Let's Do This!

Hey friends! I'm going to pull the trigger and go private, so please send me your email addresses so I can include you. I would love to have all of you along! I'm obviously not a fast mover, but I'll try to make that switch by May 1.

I am completely aware that private blogs can be a pain (I forget to check them all the time!), so I created a public blog that I will update whenever I post something. It will have a link for you to click on that will take you over here. (This is for those of you who use Google Reader. Or, if you prefer, you can just go straight to this blog instead of going the indirect route). The public portal address for that is

http://cannonfamilynews.blogspot.com/

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Peter must have taken this one. I feel like it captures our mornings well, with all six of us sharing the one upstairs bathroom.

I haven't been great at writing lately, but I think I need to get back into regular postings. It's good for me to write things down and make sense of the goings on in my jumbled brain. It's also good to keep track of our family life, because what it looks like today changes so quickly, and looks like something completely different in a month. I think that's the nature of things. Kids grow and develop and go through different stages, and when you compound that by four and add your own development as a mother to the mix, things never stay dull for long. 

Nora at a friend's birthday party. It would be so nice to live closer to these cuties!

It's funny to be at the brink of moving, uprooting our kid's only known existence, and still not really knowing what we want. The only known is that we'll stay in our ward (congregational boundary). We've seen a few houses now, and check online almost daily. Our original plan was to find a nicer, newer home in an area a little west of us that we've always loved (and where many of our friends are). But since touring a few different schools in the area, I'm no longer convinced this is the best plan. There is one school district that is a clear standout. And that district is also insanely expensive to live in. So...we haven't decided what to do yet. I'm still open to the idea of homeschooling too, though admittedly less so ever since Benjamin started begging to start homeschooling next year (I feel like it's more of a cop-out, because he doesn't want to be the new kid). 

The house diagonally behind ours is being torn down for a new build. It's the first one in this neighborhood to go, and our kids love watching their progress. Nora and Peter even got to climb up in the cab one day!

I'm also enjoying our house more and more now that we've actually put a little work into it. It's funny how that works. Our kitchen, although much prettier, is still tiny, and incredibly uncomfortable when all the kids are in there with me. I hate that. I want our next kitchen to be the heart of the home, a place where there's space for everyone. Our yard, though much cleaner and better kept than it once was, still looks straight into at least seven other houses. We'd really, really like something a little more private, where our kids can just dig and play to their heart's content. 

The playhouse although an eyesore, is not going anywhere. Lydia finds her way out there every single day. She loves it!

We have about two more weeks of complete madness before our house goes on the market. I'm feeling pretty good about our progress though. We're getting there. The biggest issue right now is the collapsed drain coming out of the kitchen, which will likely require some deeper excavation....as in ripping up concrete. Ugh. So done with old plumbing. Regardless of where our next home is, I'm scouring that inspection. 

p.s. Facebook messages work well. If you don't do Facebook, send me a message at sarahecannon @ yahoo.com (no spaces) with your preferred email address. Thanks!

We're Still Here

 I feel like a slacker lately with this blog. Usually it's pretty easy to find things (and time) to write semi-regularly, but we've been a little busier than usual these past few weeks. Long story short, Paul and I decided to give ourselves a time frame for selling our house and finding a new one close by. We'd like to have ours on the market in May, and are actively looking, in case the right one pops up. We've learned quickly that the good ones in the area we're looking go really fast- like, a day within listing. So I've been junking, thrifting, scrubbing, painting, boxing, organizing, sewing, shopping for dehumidifiers, and talking on the phone with realtors and contractors a lot. We've been putting in a new floating laminate floor in the kitchen, which is looking so nice, I'm wondering why on earth we didn't do this six years ago. 

 The thing I probably dread the most is having our house on the market, and having to keep it perfectly clean and organized 24/7. I have four active tornadoes running through my house, and the thought of facing them head on and convincing strangers those tornadoes don't exist is a little intimidating. But we'll get through it!

General Conference was really nice, although having the fridge and the stove in the middle of the living area was less than ideal (since we're knee deep in the kitchen flooring project). I never knew how much I use our oven...I really miss it. Peter worked on some new Legos he bought, the kids hung out in a fort, and we ate donuts.
Also, I don't think I mentioned that Peter and Benjamin recently both took on a challenge to memorize ALL thirteen Articles of Faith, and they did it in less than a month! Last week, Peter passed the time during church whispering in my ear number one all the way through thirteen, in order. We also had a family home evening lesson after they finished, where we asked them questions where knowing an Article of Faith might come in handy. For example, "This movie isn't that bad. Why won't you watch it?" or "Are you Christians?" They did great at recalling the right one for each situation, and reciting it to us. I'm really proud of them!
And that's about it. I'm also contemplating whether or not I should make this blog private. It seems like I should be more concerned than I am about privacy, but I can never pull the trigger and just do it. I feel like now that I have an instagram account, that's sort of taken the place of day-to-day stuff, and and this is much more a journal of our family's activity. And not that everyone in the world doesn't want to read that, but....yeah. Maybe it's time.