Don't mind if I do

I finished our room and the girls' rooms tonight (and a weeks' worth of laundry) and the hallway to my bed is looking mighty long, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing a little Smirnoff and frozen cookie dough can't cure!

Getting there...

Nap time of day 2 and we're making progress.

And I gotta say, I like this house. Today was gorgeous and sunny and when I think about some of the places we looked at, I can't believe what a blessing this place has turned out to be!

First dinner in the new house

Pizza! What else?

First morning in the new house.

All this boy needs is his bottle and his buddy to feel at home.

Unpacking has turned up all kinds of treasures!

Welcome home?

After moving like crazy and then cleaning our old place for hours, we headed to our new home, which looked like this. And funny enough, I got a major second wind...nothing like organizing and moving furniture to get me excited. Thanks to Susan, the kitchen and bathrooms were clean. And thanks to Ed's parents, the kids were gone for a couple more hours. And I think I've mentioned the miracle of efficiency when the kids are not around. We ended up crashing hard at about 9:30 until Jack, who was sharing a room for the first time with Henry, woke us up at 11:00 to tell us Henry was crying and I seriously could not figure out where we were or what was going on or, frankly, whose kid was standing in the doorway!

We spent the next day doing all the nesting our little hearts could desire and then ended with a trip to Costco for a mattress for Jemma's new big girl bed! Happy people all around.

Done.

So the move was less than smooth. The place we moved into was supposed to be available at 4:00 on Friday. Thanks to some awesome friends the Uhaul and pick-ups were packed and ready at 4:00. Then they said 5:00. Then 6:00. So we had some pizza. I packed the last of the kitchen. We checked at 7:00. Still there. We took down our bed and started cleaning. 8:30, she called and said they were finally leaving and we, oddly enough, believed them and hit the road. 9:30, they finally rolled out of the driveway and we called the next round of guys who were awesome enough to come unload in practically the middle of the (freezing) night. We started again as early as possible Saturday and by noon the house was empty and our favorite babysitters came to help me clean while Ed did several trips to the dump. Our buyers were coming at 5:00 and we left the house one last time with just an hour to spare. The good news is that we were way to busy to feel blue about leaving our home!

Moving Day

Saying good-bye to his room.

Hard to do, ya know?

The big move kicks off in a few hours and while I normally dig this sort of thing...moving, organizing, starting fresh...this time I'm more than a little bit sad. Grateful our house sold, grateful we have another place to live, but we will miss this home.

My people

Ed and Ava were doing homework and then my little sanguine squeezed in the middle there.
Jem.

And I can't even get a clear picture of this monkey. Busy, goofy boy.

Sunday.

Sunday was day eight of our stomach flu plague. I realized we hadn't packed a thing in days, the laundry was overflowing, the house was filthy and panic was starting to set in till my parents swooped in and took the kids home for the afternoon. After enjoying two minutes of quiet, Ed and I got to serious work and went to town on the kids' bedrooms. I got the short straw and got stuck with Ava's room which looked like this before I started:

and I swear it was clean just days before. Anway after three hours and piles of garbage bags, their rooms were totally packed and piled in the living room:
Then I cleaned the rest of the house and Ed shoveled away at the frozen ice around our driveway. And then we sat down for a minute and marveled at how much you can accomplish sans kids! And good thing too because Ed came down with the flu that night...shockingly the last one down and out.

Memory Lane.

Ava's first brush with fame:

and let's go waaayyyy back:
senior prom.

Packing the movies

It's a sad day.

slow down.

brand new.

1
2

3

4

5

6!

He says a lot of good things but (I think) the very best is, "mom, I hope God gives me a wife like you." Oh, how I love him.

Happy (Birthday!) Jack

Today is my Jack's birthday. And he had the flu. Which would have really bummed me out but he handled it in true glass-is-half-full Jack fashion. He started the morning by saying, "I threw up a bunch in the night but now I feel awesome." He spent the morning with Harry Potter and then Paula brought him chicken nuggets for lunch which he chowed before I had time to tell him to eat sloooww. He took a long nap and woke up ready to party with his favorite buddy Will. We canceled dinner out and I took him and Will to pick out cereal instead but after wandering the aisles of Safeway with two silly boys and loading up on goldfish, donuts, and Kung Fu Panda 2, the electricity in the store went out! We waited a long time but we finally ditched our cart and drove down the road to find something else. Nada. Everything was dark and closed up tight. We finally found ourselves an open gas station and I let the boys go nuts picking out their gas station faves. We ended up with a smorgasbord of Capn Crunch, doritoes, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and Gatorade.

Candlelight party.

Jack says, "Will, sit here...I saved you room!"

And since the power went out before the cake was baked, he had an awesome Twinkie, Snowball, Hostess cupcake delight!

There are so many things I can say about Jack....he's so full of joy, enthusiasm, and love. But I think his attitude today sums him up the best: after kicking off the day with the flu, missing school and all his buddies, missing lunch and dinner out, spending forever choosing grocery store treats only to be unable to by them because of a freak storm, settling for a gas station dinner and Hostess birthday cake, he still said, "I love you guys...and this is the best birthday ever!"

Yesterday

started with my house (fairly) clean and shiny and not a packed box to be seen:

(super cute new coffee table from Ed for Christmas)

And so I decided it was time to buckle down and get packin'. Soon things looked like this:
Bleck. Depressing.
And then this cute boy asked me to come and play in the snow with him:

So I did. And then we had hot chocolate. And then a cozy nap together. And then he started puking. That's right:

round three.

Although Jack's our favorite thrower-upper. That kid never loses his sense of humor (or his aim for the toilet!), as he headed off to the bathroom I said, "are you going to throw up?" and he hollers over his shoulder, "you better believe it!"

3 kids down, 1 to go. I don't care what you say, I will never never miss this. Sweet cuddles, definitely. Overflowing laundry, maybe. Babies throwing up in the middle of the night, never.

giddy, I tell ya!

Okay, I've said it once but seriously...we have a place to live next week. yay. Since this is supposed to be a short term rental, I hadn't planned on actually decorating but now that I've found me a house, I can't stop thinking about where to put things. I feel like my little world is now back on track. Which is a bit silly...big stuff has happened in the last couple weeks to people we know...a totally unexpected and heartbreaking death in a dear family, a wedding for Ava's music teacher, and a baby on the way for some of our favorite people. I know my house mess is just a drop in the bucket of life and frankly I doubt I'll even remember this in a few years. But still. A house for my little people. Contentment all around.

What's this??

Snow!! And one very happy little boy:

Yesterday was sunny and he stayed out forever!

Today, he wanted to shovel before daddy got home, but he had to come back in for shades cause it was blowing so hard he couldn't see!

Poor Jem

My baby girl has been throwing up for three (long) days. She started Saturday afternoon but was fine by bedtime and so Ed and I were patting ourselves on the back for a "good" flu experience. 6 hours, done and cleaned up (and none of it was the middle of the night...unheard of!). And then 24 hours later, it started all over. And went on. and on. and on. She was looking awfully perky by dinnertime so here's hoping for a puke-free night!

woo hoo!

So we have a house! Not to buy (that deal fell completely apart on Friday) but to rent! And lest you wonder why I might be so excited to have found a rental, let me tell ya this has not been a pretty couple days. I spent the weekend looking without Ed and by Monday he was convinced my standards are just too high. Then he came to one with me Monday night and by the time we got back into the car, he was ready to move into Paula and Joe's basement (which, by the way, would involve all of us sharing a room..no kitchen, no living room). The funny part was that was one of the nicest places I had seen! I was totally ready to consider it and he was totally horrified. I'm talking black mold in the bathrooms, a garage "converted" into a bedroom (by adding a thin plywood wall), you name it, I saw it on my little rental hunt. Today I saw a ridiculously tiny house (with blue tubs and sinks!) but it was clean and shiny so I was ready to sign the deal until they remembered at the last minute that dogs weren't allowed. That's right, the house had no dining room and a basement ceiling that was a scant two inches above my head (and a price that was almost double our mortgage payment) but this dog was their biggest concern:

While I would be happy to be dog free, I knew the boys in the house wouldn't and so I moved on. And spent the rest of the afternoon in a serious, nausea-inducing funk. We headed out after dinner to see the very last place on our list and ta da! Spacious, clean, garage, fenced yard, dog friendly, and did I mention clean? We're signing the papers in the morning and moving in a week. And I am so excited you'd think we just bought our dream house. And my sweet Ava just made me a card that says, "I'm proud of you for finding us a rental!" with Super! and Good Work! stickers all over it. I mean, really, what more do I need?

So.

I had planned to do a post tonight on finally finding ourselves a home and about how, after weeks of working on this deal, we'd actually signed the papers and bought ourselves a house. However! That post is not yet to be. I do have a good Jack story to share at the end but first, here's where we're at. Six weeks ago we made an offer on a house and within a couple days it seemed like a done deal. A bit of jiggling on the price and the closing date and we'd be done...long before the deadline on moving out of this house. Yet here we are. No house, no deal. I'll skip the dirty details but we got a call this morning that the deal was finally done, papers signed, the current renters moving out just a couple days after our deadline (not perfect, but we're related to enough people we could crash with for a week) so we finally got a bit excited...spent the day picking appliances and carpet...and then got a call this afternoon that the seller's realtor has been lying to us from day one. Lying about the finances, lying about the renters. I think it gets worse but I'll leave it at that. And actually I don't really know what's up next. Technically the sellers are still all in and our realtor is trying to get to the bottom of the mess so we'll see. But the one thing we have learned is that my sense of security is very much wrapped up in my house. Which is not really a surprise as I still get homesick when I travel....frankly, I'd move back in with my parents if I could (hey, I'm the baby!). I like my home. I crave my home. I don't mind the moving (I'm actually looking forward to that) but I do mind the uncertainity. I apparently mind it so much that I woke up a couple days ago with an outbreak of hives. I spent the day trying to figure out what I'd eaten but they kept coming back and then as I typed the beginning of this post, the hives started again are now in a full on panic--I can even feel them on my ears--and, because I'm a bit slow these days, a little lightbulb just went off in my head. duh. I'm allergic to not knowing where I'm going to live in ten days. Which is a tad funny since I generally never panic. Hand me a choking baby and I can heimlich, give me a wedding in total disaster and I can improvise, but refuse to move out of a house I'm buying and look at me fall apart. So. (Starting tomorrow) I'm going to (try to) chalk this up to character building and enjoy the house hunt from here.

And now for my Jack funny (cause if he can't cheer ya up, what will?) Back when we were sure this was our house, Jack wanted to know how many bedrooms it had and after a minute of thinking it through he says, "Shoot. So you're still going to have to share a room with daddy??"

This boy

makes my day. He is such a joy. And a total goober. He struts around here with his belly pushed out like he owns the place and he just cracks us up all day long. And speaking of joy..watching him and Jack play together is amazing. They play tag and wrestle and throw balls and giggle, giggle, giggle. Tonight they played in the tub for over a half hour and then snuggled up here:
Jack is so gentle with him and Henry tries so hard to be big that they make a perfect pair...even five years apart.

Ditto!

More!

So I packed the first book up and then found more! This one started with high school...what's better than that!

Track meet...Carissa, this one's for you!
Homecoming dance.

I think this is my 17th birthday. And yes, my brother's hair is longer than mine. Ah, the good ol' days.

Missions trip to Mexico. In every picture we are all wearing huge tees and cut-offs or boxers (boxers!), what were we thinking?

Senior spirit day. That's Joe there with the shorts on his head.

Ed, in front of the very closet I was trying to pack tonight--15 years later. I love this picture...so high school. My fave color on the walls, blanket on the window so I can sleep in till 10, song lyrics posted on the wall, dance corsage drying on my boombox, ski boots on the floor, prom dress and lettermans jacket in my closet.

High school graduation with my grandparents.

Big jump here till the next shots--definitely missing pages in my photo album!

Landing in Hawaii for our honeymoon.

Plane ride home. Babies I tell ya...practically unaccompanied minors.

California.

Backpacking in the Wallowas. Now our favorite place to take the kids.

And then look who started dating.

And got married. This is at her dress fitting and that's my aunt in the reflection there...eeh can't even imagine my nieces getting married!

Disneyworld!
To celebrate Ed's graduating college. And joining the real world.

We spent five days riding rides and laughing at the people who actually brought their kids to Disneyworld...I mean the strollers and gear and walking slowly while we busted around. Now we can't wait to take our own kids!

Daytona Beach.

Awesome stroll down memory lane. Although Ava wants to know why we wore such short dresses. Shocking.