He will be a good husband some day

Yesterday when Chandler was supposed to be taking a nap I found him in the bathroom.  But he wasn't making a mess.  Oh, no.

I found my 3 year old with a washcloth in his hands "cleaning" the tub.  "But, I just cleaning Mama!"

It was so tempting to tell him to finish before getting back in his bed. 

Yes! Finally Potty-Trained!!

Chandler is officially potty trained!  At 3 years 4 months he finally showed interest and after making it to the bathroom a few times we headed out to pick up some cool new batman underwear.  We've only had a few accidents since then and most of them were because he was busy playing outside.  He's even staying dry most nights!  I am very impressed!  Slightly less impressed with him discovering "Daddy's way" to pee, but it's not causing too much of a mess.  At least he's tall!

It's nice to be diaper free in the house - at least for a few months!  :)  Pregnancy is going well.  Still nauseous in the mornings, but I got to hear the heartbeat.  What a beautiful sound!  Next month is the ultrasound and we are debating letting Claire come with us.  She is so excited about the baby and is praying every night for a sister.  Hopefully she won't end up too disappointed! 

June - a month of sickness and moments of fun

I have been a bad blogger lately.  Though to be honest everything has slipped to the side this month.  Morning sickness (i.e. every hour of the day and night sickness) has been killing me.  I had to go to the doctor because I was so lightheaded and we found my blood sugar was much too low.  So I had to choke down food every hour.  Bleck.  I was hating food.  Everything tasted awful and the thought of any type of food just turned my stomach.  I couldn't even step into the kitchen because the smell of food was horrific.  I have been so blessed to have my mother living with us right now.  I don't know how else we all would have survived.  I spent most of the month of June laying on the couch or floor.  Thankfully I am at 13 weeks now and most of the sickness is wearing off.  I still have moments, especially first thing in the morning and bad days, but it's easing.  I mainly have a stupid overactive nose right now.  I smell awful odors that no one else can sense.  Very frustrating! 

I did suck it up enough to throw Claire's 6th birthday party.  Yes, my baby girl is six! We planned on a outside picnic, but woke up to rain so we had to have a quick location substitution to my Grandmother's house.  But it turned out to be a great day. 

Playing outside in her party dress and play shoes

Awesome flower cupcakes that my mom made

Claire requested Roast Chicken and Cranberry Sauce for her birthday.  ;)  We rounded it out with cole slaw, potato salad and pasta salad. 

Blowing out her birthday cupcake

Last week we got to enjoy Claire's late birthday present when my grandmother, Claire and I went out to the theater for an evening to see Peter Pan.  What fun!  Our local theater troupe did a wonderful job and we all really enjoyed it.  The best part was that we got to talk and take pictures with all the actors in the lobby after the show. 

Claire and I all dressed up for the night out

Claire and Grandma ready for the show!

Claire said her favorite part was the mermaids.  And they weren't even nice mermaids in the play!  She was thrilled to meet one.

Captain Hook and his newest recruit

And what do you say to that?

Claire was playing outside and ran in and told me "Mommy! I saw a grasshopper giving another grasshopper a piggyback ride! It must have been a daddy and baby grasshopper!".

Umm, yeah ..... that's it .....

 Just smile and nod ....

What a month!

May has been absolutely crazy.  We moved out of our rental and scrubbed the place within an inch of it's life.  We are in the new house now and mostly settled.  I still have several piles of boxes in the living room, but we're getting there. 

We also celebrated my brother and sister's graduation from our local community college!

My brother (19) and sister (20)

We are quite proud of them!  My brother is planning on working for a year or two while his girlfriend finishes nursing school and then finishing his Bachelors.  My sister is finishing up the paperwork to join the Air Force!  We are a proud military family, my grandfather retired from the Navy and my mother, father, step-father and uncle were all Air Force.  I love that she is carrying on the family tradition! 

But the big news is that a few days after deciding on staying in North Carolina and buying the house we discovered that our family would be growing a bit bigger ....

That's right!  Baby #3 will be joining us in late December/early January!  We are so excited!  Morning (aka 24/7) sickness has hit, which is slowing down the unpacking in the house, but it will all get done.  I had my first ultrasound this week and we saw a lovely little heartbeat and a Little Bit swimming around in there. 

Such a happy sight!

Moving in the Right Direction

Well, we are no longer moving to SC!  We are actually buying a house here in Western NC instead!  I know, seems like the complete opposite direction, doesn't it?  Well, all I can say is that God's plan can be amazing sometimes! Daddy and I felt very strongly that we were being lead to move. He was having issues with work and we decided that Charleston near his brother would be a good choice. We prayed for God to open the doors He wanted open and he went down to look for work. And found nothing. He talked to 60+ companies and he found nothing that we could live on in that higher cost of living area. While he was gone my mom put her house on the market, because she was planning on moving with us. While discussing the payoff with her mortgage company she found out that with her type of mortgage she can transfer her house and mortgage to her parent or child with no closing or fees. When Daddy came back and we were discussing what to do I told him about it. The next day he got two job offers here in our hometown! God obviously wanted us to stay here.  What I find amazing is that without trying to move we never would have found out the option to "buy" my mom's house.

From the back of the house

We have so many ideas for the house!  One of the first things Daddy wants to do is put new siding on the house and enlarge the back deck.  I want to remodel the kitchen and repaint everything inside.  It has two bedrooms on the main floor and a large attic room with a walk in closet.  My mom is going to stay with us for a little while, so she will have the attic room and we will have the main floor.  Claire and Chandler will have to share a room, but they are really excited about that.  Claire says she is glad she won't be "alone" in her room anymore.  Let's see if she's still thinking that way in a few months!  We are so excited about  the house being ours and Daddy has job options here again!  We have a lot of peace about our decision and we know it's in God's Will. I'm just excited now!

She ate meat!

Claire is a very picky eater.  I don't make her special meals or cater to her, but that is just how she is.  She has to try one bite and if she doesn't like it she doesn't have to eat it, but she doesn't get anything else.  We have 3 meals and 2 snacks per day so she doesn't starve, she just waits for the next mealtime. She especially doesn't care for meat.  She will eat chicken nuggets or bacon, but that's about it.  I think she doesn't like the texture. 

Tonight, dinner was roast chicken, potato pancakes, biscuits and mixed veggies.  She ATE the chicken!!  AND said it was good!  I'm in shock. 

Excuse me while I go get some smelling salts ...

Indecision

Well, Daddy has not found a job yet.  While back for Easter he had a call from an old client asking him to do some work on her house.  What a blessing ... so he has been doing that for the last week. 

While in Charleston he talked to many, many companies and did not have any offers that he could support our family on.  So now we are stopping and thinking.  We felt very led to move, the doors seemed to be opening ... were we wrong?  Do we just need faith?  Or do we need to focus on where we are? 

It does seem like as soon as we started getting ready to move we started finding things here.  We are still looking down there, but nothing looks promising at the moment.  But we need to figure out something.  We told our landlady that we were planning on moving and she said she would like to come back here and live in this house.  Whoops!  I guess I need to back either way and just pray, pray, pray.

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter weekend.  Daddy was home and had a fun egg hunt in the yard and enjoyed a delicious meal at my grandmother's house.  Just had a few pictures to share!

Helping each other find eggs in the yard

Handsome Daddy assisting in the search

Our wonderful children - Chandler and Claire

One Week Without Daddy

It's been one week. 

We are adjusting.  Well, mostly.  Chandler has been more emotional then usually.  The last two days have been multiple tantrums and extreme affection.  Claire has been very verbal with missing Daddy and everytime we talk to him on the phone she asks when he will be home.  That kills him.  He's missing us very badly.  He really relies on us as a support system and it's hard for him.  But bonus is he's coming back for the weekend!  Hurray! 

He's search has been going well so far.  He has talked to numerous companies and handed out many resumes.  He has two men who said they would try to call him today to set up an interview and two who said next week.  Praying that one of them pans out!  I'm to thankful for his brother who is letting him stay there for free while he is looking for work.  I just can't wait until we are there with him!

Temporary Single Motherhood

Well, the next step in the moving process has happened and the one I've been dreading.  Daddy packed his bags and headed down to look for work.  He will be staying with his brother, but we don't know how long he will be away from us.  Please pray that the right job will drop in his lap and he will be able to come get us quickly.  I don't know what to do without him.  :(  We packed all his tools up into a Uhaul trailer and he headed out.  Chandler doesn't seem to understand, but Claire is very upset.  She kept asking him if he would come back.  She said it was so nice in Charleston she was afraid he would stay there.  Daddy had to tell her that we are the most important things to him in the world and he HAS to come back to get us!

Last lunch with Daddy

We're not sure if he will be able to come back for Easter and the next weekend is his 30th birthday so we can't miss that!  So it will probably be 2 weeks until we see him.  He brought a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein and he plans on calling and reading a poem to the kids every evening.  It will just be me and the kids 24/7 with no grownups - can my sanity survive?  

Daddy driving away

When he left we headed in the house and I laid the kids down for naps/quiet time and I went in our room and cried for a moment.  My husband is wonderful.  He is everything to me and I am so lucky to have a man who will always do what it takes for our family.  My heart hurts just thinking about him and how quiet the house will be once the kids are in bed.  I won't have anyone to giggle with and tease ... but I do know that once he comes home I will appreciate him even more!

Massive Update

So I have been a slacking blogger.  Really, life has been crazy!  We celebrated Chandler's 3rd birthday last month.  He had a great birthday that was Spiderman crazy.  He was a happy boy! 

Look at my little man with his awesome Spiderman Cake that my mom made!

I have been packing the house and Daddy has been hauling things to the dump and making minor repairs and painting.  We had a huge yard sale with my mom and we split $721!  Very nice!  We will need to have another yard sale before we go, as I'm packing I'm finding a lot more stuff that doesn't need to come with us.  It's amazing how much stuff you accrue living in one place.  We have lived in this house for 3 years, which is really a record for me! 

Daddy will be heading down to look for work next month without us.  :(  I hope he finds a job very quickly because I don't want to be without him!  Not only will I desperately miss him, but no adults?  Just me and the kids 24/7, 7 days a week?  I may go crazy without my husband's loving, listening ear and strong, helpful hands.  He does the bedtime routine every night so I don't know how the kids will react to him not being here.  It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  Deep breaths ... time for big changes!