Pumpkins, Baby!

I think this is the first year that we haven't gone to Dewberry Farms or Halter Farm pumpkin patch. There was just too much going on, and the pictures that I always dream of never seem to happen at the patch! :) We got some pumpkins at the grocery store, and we had the Hrobars over for a carving party. We all a had a great time hanging out and carving some amazing pumpkin designs!

Pictures From The Homeless Period

We had such a great time staying at Ryan's and the Hrobar's house, and although it was a difficult time in some ways, our friends made it so much better! Both places were so stress-free and fun. I feel so lucky that the last month went as well as it did. :)
Here are some pictures that capture the memories and the fun of what will forever be known as "The Henderson Homeless Period."

 We LOVED the park by Ryan's house!

 We went to a fall festival with the Hrobars one Saturday afternoon.

 Painting in Ryan's backyard!

 Cory took all 3 kids to school every morning, and they always played with that goofy bear. They named him, Pandy. Cory said every morning they were super silly the entire way to school!

 Trampoline fun, every single day!!!

 After Kacy's broken leg, she stayed off the trampoline and stuck to digging the hole to nowhere.

 Nightly bedtime stories were probably my favorite part. They would always argue about who got to lay is who's bed! Uh oh! 

A packed dinner table.

 The Armadillos on the way to school! That just makes my heart happy :)

New House!!!!

Yay! Everything went great with the closing on the new house last Friday. The Hrobars came over to an empty house on Friday night to run around and eat dinner. The kids had a great time running and yelling and running and yelling some more! They played tag, poison person tag, and wrestled in the empty playroom. We ate pizza on the floor and in camping chairs in the kitchen. When Mason was done, he said, "Um, may I be excused from the floor?" :) It was great to have everyone together that very first night because it made me look so forward to all the fun that we are going to have in this house! Although it was fun to have everyone hear, it was also crazy noisy. The kids were getting super crazy after dinner, so Dana took the boys home. The girls stayed with me and watched a show while Shane and Cory made another run with the trailer. Saturday was a long, long, long day! We woke up and started moving and unloading and unpacking. Luckily we had help from Carl in the morning and Shane for the majority of the day. Cory made 4 trips to storage, and he kept coming back with more and more stuff! Brooke took an amazingly long nap, and I unpacked the majority of the kitchen. I was so proud of the work that I had done, and then Cory came back with about 10 more kitchen boxes...so disheartening! It went really well, though, and the two indoor storage units were cleared by the end of the day. Dana and the boys came over in the late afternoon, and the kids played and went swimming. It was pretty chilly, but they had fun in the pool for about 30 minutes. Saturday was our first night to stay at our new house, and it went great! The girls slept great in their own rooms, and it felt just like home. Just like home with boxes and junk piled up everywhere! :) 

It's been 5 days, and things are moving pretty slowly. I was doing great until Tuesday, then I just kind of got bored with unpacking and organizing. It will all get done, and I already have the more important rooms done. The kitchen, master bathroom, upstairs bathroom, laundry room, and girls' rooms are unpacked and organized. There are piles and piles of boxes in the study, and the game room is an absolute mess; but the important places are at least unpacked. I am having a hard time because I want to decorate and do the fun things, but the hard things are still not done! I just can't believe how much stuff we have. I am still throwing things away because if I start to unpack them and I didn't really remember them or care about it, it's going in the trash! 

 Everyone was checking things out.

 The big sisters, ready for a chilly swim!

 Trying out the diving board!

One of our dinners among the boxes with the Hrobars! At least we had a table this time :)

 Brooke, the backwards scooter, got herself perfectly wedged between two boxes!

This was one of the boxes that Adilyn helped me label :)

I am so happy to finally be in a house of our own. The house that will be our home for the next however many years! I love that the girls are just as comfortable here as they are anywhere. I just can't wait to be all settled, decorated, and done!

Kindergarten 2nd First Day of School :)

Cory took Mason, Wyatt, and Adilyn to school that first morning. They were so super silly in the car, and they all seemed really excited! Wyatt and Mason showed Adilyn all around the school, and then Cory and her went to the front office to get her teacher assignment. All day long I would think about how she was doing, and I just hoped it was going well! I was nervous when I first picked her up because she seemed out of sorts when she got in the car. Picking her up as a car rider was a little stressful, and it was raining, so that made it more chaotic! When she got in the car she seemed sad or nervous. She wouldn't buckle her seat belt, and she started to freak out a little. I thought her day had gone terrible! Then she said, "This school is not like my old school Jowell Elementary, at all!" My heart sank...I asked why and she said, "They have different sight words and there is NO rest your head on the table time! It was a short amount of time, but it really made me not so tired! I was waiting for that rest all day long, but it never came." Sweet girl! After that confession, I tried to make her feel better, then I started asking her more questions. Finally she perked up and told me all about the fun times she had! Ahhhh....big sigh of relief!
Her teacher is Mrs. Reid, and Cory said that she was really young and tiny. Adilyn described her as fun, pretty with hair just like hers. :) She made a new friend named Bailey (who is a girl this time), she loved Mrs. Reid, and she liked everything about the day! Adilyn sat at table 6 with Bailey, and they seemed to be friends from the start! They played together at recess and they sat together at lunch. Day 2 was just as good, and she even had a friend give her a picture she had colored. So sweet! I am so happy for her to finally be settled in the school that she will be in and stay in. It feels so right for her to be here, and I am so grateful that all has worked out this way!

Adilyn's 1st Kindergarten Experience

I am going to try to sum up Adilyn's first 8 weeks of Kindergarten at Jowell. First of all, the school was much better than I ever would have imagined! Had I known that she would have had such a great experience, I would not have been so obsessed with moving. Not that I wanted her to grow up in that school forever, but a couple years would have been fine! First of all, her teacher, Mrs. Hanna was amazing. When we went to open house, she told us how great Adilyn was, how she was such a wonderful helper and a good student. After I told her that we were going to be moving, she genuinely seemed to be sad to see her go. She made her "Student of the Month" for September, and wrote her a very sweet note on her last day. Adilyn had a little friend named Bailey, who I always assumed was a girl. Turns out, Bailey was a boy. The reason I know that is because she came home one day and told me that he kissed her twice. Once on the cheek, and once on the mouth. Yikes! Her other favorite friend was Lucia, a sweet little girl who sat at her table. Adilyn was always amazed with her beautiful, grown-up earrings. She also liked to play with a little girl named Madeline at recess who was in a different class. I asked her how they always ended up playing together. She said, "Sometimes I find her, sometimes she finds me, and sometimes we just find each other!" They played princess and pretended that a climb on dinosaur was their castle. A couple other friends she talked about were Brandon (Bailey's brother), Naomi, Mia, and Joe. Adilyn had a job as the "water manager" one week, and she took it very serious! She had to stand at the water fountains and make sure that people didn't drink too much water. She also had to make sure that they were quiet in line. Another week, she was the girl line leader, and she seemed to like that okay, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the water manager. She liked art and music alright, but she never really sad much about PE other than she liked the exercise dancing. She would sometimes come home and show me the stretches and cool exercises that she learned like scissor jumps and short leg - long leg. She absolutely loves writing! She sat down and copied every word from one of her princess books just because she wanted to practice. Everyday on our 30 minute drive to school and 30 minute drive home she would practice writing her sight words and anything else she could think of writing. She wants to play school all the time to teach Kacy and I all the numbers and letters and sight words. I love that she loves to learn, and I hope that love for learning continues throughout her life! I am so happy that she enjoyed her first school experience, and I hope her new elementary is just as perfect for her!
A couple Kindergarten stories...
*One day, it was raining at dismissal. I thought I was supposed to pick her up as I car rider when it rained, so I was waiting in the car rider line. I was in the car line, and I got a call at 3:55 from the office saying that Adilyn was in the office because nobody picked her up. I rushed out of line, and got Brooke and Kacy out to go get her. Poor girl was sitting on the couch in the office looking so lost, so forgotten, so sad! It broke my heart! It took a good 45 minutes for her to recover from it! Another day, I got stuck in traffic, so I was going to be late. I called the office to tell them to tell Adilyn that I would be there soon. I was so worried that she was going to be so sad again. Luckily, I got there, and she was okay. I asked her if she was worried, she said, "No, I knew you were going to be there. The office worker told me." Sigh of relief...
*In her words, "Mom, you will never believe what happened today! Two people peed in their pants! Two, in the same day! It was a crazy day in Kindergarten!"
*"It was so sad today. Nobody was listening, so we didn't get center time or recess! Why can't they just listen?" Um, my thoughts exactly, daily!!!
*I sent some candy corns in her lunch one day, and she told me that Bailey asked her for a yellow one. She said that he could have the chocolate ones because she didn't like those. Then she said, "After I gave him the chocolate ones, I just ate all the yellows ones really fast." I asked her what he said. She said, "He didn't say anything, but he didn't look very happy!" (with a sneaky smile on her face)
*"Mom, Kacy could come to school with me because there are lots of kids her size there!"

Homeless Part 3 - The Final Stretch

We are three days from closing on the new house. Adilyn starts at her new school tomorrow, and I am so nervous for her. I think that I am way more nervous than she is! She seems to be really excited, and I think it helped that we saw Mason eating lunch there today when we went up to enroll her. I just hope that she finds a little friend to play with soon so that she will forget her favorite friends at Jowell. We are back with the Hrobars, and everyone seems right at home. Adilyn and Kacy went right to sleep in the playroom, Brooke doesn't care where she is, the dogs are back to barking at every little noise, and right now Cory and Shane are playing some crazy shooting video game...all is as it should be! I absolutely can't wait for this ridiculous journey to end this weekend. I am so thankful that it has gone as well as it has, but I am also thankful that it is going to be over!

Peg Leg

Kacy has had her cast off for 5 days now, and she is still walking like she has it on. I am getting a little concerned about it because the doctor said that she should be fine in a week or so. I keep trying to get her to focus on stepping down on her foot the right way, but the more she thinks about it, the worse it is. Oh well, her little muscle memory is all messed up. Hopefully it will straighten out soon! The worst part about it that her leg looks fine, so when she walks all crazy people just stare at her wondering what's wrong. Poor kid! I need to post a video of her walking around on it, so I can always remember all the craziness that we are going through right now :)