Moving Update

I'm sure all of you already know this, but MOVING SUCKS! Alright, now that I have that off my chest, a little update.....

We are actually making really good progress. As of today, all the closets, the bathrooms, the laundry room, the dining room, the attic, the garage, the playroom, the kids' rooms, and our room are all about 90% packed. We are close to halfway done with the kitchen, but that's a hard one given that we do have to eat for the next 6 days! We haven't touched the pantry yet either. I've been trying to chip away at a little each day, and I'm so glad I did that rather than waiting until the last minute because, while I am kind of stressed out about it all (really, who wouldn't be moving a family of 4?), I know I could be in a lot worse shape and scrambling like crazy.

Our dining room has become the staging area.....

 .... and it's pretty full! 

 Things are looking really bare! 

 The contents of the attic are now sitting in the garage.

So our plan is to close on our current house this coming Friday morning, then a few hours later we will be closing on the new house. Once the funding goes through and we get the keys, we'll be spending the rest of Friday afternoon and evening moving small items over to the new house. Then we have movers coming bright and early Saturday morning to move all the big furniture for us. And hopefully by Saturday at bedtime we'll have a place to sleep and a few of the necessities unpacked over at the new place. *HOPEFULLY!*

It does feel overwhelming at times, but overall, we are really excited about the move! Especially Carter! He tells everyone he is going to have a new house with a yellow slide in the backyard! (The playset that is staying.) He seems to really grasp the whole concept better than I thought. Occasionally he will come and ask me where _______ is (usually a toy that he is looking for). I'll tell him I've already packed it, but not to worry because he'll get it back in the new house. He accepts that answer and doesn't seem worried or confused at all. And obviously Ella has no concept, but she does love pulling up and playing on the boxes! Stormie seems very nervous and anxious each time I start packing stuff up, too. I think she's taking it all harder than anyone else is! Anyway, this time next week we'll be working hard to get all moved in, and I can't wait!

Mommy & Me Pictures

I don't make it into many pictures these days, it seems, because I'm usually the one taking them! So when my friend Laura mentioned doing some Mommy and Me pictures, I jumped on the opportunity!! And she did a great job! These are priceless to me!! If you need pictures of any kind taken, check her out! 

June Pics

It's been a busy month! We are making progress with packing up the house and getting all the details worked out for the new place. We have A LOT going on right now, so I don't have much time to devote to the blog, but I did want to post some pictures from this month, so far. :)

Pretty girl!! She's always standing up in her crib after nap time now.

A little wrestling match.....

 .... they're both loving it!

 Carter can really get her laughing!! 

First bruise on her little head. Many of those to come, I'm sure! 

Carter always love to go in with me to get Ella in the mornings. Sweet moment. 

 HA!

 Silly face!

 Ohhhh, she's just so pretty! But I know I'm biased! :)

Cindy brought the twins over to swim this week! The boys were all so excited!! 

Carter and Devin waiting to go to the pool. 

 Silly boys!

 They were supposed to jump in together, but that didn't happen :)

 Devin

 Ella says "Hi Mom!"

 My handsome little guy

 Devin loved it when the pelican dumped water on his head! 

 A rare pic of me and my kiddos. Love them so much! 

Ella at 8 Months!

Ella, you're 8 months old!! And I definitely feel like these monthly updates seems to be coming around faster and faster. :( Here is what's up with you at 8 months.

• You're about 17.5 pounds, fitting comfortable in 6-9 month clothing, and just moved into size 3 diapers.
• You have one tooth, officially, but I'm quite certain another will be cutting through in the next few days! And, I was finally able to get a picture! 

Seeeeee??? :)

• Crawling everywhere, getting into everything, pulling up on almost anything, and starting to get brave and let go for a few seconds to stand on your own before plopping down on your tush. You're crazy busy, and I'm sure you will continue to give me a run for my money!
• You have become a sweet little snuggle bunny at nap time and night time. Normally you merely tolerate for me to rock you only a few minutes before laying you down in your crib with your lovey to nod of on your own. But lately you have been snuggling up to me and laying your head on my shoulder while I rock you, and giving me the sweet eyes while I sing you a little song. Oh, I've been loving that!! It's hard for me to lay you down sometimes, I just want to soak it all up! 
• I can tell lately that you're really understanding a lot of the things we say to you.You definitely understand the word "no" which you've been hearing a lot lately. :)  Also, when you're getting kind fussy out of hunger, I can ask you, "Do you want some milk?" and you'll grin really big, laugh and get really excited. And when you're tired and getting ready to go down, I'll ask you, "Are you tired? Are you ready to go night night?" And again, big grins, giggles, and snuggles from you as if you're saying, "Yes!! I'm so glad you know what I need, Mommy!" Really, too cute!! 
• You've quit spitting up almost completely, which is SO nice!! I was thinking the other day, it's been several weeks since I had to clean up a major spit up mess either on you or on the floor. If there is ever any at all, it's just enough for me to have to wipe off your chin. I'm sure you love it just as much as I do! 
• You're eating almost entirely finger foods at this point. I still give you some oatmeal with pureed fruits for breakfast sometimes, but you'd much rather feed yourself the good stuff than eat mush from a spoon. :) Favorites are strawberries, grapes, bread, blueberries, squash, carrots, corn, and potato. We haven't really started giving you dairy or meats yet, but will start those very soon. You have 3 meals a day now, and are still nursing 5 times a day.
• You have a very easy going temperament 99% of the time. And you're still a pretty big Momma's girl.

So onto the 8 month pictures! Wow. You gave me a fight today to get these, more than you ever have before. I hardly got any good ones because you were so busy and squirmy, but looking back through them cracked me up, so I had to post them even though they are far from posed! 

Hmmm, that looks like something I can tear apart. Maybe I should try.

 Oh, yep! I was right!

 I better hurry, Mom is about to confiscate it!

 Ohhhhhkay.... I'll just relax and lay here.

 Oh, what's this?! 

 Okay, I'll give her one sweet look. But only ONE!! 

 I want this sticker! 

(look at her eyelashes! She's got 'em, too!)

 My little bright eyes!! 

 Busy girl all over the place!

 She just looks too little to be doing all that she does. 

 Walking soon?! We'll see! 

We love you so much, sweet girl!! Happy 8 months!

House News!

After almost 4 months on the market (I'm just gonna pretend we WEREN'T on the market for almost 10 months last year!), I'm so excited to share that we finally have a buyer on our house! The option period has ended, and and the inspection and all that has gone smoothly, so now we wait. Well no, now we PACK!

But as excited as I am that we are selling our home, I am twice as excited about the new home that we found! It's a really beautiful house with tons of space for our family and a great yard. It's in a wonderful neighborhood in Frisco, and, get this..... literally 2 minutes from Target, Market Street and Costco! Oh, I have died and gone to heaven!! With two small kids, living in the boonies and trekking it almost 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store has been killer! Anyway, we couldn't be more thrilled with our new home. It's absolutely everything we were looking for, and we feel really blessed that, even though I questioned it all time and time again, the timing has truly been perfect. All inspections have gone really well there too, so we'll make it all official on July 6th when we close on both homes.

Now I will leave you with a picture of the new house. 

23 DAYS!! --- not that I'm counting down or anything ;)

5 Years

Eric planned a fun 2-night get away for us to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It started with lunch and some shopping Friday afternoon, then we headed to our hotel to check in. After resting up there for a little bit, we headed to dinner and a movie. Pretty simple day, but lots of fun! 

Saturday was our actual anniversary, and it was a great day! We woke up and headed downstairs for a really tasty and leisurely breakfast. We really appreciated all the meals we got to eat together where we could sit and chat and not be interrupted every 10 seconds by a very chatty little boy or feel the need to rush through it for fear of a certain little girl completely melting! :) Eric had set up a wine tour that picked us up at the hotel around 11, and took us to several local wineries in Grapevine for wine tastings,. We had a great tour guide and enjoyed tasting and learning about the different wines and wineries. We also met some other fun people on our tour, and we all had a really great time together! We got back to the room about 5 for a little bit of rest before heading out to dinner at Pappa's Steakhouse.... definitely one of our favs!! 

Unfortunately we only thought to take a few cell phone pictures the whole weekend. 

Eric and I at our lunch stop on the wine tour.... Fabrina's was SOOOOOO good! Wonderful pizza!

Some of our group at lunch

Then Sunday we woke up, had another really great breakfast before heading to pick up the kids. It was a great little weekend to ourselves, not something we get too often, but we were definitely missing our babies, and were so glad to see them!

It's hard to believe it's been 5 years! We have been blessed with many things the last 5 years, and there's no one else in the world I'd rather do it all with! Here's to many more, hunny! I love you!