The Tour

I thought, mostly for the purpose of looking back on this time in the farmhouse, that I should snap a few photos of our new living space.  The only problem is that the regular lens for my camera is broken, so I only have the use of a zoom lens - not ideal for snapping indoor photos!

So here we go.

From the garage you walk into a large mud room (where Axle still spends the night), then there's a laundry area and then the kitchen.

From the kitchen you can see straight through to the other side of the house.

After the kitchen is the living room.  My grandma always used it as the dining room and I'm still fumbling over what to call it.  It's usually something like, "Dine Living Room."  Not pictured to the left is the door to the upstairs.  From the living room you get to the two bedrooms we're using.

This picture is flat out awful, but it's the "master bedroom" which also has a big TV (we've never had a TV in a bedroom), a couch, and a piano (who doesn't need a piano in their bedroom?).  My grandma always used this room as the living room/front room.

The bedroom that the boys share has always been a bedroom.  My dad remembers when he was a kid that their entire 5 person family (my aunt Karen wasn't born yet) slept in this bedroom.  I failed to ask why that was necessary, but it's interesting to think about.

And that rounds out the spaces of our daily lives.  There is a large bedroom upstairs with toys and space to play.
It's starting to feel like home, like a temporary home.

Noah's Christmas Program

Noah's Christmas program at school was simply wonderful.  We finished up eating supper on the evening of the program with a mere 15 minutes to get ourselves ready to go.  Noah went into high gear and got himself dressed, shirt tucked in, belt on.  Then he went into the bathroom and combed down his hair, brushed his teeth and washed off his face.  He was ready.to.go!  

But, by the time his class had played for 45 minutes in their classroom (during the 5th grade band concert) his shirt was un-tucked, which was perfectly fine by me.

The kids did a great job.  Noah hadn't told me anything about it because he wanted me to be surprised.  I certainly was surprised by all the actions and wonderful singing.

Beautiful Day

So beautiful, in fact, that I didn't take a single picture to prove it.  Oops.

Actually, Levi spent the day fighting off a stomach bug...hopefully tomorrow he'll be back to normal.  Ben was away for the afternoon officiating some basketball games so he missed out on the warm and sunny part of the day.

While Levi slept, Noah and I had a great time working in the garage, playing basketball, burning old wood and cardboard that we found in the garage and playing fetch with Axle.  We were outside all afternoon, without our coats on.  It was wonderful.  It was also wonderful to get our garage organized.  The garage was the one remaining space that had stuff just sitting here and there and it was driving me absolutely crazy.  It was a dusty, pack rat poop filled time, but it was wonderful to get the garage swept out and all of our stuff in spots that make sense.

The weatherman's forecast calls for one more warm day and then a Winter Storm Watch for two days, so we'll enjoy this while we've got it!

Levi's Christmas Program

Levi was totally pumped about his Christmas program at Preschool!  On Thursday morning, he eagerly ate his breakfast totally.ready.to.go!

 But, when we saw him at school, he was looking a bit more somber.  The room full of moms, dads and grandparents had put a damper on Levi's excitement.

 But, if there's anything that'll get our preschooler excited it is most definitely rhythm instruments!

We did see him sing along to quite a few of the songs.  His biggest trouble was distraction.  He'd start watching another kid, or a toddler in the audience and forget all about the song he was supposed to be singing.

 We had a wonderful time watching our little guy do his best and afterwards he was eager to show us around his school and eat snacks.

 He's serious about wanting a saw...he keeps talking about it.  I'm not sure Santa will bring him a saw, maybe a hammer, but not a saw.

Adjustments

Soon I'll take some photos to show you the inside of our new digs.  I haven't been home during daylight to take nice pictures yet, but I'm hoping to soon.  It's a charming house and it's especially cheerful when the sun is shining through the windows.

 We've had some adjustments to make in the past 5 days.  While this is a big house, we're only truly living on the main floor - with play space upstairs.  But, for the most part we've been in the living room, our 2 bedrooms and the kitchen.  I'll explain the layout when there are photos to go along with it.  It's cozy, and I mean that in a positive way.  When the boys are playing a game of basketball or football and yelling and running while I'm trying to cook it may not feel like the best situation, but for the most part it's been cozy in the best way possible.

We've had to adjust to having a dog.  Axle, we found out from taking him to the vet for shots, weighs 98 pounds!  He's been doing very well with all the adjustments he's trying to make and thankfully continues to be a very kind and obedient dog.  I've never had a dog, but have found it pretty fascinating to get to know Mr. Axle (the running joke is, "Hold your tongue and say it...." Just try it. :-)).

We've had to adjust to Noah getting on the school bus at 6:55am.  He LOVES it and has been ready early every day so far.  He just walks over to my parents house and visits with them until my dad is ready to go.  It's sweet to watch him walk out the door and across the dark yard, so confident and carefree.

We've lucked out and the dishwasher hasn't leaked!  There was some fear that since it hadn't been used in more than a year that the seals would be brittle and leak.  But, after two uses it seems to be doing well.  Also in the kitchen, we've had to adjust to a gas range and oven.  I'm still getting used to the oven, but otherwise that's been a fun adventure.

We're getting used to having dairy within a stone's throw from our house.  There sure is a lot of commotion outside early every morning.  The boys have slept past 6am once out of the five nights we've been here.  I'm hoping that catches up with them and they decide to sleep a bit longer soon.  In Hesston, it often felt like I was the only person up and at 'em at 5:30 in the morning (when I'd go exercise).  But, now when I get up there's a tractor driving by and cows being milked and feed being ground.  The whole yard outside our house is buzzing with activity, while inside it's quiet and we're all sleeping.

I've had to adjust to doing my morning exercising at my parent's house - in my old bedroom.  Their elliptical machine resides in my old bedroom, so each morning I trek across the yard (which is WAY better then driving anywhere) for my daily workout.  Having one machine to chose from instead of 15+ at the Hesston Wellness Center is a pretty big change.  I'm sure I'll get totally bored with this option before winter is over, but I'm very thankful to have an option like it so close.

I've enjoyed not having a working TV in our house.  That should change tomorrow when the satellite dish guy comes out and hooks everything up.  We went several days with no TV and no internet.  That was OK with me too, there's something refreshing about not having those things available for a while.

We've had to adjust to the mud and muck of 2 days of light rain on the yard and roads.  I even bought myself a pair of mud boots - now I can go anywhere the boys can go around here when it's wet.

We've had to adjust to being CLOSER to daycare, church, and Ben's work and farther away from my work.  I certainly didn't get to work this week at the same time I got to work last week.  I'll make some adjustments for next week.

There are about 1,000 other adjustments we've had to make too, but many of them are the realities of moving.  It takes mental energy to remember where your clothes are, where the drinking glasses are, where....well, everything is.  But, Ben and I were just saying tonight how we feel content and at ease out here on the farm.

We Moved!

It sure is a lot of work to move from one house to another!  We managed to move a whopping 12 (or so) miles, from our house in Hesston out to my family's farm near Goessel.

Saturday was the big day.  I'd spent the past 2 weeks packing up boxes and moving them over to the farm house one carload at a time.  Anytime we were headed toward Goessel we'd drop off boxes just to help move things along.  I also took time to put our stuff away once a mountain of boxes had accumulated in the farm house.  Friday was our last day and night in Hesston.  Our entire kitchen was bare, our dressers were just skeletons since all the drawers were already at the farm, our basement was bare except for couches and the house was quiet because we had our cable, internet and phone turned off.

 So, when 8:30am rolled around on Saturday we hauled all of our furniture outside.

It all fit in the U-Haul and 2 pick-up trucks!

My mom took the boys to the farm for the morning so we could work without worrying about stepping on them.  Noah was genuinely mad that he didn't get to help us move and we felt bad about that.  We love a good helper, but it just wasn't safe to have them running around "helping".

After about 3 hours everything was loaded, and then we slowly drove the 12 (or so) miles out to the farm!  

This is the over 130 year old farm house we're currently living in!  My grandmother lived in this house just about her entire life.  Her grandfather, or my great-great grandfather built it around 1880.  Just last year my grandma moved from this house into Bethesda Home in Goessel.  

It's an honor to live in a house so rich in family history.  The memories are thick in this house.  I got all emotional at dinner on Saturday night when Ben, the boys and I sat down to eat.  I realized I had set the table in the exact same way my grandma did when I was little.  I was sitting where she always sat, Ben was where my grandpa sat, and the boys were in the spots my sister and I would have occupied.  It hit me as we sat there just how much has happened in that house - most of which I'm not even aware of.  It feels special to me and I feel honored to call this house home for a while.

We had a wonderful group of friends and family help us move on Saturday.  Different people from our Sunday School class helped us at different times of the day and before we knew it, beds were made and all the furniture was in place!  Some of the younger movers were helpful not only with putting stuff (books) away, but also at helping our own kids feel comfortable in their new space.

And Axle came out to the farm too on Saturday afternoon!  He's learning again what it is to be an outside dog and has shown us just how much he loves to fetch!  We've been slowly transitioning him to being an outside dog, so hopefully in the next week or so we can get that done.  Lucky for us, the farm house has a big mudroom that's closed off from the house that we can keep Axle in overnight.  So far, he's done great with the boys and seems to be getting along with most of the other farm animals.

We spent 4 years in Hesston and we'll miss our neighbors and some of the conveniences of town.  But, it certainly does feel good to be in the country again and only driving 5 minutes to get to church on Sunday morning was great compared to the 15 minutes we were used to!

Birthday Surprise

Today is my mother's birthday - happy birthday Mom - and on Sunday we managed to surprise her. :-)

She knew that her family was going to be at her house for lunch.  She knew that we would bring all the food and that all she needed to provide was butter and jelly.  She didn't know that some dear friends would also be showing up for the party.  Gene and Cindy Hastings and Bob and Nancy Becker made for a fantastic birthday surprise.

It didn't hurt that the food we catered in from Keith in Goessel was amazing.  It also didn't hurt that my sister made a fabulous cheesecake for dessert.

It's hard to believe that my mother is 60.  I don't feel like I'm almost 31, so naturally I don't feel like my mother should, or could possibly be, 60.  Oh well, I guess that's how life works.

And while my mom was not looking forward to her birthday, I think in the end she's found out it's not that bad.  Especially when food, family and friends magically show up at your house to surprise you.