Well we've been here in our new house almost 2 months now! We're finally getting settled in....some pictures hung on the walls, almost all the boxes are emptied, or at least have been addressed in some manor.  The majority of the mess in the garage now is from large items that we no longer need that we brought with us from the old house- our old washer/dryer, microwave stand, and things of that nature.

Our backyard should be started in a couple weeks when it starts drying out more, and let me tell you, we cant WAIT for that! Right now, the gigantic pile of mud out our large back windows is really unattractive, and the water that pools around it is an attractant to the kids.... so, they've come in from outside covered in mud, and i do mean covered- from head to toe, dripping wet, with mud. 

I don't think we'll be able to get a garden started in time this year, but next year, look out!  We're having a beautiful garden with lots of good veggies, and tons of strawberry bushes and blueberries since the kids eat them like they are candy!  We've talked about a fruit tree or two.... we've got plenty of room for it now! Perhaps this year we'll be able to prep for next years garden ;)

We really love it here though.  We see lots of wildlife, as I may have already mentioned?  Lots of bluebirds, which I researched and they are Western Scrub Jays. A family of 4 deer have been wandering around the area in the evenings, and in fact last night I was doing dishes and I looked up and out the backdoor and one of the deer is about 10 feet from the backdoor!  

And so Kira, one of our cats, spends most of her time on our small 3x3 temporary deck out the back door. Since she's getting old, all she does is sleep out there all day, I think 2 moves in 4 months really stressed her out, and she's pretty high strung so I think this last move did her in, so now she just sleeps almost all the time on the back porch. So we've been feeding her on the back porch. So one night I was sitting on the couch, kids were in bed, Derek was in the office working. And I heard a commotion on the porch so I looked back, and I saw Kira, but all I could really see was her tail, and it was HUGE, so obviously something freaked her out. So I went to the door to inspect.

Sitting there staring her down was a big old raccoon!!!!! Now, I know those things are really cute, but that they are mean as can be! So I'm banging on the door trying to get it to go away and it just sits there, and i'm banging on the door trying to get Kira to go away so she doesnt get attacked, but she just sits there! It eventually it jumped down but just stood by the deck, so at that point I opened the door enough to stick my arm out and try to motion it away and hiss at it and yell at Kira to go away some more. Of course, both just sit there.  Finally the thing turns its back in defeat and wanders off, but it kept looking back at me. Kira was pretty jumpy the rest of the evening.

And now we don't feed the cats after dark unless we have to.

Other wildlife, someone across the field from us has a peacock that is often wandering around the backyard. Thats amusing as neither cats nor bird seem to really notice each other or care that the others are there.

Jadon had his 6th birthday, and when we were in the rental he'd talked about having a party in our new house.  We didn't think we'd be here in time though.  We were!  But since i'd been sick that first week, and Derek was tied up with his big work project for those first 2 weeks, we never had a chance to plan anything. So we had a late one a few weeks ago, and he was super excited :) 

Not last weekend but the weekend before, we made a trip up to Washington for 4 days. Derek's grandpa passed away, so we were going up for the celebration of life service. The kids did surprisingly well!  Considering we don't take that many overnight trips.  They had a hard time settling down to go to sleep the first night.  It didnt help that Avery took a huge nap on the way up, and that they sat immobile all day in the car so they didn't get to burn any energy off.  And it was on this trip that we learned of Derek's love of hotel toast! ;)

So i'm FINALLY getting around to getting my monthly menu back up!  I plan to start back in May, and i'm really excited, I found some new recipes on Pinterest that i'm excited to try.  We've been stuck in this horrible horrible rut since we moved out of our old house and away from the menu, and i'm so sick of food, and its no wonder Jadon always wants to eat out now!  It was hard at the rental because I had no space to cook, so I made easy things that cooked fast... a lot of boxed items. As a result, I've put on a couple pounds. It doesnt help that i've had to miss a lot of my exercise classes due to illness, moving, and Derek being busy with work and unable to be home in time. 

So i'm excited to finally be getting back into the swing of things and get back on track! 

3 weeks already!

Its hard to believe its been 3 weeks already since we moved! Every day I wake up i'm still so thankful for this house and can't believe its ours!
Everyone is so happy here!  We love everything about it here. Even the birds in the backyard are mostly bluebirds, which are so much prettier than sparrows! Even the cats are thrilled to be here! And not because of the birds, but because of all the space they have to roam.
We occasionally have a female peacock roaming around in our backyard, and lots of deer pass through. And its so quiet here! And the air is fresh and doesn't smell!

We are very slowly getting settled. Its been slow going but its happening.  Boxes are finally almost gone from  inside the house... can't say the same for the garage, but slowly that is being chipped away as well.
So we haven't taken any pictures of the house yet since its been a mess, but I thought i'd take you on a mental tour.

So i'll start with the master. So I did not realize just how badly the rental reeked. I'm guessing we eventually started to adjust to the stink since we lived in it all the time. But after moving, we can smell it. Just walking into our master closet, the smell of the rental settled into all our clothes, shoes, blankets, coats, etc. It smells terrible in our closet!  So, I ended up washing every piece of clothing that we own that could be washed, every blanket, every sheet, every coat.... i haven't done shoes yet, but that's next.  Its been a very long process.  I also bought a reed diffuser to put on the shelf in the closet, hoping to get rid of that smell!!!
As far as the master bedroom, its become the dumping ground for all of our wall hangings and decorative objects that came out of boxes, as well as extra blankets and things that i'm still trying to find homes for in the house. Its pretty disorganized.

The master bathroom is looking nice though.  The drawers were full of my hair and body products though, and it was bugging me because some of them couldn't stand up because they were too tall.  My little sister pinned this on Pinterest: http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/house-and-home/organize-overflowing-bathroom-beauty-products-with-crown-molding-shelves.html And i thought it was a really nice idea, and surprisingly it doesn't look cluttered! I immediately loved the idea and went and bought those shelves (very cheap $6 each at Walmart) and created my own wall.  Of course, mine doesn't look nearly as pretty as that girls does... hers looks like a beauty salon of products, but mine serves its purpose!

My laundry room, I am LOOOOOVING!  LOVE having indoor laundry!  My laundry gets done much quicker, I don't dread doing it nearly as much!  And I love my new washer/dryer... they sing to me when they are done. :)  I love having a utility sink also, and its came in handy several times already when Avery's pooped her underwear.  The stuff that wouldn't come off in the toilet sprayed off easily in the utility sink.  Unfortunately, the very first load of laundry that I did in my new washer, I washed one of her turds unknowingly. She'd pooped her pants, and apparently a turd got in her pants too that I didn't see when I threw in the washer, so when I pulled the first load out after it was finished, I thought it smelled a little less than fresh, and a couple turdlets fell out and I picked one up wondering what it was.  I smelled it.  Really!?!?!  I washed a turd on the very first load!? Luckily my new washer has a "sanitize" wash, which I think just uses super hot water and washes for longer. But, since it was not clothes that I could wash in hot, I ended up washing the load twice in cold just to make myself happy.  Then the next load I did the sanitize option!

Office/craft room, is slowly coming together.  I finally got my sewing/craft table that I got for christmas put together.  The room is still disorganized and very messy, but its not a high priority.  It functions fine, so we can organize it after more important things are done.

Kids rooms haven't changed much... a couple things added to the walls.... a little rearranging.  That's about it.  Oh, and the kids already managed to rip the curtain rod in Avery's room out of the wall. Clearly the drywall anchors that came with the rod were garbage.

Kitchen and living area is finally looking normal!  Derek is slowly getting the cabinet pulls on the cabinets in the kitchen, but its slow going. When he's done with the kitchen, he'll still have to do both bathrooms, and laundry room. And yesterday our TV mount finally came, so he got the TV on the wall.
My kitchen still has empty cupboards, :) although yesterday I did a little rearranging while dinner was cooking. Canned goods were in a very terrible awkward spot where I couldn't find anything I needed, so they got moved, and I think now they will be much easier to find things, however I had to use up a cupboard that was once empty. :( Sad times, I like being able to brag that I have empty cupboards since i've always had a shortage of cupboards and had to store things in extra cabinets all over the house/garage.

I love how much space we have!  Currently, i'm sitting on the couch, the kids are on the floor in front of me with the bins of legos out, playing legos.  I've got 4 baskets of laundry sitting on the floor near them, with laundry waiting to be washed, the vacuum is out, several boxes are sitting out, a puzzle is in the middle of the floor, and 2 small ottomans, and a new tree/plant and it still doesn't feel overwhelming or messy. In the rental the entire living room would have been taken up, and even at our old house, the living room would have been quite full, and overwhelming.
The other day the kids were running around and through the house chasing each other, and Derek and I were smiling at each other that it was nice that they had room to run now.

Jadon's attitude has improved since moving, and its amazing to me that the rental house had such a hugely negative impact on all of us. I remember while we were there feeling like I whined and complained about it all the time, and then I started to feel like maybe I was just being dramatic.  Then when moving day came (finally!) and I heard everyone's comments about the rental house, how bad it smelled, how small it was, how gross it was... it made me feel better that I wasn't being overly dramatic about the place. :)
I wouldn't say that living in the rental makes me more grateful for our house now because I am grateful for this house no matter where we had lived before. I was grateful for our last house.  However, i'm so extremely thankful that we didn't have to live in the rental for longer than 4 months!!! I'm grateful to our lender who pushed for a quicker closing date to save us money, and i'm grateful for our builder who had no problem taking on that challenge!

And because I haven't had a chance to thank you all yet, THANK YOU so much to our families for helping us move in!

6 years old

Its hard to believe that my little boy turns 6 tomorrow.  He's growing up so fast.  Every year i'm amazed how he's grown and changed in so many different ways. He has more energy now than he did when he was a toddler or preschooler, and he is constantly climbing..... climbing on counters, over couches, in the window sills, up the cabinets, up the cars, up trees... pretty much if he can climb it, he will, regardless of if he's supposed to or not. 

He's more of a handful now than he was as a toddler/preschooler too, which is weird. He's a very particular kind of guy, and likes to have things go the way he has them planned out in his head, and if they don't go that way, he gets a bit out of sorts. 

The last year has been hard for him because of this.  A lot of changes in his life. And now we are having to make another big decision- which school to go to.  Stay at the school he's at, but we're just outside the zone for it, so he wouldn't get to ride the bus, which he really wants to do.  Or, go to the school in our new zone and have to leave his friends behind, and the familiarity of his current school, but get to ride the bus. He's pretty torn. 

He is a very smart kid.  He reads everything.  EVERYTHING.  We worried that reading would be hard for him, but reading comes so incredibly easy to him, its insane. His reading group at school started on 1st grade level reading a month or so ago, and its a breeze for him.  

We started him in karate in January to help him learn balance, coordination, and focus.  His balance has improved, and he finally learned how to do a real push up... something he has struggled with.  The physical aspect is good too, he gets a lot of good exercise. 

He and Avery are such good friends.  They get along really well 90% of the time.  On the day these pictures were taken, it was shortly before we moved into the new house, and Derek was trying to buy new socks.  Who knew it takes 20 minutes to decide what socks to buy??? ;)

Anyways, the kids entertained themselves by trying on different hats that were nearby, and then posing so I could take their pictures.  Eventually Jadon got silly. 

Looks like he's trying to have a movement in the last few!

His 4th tooth finally fell out last week!  Its been loose forever, and the grown up tooth had almost grown completely in front of it, but it FINALLY came out!  He was disappointed that the tooth fairy didn't bring him a new tooth brush or floss, but since he already has 3 toothbrushes, and had just visited the dentist the week prior and gotten a new tooth brush, the tooth fairy thought he didn't need another tooth brush. Besides, the tooth fairy wasn't prepared for the tooth to come out that night so she didn't have a new tooth brush in waiting. :)

Anyways, Happy Happy 6th birthday to my big boy, my firstborn, my son who made me a mama! I love you!

A piece of heaven

We've been in our new house now for 3 full days now, today will be the 4th. It feels a bit like a piece of heaven on earth here. We are loving it!
Its been slightly....who am I kidding, its been extremely chaotic.... having boxes everywhere, and not knowing where anything is. We've vowed never to move again.

It took me a full day just to get the kitchen unpacked, and i'm still coming across boxes that have kitchen stuff in them. I have empty cupboards still, and plenty of counter space.  I even have my toaster oven, toaster, and tea maker on the counter, as well as 3 utensil holders and a knives holder, spice rack..... annnnnd i've still got plenty of space! :)

The house is so bright, like our old house, and I love the views!  Out our back this morning were 3 deer!  And I love looking out the front, and seeing the neighbors house way on the other side of the culdesac.  Our closest neighbor will be next door, and her house is being built next month.

We met our other neighbors, and theres another 3 year old little girl named Avery who lives just a couple houses away.  That spells trouble with a capital T!

The cats?  Well, they are loving it here too.  There was no disappearing acts for 5 days.  They seemed to have immediately settled in.  They love having all the space to roam around!

The kids are enjoying it here too. Jadon really loves it here.  He's very happy. And the drive to school is a quick hop skip and a jump away.  The parents are enjoying it too, but we haven't had much opportunity to take it all in yet. I do feel like I have breathing room though, and I think Derek is happy to have his desk back.

The rental is done.  My mom helped me clean it all up yesterday, and the keys are turned in, and it has been wiped from our hands now!  It was crazy going back in there, I can't believe we lived there for 4 months, it smells so badly and is so dingy!  We feel incredibly blessed to have this house.

I'm looking forward to going through the rest of the boxes and getting things organized.  Unfortunately I came down with what we think is the flu yesterday, so i've been ordered to take it easy. Which means boxes will have to wait. And I can't break the rules because Derek is working from home today and he won't let me. I'm the only one in the house who didn't get a flu shot. I don't usually get the flu shot unless i'm pregnant, and I usually manage to avoid the flu, but this year is such a bad year, Id be surprised if I came out without getting it.

Counting it down

Almost done! The house will be done in a couple days! Its looking beautiful if I do say so myself! ;) I can hardly wait to move in!

We were joking the other day because the breakfast bar alone at the new house has about the equivalent of the entire amount of counter space we have here in the rental!  Even my laundry room beats the amount of counter space that the kitchen in the rental has!

This weekend we ordered our fridge, and washer/dryer. A new washer was needed since our current 9 year old one would randomly leak. This has never been a big problem since our laundry has always been in the garage on a concrete floor. But we didn't want it leaking inside our new house.

On a different note, Avery was complaining that her ear was hurting her last week so after a couple days and no improvement I took her in and she indeed had an ear infection. Just her second one, and it was luckily just a mild to moderate one, and the doctor gave us an rx but said we could wait a few days to see if it goes away on its own. We did that since it wasn't affecting her in any way- she was still acting normal, sleep wasn't affected, appetite hadn't changed, no fever, etc. and it appears to have been the right call as she says a couple days later that it's not hurting anymore.

Jadon had his valentines day party at school last week and avery and I got to help out for that. That was fun, but it's always amusing being around a group of kindergarteners. Avery just walked around socializing with all the kids and grownups...seriously, I have to wonder sometimes if she is really my child with as social as she is, but then again, I enjoy people, im just shy.... It's not like I don't like people. If I weren't shy I would be very social I imagine.

So we've got a very busy week ahead of us, getting things ready for the big long awaited move! There  is so much sickness going around right now, we've been extra cautious about it since Derek's big work project is happening next week and the move is happening this week. I realize with Jadon in school there's only so much I can do. I dreaded taking the kids to pediatrics last week for Avery's ear infection. But then again, what parent doesn't dread taking their kid to pediatrics in the middle of cold and flu season?  Or any season for that matter! I really really really hate this time of year! Can't wait for summer!

Anyways, busy week, so I should probably wrap this up and get started!

House pix

Since those of you who don't/can't get out to see the house "growing up", I thought i'd post a few pictures.  The first few were taken over the weekend. They are of the kitchen/dining/living area- all one big room. They had just painted all the doors so the doors were all standing in the middle of the living room floor, so it was hard to get a good picture.  Actually, it was hard to get a GOOD picture of anything with my ipod.

Here i'm standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking towards the breakfast bar (and Jadon), and towards the back of the house, or what we refer to as the "wall of windows" since its mostly all windows.

And here i'm standing in the spot where the last picture was just looking, and now looking into the kitchen.

This picture i'm standing back in the middle of the kitchen looking more towards the middle of the living room.  We debated about the vaulted ceiling, since the kitchen is also vaulted, but we are so glad we went with the vault!  Its such a small vault, but it looks so nice :)

Here is the master bathroom cabinets, just installed today! There will be dual sinks... Derek and I are excited to have our own sinks!

And this is exciting.... my laundry room! :) I didn't get to see the cabinets personally, but Derek said the room and cabinets look huge now.  And, the corner cabinet is a lazy susan... a pleasant surprise!  Didn't realize it would be a lazy susan! Washer and dryer will go on the left of the cabinets.  I'm so excited to have INDOOR laundry facilities! I think my laundry will get done faster, because I won't put off going into the garage to freeze! Also, a utility sink will be in the cabinets also. Another thing i'm really excited for!

I cant wait to see the kitchen cabinets installed!  At the end of the kitchen cabinet there will be a desk, which will be home to my laptop, and will be my command center where i'll keep my day planner, my monthly meal planner, and everything else I need to help keep the family and house organized and running smoothly!

Beautiful

Our house is looking really beautiful!  I'm so happy with the plan we chose, and I can't wait to move in! Its so light and bright inside, i'm so happy with it!

This week the changes have been less obvious, but they are still happening rapidly.  The ceiling was textured and painted, the walls were textured and will be painted this week, exterior was painted and trim is in the process of being painted. Gutters were installed. Garage floor was poured.  Interior trim was installed and painted. Someone is ALWAYS at the house doing something, day and sometimes nightly too. It really is like extreme makeover!

So why is there a push to get the house done so quickly? Well for starters, because it can be done. Randy said any house can be built fast, and it does not affect the quality of the house.  Usually when a house is built, between each job, the house sits for weeks with nothing happening. For example, after foundation is laid, it sits for weeks. After walls go up, it sits for weeks, etc.  These weeks add up to months.  Randy just scheduled our house so that there was never any down time, and even sometimes crews were there at the same time.
Secondly, our lender, who has worked with our builder many times before, was pushing for a sooner closing date so we could get locked in at a low rate. (Funny thing is, the day after we locked in, it went up a half a point, so we saved a lot of money there!)
Thirdly, Randy has several other jobs lined up waiting!  Funny.... we talked to several other builders who said they hadn't built houses in years because the economy was so terrible.  Its because they aren't willing to build quality homes at lower costs.  They are more worried about making a pretty penny than just having the work.  That's why we like our builder.  He's not willing to raise his prices! :) And THAT is why he has work and the others don't.

This coming week pretty much everything will be finished, and I cant WAIT!!! :)
We spent a couple hours at the house yesterday measuring the windows for blinds, and talking with the landscaper who will be doing the front yard this week. We met our future neighbor, who dropped in to show her friend the house because she will be building a house right next to ours, and she loved our floor plan so much shes going to use our floor plan too.  Derek's a bit disappointed. He was really excited to have a house that probably no one in the world had. Obviously the floor plan was similar to someone else's but not with the changes we made.  Luckily Randy will be building her house also, and he told his designer to change the elevation of her house to look differently from ours.

Jadon's starting to get anxious about moving. We started taking him back to see his counselor a few weeks ago. His counselor said that Jadon is a hard one to get information from, but his session yesterday went really well and he gathered a lot of insight. Jadon really really REALLY hates this rental house, he's excited about the new house, but also confused about moving. He's also still having some underlying issues with the sickness stuff. I figured. Whenever a kid is not at school, thats the first thing he tells me about his day when I pick him up. Or the first thing he tells me is that a kid went home sick that day. Or he seems to be a little anxious when his teacher is out for a couple days. Oddly, he didn't have any problems when I was sick a couple weeks ago.
He really misses our old house, and doesn't understand why we had to move. Its all he ever knew. He's very sensitive to changes in his life. We are learning when something is bugging him, how he is acting.
The other night, he wouldn't stay in bed, and was crying about it, which is not normal unless somethings bugging him. So we went to talk to him. It was really sweet, he tried really hard to tell us what was going on in his little noggin that was bugging him, but he doesn't understand and therefore can't fully put into words.  So he told us that he had a lot of boxes in his head, and they all had question marks in them. So we talked to him about moving and the new house a little and how things will get back to normal again, then after that he said one of the boxes turned into an exclamation point. We were proud of him for trying to talk to us. That's the first time he's been able to tell us somewhat whats going on in his head.

On a different note, we signed him up for karate last month.  Poor kid, I didn't realize just how much of my lack of balance and coordination he got from me, but its pretty evident at karate. However, after 5 or 6 weeks of karate we are already noticing an improvement in his balance, so we are encouraged!  He is enjoying it too. I've heard a lot of positive things about karate, physically, mentally, emotionally. I think its good for him. Its teaching him to be quick, focused, strong, confident, etc. He has earned 4 stripes on his belt. We are working with him at home on everything as well. Practice makes perfect.

Avery is still the same. Nothing affects her!  I always sign her up for gymnastics at the beginning of the year for a few months through the college.  She LOVES it!  Its not my favorite... I hate driving all the way there, having to find a parking spot, then having to walk a mile to get to the building. Okay, i'm being dramatic, but its not the most convenient. Plus there's very little seating inside for the boys to sit and watch, and actually watching can be impossible sometimes.  But, Avery loves it, so that's why we do it. She's good too. She's much more agile than her brother.  Much more athletic. She has no problem doing everything that the teacher  says, and she has got some good listening skills!!  When I don't think she's listening, she is.  For example, the teacher will set up a little obstacle course thing on the floor, about 6 different things, and then show them what to do all at once. I don't expect a 3 year old to remember what to do for any of them, but she knows exactly what to do, so she was clearly paying attention!

Anyways, daylight savings begins in a month and Jadon's birthday is in a month. Very excited about both!  And very glad we will be in our new house for both! :)

2 weeks!!!

In 2 weeks we get to sign our lives over to our beautiful new home! Which means in 2 weeks and 1 day we will be moving into our beautiful new home! ..... but whose really counting? ;)

We are super super excited, but there's a ton of things that need to be done, here and there and everywhere!  The next 2 weeks will no doubt be busy ones, but i'm okay with that, considering the circumstances.

Tired...

If you asked me if I'm too excited about the house to sleep, the answer would be yes.

House update

Excitement is growing in the Loveless household!  We have a new closing date of...drum roll please................................................................................................................................

FEBRUARY 22nd!  Yes that is correct, 3 weeks from now!

Interior walls are being put up as I type. Siding is being put up as I type. The driveway and garage are being poured next week. The siding is being painted in the next couple days. After that, all that will be left will be trim work in the house, which may be done sooner and I just don't know it...carpets and flooring's  cabinets and counters, toilets and of course sinks and faucets, and painting the interior, and of course all the finishing touches like fixtures. Its really coming along, its amazing.  Every time we go is a huge change.

I have to admit, I was a little worried the second we submitted the plans, even after spending hour after hour analyzing the plans until we came up with what we thought was the best possible plan for us.  There were still things that worried me.  But now seeing it all come together, every time I go I love it more!  Its nice and bright, which was a HUGE deal for me.  I HAVE to have natural light. That's one thing I loved about our last house was all the natural light. And that is very important for me, especially in the winter months when I tend to get dragged down by the short, gray, dreary days.
In the new house, our plans called for basically our living/dining area to be a wall of windows, but its facing the west. Getting to go there in the middle of winter and see how it is, and there's lots of light coming in, even in the winter.

Another thing that I am really loving is the HUGE hallway!  Not long, but very wide!  Its so wide because the original plan was, as I think I mentioned a daylight basement plan, so the hallway was where the stairs were to be, so we took out the stairs and put in a huge storage closet area instead, but the hallway is really wide, and it is really great! Several people can walk through there at a time. The kids will be able to run around and play.....

We are really loving our builder as well.  He has been great.  He's not just out to make a fast buck, even though the house is going up fast. If he were out to make a fast buck, we would not been able to build, it would have been too expensive for us. He's a family man with 6 young kids, the youngest still an infant.

We are leaving some projects for the future for us to do in an effort to save some money.  For example, the back patio/porch, we are just having a small 3x3 pad- which is what he is required to do- put in for now, and then we are going to build a deck, and i'd like to put a post up on the end of the over hang on the back patio as it looks funny hanging over with nothing supporting it... IMO.  We plan to someday put some stonework on house as well, but not for a long while i'm guessing.... like on this house: Dovetail with bricks That is actually the color we are painting the exterior as well.  (I loooooove the color of the doors on that house too, but those doors were much too spendy for our budget, so we had to go with white doors.)

So there you have it!  We're in the process of picking out our lighting, which will be minimal. And then we will be picking our faucets, and after that I think most everything has been picked! Phew! What a whirlwind ride this has been!  Its still hard to imagine us living in the house.

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

Merry Christmas

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!  I can't believe its already here and gone.

This year I didn't send out Christmas cards, I didn't have time to do so. Plus with everything packed in boxes, I just feel overwhelmed and cramped and unorganized (we all know how I function better when i'm organized!) my to-do list was 100 miles long and I just couldn't bring myself to add Christmas cards to the list. I fully intend to next year! But I can't make any promises ;)

I keep hearing from people, including myself, that this year just didn't feel like Christmas. And I can't pinpoint why exactly. Perhaps for us it was because we aren't "home", and we don't have decorations set up, and our tree is a 4 ft, fake tree that had no lights (until Santa put lights on it.)  Or maybe its just because we've been too busy to actually sit back and enjoy the season. I know for me, for an entire week after the Connecticut shooting, I felt like I was in a trance. I just couldn't fathom what had happened in that elementary school, and it affected me very deeply. Its just hard to understand the horror that was taking place there, while for the rest of us life just continued on as normal. Here we were, preparing for the upcoming holiday with our babies and families, while these poor families were grieving over the deaths of their young children who should not have died in their school where they were supposed to be safe. It just didn't seem right.

Whatever the reason, it just didn't seem like Christmas this year.

Regardless, we are so blessed to have such wonderful families, both close by and far away.  We couldn't ask for better. Thank you for being a part of our lives.

I'll end this post with a few of the more "memorable" pictures from Christmas :)

Not sure what this face was from!

Cousins

In the next few pictures, Tinkerbell was mad that her new makeup case that she got from her fashionista aunt was taken away for the picture since I caught her with a thing of nail polish opened...ready to paint her own fingernails i'm guessing.  So she was unwilling to cooperate for this set of pictures, but at least her big brother was a good boy and sat nicely for it! 

 She certainly is dramatic, isn't she?

Here's our lowly little tree on Christmas morning

Jadon is so excited to open presents!  But we are waiting for Avery to wake up.  He was bouncing all over the house!  We got a video of it. :)

She finally got up. Unfortunately we can't get a "normal" picture of them, only goofy ones. Notice the pink eye cover thingy around her neck.  That came with her beauty case that she got from her Aunt (mentioned above and pictured in the photo with Avery and Brooke)... Avery insisted on wearing that all night long on Christmas eve.  She's so silly! 

And finally, Christmas morning at Gramma Karla's. We sure are glad to have gotten to spend Christmas with that lovely girl this year, even if it was for only an hour. 

Very sweet to horribly bitter

Friday was a very bitter sweet day, except in the other order- sweet bitter.

The day started out good.  Derek and I volunteered to help out in Jadon's kindergarten classroom for his christmas party.... sorry, HOLIDAY party. Gramma D came to watch Avery so we could have that time with Jadon, and we enjoyed being in his classroom, seeing him and his classmates and his teacher, and seeing a bit of what they do during the day before the party started. 

Jadon was very happy to have us there and wanted us to stay even after the party was over. But the rest of his day consisted of recess and library (tough day!!) ;)

That was the sweet part of the day. 

Later in the day I was on my computer and that's when I found out about the shooting in the CT elementary school and I started sobbing instantly. After having just been in Jadon's class with all those sweet, innocent little children, I kept thinking of their little faces and how unfair it was for those children that were shot and their poor families. What kind of world do we live in where we can't even take our kids to their elementary school without fearing for their safety?? They were mostly kindergartners (correction: I just read that now they were all first graders).... Jadon's age! Its just something that my mind can't wrap around.  HOW does someone do this???  HOW does someone kill another human being, let alone a CHILD?! 

At that point, Avery asked me why I was sad, and Jadon asked if I missed the old house again.  I said "noo." What do you say?  There's no way I'm telling them what happened, they don't need to hear about this,  this is almost too awful for even adults to hear. So I just told them that the reason I was crying was because there are some very bad people in the world. 

So now while the rest of us are spending the holidays holding our children, these poor families had that joy ripped from them. And for the rest of their lives this time of year will be a constant reminder to them of what happened. 

And what does this mean for us?  Well, Jadon's school already goes on lock down after the bell rings, so that is good.  Everyone who enters the school must be approved through the office staff first, sign in, and wear a visitor name badge. 

This only makes me teeny teeny tiny better. The office staff can only do so much to fend off someone that forces their way in, especially since they are behind a desk. And if the person comes in with a gun, they are defenseless. So basically the lock down only makes me feel better about some creep who wants to come kidnap kids from the school.... but not from some psychopath wanting to come shoot up a school.

Basically its just one more thing that i'm going to worry about. I always worry when i'm away from my kids anyways, might as well add school time to the worry list too!

Be still and wait

I realize I haven't been a very good blogger this year at all!  In fact, in comparison to other years where I've had over 100 posts every year, this will be my 50th post for this year and its almost over!  Sorry Grandma!!!

Not much happening here, just trying to pass the time and stay sane!  I'll admit its been hard for me leaving my house to come to a tiny, stinky rental.  As I look back over the last month and a half, I feel a little pity for myself in those first couple weeks when I felt like life was just a terrible tornado.  Boxes everywhere, bugs everywhere, no order whatsoever in my mind where I like to have everything perfectly in order. On top of that, I was dealing with sadness over leaving our house....yes, its just a house, and i'm sure everyone thinks i'm nuts for holding on to it so dearly, but it was our first house, and we made it into a home, brought our babies home there, and made irreplaceable memories there. And since i'm a sentimental schmuck, leaving my house that I loved dearly to come to a drab, dreary, dark, ant infested, teeny, tiny, smelly rental house across town, was difficult.

I had a couple days of heart palpitations again a couple weeks after being here, as well as some sleepless nights. Luckily I got that intense stress level under control and the heart palps stopped after a couple days, and the sleepless nights after a week or so, although every once in awhile I still have several nights where I don't sleep well.

I've done my share of whining and complaining, which I really hate. I certainly don't like complaining, and I don't like for my kids to witness it. That's a super example to set!!  Even though I was complaining, deep down i'm so grateful.  Grateful to have had our house to love, grateful for a roof over our heads now, grateful that its temporary ;).  Grateful for what the future holds! I know living here will only make me even that much more grateful for our new house, wherever that may be!

In the midst of my turmoil, I came across a bible verse that made me just STOP.  I've had it posted on my computer desktop ever since and I see it every time i'm on my computer, and it's a perfect reminder for me when i'm feeling pressed.
"Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act." Psalm 37:7
When we moved, I felt like nothing was going as planned, there were no houses for sale that we were interested in, and I felt impatient and irritable, after all, I don't want to be in this rental any longer than we have to be! And when I came across this verse I realized I needed to just stop, as I mentioned before. And instead of trying to make things happen on MY time, let things happen on HIS time, because His timing is perfect. And sure enough, when I did that, things started to happen........... :)

So now i'm taking each day as it comes.  I try to dress nicer a couple days a week rather than just throwing on my most comfortable clothes, which are also the least inspiring. I'm back to grocery shopping at winco, something that I had put off doing because I just didn't want to, it too much effort, and instead we just went to nearby grocery stores which were also more expensive.
I try to keep up on the housework, which is pretty easy when the house is 900+ sq ft.  The kitchen HAS to be kept clean almost constantly or its not usable, and i'm not just exaggerating.

Unfortunately, our vacuum is completely disgusting  and we will be buying a new one for our new house. There's just no way we are going to use this vacuum on a new house! The carpet in this place is filthy, even after 2 shampoos.  I'm convinced the previous tenants did not vacuum once in the 2 years they were here.... especially considering there were 20 places of chewed gum embedded in the carpet! I'll put it this way, I vacuum here 2 times a week at least, sometimes more. The canister is filled with dirt and dust, and the filter is completely disgusting as well. The whole thing has a layer of dust caked onto it.  Imagine what it will be like by the time we move, if this is how its like and its only been a month and a half!

The kids are doing good.  Jadon's two front top teeth are loose, and have been for awhile, but he does not wiggle his teeth, so it takes forever for him to lose teeth. So, because of this, the same thing that happened with his bottom teeth is now happening to his top teeth- the adult tooth is growing in in front of the baby tooth. For some reason, he is not excited about losing his teeth, it causes him anxiety.  Never met a kid that wasn't excited to lose teeth! He's the first! So last night it caused him some anxiety, which always causes him to have sleeping problems. So 4am rolled around and he was up and in our room telling us that he couldn't sleep, he wasn't tired, he was hot, every excuse in the book, yada yada yada....

So i've decided that its time the kids have some chores.  Its something I probably should have implemented a while ago, but this whole year has been sortof a whirlwind of crazy so that didn't even cross my mind.  But tomorrow we will be starting chores.  Without allowance. Thankfully Derek and I agree on that.  Neither of us was raised with an allowance, and we don't think its necessary.  We are a family, and a team, and each member of the team needs to contribute to make the team run smoothly. They don't need to be paid for this. Kids these days are so overindulged! They have enough toys to have their own toy store, they get paid for everything, and the tooth fairy apparently gives out twenties to some kids!!!!

Thanksgiving Break

Can you believe that kids have a week off of school now during Thanksgiving? When we were kids, we had 2 days off! Seems like kids these days hardly go to school anymore, with all the extra days off, early release days, etc. due to budget cuts!

With that said, we met with Jadon's teacher for parent/teacher conferences this week (already!) He is doing very well, on track and above in all areas.  Especially in reading.  He is really excelling in reading.  They have reading groups in his class, and each group consists of just a handful of the kids. His teacher said they are at the point in the reading now where a lot of the kids start to slow down in the learning, but she said Jadon keeps climbing away, and she doesn't want to keep him from continuing that so she wants to move him to the next group level. So, she sent us home with 2 extra lessons to get him caught up to the next group, which we are working on and so far is easy peezy for him, and he is very excited to move up! He enjoys reading and is eager to learn.
His writing and drawing/coloring are not the best, only because he is not interested in those things, so he doesn't put any effort into it.  He has no problem in actually doing them though.  He can easily write his letters now, its just sloppy. I have to get on to him about writing with nice handwriting, especially when writing things like schoolwork or thank you cards. Of course, I can't talk, I have terrible handwriting so who am I to tell him to write nicer!?

On friday he and a couple other kids in his class got to go with the principal and get a cookie because they ran the most laps in their class for the jog-a-thon!  We are pretty proud of him! He is really enjoying school!

So in other news, our bug problem persists. I've been trying desperately to get rid of these ants, but it seems that no matter what, they are all over the place. Since they are all over just randomly, I cant place any bait traps. The last straw for me came the other day when I found about 5 on my couch throughout the day. Also that was a bad day and I was finding ants in every room of the house pretty frequently. I spent 2 hours vacuuming the house, and taking the hose and vacuuming the floorboards and around the walls, moving the couches.
The bug guy will be here bright and early Tuesday morning to treat the bugs. :)

Every year we do Operation Christmas Child.  If you're not familiar with it, basically people can create shoe boxes full of toys, toiletries, school supplies, etc. for kids in less fortunate countries, and every year they send millions of boxes to children.  You can make a box online through the website and they will pack the box or you can pack your own and drop it off at a designated location.  In the past we've just done it online, but the kids have not seemed to understand the point much.  This year, since Jadon seems to be having an issue with being quite ungrateful lately, and because we want the kids to understand that Christmas isn't about getting. We want them to experience the joy of giving, and to see that while yes, its nice to get gifts, but its even nicer to give gifts. So this year we packed our own boxes.  This way the kids had to go to the store, pick out stuff that they would not get to keep, that would not be for them, and then give it away to children who would get to keep it.  In addition, Derek showed the kids videos and pictures of kids receiving their boxes. The kids liked seeing the children so happy. It always brings a tear to my eye to see those videos of those happy faces.
For me, its bittersweet.  I wish that I could make hundreds of boxes, and I wish that I could personally deliver each one.  The reactions from the the children receiving the boxes are always the reactions that I hope to see from my own kids when they get presents from anyone, but its usually not that way. One of the downsides of being so fortunate is that you grow up not appreciating what you have and what you get, so we are hoping to instill this into our kids early on so that they realize that they are really and truly blessed.

Praying for sanity

Hard to believe its already nearing mid- November!  

We've been here at the rental now for around 3 weeks, and continue to have problems.  Since the day we moved in, I would randomly find an ant here and there every once in awhile, and I'd kill it and then wouldn't think anything else of it. 

Last friday morning I was sitting on the couch in the early morning before everyone else was up, and had an ant crawl out from one of the arm sleeves of my robe.  I smashed it then flicked it.  A second later, one crawled out from the other sleeve!  I about lost it at that point!  I hate bugs!  The kids love to have the ants and bugs crawling on them, but I can't stand it!  I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. 

Then a few minutes later I got up and looked in the cupboard for something, cereal i'm guessing?  And the cupboard had ants all over in it.  You've GOT to be kidding me. 

So I immediately went and got some Terro ant bait traps and set them out.  They worked almost immediately, and before long I had a line of ants running up and down the wall.  I set up several more in the kitchen, and after a couple days I only see an ant every once in awhile in the kitchen. I am still seeing quite a few every day in the bathroom though, so I've got one set up in there as well. And randomly throughout the house I will see one here and there, and when I do I kill them.

So after a day or so of using the Terro bait, I got out my swiffer sweeper vac and was vacuuming the kitchen floor, and I looked in the canister to see if I vacuumed up any ants before I dumped it in the garbage can, and I noticed there were no ants, but something ELSE was moving.  Little worm looking things.  Oh fantastic!  So we saved the bugs in a ziploc bag and called the landlord and she called the Good Earth guy, who came today to confirm what both Derek and I had researched to be.... carpet beetle larvae. 

On a positive note, this house has a big backyard, and the kids have been LOVING it.  Its fully fenced, and they are outside rain or shine, dark or light, cold or hot.  So, i'm confident that we made the right choice in selling, afterall, the biggest driving force behind our decision to sell was that we wanted a bigger property for the kids to be able to run around in. The unfortunate thing is they don't have many outdoor toys, so they (read Jadon) is very destructive.  A tree branch is taking quite the beating and i'm afraid it will be broken off before we leave (the hummingbird feeder that was hanging on this branch has already been broken), the apples from the apple tree are used as baseballs to throw at the house and fence and trees.  2x4 boards that we brought from the old house and were sitting in the backyard in a stack were moved all over the yard and almost crashed through Avery's bedroom window on at least one occasion. The little pea gravel that's used as landscaping, has been used for play... as seeds all over the place, as fireworks all over the grass, or just  thrown all over the deck and porch.  Its beginning to look like a tornado has gone through out there, and quite frankly, sometimes watching Jadon running around back and forth out there it feels like i'm watching a tornado. At the same time, if he's not under constant surveillance, those are the things that happen. Is it normal for boys to be so destructive?  Or is he just bored and trying to come up with things to do?  He's always destroying everything.  He never plays with toys for long the way they are meant to be played with.  This drives me crazy because most of his toys end up broken because of this.  Its not just toys that he destroys. Anything he can get his little hands on ends up broken somehow.  Even the poor bushes outside take a beating in one way or another!  I told Derek several months back after a particularly frustrating day where Jadon was making a destructive path throughout the house and yard, that someday Jadon was going to be a famous creator of some trillion dollar invention or something and we would be the parents interviewed years down the road and we'd say "as a child, he was always destroying things. Everything he played with he never played with the way it was meant to be played with. It was never played with the way it was supposed to be played with. Little did we know that his destruction was paving the way of a brilliant inventor!" 

Needless to say, between the bugs and the destructive child, i'm praying for my sanity!

Well here we are

We are all moved and the house is no longer our house. We closed thursday the 25th.  The last couple weeks have been incredibly stressful and rough for me, emotionally.  Apparently I was quite emotionally attached to my first house, and I knew I was, but I didn't realize just how much until it came time to actually start moving.

So our realtor has a rental house, and she's been working tirelessly most of the summer to try to get it back up to par after the previous tenants destroyed it.  She said we could move in there. Even though it is small (998sqft), only has 1 bathroom, Avery's room is about 7x7ft, and the kitchen is much smaller than what I had before!  Unfortunately, we've had a lot of things go wrong since being here.  Things like the faucet in the bathroom leaking and draining slowly, and the toilet suddenly started leaking out the bottom at the floor, a lot.  Luckily, Brenda gets it taken care of pronto, and we ended up with a brand new faucet and a brand new toilet! My dryer wont hook up to the outlet in the garage either, so Derek had to buy a special cable, and I should have my dryer hooked up tonight.

I'll admit that I felt really depressed last week.  It was a hard pill to swallow, plus I was at the old house every day cleaning and getting the last of our things out, and rounding up the cats to bring over, so it didn't make it any easier seeing the house every day, and then leaving it to come here to the rental.  In fact, typically whenever I was at the old house I was sobbing.  The kids were always asking me "mommy, why are you sad?"  Jadon would sometimes say "i'm going to miss this house" and I'd wonder what the heck we were doing selling our beloved house!  But then we'd come back to the rental (which has a fenced big backyard) and the kids would immediately go outside and play and play and play, and I know we made the right decision to sell. After all, our biggest motivation for selling was to find a house with a bigger yard for the kids.

So now that I haven't been back to the house anymore, things are getting better.  We are adjusting to life here, although I have no desire to cook anything or be in this kitchen at all!  This town smells to high heaven, and I miss N. Albany and cant wait to get back!
The kids had no problem at all adjusting.  A little surprising to me, I expected some minor problems at least. The cats?  Well, Our black kitty had no problem adjusting.  She seemed to figure it out right away, even had no problem with being in the carrier and in the car, and almost seemed to like it!
The other 2 disappeared for several days and I thought for sure they were gone, but then they showed up last night and were back again this morning for breakfast!  I'm not sure where they went or what they were doing?

Now if we could only find a new house to buy!

Kindergarten Picture

Just had a second before dinner is ready and I wanted to post Jadon's kindergarten picture that we got home today! Of course, I cried when I saw it. :*) Happy tears... bitter-sweet ones. He's growing up, and he's so handsome!  And he is aware of this.... I asked him a couple weeks ago if he knew that he was handsome, and he said "Yeah, I know. Some of the first grade girls tell me i'm cute."  Oy.

Packin' up and Movin' out

This is our last "normal" weekend in our house.  Next weekend we will be here but we will be moving.... so I don't count that as a "normal" weekend.  Its hard to believe we are down to the final days here in our house! At this present moment, we have no where to go.  We are going to look at a rental Monday   Derek's called on several other rentals and never got responses back on them.  So we are really praying this one on Monday works out!!! We had to call off our house hunting for the rest of last week and until after we get moved and settled because it was beginning to be overwhelming trying to pack, search for rentals and go look at houses to buy every evening after work, and still carry on with the rest of our normal everyday lives.  Really the only thing left for us to look at is 1 house on the market and one that's for sale by owner and another that's possibly for sale that we saw on craigslist last month.... not sure if that one is still available though.

Our house is a disaster, and that alone is overwhelming to me. Boxes are everywhere, stuff is all over the kitchen counter top.  The disarray is maddening to me and that alone is enough to stress me out!

Emotionally, i'm having a hard time letting go. Maybe if we had a new house to go to to call home it wouldn't be so hard, but the thought of leaving our first house is hard.  We've had so many good memories here.  Slowly making the house into a home, bit by bit, as our budget would allow.  And that included putting nice window coverings on the the windows, painting the whole interior of the house, changing out the fixtures, replacing the kitchen sink and the dishwasher, water heater, heat pump, etc. And then of course the yard.  Derek has put many sweat hours into the yard for me, and all the times i've moved bushes around after deciding after a year that I didn't like them in the spot i'd planted them.

And then of course, the memories of my babies in the house.  Each step of my pregnancies in the house.  Bringing them home to this house, and having the cats approach them like they were aliens. Rocking Jadon in the glider in his room in the middle of every night for 30 minutes, then putting him down sound asleep, only to have him wake up the second I step away from the crib as if he were never asleep. Walking and bouncing and bounce-walking up and down the hall and the bedrooms trying to get them to settle down or to sleep. Many nights sleeping on the bedroom floors of sick or scared kids. Washing pencil and dry erase markers off the walls and doors. Proudly hanging the children's artwork as masterpieces on the stairway.  Teaching the kids their boundaries outside the house (they can go anywhere in our yard, but must not go into the neighbors yards, thats out of bounds, and must stay on sidewalk), having them obey those boundaries, seeing neighbor kids who have NO boundaries and run out in the street , and having a neighbor lady compliment us about how well our kids seem to know where they can and cant go outside the house.  Jadon learning to ride his bike without training wheels. 

So many good memories in this house.  I keep telling myself a quote that I saw on pinterest a while back "Don't cry because its over; smile because it happened."  This is a new chapter in our lives.

I just hate change.

So how are the kids doing in all this?  Well, Avery seems totally oblivious.  And Jadon, I've been worried with his past issues this year, but he seems to be doing just fine.  We've been trying to include him in everything. Explaining everything to him.  He's been asking lots of questions about what kind of things are going to go with us when we move (our beds, toys, couches, etc).  I explained to him that he will not get to ride the bus anymore when we move since we'll be out of school boundary most likely while we are in a rental.  He's sad about that, but once we find a house to buy he knows its possible he might get to ride the bus again. Overall, he does not seem fazed either.  I tell the kids, "we've only got 2 more weeks left in the house (for example) how does that make you feel?" and usually he says "A little sad. I love this house." However, he LOVES going to look at other houses with us. He usually likes them all. ;)

So I know this is a long post, but its been awhile, and it will probably be the last one before we move.  Jadon's doing AMAZING in school!  He loves it!  He's told us several times how much he loves his school. He's really growing up.  Its amazing how far he's come in 6 months since before we started his counseling   Its hard to believe its the same kid. He's back to his old self, and even less worrisome than he was before. However, a few weeks ago at school, his little friend (one that he went to preschool with also that is in his kindergarten class too) was not feeling well at school.  Jadon said his friend didn't have a sore throat or stomach ache, and had been to see the school nurse, who had sent him back to class.  Obviously I think if he had been truly ill, the nurse wouldn't have sent him back to the class. Jadon was very worried about him. It doesn't really show much though until nighttime when Jadon's laying in bed trying to go to sleep.....when he's alone with his thoughts. So it was after 9pm, and we heard him in his room crying, so we went to see what was wrong, and he said "I'm not sick."      ???
We figured it out that he was just laying there most likely thinking about Jackson and worrying about his friend. We assured him Jackson would be fine, and his mom would take care of him and that everyone gets sick from time to time. That was enough to comfort him because he went to sleep and didn't wake up until morning. Jackson was at school the next day too, so that was good. I had explained to Jadon that maybe Jackson was just having a bad morning that day and was just feeling out of sorts, and that we all have days like that sometimes.

Avery had her birthday last week!  My little baby girl is not so baby anymore!  She's a big 3 year old!  At her 3 year old check up, she was 50% percentile on the nose for weight, but well above the 95% for height! Both my kiddos are going to be tall skinnies.... but is anyone surprised by that?
For halloween, I wanted to make their costumes, but I just could not burden myself with that on top of the house and moving, so I bought their costumes.  Avery's going as Minnie mouse, and Jadon is a SWAT team member. Tomorrow Derek and I are going on a field trip with Jadon's class to the pumpkin patch! We are looking forward to that!  And so is Jadon!

Well i'll end this book now, but the next time you hear from me, we'll most likely be at a different house!

October tomorrow?!

The last couple weeks have been super busy! And now today is the last day of September already!

Yesterday we did The Color Run in Portland!  That was an experience!  We decided to take the kids with us, they were free and hopefully they would see that fitness/being healthy= fun!  We jogged some, but walked most of it because of the kids. Pictures will follow eventually, but possibly not until my yearly slideshow! (Yikes!)

I'm not even sure what to say!  The next few weeks will be busy as well!  Next weekend we will celebrate Avery's 3rd birthday! :*(  (I should probably get on that!) The following weekend we have a birthday party to go to, and then the weekend after that we are moving!  Where?  We don't know yet!  We've been inquiring about some rentals, but we are needing a month to month rental and most places are 6 mo or 1 year leases.  SO, that makes things complicating.
On the house front, we've met with a few builders and we are feeling like building might not be whats in store for us. For one thing, the lot we are looking at, we could potentially get cheap, but since we'd need to put a daylight basement in, it would be a more expensive build, so that would cancel out the cheap cost of the lot, which would make the price too high for us most likely!  The last builder we spoke with, we talked to at the lot as well as at our house, and he was very thorough and honest about what kinds of expenses a build on that lot would entail.  We haven't 100% ruled it out yet, but our goals have shifted towards looking at already built houses now..... and finding ourselves a place to rent in the meantime!
I'd like to just say, this is very hard for me.  I HATE change for one thing, and knowing i'm leaving the comfort of my own home for good to go to a rental (that we don't even know where yet) for a house that we don't even know when we'll find....it scares me. I like the familiarity of our life. I like the routine of our life. I don't do well with spontaneity, and flying by the seat or your pants, or unplanned things, and that's kind-of how this feels to me. I'm anticipating a lot more migraines this month, a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot more heart palpitations!

On a lighter note, my baby girl will be 3 in a week! How is that possible!?  She requested a Strawberry Shortcake cake, and I make all my kids birthday cakes.  And even though they don't look very good most of the time- after all  i'm a mom, not a professional cake decorator and I've never had cake decorating classes- I make them with a special ingredient that no bakeries can make them with- Love!  So I found a Strawberry Shortcake cake to make Avery, and I ordered the topper, and the rest doesn't look too terribly difficult.  I thought about attempting to make my own marshmallow fondant since it apparently tastes a heck of a lot better than the premade Wilton stuff. We'll see.  I don't know if I will have the time to do that. We haven't even talked about what we are doing for her birthday yet!  AAHH!  I feel so behind!

So here's a picture of the cake:
The cake itself and the stripes will be easy.... the flowers.... i'm not sure. I'll have to research!  But she will LOVE it!  And she gets to keep the set on top to play with afterwards.

I was noticing the other day how much Strawberry Shortcake had a makeover since when I was a kid!

Kindergarten

My little man started kindergarten today!  Hard to believe where the time has gone.  I was worried that he was going to have a hard time with it, given his recent history with separation, but he had no problems at all! Hopefully this continues!

I, on the other hand, could not hold it together and I was balling before we left the house.  It all started when I got up and showered, and I told myself I had to be strong, I didn't want to add any stress to him because I figured he'd be having a hard time, the last thing he needed was to see me getting all worked up.  I was fine in the shower, until thoughts of him as a little guy over the years started popping up in my head.
Then a few minutes before it was time to go, he wanted cuddle time with mommy, so we were on the couch cuddling, and then Avery and daddy went upstairs to brush teeth, and more memories started rushing to me, and I lost it right there.  Oy.

Then I was fine at school, I had a lump the size of Texas in my throat when we said goodbye to him, but I was keeping it together, and then Derek asked me how I was doing and again I teared up.

I'm eager to go and pick him up.  His class is about 30 minutes shorter than his preschool class-time was, so its only 2.5 hours, which is ridiculous, however, his class is relatively small, Derek counted 20. I'm just not sure how they are going to learn anything in that amount of time.  We may have to do a little "homeschooling" on the side.
I'm not even sure how i'm going to get grocery shopping done in that time.

Avery is happy about the situation.  She gets my full attention again without any Jadon intruptions, so she's totally happy about it!  The first thing she wanted to do when we got home was play with her doll house together.

Sold

We got an offer on our house! It was for a bit lower than our asking price, but its a solid offer, and its enough for us, and neither Derek nor I, nor our agent feel that we should counter offer at all.  We'd be crazy if we thought that someone would make an offer on our house for the original price unless there was competition.
So, we accepted the offer!

So, pending an inspection and an appraisal, we will have to be out of our house by Oct. 25th.  Yikes! We are worried about both of those.  I'm worried about the inspection.  Apparently they will spend 4 hours inspecting every square inch of your house, and some even mark off things as petty as "a light switch plate is crooked." What if there has been something seriously wrong with the house all along that we've had no idea about????  Or one thing that really scares me is mold!  Seems like there is so much potential for mold to grow in a house, in ANY house.....

Anyways.  Derek's really worried about the appraisal.  If the appraisal comes back lower than the asking price, then the deal's off, and the house is off the market until  ???  That would be horrifying, that would mean we'd be here for a very long time.

Adding to the stress, we've got like 6 or 7 builders that we will be "interviewing," and trying to coordinate times to do this, and the meetings will be lengthy as there is a lot to discuss.  Most of them appear to only have times during the week to meet, meaning we cant do the meetings on the weekends, which would have been ideal.

On top of that, we'll have to move most of our stuff to storage if everything goes well with the appraisal and inspection, and find a temporary place to live. Derek's work is picking up, and Jadon starts kindergarten next week.
I had planned to enroll each of the kids in one extracurricular activity this session, but will now be holding off until things settle down!  Too much crazy busyness for this family!!!  We like our calmness!!
But, I guess we asked for this!  And we have to go through this if we want to move.

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 :)