Week off

Derek always takes this week off of work every summer.  Why this week?  Because its our anniversary week, that's why! :)
Tomorrow will be our 9th anniversary!

Saturday Jadon had his last counseling session! However, we are supposed to start preparing him for kindergarten by separating him from me frequently, so Gramma's, we will be calling upon you both for some babysitting in the next couple weeks!
Today we are going school shopping!  I already got Jadon's clothes for school, but this will be a trip for supplies, backpack, and shoes. And new shoes for Avery.... who says she wants pink shoes.

Monday we went to Enchanted Forest.  Had lots of fun, spent most of the day there, got the kids bracelets so they could ride the kiddie rides unlimited, and that they did! We were very proud of Jadon, who overcame his fear of going on 3 different rides, including the log ride, the roller coaster, and the frog hopper that had scared him in the past, and all by his choice, he went on them all!  The frog hopper he went on several times again with Avery, the log ride he had fun on I think, and now they take your picture coming down so we bought our picture (pretty amusing!) and the roller coaster will probably not be gone on again and cant blame him for that!  The roller coaster is pretty rickety, jerky.  No seat belts, I was his seat belt, and I hit my head on the side of the cage thing several times.  Its so jerky its not even fun.... it would be a lot more fun if it weren't jerking you all over the place.

Also this week we are working on teaching Avery to potty in the potty and wear underwear.  We went to the store and she got to pick out a pack of underwear.... she picked out Tinkerbell ones.  She LOVES wearing them, but suddenly she hates going to the bathroom in the potty.  We are pretty sure that its a power issue.... She likes to do things on HER terms. She doesn't like being told when to go to the bathroom, she wants to be able to pick and choose when she wants to go, and whether that's in a diaper or her underwear or the toilet.  So now when we tell her she needs to go sit on the potty she throws a huge fit. Which is funny, because 3 days ago, before we started  training, she had no problems going!  Also, like her brother was, she's scared to poop in the potty.  So she's holding it. Oy.

And, on the home-front, we were concerned with the few showings we've had, and since this is our first home sale we don't know whats "normal" so we asked our realtor and she is not concerned, and said every house is different, and gave us examples of many houses she's got listed right now that have had few showings and just sold, or some that have sold after just one showing, some that have sold after 1 month, etc, etc, etc. We just put our fliers in our front yard, and already those have been emptied and we printed more off.  We've seen a lot of  "drive-by's", and I know our house is in tip top shape, its nice and clean, and we just need to wait for the right people. God's teaching us patience, and i'm certainly getting the message! And i'm okay with it!
I don't know if I ever mentioned our plan?  We are leaning towards building a new house once we sell ours.  We've got a potential lot picked out. We can't buy it until we sell this though, so again, patience...... and we will know that if its still there and available when our house gets sold, then its ours, and if not, then it wasn't meant to be and God has other plans for us.
Being proactive though, we did meet with the seller of the property, and found out lots of useful information! He was really nice, answered all our questions, concerns, etc.  Our realtor set the appointment up for us and went for moral support.
We've been looking online at house plans. Figuring out what we want, what we don't want. Derek and I each made a list of 10 different things we want structurally in a new house, for example: big kitchen, dual vanity sinks in master bath, separate master suite from other bedrooms, etc.
Now I go to bed every night dreaming about our "new" home, and wake up every morning dreaming about it.  Instead of fretting about selling our house, I have dreams to focus on instead :)

The Open House

Yesterday was the realtors open house, and it went well!  14 realtors came and all of them had nothing but positive comments to say about the house, but there were a few negative comments regarding the neighborhood in the fact that there are a lot of rentals here, and there's been a few foreclosures and there's a short sale down the street.  They thought that the house was priced appropriately, but that with the neighborhood having so many rentals and the foreclosures/short sale, it might drive the price down some.
So, overall, it was good and bad news I guess.  Pretty much what we were expecting to hear, so it wasn't a surprise at all.
We may have to consider lowering our price a tad if we haven't had any interest in a month.  Which is fine, we have a small amount of wiggle room, but its still disappointing. (Thanks a lot neighborhood!!!!!!!)

My motivation is the kids.  They desperately need outdoor space that they can call their "own".... they need a place to dig and run, and have a swing set.  They both LOVE the outdoors, and while yes we do have a park 100 feet away, its not always possible or practical for me to drop everything and go to the park whenever they want to play outside.  Sometimes i'm in the middle of making dinner and they want to go play, its nice to just send them outside to play in the backyard.  As it is right now, they have no where to dig or run because of cat poop or the space is too small.  Sometimes in the evenings we go in the front yard as a family and they love that because there's a tiny bit more more room and we throw the Frisbee or play catch.

Anyways, its only been a week and a half!  Feels like its been at least a month and a half though!  Phew!

Next week Derek and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary!  9 years already!  Where has the time gone!? I sure do love him :)