Looks like a safe neighborhood

It has been confirmed: we live in a safe community. Let me explain. We had to meet our Realtor yesterday around lunchtime (a long depressing story, maybe I will get into it later) and both girls fell asleep on the way home. I carried them both inside and put them in their beds. E. has been going to VBS every night this week and when we went outside to leave last night, the sliding van door was still open ... from 6 hours ago! All of the kids’ toys, a bunch of store returns, our new kitchen faucet ... everything was still intact. Man, am I so out of it that I would forget to close the door? The worst part is that it is an automatic door and closes itself with the touch of a button. At least that proves that I am not just plain lazy!

And inside the house, it is not so safe
P. is an official crawling machine. Nothing is safe anymore—she is getting into everything. She particularly likes the DVD player ... which now makes for three kids who are constantly messing with the thing. Hopefully the novelty wears off before we move or I will have to hide it behind the couch or something! It is so cute watching her crawl around though because she over-animates with her arms and slaps her hands down. After we move, it will be nice to know where she always is by the sound of her hands slapping on the floor!

You haven’t moved yet?!?
No, we haven’t moved yet. To leave out all of the grueling details, our closing date has been postponed yet again. We just found out yesterday that the title company requires an eight business day lapse between the time the final loan documents are submitted and the closing date. We found out this morning that our new closing date is now August 4th—more than two months from the point of our contract being accepted by the seller. And four days after our townhouse lease is up. And eight days after all of our new appliances are scheduled to be delivered at the new house. Sigh. So where does this leave us? On the street apparently. No, just kidding. We have had so many people offer for us to stay with them (thank you!), but we are hoping it doesn’t come down to that. I believe the latest plan is for us to beg our apartment community manager to let us stay past our lease. (Never mind that we have been begging them for extensions since our original lease was up in May!) Hopefully it will fly. Or we are looking at a double-move of sorts. Or renting a moving truck for a week and parking our possessions somewhere until we close ... or rather, IF we close. (My pessimism is sneaking in again.) I wonder if any moving companies give extra discounts for that sort of thing, like a rental car’s rates that go down the longer you have it. That would be nice!

More milestones
P. and S. have both been hitting new milestones lately. While Grandma and Grandpa Foutz were here last week, P. started pulling up to standing. I was pretty shocked since she was still doing her crawlstep-crawlstep-sprawl routine at that point. Papa Foutz took her crib down for us and she is now staying in her pack-n-play. [Why bother dropping the crib mattress for a few more days in our townhouse? Oh wait!] S. has also reached the new milestone of now being able to count 1-2-3. Very cute. E. was so proud of her, too. He immediately started to try teaching her 1-2-3-4!

My head is still spinning

Looking back, the past days and weeks have seem to just flown by. But in the daily grind, I have been feeling like each day will just never end. Tyler and I are still trying to balance our grueling schedule and it has been miserable trying to just keep up with "life." E.g., two weeks ago we were so busy and had so much going on that it never crossed my mind that we hadn't been to the grocery store in over a week. (Thankfully we were out of food and not diapers!) Tyler just started another round of training at the hospital this past week which added another level of craziness because this time it was for a day shift (i.e., "my" shift). This, ultimately, will be a blessing once we get settled into an actual routine. Through it all, the kids have been really great and really flexible.

It came and went
Well, our initial closing date of June 30 has come and gone ... still with no house to show for it. A lot has happened since my last update, but the most notable thing is finding out that we needed an occupancy permit for the home in order to close. Not a big deal, right? Oh, except we had to have three more inspections to get the occupancy permit. That was both enlightening and dreadful at the same time. I was ready to cancel the contract (it was the very last day we could), but Tyler said that he would take care of everything. And he has done an awesome job handling every up and down that has come out of those inspections. As I type, he is waiting for the fire marshall to come back to the house to do the final inspection for occupancy. Praise God! We don't have a new closing date yet, but should receive one this week. Considering that we must be out of our town house at the end of the month, a closing date can come none too soon for us.

She is getting so close!

P. is getting so close to crawling—like really crawling. It is exciting and dreadful at the same time! E. was trying to teach her yesterday and she was just watching him and then would babble back. I think the real motivator for her—just like the other two kids—is going to be that smelly dog. He walks by and she immediately cranks her head to watch him. Maybe since he is "untouchable." At any rate, he has gotten both E. and S. to crawl (and walk!), so we will let him stick around a bit longer. ;) Enjoy the cute video. Hopefully I will have another one for you next week that shows the real thing!



Mystery solved
Remember how I tried for an entire week to post some videos of the kids. There were fun ones of them blowing bubbles and jumping on the trampoline. And there was this cute one of P. eating her cereal and making a gigantic mess. Well, I figured out why I haven't been able to upload any of them: they are too large. I didn't even pay attention to their size, but just realized that the largest upload size is 100MB. I just took a longer video of P. doing this froggy jump yesterday too (which E. re-enacted as a donkey kick!), but it is 101MB. Bummer. (I still tried to upload it twice hoping that maybe the Google scale reads a little light. It doesn't.) So, now I know and will have to be conscious to keep them under 55 seconds.

Case closed.

The deed has been done. So now what?
We had our home inspection on Thursday. It didn't turn out exactly as I had expected. I either expected everything to be in good shape or for there to be something so badly wrong that we would have to cancel our contract. Well, we landed somewhere right in the middle and Tyler and I are trying to decide which way we are going to fall. There were many things that the inspector couldn't do or see, so a couple of factors are still at play for us—like the home appraisal we should receive soon and a copy of an inspection on the house when it first foreclosed. We don't feel like the inspection gave us the full picture of what we might be getting ourselves into, so I think we both are just waiting. I feel this urgency just nagging at me because we obviously can't wait that long before making a decision on whether to move forward. And I also feel anxious because any way I look at it, I feel like it is a real gamble to buy a "used" house. (Heck, I don't even like used cars!) This is one of the very few times during the home-buying process when I have been thankful that our pace to get to closing has been painstakingly slow.

Can you believe it? I can't!

As most of you have probably already heard, we finally had a house offer accepted! It was the last house that we looked at on the last day of May; our last chance at buying a house within the next 1-2 years. Praise God! It is also a better fit for us than the other four houses we tried to buy (in sooo many ways!). We are waiting for the final contract to come back to us, but we are expecting to close in early July. (We are pushing for a June closing so that we can move before S.’s birthday, but our Realtor doesn't seem too optimistic that it could happen.) The house is about 20 minutes south of the city, and also happens to be 20 minutes south of where we currently live. The best part about the location is that it is right in between both of Tyler’s jobs and close to our friends from church.

I will probably share more about the house as things begin to unfold. Due to my extreme pessimism, I think I am unconsciously waiting for something to spoil the whole thing.

Catching up
I haven't had much time to blog now that we are balancing three jobs. I have also been working on pulling together craft projects for a summer camp our church is hosting in a couple weeks. I plan on actually making the crafts myself next week as a test run, so I may post some pics. In the meantime, here are quick updates on the kids and photo/video highlights from the past week.

Update on P.
P. is doing much better eating her cereal. In fact, she barely makes a scrunched-up face at all anymore. Now I just need to keep her fingers out of her mouth! We will probably start trying vegetables soon. I just dread the stains that will make on her cute little clothes.

P. also has a new, preferred sleeping position (see pic). Yes, she is 100% face down and laying on her hands. I absolutely detest seeing her sleep this way because it looks like she is going to suffocate. She gets pretty mad at me, but if I find her this way I always roll her back over or try to force her head to one side or the other.

She gets to go in for her 6-month checkup next week. I am excited to she how big she has grown. Six months is an interesting age. It is like a light switch goes on inside. She is now able to sit up by herself and starting to pull herself around even more on the floor by her hands. (I had the thought tonight that I need to start being more careful so she doesn't go down our stairs!) She was even laying on her side in her boppy and almost pulled herself up to a sitting position. Amazing how fast it all progresses! She has her eye doctor’s appointment next week, too. Please pray with us that she doesn’t have the same eye condition as E. I really don’t want my little baby to have to wear contacts.

Update on S.
I wanted to include a cute little pic I took of S. It is one of the few times that her hair is still pulled back halfway through the day. She is getting slightly better about letting me put one clip in her hair. And I just trimmed her bangs so that even if she pulls her hair out of its bands, clips, etc., she will still be able to see!

I was informed that my blogs are becoming more informational and not as entertaining so I will refrain from writing anything about our recent trips to the stores where S. once again screamed bloody murder while I tried to find her a bathing suit or about her pooping on the floor and then sitting on our chair leaving a very large poop streak (which I didn't find until hours later when it was already dry). I think I could create a new blog and simply fill it with the tests and trials of a toddler!

Update on E.
He is becoming a young boy so fast and becoming interested in more and more things. He is also asking questions like crazy. His newest fascination is with anything sports and he has been getting in trouble with me for trying to play racquetball in the house. (Racket–check. Ball—check. Walls—check, check, check, check.) Tonight we stopped at the park for a little while so that they could play at the playground. He opted instead to watch the people playing tennis, soccer, and baseball. On the way home, he asked me if I knew how to play tennis and if I would teach him. It is funny how that came back around—Tyler and I used to play tennis all of the time until E. was about 10 months old and wasn't content to watch us from the stroller anymore. I haven't played since that time!

I will try uploading the videos of the kiddos again later; Blogger is taking too long and I am tired. Poor me. =) I will try to post them tomorrow.

Family photo update

Do you remember me lamenting our disappointing family photo at church? Well, I promised to post it and I haven't forgotten! It actually didn't turn out quite as bad as it looked in the little thumbnail images from the day of the photo. E. might actually have one side of his lips upturned in a little grin. Overall, it is still pretty awful though.


P. update
P is feeling much better. Late Friday night she woke up screaming and when I picked her up she was absolutely drenched. Her fever had broken and her temperature had fallen to a meager 93 degrees. By the next morning, her temperature was back to normal and she was laughing and smiling like normal. Thank you to those who prayed for her. I am glad that this fever dissipated almost as quickly as it showed up.

The Halims
Our friends from college—Champy and Carrie Halim—stopped by on Friday evening on their way home from Kansas City. They have a 6yo girl that E. has been friends with since he was born. They also had two women that are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ from Miami U. with them. It was a really great night of hanging out and catching up. It had been so long since we have seen them ... I think since S. was only 5 months old! They left around midnight and drove the rest of the trip home through the night. Here are a couple photos of their little girl playing with our kids.

Work, work, work
I don't think I have made a big announcement on the blog yet, but Tyler recently took a part-time job at a local hospital. He is an intake coordinator for their behavioral health division. As I understand it, when someone comes into the ER for psyche related problems or if the hospital staff thinks a patient needs a mental stability evaluation, then they call on the intake coordinator. He has had a lot of hospital training over the past few weeks and is now coming up to the end of the job shadowing portion of the training. I think he likes it so far, but it is a potentially very dangerous job. As with any hospital position, stories abound of some of the awful things that have occurred. Thankfully, one of his trainings was on how to take someone down! Memorial Day weekend has been pretty uneventful for us because Tyler has had to work most of it. Yesterday was the only day he had off; 12-day on Friday, 8-hr day on Saturday, and a 12-hr day today. I will be excited when we get out of this transition period with our jobs. There is a parade downtown this morning that I debated taking the kids to, but the rain and storms we are having here made my decision very easy.

Moving
We are also trying to transition with moving as well. We aren't 100% certain on where we will be next, but we are heavily leaning toward renting a home from our good friends. Tyler is interested in seeing four more houses that just came on the market, but so far we don't have any time to do it. I would prefer if he would just go ahead and go by himself. If a house looks promising, then I can go out and see it. Since we have been house hunting for 5 months now, I don't have much hope that we will find anything in this last week of looking. Pray that the days ahead would be filled with productivity in this area ... and clarity for our decision.

To swallow or not to swallow . . .

Last night P. had her first taste of food, well, if you consider runny rice cereal “food”! I gave it to her right before bed—she was really tired—so the timing probably could have been better thought out. I will probably start to give it to her every night at dinnertime so that she can sit at the table and eat with us.



In other family news . . .
We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have been looking at houses handfuls at a time and still haven't found anything. I was also sick most of last week and then it hit each of the kids for one day at a time, too. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t the swine flu!) We have also been trying to get all of our summer clothes out and get S. and P. into their next sizes. Basically, our place is absolute chaos right now . . . and we still haven’t found any of my shorts.

Last week, I took the kids to our church’s play group at this really nice park. It was so fun that we went back that weekend as a family. There is an oversized pond to fish in and a farm at the park, too. We also had dinner with friends and made smores over a fire in their backyard. Overall, a nice relaxing weekend. Enjoy the photo highlights!

He Is Risen!

Happy Easter! We had a wonderful time this past weekend spending time with one another and with friends. I had Friday off of work so Phoebe and I spent much of the day shopping with my good friend Angie. I had decided that I wanted to stop buying paper napkins for everyday use, so one of the things I was searching for was cloth napkins ... at a price point of $1 or less. And I actually found some, and at three different stores! (Normally it takes me months—and even years sometimes—before I make a purchase of something like this.) I think I am going to take two sets of napkins back though and then go to Kohl’s to buy more of their clearanced ones. They had a style that I liked, but didn’t have complete sets. So I may have to sneak out again sometime soon and check at other Kohl’s stores to finish my collection. That is definitely a pro of being in a larger city—multiple store locations!

Candy shenanigans
What do you get when you leave a toddler unsupervised with her Easter basket? Yes, lots and lots of foil-wrapped candy with entire chunks taken out of them. Or plastic-wrapped candy that had been chomped, and yet held firm in the jaws of a little one! (We had more than one mini Snickers that was just crushed and yet the packaging never opened.) Fortunately, S. was skillful enough to somehow eat the chocolate while keeping the foil wrappers in her mouth. I figure that if she wanted the chocolate that bad, she could have it; I wasn’t going to dig it out of her mouth. (It hurts my teeth to even think about it again!) Of course, she wasn’t even close to being satiated with the chocolate she worked so hard to get. This is what I saw for hours after the egg hunt:
And no, she wasn’t being nice and asking if I wanted any!

E. had a great time, too. While S. only had 12 eggs, E. filled almost his entire bucket. And as you can tell, these were not small buckets. He was much more serious about his success, too—he opened every last egg before choosing which piece he was going to digest. (Mind you, it was only 9:45 AM, so yes, he could only have one.)

I read a fun Easter idea in Family Fun magazine, and Tyler implemented it for us. Instead of filling all of the eggs with candy, he wrote different items on slips of paper and put it in some of the eggs. So with candy, coins, and “duds” (eggs that were empty!), the kids also got messages like “Mommy and daddy love you,” Scripture pertaining to God’s love for us, and “coupons” for things like a trip to the zoo, an ice cream cone, kisses, and park play dates. Interestingly, S. got most of those eggs. I am sure that E. will be more than happy to redeem them for her though. Tyler did a really great job being creative and keeping the kids guessing on what would fall out of their eggs!

Easter dinner among friends
Two sets of friends came over last night to celebrate Easter with us over dinner. It was a nice, relaxing time. I am really thankful that we have found good friends so quickly after moving here. While I neglected to take many pictures, Tyler did snag a couple of the table and his fantastic ham. (Check out my great, new napkins! Aren’t they cute?)

How many offers?!?
Our Realtor called today with news of the house we put an offer on. It was on the market for only one week and received 47 offers. Was the selling Realtor exaggerating?!? I mean, that is almost 7 offers a day! Well, our Realtor didn't really know, but he did know that they didn't accept our offer. Bummer. In Tyler’s words: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away—blessed be the name of the Lord. (Well, maybe I should have said “In Job’s words ...”.) Bottom line is that we are sad, but over it. Tyler has already scheduled for us to look at another home tomorrow morning at 9 am. This one is only 5 minutes from where we currently live and super cute ... on the outside at least. It is always a crapshoot when they don’t post pictures of the inside of the home. You really never know what you are going to get!

Tyler went to the leasing office today and received wonderfully unexpected news for us pertaining to our current living situation. We thought our lease was up May 11th-ish, but it ends up that it isn't up until May 31st! The even better news is that we don't have to sign a new lease for a year, 6 months, or even 3 months. They are willing to work with us for what we need, since we are looking to buy a home. I was so thankful and grateful! Praise God for a flexible leasing office! Now, we just need to find that new place to live ... !

Home sweet home

Well, we are home! Actually, we have been home for almost two weeks now but it has been a long transition back into the swing of things. Overall, the trip was good. It was really good to see so many people from both sides of the family. And I was thankful to have Tyler’s mom stay with us in KY at the museum the four days I had to work. I am not sure how she survived it, but she did. For days, after returning home, all the kids and I did was catch up on our rest! At the bottom of this post, I have added some picture highlights from our trip.

It’s a sale! Or is it?
A lot has been accomplished since we have been back home. For starters, we finally finished our state taxes and mailed them in on Thursday! Whew! This was definitely the closest we have ever come to the deadline. We also made our first ever offer on a house this past Monday. =) It is a really solid house that just needs a little bit of updating. It is only 14 years old, so things aren't anywhere as hideous as some houses we saw. We could move right in after a good cleaning. However, it seems that we aren't the only ones who liked the house! Our Realtor took us to the house on the second day it was on the market. We made an offer the fourth day it was on the market ... and the selling agent had already had numerous offers in hand! We are actually still waiting to hear whether or not our offer had been accepted or not. The selling agent was supposedly waiting for all of the offers to come in and then they were going to choose one. This has been a great reminder to Tyler and I of the sovereignty of God and so we are just waiting and trusting in His Will to play out. We will be sad if we don't get the contract—because we really are running out of time before our lease is up and we really liked so many things about this house—but we won't be devastated. My main focus right now is to go through our things and start compiling a mass garage sale pile. We have boxes and boxes of things in storage since our move here that we never even opened. Besides the lack of pictures on our walls, we haven't really missed any of it. I have an uncle that gets rid of things he hasn't touched in 6 months, so I would say one year is a good test of time. I probably don't even remember some of the stuff we have stored away downstairs!

What's on the agenda
We have a pretty busy weekend scheduled ahead. I went shopping yesterday with my friend Angie and found some good buys on things that I have been needing to get ... and even a couple of items that I have had on my “want list” for a couple of years now! We then had dinner with she and her husband at our place and went to the Good Friday service at our church together. Today, I am trying to just relax while Tyler is at work. He and E. are going to get a pizza tonight and go bowling, while the girls and I hang out at home. I may start packing up the things in our basement, too. (We need more boxes!) Tomorrow there is an Easter breakfast at church before the service and then we are having friends over for an Easter dinner. I am looking forward to celebrating Jesus’s victory over death tomorrow with friends ... and all of the great food my husband is going to prepare. I will try to post pictures next week. But for now, enjoy these from our trip!

Kansas City, new achievements, and more!

I think that after today we may finally be coming out of our “busy season”—at least for a week! Tyler is taking a class today at a local community college and we are going to our church right before dinner to get our family photo taken for the directory. If they turn out well, we are going to buy some wallets to hand out. I realize that putting pictures right before dinner is not the best time of day for anyone in our family (hunger pangs abound!), but it was the only workable slot. The only outfit that I have to wear isn't nursing-friendly, so I hope that I can hold P. off for a little while until we get home to feed her.

Kansas City
We went to Kansas City this past weekend for Andy Weber’s wedding, one of Tyler’s college buddies. It was a lot of fun. My best friend, Brooke, came into town and stayed with us for a few days too. It was so nice having her around! S. even warmed up to her immediately and then almost planted herself on Brooke’s lap the rest of the weekend. I guess S. knows a great person when she meets one! Since we were going to be driving over lunch, we decided to pack a picnic and eat at a rest stop on the way. The one thing we didn't take into consideration were the strong winds. While feeding P., my drink ended up getting blown onto my lap and spilling all over both of us. That put me in a pretty stinky mood ... and we still had two more hours to drive. Perhaps the most notable part of the day was when we got to the church. We made it with only 10-15 minutes to spare, and we all still had to get our dress clothes on. We parked in a corner of the parking lot and proceeded to get changed inside the van. It wasn't exactly fun, but it was kind of funny. As people continued pulling into the parking lot, we were just waiting for someone to park by us. That would have been a sight! But we made it inside the church just as the bridal party was walking down the hallway to start the procession. Whew!

New achievements
S. had two new skills come to fruition this past week: opening the refrigerator door and climbing out of her crib. Much to my demise, she conquered them both on the same day too. Tyler and the kids went grocery shopping on Wednesday and after packing the frig full with everything, S. decided to show us her new talent. Of all days—when the frig is its fullest and things are almost falling off the shelfs as it is—she gets the door open. Again and again and again. Last night she decided to practice this new skill for 45 minutes. She also discovered new treasures to play with, like the rice vinegar and hoisin sauce. She also decided that she doesn't want to stay in bed anymore. For 45 minutes over naptime, I repeatedly put her back into bed. Then for 1.5 hours last night I had to continue the same process for bedtime. E. was so tired of her antics that he actually went into my bedroom to sleep! Of course, this just gave S. a new destination to go to once she climbed down. Poor E. I have assured him that she would soon learn the rule to stay in bed and he can once again get some sleep.

On a positive note, I am secretly excited about her new crib-climbing feat. We are currently borrowing P.’s crib from our pastor and his wife. As we look forward to moving in May, I am also hoping to scale back to just one crib again and put both girls in the same bedroom. Since S. isn't too crazy about her crib anymore, it seems that she would be ready to make the transition to a big-girl bed and hand off the family crib to P. My little girl is really growing up fast! And what will P. think of getting a new crib and sharing a room with her sister? I think this picture says it all!

House search update
We are entering our last month of house hunting in order to move out before our townhouse’s lease ends. We haven't found anything promising yet. We did have a couple hopefuls, but with second, closer looks they ended up being cast aside with the others. There are a couple more homes that we would like to see yet, too. As the move-out day draws near, two things are becoming increasingly clear: we may not find a house before our deadline and that is ok; and that God is truly the only one to be able to provide for us and meet our needs. I am glad that He is on our side and already knows where we will be living next, so I don't have to worry about it. It is also comforting to know that when a house we are interested in goes under contract with someone else, it is ok. I can easily move on without disappointment knowing that it wasn't for us. Pray for us today that we would rest in the truth that God is for us, will provide for us, and has a plan for us. I am excited to see where we may be next!

Whew—I'm back

I feel like I have totally fallen off the face of the blogging world. We have been so incredibly busy the past 2-3 weeks that I have literally had no time to blog. At night, we have all been falling into bed already half asleep. We have at least two more weeks of this pace, and then hopefully it will slow down.

The biggest contributor to our increasingly chaotic schedule is a guy named Nate. Nate is our Realtor. That's right—we are looking to buy a house! We are really excited but it sure has been a long few weeks of house hunting. It started with 4-5 hours of looking at all of the house listings that met our main requirements. Then 2-3 hours comparing what we each liked. Then another 2-3 hours driving by the homes that were of interest to both of us. Then finally three different visits to three sets of homes. It has been amazing to see the vast difference between how well-kept (or not at all well-kept) some of these homes have been. It is even more amazing to me that when there is foundational damage to the property that the listing Realtor doesn't put it on the MLS page. I mean, why waste everyone's time going to the house only to walk right back out when you see the giant crack in the foundation?

This past Sunday we visited a house that looked promising. It needs major cleaning (looks like an abandoned frat house on the inside) and overall painting, but has a lot of potential to be really cute. Besides the great deck and fenced backyard, it is in a nice area just south of the city, only 10 minutes from Tyler's work, and near all of our friends from small group. The biggest drawback is that it is 250 square feet smaller than the smallest home we wanted to go. So that is what has been the largest consideration—how long will we fit in this house? The basement is already partially finished, but I am not comfortable with putting a bedroom down there unless we had a walk-out to the backyard or something. (My paranoia coming out with the basement as a fire hazard.) There is a silver lining though: the nicest thing about a small house is that there is much less area to clean!

My proud little girl
S. hit a new milestone today, much to my distress. She can now open doors. I always leave the bathroom door shut because she has started to become quite resourceful. She will grab the stool out of there and carry it all over the place to reach items she is eyeballing. So in the recent weeks, nothing has been safe on our counters, dressers, sinks ... you get the picture. Well, today the door was shut (like normal) and then I hear her in the bathroom. I thought perhaps I didn't have it latched all of the way and she pushed it open. So I brought her out of the bathroom, shut the door, and began walking away. Then I heard it: the sound of little hands twisting the doorknob back and forth. I turned around right as she got it open and she gave me this look of "ah ha!" and "ha ha!" all at once. Oh the misery! About an hour later, E. went into his room and S. went running down the hallway to follow. He shut the door before she could get there and then she whipped out her new little trick. As the door opened, E. said, "Hey!" and then S. gave the most gleeful and mischievous laugh. I had a little laugh come out when I realized that I won't be the only one she is terrorizing!