Basketball season is upon us yet again.  Jacob started practice this week with a YMCA team.  Only a 5 week game season.  So, it should take us up into early Spring!  Yay!!! 

I don't like winter, so thankful that the last half of January has been little snow and milder temperatures.  Once again, hopefully we have made it through the roughest part of the winter.

All three of the boys are doing Cross Fit kids.  Joseph has been participating but they finally got a few more older boys so Benjamin and Jacob have been going.  I sure love to see them push themselves and struggle with finish a workout.  I think Benjamin really surprised himself with his capabilities.  I was asking the coach what her first impressions of the boys were.  She said Joseph is so aware of his space and body and he moves like a gymnast.  Jacob is very well rounded.  With Benjamin she said that most people think of athletes and quick and agile.  However, she said Benjamin is really strong.  I don't think he would ever get involved in the weight lifting side, but I think he would do very well.  They were doing an exercise recently where you had to turn sideways and throw a heavy ball across your body to your partner.  The coach commented that Benjamin has a perfect golf swing!  Now, there is a sport a never considered for any of the boys, probably because it has never been anything I have done, other than very random, once every 8 year outings.

I am still plugging away on my work from home stuff.  Every week, I think they are going to cut us off, but they don't.  Hard not to make hay when the sun is shining.  Last year we took a 4 month break, between contracts, but they indicated to me that the break would probably be pretty short this time around!

We have been busy around the house!  We have all been to look at a house about 2 miles away and everyone really liked it.  It is a lot of what I have always hoped for.  It is a for sale by owner and has been on the market over 2 months, which is very weird for this area.a  Maybe the Lord has blinded others to the house until we discovered it.  We have not yet put an offer on it, but will be making some phone calls in the next 2 days to see what we can figure out.  We technically will qualify, but it always makes me nervous stretching things.  It is 3100 square feet, 4 bedroom with office and partially unfinished basement, 3 1/2 baths.  Perfect location for JRs work stuff and directly across the street from a park, with lots of football and soccer room.  Just exciting to think about the possibility.  By the end of the week, hopefully we will have some answers!  In the mean time, we are boxing up things and de-cluttering so that our house will be close to 'show ready'.

We recently finished up the 2nd quarter, so officially half way through the school year!  Hard to believe.  Pretty soon we will be planning Jacob's 11th birthday.  He has had a recently growth spurt, as has Joseph.  Joseph now comes up to my shoulders!!

Off to get some more done..just wanted to check back in!

We have enjoyed a reprieve from the cold weather.  Amazing how warm 25 feels when it has been below zero!   We are due to get some snow tonight and then not much precipitation the next 10 days or so.

I recently won, in my opinion, a huge victory on the home front!!  I am trying to make small changes in what we eat.  If the changes are too drastic, someone will balk.  However, the other morning I made waffles that everyone loved and even got upset when we ran out of them.  The 2 main ingredients....cottage cheese and cream cheese!  And then the syrup, they all went for the cream cheese frosting.  Yay.  I just have to remember to keep the recipe out of sight, or they will for sure declare them no good.

We hit the ice rink last weekend.  Went for a moonlit skate.  Our Friday night dinner group moved the weekly meeting to the outdoor ice rink.  It was a beautiful night.  We had a fire pit, s'mores, hot chocolate.  I always enjoy those nights when we have way more kids than adults.  All of the kids, with the exception of one, is between the ages of 8 and 16.  So fun to watch them all.  I think the most rad out on the ice was a 14 year old girl...she put everyone to shame!  None of my boys had skates...I think they got put in storage and I don't even know if we had appropriate sizes.  (My intention is to always buy next size up, so eventually we will have them all, but it never seems to happen.)   Today I went and bought them all hockey skates and hockey sticks.  I know what our weekends will be spent doing!

JR and I went and looked at a house recently.  The location and price were amazing, but there was a reason that only 1 of the 4 bedrooms was pictures online.  We both liked it and saw the potential, but it did not fully grab either one of us.  Will be curious, with the work it needs, to see how long it stays on the market.  I am going to look at another one on Friday.  I am still not sure if we are quite ready to buy, but just praying when the right house comes along, it will be obvious to both of us.

All three of the boys are currently doing CrossFit Kids classes (it is month by month, so depending on other extra curricular stuff, they may not participate.  They really enjoy it.  I think Benjamin surprised himself with how well he did.  Jacob stars YMCA basketball in a few weeks. 

One of the things I really enjoy about winter, is the early bedtimes around here.  Since it is dark so early, the boys are usually home pretty early.  I think one night they were all asleep by 7:30!  Sure love the time to read and get to sleep early myself.  The last 24 hours I have felt a huge head cold coming on.  So I have turned to my standby.  A mixture of honey, minced garlic and cayenne pepper.  It has kept it at bay so far.  (Because I know my sister will want the recipe :-), it is tablespoon of honey, tablespoon of garlic and then as much cayenne as you can tolerate!  Oh, I love it and eat it by the spoonful.

A quiet weekend on the horizon.  I am hoping to do lunch and a movie with Kristine (niece) on Saturday and church on Sunday!!

Happy 2018!

My sister finally asked me if I was ever going to update my blog, so guess it is time. 

My first thought is to apologize for being silent, then I catch myself.  Why do I feel like I have to apologize?  This blog has always been a place for me to keep a written record of my boys' growing up.  I just invited some of you along for the ride!  Don't get me wrong, I love keeping everyone informed and since I don't do Facebook, this is an easy way.  I just don't want it to ever feel like something I HAVE to do, but something I enjoy doing.  And I guess the past 6 weeks (actually all through summer and fall), it has felt more like a HAVE to.  I am in a season of life right now that is hard.  Just life stuff...dealing with stresses, difficult decisions, kid issues and I guess I am tired of keeping up appearances.  I don't want to 'adult' some days.  I don't want to put on a happy face and pretend all is well in my corner of the world...whether online or if I see someone in the grocery store.  Sometimes life just gets you down and all you can do is keep your head down and plug away, day by day.  So, maybe that is why I have been silent, just not feeling like I had much to share or not sure what to share...I just feel like I am an observer and not a participant in my life right now.  (However, someone on Facebook put up a post to write one word that they could carry into 2018 and it had to start with the first letter of your name.....I wrote 'strength'....a great reminder for me that I will persevere...so thankful for my faith!

But life with 3 crazy active boys does not stop, so neither will I.

We have made it through Christmas Break and the boys went back to school today.  We had 6 1/2 school days off, that is it.  The weather was cold, bitter cold some days.  My mom was here for 5 days and my niece stayed with us the whole time.  Sure was fun having the extra family here.  Aside from church and Christmas Eve service, we stayed home.  Just hung out, worked puzzles, watched movies, drank hot chocolate and played games.  Christmas morning has moved beyond all the craziness and chaos of young kids, to controlled, thought out time.  All the packages were numbered and there was a scavenger hunt to find clues that would lead us to the master package list.  Then we opened things one at a time.  Sure is fun to actually see and enjoy what others received.

Next week we will be springing into winter basketball through the YMCA.  Jacob is wanting to play.  There is a Crossfit class starting for middle school kids, so hoping that Jacob and Benjamin will get in on some of the action.  (Both of the boys finished up their basketball seasons before Christmas.  Our friend took lots of pictures, but he has not passed any of them along yet, so none to post yet.)

I will be wrapping up my home assembly job in next week or two, then we take a break before another contract is started, sometime in the spring.  I am researching the option to drive for Uber.  Seems super flexible and a great way to meet people.  I would hopefully be able to pick up rides up the mountain (which is about 2 hrs round trip).  I think I would enjoy the longer rides better than lots of short rides across town.  All I need to do is upload my driver's license and download the app.  If I decide to do it, hopefully my first ride will be in the next week or so.

One of the things I have been watching for the last year of so is the real estate market.  We are just busting at the seams in our place and my goal has always been to be in a house by the time Benjamin turns 15.  Well, that is 18 months away!  The time to get serious is now.  We have our punch list on the fridge of all the repairs we want to make and hopefully by early spring we will have made a good dent in the list.  I have also had an initial contact with a realtor and I am now getting weekly emails with new listings.  This week I will be calling the bank to get an idea of what we would qualify for.   I would love to think we would move quickly, but I think we are probably looking at another year. 

We are somewhat specific what we are looking for.  Because JR drops/picks up a lot of cars at the airport, we would like to stay within 1 mile of airport, so that if he or I need to walk/bike there, it is not too long.  I really want space for the boys.  Growing up we had a double car garage that we turned into a game room (complete with astroturf!).  Oh the memories.  I so want that for the boys.  A place that they want to hang out with their friends.  It would be nice to find at least a 4 bedroom house and a double car garage/workshop/shed.  And parking.  We currently only have room for 2 cars at our place and with added drivers coming on and JR's client cars, we need more parking options.

The housing market right now is crazy though.  Yes we will get good price for our place, we will also pay a pretty penny for another place.  Rentals right now are renting for about a dollar a square foot and houses are selling for close to $1.50 a square foot.  Seems overwhelming if we want to sell our place before buying something else, or can we make it work to keep our place as a rental and buy something else, or should we be considering a totally different layout in the event that JR's parents want to move here and live with us ( :-0 ).  Oh, God will definitely have to take care of the details/logistics of this.  I just need to be patient and wait, but also preparing ourselves. 

One good thing in all this, we have had conversations about how the house needs to always look show ready.  So we are starting to practice.  Every night before bed we walk through the house and see what needs to be done before bed.  Oh, the purging (yay!).  Not that we have tons, but every little thing we can get rid of makes me happy!  My plan is to spend a week on each room.  Touching every item in that room and asking the importance of the item.  I just need to allow myself to get rid of anything that does not bring me/anyone in the family joy.  Why hold on to things??

So, that is where we are at the end of 2017!  And what we are looking towards as we start 2018.