we're moving! again!

i have totally forgotten to blog about the fact that we are just a few days away from moving! it's just down the street, and i can't wait. i wish i could tell the whole story right now, but i have got to get to bed or get packing or something other than blogging. we are excited and tired. my husband is the epitome of patient. and i'm the epitome of.... well... nobody finish that sentence please. :) i can't wait to get settled.... really settled. i am so weary of cardboard boxes. this is what our living room looked like earlier this month as we were collecting boxes....


my kids warmly accepted the avalanche of boxes just like another member of the family! they have been troopers through all of this, and we all just can't wait to play in our new backyard and finally have our swing set back up!!

i will get back on here eventually and share how the move goes. and then there's our july trip to nashville for my grandmother's 90th birthday. and maybe one day i'll finally finish blogging about our christmas trip to disney. a girl can hope, right?!

see ya from our new (old) house! :)

where did may go?!

wow. is may over already? whew. i am so glad! anytime i went to write down one more thing on my calendar for may, i longingly flipped the page over to gaze upon the emptiness of june. at that point, the only events on my calendar for june were nursery duty, father's day, and my birthday. it was going to be a nice, quiet month once we got there. i could make it... i could make it. even memorial day weekend was supposed to be an empty one, yet we ended up taking a (wonderful) last-minute day trip to see family. may just couldn't go out on a quiet note, could it?!

as busy as may has been, it has been a great month.

remember mother's day? yeah, it's been awhile, i know. we had a nice quiet lunch at a beachside restaurant with my mom. 5 seconds after i half-jokingly said, "i'm gonna sit at the other end of the table from the highchair for mother's day", amelia scaled the highchair and flipped backwards onto the tile floor. high ceiling+tile floor+hurt child= very very loud screaming. but after a few minutes and several packets of captain's wafer crackers, she was ok. before lunch, we attempted some precious, mother-child pictures. thanks to God's amazing creations of the wind and the sun, this was about the best we got.


we went back inside before the kids burst with excitement about my gift. ethan found an idea in an arts and crafts book earlier this year, and he'd bookmarked the page with great anticipation for mother's day. my mom helped the kids with their little project... and when they woke up mother's day morning, they were giddy. it was so so cute. here they are watching me open my present.


their gift was a little box with paper folded accordion-style. the kids decorated the sides of the box.... caroline's art was her signature rainbow-colored designs, while ethan's work was a couple of quickly drawn pencil depictions of the two of us. on the paper, ethan had written, "happy mother's day" and their names. it was so simple and so small... yet so big and important to them! which made it the perfect mother's day gift.


brian bought some beautiful lilies for mother's day, and they found a perfect home in front of my kitchen windows. do you love my vase?! nope, i haven't unpacked that box yet!!


may also marked the end of soccer season. which marks the return of our evenings and saturdays! yyyaaaaaaaaaaay! the kids had fun this season, and i hope to get some pictures on here soon of the season. hope you like orange. it's a lot of orange.

and since the summer is so wonderfully uneventful (mostly, anyway), we may just get this house in order. i can't believe i have hardly taken any pictures of the "during". i documented the "before", and i look forward to getting to the "after", Lord-willing! but we are most definitely living in the "during" at the moment. i won't lie... there were days those first couple of weeks when i felt like i was moving backwards in terms of progress! unpacking a house + a two-year-old roaming do not make for a pretty combination. but God is good, and i'm discovering missing things in random boxes on a daily basis. it only took us a few weeks to find those bunk bed bolts!

i need to snap some pictures of the "during". but for now, i will leave you with one shot of my kitchen windows. not the prettiest windows, but these bad boys let in some nice natural light! and they overlook a beautiful yard next door and the quiet tree-lined alley. it is my favorite view of all.


this kitchen needs some work, but i am happy to report that we no longer have the dorm fridge sitting on our counter! we are loving our new fridge... and i wish i could say the same for that vintage dishwasher!!

despite the full calendar this past month, we were still able to squeeze in some "slow" family times... like walks and bike rides around our new neighborhood. loving, loving, loving it. here are the kids as we were ready to go to our friend natalie's baseball game just down the street.


things with the short sale seem to be progressing. yesterday, the bank requested a copy of our escrow check ASAP, so that was a really good sign that things are moving right along. with every box that i unpack, i am praising God for our daily bread... and i'm praying that He will continue to guide us and keep us until we know whether this house will truly be ours. getting settled without getting attached is a real challenge. but by His grace and with His strength, we are taking it one month at a time! and this month looks to be a great one. :)

packing like crazy people

guess what?! we're not homeless! praise the Lord, we are able to rent the short-sale house until we find out if our offer on the house is approved by the bank. yes, i know. if it's not approved, we will have. to. move. again. but ya know what? if we'd rented somewhere else, and the sale is approved, we'd have to move again anyway. so we are taking it one month at a time, praising God for a roof over our heads. we were seeking out rentals however we could, but God closed door after door. and then... we realized that He left this door wide open. so we are walking through this door with the peace that He has provided and He will continue to do so.

here's what it's looked like at our house lately...


i thought it was safe to let the girls help me pack towels! and now as i am about to pack my dishes tonite, i'm wishing that box of towels weren't in this pile somewhere....


i may go searching for that box tomorrow if i run out of packing material. and i must say that amelia's poor little room smells so strongly of cardboard boxes right now. you know that smell?!? i am actually starting to be concerned that it is not good for her to be breathing it! (has anyone done any research of toxins in cardboard?!?!?)

tomorrow, i am heading over to the new house to spend the day cleaning out and cleaning up! i cannot wait! my sweet sister-in-law is having the kids over for the day, and i hope to get so much done. brian will join me after lunch to rip up some carpet and to help me trash the leftovers from an estate sale. when i say leftovers, i mean junk. there are some functional storage pieces and whatnots that i'm keeping... they are far from antiques, but they will surely be great for shelf space!

once i get the place de-junked, i will post some pictures on here. a clean palate. i can't wait. and then we move our junk in. :) we have our list of ideas of what we want to do to this house, but since we are just renting for now, we are making a concerted effort to put as little as possible into the house until the sale is approved and the house is officially ours.

so this weekend is clean-up, and monday night is moving night! it's a busy busy weekend!