April Catch Up

 Life has been SOOO crazy lately! I always think it's going to slow down and it doesn't! Nate and I hit the pillow at night and both fall instantly asleep. So let me play a little catch up!

The girls went to a daddy daughter dance that was held at the school. They has a really great time!

 I LOVE these three! My heart wants to burst when I see this picture! 

Hallie had Grandparent's Day at school. We Face Timed my mom while in the classroom.

I came in my bedroom and saw this lovely site! 

 I love being their mom. The other day I had an out of body experience where I just stared at each of them and couldn't believe they were mine. 

 Nate got to go to Chicago on a business trip. I love the river through the city and want to go back! 

 The Bean

 Sweet Ryan helping himself

I love squishy face!

 This boy in 75 degree weather wanted his jacket and blanket on....

 The girls got to play their friend Caitlyn in soccer.

 Reid was catching up on his Hollywood gossip while at the salon

 I took this picture of Adalie because she is so ME! As a child and even now I love to plan every second of our lives. This is Adalie at our family planning meeting. She was very serious about her calendar and not missing any important dates. I took a picture of her and then asked if she wanted to see a picture of me when I was 8. I showed her this picture and told her it reminded me of her. Too funny! FYI she is under the impression we are buying a dog in February 2017....

 Adalie at the Smith Dairy track meet about to run in the 4x1

We closed!

 We closed exactly 4 weeks after we were under contract!! We LOVE our new home! It makes us all so happy! We have been really busy trying to put it together and I've been painting! Life has not stopped for a second since the day we closed and actually a week before that even. We are still not completely moved in. There are still a few boxes we need to get to and many things to hang up. Nate has a four day weekend coming up so we should be able to conquer all of that over the weekend. I am afraid life will still not slow down once we are all moved in and comfortable. I keeping saying to myself, just 3 more days etc and life will get easier, so far that has not happened. It seems there is always SOMETHING going on! Anyways here are a few pictures of our home while the previous owners were still moving out and some of us moving in.

 We drove right to our house moments after we closed! 

This is the girls room before we painted

 Our house from the edge of our property 

 Master bath

 Entry Way facing the dining room

 Master bath again

 Office 

The kids helped paint their bedrooms (sort of)

This summer my goal is to get the remainder of the main floor painted and decorated. I'm tired thinking about it!

Knock on Wood

I hate to bring it up for fear of jinxing us, but I will anyways!

So I must say that stalking can pay itself off! Nate and I have LIVED and I mean consumed Zillow to extreme unhealthy proportions! We hated it, but felt that it was that or live on top of each other for another year. Zillow has this option for sellers to "Buy Me Now" where they list their home FSBO at a ridiculous price to see if they get a bite. Well there was a house listed in a neighborhood I liked and the square footage and amount of bedrooms fit our needs. I started stalking homes around the area looking for a 4 bedroom. I stalked and I stalked, there was nothing in our price range that we liked or it wasn't big enough or not enough bedrooms. About a month ago my friend came to me and said there was a home whose owners were moving out and she noticed a for sale sign leaning up against the house. She told me the street and I KNEW it was the house I saw in "Buy Me Now" several months back. Sure enough it was. Well we expected the home to go on the market any day. Our realtor was trying to dig up info and the seller kept saying they just weren't ready yet. I began to get frustrated because I knew they had already moved out and purchased another home. I finally told Nate that if I saw the owner there I was going to call him and make him go knock on the door because we all know I don't have the guts to do it myself. Well, two days later the owners were there!! I called Nate and he immediately jumped in his car. He knocked on the door and told them we were interested in the house. Blah blah blah Nate walked through, then I did. We told them we wanted to talk numbers, they were excited, we were excited and we agreed on a number the next day. They didn't use their realtor and didn't want ours either (unless we paid the commission of course) It was nerve racking but our realtor was cool about it. So far everything is going great and we are expected to close in about 2 weeks!

Luckily for us it has a new roof, new appliances, new water heater, new granite counter tops, new master bath, and fairly new A/C and furnace. The sellers have been great to work with and we are SO anxious to move in. My mom and Gary called to say they bought plane tickets to help us move! We weren't expecting that, so that was a nice surprise! It's a cute house with lots of charm. It's also on 1/2 an acre which is going to be AWESOME for our kids! Now they don't have to play in the street or on our 5'x10' piece of grass! We bought them a trampoline for the last house that fell through and never told the kids. It will be a nice surprise for them once we move in!! 

Easter

 I love Easter because of the REAL reason we celebrate it! I am usually anti-bunny, but I caved this year. Reid loves things dressed up so he was in HEAVEN!!

 A little Egg dying (On Easter) 

It was a BUSY but fun Easter. There was nothing too important to keep us so busy, but we were. Oh well. I tried to have a better Holy Week this year to help our children's understand of the last week of Christ's life. We celebrated Palm Sunday and then during the week each member of the family took on a lesson to teach the rest of the family about an event in his life that week. I am grateful for Jesus Christ, his atonement and his resurrection!

Kentucky

Over a long weekend in March we met up with 3 other Notre Dame families and rented a cabin. It was so fun to reconnect with them all again. We have seen each of the families since graduation, but we haven't been able to all get together like this. Eight children had been born since we had all been together. Our kids had so much fun together! Meeting in Kentucky was a half way point for all of us. Next year we will miss the Cramers since they will be moving to California. We are making this an annual trip so for some of us next year will be the 3rd annual!

 On the drive there

 We were all sending pictures back and fourth of our husbands on the way there 

 Soon after we got there! 

 Someone..... found my phone 

 Reid made a new buddy. Reid was only 3 days old at graduation and Oliver wasn't born yet, so this was their first time meeting

 The babies

 The kids has so much fun finding sticks for the fire

 There was So. Much. Food. We were all sick when we left! 

 A little game of Pie Face

 The ladies

 The men cooking

 When the house was asleep, the men got up to play some poker on the last night

 Last morning together

 We found a turtle on the way home

 Ryan thought he would drive home...

 Good friends! 

I love these kids! 

Spring Program

At OES in second grade they do a Spring Program instead of a Christmas one. Nate always goes early to save us seats so we are front and center. Adalie was shy on stage as usual, but did a great job none the less. Our whole family knew half of the songs they sang thanks to Adalie singing them all day long.

 The program was about insects and amphibians

 

 Reid LOVED the program! (probably because he knew so many songs)

Adalie and Ms. Lichti. Adalie loves her so much!