Family movie night

We re instituted our Friday night family movie night last night. We hadn't done it in awhile because we've been busy with some other things (like moving!). Anyway, last night we returned to the classics--Looney Tunes. We got to see Tweety outsmart Sylvester, Foghorn and Leghorn (one of Daddy's favorite) and the antics of Bugs Bunny. Fun was had by all...

Speaking of our backyard...

I thought you might enjoy seeing what our backyard looks like. It is really huge and we love it! Hopefully soon I will get pictures up of the inside of house. It will have to be room by room because there is no way it will all be clean at the same time. FYI, the previous owner had a dog and wanted to let the dog out in a smaller area. That is why there is a white fenced area near the house.

View from the house facing the left side of our backyard.
View from the house facing the right side of our backyard

View from the backyard towards the house

Our new log cabin!

The new addition to our backyard

Our backyard has been looking rather empty. We had to leave our swing set behind so up until yesterday our kids had to work with a few yard toys and their imaginations. Their imaginations have been working pretty well, but yesterday we got something to help them out a little. I built a house for them. I am quite proud of myself. We had some friends who gave us their old log cabin. The desperately wanted to play in it last night, but Daddy was still at work. And I had a hunch that Daddy wasn't going to be really excited about putting it together when he got home. So with the help of a handy rubber mallet and the muscles of my kids, we put the house together before he got home. And so while I may not be able to pick the locks of my kids' bedrooms, I can build a log house!

Check out the new pics of the kids

Just wanted to be sure you checked out the updated pics of the kids on the left. Special thanks to Alissa (Joe's sister) for the pics of Ashley and John. Should the teaching things ever not work out, I think she could go into photography!

First Day of School 2007

Sara--1st Grade
Ashley--Kindergarten

Our bank will definitely be taking care of us

I had to visit Walmart this morning. I don't frequent it too often because whenever I am there I stock up. Today was a normal Walmart experience--especially considering I'm still trying to get familiar with the store. I never did find the tortilla shells that we always use. So I go to check out. We are all in pretty good spirits considering what we've just done and so the boys got the promised sugar-free gum. They were excited and I was excited because there were several, actually a lot of check out lanes open. The friendly (yes, she really was friendly) gal sped through my items and I ran my debit card to pay the bill. It failed to authorize so I asked her if she wanted me to use my debit card again or try a credit card instead. Sometimes their debit doesn't work for whatever reason. She said to try again, which I did. It was at this point of rejection that she asked me if I was having problems with my credit. Obviously the friendly little gal doesn't know the difference between debit and credit cards. I promptly said "no--there is plenty of money backing this card up" It took my credit card and convinced that their machine was just messed up I left the store. It continued to nag me a bit and since we actually do have quite a bit of money in our checking right now (we just deposited the check from our house sale) I decided to stop by an ATM and double check the balance just for peace of mind. The ATM wouldn't even give me a balance and I think it probably would have kept my card had it not been one that you just slide it through. I got Joe on the phone and he was at the bank within five minutes deciphering the problem with the teller. I, meanwhile, am making the 20 minute trek back to our bank trying not to panic. By the time I arrived they had figured it out. The central bank office had suspected fraudulent activity on our account and shut it down. What triggered the suspicion you may wonder?? We bought gas out of state on Monday--Labor Day--a holiday--when people typically travel! They said it constituted unusual activity and they couldn't get us by phone so they put a hold on it. And so I feel very secure that if at anytime our account really does get stolen our central banking office will nip it in the bud!

The attack of the monkey bars

The monkey bars have been brutal to the Horn family this year. First they choose Sara as their victim. It only took her one day on the monkey bars the weekend after school had started to develop some very impressive blisters on both of her hands. She told me " I will never go on the monkey bars again." Then last week she broke her vow and decided that since they didn't hurt anymore they must be healed. Uhhh, no. From what I hear from Ashley "There was blood EVERYWHERE". It wasn't that bad, but they did look fairly nasty again. That same day Ashley took a fall and scraped up her hand. And then we had today--Ashley forgot or maybe remembering the nasty fall she took last week, she decided not to use her hands and she fell on her face. Yep, you read that right--her face. Her nose and chin took the brunt of the fall. No missing teeth, fortunately. Daddy declared at the supper table tonight "How about we stay off the monkey bars for the rest of the school year!!" And, for those of you who may be wondering, school pictures aren't until the 24th so we won't have to document the scraped up face for eternity.

A glimpse into my afternoon

Imagine trying to listen to your 1st grader tell you all about hurricanes, keep your 22 month old from climbing on his retro rocket to turn on and off the lights, trying to help your 3 1/2 year old put together a floor puzzle and trying to convince your kindergartener to finish her lunch all at the same time and you will get a glimpse as to what my house is like around 3:30 pm everyday. That's just during snack time. Then we attempt to do some homework while I attempt to fix some supper for us to eat. Today during homework time John managed to lock both he and Nathan's bedroom doors. Fortunately, for me no one was in the rooms at the time because I, their genius mother, could not figure out for the life of me how to get them back open. I tried both the paper clip and credit card method. My truly genius husband "just happened" to notice that there were screws on the outside of the door knob and just managed to take it off. "Why didn't I notice that?" I thought to myself. Gee, I don't know. Nathan was probably playing in the toilet or eating his kindergarten sister's lunch. Or maybe it was when I was trying to convince Sara that the vocabulary word she didn't know was "little" when it was really "like" (she gets "look" and "like" confused). At least she didn't have to write "little" 10 times before she convinced me I was wrong.

No side car for me thank you

Since we live closer to family we decided to take advantage of the holiday and visit some of them this weekend. We left after church on Sunday and came back this evening. We shamefully had not seen Joe's sister who normally lives in another country but is doing a brief stint here since Christmas. And she is pregnant!!! So exciting. We got to see the ultrasound video--very cool! Although John said on the way home that it looked like it should be scary. It wasn't scary he said--it just looked like it should be. As I thought about it, I guess it would be kind of scary if you didn't know what you were looking at. Anyway, I have extremely digressed, we left after church on Sunday and took the interstate the whole way to our relatives. You ALWAYS see interesting things on the interstate if you are on it long enough. I was not disappointed on Sunday. The first thing that caught my attention was a motorcyclist that was going at least 90mph and was helmetless. (like a helmet will help when you are going that fast) It was at this point that we discussed the craziness of that and what (in much too precise terms) exactly would happen if he hit a rock the wrong way. Not too long after that a motorcycle carrying two passengers with a side car passed us. The side car was carrying their belongings--not a person. This brought an even more interesting conversation. Now you have to understand (okay, wait, I have to share this--my husband just gave me his socks because my feet were cold. And they are nice and warm because they were on his feet. How sweet is that!) Okay, so one thing you have to understand about me is that since I left the big city of Dallas about 6 years ago I have somehow develop a fear of semis. I used to drive amongst them in my little Saturn every single day going 60mph bumper to bumper and they didn't bother me at all. Now if there is one a mile away and he looks like he might be going to move into my lane and "cut me off" I freak out. And so, as we watched this motorcycle with the side car drive by, I began thinking about what it might be like to ride in the side car on the interstate. People would think I was an absolute crazy person because if I was riding in the side car I would either a.) be totally ducked into the side car like a turtle screaming my head off or b.) standing in the side car waving my hands to make sure mister semi truck driver could see me and not hit me. I used to think it would be a really cool thing for Joe to own a motorcycle and I still kind of do, but if that were to ever happen we would definitely not ever be getting a side car for me to ride in....

Our celebration

WOW! I did not realize that it had been that long ago since I had posted. I can't even really remember everything that has happened since last Wednesday. But what I do remember is that our former house closed in Iowa on Friday! YEAH!!!!! We went out and celebrated on Friday night and bought a new dining room table for this house. I can't tell you how excited I am. We've been looking at this table for about 3 years. We will be able to have seating for 10! This is rather important when just your own family takes up 6 seats. They had to order the chairs so it will be a couple of weeks before we get it. Yes, then you will definitely get to see a picture of it!