Just a few weeks have gone by and yet it feels like years. We've been busy.
One thing that is awesome about Gateway is the food room. We do shopping on a large scale but the most exciting thing is the donations. We get food bank donations which yield all sorts of fun and random things, but we also get Panera donations. All the wonderful and odd breads you can imagine, relatively fresh and free. :)
I brought back these lovely loaves one day.
odd little child :)
We went back to Illinois mid-January to close on our house. It is so nice to have that piece closed and done. We had a day or so to relax at the farm too. Which is always nice.
Milk shakes!
Aurelia wants to be a part of the doll house
We took the kids to our old house one last time. They had fun playing in the empty house. Aurelia recognized the house but didn't seem effected. Gideon had fun, but later I could tell he knew we wouldn't be going back. He was pretty sad the next week.
watching the guys load up the last few things
We saw a train!
We can hear trains here in Grabill but we can't see them. It's very frustrating to the kids. They were so happy to see the train go by. :)
Goodbye...
Since we were in Illinois, the family had to gather. Great times. :)
party in the basement :)
looking at a book with Grandma
Poor Gideon. It finally hit him that we are far away from Grandma and Grandpa and the farm. He was a rotten little mess the week after we got back. He doesn't know how to grieve. I'm not sure anyone really learns how, I guess, but at least we can verbalize why we are sad, or confused, or angry.
Gideon was throwing a fit. Aurelia wanted him to be happy.
a small happy moment having a picnic in the bunk bed
One relatively nice day, we went outside on a short walk. We were joined by the Schambach kids and their grandpa.
:)
We went on duty again, January 24th.
bedtime at Pine House for Gideon.
One odd thing about being the primary photographer, blogger, mom etc. Is I very rarely have pictures taken of myself or post them. And, I usually don't like the way I look anyway. But, Nathan took this picture in the middle of a really hard week with Gideon. His behavior was awful and I was stressed and angry with him. Maybe that's why I like this picture. He'll always be my buddy.
then there is this girl....
just killing me daily with her orneriness
Trying on a residents ($100???) babies *cough* shoes
They are the best of friends and the worst of friends.
Big girl!
It squirts like a squirt gun... which this kid thinks is cool
Aurelia wanted to mop too!
waiting for Chelsea, Dolly the puppy, and a favorite resident to come back
Aurelia loves Chelsea
And then just like that, we were off duty again. Back in our Grabill house.
these two.
When we were at our old house, I grabbed the leftover paint from our old front door. The front door at our Grabill house was interesting, to say the least. The inside was a faded dirty yellow, the outside an orangey-pink. I'm not sure which color was first or which faded to what, but it was ugly.
before
before
now to do something about the awful brown door.
We had an unseasonably warm day one Sunday afternoon. So, we took a walk to the park. The park has a play train! The kids loved it and even little miss Aurelia threw a fit when we had to leave.
so much fun
And then I tackled the next project... the fire place. This house was obviously built in the 70s with its paneling (now painted), strange light fixtures still in some room, and the heavy dark fire place. I saw a before and after on Pinterest and decided to go with it. So, after a trip to Menards for a can of paint, I white washed it.
before (at Christmas)
After :)
There was a moment halfway through of absolute panic. I couldn't see how it was going to turn out at all. But, thankfully, I think it was a success! The whole room looks brighter and cleaner. (I'm not sure anyone ever took the time to clean the stone).
Children are crazy... Aurelia put a potty seat on her head...
help us all
I made muffins one evening with plenty of help...
Sigh and then the night before we went back on duty, Gideon puked.
Aurelia didn't understand why Gideon didn't want to play with her
And then he got a fever that turned in to coughing. He cheered up enough one day that we were able to go play in the snow.
:)
Little missy found lots of ornery things to do around Pine House.
kleenexes!
Despite Gideon being sick, our days on went well. We successfully snuck some gaudy underwear into the laundry of a resident. They each have laundry days and they are supposed to have all of their launry done and out of the laundry room by the end of the day. This particular resident forgets EVERY time. So, we had a bit of fun. Unfortunately my chortling when the underwear was discovered broke our cover and we can't use that trick again.
And then Aurelia got sick too
Poor missy was miserable and I was worried. We took her to the doctor and discovered she has Influenza B. Which explains Gideon's misery and that what I thought was an awful cold, is probably the flu. lovely.
:(
We've been more rigorous about medicine and she's been perking up. I think we will make it through, but sick kids are awful and we've had more than our fair share this winter.
Since they were both too sick to bundle up and take outside, I decided to bring the snow in to them.
They loved it!
Surprisingly, it was relatively mess free and kept them occupied for a long time. :)
snow man!
Pine House got 2 new residents in the past week, which has made everything far more busy. We are enjoying a few slower days off and on "maintenance".
I'm looking forward to spring more than ever these days.
In Christ
~Michelle.
