Time Keeps on Slippin Slippin...

My baby is walking and pretending to talk. My five year old is cracking me up. My seven year old is amazing me with her drive and motivation. My ten year old makes me want to cry with thankfulness that she is starting to believe in herself. If I tried to blog the last two months it would be epic. Ah, I like that. This will be an epic post. Two days before we got in the van lock stock and barrel for a trip to Arkansas for Christmas, we finally put an offer in on a house and... got it. It took nine months looking at houses, rearranging our priorities, compromising and tenaciously holding on to the hope that we would be able to find the right place for our family. And so we did. It is two houses from the park and community swimming pool, has a double oven and gas range (mommy so happy!) and plenty of room for our brood. It's within walking distance of the Rec Center, Library, ice cream shop, school, Walgreens and the gas station. Then we went to Arkansas for a fun filled week on the farm. I did not set foot off of the farm the whole time we were there unless you count me wading in the river in freezing temperatures. Not nearly as tolerable as I remember as a child. It was so good. We are so thankful for family and love and another beautiful Thanksgiving. Daniel's family was the only thing missing from our fantastic visit. Prior to finding the house, Eden was piddling at school drawing pictures of cakes and folding post-it notes into fancy shapes. I had found out about it at Halloween and then subsequently had the most horrible parent teacher conference of my life. By Thanksgiving we had become convinced that the school did not have Eden's best interest at heart when they declined my request to move Eden to another class with better supervision and a teacher who was invested in her. We were about to close on the house on December 21st and after multiple meetings with staff at the school and even a letter to the school board, we started to wonder if crazy as it sounds we should move the kids to a new school mid-year. I visited the one in our new neighborhood and fell in love. It's a tiny little charter school. There is only one fourth grade class with 20 students. The teacher Mr. Bunge is fantastic. There are two second grade classes. Kait's delightful teacher Ms. DeBord only has 16 students. Then Nick's class with the wonderful Ms. Krashoc only has 14 students. What has happened in my children since this very sudden and extreme move can only be described as magical. Nick has found a joy of learning that I used to dream of. He comes home bursting with information about the sun and moon and Martin Luther King Jr. He is exuberant and excited each day and tells me how he loves his teacher constantly. She told me he works very easily for her which was not happening at the last school. Kaitlyn is doing wonderfully. Her only prior struggle was spelling and the spelling curriculum seems to be much better. She is doing very well on her tests and her teacher identified this struggle within two days of Kait entering the class. Eden is transformed. She has become diligent (she forgot to do her homework once and Mr. Bunge said "let's not let this happen again" and that was all she needed.) She is very proud of what she learns. She is in love with the classical math curriculum. She learns interesting math concepts and is given time for them to become concreted in her mind. She got a 100% on her spelling test and the spelling words are very challenging. She seems to take great pride in all of it which just never seemed to happen at Flagstaff. They each do their homework independently (even Nick) which also never happened at Flagstaff. The kids also now have time to read or be read to each night because they are home an hour earlier than they used to be and get to leave for school 45 minutes later than they used to. They wear uniforms which is very nice for me. And so... I will gloss over the horrible move. Moving is always awful, there's no way around that but when you add the whole "Christmas Season" Mommy with the flu and a double ear infection and three kids switching to a new school that requires uniforms you have HELL! It was bad. Really bad and I hate to say I did not sail through the badness with grace. I kind of tumbled and crutched and limped through it like a wounded animal. This brings me to the now. Now, I am leaving for Israel in precisely 4 1/2 days and it is so exciting I can barely stand myself. My dear dear dear dear friend Bart offered me frequent flyer miles to come visit her which is kind of like winning a vacation or something and I just can't wait to see her. I haven't see her for five months and it will be so fun! So fun I can't even imagine! I think maybe I should set a goal of blogging at least five times while I'm there so I can go back and relive this over and over. Forget that it might rain the whole time! If it does we will bake scones, drink coffee and feed Bedford these strange treats I picked up for him that look like... poo. I can't help but fret about being stopped by customs and having to explain why it looks like I have two giant bags of freeze dried dog poo. Bart's husband Doug told me to just say "Everybody poops" and I just might have to. Anyway, apparently Bart intends to drag me all over the place. I can't wait! My fears and dreads? Hazel without me or is it me without Hazel for 10 days?! How will that go? Jody without me and me without Jody for 10 days!! How will that go?! If it's awful I am certain Jody will never let me go anywhere again. Hazel is a little devil. I'm sorry but she is. I cannot think fast enough to prevent the deviltry she thinks up. We were losing our mind in this new house with the trash can out in the open. She was like a raccoon. Tipping it over, pawing through it for a crust of bread or an old piece of pancake. It's awful to look up from scrubbing a toilet and have your baby walk in munching on something unidentifiable from an unknown source only to discover your trash can has been upended. She quiet, purposeful and completely devilish. The whole time I was pregnant I asked God for her to just be like Kait or Nick, I just couldn't handle another Eden. Of course I got an Eden on steroids so I guess that means I can handle it. Not good to know. I never wanted to find out if I could handle this. Nick is hilarious. 1.He's sitting at the counter and says "Mommy, did you know bears eat worms?" I say "No! Did you learn that at school?!" He tips his head to the side, and twists his mouth rather sardonically and says in a light knowing voice"No, I learned that in your tummy!" 2. I'm attempting to install the cabinet trash can and he picks up the instruction sheet and looks it over, flipping from the Spanish side to the English side in a very knowing way and says "Oh, I see... it looks like Daddy is supposed to do it." I say "Why?" He says "because the hands in the pictures on the instructions are bigger and harrier than yours." 3. I'm chopping mushrooms (for the first time ever) to make a mushroom sauce for our meat and Nick strolls in. He says "Mommy, are those mushrooms?!!!!" I say "yes". He says "Are you going to disguise them as chicken in our dinner?!!!" I say "yes". He says "I knew it!!!" and leaves.