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!

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.

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!

Purging, purging, purging

So even though we have no date for our move - not even a real projected month - I am attempting to prepare.  First off purging the heck out of my house. 

Daddy and I tackled the kid's rooms a couple weeks ago.  I know from past experience however it will require a multiple prong attack.  We did the preliminary purge.  In a few weeks we will need to do another one to narrow it down further.

Today I started on my books.  Sigh.  I am a proud bibliophile and I own about 4 large bookshelves worth of books - not counting the small bookshelves that Claire and Chandler have in each of their rooms.  However, I know that in a big move like this I'm going to have to pare down.  I packed 6 boxes of books and found one box and a grocery bag worth to sell/donate.  Some of those were doubles and others were ones I got a long time ago and am just not as interested in anymore.  That still leaves me with a LOT of books to sort through.  It's so hard and sad.  Which are my most important friends?  Which books do I definitely need to keep for the children even though they are years away from understanding them?  Are these two books of Hans Christian Anderson's tales different?

My clothes and kitchen goods are also on the list of sort and purge.  I will tell you this - when we have our yard sale it will be an awesome one!  ;)

A New Year

Wow, 2012.  I feel futuristic.

I am starting 2012 out with a promise to myself to step up our school schedule.  As of now my goal as been 3 days of schoolwork with Claire per week - it is only Kindergarten!  But this semester I want to do 4 days a week to begin preparing her for 5 days a week next year in 1st Grade.  At least there will be no complaints from Claire.  She adores doing schoolwork!

Going from this

To this

I have hope that this will be a year of new beginnings for our family.  We plan and pray to move our little family this year.  The opportunities are disappearing in our little mountain town.  It's a small town and everyone here is really struggling.  Daddy and I have never loved this town and only live here because we just never left after moving out on our own.  We do have family here and we will miss them, but we need more for our children.  We have narrowed down the plan to move to the Charleston, SC area.  Daddy and I both lived near the ocean as children and we miss it so much.  Last year was the first time we were able to take our children to the beach and we want that more.  We want our children to experience museums and concerts regularly.  Here it is an hour to the nearest museum and Claire always ends up carsick from the curvy, mountain roads.  It is a beautiful place to live, but we need more.  I will enjoy getting to vacation here!


I will miss friends and family, but I look forward to new beginnings.  I look forward to Claire and Chandler playing on the beach, shopping at Target regularly (right now the nearest one is an hour away), exploring museums and historical districts, flat country and salt air.  Claire will be starting 1st grade in the fall and we are discussing adding to our family once we are settled.  It's exciting and intimidating and wonderful and scary all at once.

As of now we are just trickling money into our moving fund and purging things out of our house.  So much planning and organizing to do!

Uhoh ... Mama's thinking

I'm in a contemplative mood today. Not really a good thing. I have so much that I want out of life that I feel we have to wait on because of a couple of bad financial decisions we had when we were a little younger. :( Nothing major - but just enough that we can't afford much until we finish with it.

We want to move and are slowly figuring out where we want to go. We had plans on moving before The Girl was born, but it got pushed aside when we found out we were pregnant. We have a town we are leaning towards now, but need to check it out first. We get frustrated not having anything around us. We live in the middle of nowhere with an hour drive to the nearest mall, museum, Target or good grocery store. I hate that whenever the kids need any clothes it's a day trip. I hate that we live somewhere that doesn't have anywhere in the entire town that sells maternity clothes! That's just pathetic.

On to my next thought ... I want a baby. I am close with my sister and I want The Girl to get to experience a sister or Little Man a brother. I don't want a huge difference in age either. I want them to enjoy playing with each other. But I know if we want to move we might have to put it off. That's where I go around and around in my head. Lowering our expenses so we can move without huge difficulties vs. having the baby we want and letting the chips fall.

::sigh:: Thinking is bad.