Work hard, play hard

We really did not intend to buy a fixer-upper, but...that is what we fell in love with! And, it is A LOT of work. We will be spending the rest of our lives fixing up this house. Thank goodness I have a handy husband and some REALLY handy and creative family members! We have not really been able to unpack much, yet, but we should be able to settle in more over the next few weeks after all of our flooring is done. We also have our second homestudy visit on August 15th so we really need to get a bit more settled before then! Right now, our house looks like a construction zone.

Painting the living room.

Three layers of beautiful wallpaper in our dining room. (There were four layers in the upstairs hallway!)

Lovely, eh? All of this wallpaper is at least 50 years old.

In spite of all the work, there has still been some time for play! Pea loves his new backyard. Our yard is MUCH smaller than our previous yard so that has been a little adjustment, but we love it. Oh, the bike in the pool is what happens when daddy is in charge. :)

At the kids fest.
The highlight of our week....meeting PABLO!!!! I made the "mistake" of mentioning to pea that Pablo was coming to town and he asked about it several times a day, every day, for two weeks.

Coming up for air

The last few weeks have been caRAZY! Packing, moving, unpacking, ripping out carpet, tearing down wallpaper, and visiting with family! Oh, and throw a homestudy visit in there somewhere. :) We are TIRED and it has only just begun. We moved into our new house last weekend (FINALLY!!!) and we have A LOT of work to do. Jason's parents came in for the weekend to help out so Jason and his dad spent 12 hours ripping out carpet and then we had lots more help from my family the next day on the hottest day of the summer. It was brutal!

So, the next few weeks, months, years...will be spent working on our house. Even so, we LOVE it and we are going to be here a long time. Seriously. I am never moving again.

If you've got nothing to do this weekend, bring your scrapper and paint roller and come on over!

Ugly deer scene wallpaper...GONE!
Jason and his dad ripping up the living room carpet.
Pea running wild in the chaos.

A Rare Moment

A good head shot!! Very rare these days! Most of the time pea sees the camera come out and yells "CHEEEEEEEESE" as he's running by, so most pictures end up in a blur. Or, he turns his head right when I click. So this shot is truly a rarity! But, I admit, I had to work for it. I sat with the camera ready for quite awhile just waiting...on the hunt for a good picture. Patience pays off!

It was love at first sight...

three years ago today when I saw this itty, bitty sweet face for the first time.

I remember that day like it was yesterday! The long awaited call finally came. The call announcing the arrival of our son. At last! I remember trying to write down everything our adoption coordinator was telling me as my hands were shaking and tears were streaming down my face. Then, Jason and I took a deep breath and held hands as we laid eyes upon our son for the first time...in an email. Most people get to meet their child for the first time in a hospital room. They get to watch their child take that first breath and hold their bundle of joy within minutes of entering this world. We didn't have those first moments with pea, but his "birth" into our family was equally eventful and exciting. We instantly knew this was our son. No doubt about it. Of course, little did we know that this was just the beginning of an amazing journey that would change us forever and open our hearts and minds in ways we never could have imagined. It has shaped so much of how we view the world, how we parent, and our priorities in life. I wouldn't change a thing.

And, when I look at this face today, my heart still skips a beat and I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky.

3rd Birthday

Pea had a great 3rd birthday on April 11th. We celebrated with a family party at our house. In fact, it was the last party at our old house! I still can hardly believe he is three already! What happened to my baby? Well, he's still my baby, though a very big one! He had his three year wellness appointment a couple weeks ago and he is 40" tall and weighs 38lbs. This places him in the 97th percentile on US charts. It's amazing to think that he was only in the 10th percentile for the first 6 months of his life. I am afraid of what my grocery bill is going to be when he is 14!

Pea has such a loving, sweet spirit and is so full of fun and adventure. He is so inquisitive about everything and his imagination has exploded! I love watching him explore and come up with new adventures. He keeps us busy catching sharks, climbing volcanoes, fighting fires, fishing, going on train rides, and more. Who knew we could do so much in one evening?!?! What a fun, fun age (so far!).

One of pea's many obsessions is sea life. He initially wanted a Barracuda cake, but...thankfully he changed his mind to a whale. (Remember when he REALLY wanted to be a giant clam for halloween?!?!?!)


Pea and his boy cousins. They have so much fun together running wild.


Checkin' out the birthday loot.


A bike!!! Doesn't he look GIANT on this bike?!?!


The bubble maker was a huge hit!


Playin' some birthday golf.


And...my mom and her broken elbow. She actually broke her elbow a few days before pea's birthday. She was carrying pea and tripped on the sidewalk. They both went down hard. Pea was okay though he went through a period of shock after the chain of events (possible minor concussion) and my mom ended up in surgery the following week. She is on the mend, but it will be a slow process. Can you believe it? (Well, given that pea is already about half her size, it's really no surprise he could take her down!)

Life in a box

We are FINALLY done with move #1!! We are currently renting a duplex until we get possession of our new house, which will hopefully be in 6 or 7 weeks. So, everything you see in the garage is staying in the garage until move #2. We are living out of boxes and living simple right now. Hopefully move #2 will go a little smoother and a little quicker since most of our stuff is already packed. And, hopefully this will be our last move for a very loooooooong time. Pea has been amazing throughout this moving chaos! He has taken it all in stride and the transition has been virtually seamless for him. I think he is handling it much better than we are! Pea is a pretty laid back and easy going boy. I wish I could attribute these qualities to our amazing parenting skills (hehehe), but it is just his personality. He finds fun and adventure in whatever we are doing.

So now we are just going to take it easy until round 2 of the moving frenzy. We are also taking the next 6 or 7 weeks to get our adoption profile completed so we can move forward with the adoption once we are settled into our new house.

Hang in there with us! I may not be updating as often this summer, but I will do my best!

Crazy Times!!

Hello???? Hello??? Hello???

Is anyone still out there???

Please don't abandon us...we're still here!!! The last few weeks have been CRAZY at our house!! As you know, we sold our house and then I was presented with an amazing opportunity that would have meant a new career and relocating across the state. It was an opportunity we had been waiting on for a very long time, but...after much stress and deliberation, I decided to walk away from it. We were so excited about the idea of moving to a new place and I was very excited about this career opportunity, but the timing just wasn't right. After the initial waves of excitement, we started to think about what we would be giving up...family, friends, great jobs, our community, and more. Being faced with the chance to walk away from everything we have right now, made us appreciate and value even more the life we have built. We're just not ready to give it up. It was an extremely difficult and stressful decision, but we made the right choice.

After making this decision, we frantically started the house hunt! That in and of itself was nutty! Our realtor found a house for us that was not even on the market, yet, and it is PERFECT for us!! We made an offer last week and it was accepted. The catch...we will not have possession until the end of June and we need to be out of our house by May 1st. AAAACK!!! At this exact moment, we still don't know where we are moving on May 1st. AAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! We hope to have that all figured out in the next couple of days. If anything, we can always move in with my parents!

As if we aren't busy enough, we attended our state required two day adoption training this past weekend so we are well on our way! WOOOOHOOOO!!!! Life is crazy hectic right now, but life also feels better than ever. Life feels really, really good.

And...the highlight of our weekend...Pea turned THREE on Sunday!!!!

Happy Birthday, Eli!!!

Where to now?

We sold our house!! Well, we haven't closed, but we are under contract. We are amazed and incredibly lucky that our house sold so quickly. We will be moving out by the end of April and, at this point, we have no idea where we are going. YIKES!!! A lot has been happening over the past month that may mean some unexpected changes for our family, though we are not sure how it is all going to work out at this point. We should have more answers over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, the packing has commenced. We are excited, a little freaked out, and a lot stressed right now!

Movin' on up...

to a big boy bed. Well, sort of. We decided it was finally time to take down the crib railing. Sniff. Sniff. Pea has been climbing in and out of his crib for quite some time now, but we just weren't ready for that next step! We have been very lucky in that he always stays in bed when it's time to sleep so why mess with a good thing, right? Well, I kept having images of a broken leg or arm so we figured it was probably time. Plus, we are going to need the crib for the new baby so we might as well get him transitioned out of it soon.

He was so excited to see his "new" bed. He kept sneaking in and out of his room on his tiptoes to look at it. It was very cute! Here he is right before he jumped off. Sigh...there still may be a broken leg or arm in our future with the way he jumps on his bed.

Getting ready to snuggle in for the night. And, yes, I am happy to report he has stayed in bed!


Now we need to start thinking about getting a real big boy bed!

FFF - Spring Forward

In our family, the beginning of spring is marked by my birthday! Woohoo! Spring is definitely my FAVORITE season. Having been born on the first day of spring, I like to think of myself as a breath of fresh air! Hehehe! Actually, my parents claim it snowed on the day I was born. Definitely more fitting. :) We celebrated a day early at my parent's house tonight and it was a great party. My mom cooked my favorite meal and we topped it off with homemade tiramisu. Yum!!

Me and my pea (with his first sidewalk scrape of the season. check out his nose!)



Licking the candle ends. The best part!

Pea definitely thought I needed lots of help opening my cards.