Last week was pretty epic – full of highs, lows and strange combo high-lows.

First: we kicked off the week with the lowest of lows.  Late Monday afternoon, it got super dark, windy and then all of a sudden a torrential rain came down.  It was the kind of rain that is always on Grey’s Anatomy, Sleepless in Seattle, etc. so people think that “rainy Seattle” means constant dumping downpours sometimes accompagnied by lightening and rumbling thunder.  It’s not usually like that but last Monday it was.  Anyway, it was raining but somehow over the weather’s din outside, I heard a quiet, peculiar drip, drip, drip coming from inside…from the doorway to the dining room to be exact.  There was a steady little trickle of water and right in the corner of the door frame (from kitchen to dining area) steady drops of water were splashing on to the floor below.  What the?!!  THREE WEEKS in our new house and we’ve already had ceiling-roof leak?  Seriously?! 

 As Mike got his coat on to head outside, I heard several ominous thuds from the stairway…and then the delayed cry.  Kayli had fallen – head over feet tumbled a few times – down the stairs.  Thankfully, she was fine, but I’m pretty sure Mike was scarred for life.  Not to mention the fact hat we were already stressed out by the whole new water feature happening in our home.  Thankfully, Kayli bounced back (literally).

 As for the leakiness, despite climbing up on the roof with a headlamp and investigating, Mike couldn’t see any major issues.  The dripping/trickle died down and quit as soon as the storm did.  So, while he was on the roof he threw some random caulk around for good measure.  We’ve had a few rainstorms since and no more leaky-dripping so hopefully that craziness is done.

 After our evening out on the roof, we finally collapsed into bed shortly before midnight only to have one of the worst nights of sleep in a LONG time: Kayli woke us up THREE times during the night (we’re not sure why) and the CARBON MONOXIDE monitor went off TWICE during the night.  Seriously?!  Where’s the hidden camera ‘cuz you’ve got to be joking me right now. The monitor, we think (‘cuz we’ve continued to you know, wake up in the mornings and be alive), we hope, was a weird wonky battery issue.

 Next big event for the week: finally a HIGH!  The boys had their last ever field day at Hazelwood Elementary School
(sniff sniff).  I was determined to get to it since I couldn’t the last couple of years.  The kids are told to bring a change of clothes if they plan to participate in the “water station games.”  Thankfully, Wednesday was the most gorgeous warm day last week so the kids wouldn’t freeze…until they got soaking wet. 

 One of the stations must’ve been created by a teacher with angst and also mad-genius.  Two kids sit on gym mats stacked on top of a little scooter board, while another kid pushes them down part of the blacktop.  Sounds like fun, right?  Meanwhile two rows of teachers are standing there soaking the kids like CRAZY with water cannons and big supersoakers.  It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

At another station, kids stick their swim-goggled faces through the middle of a target-painted tarp while other kids throw soaking sponges at them.  Hi-LARIOUS.

 At the assembly, right before Field Day, the students had been told that there would be a “soaking surprise.”  I was walking around the water-cannon station with Kayli, thinking I’d go to the parking lot up above to capture a photo of the field day madness, when a mom I know yelled, “Jenny, you’re gonna want to move.”  She pointed up to the parking lot where…a FIRE TRUCK had just pulled up.  I – along with everyone there – will NEVER forget the fire truck spraying the ENTIRE school.  Soaking surprise alright. Soaked, squealing, ECSTATIC children stomped and splashed and slipped on the quickly flooded blacktop. I have never heard such loud (and WET) joy in my life.  It was SO cool.  We definintely will miss a lot of things about that school! But what a great memory to end on.

Thursday was the last day of school, so this was our biggest combo high-low.  The boys were so excited for summer but Matthew (and I) were REALLY sad to be done with Hazelwood.  Definitely bittersweet.  He had such a phenomenal teacher this year and has some made some truly great friends.

We spent the afternoon having a super fun, long playdate with our best friends, so that took some of the sting away.  Then on Friday, the boys had a couple more friends here for a playdate and after THAT we all went to our old ‘hood for a big beginning-of-summer party (in the pouring rain). We know how to set a party mood for summer all right!

 Lastly, I will end the week’s rap up with an anecdote of 19 month old Kayliana:

She came into the room and signed “diaper change.”  She took my hand and we went into her room where my – well, now HER – baby doll was lying on the changing pad.  She’d gotten out a diaper and had it resting on top of the doll’s tummy.  I helped her put the diaper on.  Then Kayli signed for “eat” and said “Num nums!”  I followed her downstairs where she proceeded to put the baby doll into the chair, clicked her into the seatbelt and attached the tray.  I got out a bowl and spoon and Kayli began to feed her baby.  Seeing that she was well in control of this baby situation, I left the room for a while.  When I came back to the kitchen, I found Kayli on the floor where she’d obviously gotten the pot out of the cupboard and placed her baby inside...Hmmm.

Tonight, when showing Mike this photo, Kayli saw it and said, pointing to the baby, “I see the num nums!”

The OTHER other white meat??

Next time I'm having a bad day, all I'll have to do is watch this...

We’ve all been handling the transition of moving differently. Mike and I are just plain tired. Matthew’s been a tad more emotional than usual. Kayliana is completely pumped about her new freedom and is getting into EVERYTHING (and throwing monster tantrums when we have to stop her). Zachary, ahh, Zachary, he’s coping by being just a little extra wild. I love that child, but oh my goodness, he’s definitely added to my exhaustion lately.

So, with this added wildness, I wasn’t that surprised when a friend texted me from the school, “Just saw Zach, head down, all sniffly, in the office.” I responded, “Hurt sniffly or in trouble sniffle?” “In trouble. Poor guy.” Ruh-Roh.

 When Zach and I were headed home from the bus stop I brought this whole thing up. “Well, Spencer was whacking me, so I had to whack him back.” We discussed this for a bit and then I reminded him of the Golden Rule to which he quickly responded, “Well, yeah, mom, do to others what they’re doing to you.” Funny how different his interpretation is!

Speaking of getting in trouble, I guess I’ve been a bit of a rebel lately too. Last week, I FINALLY got to do something that I’ve been SO excited to do. Instead of driving down the hill to meet up with my old neighborhood running partner-friend, I said that on Wednesdays from now on, I’d be running in my new ‘hood. (I’d still join in for Mondays and Fridays though). I couldn’t wait to go run on the golf course trails.

The morning was gorgeous and the views were breath-taking. The golf course grounds-keeper crews were busy ripping around in golf carts and riding on huge mowers, getting the place ready for the day. A few gave me a friendly wave as I ran by. Then, just as I come over the top of the hill and the view (and the hill) literally take my breath away, a golf cart comes charging straight at me. The older gentleman, “Max” (his name tag told me), quickly turned the cart to block my path.

“Uh, good morning!” I say brightly.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” he snaps.

“Going for a run, [genius!].”

“You can’t be here. This is private property.”s

“Oh, really?! We just moved to the neighborhood and I had several people [two] tell me that as long as no one is golfing, you can run or walk on the paths.”

“Who told you that?!” he barks. Um, really, you want names?!

“Some neighbors,” I respond vaguely.

“Well, you can’t be here, this is private property.” (Yeah, we’ve covered that). “You need to leave right now.”

“Uh, OK. So, which is the quickest way out of here?”

“I don’t know. Just go back the way you came and get back to your house as quick as you can.”

Dude.

So, I turn around and start heading back up over the hill, which was a little awkward since I couldn’t really make a quick exit – especially knowing that he was watching me and it was kind of a huge hill. He eventually turns around and heads in the other direction. I keep running and about 5 minutes later hear the buzz of a golf cart coming up behind me. I was just about to step slightly off the path when good ‘ol Max FLOORS it, practically running me off the road and yells, “ON YOUR LEFT.” OK, you’ve made your point, Mr. Power Trip.

Eventually, I come up to a hole where they’re setting up some sort of awning/tent thing. There’s Max again with a few other employees. Max ignores me. I smile politely at the other men and one even says cheerily, “Mornin’! Great day for a run!!” Yeah, tell Max that.

I’ve asked a few more neighbors about this sitation and they’ve all said that they’ve either walked the golf course path for years or see others doing it. I think the difference must be that they go AFTER the golfing is done for the day not BEFORE. I can understand that in the morning, they’re busy getting the course ready, but not once was I disturbing any of their work. And, like, I said, several empoloyees waved at me like this happens all the time. I think I’ll call to find out the real story…I just hope Max isn’t the big man on campus.

And, my final, story/update for today. Because moving two weeks ago just wasn’t enough for us, we went camping this past weekend. Actually, we’ve had the trip scheduled (with five other families from our ‘old ‘hood’) since October, so we weren’t about to let some little activity like MOVING, stop us from partaking in the fun! This was Kayli’s first camping trip, but I knew it’d be a good way to start out, since we had PLENTY of extra people around to help out watching her, etc.

We picked up the boys from the bus on Friday, and headed straight to Lincoln Rock State Park (near Wenatchee, a 2 ½ hour drive away). Unfortunately, the weather was gray, a tad drizzly and a lot windy for the first couple of days. But that didn’t stop us; we had SO MUCH FUN. Saturday was a BIG day: The kids had a large pine-cone collecting and throwing contest. We removed Zach’s training wheels and along with two other kiddos in our group, we had a riding 2 wheel bikes/group therapy session. Zach still has some practicing to do, but he did pretty darn well! We also played a game of baseball (turns out I ROCK at baseball) and a HUGE game of kick-ball. It was tons ‘o fun. Both nights we, of course, had a campfire and made s’mores and Saturday night, after the kids went to bed, we played a cut-throat game of charades.

We’d been told that there was a high wind advisory through 8pm Saturday night. We planned that if it was still crazy windy at 8:02, we were SO filing a complaint…against the National Weather Service, I guess. Anyway, we crawled into the tent around 12am where our kiddos were all sleeping soundly. Shortly after we got into sleeping bags, the wind picked up and it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We could hear the gusts building and had about 10 seconds before the gale would hit our tent – shaking the walls, whistling/wailing around us and practically caving the tent in on top of us. Yeah, this woke Kayli up and for about 10 minutes, every time the wind hit, she would shriek in terror from her porta-crib. Eventually, I told Mike the only option was to pull her onto our air mattress and have her sleep between us. I’ll admit that the wind was so strong, I was even scared. At one point, Mike went out to check to make sure we were still secured and that nothing had ripped off.

At dark o’clock (I have no idea what time it was), Matthew suddenly sat up and over the din of the wind announced, “I’m going to throw up.” I quickly got him out of the tent and into the storm where he puked next to our tent (I prayed that the wind wouldn’t blow it on to our tent or US!). We walked to the restrooms and got cleaned up and went back to our tent where my next prayer was: I REALLY hope that this night tops the WORST EVER NIGHTS we have camping EVER. I think we got maybe two hours of sleep total.

Sunday morning, we woke up, bleary-eyed, exhausted and discovered that the storm had blown through and FINALLY it was sunny and 75. Matthew felt totally great and we spent some time all hanging out in the sun before packing up to head home.

Unfortunately, though Matthew was fine on Sunday, he woke up yesterday morning not feeling well, and he STILL hasn’t been able to keep any food down. L Just a little bit ago I heard him throwing up in the bathroom. He flushed the total as I walked in and said, “Goodbye, last night’s dinner.” (Two tablespoons of rice. My kids do seriously rule at puking). I REALLY hope he gets better soon. Not just because it’s lame to be sick but also because tomorrow night is his first playoff baseball game. AND we’re playing the ONE team that we’ve actually beat! (Last week during that game, Matthew got an RBI and another hit, and eventually, for the first time all season, got to score a run)! So, please, pukiness, go away. Maybe if he’s not better, they’ll let me play!

It is done.  And just begun.  We sold a house and bought a house.  The limbo, the not knowing, the stress of moving is behind us!  Today, officially, we became the proud owners of this, our new home.  (I’m sorry I don’t have good pictures yet; will try to post next week).

I could bore you with the details – the last minute demands our buyers made, the work that still needs to be finished at this house, the negotiating, the ups the downs, etc. but let’s just focus on some highlights, shall we?

• Memorial Day weekend – we happily vacated the world of moving/selling/buying for a couple of overnights at my parents’ beach house in Port Ludlow.  While we did have to go to the beach club a few extra times for internet access (to sign post-inspection papers), we were able to enjoy a serious (though brief) get-away from it all.
• Moving Day – the kiddos stayed with my parents Sunday night and first thing Memorial Day/Monday morning, Mike and I went down to pick up the ginormous truck.  In the POURING rain I managed to help Mike back the truck into the driveway (we’ll pretend that the whole getting-it-wedged-in-the-street thing and taking out one of our rhodendron bushes in the flower bed never happened, shall we?  Or when I called to order our appliances and found out that the fridge we wanted wasn’t available for 3 ½ weeks.  We ended up getting a different one on Wednesday).  Thankfully, many of our friends and my fam arrived to help, the rain let up and, I kid you not, the sky cleared just as we pulled up to the new house with the first wave of fully loaded cars (yes, in addition to the huge truck…me thinks we have TOO MUCH STUFF).
• While our new house isn’t on the top of a mountain (like previous dream “Mountain House”), it is, indeed on the top of a pretty GINORMOUS hill.  We’re located four houses away from a golf course, the neighborhood backs to a 3000 acre regional park, and our property is ¼ acre including a big ravine/green space in the back.  It’ll be a PROJECT once we get around to clearing out the overgrowth but for now, it’s our ‘natural’ wooded sanctuary.  We’ve already seen 5 deer (or the same couple of deer a few times…) in the neighborhood!
• The kiddos took right away to the new place.  Kayli is THOROUGHLY enjoying the big carpeted staircase and her freedom (we haven’t gated anything), and she knew right away where her room was.  After picking up the kids and bringing them here (Moving Day afternoon), I asked Matthew what he thought of our new house.  His answer: “It’s lovely.”  I’ve never heard an 8 ½ year old boy use that word before – especially not mine!  So, yes, the boys love it and are adjusting nicely to having their own rooms, though we’ve heard plenty of arguments about cleanliness already.  (This is primarily because Zach goes into Matthew’s room to play with the Legos, leaves a huge mess and then attempts to pull a, “It’s HIS room, HE should clean it up!”)
• WORK: while this house is newer (to us!  Built in 1989, whereas the last house was ’77) and the previous owner did TONS of work here (new granite counters, sinks, shower, carpet, deck, etc.), there’s quite a bit of it that was done, shall we say rather quickly or not so well.  We’re starting to learn all the little quirks and it’s kind of fun (and annoying) to discover a new one (‘Oh, this outlet doesn’t work if that light is turned on…’ etc.).  So, not only did we spend COUNTLESS hours on projects at the old house to meet the buyers’ post-inspection list of demands, we now look forward to some big projects here.  But you know what?  That’s home ownership for ya, and I keep reminding myself that they don’t all need to get done right away.  We’re hoping to be here for a L-O-N-G time, so we may just take our time getting it all done.
• Closing: We officially sold our first-ever house yesterday, though honestly until the 11^th hour, we weren’t sure if/when it was going to happen.  The buyers were demanding that we do things that we never agreed to and were basically just having a hissy fit for no reason. Argh.  Thankfully, we got a phone call in the afternoon from the title company saying the sale had, indeed finalized, and that today our purchase would be final.  I asked the lady if that meant I had to wait on having champagne until today.  “Oh, no way,” she said, “You need one bottle today and then, I’m thinking two more tomorrow.”  When I told her that she’s my type of girl, she said, “Hey, that’s …Title.  It’s how we roll.”  So, I took her PROFESSIONAL advice and brought a bottle of champagne to Matthew’s baseball game last night.  We shared a cup ‘o bubbly with several of the other parents.
• Fatigue: Yeeeeah, so it’s finally caught up to me.  Obviously, the boxes needing to be unpacked, the address changing, the appliance-buying, the resituating of life in general is rather overwhelming and daunting, however, until yesterday I was still on a bit of an adrenaline high from it all.  I was being stupid and staying up WAY late to get more done but still getting up at 6:30 every morning.  So, yesterday it hit and the most major way it hit was in the form of SPACINESS. 
• Trevor – the man who sold us this home – had a few things left on HIS post-inspection list, so he sent a general contractor, Jordan, to the house to do the job.  My mom was here shortly after Jordan arrived and to quote her, “Ooh, he’s young and cute!”  (Yes, her words for the record, not mine.  Not that I necessarily disagree).  Anyway, all day, whenever he needed to ask me a question or tell me something, I sounded like a COMPLETE moron.  I could list all of the things but I’ll just stick with the best highlights. 

There was a broken hot tub in the deck that needed to be removed before the deck could be finished (that’s happening tomorrow).  I knew this was the plan (as we requested it). So, in the afternoon, Jordan comes up and taps on the kitchen window.  I open it and he says, “I’m going to go ahead and demo the hot tub now.”  To which I immediately reply, “Um, uh, OK.  Like you’re going to get IN it and show me how it works?!”  Wow.  Wishful thinking? Maybe.  But he looked at me like I was the biggest ignoramous and said, “No – demo – as in DEMOLISH.”  Oh, right.  Of course.

A bit later, I was trying to get the kids ready and out the door for Matthew’s ballgame.  We were running late, Kayli was throwing a fit, Matthew was starting to melt down for some reason and I kinda sorta lost it…like more than just a stern mommy-voice, I yelled a bit.  Right afterwards I hear a timid knock on the door.  ‘Oh, crap’, I thought.  ‘I hope that’s not a neighbor coming to introduce themselves…or now they’ll be calling CPS.’  I open the door and there’s Jordan who, quickly takes a couple of steps back.  Yeah, I mean, I DID basically ask him to get in the hot tub and then he hears me losing it with the kids.  I’d be scared too.  He needed to explain something about the garage doors.  He starts explaining the intricate details of garage door mechanics.  Kayli is on my hip shrieking.  The boys are bickering in the background and I’m pretty much just staring at him blankly.  I bet I was drooling too.  After a bit, he said, loudly and slowly, “DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M SAYING?” Uh, no, I don’t understand much of anything right now.

Yeah, so I’m definitely exhausted and the thought of getting everything unpacked and all just-so is way daunting.  There’s so much to do and I’m having mover-inner-unpackers guilt (yet another guilt to add to my buffet), but tonight we rest and relax.  I couldn’t be happier.  From the moment we got here, it’s felt like home and that, my friends, is a really good feeling!

Man! Of course the morning that I actually manage to get up just a little bit earlier than usual (because I’m TERRIBLY behind on blogging), I hear a little voice chirping, “Mama! Mama! MAMA!!!”  WAY earlier than I’d really prefer.  So, despite needing a long time to blog, that just doesn’t exist these days, and I’ll have to be bullet-pointily brief.  Here goes:

• House Projects: we’ve gotten through 24 of the 25 items from our buyers’ “list of demands.”  The last thing is to install a handrail at the top of the stairs.  We’ll do this tomorrow since it requires removing the baby gate at the top of the stairs.  The buyers are coming to do their re-inspection on Thursday (MY birthday!! They better be kind, darn it!!).
• Thursday: Yes, the much dreaded re-inspection.  Ugh.  We’ll have done everything they’ve asked.  We have to leave out all receipts and proof of work-orders for the projects of which they ‘required’ we hire a professional to complete.  Basically, at this point, they can’t walk away or add new items, BUT if something was not to their satisfaction they could say, “Do it again…or pay us money…OR we’ll push back closing.”  Trying to ignore this little possibility.
• Packing: Packing. Packing. PACKING.  We’re moving Memorial Day Monday (6 days from now – eek!).  But I’m really thinking that my deadline is Thursday afternoon (again, happy birthday to me).  We can’t be here for several hours in the afternoon.  (I’ve got to take Kayli and Zach for pediatrician check-ups, then the buyers do their re-inspect, so we’ll head up to my ma and pa’s for a birthday dinner).  THEN, Friday afternoon, we’ll be 100% packed (ideally) and will pick up Mike and head to my parents’ beach house in Port Ludlow for a bit of a MUCH NEEDED weekend get-away.  THEN, come home Sunday night, have one last sleep here in this, our first house, (sniff sniff), THEN, 8am Monday morning pick up the U-Haul and the fun begins!  Still TONS to do but the place is starting to look pretty darn sparse!
• New House: They (the seller and his worker peeps) are (no surprise) very behind on all the updates/upgrades/projects at our new digs, so we haven’t even gotten to go back to do the inspection!!Tomorrow’s the day and I’m SO excited to get to see it again!  We will be taking LOTS of pictures and will be taking lots of measurements especially for the new appliances we ‘get’ to buy – fridge, washer, dryer AND furnace.  (Ouch. $$$!! Happy birthday to me!)  As for the inspection tomorrow, we hired the same guy that our picky-pants-demanding buyers hired for here.  That’s right, the guy who was so thorough they decided to basically have us do nearly every little thing that he discovered, is, when it comes down to it, REALLY good at what he does.  As Mike said, if the inspection that we’d done when we bought this house, had been half as thorough, we would’ve had a much smaller list to do for selling.  So, I guess we CAN thank the buyers for helping us find a quality inspector! (but we’re not actually going to thank them.  Sorry).
• OTHER news: Most recent and exciting is that Matthew celebrated his First Communion this past weekend.  The event was made extra special with the presence of Mike’s sister Jamie (also Matthew’s Godmother), her hubby Dan, their freakishly well-behaved and mellow dog Commando AND our sweet handsome-pants angel-of-a nephew Tucker.  They arrived from Idaho on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Monday morning.  Matthew kick-started his special weekend with a base-hit at his ball game Saturday morning (I nearly wet my pants, I was so excited.  And I proceeded to get all teary-misty eyed with pride behind my sunglasses).  Then, he made us extra-crazy proud by doing everything perfectly at the First Communion Mass, where, unfortunately, I didn’t have sunglasses to hide my proud tears!  I really didn’t anticipate crying like a bafoon, but after watching him process down the aisle, I turned to my mom all snotty and tear-soaked and said, “Mom! I need a Kleenex!”  To which my mom said, “Ya think?!” and handed me a wad of tissue.  It was such a special day and we are so blessed with the amazing family and friends that could join us to celebrate.  Happy sigh!

Ugh.  Mike and I have been sick.  Because, you know, we don’t have enough on our plates already what with moving in TWO AND A HALF WEEKS ‘n all.  Thankfully, the kids didn’t really get this nastiness – at least not like Mike and I did.  And Zachary certainly hasn’t slowed down at all as I received the following email from his kindergarten teacher:

“The main things  I am seeing is that he chooses to talk during whole group lessons and then doesn’t know what the assignments are.  This also disrupts others.   He also has decided to be the class clown and does a really good job of it!  This only happens once in awhile .  He has never been disrespectful but sometimes he comes close to being sassy to me.”

 So, I should I be proud that my child is excelling at what he puts his mind to??  I must say I’m not surprised that in only his first year of elementary school he’s earned the title of Class Clown (or apparently dubbed himself with that important role).  Even as a 5 pound preemie in the NICU, the nurses joked about how he had ‘spirit’ and always had a little twinkle in his eye like he was up to something.  He’s living up to our expectation I suppose!

Today, my mom and I get to go see his class’ Mother’s Day presentation of “The Three Little Pigs.”  I’m VERY much looking forward to seeing my little dramatic clown in action!

Yeeeah, so sleep may trump blogging for the next few weeks. But we will survive and here’s how:

 Somehow, we WILL get the whole house packed – like EVERYTHING.  We WILL get the unreasonably long (and cruel) list of demands for the buyers of our home completed (we will pray a lot that they accept it all at their 5 days-pre closing REinspection).  We will adequately celebrate Matthew’s First Communion and enjoy out of town/visiting family.  We will acknowledge my birthday (and even, ideally, spend Memorial Day weekend – the two days before we move – with my family at the beach house in Port Ludlow).  We will attend nearly all of Matthew’s baseball games and practices (thrice a week, mind you).  We will have a visit from the Tooth Fairy (Zach has one big ‘ol dangly tooth in the middle/top of his mouth).  We will keep Kayli out of harms way (or attempt to) – I’ve donated her changing table as that was the latest victim of her climbing habits and it was just a bit too wobbly to be the continuous source of her ever developing gymnastic feats.  I will continue to go for runs with my neighbor three mornings a week and get to the gym for Spin and weight training one day a week as that is one of my main sources of sanity (and keeps me from – hopefully – NOT gaining 400 pounds from stress-induced eating).  I will attempt to sleep well during the next four weeks despite the fact that I wake up nearly every single morning with a splitting headache as, when stressed, I clench my jaw and grind my teeth in my sleep.  I will continue to have a nightly 5pm glass of wine and not judge or accept the judgements of others should that 5pm glass of wine need to come at 4:45 or 4:15.  I will try to stick with just my ONE dose of antioxidents (dark chocolate) every morning with my coffee…though many mornings right now, it’s more likely to be two…because I need the extra dose.  I will try, despite all this stress, to still be a good friend, to spend quality time with my husband and my children and to not constantly act like a totally, insanely stressed out maniac despite feeling that way.  If the stress gets to be too much, I will listen to one of my favorite songs of all time (that saw me through a lot of my darkest Post Partum Depression moments): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I I will also listen to Christmas music as that makes me just as happy. I will remember that in the big picture, that selling our wonderful first home where so many happy memories were made and moving to our dream “The One” – forever house – where so many MORE happy memories will be made, is actually a really wonderful thing and that the moving/stress part of it is just the beginning of the adventure!

I was recently telling my mom how CRAZY it is that in just a little over a month we will (HOPEFULLY) need to have every belonging packed up and cleared out of here for moving day – May 28^th!  We’ve reached “Mutual Acceptance” on the home we want to buy, which means things are finally starting to REALLY come together!!  When Larry and Kathy (realtor-extraordinaires) called to say, “Congratulations, you’re buying a house!”  I, of course, shrieked a little and got VERY excited.  Then, just as often happens, Mike was the voice of reason.  Don’t get me wrong, he was happy and excited but this was the conversation:

Me: YAY! (shouting)

Mike: Yay! (with happiness but at a normal volume).

Me: YAY. (with some insinsistence that he reach my level of joy/volume).

Mike: Yay! (more monotone).  Now we have more paperwork to do.

Me: OK, but YAY!

Mike: Yay. (even more monotone).  Now we have to get through the inspections.

Me: (a little angry now), Yes, I know, but YAY. (darn it).

Mike: Yay.  Oh, we need to write the big, fat earnest money check….but, yes, yay!

Me: Monotone yay.

See, I’ve learned that there are about 25 hoops to get through before you’ve actually successfully sold/bought a home.  It’s kind of like how I felt when I learned how that whole babies-are-made thing.  First, it grossed me out a little (I was 9 or 10 at the time) and then I wondered: if SO many things need to happen for a baby to be conceived, it’s kind of amazing that so many do get made!    

So, a lot still needs to happen for THIS to all work out, but I know, somehow, in the end, it will.  Tuesday was a good day.  We found out that they’d accepted our offer on the home we wish to buy.  Yesterday was an awful day since we got the inspection report and list of demands for the buyers of our current home.  When I asked Larry how bad it was he said (and I quote).  “Bad.  It’s pretty awful.”  Four pages. FOUR pages.  Over 25 things that they want us to do, fix, replace, repair, purchase, change.  Ugh. It hurt.  And to make matters worse, Larry was told, quite clearly, by the Buyers’ agent that if we don’t comply, these buyers are VERY likely to walk away from the deal.  (Totally feels like blackmail, doesn’t it?!).

We only said no to a couple of items on the list, and even to those we did our best to say, “Well, sort of ‘no’ but here’s our very excellent reason for saying that…”

I called my mom in tears yesterday after reading through everything that we’re expected to do in the next few weeks…not to mention the fact that I still have to pack the whole house…oh, and it’s Zach’s birthday weekend in another day and we’re having two nights of sleepovers with our best friends’ kiddos – 6 kids hanging here this weekend (which, I am actually REALLY looking forward to and thankfully the 4 boys do a pretty good job of entertaining themselves…I’ll just be entertaining Kayliana and 1 year old bff Veronica)…we also have two baseball games and a practice every week for Matthew…we also have Mike’s sister, brother-in-law and new baby coming for a weekend for Matthew’s First communion (also something that I’m REALLY excited about)…anyway, I could go on and on with all the activities (99% of them fun) that are already down for the month of May.

So, I’m whining to my mom about how CRAZY it is that we have to pack the whole house and do ALL these stupid repairs ‘n house projects ‘n stuff and it’s just crazy and crazy and CRAZY and my mom calmy says:

“Jenny, you specialize in crazy.  You’re always busy.  You always have tons going on, and you always get it all done.  We’ll get through this together, you’ll have plenty of help, but, for the record, you do crazy all the time and the rest of us just sit back and enjoy it.”

Well, here’s to crazy!  ‘Cuz it’s a-comin’!

I need about, mmm, three full days to adequately get caught up on blog-updating goodness. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kinda time (who does?) so I will attempt the – inhumane – job of limiting my wordiness.

First: Mom’s 70th Surprise Party was Saturday night. Basically, in a nutshell, it could NOT have gone any better. It was AMAZING. I’m still stunned that we totally pulled it off and she was SO surprised. My brother Timothy and his wife Rebecca (along with my dad) kidnapped mom for the afternoon and went to the Seattle Art Museum. The second they left my brother Chris called and I swooped in. He and I spent three hours getting their place party-ready. Then my best friend Rebecca rolled in with more than half of the deliciously-prepared food-goodness. (I didn’t know, back when we planned the menu, if I’d even have access to my kitchen thanks to showings/house for sale stuff…and really, she’s just a really good cook and I was totally cool with her doing ¾’s of the food  ). All guests (about 30) were to arrive by 5pm with the goal that mom ‘n gang would roll in at 5:15. Well, at 4:15, Tim called and said, “Mom is DONE. We’ve dragged her around the museum long enough. She’s tired of being on her feet…I don’t know if we can stall any longer.” So, basically at that point, it looked like mom would be here BEFORE the guests. It’d be a bit of an anti-climatic surprise. Thankfully, a few minutes later, I got a text from Tim: “Got her to the museum café!!!” Excellent.

They ended up arriving at 5:30. So, we had plenty of time for all guests to arrive, to serve them some drinks, some appetizers and to squeeze them all into the living room, around the corner from the front door. We all waited in nervous, excited anticipation as the front door opened. We heard mom say, “Oh! It smells like….oh, I must’ve left the oven on.” She noticed the different table cloth and huge bouquet on the dining room table. Then she stepped a little bit farther into the room and froze, jaw on the floor. Surprise!! It was SO great.

One of my favorite surprises was the book that I put together with the help of many, many family members and friends. (I used shutterfly.com and must say the customer service – when I needed to call – was excellent)! We had photos of her all through the years including a darling baby picture on the cover. And then about 24 people wrote her letters that I put in the book too. Needless-to-say there was a bit ‘o tear-wiping when she saw what all was in that book.

One of the best parts of the whole weekend (for me) was on the morning after the party. Mom told me, “I woke up at 3am and was just grinning from ear-to-ear. I was still so excited about the party, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up to look at the book. But it’s going to take me about a week to get through it because I start crying right away with each letter.” Success? I’d say so.

Another success story? Hopefully, SO close, we’re ALMOST there…Our house news!!! The inspection on our current home is today which makes me so nervous. I’m just PRAYING that they don’t discover anything big ‘n bad requiring a ton of work and/or money from us. I CAN’T WAIT for this part to be over so that I that the house doesn’t need to be perfect all the time…and so I can start the joyful task of packing. (Oye).

BUT….BUT….we’ve found The One. We’ve SO found The One. We saw it on Wednesday afternoon. It belongs to the brother-in-law of Jason, a real estate agent we met a couple weeks ago. He was the listing agent on the last house we made an offer on. Basically, he fell in love with us and is just determined to sell us a house! Works for me. The house isn’t even on the market yet, so we have NO competition. AND they’re gutting the thing and completely redoing everything – new carpet, hardwoods, granite counters, appliances, sinks, showers, deck, paint, landscaping, etc. SO, we may even get to have a small say in wall color, flooring, etc. The house is perfect. Pretty much everything we’ve been dreaming of. And the property is awesome. It’s a ¼ acre with part of the back yard turning into a ravine that slopes down to a dry creek bed. Kid-playing MAGIC. The back yard is definitely a project and will require a big landscaping overhaul eventually (putting in tiers, or some sort of pathway), but it’s SO cool and I can’t wait to tackle it! We’ll hear today from Jason and his brother-in-law with their counter offer. We asked for a few things that weren’t included in their asking price. (We want the washer/dryer and fridge and hardwoods instead of carpet in the dining room. Plus, they’re finding out this morning, the status of the original furnace – whether it just needs maintenance for now or will need to be replaced). It all feels pretty great though. We just need to get through the last few hoops.

Basically, again, like the adoption, in that it didn’t feel final ‘til Kayli was home with us. This probably won’t feel real until we’re unlocking the front door with our very own key.

We got an offer! We got an offer! We got an offer! Happy dance! We received it yesterday – a solid, pretty darn good, with a reasonable closing date (May 31st) offer. We countered and will likely hear back today. This is step one in the hoops to jump though – as we still have to get through the inspection and appraisal. But still…hooray! Now we have to pray our butts off that “The One” comes up and we can offer in the next couple of weeks so that we can have a 30 day close and something to move into come June 1st!

One of the beautiful aspects of having sons is that I feel happy passing along many of the ‘boy issues’ to Mike. He knows more about dude-man stuff, so he should be the go-to on male-related topics. So, that was my policy when, last week at baseball practice, Matthew was hit with the ball in the family-jewels region. Mike said that we needed to purchase a cup or “Underwear Armor” (as the boys have decided to call it). I said, “Great! Have fun shopping!”

I was actually with Mike for the purchasing of Matthew’s cup (not the kind to drink out of, to clarify for those of you having a hard time following along here). I left the decision making to him as he carefully made the selection for Matthew’s baseball accoutrement.

Tonight was Matthew’s first game ‘o the season and I’d told Mike that I’d like it if he could be home to help Matthew get suited up properly. I don’t want to be responsible for that! Well, unforatunely, our well-thought out plan (Mike getting into work early and leaving work early and meeting us at home) didn’t happen. We ended up having a house-showing, so we couldn’t even be home for getting geared up. I brought Matthew’s stuff and he changed in the back of the car. Unfortunately, Mike also got held up at work so he couldn’t even be there for the back-of-the-mini-van clothes changing. I got Matthew situated as best I could, but I basically figured, ‘he’s a boy, he must have some sort of male instinct to figure out which direction this thing goes’ etc.

I guess it feels a little weird having this big ‘ol piece of hard plastic hanging out right there. Once dressed, Matthew struggled to get his cleats on and reported that it was difficult to bend his legs. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Then I watched as he ‘jogged’ to the field and was horrified to see that his new, uh, accessory, was causing Matthew to do a funky-wide-legged waddle-run unlike anything I’ve ever seen. That’s when I called Mike on the phone and put a little heat under his butt to get to baseball…STAT.

Thankfully, Mike soon arrived and was helping Matthew warm up. Every time I’d glanced over at my son he was attempting to adjust and readjust and maladjust and who-knows-what-adjust his Underwear Armor. As I chased Kayli around the playground I was relieved to know that Mike was there, handling the situation. When I looked over the next time, however, I watched in horror as Matthew, standing in the middle of the field, wiggled and woggled and pop! Pulls out his hand holding the frustrating-non-cooperative plastic cup-piece of torture high above his head like Lady Liberty’s torch. Mike quickly grabbed it and stuck it in his pocket.

Turns out Matthew had it on upside down. And extracting it was tricky. And now we’ve all learned – which direction a cup goes AND that Mommy shouldn’t be the one having to deal with this stuff!

We had a wonderful Easter and spent this last week Spring-breaking. We (the kids and I) enjoyed the best combination of chillaxin’ at home but also playing tourist in Seattle with a trip to the aquarium and one to the zoo. Kayli LOVED the fishies. At every aquarium we went up to she’d squeal and then say, “Woah, woah, woah, woah.” (Having technical difficulties uploading photos, so be sure to see previous post's as well).

We spent the last 24 hours undergoing nail-biting home-purchasing negotiations AND finally – yay! Finally, we were told that, in the nick ‘o time, we’d be receiving an offer on our home. For several hours it all seemed like it was going to perfectly come together.

Yeah right.

None of it came together. Once again, we were told to anticipate an offer only to have the buyer change his mind at the last moment (after the agent wrote up all the paperwork and everything). So, once again, without an offer, we can’t do anything to buy this particular home and it goes to someone else.

Stupid someone else.

Whatever, the yard was too small anyway. (That’s what I’m telling myself to expedite the mourning process on this one).

On top of all the crazy house business (oh, you know, no big deal, just buying A HOUSE), we’ve also discovered a startling truth: Matthew is lying on a bed of lies. He is the Boss of an undercover, black market, covert-ops, completely illegal (school rules-breaking) 2nd grade Lego-trading mafia ring.

We don’t know quite how long it’s been going on. (We think for several months).

We don’t know how many young thugs are involved in this nefarious crime. (We think four).

We don’t know how many Lego’s were lost during this time. (We think at least one and possibly many, many more).

We don’t know if this surprising streak of leadership in Matthew will lead to him being a creative and successful business entrepreneur or the head Boss of an illegal trading ring of some sort. (We’re hoping the former).

When we finally got to the bottom of the web of deceit (we think, we HOPE we finally have the full story), Matthew – through endless tears – gulped out, “I just hope my friends still like me even though I….sniffle….sob….spilled the beans!”

And later, when we were attempting to uncover the pattern of this illegal activity, Matthew admitted that he had plans to perform one of these shady transactions tomorrow. “Well, I had planned to do a trade with Nathan tomorrow, but I guess I’ll just have to cancel that.”

Cancel that, you will, my friend. And all future prohibited trading as well. No more Lego-black market swaps. No sir. Not on my watch.

We’ve made another offer on another house. This one is perhaps even more of a long shot as we’ve been told that they also received a different offer yesterday that was “solid” and non-contingent (unlike ours). However, there are some things in our favor: the listing agent WORSHIPS our agents. He used to work with them and he would hand us that house on a silver platter if he could. Obviously, it’s not entirely his decision to make, it’s the sellers’, but he can definitely help our cause in his sales pitch. He (Agent Man – A.M.) came over to see our house yesterday to see how sellable it is. A.M. went on and on about how highly it speaks of US that we’re working with our agents! Why, thank you. A.M. encouraged us to present a strong offer and also suggested that we write a cover letter.

Now, I’ve heard about these letters and was hoping that we’d get to do one. Basically, it’s a similar theory to the “Dear Birth Mom” letter that we got to write when adopting. “Here’s why we’re the awesomest family for you and why you should pick us to raise your baby…!” Obviously, I had to tone down the floweriness of our cover letter a bit. I didn’t get to be all creative and do “The Top Five Reasons why you should sell US your house” or “Once Upon a Time, there was a family…” I kept it simple and the focus had to be primarily on what we’re doing to get our house to sell quickly so that we could make purchasing their home a reality.

We’ve dropped our price again, for one. And it’s not like our house hasn’t been popular: We’ve had 36 showings in 38 days on the market (not to mention the 24 people that were here for the Open House). We’ve had about five very interested potential buyers and one that, at the 11th hour, changed their mind about writing an offer. We’ve been told “the house is priced to sell” (even more so now!) and “shows great.” So, what gives?

Realtors will say that in this market, it still might be overpriced (though we’ve heard plenty of the complete opposite sentiment). We’re competing with foreclosures and short sales and buyers are just looking for a smokin’ deal.

I say that The Ones just haven’t found us yet. The right people haven’t walked through the door. We knew the moment we walked in here that this was The One for us. It’s been the absolute perfect home for our family for nine years now. It’ll be the perfect home for someone else. We’re talking to St. Joseph more seriously now. Asking that he see with the Big Guy about getting those folks on over here….like now.

So, anyway, we’ll see what happens with this latest offer. I guess I’m trying to be more rational about all of this now. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. But truth be told, even more so than the last house we made an offer on, this one felt RIGHT. We’ve been told time and again, we’d have to compromise on something. We won’t be able to get EVERYTHING on our list. With the last house, the layout wasn’t totally ideal and what we wanted. With this house, the layout is pretty near perfect and I love nearly everything about it. Ironically, of any house we’ve seen, it’s the most similar to the Mountain House (the house that started it all…sigh). BUT…the yard IS a little bit smaller than we’d like. That’s the one thing that we’d be giving up. It still has a nice yard – flat and fully fenced – but it’s just a might bit smaller than we’d hoped for. (I’m trying to focus on that so I’m not too heart-broken if this doesn’t turn out to be The One).

Honestly though, this house – hmmm, doesn’t have a name yet, let’s just just be optimistic and go with The House – felt ‘righter’ than the last one and for a primarily silly reason. Last House had GORGEOUS chandeliers. I even have a couple of pictures (one where Zach is holding up his muddy shoes as we exited out the front door). I loved these chandeliers but I was also a little embarrassed by their swankiness. I felt that I didn’t deserve them. A part of me felt like if Last House had been The One, I’d always feel like I was just pretending to live there.

Yesterday, as we walked through The House, I paid special attention to the light fixtures. “Yeah, I deserve you guys,” I thought. “You and I, Mr. Light Fixture, we’d get along JUST fine.” I loved the entryway and dining room chandeliers. They were pretty without being too showy. They were homey and comfortable without being too casual. You could dress them up or down. They were perfect for any occasion. (Like me, perhaps?)

So, did I find my soul mate light-fixture house?? We shall see…