Ok. So much has happened... I'll start with family stuff and end with home news.
Emme and Haley had their last week of gymnastics class. Emme had such a fun time with it. I will definitely sign her up for something similar when we move down to Colorado Springs.
Eli got a wiggly tooth. He enjoyed pushing it out with his tongue and grossing people out ;)
Benjy's teacher, Mrs. Erwin, hosted a Mother's Day tea on Thursday morning. We got to have treats, visit, and open a special Mother's Day gift the kids had made. It was a special tea party with this special, precious boy!
That week was also Teacher Appreciation week at school. I picked up some gifts for the boys' teachers and had the boys write them thank you cards. I had Benjy make his teacher a card after he made Mother's Day cards for Grammy and Mima, and I forgot to clarify what kind of card he should make Mrs. Erwin. He made her a Mother's Day card too. :)
Friday, the boys had Field Day. They did games outdoors all morning, then for lunch we went to Chick-Fil-A. After lunch, they had another hour and a half of games. Emme, Jane, and I stayed and watched all day. It was a fun and exhausting day in the sun!
Sunday was Mother's Day. Justin brought me a breakfast in bed of Lamar's donuts, strawberries, and orange juice. The kids then brought in sweet cards they had written and a bouquet of silk flowers they had picked out at the dollar store. Justin stayed home from meetings and went to church with us, which was a fantastic Mother's Day gift!
Later that day, Eli let me pull out his tooth. It was only hanging on by a thread, so I gave it a tug downward and out it came! He has lost eight teeth now, he says.
Sweet Jane is four months old. She loves to laugh and smile at her brothers and sisters. She is such a happy, easygoing baby and we can't imagine life without her.
Lastly, our offer was accepted on the home at 14660 River Oaks Drive. It's a beautiful house with over 4,000 square feet on 0.4 acres. It only has three bedrooms, but it has a full basement that we are planning to finish over time to have more livable space. We are excited for this new opportunity for our family!
The past two weeks have been so busy I haven't had time to blog. Last Tuesday, we had pictures taken of our home to put it on the market. Two days later, it went live, and on Friday we had six showings. By Saturday morning, we had two offers and six more showings. We accepted an offer on Saturday and officially went under contract. It was a crazy couple days but we're happy our home sold quickly!
This past week, Justin and I have been looking at homes and trying to find the right place for our family down in the Springs. We have been looking at homes online for months and more intensively these past few weeks. We made a list of homes we wanted to see last weekend and went down and saw them with Kristin, the agent we found through Redfin. We liked the homes we saw but not enough to make any offers. On Tuesday, we saw a new home come up that fit all of our requirements, so Justin drove down to see it while I picked up the kids from school. He loved it, so the next day I drove down to see it after Emme's gymnastics class. I liked the home too so we made an offer on Wednesday night. The home already had five other offers, so we had to offer above asking price to make our offer competitive. The next day we found out that the sellers had been considering our offer and one other offer, and they went with the other offer.
On Friday, we went down to see homes again. We had five homes on our list, one of which I had wanted to see last weekend but it went under contract the day before we went down. The offer fell through, so it came available again on Thursday night. We saw that home first, and I loved it. Justin liked it too, but we went to see two more homes on our list anyway. We decided to end our search after the third home, which we also really liked. We talked and talked about which home to offer on, if any, and had a lot to think and talk about on the ride home. Justin and I decided to sleep on the whole home thing and wait until morning to decide whether we wanted to make an offer on a home.
Saturday morning, we both felt good about making an offer on the first home we saw. So we made an offer and waited all day to hear back. We didn't hear anything, so this morning we checked in with our agent to see what was happening. She said that the seller's agent doesn't work weekends and that we will have to wait until tomorrow night to hear about our offer. So we still don't know if our offer has been accepted!!! I feel strangely calm about it, and I know that if it is meant to be, it will work out. If we don't get this home, we are going to rent for now and buy a home later in the year. It is too hard to keep running down to the Springs while we have so much going on up here.
The boys are having fun with baseball. They each have two games a week-- sometimes they are on the same night, sometimes not. Eli does a good job of making contact with the ball. If you look closely in this picture you can see the ball that has just bounced off his bat.
Here's Benjy running to first base.
This past week Benjy had a game on a cool night, so he borrowed Justin's jacket. He looked like a little ET running the bases in his helmet and giant blue coat.
Emme had her class this past week. They were in the gymnasium this time and got to try out the gymnastics equipment. She has one more week and then her class is over. She has such a fun time and really looks forward to it, so I think I will put her in dance or gymnastics again.
The boys had their school orchestra concert this past week. They performed a dress rehearsal for the school and then a concert on Thursday night. All the kids did a great job. We will miss having orchestra at school, but I heard a rumor that Ms. Mogan is retiring this year so they may not have orchestra next year anyway. She is an amazing teacher and goes above and beyond what an elementary school music teacher has to do. Whoever takes her place will have enormous shoes to fill!
Sweet little Janie bear is adorable and precious. She is getting close to rolling, but not quite there yet.
Here are pictures of Benjy's Saturday game. His games are doubly fun for me because Nolan is on his team, so I get to hang out with Jen while we watch them play. Emme and Haley have fun hanging out, too.
Friends.
That's the latest. We'll know tomorrow about the house. I have to try not to think about it nonstop until then!
We had a happy Easter a few weeks ago. On Saturday, we went to Donna's for Easter lunch. Before we had lunch, the kids went on an egg hunt in Donna's backyard and found eggs filled with candy and treasures.
Janie had a basket too with her name on it.
That evening, we decorated hard boiled eggs for the Easter bunny to hide.
Sunday morning, the kids found their Easter baskets had been filled by the Easter bunny. After they went through their baskets, they found the eggs they had colored the night before.
After the kids had time to go through their baskets and enjoy the leisurely morning, we got ready for church.
After church, we went to my grandparents' for dinner and another Easter egg hunt. My mom and siblings prepared an epic egg hunt with dozens of eggs for each kid and a few special golden eggs.
Cassandra Janie with little Janie
Eli with his golden egg
Emme is on the hunt... for eggs
I think if I had to pick a favorite holiday, it would be Easter. It's a religious holiday, so we get to remember our Savior Jesus Christ and his resurrection, it's always on a Sunday, so we have the day off, it's fun for the kids, it's a day to spend with family, and it's an occasion to eat delicious food. We had a wonderful day and the kids are already looking forward to next Easter.
