Uh oh . . . updates March 31, 2008

Since I have been told that people have stopped going to Zac’s blog and come to mine instead to find out what is new in the Hensley household, I guess I am obliged to let everyone know what has been and will be going on here.

First, my blogging absence can be explained by a sick brood – including me. Thankfully we were healthy for our little vacation to Birmingham, but once we got home – BOOM – sickness all around. Our friend Mary attributes it to a changing of the seasons – I attribute it to Iowa. Prior to moving here I NEVER got sick – not even a runny nose (well maybe once in the last four years). Now I think this is the third of fourth time for me – and the girls – I’ve lost count. Since I am more of a baby than they are in sickness the wind has been taken out of my sails. I remember arriving home and being quite motivated to make a two month schedule before our big move. Well that is still in the works.

Besides being sick we have been enjoying the warmer weather. We have again discovered the great outdoors – or our little piece of grass behind our place. The girls absolutely love being outside – more than bath time, videos, reading books, etc. They just explore all the rocks, leaves and other outdoor things. I am anticipating our huge back yard at our new place in Alabama.

In up and coming news, Zac will be flying to B’ham. He will leave on Thursday, go to Tuscaloosa for a student orientation on Friday, and fly home on Saturday. It will be a whirlwind trip but he will get so see his beloved Mommy, and will get to go inside the law building, meet the students and staff, and hopefully get some rest – we keep him busy here. I am going to have to plan a fun day on Friday for us so we don’t get too lonely. Although I will miss my Zac I am glad for these challenging times that the LORD uses to keep me on my knees and in prayer – He is definitely working on me and my worrisome soul.

Our cup overfloweth March 21, 2008

Thanks to many people and our great and merciful God this week was wonderful. I won’t say much – let me just share in pictures some of what we have been up to this week.

First the fun stuff. Sophia demonstrates how to play in the ball pit. Of course it might be just a random kid because you can’t see her identifying feature – her pretty face. Just take my word for it – this is Sophia. When she hopped in here I had to take a picture because I have a picture of me as a little girl playing in one of these germ infested pits. Of course when I was a little girl these things were found in theme parks – but folks, this is America and we were at a well equipped car dealership.

Here is Zac stuck in the entrance to the ball pit.

And after a morning of playing in the car dealership play room, a test drive, and a few Care Bear videos we drove away in THIS . . . Sorry this is a night photo. I just took it tonight.

Here is a shot of the front.

It is a Kia Sedona 2006. It is wonderful. After driving around in a five seat, small trunk, tin can Saturn for the last four years (three of those with offspring to transport) it is great. There is room galore – and air bags galore. I think the 2006 has the highest safety rating of any minivan. And since we have already accepted the fact that we will never be cool, getting a minivan didn’t really hurt our ego. We love it. Next we need to put Sophia in soccer and I can be one step closer to being fully assimilated.

We did more than just shop though. We also had some good times. We got to tour Marga’s new townhouse/loft. We spent a good bit of time there after the tour and “broke” it in. There is also a nice patch of grass out in the back that we did some cloud gazing on.

Sophia said she saw some crocodiles and dragons. I dunno, what do you think!?

We also made time to go to the zoo. I always have mixed feelings about zoos. Usually when I am gazing at the animals I have day dreams about rescuing the animals and delivering them to the wild and wide open spaces. It was not as bad as a country I visited that was almost right on the equator and it’s zoo had a polar bear – but it still made me a little sad. The kids did enjoy seeing the animals though, which made me happy.

Here are some of the wild animals.

These two were so cute I decided to bring them home with me. The little one is kind of wily but I think we will keep her anyway.

Here are two of our three (four including the gestating baby – does that make sense?!) most gracious hosts. Rachel is the hungry looking one licking her chops. Leah is the mommy of the hungry looking one. Aren’t they purdy.

And lastly and very excitingly, here is our new home we spent three days looking for, driving to and fro – Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.

Isn’t it purdy? It has hardwood floors throughout, a new kitchen, large bedrooms (3 of them) and most importantly a large yard (front and back) for our little sweetpeas to run around and play in. I can’t wait! The provisions of the LORD are perfect. He is so kind to us and we are very thankful.

Don’t give up on me March 21, 2008

I will be posting some exciting happenings for the Hensley family here later tonight. Y’all come back now ya’ hear.

Random things March 14, 2008

We are leaving on our road trip to the south tomorrow and I am excited. It was really nice packing for 70+ degree weather – although I was somewhat unprepared as my summer clothes were all packed away. It is going to be a nice progression to go from a somewhat snowy landscape to the familiar and warm surroundings in Birmingham. Sophia is at an age where she actually understands what is going on too, and has been saying all day “I want to go to Birm-in-ham” and “Are we going to see people?”. Yes, sweety, there will be people there.

Anywho, I thought I would post some photos of some of the happenings here at the Hensley household.

Ellie is a burgeoning writer and lately she has been contemplating a novel. Check it out.

Hmmm . . . I think I will be the princess and Sophia will be the maid.

Oh, the ideas are coming faster than I can type!

Meanwhile our dear sweet Sophia, who is feeling better, has been acting kinda strange – asking me about a nest or some such thing. Check it out.

Well, that is all for now. If you are so led please say a prayer for us that we may have safe and happy travels this weekend. Our God is gracious and kind and has given us many miles of wonderful travel so far with our kiddos – pray that pattern continues.

Wow, I think this might turn into the update blog again March 12, 2008

Not much has been going on here lately, hence my absence from blogging. Sophia had the flu and is still not quite at her 100% best health. She is also really cooped up from being home so much so we are going to try to get out more. In fact, I think we will go south where it is warm and we can visit with some people we like. Sounds good. We will leave on Saturday to drive to Birmingham and come home five or six days later. Should be fun and give me lots of blog fodder. I will definitely take my camera.
On the sewing front, I have not got nearly as much done in these past four weeks as I would have liked, but God had other plans for my time – namely taking care of a sick child, trying to keep the other from getting sick – all the while trying to make sure our house doesn’t fall apart.

Children are a blessing, Part 2 March 8, 2008

One thing Zac and I do quite often after the kids go to bed is talk about how much of a blessing our children are. We talk about the little things they do and say that give us joy and make us smile. We do this a lot. Tonight these are the things we talked about. After we put Sophia to bed she was calling out for one of us, so I went to check on her. She told me she had an “owie” on her toe. I went to kiss her big toe and she was wearing her sparkly princess shoes! Then I told her that if she was feeling sick or had any owies to call for me and I would come and get her, she said in return “I’ll call you if you have any see-jure” (she has a fever again). We also talked about Ellie and how her personality is blooming more and more every day. Lately when we pick her up to hug her she squeezes us repeatedly until we squeeze her back. She also has been doing her little cave-man/baby “no-no” lectures to us lately where she points her finger, waves her arm around and reprimands us. I wish I had a picture – or better yet a video. We are wicked, and don’t do this enough with our God – but lately we have been doing this too. We are very thankful for the speedy decision Alabama made and give glory to God for that – that He would make it happen so quickly, and with a scholarship has exceeded our expectations. He is truly so kind and merciful to us. Sorry this post has been so random, but it is late. I just wanted to share some sweet moments from the Hensley household.

The hate of my life March 6, 2008

Roaches. I hate roaches more than any other thing on this earth (except for pedophiles, death, murder, starvation, etc). What I really mean to say is, of all the petty things in the world to hate, I hate roaches. If you have had a two minute conversation with me in the last four years, and that is the only conversation we have ever had, you would know this. Why am I writing a post on roaches if I hate them so much? Because we are moving back to the south, and I think roaches are Alabama’s state bird (not a bird, but they do fly) – and I will inevitably come face to ugly face with them again. Now if I were to try to see the silver lining I would say I am thankful they are not the five inch roaches I encountered while in Malaysia, but I’m not into silver linings when it comes to these ugly, disgusting, crunchy, dirty, gross, evil, skin-crawly, shiny, yucky, disgusting, disgusting roaches. It is hard to see a silver lining when I have had these things falling from the ceiling onto the couch beside me, crawling on my bare back, flying over my head in the kitchen, crawling up the wall in my newborn baby’s nursery in THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY! YUCK! In all of the excitement here the last few days I am just now starting to realize what awaits me when we return to sweet home Alabama.

Zac is going to the same school . . .*UPDATE* March 4, 2008

As Forrest Gump! What an accomplishment! I have had it planned for a few weeks that when we found out which school we would be going to we would make a video to let everyone know. Well, we should have made that video in advance because we didn’t have time to do it today. I was going to do the Kelly – from the office – singing “This day is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s, THIS DAY IS BANANAS, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, BANANAS”. Oh well, I will inevitably find a way to make a fool of myself – I always do. So, Zac got into THE UNIVERSITY ALABAMA! For those of you who don’t understand the significance of this school in Zac’s life and the life of our family, let me divulge.

* Zac has dreamed of going to Alabama for many many years.

* Zac was born an Alabama football fan.

* We chose the colors of our wedding invitation based on Alabama colors (Zac’s doing).

* Zac loves the movie Rudy (which I got him for valentine’s day) and talks about being a walk on for the football team – which is cool because they are going to win the national title with Nick Saban at the helm. As a side note, I didn’t realize how much of a fanatic Zac was of college football until AFTER I married him (despite the wedding invitations – call me dense, I’ve come to terms with being not “all there”) – somehow he got me involved in this debauchery. GO BAMA!

* Alabama (the school) is a top tier law school (out of four tiers, I believe, of all the schools in the country) and Zac is going to be at the top of his class!

* It is less than an hour away from our family and many of our dear friends.

* They have offered us in-state tuition, which will cut down considerably on debt, and his application is going before the scholarship committee this afternoon – so we may get a scholarship! HE GOT A FULL TUITION SCHOLARSHIP!
I am sure there are many more things I could share that I just don’t remember right now. I will leave you with a picture of the Stadium where Zac will make his debut as the next heisman award winner!

I wrote this but forgot to praise Him who made it all possible! His provision is perfect and abundant! I have been praying since before Zac took the LSAT that we would make it out of Law school without too much debt. I have had so much peace about this, which is not normal for me – who Marga calls a “Jewish mother” – apparently they worry a lot. God is so kind to us!

Fun in the sun March 3, 2008

Okay there wasn’t really any sun, but one can wish. Yesterday it was 60+ degrees outside! We finally got to go outside – and you can imagine with all of our snow mountains and other piles of snow there were a lot of puddles. I was unprepared though, so me and the girls had to do all of our puddle jumping in our winter boots – pants tucked in and all. Without futher adieu here is some photo evidence of our fun.

First things first, don’t you just love this ensemble. I pride myself on clothing and accessory coordination.

I love how the photo snapped at just the right moment (not a common occurrence with our point and shoot) – as Sophia was landing in the water.

Notice Zac being all tender with the puddle on his tippy toes. Joking – just another one of those “at the right moment” shots (or if you ask him the wrong moment).

Me, I’m not so tender. I am exacting my revenge on this puddle for all the boot-flooding that other puddles did to me as a young girl in Saskatchewan. Just a side note about my boots. I was at the Dr. and he said you know why they call those Uggs? I said “because they are ugly?” And in case you are wondering they aren’t really Uggs, they are Skechers and a half a size too big – I got them for $10 at the thrift store.

Here is the mother of all puddles. Well, not really, but it is pretty substantial and jump-worthy, dontcha’ think?!

Ellie running headlong into the mother of all puddles.

Sweet Sophia throwing snowballs into these wild rapids near our house.

Today made me realize that I really do love winter – especially on warm days like these when I get to watch it all melt away.

One more money saving post March 2, 2008

And then I’ll shut up. I wasn’t going to share this because there are blogs designated precisely to saving money and getting things on sale. For real. I couldn’t resist though. So here is a bunch of loot that I came home with for, get this, $1.59 out of pocket.

So by now you think I have deep pockets and a tricky sneaky hand. No, no, no – get those thoughts out of your head – I didn’t steal anything. Like all the other fools at CVS I went through the checkout line, the checkout clerk scanned all my stuff AND all my coupons and extracare bucks. Extracare bucks are simply cash value ‘coupons’ that you can only use, as cash, at CVS. So I went in with $10 extracare bucks. I did two transactions: my first was the razor for $9.99, and three tubes of toothpaste for $2.99 each, and two bottles of dishwashing detergent for $0.97 each for a grand total of $20.90. I had a coupon for $4 off the razor, two $1 off coupons for the toothpaste, a $5 off of a $15 dollar purchase, and $10 in extracare bucks. I had to add on a pencil to bring my total high enough! I paid $0.52 for that transaction. I earned $6 extracare bucks from the razor, and $8.97 extracare bucks for the toothpaste for a total of $14.97 to use on my next transaction. My second transaction was two tubes of toothpaste for $2.99 each, two oral-b pulsar toothbrushes for $4.99 each, two oral-b cross action toothbrushes for $4.29 each, three pencils for $0.50, and a pack of gum for $1.19 for a grand total of $26.63. I used a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for the pulsar coupon which took off $5.99 instead of the $4.99 I paid, but I’m not arguin’, a $5 off $15 purchase CVS coupon, and my $14.97 in extracare bucks for a grand out of pocket total of $1.07! And, I earned $14.96 in extracare bucks for my next trip to CVS!

By now your head is spinning and mine is too but with a recession settling in (don’t believe they presidential hype that says otherwise) it’s worth the extra time it takes to figure out these deals to stock up for who knows what lies ahead in our ‘war-time economy’.

If you are interested in learning about how to be coupon savvy (I promise you spend less time on it with practice) go to these websites:

www.moneysavingmom.com (she has a tutorial on how to start saving at CVS)
www.couponmom.com (she basically does something similar to grocery game but it’s free!)
www.afullcup.com (this site has a bunch of forums that help figure out savings at drug and grocery stores)
www.imommies.com (this site updates sometimes several times a day with great money saving links and tips)

So if you can spare a few minutes go check it out, get acquainted and be awesome like me. *jk*

Oh, and grandma’s don’t hate me – there is a pic heavy post coming tomorrow of some fun we had outside today.