We have a listing!

http://www.austinhomesearch.com/homes-for-sale/TX/Austin/78723/1504-Ridgemont-Dr-87381038

Spring Break is here! We aren't asking a trip this year, just hanging around here and working on getting the house ready to list this Friday. The photographer comes Thursday and the house gets listed Friday. Between now and then we have a pretty long list of little jobs that need to be done. We made a lot if progress over the weekend. The boys spent the weekend with my mom and Margaret stayed with us to help with Hazel. We've never really had time with just the two girls. How quiet and peaceful everything seemed!
Yesterday after church we met our realtor in Steiner Ranch to look at three houses. We liked one in particular. We can't put an offer until after we've listed ours, so maybe it'll still be around next weekend. Things in Austin are selling like hotcakes, often with competing offers and offers above the asking price. I sure hope that's the case in the selling of our home!
Margaret and I went for a long run Saturday morning that included a stop in at Central Market for trail mix and a stop at the thrift store. So much fun! She's the best running partner!
I was nodding off to sleep on the couch, streaming an R.C. Sproul broadcast, when the front door opened and I heard several little voices and a couple of big voices. It was the Koplins, the family that Margaret babysits for. They had rented out their house at Mueller for SXSW and in the meantime were house sitting for friends who live a few streets over from us. They stayed and visited a couple of hours. I think it's best when friends drop in unexpectedly. It keeps me from focusing on having everything perfect and instead concentrating on my guests. A d things were far from perfect yesterday, paint cans and drop cloths spread all over the living room, a stinky kitchen trash, dirty dishes in the sink, and me with smeared eye makeup from napping. I love the Koplin family, and they love Margaret. They even want her to come live with them for part of the summer after we move. Not that we will be that far away, just too far for her to walk or ride over for a daily babysitting gig. They are so trusting of her, it's really an honor. They starting hiring her to babysit when she was eleven.
Well, gonna have to cut this short to get my little people moving. Have a blessed Monday!

Brian and I just got home from hearing Sinclair Ferguson at church. He was speaking to Redeemer Seminary on John Calvin and the work of the Holy Spirit. It was good, a message I needed to hear. I've been struggling to understand the Holy Spirit. Ad it was nice to get out with Brian for an hour or so.

We've been plugging away at school. William and John are doing well, especially in math, despite my best efforts to confuse them. Haha. We took a picnic lunch to the park and enjoyed several hours out in the sun today, plus a two mile walk. We've been enjoying a lot of read a loud time lately. That's something I really, really enjoy, reading aloud to the kids.

Hazel is a constant source of entertainment for us. She still doesn't talk, but understand most of the things we tell her or ask her. She is the busiest child and seems to be like Margaret and I in that she loves to clean house. Of course, she also love to make messes, too, but she has really picked up on the cleaning part. She's an old soul, and usually has a serious expression (actually all my kids it john have been that way). She loves to have books read to her, and William is her book buddy. She trusts Margaret and Samuel most of the four, but knows William is a buddy she can go to. Now John, he's a little unpredictable and she has to be on her toes around him, though he does make her laugh. They all think she's wonderful. The other day Samuel said, "I just can't imagine life without Hazel!"

Hazel still nurses several times a day and half the night. She nurses more than she eats solids. I guess that's ok. She seems to be growing alright. I would like for her to start sleeping through the night sooner or later. She goes down in her bed, but wakes up in the night crying every night.
Tomorrow she'll be 16 months! It's hard to believe that William didn't start walking until he was that age! She's been walking since she was 11 months, my earliest walker.

Gonna have to cut this short. It's getting late and 5 am. will be here before I know it.

I was up before five this morning. This is my favorite time of the day and it thrills me to be up before everyone else. Yes, I'm odd. I've never required as much sleep, it seems, as a lot of folks. So I'm up with my coffee and oatmeal, sitting in the dark living room in a quiet house. I love it!

Ever since I had a breakdown (or whatever it was) last October and went through depression and such, I've sorely neglected school. Not that we've stopped doing school work altogether, but I've stopped doing any planning, stopped trying to come up with creative things for us to do, stopped keeping record of anything. We just do a math lesson and a grammar lesson every day and read. We read a lot. But lately I've started feel that my lack of planning and throwing myself into schooling has verged on sin. I've just become lazy towards homeschooling. I've take on the attitude that "I'm only doing this because there isn't another option", and so we just float along, no real goals, no organization, not much discipline.

So after feeling what I believe is the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I have turned a corner and we're (hopefully) headed in a better direction. Every morning this week after we drop Margaret and Samuel off to ride the bus, I've taken the boys out to walk the two and a quarter mile loop. It's been bitter,y cold with the super high winds, but after the first day, they didn't grumble. We've come home and done school work. We've collected wildflower specimens and identified them. We've listened to audio books (Swiss Family Robinson) and read aloud in 101 Dalmatians. We've listened to lots of Scripture reading, and continued memorizing James 1. We worked in our math books and our grammar books, and we even did Mad Libs as part of grammar, just for fun. We had a picnic in the back yard and cooked hot dogs in the chiminea. We made homemade bread, each of the boys making their own loaf from start to finish. So it's been a good week. I feel like I'm being a more responsible parent than I've been in months, and though the boys have enjoyed the laid back days and being able to get on the wii or computer every afternoon for a couple of hours, they seem so happy to have more structure to our days again.

I've been reading Explicit Gospel, which was a Christmas gift from Brian's sister and her husband. Amazing book! I also started reading Band of Brothers. I like to read while I'm on the elliptical at the Y and was able to get in a lot of reading yesterday.

I guess I never blogged about running the Austin marathon a week and a half ago. So glad to have that over with. It was the hardest thing I've struggled through. I was getting over being sick, had I injured my back the week of the race, AND I was dealing with a really bad bout of colitis. I felt miserable. I still can't believe I finished. It seemed like every mile I was just about to call Brian to pick me up. I cried a little when I crossed the finish line.

I went to the gastrointerologist last week and got on some meds which seem to be working. Praise The Lord! I should have gone to see him a long time ago, but I'm really bad about putting things like doctor's appointment off.

We are getting really close to putting the house on the market. Next week, maybe? I'm going to look at houses out in Steiner Ranch tomorrow with our realtor. We've boxed up all our extra stuff so that all we have out are the essentials, which will hopefully make the moving process a little less painful. It's great how roomy and clean the house feels!

Time to get my chicks off to school.

Marathon pics. Yes, I carried Hazel for the last quarter mile.

http://www.marathonfoto.com/Marathon/LIVESTRONG-Austin-Marathon-and-Half-Marathon-2013/LastName/Wells/RaceOID/26882013W1/Language/en/site/selectcustomer

I'm hobbling around this morning with an achy back. The last week and a half I've been packing and moving boxes. I don't realize how hard it is on my back until I try to get out of bed the next morning. So we're finally making progress on this move. It's hard to believe that we're finally doing it, finally selling our house. We've talked a out it for so long, but never could bring ourselves to cut ties to the city. We still havent found THE HOUSE, but we have zeroed in on an area and will most likely buy there.
In other news, Brian's fortieth birthday is Thursday. I am so grateful to Hod for blessing him with these forty years, and especially thankful that I've had the privilege of knowing him for half those years. He is a solid, faithful leader of his family. He is gentle and patient, and always sees the best in people. He never shirks his duty. He's generous to a fault (if that's possible), and always takes time for people. He's respected in is field and at church where he serves as a deacon. I feel so honored to be associated with him. I know him better than anyone else and know his faults and struggles, his areas of weakness, but still admire him more than anyone else I know.

I painted two rooms this week, the utility room and the main living/dining room. Still not finished with either, t nearly. Amazingly Hazel didn't get in any of the wet paint.

I've been having a hard time with my colitis lately. I had a bout with it for several months starting right after I had Hazel, then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. It flared up again in October and had been progressively getting worse. The constant bleeding and alternating constipation and diarrhea is really getting old and leaves me feeling both irritable and weary. Its especially been hard for me to push through my marathon training. I have a GI appointment in February right after I run the marathon. I would've liked to get in earlier, but that's the soonest he had an opening.

Last Saturday Brian took William and John to Corpus for an overnight cub scout outing. It was only maybe the third night Brian and I have spent apart in the nearly 16 years we've been married. We survived alright. Margaret had a soccer game. Mama and Brian's parents came to watch, then mama stayed the rest of the weekend with Samuel, Margaret, Hazel, and I. We went to lunch with Thomas and the kids. Meredith also came along. I hadn't spent any time with her since before Christmas. She's still doing her thing: having an affair, but she put on a good face and they all acted like family. Thomas' birthday was on the 23rd. Apparently he was pretty low that day. The whole thing just makes
me sick inside.

In one week four appliances were out: the dryer, the fridge, the oven, and my new blender. We replaced the washer-dryer set with a set from Craigslist for $200. The dryer is like as plain Jane as they come, a very basic Hot Point, but dries like a Cadillac. The washer is a new (less than a year old and still under warranty) Maytag and works great, too. We had the fridge repair man come on Friday and it's so nice to have cold foods after three days of soggy or warm foods. The oven part is on order and hopefully will be here this week. This is the third attempt to
Get the right part, so I've been without an oven for nearly a month. I'm really
missing baking things! Thankfully it didn't go out until after Christmas. Still waiting on my replacement blender to arrive in the mail. I'll be happy to have all my little servants up and running again! Was starting to feel like a opener woman for awhile there.

Margaret and Samuel are doing well at
O. Henry. They ride the bus across town and back most days. They look so grown up going off together. I'm so proud of them and how they've jumped into this new adventure with both feet.

Schooling William and John is going well most days. Today I'm just letting them play outside because mama needs a break. They're making good progress in their math and decent progress in their grammar. I plan to have them each repeat a grade anyways, so whatever they're learning this year is kind of bonus. They're youngish for third and fifth graders, both of their birthdays being at the end of the school year, and they're rather immature for their age (in a good way), so being held back once they integrate back into the classroom will be a positive thing. I hope.

Well, I guess that's all the news. Off to conquer the laundry!

Finally getting time for an update!

Margaret and Samuel survived and thrived their first two weeks of school. Margaret made the A team of the O. Henry soccer team and they won their first game. She's really enjoying the twice-a-week practices and the higher level of talent than what she has been familiar with at the YMCA. She is one of the smallest girls on the team, so she has to play twice as hard to stay in the game. And she does.

The kids have attempted to take the bus every morning, and that's provided all sorts of drama. They've been passed up by the bus, not picked up, got on the wrong bus, and have had one bus driver bring them to our doorstep because he didn't know where their bus stop was. We're hoping it will get better as time goes by. It sure is a help when I can send them off on the bus instead of driving them across town.

School has been going moderately well with the younger boys. John's apparent dyslexia concerns me more and more. I just don't know what to do to help him. I really want to keep him at home until middle school, of possible, but I may not be equipped to handle his needs. William is doing well. His behavior is much better with Samuel away at school during the day. He doesn't feel the need to compete for attention as much.

The ladies' Bible study started back up at Redeemer this past Thursday. We're studying Revelation and it's refreshing to hear it taught from a Preterist or partial Preterist view, though Dr. Campbell does present all views for the sake of comparison. Getting to fellowship with the other women has also been like a cup of cold water to my thirsty soul! I just soak it all up!

I've been trying to keep my running up since the Austin marathon is 4 weeks away. I did a 15 miler last Sunday afternoon and several short runs during the week. I really should try to run something in the neighborhood of 18 miles today or tomorrow. After that, I can probably cut back.

I cut most of my hairs off right after Christmas. Of course now I regret iota and notice that everyone else hashing, beautiful locks. I'm trying to make the best of it, and am still learning how to style it.

We went real estate hunting last Saturday, and I think, at long last we've found a suburban neighborhood that were happy with. We almost put an offer on a house in Steiner Ranch, but they wouldn't take a contingency offer. We're going to try to get our house on the market in the next could of months.

William and Samuel have been playing basketball at the Y since early December and that's provided a fun Friday night activity. John plays on Saturday mornings at the downtown Y. He and his cousin Tommy are on the same team. Crazy enough, John is the superstar player. He's never even been interested in sports before and now here he is making all the baskets for his team! I've enjoyed getting to spend some time with Thomas, both at the practices and the games. I don't know how things are going with him and Meredith. I just don't ask. I saw her once in December, but that was the first time since the summer, and have t seen her since.

I'm trying to find time to read, but that's been challenging. I've been poking my nose into several books lately: The Explicit Gospel, Sacred Marriage, The Prince and the Pauper, and a biography of Abner Cook, a local self taught architect of the nineteenth century.

I guess that's all the snippets of news I have now. Now it's off to the races!