Of Mice and Men.

We have one week left of January. And we are surviving! Some of our happenings:

A hiccup... includes the realization that there are mice, a mouse, who knows... taking residence in my van. Hopefully they have left camp. And the garage all together. We shall see. Gus Gus, please leave!!

I used to tell Greg I'd choose a mouse over a cockroach. We had that conversation a handful of times living in South Carolina. Now I have to say I still get more eeeegee beegeees out of a cockroach, but at least they can't chew stuff. I don't know if our mice are chewing my van wires, but they could and that makes me mad. Gross. Pests. That's what we get for living with no other houses on that side of our house. All proof that I would have never made it as a homesteader. Pioneer woman I am not.

The weather was in the 40's this week. In January in North Dakota, it's unheard of. And spectacular. It rained today. Super odd. On Friday, Annalee was so happy to get to walk from daycare front door to the van, in her socks. She was laughing happy. And then screaming mad when I tried to pick her up and put her in the van. The girl got a taste of outside walking in nice weather and she did not want to let go. I hear you, sweetie.

The kids:
Her new words this week: down (dn) and please (eees). She's been saying "all done" for awhile and that's super cute. She laughs more these days, it's adorable. Eli and her will play chase around the kitchen laughing and it makes my mother heart soar. Mother heart doesn't beat so happily in the morning, however. They have both been waking up earlier than ever. I'm still not a morning person and they could say the cutest things first thing in the day and I'm still going to grunt and wish the light was off and I was sleeping.

Annalee will make it through a few pages of a book now. Then she's off. She also climbs often, loves to stack anything and everything, she lights up when Daddy comes home (or most of the time she sees him) and happily exclaims "Da Da!", she has mixed reactions about Eli but she loves to talk about "E I", and she is a crazy picky eater already. Boo.

Eli is growing up and it hasn't been easy to see his sweetness marred by life and sin and growing pains. He often says "but it's so hard" about choosing good, or discipline, or putting on his shirt. We will fight laziness in him. He needs his quality time and his behavior usually perks up. If you want to get on Eli's good side, give him a snack. His favorite superhero is Batman because we have one book of him and pajamas with a cape. I love that he's never seen the movie and just thinks he exists in that one book. He's going to be four in three months. Whoa!

Us:
I usually don't post what Greg and I are doing so here you go:

Our washer and dryer are hanging out in our living room while our builder's handyman fixes our laundry room flooring. He's been here often fixing things (that should have been fixed before we moved in (but we were too ready to move and didn't want to wait!)). All that "finally this is being fixed" is motivating me to work on decorating around here. It was a good week getting some decisions made and projects started. Here's to finishing them!

Greg's guitar pedal is being finicky. He is playing guitar at church tomorrow and his pedal is going wacky. I think that he is figuring out a solution but that is his main project this Saturday night. I find it great that I know what a guitar pedal is. FTW!

Happy Saturday night, ya'll.

-Heather