First of all, my apologies for the long delay.
We are successfully moved into our new home in beautiful Oklahoma City.
You certainly get more bang for your buck here than in other parts of the world. We see the difference in cost in many ways, I drove past a 7-11 today with regular unleaded gas for a mere $2.33 a gallon! Holy Cats!! But the last time I went to Wal-Mart for groceries, I paid over $3 for a lb of sugar!!! It is a much more rural area and moves at a much slower pace. It reminds me of Colorado when I was growing up, before it exploded with growth!!
The slower pace here is taking some getting used too. I rather like it, we do not rush to get up in the am, no alarm, seeing as how Donovan does not need to be at school until 9:00 a.m., so we just wake up when we wake up. We have cut it short a few times, but thanks to my ex husband who calls to talk to Donovan EVERY morning around the same time, if we are sleeping too late, his call reminds us of such.
The neighborhood we live in is only about 10 years old, and unfortunately, much like our last neighborhood, it seems to have been constructed quickly and with much haste, there are some things that will take us a while to repair, but since we will be buying this house in the next 3 years, we are happy to take care of them on our own. We will paint it, the colors we wish to, and replace the carpet as well, but over all the house is solid and reliable and will fit our needs for many years.
On a side note, we will be painting one of the bedrooms PINK, as we found out, after originally deciding not to , that our 5th child is a girl!!
Her name will be Julianna Alyse Mallow, named after Julius and Annie, my grandmother's (who passed away in 07) parents, and my mom's mom Alice.
I am still adjusting to the idea of pink. I had for many years really wanted a daughter, and I think I mentally prepared myself to have another boy, so I am trying to wrap my head around ruffles, lace and pigtails, rather than trucks, hot wheels cars, and a haircut every month!!
All of us are elated to be expecting her, even Katie wishes to fly out when she is born, she wants to have a relationship with her little sister, and I will welcome that with wide open arms!!!
I have a suspicion that she is going to be a calmer baby than my boys are, I don't feel her move nearly as much as I did the boys, and I just get a different vibe from this pregnancy, it's just different, I guess it's the fact that it's a girl!!

After the move, well actually during the move, we realized just how much junk we have accumulated over the past years.
I admit, most of it is mine, but Chris has his share of boxes full of stuff that we don't need.
So our nice spacious 3 car garage is filled up with box after box of stuff.
It is our goal to weed through it and purge what we don't need, which will take a while, but I am not allowing the boxes into the house. I have made myself a promise to keep this house clutter free, and if I don't start from day 1, then I will fail miserably.
So far so good. There is only 1 floor to the house, with a large open floor plan, so no stairs, and I can get so much done being able to move easily from room to room without becoming winded. I continue to get big, which is no surprise, I got very large with both Donovan and Owen, so I doubt this one will be much different.

I wish I could sit here and tell you more about our new location, but alas, I need to get ready to drive Donovan out to Missouri to meet his dad halfway. Donovan has 3 days off of school, and I offered Dirk the opportunity to have a long weekend with Donovan, so we are meeting in the middle, a nice 12 hour drive for me, but if Donovan gets to have time with his father, then I am all for it.
We will make the same exchange for Thanksgiving this year. It doesn't seem like much, but we are about 200 miles closer to where Dirk is with our move, so I am happy to make the trip so Donovan can see his dad.
So I hope this is enough update for now, I am trying to mentally work into my routine posting regularly about things other than updates on my status. So fingers crossed, I hope to start doing that soon.

Have a wonderful long weekend!!