Pixiemom

I went to the Secretary of State Driver’s Facility place today to get my license renewed, the address changed, register to vote, and get the new stickers for our van’s license plates. I was in and out in 20 minutes!! It was amazing. I went in and got two numbers. One for my driver’s license and to register to vote and one for the license plate sticker. I didn’t even get a chance to sit down when my first number was called. I went up and got my driver’s license stuff taken care of and changed the address on it as well as registered to vote and then was sent down to a cashier to pay for those. After paying, I had my vision tested and then went to get my picture taken. Again, I gave my papers to the people doing pictures and then went over to sit down… whoops, my name is called. They were already ready for me. I got my picture done fairly quickly. As I was getting up from that, my other number was called to get in line for the license plate stickers. A lady checked the numbers and made sure we were all in order and checking to see if addresses needed changing on the vehicle registration. I had our new address written down and she took it and got the new vehicle registration papers ready while I was in line. Each person took about 2 minutes at the most to do what needed to be done and there were only a few people in front of me. When I got up to the counter, the one lady handed me the new papers as well as the sticker and I paid and left.

I think I spent no time waiting while sitting and at the most 6 minutes of standing in the quickly moving line. There were a good amount of people there. I like this place. They made the process so easy.

Of course, I went at 11 am. I wouldn’t want to go in the afternoon. I’m sure it is more crowded and there is some sitting and waiting time.

The kids were so excited today. They came in and annouced to their Daddy that they now have friends here. Five children just came over and asked to play after dinner. We found out that they are the grandchildren of the lady who lives 2 doors down and they were excited to find some more kids on the block here. They plan on coming over to play whenever they are visiting. They are not siblings, but seem to see each other often. They are about in the same range of age as my kids, so my kids were really happy about it. There was 2 girls and 3 boys. The boys are about 4, 5 and 6, I think, and all kind of looked at James in awe because of what he could do. It was funny. I sat out there and just watched them until they had to leave.

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it yet, but as Children’s Choir director, I was the first one asked to be music leader for our church’s VBS. Since I love music and kids, I agreed. I’ve been slowly working on all of the songs for the last two months and introduced to my little choir of kids as well. I like them to remember the songs a little more instead of having one day in VBS of learning a song and then forgetting it, so I have taught the kids who attend my choir these songs already. This is six songs; the theme song and one song for each of the five days of VBS. Four of the songs are kind of fast, one is medium speed, and one is slow. This Sunday, the teenagers are singing the slow song while I do the movements (and probably sing along with them.) Next Sunday is the VBS kick-off, so I’ll have the little ones up on stage with me and we’ll be introducing some of the songs, including the theme song, so I’ll be tired and ready for a Sunday afternoon nap that day. Each day, I’ll be working with each group of kids and teaching them the song for that day. I have a bit of rest between each session and before the group gathering at the end where we’ll probably do both the theme song as well as the song of the day. I’m really looking forward to it. I love teaching kids.

Oh, and I think I’ll lose about 5 lbs by the end of the week. LoL Well, maybe not, but I can hope.

Since Google took over Jeremy’s work back in April, he’s gotten enough Google t-shirts to be able to wear a different one every day of the week.

I like most of my neighbors. The only ones I don’t really know yet are the ones are the right side. They have 3 dogs which are let out at about the same time everyday and I’ve only had an opportunity to say hello once in the month or so that we’ve been here (after vacation). They have a privacy fence built, but I think it was more because of their dogs and not because of people. The dogs like me though. They bark at anyone near their yard, but when I sing to them, they congregate at the fence, looking through the slats, and just listen quietly. It’s sweet. I found this out one day when I decided to go practice my guitar outside. They came out and started barking at Amie who was out with me. I thought about waiting until they went back in, but decided to just go ahead and play. Not long after I started, all three of them stopped barking. After the song was done, I went over to the fence and talked to them. They looked happy to listen. They also have stopped barking at me if I’m out there without the kids.

On the other side live an older couple. The man says hi when he is outside, but isn’t a talker. The lady sits outside having drinks and talking with the woman who lives on the other side of her almost every evening. I’ve gone and talked with them a little too. The kids like to go over and say hi to them and talk a little. They have enjoyed watching the kids play in the yard and said they like having kids that aren’t afraid to talk to them.

Behind us, we haven’t actually met the lady who lives there because she is unable to get out and about. She has sent over the lady who comes to help her clean to tell us that she enjoys watching the kids playing outside. I’ve also talked to a friend of hers who comes to help her with her flowers. One of these days, we need to go over to meet her.

I’ve introduced myself to a few of the other people I’ve seen walk by the house fairly often and they are all friendly. One of them is a young mom who lives in the apartment complex a block away. She has one little boy, about 2 years old, who is so cute. Once we get the playset up here, I hope she will come up and let him play. It would make my kids happy to have him to play with since they love “babies” and it would be just a small walk to take him somewhere to play.

Ok, so we’ve had one since we moved here, but it has been full of boxes and the toys had kind of gotten scattered around the room a bit since we’d moved in. Yesterday, I got the room set up into sections… my sewing/craft area, school and children’s craft area, toy area, and our gathering area. We don’t have furniture down there, except for a few children’s chairs, so the gathering area isn’t really there yet. We want to get some furniture to arrange around the fireplace to make it a nice place to just relax. Jeremy and I will be able to sit and relax while the kids are playing or whatever. We still need some more things to organize the toy area, but since we don’t have all the toys here yet (many are still in storage) than it is okay as it is at the moment. I also need a few more drawers for my sewing/craft area. I got a small three drawer thingy from my Grandma with a lot of her sewing and craft stuff in it. I got knitting needles, crochet needles, embroidery thread, and other things. I took a lot of it out and split it into groups and then put them into the drawers with corresponding stuff, but I still have a lot of yarn and some fabric that needs to find a place to be put away in. At the moment, it is all in bags sitting under my sewing table. I’m thinking some plastic little drawers that will still fit under the table, but it will be much neater than the bags.

Anyway, I’m just happy to have that room available for the kids to go down and play in now. It is such a nice big room, it will be good for them to go down to when it is raining or too hot.

I took the kids to the local Baptist Church’s VBS this morning. It is a different one that what our church is doing in August, so I thought they would enjoy it and maybe make some friends. Plus, I have 3 hours in the morning to work on getting some laundry done and organizing the family room downstairs. It is a wreck down there. This morning, I worked for a while setting up my sewing area only to realize that there isn’t an electrical outlet anywhere nearby, so I’ll have to move everything and rethink how I plan on organizing that room. Oh well… I guess I have the time.

I hope AnnaBeth is doing okay. She is extremely nervous when there is a lot of children, especially unknown children. She was excited to go until we went into the sanctuary to introduce her to her teacher and then she got scared. She went over to her teacher okay, but she looked terrified. I know that if I’d stayed, she never would have left my side, so I came back home. So hard.

Something I like about this church is that they check out all the people who work with kids beforehand. They have a child protection thing that all the volunteers who work with children have to go through before being allowed to do their job and they have to repeat the course every 3 years. That made it easier on me for letting my kids go in to a new place with new people.