Easter 2013

What a busy weekend this turned out to be!  So many great ways to celebrate our Risen Lord (and our first ever garage sale!) - we were worn out by last night! 

Actually, it all started last weekend with the annual Egg Hunt and Brunch hosted by some of our friends.  Sam rocked the egg hunt and even found a few extras for his sister.  Although BabyBelle managed to find a few on her own, as well.  And she did an excellent job of not getting her pretty white dress dirty on a cool, drizzly morning.  We're actually having some spring weather this year!

Sam enjoyed his Easter party at school again this year, where he participated in Egg Hunt #2 of 2013.

On Friday evening we attended our church's Good Friday service.  Its hard to say that I "enjoy" the Good Friday service.  It is somber and reverent, and the text is graphic and horrifying.  But without it, Easter morning service would not feel as triumphant. 

 

After the garage sale and some moving prep on Saturday, we decorated some eggs and made a cake that Chris describes as "Every Child's Dream."  Several eggs were cracked before it was all said and done - careful is still a "sometime" occurrence in our house.  And the hands were covered in dye.  Then we ventured next door for an New Orleans-Style Easter party - A Crawfish Boil!  Sam was pretty interested in the crawfish, but it was too spicy for him.  He preferred the gumbo!  Annabelle spit out two bites.  Oh well - Chris and I improved our mud bug eating skills (this northerner needed a lesson!) and we all had a great time socializing with neighbors.  And Sam enjoyed Egg Hunt #3.  Annabelle was content with one egg to hold (or one plastic fork, dish, etc).

When I walked into Sam's room on Sunday morning he immediately asked, "Is the Easter Bunny Gone?!"  Really good thing I'd set my alarm and got up in time to put the hard boiled eggs out before he woke up!  He made quick work of hunting down the basket and dug through to find the car he had spotted at Kroger a few weeks earlier.  He even helped Annabelle find her basked, which she just liked to take stuff in and out of.  He located all the hard boiled eggs (Egg Hunt #4) and we put them back in the fridge.

We enjoyed a wonderful worship service where Sam again participated in the flowering of the cross.  I love the music on Easter Sunday!  I love that so many people come to worship that they have to set chairs out in the gathering hall. 

Back home.  Somehow while Sam was getting out of the car, the eggs that the bunny had hidden outside magically appeared!  So once again the two kids grabbed their baskets and began hunting (Egg Hunt #5).  There were no jelly bean shots this year, thank heavens, the boy was more focused on the collecting than the consuming.  Fortunately he hasn't yet notice that he's getting help with the consumption.  But seriously, 5 egg hunts.  Talk about candy overload!

After naps we opened baskets from Gommy, and then headed to dinner with some dear friends from our community group.  This was actually a last minute plan (we were supposed to go elsewhere, but they were hit with the stomach bug!), but it was a perfect way to celebrate.  I am thankful that the Lord has provided friends to celebrate with when our family is so far away!  And I'm thankful for the delicious food they make, too!

The Lord Is Risen - He is Risen Indeed!  And if you need any plastic eggs, you know where to find them!

(Don't laugh at the family pictures.  Its the best we could do with two small children and a self-timer.)

She's a Walker!

And just like that, she's a walker!  For about five weeks she had been toying around with a few steps here and there, but really preferred crawling.  She only walked when encouraged.  On Monday I saw a shift for the first time.  We went to the "inside park" and she had a BALL.  Climbing, sliding, crawling and WALKING - by choice, while laughing.  She has been doing it more and more all week.

And then she woke up from her nap yesterday and - I kid you not - she hasn't crawled since.  In fact, walking is ALL she wants to do.  It made our trip to the bank challenging, but Sam kept running after her, offering her a finger and yelling back to me "Its Ok, I'll walk her back!"

Annabelle Walking


And today is the 29th, so she was officially walking when she was still 12 months old (yesterday).  Let the toddler adventures begin!

SOLD

As of today, we are no longer homeowners.  For a few weeks.  But we are not homeless.  Its all happened very fast.  Its all very scary and very exciting.

So what happened?  In January I asked Chris, "Hey - do you want to go drive around a look at neighborhoods?"  We found one we like that weekend, and there happened to be a house on the market that we wanted to look at.  We took our realtor out that week to look.  We liked it enough to start talking about listing our house.

I was terrified of selling the house.  The staging, the packing, the showings, the "living like no one lives here" - in 1400 sq ft with two small children.  It gave me great anxiety.  So realtor suggested a pocket listing - he would bring people through before we went on the market, "test" the house a bit before we spent money fixing things up.  We could hold off on the staging for a bit.  Ok.

Realtor brought 1 buyer through.  We pushed the toys to the corners and wiped down the counters.  She loved it.  She made an offer, with the gentleman's understanding that it was "as is" unless something horrifying was found during inspection.  We accepted.

At that night, I sobbed.

It happened SO SO fast.  We had a contract before January ended.  I thought we'd be here another year.  At least until this summer.  I wasn't ready to go.  I am attached to this house.  Its where I came home to after my honeymoon, and the house I brought my babies home to.  We, quite literally, became a family in this home.  I love my neighborhood, Sam's preschool, the conveniences of city life, the list goes on.  I wasn't ready.

But the Lord was clearly telling us to go.  He made it so easy to sell it - he eliminated every fear I had about the selling process.  We didn't spend a dime to fix it up.  We didn't pack a thing away.  It was a gift.

And it was time.  We have beyond outgrown this place, and the suburbia is the right place for our family.  It is what I want for our family, long term.  I know this, but my heart wasn't ready.  And signing away a house that I love when I had nothing to look forward to was terrifying.

The hunt got serious.  We have looked at a TON of houses.  We narrowed our neighborhood selection to one very specific location.  The kids got the hang of house hunting.  Sam knows some real estate terms. 

We put an offer on a house that was fine, but got beat out.  Apparently our target neighborhood is a VERY competitive market.  We put an offer on a house on a lot we LOVED - the first house we looked at - at got it.  It was a fine house, but needed work.  We got bids, made plans, had inspections with LOTS of red lettering.

Meanwhile, I hadn't slept well in weeks.  I woke up several times a night with thoughts swirling, fearing we had made a terrible mistake.  I was not at ease.

And then we couldn't reach an agreement about what was to be done with the inspection items.  We felt like God was speaking to us, and we terminated the contract.

The very next day, around lunch time, a new house came on the market.  My mom, the kids and I viewed it at 3:45 that afternoon.  We were one of 5 showings that hour.  We made an offer that night.  We were told the next day that the owners would be accepting "best and final" offers by 6 pm that night.  We upped our offer.  The next morning we hadn't heard any thing, and that real estate website said "Option Pending."  My heart sank.  I was beyond bummed to have lost the house.  I was excited about that house!  I sent a quick email to the realtor to tell him I was bummed.  He emailed back,

"It says Option Pending because you're in contract.  They accepted your offer!"

Woohoo!  Since that day, Chris has gone to see it, we've had it inspected, and quickly reached an agreement with the owners about the inspection items.  We are out of option and scheduled to close mid-April.

And I am sleeping well.  I feel good about the new house - I am EXCITED about it.  I will be very sad to move, to leave this house (we are leasing back until late April), but now I am ready. 

Strawberries!

Its Spring Break here in Houston, so I'm trying to plan a few extra, fun things for the kids and I to do together.  One of them was a trip to the farm for strawberry picking!  Sam was excited because he remembered blueberry picking.  He asked if we'd ever been "grape hunting," and I remembered that he was calling Easter Egg Hunts "Easter Picking" last year.  Cute how he still gets the two a little mixed up.

He was waaaay better at Strawberry picking!  Lower bushes helps, as does the cooler temperatures - cooler by 35 degrees.  Yes my kids are wearing coats when its 60 degrees.  They are Tiny Texans and that's how they role.  Their Midwest Mama had no coat.

Annabelle was done in the baby carrier about half way through, so she got to crawl around in the dirt and pick at the bushes, too.  It took her about three minutes to realize what was on the bushes before she started to try to pick for herself.  Some were tough to get off the stems, so...

Eat right off the plant.  No fuss, no muss.  Plenty of mess, though:

Sam got stuck in the mud once and I had to pull him out.  I went into the mud once because there were lots of good strawberries untouched in those areas!  But we came home with tired and happy hearts, and 6 pounds of strawberries.  And a promise to go back next year.

And They Call The Thing Rodeo

As promised, we followed up our visit with the Trail Riders with a visit to The Rodeo, aka The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  We took Gommy and Papa the Monday after Annabelle's party.  Unfortunately, Chris had to work, but the rest of us made up for his absence.

Believe it or not, there is more to the event than carnival rides and concerts.  Don't ask Sam, though, because he wasn't much into seeing the animals that the youth had worked so hard to raise for a chance at well-earned scholarship money.  Maybe when he's older.

We did get him into the petting zoo, which was no small feat.  He freaks when the animals run into him, and petting zoo animals can be a bit crazy.  He loved feeding them and brushing them, but that's it.  Annabelle, on the other had, loved every minute of it.  She is all about animals, lets them lick her, pets them, giggles, etc.

He rocked the pony ride, though.  Next year, baby girl, I'll pay for you to go, too.  When you have some concept of what is happening to you.

Driving the Chevy Trucks and John Deere Tractors is a priority for every visitor, too...right?

Fun on the Farm was a cute display we hadn't visited before.  Each kid starts with a "seed" that they bury in the sand and pretend to water.  They leave that station with a piece of produce in a basket.  Next they can play in a corn kernel pit, and collect a plastic ear of corn for their basket.  They continue on to feed some corn to pretend chickens, milk a pretend cow, sheer a pretend sheep.  At each stop they collect an item for their basket.  At the end they "sell" their items at the farmers market for a play dollar, which they trade in for a snack of their choosing.  Sam chose a fruit roll up.  He'd never seen one before - how did he know to pick that?

Because it was Monday morning and so empty, Sam got to participate in the Pedal Tractor Pull.  Since it was just two 3-year-olds, they didn't do the whole thing, but he had fun riding the tractor.

And then the rides.  Who doesn't love those?

And what about BabyBelle?  Well, we were there all morning, so she spent a good bit a time nuzzled into Papa, where she eventually fell asleep.  Too sweet.

A stop for some fried food, a light rail ride back to the car (a hit with both kids!) and we called it a day.  Great fun!

**Fun note: I got a call from my credit card company calling to investigate possible fraud because they didn't think that "Fried What?" was a legitimate business.  Hahahaha.

Trail Riders

Its Rodeo season in Houston.  This year we kicked it off on "Go Texan Day!" (yes, everyone dresses the part - we even did at my old office) by visiting the Trail Riders.

What are Trail Riders, you ask?  Well apparently, here in Texas, there really are still people who raise horses and ride them around. And the day before the Rodeo starts, Trail Riders from all over the state ride into the big city to take part in the Rodeo parade.  It is a fun and surreal day to see wagons and horses trotting down some 8 lane road.

Well, the Trail Riders are all assigned different times they are to parade into Memorial Park, where they are judged on their presentation.  So they all stop for lunch in order to stage appropriately for their entrance.  This year I was finally on top of things enough to go meet up with some of the cowboys before they hit the park.

We met some friends at the Sears parking lot, where this group had spent the night.  Seriously, in the middle of the 4th biggest city in the country, that gets its wealth from oil and gas, there are cowboys camping in parking lots.  Most of the riders were really friendly, letting us pet the horses and the kids even got to sit on them.  We stayed long enough to watch them parade out onto the road - and then purposefully took the other direction home.  Sam waved good-bye and was pumped to go to the Rodeo to see the cowboys again!

12 Month Stats

We had to visit the doctor this week - well visits are less fun when you know they will be followed by blood draws.  And she wasn't even all the way well.  Poor girl has had a cold for over a week.  Yuck!  Doctor said the cold was nothing and she could go ahead with the shots, but I'm pretty sure that made things worse.  That girl was MISERABLE for about 48 hours afterward.  High fever and just super-clingy to Mommy.  Poor girl!

Fortunately, the blood draw was not nearly as dramatic for her as it was for Sam (shocking - Sam dramatic?!).  Not sure the tech had much experience with babies, but we got through it.  And her blood work came back normal, so that's a plus.

As for the stats: She weighed in at 17 lbs even.  It flicked between 17 even and 16 lbs 15.8 oz.  I prefer to call it 17.  But that is all the way up to the 9th percentile.  Woohoo!  28.5 Inches long, which is 24th percentile.  Funny, Sam was half a pound larger and not on the charts.  I guess they expect girls to be more petite even at a young age!