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!

the difference a month makes

exactly one month ago, our house was put on the market.

one week later, we had an offer! (thank you, God!)

another week later, we'd finally agreed on a selling price with the buyer. (nothing short of a miracle.)

and now, here we are...two and a half weeks from handing over the keys to our first home.


so. it's been a busy month to say the very least. lots of praying and house-hunting and praying and number crunching and praying. we've found a house that we absolutely love. it's charming, it's spacious, it's in a beautiful neighborhood... and it's a short sale. so we are living the saying "hurry up and wait". i expected the house-selling to be the part that would take awhile. boy was i wrong. we've jumped through several of the hurdles involved with selling, and now we are so close to our new house that i can just taste it. i can picture my dishes in the cabinets (that um, need to be painted. yeah.) and my food in the pantry (cue hallelujah chorus). i can picture my grandmother's dining room table next to the fireplace with room to stretch. and i can picture my children grinning from ear to ear as they ride their bikes up and down the quiet street. i can also picture us with our new list of projects to make this house our home. :) don't worry. we are not going to touch the kitchen cabinets for a long, long while.

if i had the phone number of the short sale case manager, you betcha i'd be calling him every week to see where he thought my couch should go or to ask what color he would paint the bathrooms. by week 4, surely he'd stamp "approved" on that paperwork, don't ya think?! we have no idea how long this short sale process will take, or even if it will be approved at all. we are praying for patience and God's guidance through these unchartered waters... and praise the Lord our realtor is awesome. to quote her, she is a bulldog, and she is not letting go of this bone. :)

we are still working on where we will live as of april 29. i ask for your prayers with that as well. i know God will provide. my heart knows this. but my head freaked out just a little bit this afternoon. i've been the one telling brian, "we will NOT be homeless!"....and then about 2pm today, after several unsuccessful phone calls, i called him, crying, "we're going to be homeless!" God will provide. God will provide. God will provide.

in the meantime, we have lots of boxes to pack. i have lots of memories to go through. we'll start with this one...


7 years ago, april 10, 2004, brian proposed to me in the gazebo in our future backyard. and for the last seven years, God has blessed us in this little house. He truly has blessed us. i hope that in the next two weeks, in the midst of wading through boxes and packing paper, i can take time to enjoy our last little bit of time in our first house. more reminiscing to come...

finally here

this next sentence has been a long time coming. our kitchen is finally complete! well. almost. we still need a light above the sink, but other than that, we can check this project off our never-ending list! this before and after picture just makes me so happy. i've been picturing this comparison in my head since we started this kitchen endeavor in 2007.

before: march 2004, the day i peeked in this house for the very first time (say hi to our realtor, robert!).


after: march 2011, 7 years later. our cottage kitchen! finally!


and Lord willing, before too long, "our kitchen" will become someone else's kitchen. that's right... our house is officially for sale! we'll see how long i can do this make-sure-everything-is-absolutely-spotless-before-walking-out-the-door thing. it is so the opposite of how i operate. i told my mom the other day that this may be the best thing for our family. i have to keep everything picked up. maybe...just maybe this will have lasting effects.

stop laughing, mom.

if you know of anyone looking for a cute 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with lots of updates, send them our way!

back to the beach

we kicked off beach season yesterday! it was a beautiful day...and just a tad bit on the windy side. when we arrived around 10 am, we had the whole beach to ourselves. seriously. we were the only ones out there! i guess everybody else checked the weather report. i just saw a big fat sunshine in the forecast, and that's all i needed. :) that's us on our private beach in the picture above.

the kiddos wasted no time getting to work. i love watching them stay so busy in the sand.


this little girl actually played in the sand instead of eating it like she did last year!


amelia wasn't so sure about walking in the sand, though.


she got the hang of it before too long... there's my happy girl!


caroline was so happy to be back at the beach! her favorite thing to do at the beach is to play with dolls or ponies in the buckets of water. i didn't get a picture of her doing that yesterday, but here she is smiling... so she must be on her way to those buckets!


ethan had a ball splashing around in ankle-deep water. he wanted to go deeper, but it was just a little too cold in there.


he also picked up where he left off last summer.... collecting shells. there's not a lot to find on our beaches these days, but that doesn't stop him from trying! here's one he was really proud to find.


we took a break from the beach to enjoy a little treat. the kids all got push-pops. it's been a long time since i've seen one of those! you can see how much the wind was blowing amelia's ponytail!


"want some, mommy?"


no thanks, i've got my own! i had to laugh at the description of this strawberry shortcake bar. after listing all the artificial junk, the wrapper said, "not a light snack." thanks.


amelia was really enjoying that push-pop! and she was not too happy with me when i took the soggy cardboard cylinder away from her!


i am looking forward to the next several (as in 6 or 7!) months that we can enjoy the beach! praise God for His glorious creation that we can experiene time and time again. i must admit that i've been guilty on multiple counts of snow-day-envy after reading my northern friends' facebook updates over the last few months. but once my toes were buried in the sand yesterday, i say you can have your snow days. i'm headed to the beach.

pinkish-purplish

it's soccer time again! and this little girl is now old enough to play... and boy, is she ready! or perhaps i should say.... girl, is she ready! since ethan's first game last year (you know, the one where he didn't want to play), caroline has been dying to play. she eyed the 4- and 5-year-old girls in their pigtails and way-too-big pink or purple jerseys playing on the field right next to the boys, and she announced, "i want to be on the dark pink team!" then the next week, it was the light pink team... and the next week... well, you get the picture. right now, her color of choice is pinkish-purplish, but i've told her a million times that she may be on a team with a regular color. we'll see how that goes.

we are really looking forward to this season... this spring season. ahhhh, surely we will be able to enjoy slightly cooler weather than we had during ethan's games last fall. we may even get a little cold during some early morning games. can't. wait. caroline's first practice was a week ago, so we all went out to say hi to the coach and meet the team.

caroline took her turn introducing herself to her team. (gray shirt is coach's son "helping") :)


love my girl in pigtails... her coach goes from varsity football to u-6 girls. he's great.


amelia was waddling all over the field, and she came across a baseball. she knew exactly what to do with it. monkey see, monkey do.



i love this picture. caroline looks totally focused. what's she thinking about? probably wondering why those girls don't have pink soccer balls. or she could be pondering the words of the great mia hamm..."i am a member of a team, and i rely on the team, i defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion." yeah, we'll go with that.


caroline was not a fan of freeze tag for the first couple of practices...


but ethan and caroline have been playing it in the house today, and she's loved it. after a little coaching from her brother, she played freeze tag at practice tonite with a little less fear on her face!

caroline's soccer cleats were delivered a couple of days after her first practice. she was excited, despite the total lack of pink or purple.


aaaaand we all turned around, and look who got the cleats first! this picture was taken just a minute after the one above. she's fast. and now she can't wait to play soccer. amelia's new favorite phrase is "soccer practice!"



caroline finally got to try on her cleats! (with her shinguards and super thick soccer socks, they fit perfectly!)


so caroline is ready to play! ethan's practices got off to a great start this week, and their games begin next weekend. their first games are at the same time, unfortunately, but the fields are back to back, so we shouldn't miss much at all. we just need to invest in some swivel camping chairs for us and all the grandparents! ha! i'm sad that ethan will miss caroline's first game, but their next games are at different times.... so he will get to cheer on his sister soon enough.

i'll end with a little funny. at the end of caroline's first practice, they huddled up as much as sweet little girls can huddle up.... and i overheard their coach ask what they wanted to yell. (you know..... everybody's hands in.... and yell something motivating and exciting!) "rabbits!" rabbits?! well?! what did you expect? so they ended up yelling "soccer!", but caroline is convinced her team is the rabbits. the funny thing is that the doctor parents that are sponsoring the team? one's an ob. :)

gooooooooo rabbits!