Primarily written by Adrienne, a homeschooling mother of seven, ages 10 and under. She chronicles life, laughs, struggles, and lessons learned as she raises a larger-than-most sized family and tries to figure out what she's doing day by day.

With occasional posts, Alexandra, Adrienne's older sister, writes of her ranch life in Nevada and raising four sons, ages 5 and under. Life is never dull and her boys have given her some pretty awesome stories to tell.

Stick around awhile, and you're sure to laugh, nod, smile, be encouraged, and see what life is like with a big (little) family.

5.18.2013

The story of us. Part eight.

Read part one here.

Read part two here.

Read part three here.

Read part four here.

Read part five here.

Read part six here.

Read part seven here.

After managing the apartment complex for many months, painting more walls than I care to count an awful shade of off white while my daughters played in the paint colored and sang and danced around empty apartments asking if I was almost done, we’d had just about enough. Dealing with tenants, non payment, eviction, judges, massive ice storms, and one interesting and hard landlord who mocked our beliefs had just about done us in.

My final straw was, now pregnant with Sterling, telling the landlord and hearing his reaction. We were insane, I tell you. Two kids replace you in the universe, three is far too many and socially irresponsible. Oh, the horror. If he could only see us now. Then Blaine got a promotion. A really nice promotion that put him on full time and making enough for us to pay rent and quit dealing with all that was at the apartment complex.

We live at the apartments until Sterling was three weeks old, then moved to a two-family rental. That move was interesting. Blaine was still working on apartments and full time at the newspaper, so it fell primarily on me. With a newborn. Blaine’s brother saved the day when he came to stay with us. He helped me pack the van, then stayed with the kids while I took it to the new house and unpacked the van. We got it done up to the big stuff that way, and then Blaine had a day off and we finished. Not the best week of my life, but we were so glad to be free of the apartments.

We had space, a small backyard to share with the other half of our building, and world’s nicest landlords. And then we met our neighbors. Weeks in, my daughters were banned from playing with them alone, and the complaints began.

Life couldn’t just be comfortable. I still had more lessons to learn, after all.

1 comment:

Roxanne said...

Ah, Yes, the neighbors!!! I remember the neighbors!!