Our House

We listed our house on Tuesday. Had 1 showing Thursday, 3 showings on Friday, and have 1 scheduled for next Tuesday. Oh, and we just got a call from our realtor with an offer from the first viewers.

Yippee!

I pretended to be the realtor so that I could take some pictures with my new camera so I'll show you. And no we do not live like this. I had to do major room rearranging and rent 2 storage units for the overflow,ie home school and office stuff.

That's our house on the left and our detached garage on the right. Our property runs from the road on the left to the big, ugly bushes behind the swing set on the right. A little over an acre.

Coats, backpacks and shoes. Oh my!

This is my front hall closet

Uggg! I've rearranged it several times and it works for a while and then this. The cubbies are for shoes. Every shoe people 11 and under own are in their color cubbie. I have 2 in preschool, 5 in public elementary school, 2 homeschool  and 2 in public high school. That's a lot of backpacks and coats. I did have the cubbies side by side, but I can't put the hooks up too high or the littles can't reach to hang stuff up. If we move to the house I want, we will have great space for a true mudroom. Until then I'll keep rearranging.

Let's go to the movies

Mr Smith and I took 10 kids to the movies tonight. Twelve drinks, six popcorns and $160 later we watched the Chipmunks. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was prepared to endure. We kinda sorta not really started a tradition last year where on your birthday you got to pick your favorite meal and go to the movies. With bdays all but 2 months of the year and some months having multiples, it was just to expensive to go out to eat at a sit down place plus gifts. Well, I don't think we went to the movies at all. So I decided to amend the tradition so that during Christmas break we will all go together. Our last bday is in December so it works out.

Kelly at http://nomoremoves.blogspot.com/ is going to post a picture a day for the year 2012. I told her I would try. This picture was taken on New Year's Eve, but I don't have any taken in 2012 yet so it will have to do!

This is Perry. We found him wandering down the street a couple months ago. We were out of town and he just appeared. He got outside one evening right before Thanksgiving when we were leaving for our homeschool co-op's fall program. When we got home he wasn't walking on his back leg. We took him to the vet and he had been bitten on the thigh pretty badly. He still wasn't walking on it at Christmas, so we took him back to the vet. Since he was so young and was favoring his leg while it healed, it has basically healed kind of bent. Poor little guy.

Happy New Year!

How is everyone? I don't know why I can't keep this thing going. I enjoy reading other blogs, but for some reason when it comes to my own I stink. 

Miss I will hopefully be adopted this month. We are just waiting on a court date.

We finally got our tax refund in November! We are debt free except for our mortgage:) Yippee!!

I have found a house that would totally work for our family with the addition of a great room and other minor updating. Now if I can get Mr. Smith to come to the same conclusion, oh and sell our house, we're good.

I got a fancy schmancy new camera for Christmas and it is super easy to upload pictures. So maybe I will post more often since I will be able to add pics.

Here is one I took just playing around-

This is my youngest bio-E-age 6.

This is my oldest bio at home-A-age 16-all dressed up for the New Year's Eve Ball.

Hope to blog at you again soon!



Catch up

Hey all, long time no blog. Here's what has been happening in our neck of the woods!

*TPR hearing in April. Dad signed. The judge almost tried to talk mom out of it, but she stuck with her decision.

*Hello/Goodbye visit with dad. The jail allowed 30 minutes. We were in and out and on the way home in 15.

*Goodbye visit with mom. She asked to see all the kids and I agreed. I was soooo nervous. We didn't tell the kids until an hour before. It went very well. They basically acted like they didn't know her and for the youngest 2 that was true.

*Bio mom said at that visit she was heading south so that they wouldn't take the baby due in August. 5 weeks after the visit she is in jail. She's out now. They don't like to keep preggo chicks in the slammer around here.

*I have decided I am homeschooling 2, maybe 3 of my kidlings. I've been collecting stuff and researching a lot.

*Still waiting on our tax refund. Got another letter 2 weeks ago for more info. AAHHHH!!!

*Almost positive we are going to stay here and add on. Unless something perfect comes on the market...

*We got 2 kittens. My sister lives in the boonies and one of the stray cats had babies. She accidentally ran over one and another one was up in her hood and fell out on the way to work. I saved the last 2. They have been through a lot of names, but we settled on Phineas and Ferb.

*Someone didn't save a message on the answering machine as new, so I missed a call for a placement. Now the law has changed to 5 total kids except in special situations, so I'll probably only get called if bio mom screws up with the new one due in August.

There's been a million other things too, but that's the biggies.

Summer Sale!

http://www.mythirtyone.com/31susansmith/

Visit my website at 8:01 EDT tomorrow night for great deals at 31% off!

Tote-Ally Awesome Beach Tote in Chains Ahoy $33.81



Wristlet Wallet in Chains Ahoy $15.18


Wristlet Key Fob in Chains Ahoy $3.45


...About Town Blanket in Floral Celebration $26.91


Icon Coin Purse in Chains Ahoy $9.66

manners

Went to Ponderosa today for lunch. It was packed! The table next to us had 2 "older" couples. As they were leaving, one of the men came over and said he just had to compliment us on how well behaved our kids were. Cha-ching! I love moments like this. People see 12 kids come in and expect the worse, I love surprising them! Make a momma proud :)