Home progress

So the house is rapidly moving along!  All the exterior walls are up, and all the interior "bones" are up, so we were able to walk through the house and get a feel for how it actually will be.  Pretty much how I envisioned it after analyzing our plan for so long!  There are things here and there that are either bigger than we expected, like all of the windows (which is a good thing!), or smaller than we expected (like the kids bathroom) but not a huge deal and nothing we could really do anything about anyways without changing the floor plan and adding to the cost of it which we could not do. And really, how much time will they spend in there?  We got along fine in our previous TEENY bathrooms, so this will be just fine!

Did I mention the roof is up and the shingles also? Yeah, they are.  

The windows and exterior doors are in the garage and will be installed on tuesday. We just picked out our front door earlier this week and already its there!  The shower/tubs are sitting outside waiting to be installed this week too. Also the interior walls will get their "meat."

The electrician comes this week as well so we had to go mark any special places where we wanted plugs and cables installed. 

This past friday we went and picked out our cabinets. We went with cherry cabinets in a shaker style I guess is what its called? We then picked out all our flooring- carpets, vinyls, laminates. Countertops/backsplash.  Phew, it was exhausting but I think we are happy with our choices!  I know i'm definitely happy with the cherry cabinets because i've always thought they were beautiful, but we'll see how the rest looks once its put together. 

Our master bedroom closet is humongous. I didn't realize it would be so big, at least for us its huge. Considering we don't really have a ton of clothes or shoes, we are going to have a heck of a lot of extra storage space in our closet! And the floor plan we selected originally had a daylight basement with a set of stairs in the hallway, but obviously we did not need a daylight basement for this lot or the stairs, so in place of the stairs we made a giant storage closet.  I shouldn't have an issue with storage in this house like I did at our other house! Since the closet is not as wide as a set of stairs, this also made for a nice wide hallway as well. I LOVE how spacious the house feels! I can't wait to move in and feel the breathing room!

My only complaint is that right between our lot and the next lot is a street light, but looking out Jadon's bedroom window of the house the first thing you see is this big street light. Hopefully with some clever landscaping I can make it less noticeable- both from the street and from inside the house!

I am just beyond thrilled! This is such a dream come true for us! We always knew we wouldn't stay in our last house forever since it was such a tiny lot, but we never dreamed that we'd actually ever be able to sell it and make enough to afford to move somewhere bigger with a bigger lot. I'm so excited my kids will get to run and play in their own backyard and kick/throw a ball in it, have a slip n slide, a pool, a swing set, a playhouse, etc.  We would be able to fit it all in our lot now, and then some! And we will be able to have our families and friends come over and be able to fit comfortably inside our house for gatherings without being squished inside.  We will even be able to put the leaf in our table and have plenty of room! 

I can't wait to have you all over to see it when we move in! :)

Pix Post

Here's a long overdue picture post.  Just random pictures! 

A few weeks ago, Avery learned how to write her name.  This was the first time she wrote it.  She hasn't stopped since, and she has greatly improved!  And now I don't even have to tell her anymore what letters to write, she knows the letters in her name.  My little smarty pants :)

Avery got some lip gloss for Christmas from her Aunt Alayna, and we got that out a couple weeks ago, and boy did she have fun with that.  She had to keep applying it over and over to both our lips, and here we are showing off our glossy lips.

One morning Avery came out of her room with I think every piece of jewelry she owns on, as well as a flower in her hair and her sunglasses on.  She was very stylish.  I snapped several pictures (only posted 2 here though). My favorite is the 2nd one on here where her big brother tried to photo bomb.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love having both a boy and a girl? I get the best of both worlds!

Here is the foundation of our house!  This picture was taken on the 15th of this month. 

Like I said, Avery is constantly writing her name now......even in pretzels. 

This sweet little face was beginning to remind me of Tow Mater (see next picture).  His two top teeth are loose, and while the one adult tooth has already started growing in front of the baby tooth, the other one was not, and it was growing properly.  However, that tooth kept getting looser as the adult tooth was pushing it out, and as it pushed it, it started to stick out and down farther and farther.   To be continued..........

So this picture was taken yesterday of the house and all the walls, internally and externally are now up!

Wearing her sleeping mask.  She insists on wearing it most nights.  Such a personality she is!

We've had the weirdest weather lately!  Its been cold!  Mid-upper 20's and low 30's, but never warmer, and the fog never clears.  Its been going on this way for like a week.  And for many of those days we've had some freezing fog.  Except the freezing fog only affects this particular area, and then once you get out of that  "zone" it clears and its dry. So this is pretty much what yesterday looked like, and today at our house.  On our way home from dropping Jadon at school, the street was empty, I slowed down and snapped a picture because its so weird to me.  Its very slick.  I couldn't figure out why they hadn't cancelled school, and then once I got out of that pocket, it was pretty clear, and by the time I got to Jadon's school, the road was dry. I really have enjoyed the pretty white though!  Its given us some different scenery.  

And today when I picked Jadon up from school, I noticed a hole in his mouth. His tooth finally came out! It got knocked out while he was playing basketball at recess.  Now if we could only get the other one to come out!  Then we will have 4 lost teeth already.  

I have to say, I think nothing is cuter than kindergardeners with missing teeth.  Those grins with the missing teeth just make them seem so innocent and cute.  I couldn't wait to get a holey smile of Jadon! 

This week we picked out our front door and interior doors for the house.  And later this week we are going to pick out our cabinets, counters, back splash, carpets, and all other flooring. (deep breaths.........) that's a lot of decisions to make but i'm so glad because we are getting to move in a month earlier than planned!
I cant wait.  I cannot wait!  I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!

Reflections

So I know its a couple weeks late to do a post reflecting on the previous year, and my hopes for the new year, but I haven't had time to sit and write up a big post.

What a year 2012 was!  It started when Derek had to go to Wisconsin for training for work as soon as the new year began. Having been pretty much thrown into his new position and didn't really have an option to not do it, we were uncertain of what the future would hold, or what the new position would mean for him. And knowing that he would have to take several trips to Wisconsin early in the year was not appealing to either of us. 

While the weeks that he was away were tough for us all, we survived :) As I knew we would. And his new position, while it has been stressful for him, its also been quite a blessing, and he really enjoys his job and his boss loves him.  He earned several certifications over the year, and is now extremely important and valuable to his team at work. So there's no doubt that his job is secure!  And, with his certifications now, if for any reason he decided to change jobs, he would be hired quickly.

I am quite proud of him and all he has accomplished and how hard he works and his work ethic!

Continuing on with the year.  Jenny then got sick and for an entire month it seemed like time stood still.  Everything revolved around our ability to be able to get to Portland to see Jenny and support the family. It didn't happen nearly enough since it was the middle of cold/flu season, and with Jadon in preschool, we always had colds. We didn't want to spread our germs and risk spreading anything to Jenny and complicating her situation. We did everything humanly possible to keep from getting sick- washed our hands incessantly, I was bleaching a lot, we stayed home a lot to avoid germs.  It helped, and after the first couple weeks we didn't have any more colds amazingly, and weirdly didn't get anymore until the first week of June! 

By the grace of God, Jenny thankfully got better!

It was during that whole thing that Jadon celebrated his 5th birthday.  Unfortunately, while Jenny was getting better, Jadon was not. Being the sensitive guy he is, and a little (a lot) on the fearful side, he was a little traumatized by his Aunt's serious illness and the situation. Queue the sleeping problems and serious anxieties.  After about a month we realized things were not getting better, and were actually getting worse, he was really bothered by something though he could not tell us exactly what. We decided counseling was needed.  And thank goodness!  I will highly recommend therapy for children, as it not only helps the children, but also the parents to understand what the kids are going through, which is SO SO SO important!  We learned so much about Jadon that we had no idea was going on with him. For example, to him after Jenny's illness, all illnesses, whether a small cold, or pneumonia, etc, became life threatening to him.  It didn't matter if it was big or small, they were all catastrophic to him.  So we had to learn to make him see that colds were not a big deal.  We had to take the power away from the colds. Its still a work in progress, and he still gets worried when a kid in his class is out sick for more than a day, but the improvement is massive.

Just when it seemed like things were finally going to calm down, I had planned to have a fun filled summer for us and the kids with lots of activities, park trips, outings, swimming, etc.... We decided to put our house on the market. So all our fun activities flew out the window when we had to get the house ready for market. Once the house was on the market, I would do my best to keep the house clean and well kept, and before we would leave the house we would clean it and make sure it was show ready in case we got any calls while we were away.  It was such a pain, and i'm SO glad that after 35 days we got an offer! I couldn't imagine doing that much longer!

We got the offer while we were in Sunriver with my family over Labor day.  What a fun time we had!  Jadon talks about Sunriver all the time. I love when good memories are made, especially when so many not so good memories have been made previously.

Unfortunately we couldn't find a place to live in time, and well, you know the story.... we're renting a tiny house that was dumped on by the previous tenants. 

It was difficult moving, as I've already blogged about.  Apparently Jadon has been having a harder time with the move than we had thought though... my sensitive child.  So we are having him go to the counselor again for a few sessions.  We are hopeful that once we get moved into our new house, settled, and back into our normal routine that things will improve. Again, we are so thankful for the insight that the counselor provides us with!

Since the move, we've been quite busy.  Derek's work has been terribly busy.  The kids and I have been busy around here, and random things keep coming up.  Our new house is the silver lining in it all, and that is what I focus on!

December was tough.  The Sandy Hook shooting was really hard, I think it affected me so deeply since I have a little guy in elementary school. I take him there, assuming he will be safe.  Its an elementary school! I still think about that every day, and those poor families, those poor children. Every time I drop Jadon off at school I give him a hug and kiss, I say a pray in my head for the safety of the school and all the people inside it, and then I walk away trusting God to protect my baby boy. 

My hopes for this year are different than previous years.  I learned a lot last year. I learned a lot about people in my life, about my kids, my family, and what is really important and what's not. 

I learned that family is the most important people in your life. Except not everyone in your family is "healthy" for you, which is so sad.  I've found that the ones that accept you the way you are the ones that love you unconditionally and will not go behind your back. Additionally, the ones that constantly create drama are not healthy.

This year instead of a personal new years resolution, which I think are pointless because how many times do we ever stick to them? never. This year I made one for my family instead, which I think we are much more likely to stick to.  So they include things like- monthly date nights for mommy and daddy; monthly date nights for parents and each kid; be kind to one another; work on ALL manners; have family games nights; less screen time; find a charity to volunteer for.

The charity one is tough since the kids are still small and can't do a lot of things but its important to me because I want the kids to grow up knowing the joy of giving and helping, but I found a blog where a woman lists a bunch of different charities that kids can do. One of them is to sponsor a child, and so we already started doing that.  We are sponsoring a little girl in Colombia who is 3 like Avery.  Her name is Carolain, and we are looking forward to corresponding with her and getting to know her and watching her grow up and now have access to things she wouldn't have otherwise if we hadn't sponsored her.  We'd also like to sponsor a boy who is Jadon's age.  After looking at all the little faces online, its just so hard to chose, I want to sponsor them all. For some reason it was easy to pick the girl, but i'm struggling with picking a boy.  But anyways, for just over $1 a day, less than your daily Starbucks run, you can also help a child. Check it out at Worldvision.  The kids are excited to write a letter, draw pictures and send our pictures.  Of course Carolain will be a little young to understand it right now, but someday she will.  And someday if we win the lottery we can go visit her. :)

It's Official!

We're buying a house!  And there it is in the picture below!

No no no, not the back of that yellow house on the left of the picture. That's someone else's house.
Do you not see the house??????  You don't?????  Oh, well you will in April when we move in!  For now you just have to envision a house there, because that's where our house will be!  You are looking at our lot, and this Friday they will begin excavating!

We couldn't be more excited with how things have worked out! :)

So our lot is .39 acres, its mostly flat, and its on a culdesac which will be PERFECT for the kids to ride their bikes in! Our house will be a single story, with 3 bedrooms and an office, and INDOOR laundry!!!!  Something we didn't have at our old house, and we don't have in the rental now either, so i'm sooooooo excited!  No more freezing my tush off every time I need to throw in some laundry!  The main living area, dining, kitchen will be a nice, big open room!
And best of all, the kids will have a TON of room to run around and play outside in the backyard!
We can hardly wait!  April can't come fast enough!  Usually I want time to slow down, but not so right now! Derek's going to continue to be super busy with work as they move closer to his "go live" at the hospital, and now that we are "settled" here, I've got the kids signed up for lessons again, so hopefully that will help time to go faster!

I'll be posting pictures of the progress along the way, as I can hardly contain my excitement! :)

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! Here's our yearly slideshow!
I know this year one of my resolutions was to take more pictures of the other people in our lives, not just the kids, but it seems I forgot that resolution and I did an even worse job taking pictures than last year! :(  Very disappointing!  

So this year, my only resolution for myself is, once again, to take more pictures of the other people in our lives (friends and family) that are important to us, so that you may all be a part of our slideshow next year, and because well, you are all important to us, so why wouldn't we want to include you in our picture life?

I don't know if anyone even watches these slideshows, but they get a lot of viewings around our house all year round!  My kids LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOVE to watch them.... over and over again!  I have to admit that I love to watch them too.  I love seeing the kids grow throughout the year, seeing the things we did, things we accomplished, setbacks and heartaches we may have encountered and overcame.  I love to see all of this... the good, the bad and the ugly, as it reminds me that I am blessed no matter what. 

I'll be posting again soon my reflections on 2012 and my hopes for 2013

http://youtu.be/GjfJGH1JnVY