Oh the drama

Buying and selling houses is not for the faint of heart. Man, the ups and downs that we've been through the last month have been more than enough drama for me. I'm not really ready to move, but I'm sure ready for all of this to be over with. It'll all work out and be but a faint memory...but the process sure is stressful.

I've felt a bit like a downer lately. I've done good about looking on the positive side of things, but yet feel like I don't have anything fun to talk about. I'm tired of talking about moving and who wants to hear about that anyway?!?

Positive stuff in bullet points:

• Owen basically potty trained himself. Yup...I resisted but then gave in. He does so great all the time.
• Shepherd now wears undiewears (how Owen says it) 100% of the time. He's pooped on the potty numberous times and stays dry at night. Is this possible???? Lots of tear and sweat to get that boy trained, but looks like we're almost there. Owen goes poop on the potty here and there.
• If you drive by our house you might see two boys with their pants around their ankles having a "sword fight" (new term for this momma of boys). My neighbors laugh. I say don't tell the new owner.
• Marley is almost to sit without assistance. She rolls to where she wants to go, but isn't crawling yet.
• Everywhere we go people stop us and talk about how cute Marley is. It's true...I'm just surprised how many other people notice. She gives grins to anyone and is generally very happy.
• I'm working on sleep training the princess. I should have done it earlier but kept putting it off with the excuse of "it's hard to be consistent when you have 3 kids...are moving...travelling...fill in the blank".
• I'm picking paint colors for the new house and it is so much fun!! I'm so glad we're buying old and making it ours.
• I LOVE my husband. He's calm, thoughtful, smart, a hard worker...I could go on and on.

Consider the lilies

25 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?


28"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31"Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or "What shall we wear?' 32For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Pictures

Brotherly hugs


typical Owen face

Typical Shepherd face

SWMEA spring Gala

Life and lemonaide

I haven't forgotten about the blog, life is just hard and busy right now. We've been thrown some curve balls with our current house and we are trying to make lemonaide. I'm stressed. Again I must brag on my husband... Nate is calm, cool and a rock during hard times. God knew what he was doing when he put us together!

Pictures from my phone that make me smile!
























- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More pictures of my sweet loves

My wild child with the wild hair!!

Our babysitter has a horse that we all went to ride. It was so much fun.

Our neighbor and friends Eric and Katie are about to have baby Luke any day!!

That chubby little smile makes my day.

5 months, what???

We love when Aunt Joy comes to visit. This girl is amazing!!!

One last DC picture.

How I've missed you

It's so hard to organize photos on blogger. Sorry about the random order.

Laura's play

Oh, Blog, how I've missed you. But not enough to take time away from my sweet growing babies. Seems that it's hard to get a spare moment these days. And no, Lauren, my energy has not increased since having 3 children, you just get a little better at pretending. I don't complain about lack of sleep anymore, uh, usually. I'm just realizing that's part of it. I'm loving these spring days. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to let your kids play outside all day. The boys enjoy it so. Some days are a little too windy for Marley, but she hangs in there.

Let's see...since I last updated: I ran a 1/2 marathon, traveled to DC with Nate and Marley for Nate's coding conference, had a week away from the boys which is the longest ever that we've been apart (they were in LR at the Grandparents), and bought a house (long story b/c we were planning on renting). Ah....life. You just never know!

So...the half marathon first. My first goal was to finish it. The more I trained my goal changed. I decided to run more than I walked. And as the training continued my goal changed again. I decided I wanted to run the whole thing...slow or not I would not walk. Well, I achieved my goal!!! I did not walk, I ran the whole long 13.1 miles!!!! It was awesome. Nate and I split up at mile one and he beat me by 3 minutes. My finishing time was 2 hours 19 minutes. I'm so proud of that. I didn't cry at the end but got a little emotional. When we met up with our families I told the boys I did it for them. Shepherd said "we go to Arkansas now?" They didn't have a clue.Thank you to our families for supporting us and being there at the end. I actually went running yesterday "just for fun". It was a short 3 miles. How easy is that?!?

Marley's first plane ride. She was an angel!!!

DC was wonderful. Nate and I desperately needed some time without having to discipline. It was so good to just focus on each other, oh yeah, and Marley. All the sudden one kid seems really easy. We did some sightseeing and then 3 days Nate was in conference. He would come back to our hotel room for his 9:30 morning break and Marley and I would still be snoozing! Sleep when the baby sleeps...right?

So after our half we ate lunch and then headed to look for our rental house. We wanted to rent for various reasons, including saving money, seeing where we ended up doing life, church etc. I had arranged for us to look at 8 or so rental homes. Well, by Sunday about half of those were still left to rent. One was a dump and the other 3 were just okay. We found ourselves saying "maybe we should just pay $100 more a month for somthing better". And still there was nothing we felt good about. We were so discouraged. We laid in bed Sunday night and Nate suggested we look at something to buy. We hadn't even thought about this since we WERE going to RENT. Nate said it'd be "perfect if we could find something move in ready that we could update as money and time allowed". God honored above and beyond that idea. By Monday night we found "the house" and were ready to make an offer. Our new house is preforclosure and we are getting an AWESOME deal. (and you know I love a good deal) It's clean and move in ready, but has some wild paint colors and gold accessories that need to go. It's 4 bedroom, 3,466 sq. feet. All bedrooms are upstairs. We are so excited. It's on a cul-d-sac which is perfect for my boys.

To see more house pictures go to www.ellingtoncourt.blogspot.com

I'll be posting more pictures of our fun life as I get time. stay tune.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone