Lances lately

Life lately. I think I have titled one of my other blogs this same title. Probably because I always have to do some catching up, I never have time to stay consistent on what is happening!
Updates:
The Lances have been busy! Mainly Dan, he is living and breathing the Stirring building right now. Literally he is always thinking, praying, talking it. It is life right now, and he is doing such an amazing job! It is such a huge undertaking and so much responsibility. So it is a crazy season for him but he loves it and he is really good at all the details and planning.
I just turned 32 last week. I can't believe I am in my 30's, it is funny how I still think of myself in my 20's, I just saw a picture of myself on a cruise about 3 years ago and I am pretty sure I have aged 10 years in these last 3! But I am ok with it. I think. I did a make over on the kids room, as you can see from the before pictures Zeke had peeled most of the paint off the walls!! It was so much work, I had to sand it all, putty, primer then paint it! Yikes but it is a nice calm yellow now.
The kids are doing awesome! Zeke is reading so well now and he is really working hard at school. There have been some hurdles but he is jumping them and we are growing from all our new experiences! He is all about drawing right, we have about 30 pictures up in our house of our family under a fan standing together, there s always a fire pit as well, it is really sweet.
Sofia is in the midst of speech therapy that has been awesome for her. She loves it each week when the speech therapist comes with all her cool toys and books. Although last week she accidentally forgot to go pee and the speech therapists lap got a surprise. It was a bummer, but it didn't really phase Sofia! She is such a little sweetheart, giving hugs and love to those who love her. She loves to wrestle with her brothers and loves to dress up!
Moses, where to begin, I love this age, it is so fun! He just walks around the house following whoever is closest and repeating literally everything anyone says! Our favorite is NO! and MINE! He learned those very quickly from the kids. He likes to dress up with Sofia and pretend to leave saying buy bye ma, and buy bye dada. He likes to wear backpacks and hats around the house. Last night all the kids were playing together wrestling and chasing each other, such a fun time right now. The kids definitely make me tired, all day we are going and someone needs something, but it is good.
Halloween the kids had a blast we went to our friends the Flecks house and a bunch of us walked around the neighborhood and had dinner together. I was feeling pretty old by the end of the night walking in heels! We were talked into dressing up as well, which was actually pretty fun! Dan was a redneck and I was his "stylish"(not so much) wife. Zeke loved that we dressed up also, he kept wanting us to keep our wigs on the day after!
Well that has been life with the Lances lately!

givin' thanks

This thanksgiving was our first one all grown up! We have always gone to our families house for the thanksgiving meal, but this year we stayed here in Redding and started a new tradition.
We had 8 adults and 9 kids, still we were outnumbered!
Melissa, Gafners, Osbornes, and Christian.
We had yummy food, and played scattegories, there was much cheating going on, usually by Dan.
The kids did awesome they ran around outside for 5 hours and rarely got into any fights, it was amazing. We are pretty sure the kids thanksgiving meal only consisted of cupcakes and brownies, but hey it is only once a year right!
The only fiasco was saved by my mom. I forgot to take the bag of giblets out of the butt of the turkey! It was in the oven cooking when I got a text from my dad wishing us a happy thanksgiving, when I texted back, my mom just happened to say you checked both ends of the turkey right?...
Both ends, what!!!
So I had to take the 24 pound turkey back out of the oven, out of the oven bag and reach up there and get the bag, nasty.
Doing the turkey reminded me why I have thought of becoming a vegetarian. The fact that you have to pull the neck out and other insides, sick.
Anyway thanks mom for saving my turkey!
Thanks Sean for cutting the turkey and making yummy gravy!
All in all it was a great day.

some happenings in the Lance household

I was talking to my mom on the phone today and she informed me that Dan and I had not updated our blogs for a few days and I had not realized the week had gone by already! It has been a busy week getting into the swing of school with Zeke and still trying to unpack and get settled. Zeke has school in the afternoon which is not real condusive to Sofia's naps, but we are working out a schedule. This post will be random happenings this week.
The pictures are of Sofia and her fat lip. Her and Zeke were playing and she got pushed face first on the tile and got a bloody nose and a fat lip, it was sad and Zeke felt so bad because it really was just playing. She is tough and it is cute when she smiles and it is lopsided. And Scarlet settling in to her life of napping and trying to dodge to rain as she does her business outside. It has seriously taken her this whole week to get used to going out in the rain, the first few days she would hold it for hours and hours because she was scared to go outside! She is a spoiled so cal doggy!
It has been raining since we have been here, one week. Yesterday it was cloudy but no rain until evening, it is hard getting the kids out of the car when it is pouring down, no one stays dry. Zeke said to us the other day "why is it just raining and raining and raining here?" I guess he is used to last winter in Riverside where it rained a total of 3 times.
Dan and I met with Zeke's teacher yesterday and she gave us some insight into what they do in class and what we need to work on with him.
She said he does great with his numbers and letters but his writing is really struggling. We have not worked with him in holding his pencil the correct way we just kind of let him do what he wanted and now we have to correct that! He is catching on and doing great, I have been working with him 2 times a day in order to help him catch up to his classmates. He was not required to do anything homework or writing at his other pre-k class so it is an adjustment. He would much rather play with his legos but he gets so excited when he accomplishes his work.
Sofia got another tooth on the top, she still has a crazy swollen gum on top with no tooth yet we keep saying maybe there is just a huge tooth in there and it will pop through and we will have to call her Mater from the Car movie. (he has huge buck teeth if you have not enjoyed that film) She is adjusting well, she is recently attached to me and gets upset when I am not in view. I am hoping this is just a stage because it is hard to get anything done!
Well those are just a few thing going on, we are slowly settling in I still get emotional when I realize my parents don't live down the street anymore or we can't call up Steve & Karen to hang out or when my mom calls and I have to pull it together so I don't cry on the phone. There is always that comfort with a mom where you hear her voice and you get choked up. Maybe that is just me. I will try to update more often. Sorry this is kind of all over the place, just writing down thoughts as they come!