Aaughhhh! Pinkeye is taking over our house! Noah had it last weekend, then Emma had it during the week, then I had it in my left eye towards the end of the week. We had to cancel plans with friends last weekend because of it, which was disappointing. Then this weekend, we were planning to have friends over tonight and, since we thought we were pretty much through the pinkeye mess, last night Emma and I made an icebox cake to have for tonight's guests. Except, this morning I woke up with pinkeye in my right eye! What the heck??? We had to cancel our plans again, which left us with a delicious-looking cake in the fridge and no one but our family to eat it. This is particularly unfortunate because that cake called for three cups of heavy cream, and I would not have made such a cake for just my own family to eat for no particular reason. It's also unfortunate because, after I knew our guests were no longer coming, I tried a bite of the delicious-looking cake, and it is absolutely every bit as delicious as it looks, if not more. Now I keep sneaking bites of the delicious, three-cups-of-heavy-cream cake and I wish someone would just take it out of my house so it would stop taunting me from the refrigerator!

Moving on...

So, the other day I mentioned that we moved out of our little house into a bigger house. All along, we did not want to move out of that house just for the sake of getting out of it, but we wanted to wait until we could move into the house where we could be happy living for the rest of our lives. I am so excited to say that we found that house, and every single day I am thrilled to be living here.There are a number of things that I particularly love about living in this new house:

1. Counter space! Hooray! After years of zero counter space, I now have this stretch of countertopand this island
and even this little bonus section. It's wonderful!2. We are so much closer to everywhere, particularly the kids' schools. Emma's school and Noah and Allie's preschool are right next to each other, but Emma's day starts and ends at 7:50 and 3:00 while the preschool day goes from 9:30-1:30, thus requiring separate trips. The YMCA, where we go on a regular basis, is also right next to the schools and we often have evening activities at one of those three places. Because of all this, I make the trip over there about four times a day. Our old house was 8.4 miles away and our new house is 1.8 miles away, which saves me over 250 miles a week of driving! That part is the best, but it's also wonderful that we are much closer to our favorite stores, restaurants, etc. I can't tell you how much I love being 1.4 miles away from Trader Joe's! Steve's work commute is about 1/3 of what it was before, which is nice for him as well.

3. Whenever my parents came to visit us in our old house, my dad slept on the couch and my mom slept in the bottom bunk, and the kids jumped on them and woke them up at the crack of dawn pretty much every single morning they were ever at our house. All seven of us also had to share the one bathroom. My parents are good sports and they never complained about this, but I think they are happy about the new house as well, because now they can have the whole basement to themselves - with a guest bedroom, a full bathroom, and a rec room with the TV and computer - whenever they stay with us. Since we have out-of-town family staying with us as often as we do, I'm so glad that we no longer have to make anybody sleep on the couch!

There are many more reasons why I love this house, but those are probably my top three. And now, if you'll excuse me, there is some icebox cake that is calling my name.