baby.

Alas.  Sometimes I do not always get what I want.

I remember it well, the day I got the phone call from David.

David:  Hon!  I found it!  Our next house!

Me:  Really?!?

David:  Yep.  It’s a DUMP.  It’s completely falling apart.  And it is cheap.

Me:  Oh.  Why do you want it?

David:  Location, location, location!

(Darn  you, Dave Ramsey)

Me:  huh?

David:  This house is in a prime spot downtown.  This house will make us money.

I don’t know how David does it, but he always, always, talks me into doing these sorts of things.

Darn him.

Darn him and his swooning ways.

So, we made an offer on that nasty house that reeked of cat pee.  We offered $17,000 less than what they were asking.  I was sure they would scoff at our offer and I would soon be able to find that brand new home I always wanted.

They accepted our offer immediately.

One must wonder if we had been duped, no?

So, the house was ours.  It was certainly not livable, so we had to plead of my parents to allow us, our darling daughter, and our two ginormous dogs to move in with them.

We told them two months, tops.

Every day after work, David and his brother, Jason, would head to the house and work on tearing out all the stuff that needed to get replaced.

Remember Jason?

Sure you do.

(More on Jason later)

Jason was a huge help to us during that time, and we will be forever grateful to him for his help.

And, so, they ripped out the carpet.  Soon they discovered that this house was not just a dump, but a colossal dump.

The entire house needed to be gutted.

Soon after we moved into my parents’ house, I found out I was pregnant with baby #2.  This came as quite the shock, seeing as how I was told that no one could ever get pregnant whilst breastfeeding.

I found out I was pregnant when Sweet Pea was 6 months old.  I’ve shared this before, but at first the doctors told me that this little baby would not survive.

Thankfully, they were wrong.  And after several stressful weeks, we found out we were having another, healthy girl.

This was a hard season in our lives.  David was working long hours during the day as an electrical apprentice, and long hours at night to work on this house.  Money was tight.  Since he was still an apprentice, he was not making much money.  We were dumping money into this fixer upper like crazy.  We had a baby and another on the way, and I was still working two days a week at the sweet hair net job to keep insurance. 

My parents deserve parents of the year award for that saga.  I don’t think they minded David, Sweet Pea, and I living in their basement.  But they did mind Jack and Mabel, our dogs.

Jack and Mabel were huge, smelly, naughty, and destroying my parents’ backyard.

They even dug up the remains of my childhood dog and had themselves a little snack.

Poor Joey.  How I loved him.

Our two months turned into eleven months.  Around the 8th month, my dad’s patience with the dogs was shot and we were told the dogs were evicted.

David’s sister, Lisa, and her husband, Jack, took in our two monsters.

Then Daisy Mae was born.

When Daisy Mae was 8 weeks old, we finally moved into our new/old house.

The house was certainly not finished.  But it was finally livable.  We figured it would take us about a year or so to finish it up.

Alas.  We were wrong again.

But, we began to slowly work on it, trying to not spend too much money at one time.  David had finally become a Journeyman Electrician and money was not as tight as it had been.  But still, we were spending so much money to fix up the house that we needed to be careful.

For the most part, we just began to enjoy being our own family again, together in our house.

Here are some random pictures from those days:

Daisy Mae

(Our house was just a few blocks from the lake)

The girls

Sweet Pea

Fishing with Daddy.

Making applesauce.

***

Alright that’s all for today.  Of course there is more to the story  . . .

Happy Wednesday!