all kinds of changes

All kinds of new things have been happening and arriving at our house lately. I did a lot of shopping online with my christmas money and the boxes have been arriving. the mailman and i are becoming fast friends. I'll post pictures of some of my purchases sometime soon, but some examples are shoes, poker hats, a silver cuff (bracelet) and a fax machine. for those of you who think i'm spoiled (fieldhouses) this is pretty much the only time during the year that i do shop. so just go on thinking i'm spoiled rotten, but know in your heart of hearts i'm really not. :) we also got some christmas presents a couple days ago - tons more of my dishes so now I can have a full set and next time we host a holiday everything will match beautifully. and all kinds of other cool things (thanks kevin and luann!) and mom sent a box of art supplies and musical toys for ellen and isaiah so we've been experimenting with those. has anyone else out there ever used crayola's color wonder products? it's kinda crazy how it works - but word to the wise you aren't supposed to use water and a paintbrush with the paints. (yes, there are instructions that tell you this, and no i didn't bother to read them.) it's not really a big deal, it just doesn't exactly work. it's supposed to be like finger paint and it's kinda greasy and weird, but other than that fairly cool. i like the markers and coloring book the most from that line. it has a different effect somehow than a normal marker (can you tell that i colored while ellen was crafting?) one of dave's customers also gave us their unwanted leather couches. so our computer room is currently packed full of couches. that's kinda fun. ooh and anne sent me some super cool make-upy stuff that's supposed to make those hideously dark circles under my eyes magically disappear so i'm excited about that too. and not only has stuff been arriving, but school started this week rather unexpectedly. i thought we had another week or so but i kinda randomly saw a friend on sunday and she said something about see you on thursday so then i had to freak out about the fact that i hadn't yet found a babysitter for the kids. After a couple days of phone calls and rejections i posted an 'ad' on the george fox website and found mary who came over and hung out for a bit last night (to introduce the kids and make sure she was normal...she is) and this morning she stayed with the kids and everyone seemed thrilled. ellen and isaiah both seem to be in love with her. isaiah couldn't stop staring and smiling at her yesterday. and ellen immediately began running around and showing off her dance moves and being silly. so that's awesome. i'm hoping she'll become "our sitter" - so i can have a person i call if i need to go somewhere that the kids know and love. i have high hopes. aaanddd i decided to go for that demarle thing that i mentioned a while ago. (they have a website cause you probably have no clue what it is - www.demarleathome.com) i'm having my "launch" party/show on wednesday so i've been busy trying to think of people to invite and then trying to work up the nerve to do so. that's all the new stuff i can think of for now, but i'm sure there's more that will come to mind as soon as i publish.