Yeah! A New House!

It finally happened! We moved into our new house last weekend! I would have blogged sooner, but I've been a little busy trying to unpack and get kinda organized. Oh yeah, did I mention that we have had to clean every inch of the house before unpacking? The previous owners didn't clean ANYTHING and they had a dog, a black one, that lived in the house. At first glance, we thought that the carpet everywhere was just stained, but no. DOG HAIR EVERYWHERE!! Even in the fridge! Thanks B for cleaning that for me. But we still like it and are grateful for the space.
We didn't end up selling the townhome though. Our buyers' loan officer/brother was lying to us and dragging things out trying to figure out a way to get his sister to be able to buy the house. Their loan we denied since the middle of September. But we were able to find an older gentleman to rent the townhome right away so we could still purchase our new house!
But that is all I can write right now b/c I have to work on my talk for tomorrow.

Moving? Update

So I don't remember if I mentioned that our buyers were wanting to close quickly and get into our house, as soon as possible. We took care of everything on our end quickly and were ready and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...and still waiting. Our initial closing deadline was last Wednesday. We closed, but they couldn't yet so we gave them an extension until Oct.2. They didn't know until the 25th that their loan wasn't ready b/c of the appraisal. Apparently the appraisers were dumb, because even though we gave them the addresses of the 3 other townhomes of our same size and neighborhood, that all had gone under contract in2-3 weeks and sold this summer, they were only able to come up with one comparable sale. That comp is 3 miles away, and comps need to be within a mile of the house being appraised (and to have sold in the last 6 months). So the appraisal had to be reviewed.
So this is the 3rd weekend where we've been hoping that we will be moving in a few days. Please keep us in your prayers.

"Back to School" ALREADY!?!

No, I'm not all ready. Since I moved classrooms (don't worry I'm still in the 6th grade) I was planning to definitely go into school a couple days early and start setting up my room, but that didn't happen. We've been experiencing a lovely chain of events all started with this...

This is the house that we happened upon in our casual searching for a new house, that turned our casualty turn to great urgency. It is a lot bigger than it looks just from the front. It is about 1600 sq ft all newly remodeled on almost a 1/4 of an acre for less than 200K! Just an empty lot of of that size is selling for 180K. So we had to jump at the opportunity. (For those of you familiar with the area, it is near Lion's Park at the bottom of Grandview Hill.) We signed a contract on the 9th (contingent upon the sale of the townhome of course) and then rushed to get most of our stuff, especially all our clutter, out of the house and into a storage unit. So as I've been preparing for school the past couple of days, I've also had to pay attention to people who are calling about the house. Wish us luck!
One week later...
Well, the first 4 days of school have been alright. With the switching of classrooms, I'm still not completely organized and there are somethings that I can't find. We also are using a new math book so I don't just know what is in it and in what order. We also have changed our rotations of SocSt, Sci, and Health so I've had to adjust my lessons to fit the new schedule. And for some strange reason, nobody at school can print except for the principal. So things that I really need to print, I've had to put the document on a jump drive and take it to the principal's computer to print. Not very convenient, but better than nothing. My class is pretty good, I just wish I had more time for replanning things. I have a few students who are siblings of past students, and that can be fun.
Yesterday we had a couple come see our house, and they really liked it. And at this exact moment we are waiting for their offer to get to our email account!
Sometime later...
Offer looks good!! We are signing!!! YEAH!! Pray that everything goes through with both houses!!

INFO NOT INTERESTING TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT MY SIBLINGS

CHRISTMAS LISTS
Before I send out the lists, I want some clearification.
Things we want to avoid?
giving to spouses
kids giving to one of their siblings
Right?
What about this situation with the kids list?
If I just rotate the list from last year, the families with many kids will be giving to almost the same cousins as last year with one cousin different. They will just be paired up differently.
Is this ok, or should I draw names and mix it up?

I did just rotate the siblings and spouses list and we don't have any spouse pairs, but I don't know if there are any repeated pairs from previous years. So please check for that when I send the list, of course only if that is another thing we want to try and avoid.

Thanks!
Remember the sooner you respond, the sooner I can finalize the lists and get them out. I would like to send them on Friday.

You should have also received this as an email, but thought I might catch some of you sooner here. Respond by either method.

Love you guys!

Happy Birthday Nagol!!

Ok, so it has been 3 weeks since the party, but here is the report.









Lots of family and friends and fun! I didn't get any pictures of the dinosaur egg hunt or the squirt gun fights or the unwrapping of the presents because I'm still not so used to remembering to take pictures of all the cute and fun stuff, or even to delegate it to someone else while I'm bossing everything else. Anyways it was all really fun! I was a little worried at first about planning it, b/c I don't remember very many little kid birthday parties, besides what B has done for her kids, specifically Buddy's from just a few weeks earlier. I didn't want to just copy, so I was really excited when I thought of the Dinosaur Egg Hunt because Nagol loved hunting for eggs at Easter time, and what kid doesn't like finding candy (in an egg or not) and getting to keep it!! Since it was a hot day, the squirt guns were very refreshing. (Thanks to those of you whom I bossed or just volunteered and helped out!!!)
Since the party Nagol has loved the squirt guns and using them to not just chase down and squirt Mom and Dad, but to squirt bugs and cars, and occasionally use them to pretend that it is raining.


And Grandma and Grandpa Hanky, Nagol appreciated the birthday card and especially the stickers! These pictures are actually from his second time playing with the stickers. The first time he had most of them along his arm from his wrist all the way under his sleeve to his shoulder.





One more thing along the line of stickers. Nagol has recently been calling the mountains dinosaurs and saying stuff like, "Look, that dinosaurs is poky!" The other day while driving up from Spanish Fork on the interstate and passing Y mountain, Semaj and I hear from the back seat, "That dinosaur has a sticker on it!"

Funny Events

Event 1:
One day when Nagol and I were heading up the stairs, Nagol decided to lay out across the 2nd step. The other thing was that he was also carrying a large toy helicopter. He wiggled around on the step for a bit and then turned and said, "I can't roll up the stairs!" I laughed and replied, "No, that way doesn't really work." He wiggled around a bit more and then said, "No, that way doesn't really work." We then proceeded to walk up the stairs to find Daddy.

Event 2:
My classroom is right next to the 4th and 6th grade bathrooms while the teachers' bathroom is halfway down the hallway (which is the whole length of the school). So I regularly use the student bathroom. Well one day after the kids left, I went into one of the stalls and found some very interesting graffitti. I was very surprised and shocked so I just stood there not really knowing what I should do. I even took a closer look to see if what it said was accurate, or if it had originally said something else, but it hadn't. So I ran and got a camera so I could share.



Now I'm sure all of you know what bathroom stall graffitti is usually like. And if a teacher is mentioned in it, it wouldn't be a positive thing being said. But obviously some student, was in a pleasant mood.
Another teacher also saw it so when I went into her room, she said, "Guess what, Mrs. Pruett rocks!"

Random Pictures

So here are a few pictures that I've been meaning to post for awhile. Nagol had the flu on Thanksgiving. While everyone else sat waiting at the table, Uncle Do was eating ALL the meat!






One weekend, Semaj and I babysat some nephews and niece. No, I did NOT hypnotize them...it was the movie and popcorn. I promise!




Here is our potty training potty that is about as old as Semaj. We've had it out for a few months to encourage a certain little one to get interested. This hasn't yet happened.

This is one of our household items that has become a toy.

It is a cow hotpad(glove) if you couldn't tell.
One weekend the cow was very hungry and ate a large number of matchbox cars.






I discovered later that apparently the cow made his deposits in the proper place.


This was one of our favorite wrappings of one of Nagol's Christmas presents. Can you guess what it is? Nagol didn't know right away either. We started unwrapping and gave him a peek. Nagol then knew what he was after and then proceeded to instruct that we had to get the paper off of the legs.

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These are at the Manti Temple after a couple of friends got married.





And this picture is just cute. During football season, Nagol cheered along with us saying, "B Y U! B Y U!..." and, "Go Cougars!"


Nagol was with us for Conference and was really funny when while playing with his toys as we watched he would randomly repeat what the speaker had just said. He'll also be with us for Easter, and I'm excited to take him to a community Easter Egg Hunt on Sat morning.

We Sold the Mobile Home!!!

I forgot to mention that we sold the mobile home!! It really is amazing to see how the Lord's timing is what is best. We had one guy who was really interested in getting it, but with gathering up money for it, he kept trying to get us to lower the price. At the same time there was a girl who said that she had all the money, but was having difficulty meeting up to see the inside. We waited for a bite from one of these two for about a month, and right before both of them wanted to bite, the real buyer popped up. The park manager called up and b/c of custody battles wanted her son, a friend of ours who played b-ball with us in the sngl ward, to buy it. Even though it was a little stressfull to have it sitting around for a few months, it was great to know that we were able to help out a good friend in great need. Yeah!!

The Lost (or I guess you could call them delayed) Manuscripts of Life (12/26/06 - 1/18/07)

Merry Christmas! Time really just seems to go faster and faster with each passing year. And like Mom has attested to, each year just seems to get busier and busier as well. At school, we are already talking about what we are going to do with the Shakespeare play this year. Even our time with Nagol doesn’t ever seem long enough or often enough. We have been enjoying our time with him even when he throwing up on Thanksgiving Day and then passing it on to Samej for the rest of that holiday weekend. For the past couple of months Nagol has been on an allergy medicine or a nebulizer to help clear him up. I’m afraid that it may be a food allergy since it hasn’t cleared up.
Semaj has also been worrying us the past couple of weeks with going to the doctor’s a few times. We have discovered that he has had a chronic sinus infection, and after some blood tests that he has hypothyroidism. Since it normally occurs in women over 40, he now sometimes calls himself an old woman. Semaj’s sister told us the other day that acutane has become illegal and that she thought that thyroid problems was something mentioned that you could file a lawsuit for.
And I guess now it is my turn b/c I have had a sore throat and achy body all day today. But life goes on and we just do what we need to do. (A few days later: diagnosis- TONSILLITIS !!! )
When we got Nagol on Christmas afternoon, Semaj set him down in the Livingroom facing the tree and all the presents. Nagol made a little surprised, excited gasp in the direction of the foam child chair that doubles as a Lightning McQueen racecar. We gave him the ok to go for it. He started that way and turned toward the box of toys that we keep by the TV, and pulled a couple of his regular toys and started happily playing awhile with them. It actually took him a couple of hours to warm up to the car, but still only sees it as a car and NOT a chair. To distract him from playing with his regular toys (which is actually understandably new/excited to him b/c they are with us and not his mom), we showed him the present which we knew he would enjoy the most. It is a 15-18in tall rubber T-rex which I had wrapped so you could tell what it was. Semaj started to unwrap it and showed Nagol the tummy and then covered it back up. We told him it was hiding and if he could find it. Nagol was then interested in uncovering the dinosaur which he knew was there after seeing its tummy. Before unwrapping the feet, he said, “Where’s the dinosaurs’ feets? We have to find them.” Then proceeded to take the paper off of the feet. He is an amazing talker, which I forget sometimes until I see another kid about his age and the big difference in the way they talk.
So I’ve been working on this blog for a couple of week now, but stuff keeps happening! Can you believe it! On Jan.5 Semaj had his wisdom teeth taken out. Before his mission they didn’t take them out b/c they could tell that they weren’t going to cause him any trouble while on his mission. Over the past 6-8 months they have been a bother, so they are now gone. I tried to tell him that even with only having 2 top teeth, he would still, probably not do anything the whole weekend. But while waiting in the waiting room right before the surgery, he was calling his brother in Lehi to see what they were doing that weekend and if there would be time to get together. We were at home the rest of the weekend. We tried an exciting excursion to Walmart, but didn’t last very long before going back to the front to get a wheel chair so we could finish our 2 tasks. Dealing with the side effects of the pain meds and antibiotics was probably the worst for him. Except for the couple of times that he’d feel ok and them actual eat food that took some chewing and then have a very achey jaw.
Last week we had our 2nd SEPs. That one terrible mom I wrote about before came again, which I was wondering if she since she apparently hates me so much. She wasn’t nearly as bad, but was still trying to blame me for her daughters’ low grades. I told her that her daughters grades are based on what her daughter knows, and that she has even been receiving extra help. She didn’t have too much more to say after that.
Monday night we had a late night swim…in our kitchen and laundry room. We had actually just gone upstairs to bed, when Semaj went back down stairs to take some Airborne. As I finished brushing my teeth, I heard Semaj exclaim something. I don’t remember what he said, or even if I had actually heard him clearly or not, but I went down to investigate. As I approached the kitchen, Semaj said, “Get me a pair of shoes and then you can go to bed since you are so tired.” I found Semaj examining the fridge while standing in a pool of water that was covering the kitchen floor. Now just about an hour before I had put a load of laundry into the washer. We have also been experiencing some very cold weather out here. My students have had inside recesses for a whole week now (below 20 degrees F). So my thoughts ran to a frozen pipe that didn’t allow the washing machine to drain. We opened the laundry room door and found more yucky water. So we spent the hour of 11-12 sucking up the water with the shop vac and determining that it was most likely the pipe and not a broken machine. On Tues. Semaj discovered that whoever installed the drain in the laundry room didn’t pop out the plug so that it could actually do its job, and that since the drainpipe for the washer is on an outside wall of the house, it was most likely frozen. We stuck an electric heater in the laundry room for a couple of hours and then tested the pipe. It worked! We know have an area of stained rug under the bar stools and a messy kitchen.