Labor Day Weekend

After a somewhat stressful week of moving into our temporary home and all the other little meetings that make life seem so crazy, we were ready for a mini vacation. Thanks to Andrew's work, we were able to get tickets to the Round Rock Express game (our minor league baseball team) on Saturday evening. It started raining right as we got there, so we didn't get to jump in the bouncy house, but we still had a great time!

We ate cotton candy...
And said hello to Spike - the Express mascot.
This was the first time Lincoln was brave enough to get close to him - he gave him a big hug and both he and Peter gave him high fives (Peter had no fear at all, just a huge grin on his face!)

Then on Monday, we decided to take the kids down to San Antonio to see the temple. We got lucky in that they were watering the plants when we arrived, so they let us walk around the grounds for awhile - otherwise the gates would have been locked and we would have had to make do with the a viewing from afar.

After our visit to the temple, we went by Chick-Fil-A for a free lunch (for wearing our sports logo shirts) and made a few scenic stops on the way back to Austin. In fact, by the time we got back to Austin, it was time for dinner so we stopped at Chick-Fil-A again for another free meal! You've gotta love that place!

All in all, a fun, refreshing weekend that left us ready for another busy week!

One Week In

Work started on our foundation last Monday and they seem to be making pretty good progress. At any rate, we have several holes in our floors and around the perimeter of the house and most of them are pretty deep. You can see how we had to take up some of the wood floors to accomodate the holes. The nice thing about real wood floors is that if you're careful when you take up the slats, you can put them back down again. We also have a couple of cartons of the flooring in the attic that we can use to fill in the gaps and then we'll just have them refinished. Luckily, we were able to avoid tearing in to the floors in the front room, so we just have to deal with the family room when they're done.

Meanwhile, we're subletting a furnished apartment about five minutes from our house (which is nice because not only did we not have to move any furniture, but it also allows us to make a run every night to do laundry and collect the mail - as well as pick up whatever we realize we've forgotten or decide we can't live without). It's a bit kitschy and much smaller than we're used to, but it does have a beautiful big screen TV and the kids think it's a great adventure!

I have discovered, however, that when you actually live in someone else's place, you find that your standards of cleanliness are much higher than you give yourself credit for at home. For example, I like my walls and appliances to be free of food splatter - something not so important to the person we're leasing from. She also apparently had some sort of small long-haired animal that I'm very allergic to - at least while I'm pregnant - so I've been vacuuming several times a day to try to get up all the hair, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good.

While it's been great to have a place so close to our home and Leah's school, I'm sincerely hoping that we'll only be here three more weeks. Here's praying that the work on the house goes quickly!

My Salvation

Now that I've reached the second nausea/headache phase of this pregnancy (what kind of a sick joke is that!) Sonic's happy hour has become my salvation. Just knowing I can get a large Dr. Pepper with lime to settle my stomach and ease my aching head for only 80 cents makes all the difference in the world!

And since I have 4-6 weeks left before meeting our newest little one, I'm going to give you all a chance to vote on the gender of Thorley #4. You have a 50/50 chance ;) And for those who are interested, we seem to be getting girl vibes around our house, but that may just be Leah imposing her wishful thinking on us all - I have yet to have a dream like I did with Leah and Peter (both of which were right by the way) but I'll let you know if we get that kind of preview with this one...

Brave? or just Crazy???

Apparently we don't have enough going on in our lives right now what with Leah starting school and a new baby due in just a few weeks... so to keep things interesting, we also decided to go ahead with a long planned foundation repair! Our plan was actually to have it done this summer, but so many things had to fall into place for it to happen - and the stars didn't align until now.

Here's a view of our bathroom wall as affected by all the shifting - and one of the holes they're digging to fix everything!

Unfortunately, this also means that we'll be temporarily displaced from our home while the workers dig 12 ft holes in our floors and all around our house. We've spent the last week moving our furniture around, preparing to cut up our hardwood floors, and searching for a place to live for a month. As if that weren't enough, we also discovered a plumbing leak in our garage (luckily it was in the exterior wall, but we do have indoor/outdoor carpeting in there), my kids managed to overflow the toilet all down the hall, and we finally got the rain we've been praying for all summer - which of course delayed the work being done.

On the bright side, once they fix the foundation, we'll be able to start on all the other projects we've been putting off because of it - such as refinishing our wood floors and replacing some of the carpet and maybe even putting in new windows! We do love our house and hope to stay here for a long time, so hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll be back in before the baby makes an appearance!

School Days

I know I'm a little slow with this post, but we have had a bit of a crazy week - which I'll elaborate on in my next post. However, I did want to let everyone know that Leah finished her first week of Kindergarten with much sass and aplomb!
Here she is on the first day of school with her new backpack and her baseball lunchbox (her dad was so proud!). The first day, I walked her to her classroom so I could help her carry all the school supplies, but when I went to say goodbye after putting everything away, she gave me a look that was obviously confused as to why I was still there.

Everyone has asked me if I got emotional sending my firstborn off to school - and, honestly, I really didn't. Not that it doesn't make me wonder where the time has gone and realize just how fast she's growing up... but, quite frankly, the girl was wearing me out! She's way too smart for me to be able to keep her engaged all day with two other little ones clamoring for attention as well, so I'm happy to turn over a few hours of the day to the wonderful Ms. Arispe.

And by the second day of school, I was informed that she didn't need me to walk her into school because she could do it herself! So off she went, waving goodbye without a second look. Luckily, her room is just inside the school doors so I can pretty much see her all the way to her desk.

By the end of the week, however, she was complaining that the day was too long to spend at school, so I guess she's a normal child after all. She also asked to bring her blanket to school for "head rest time". Somehow I didn't think that would be such a good idea so I made her a few "pocket blankets" that she could take to school in her backpack.

The boys have handled her being gone very well - probably because now they don't have to worry about her taking things away from them or telling them what to do. It still remains to be seen if Lincoln will take over the King of the House role or not.