House whirlwind

I wanted to log on and write a quick post since it has been a while and since I'm leaving town for a few days starting tomorrow morning! Dan's and my heads can most likely be seen spinning from space. We are on the downward slope in getting our house ready for selling. All of the painting has almost been done. This was a huge undertaking, but we were so blessed to receive help from two generous friends last week. One of them is a painter by profession, so he helped us reach the tall walls in our living room and spent five hours on Friday getting the downstairs looking great. Our walls look amazing! I kinda wish we'd done this long ago! When we get into a new house, I see value in painting it the way we like it right away (although the thought of that much more painting makes me cringe).

We have not had time for much else! Our goal is to be picture-ready by 5/31 or possibly a few days after that. Hopefully our house will sell QUICKLY and we can move onto new adventures!

The boys have been good. We have had mostly good days with a few bumps. I was thinking the other day that we never would have been able to do so much work on our house a year ago, as things were not nearly as predictable and calm back then. That's another shout-out to Straterra! :)

I'm heading to Washington DC for two days for a conference, so the boys are going to take care of things while I'm gone! Mondays and Tuesdays are busy days for us, so please pray for health and peace for all! I'm excited to share house pictures but I want everything to be completed first. The before/after transformations will be amazing! :)

Have a great week!

Mother's Day 2016

Happy belated Mother's Day to all of you awesome women and mamas! Women make the world go 'round, right?! I had THE most fabulous Mother's Day this year. My boys spoiled me rotten and made my day very special. After breakfast in bed and receiving the most thoughtful cards and gifts (Dan is teaching these boys well!), we went to church and listened to an amazing sermon. After church we went to a nearby park and enjoyed yummy food while the boys and puppy played. It was perfect! I'm the luckiest mama and wife on the planet, hands down.

We have some big news! It is very big and very recent. So recent that almost nobody knows about it (surprise, Family!). We are putting our house on the market! Everything has happened really quickly, but we feel like this has been in the works (the PLAN) for a while. We want to sell ASAP, so this week we have frantically began cleaning, purging and packing. Today I got a good portion of the kitchen done. Painting and re-carpeting is in our near future.

Our near future seems very uncertain, as we have absolutely no idea what is about to happen in a few different realms. As always, we trust that the plan is in place and we are just living it out! It's exciting (and a little scary)!

Elijah has had a GREAT past few days, both at school and home. He has gotten a few super reports at school lately. So super that his teacher let him sit in her chair all day today! He was very excited about this. I stopped in both boys' classrooms today and it made me so happy to see such happy smiles on both of their sweet little faces.

One thing I've been wanting to write down so I never forget it is how Sammy does a muffled SCREAM when he loves something that he's eating. He says "MMMmmmmm!" as if he's screaming it, except with his mouth closed. It is the cutest thing.

Both boys have been extra snuggly and complimentary lately. I love these precious boys and I'm so grateful that God chose me to be their Mommy!

Have a great rest of your week! Thanks for peeking in.

Commotion squared

I'm wondering if I have ever written a post declaring boredom? Oh my goodness, things have seemed particularly crazy for the past few weeks. The boys are both doing swim lessons again, Elijah's behavioral aide has been coming over twice/week, I suddenly have a ton of projects to complete for my food blog (yay!), work for Dan is crazy (literally), Buddy is driving me crazy most of the time and Sammy started soccer! Look at him go! He has improved by leaps and bounds from last year. He had his first practice last night and I couldn't believe how well he was dribbling the ball and how focused he was. Go Sammy!

We have had a couple really rough past couple nights. We went down a bit on the dosage with Elijah's meds a month or two ago and now I'm wondering if we should go back up. We'd need to battle with insurance again, as our dosage request was denied last time. I've been seeing behaviors that I haven't seen in a really long time...LOTS of whining and deliberately trying to make me angry. Tonight's battle began when he whined about not being able to spell the word "mother." Knowing that he knew this, I asked him to politely ask for help and that I'd be happy to help out. Twenty minutes of screaming followed, which abruptly came to an end when his flailing arms knocked a huge jar of salsa off the counter and onto the floor...ugh.

Not only is Sammy doing great with soccer, he is rocking swimming, as well! He has been so brave and I'm super proud of him. He still doesn't like water in his face, but willingly bobs his head when asked and attempts everything else the instructor asks of him.

Last week was cold and rainy, but this week has been lovely again. The boys always know exactly what the expected high is for each day of the week. They are both excited for Friday, as it is expected to be 86 degrees! Both of them have their outfits picked out for that day. We love summer!

Ohh Buddy. He is so cute and sweet as long as I have time to manage our time together well and outsmart him a bit. Yesterday was an off day and we ended up getting very frustrated with each other. Every time I asked him to come or stay or do anything he would do the opposite. I brought him to doggy daycare for a few hours to wear him out and the car ride there (which is like 5 minutes long) was a nightmare. He found things in my car that I never knew existed. An old lollipop stick that he just about choked on. A wrapper buried way under my seat. A plastic bag crammed into the bottom side of the passenger door. As I was frantically pulling him out of the car to go into daycare, I saw a piece of chewed gum stuck to his ear. I couldn't help but take a photo. Only Buddy! :)

He was exhausted after playing and this sweetness ALMOST made up for the morning (not really).

I really do love Buddy. This puppy stage is tough, but I've been thinking about all of the positive things he has brought to our lives:

- I get outside MUCH more than I ever did before.

- The soccer skills I learned as a child are being honed (and are dang awesome, I must say!) since kicking a ball around is my main way to get Buddy exercise.

- People in our neighborhood who we've never spoken to before are suddenly our friends. It is amazing how drawn to dogs people are. We have been forced into a more social lifestyle!

- My laundry is ALWAYS immediately put away because if it's not, it will get chewed to pieces.

- My floors are ALWAYS free of clutter because anything on them will get chewed to pieces.

- Every door in my house is ALWAYS closed (so Buddy isn't tempted to go in and chew everything to pieces), which makes our house look cleaner.

- Aside from the shards of glass from the salsa jar remnants that I cleaned up tonight, I have not swept my kitchen since Buddy's arrival in our home.

- Both Elijah and Sammy find him very calming, which is such a HUGE bonus. They both love lying next to him and snuggling. They love getting kisses and they love when he chases them happily when they get off the bus.


I am very much looking forward forward to a relatively peaceful upcoming weekend. I'm hoping for peace for all of you and thank you for reading!