Lavender Blue Days

ok, so didn't sell that house, but we rented it out. Seems like a good situation. Whew.

Hey, every morning I have to draw something on the girls' toast in syrup, and Lucy requires me to take a picture of her breakfast. I have a bunch of pictures of toast. If I can figure out how to get them off my phone, maybe you can all see Lucy's breakfast. Betcha can't wait!

Shawn

We are putting our Rockford house up for sale on Monday. We're doing for sale by owner for a few weeks before we get a realtor, so I thought I would post it here and maybe on facebook. So--spread the word! If anyone is looking for a cheapish house in Rockford, I've got just the thing!

Here are the details:

2321 18th Ave.
Rockford, IL 61104

Updated two story home in quiet neighborhood with mature trees. Remodeled kitchen with maple cabinets, newer appliances, and walk-in pantry. 3 bedrooms (one is a walk through), 2 full baths, first floor office, deep closets for storage, second floor sun room, 2 car detached garage.

Roof, water heater replaced in 2002
High efficiency furnace and central air installed in 2003
First floor laundry hook ups, water softener, and several new windows in 2007

I still need to measure all of the rooms (I will post the measurements on Saturday), but it is approx. 1300 sq. ft.

Taxes were approx. $1700, I'll have to look that up to be sure.

We're asking $87,000

Call Shawn Stonesifer 815.978.5035 for questions or to schedule a showing.

Kendra mentioned that she loves to hear Lucy stories, So I thought I would tell today's Lucy story. (Well, one of them, anyway.)

I really don't know anything about furnaces, but apparently ours has an on/off switch right on it. Lucy found this out when she was helping Shawn change the furnace filter a few days ago. I guess you can probably tell where this is going...

Sometime after supper last night, Lucy turned the furnace off! And we didn't realize it. Thankfully our house is sort of well insulated, but it was a chilly 50 degrees when we woke up this morning!

She's really impulsive and always does whatever crazy thing comes into her head.

Oh! So--I started going to this Women's Bible Study thing at Bethel on Wednesday mornings, and I was really nervous the first day. I guess I just didn't know what it would be like--I'm always nervous when I'm trying something new with the kids. Well anyway--we got there and all the other kids were running around and playing and riding on these riding toys so Lucy and Ruby joined them and started playing right away, which was great.

They serve us lunch, and someone said, "Okay! Time for lunch! We're going to pray!" So here's where I sort of hold my breath and think, "Oh, man. Here we go." Because it is soo hard for Lucy to leave a loud boisterous activity to do a quiet sitting down activity. She usually throws a fit. I usually just know it's coming and do whatever I can to calmly help her do what I asked her to do even though she's freaking out about it. But I'm new here, and I really wanted to make a good impression, I guess. That sounds silly when I type it out. But you know how moms are. They (we) sort of make a quick judgment of parenting styles/abilities. It's hard not to. We had just gotten there and already I knew I was in for a tantrum.

So I went over to Lucy and sort of bent down to talk to her and get her attention and I told her it was time to pray and she needed to come sit down with me. She immediately left her riding toy and said, "Okay, Mommy!"

I was shocked. And to top it off--when we got to the table, another little girl asked Lucy to go play with her. Lucy very loudly said, "No, I can't come play now. My mommy told me it was time to come sit down. And when my mommy tells me to do something, I obey!"

I almost fell over.

She sure keeps things interesting.

--val

totally stunned at how pleased I am with the location of the new place. 10 seconds from taco bell, the bank, shopko, groceries, burgers, movie theater, great grandmas house, ice cream store, bowling, and I just rented a video from a grocery store vending machine, which was pretty rad. All of this and my back yard is still a cornfield.

I recognize that this should not seem exciting, but when you have a bunch of little kids, you do more activities if there's less of a barrier. Friends come over for no particular reason, Arthurs Deli and church are 2 minute drives. I'm a total hillbilly for being happy about Dixon.

Shawn

I know it's been so long since I blogged! I finally found my camera battery charger, so here are some pictures of Ruby from a couple weeks ago. She's so funny.

So things in the new house/new town have been going pretty well. It's been really fun to have some space to spread out, and it has been amazing to get to see buddies so often. Actually yesterday could've been such a horrible day with the weather keeping us inside for most of the week, but we had a too-cold-to-work-or-go-to-school spur of the moment buddy day and it was wonderful. Shawn, Jon and Chris even got 2 rooms of wallpaper taken down, and Lucy and Grace got along together so wonderfully.

I'll try to update the blog more often now that the camera battery is fully charged!

I have at least 2 kids that should probably be wearing helmets all the time. But probably not as much as Christopher.

Shawn

but it seems like it's hard to teach Lucy anything, because she has a natural distaste for being taught

Shawn