Almost Outta Our House

Well, a lot can happen in a week and I've got time for another quick update while I eat my lunch at work.

We've been absorbing all the nice weather and taking advantage of the extra sunlight in the evenings to practice our cycling skills. Isaac will say "bike! bike! helmet!" He doesn't sit on the seat and glide, yet... but he is surprisingly quick at straddling his bike and walking it down the street. Plus, he's cute.

 Mara likes getting dirty and findings sticks and bugs and climbing trees and seems to be excited about living in the apartment, and building a new home, and starting a new school with new friends... she is taking it way better than me!

 Daddy fixed something under the house one time recently, and got semi-suck from Mara fiddling with the latch/lock on the crawlspace door. So now... Isaac goes to this vent and says "Daddy? Daddy? Stuck." I guess he thinks Daddy sneaks away to this secret hiding space and speaks through the vent. Yup. That's exactly how Daddy likes to spend his time.

 Monkey see, monkey do. I warned her the slide was wet and I didn't want to have to change all her clothes after playing. (We ran outside to play between the rain that day). She assured me she would change herself completely. And she did! I still had to change the boy, though.

 The boy likes trucks. And motors. And motorcycles. And being with Daddy.

 

 He also likes his snacks catered to him, even while in the tub. 

 We witnessed Hayden's baptism this past weekend and came away with a caterpillar to watch grow and change and turn into a butterfly (part of the kid's preparation for Easter story). He's sitting on our windowsill and getting fatter by the day. Kinda like how I feel... college freshman 15 ain't got nothing on home selling/moving/building pounds... yeah.

Our status:

• Signing the apartment lease tomorrow and getting the keys
• Moving the majority of our big items to the apartment on Saturday, and moving the remainder to the storage unit or smaller necessary items to the apartment over the next two weeks
• We started the construction to perm loan process with BB&T on Tuesday. Should be able to close within 30 days... so hopefully by May 1st we will have that ready to go!
• Expecting our official contract with our builder to come in this weekend with building specifications... so that the bank can do the appraisal on the future house/land.
• Engineered plans supposed to come in today. Builder is ready to apply for building permit but holding off until we close on house
• Expecting to hear back on the septic pricing situation... probably isn't going to be good
• Kids start new daycare/school on April 14th
• Close on current house April 16th
• Easter at the beach
• Sleep an entire weekend

Hope all my readers are good. 

Chrissy

Speed Update

Trying to do a quick update to keep everyone posted on our status and comings and goings.

We hunted for bugs.

 We raided the refrigerator cupcake stash.

 We visited the dentist.

 We went to Max's 3rd birthday party.

 Both Mara and Isaac would go down this slide.

 We needed a haircut.

 So Dad gave us his.

 And we had a pizza picnic outside in the 70 degree weather. Ignore my finger.

And we are preparing to uproot our life! In bullet points:

• Sold our house for sale by owner in 2 days. Inspection completed and repair requests done (fixing door swings, sink plumbing, . Waiting on buyer's appraisal. Closing April 16th. Saved $8k by not having sellers agent. Easy as pie.
• Toured apartments and signed up for a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom (1148 sq ft) terrace/basement level apartment. Will be a tight fit with our 2 kids (sharing a room) and 2 dogs. We can move in April 4th. We will have access to a pool when it opens this summer. Apartment is close to work/daycare.
• House plans nearly final. Waiting on engineered plans from the architect. House plans have been tweaked (bigger master closet and a few other changes).
• Lot has been surveyed and boxes for the home site and future (way in the future) detached garage have been flagged
• Currently talking to banks for construction to perm loans. Ideally, house would be move-in ready by end of August or early September. It will take 3 weeks to clear our lot for building. Septic quotes coming back astronomical (for sand LLP) so builder is contacting the environmental engineers and 2 other septic companies.
• Continuing to pack, little by little, so we can move big furniture the weekend of the 5th/6th. Our storage unit is filling up slowly. We will keep this through building.

Okay, gotta get back to work.

Long Hiatus

We've been a little busy and I'm about to get called away... but since I was downloading pictures from my old phone, I wanted to share a few recent ones for our devoted fans, if you are still hanging in there!

We struggle with everyday life. Sometimes the problems seem so huge they are immovable. Then you get a little help from a friend.

 Yes, there is a dog bigger than Arson.

 Beautiful lovebug. She's FOUR!

 Um. Beautiful... ladymanbug?

 It was fairy princess day in our household, okay? And little man was being a good sport about it. Nevermind that his sister put this on him and everything his sister does is 1000% awesome. So...

 Took a trip to the NC Museum of Science with Mara's friend Alexis. Alexis is older by 4 days. We were there 5 minutes and then a tornado warning forced us into the auditorium. Thankfully, didn't last long.

 Budding scientist.

 Dinosaur bones!

 We spent like 2.5 hours at the museum. Daddy and Isaac stayed home.

 

   

 Neon fish.

 Little man trying out his bike and helmet.

 Helmet may be a tidge big.

 The joy of receiving a present in the mail.

December update (sorry it's out of order). We went to Santa Train in Durham to meet Santa. I took better pics on my regular camera... these are all from my phone. Here's Isaac and fuzzy Daddy bundled up.

 Mara bundled up.

 Derica, Ian and Elam (and unborn Case) behind us on the train.

 Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer/camouflage leopard?

 Cherry, Mara, Claire and I took in Disney on Ice for Mara's birthday. Mara said "This is the best thing EVER!"

 We got a new member of our household. Meet minion.

 Snuggles galore.

 Common seating area.

 On Mara's ACTUAL birthday, I surprised her with a balloon at school. She knew I was bringing cookies and goody bags but the balloon was a surprise.

 Store bought cupcakes. With very bright icing...

 One of her gifts - the Robot. Whose name is... Robot.

 We spent Christmas up north. We got to visit with all my family except for Sean. Here are 3 of the currently 4 grandbabies.

 Only cell phone shot I had of the kids' Christmas Eve church outfits. There were two other girls at church wearing Mara's dress. It got sparkles EVERYWHERE but she looked so beautiful and was excited some other girls had the same dress. It snowed while we were at mass.

 Christmas morning excitement. Scale the mountain of presents.

 These legos have been one of her favorite toys.

 Isaac got a dirtbike. Just his size.

So that was a peek at the moments I capture via cell phone camera over the last couple of months. Sorry for the huge delay. We're readying our home for sale to prep for this next phase of our lives. I just finished painting the kids' bedrooms back to a neutral color and about cried... those were their first room colors! Kids have had roseola and one or two other things to be sent home from daycare and its not even February. Isaac's words are coming along and he actually strung 3 words together this evening - all done book. Mara looks taller and older every day. Our hearts don't seem capable of any more love, but they grow every day!

To be continued. Someday soon I hope!