having fun standing in the kitchen

manning has discovered that there is lots to do when you can stand up in the kitchen and he is more than willing to try it all.  he can now reach the top of the dining table, open the trash/recycling drawers and pull things out of the cans (yes, this one should be lots of fun), reach inside the refrigerator when it is open, pull spices and oils out of the bottom spice racks and, of course, empty any of the bottom cabinets or drawers.

he is really enjoying (and taking advantage of) his new found mobility!  he might be our fourth, but we didn't really have to childproof this house because maddux was already walking when we moved in and learned pretty quickly what he should and shouldn't open in the kitchen.

i have a feeling that this is going to be a common meeting place for years to come.

manning is keeping me very busy!  and i love it.  love.

toyland

the kids got the first box of toys out of storage (most of the toys in the picture were in the apartment).  inside was madelyn's tea set and she cleared just enough space to have 'tea' with her dolls.  she was also pretty excited about her swimming goggles! love.

living like squatters

we are really looking forward to getting into a house.  our apartment is fairly large (about 1200 sq.ft. and three bedrooms), but we are living like squatters - at least that is what i call it.

we brought the bare minimum - and maybe even less than that - when we moved in.  knowing that we would be here less than a year.  everything else went into storage.  we are eating off of kids plates and bowls (i did buy two white plates to use for reheating and cutting meat), i have one skillet, one sauce pan, and one pot.  i have had to be creative with meal preparation and there are just some recipes that i just can't make right now.  matt and i share a steak knife at meals.

we bought two 6 foot folding tables when we moved in (they were easier to carry up the stairs than our furniture).  we eat at one and the other is set up as a desk in our bed room.  the arrangement and plugs are arranged like a work of art - if i do say so myself.  it is super tight with a laptop, two computer monitors, a t.v., desk top computer, two printers, two remote hard drives, one mouse, one keyboard, speakers, a desk light, and a paper shredder.

all of our mattresses are on the floor.  the kids toys are just in 'neat' piles next to the walls of the kids' room

and the living room.  i did pick up some baskets at the dollar store to gather up some of the smaller toys.  madelyn and mason love to use them as a way of carrying more toys from room to room during the day.

sometimes madelyn says that she doesn't want to sleep on the floor any more, but we remind her that she is sleeping on a mattress and not the  floor.  i think that she is going to get tired of us telling her that what she wants is in storage.  she has been very understanding about it - surprisingly so for a three-year-old.  matt and i look forward to how excited they are all going to be when we get into a new house and unpack all of their toys and books into their new rooms.  it is going to be like christmas morning for weeks!

maddux is the only one with 'real' furniture.  we felt that the nursery furniture was necessary for our comfort and his safety.  we also felt that three bedrooms were a must so that we could have one bedroom to serve as a nursery.

there are several boxes that ended up in one of our storage units that really should be here in the apartment, but we make due.  it is temporary and is actually a little fun to see how resourceful i can be without just buying new.  and, honestly, there just isn't room for anything that isn't absolutely essential. 

life is so busy that this year is just going to fly by!  we can't believe that we have already been here three months.  and having so few items to take care of is going to be really nice this summer when we can spend our weekends out and about instead of cleaning and mowing grass.  love.

we love saturdays with daddy!

not that we did anything particularly special today, but madelyn and i get all excited every friday talking about how daddy will get to stay with us all day on saturday!  today's plan was for daddy to take madelyn to lowe's for the build and grow workshop (a music box), then go to the zoo for lunch (that we packed), and then drive around and look at lots while the kids slept in the van. and even though mason looked awful (poor kid had a 102 degree fever), we thought that some fresh air and sunshine would be best for all of us.  we had a great day together and accomplished everything we had planned.

maddux sucking his index finger happily.

daddy playing with madelyn on the rope bridge.  i don't think that she was having as much fun as daddy was shaking the bridge.

it was a little colder than we were expecting - even with the sun - so we didn't see the whole zoo.  it was still well worth the trip just to get a little walking and fresh air.  and the kids just love a picnic lunch!  not that we don't eat the same lunch at home everyday, but eating it somewhere else always makes it extra special.

i told her that she had to wait until daddy was with us to try it because i couldn't spot her and watch the boys at the same time.  on our way out she excitedly told me that she knew how to climb the rock wall now and she is really good at it!  i think that she is just laying the groundwork for being able to do it next time when daddy isn't with us.

madelyn climbing the rock wall in the jellyfish exhibit. 



all three kids fell asleep, as planned, and matt and i had a few hours to drive around a new part of town and revisit some other lots we are considering.  one of the builders have 6 model homes built all together so we stopped there to walk around and get ideas before our meeting with a builder tomorrow.  (we aren't 100% sure that we are building, but we are going to explore it as a possibility.)  madelyn was so excited to look at houses - she really likes open houses and we haven't been through too many.  she had so many cute comments as we walked through each house - "it's a little dark, but it could be okay for us" or "i think that this room might work for mason".

mason wasn't as crazy about walking through the models.  his motrin was wearing off and he was starting to really feel poorly again.  it didn't help that he went to have some alone time in a laundry room. i actually found him standing with his face in a corner, but i must have been standing too closely because he went to the opposite wall and did his business in his diaper.  we walked through each house relatively quickly and snapped a few pictures of features or colors we liked.

we had a fun and relaxing day away from the apartment.  we even saw some sunshine!  love.

final wisconsin move - day 3 - the close

thursday morning was here and matt had not been to sleep at all; i had only slept about 2 hours total.  there was still a lot to load onto the truck, straps to buy at home depot, a few runs to goodwill to make with the truck, and get the kids and our sleeping stuff out of the house.  not to mention that it was snowing and there were a few inches in the driveway already.

matt showered and got to home depot when they opened.  i showered around 6am (i think) and started deflating matt's mattresses.  mason woke up next and i got him dressed, gave him a bagel, and then started packing up all the linens and mattresses from their room (since madelyn was asleep on my mattress in the other room).  the whole time i was trying not to panic about how much was still in the house and in the garage - aka not on the truck!  next came madelyn who ate a bagel before she would get dressed.  and last was maddux who i fed, dressed, and loaded into his carseat carrier. 

matt came back from home depot and started making trips to goodwill with the truck.  goodwill wasn't open yet, but we couldn't wait because we needed to get the stuff up there so that we could finish loading the truck.  goodwill was open by the time he made the last trip so everything didn't sit in the snow too long.  after he got back home with the truck again, we put all the kids into the van and loaded it up.  we then parked it across the street, running, with a movie playing for the kids.

now things were just crazy.  i was in a medium weight turtleneck sweater and jeans without a coat, hat, or gloves.  it was under 20 degrees outside.  my job was to get everything out of the house and into the garage so that we could see what we had left to deal with getting into the truck and van.  the snow was a major bummer because i kept tracking it into the house.  i did have some old t-shirts that we used as rags left in the house and was trying to use them to mop up the puddles.  i wasn't going to have time to wipe everything down or vacuum, but i didn't want to leave the place totally trashed.

since matt and i were both running on little to no sleep we were just piling things on the truck and hauling trash out to the curb.  i would run across the street every so often to check on the kids.  at 9:20am matt was still loading the truck and we needed to leave at 9:30 to have any chance of getting to the closing on time. 

i am not sure what all we left in the garage in the end.  i know that matt left the lawn mower, weed wacker, edger, and some tools.  we left our grill and patio furniture on the deck (they were under at least 6-10 inches of snow and we wouldn't have had room for them on the truck anyway).  i also remembered once we got back to ohio that we left a pair of snow pants and a set of wooden hangers in the front closet.  but we were done and the house was locked up by us for the last time.  i ran up to mcdonalds for large coffees and some food for matt (the kids and i ate cold bagels) before heading over for the closing.

 our house as i was driving away to go to the close.

i had really wanted a picture of the family in front of the house since all three kids had been 'born there', but there just wasn't time.  we were lucky to leave in time for the closing at all.

the plan was for matt to run in and find out how long it was going to take and if we could take turns so that we wouldn't have to haul out the kids.  we could tag-team.  matt went in first while i sat in the van with the kids.  the closing started a little late because the road conditions made it difficult for everyone to get there on time.  i think matt took a half hour or so and then it was my turn.  my signing went quicker because matt had already signed everything so i didn't need much explanation - just where to sign.  it did take a while for the bank to okay them handing over our checks.  the agent suggested that i might try seeing if the buyers had any questions while we waited so that they wouldn't try to catch me on the way out.  great idea!  i really wanted to apologize for the condition of the house so that they knew we didn't do it on purpose to be mean or anything.

they seemed very nice and very excited about the house.  i wished them happiness there and told them that they would love the neighborhood.  they even seemed understanding about how we were leaving the house (and the items we left behind).  i really do wish them the best.  they got a great house - at a great deal!

about an hour and a half later i was free to leave and we could finally get some lunch!  matt had to drive around for most of the time i was inside because maddux was crying to be fed and does better when the car is moving.

the house is officially sold!  hooray!  it wasn't pretty, but we had done it and were on our way to our new life in ohio!  love.

final wisconsin move - day 2 into day 3

the good thing about being back in wisconsin is that i know where to take the kids!  wednesday morning we loaded up after having einstein bagels for breakfast and went to kids in motion.  we had gone once just before moving and i knew that madelyn would be very excited to go back.  plus, i knew that it was somewhere that i could take all three kids on my own and they could run around without it being too stressful for me.

madelyn was a wonderful helper.  she helped to take great care of mason, played with him nicely, went where ever he did without complaint, and was generally a very pleasant and agreeable girl.  it was fun to see them playing together so nicely.


madelyn and mason using a little teamwork to fill the dump truck with soy beans.



madelyn in the music room.

i think the dump truck room is everyone's favorite room.  there are always kids in there.  i know mason loved it.  he cried when i suggested that we try something else (since madelyn was itching to see some more and i really wanted them to burn off a little energy).  i ultimately had to pick him up and carry him out.  he was fine once i walked through the door frame and he saw all the other fun things to do and took off running.

we picked up some lunch from panera on our way home (i had called in our order so that i wouldn't have to unload three hungry kids) and got mason and maddux down for naps after we ate. 

i had convinced matt to hire some movers for a few hours to help him load up the furniture and heavier pieces that i could not help with moving.  madelyn and i tried to stay out of their way.  matt and i realized that we didn't have any cash to tip the movers so madelyn and i ran up to walgreens to get some cash (the bank was too far).  i guess walgreens changed their policy recently from $40 per transaction to $20, so i had to make three separate purchases.  i had originally selected a pack of gum and starburst candies for our transactions but now needed something else - quick.  madelyn seized the moment and spotted a display of lollipops.  it was her lucky day - and she knew it.

madelyn enjoying her strawberry shortcake flavored lollipop. (she didn't know what the flavor would be, she just picked it out because it was 'red'.)

maddux was such a happy boy with little to no attention.  (he was in a more masculine outfit - see his socks - but he had a poopie blow-out and had to be changed into a spare.)

wednesday night was such a blur, i can't even remember what we did for dinner.  we talked about pizza, but that wasn't it... whatever it was, we ate and put the kids to bed so that matt and i could get serious about finishing up.  there was still A LOT to do and we were closing at 10am the next morning.  around 1:30am we could tell that it was going to be an all night affair.  since we were going to have a long drive and i needed to be able to take care of the kids, we decided that i should go to sleep.  most of what was left were the few miscellaneous things for matt to go through and there just wasn't a lot left for me to help him with towards the end. 

i laid down at 1:45am and maddux woke up to be fed at 2am.  i put him back down at 2:30am and madelyn came in some time around 4am to sleep with me - we were sharing a twin air mattress so you can guess at how much sleep i actually got.  i woke up around 6am, i think.  matt had not been to sleep and was still loading.  we were both exhausted, but closing day was here and snow or not (yes, it was unfortunately snowing) we had to get out on time.  more in the next post... love.

final wisconsin move - day 1

i have been delinquent in posting about our trip to wisconsin to close on the house because it was so non-stop that i just needed some time to recover.  i have been doing laundry for 3 days, had to stock the kitchen with food, get some sleep so that i could put together a complete thought, and other back to normal life activities before i could get a chance to sit down and write about it.  so much happened that i am going to break it up into a few posts.

we left monday night after matt got home from work, and it was snowing.  the snow wasn't a huge deal, more of an annoyance.  the main problem was that maggie had diarrhea.  and nothing says "fun" on a long car trip than a dog with diarrhea.  it also wasn't fun to keep having to run her outside while i was trying to get everything ready for the trip.  her stomach was upset because mason keeps feeding her from the table.  i think that it was the monterrey jack cheese that did her in this time.  anyway, back to the trip.  madelyn was really excited to be going and made up this very catchy (and repetitive) song - the original 15 minutes had "i'm so excited" more often than the video shows.  it's dark, but you are just listening to her (over maddux' crying).

i worked during the drive and matt drove.  mason was actually the one of the kids awake for most of the drive.  i was a little surprised, but he slept at the beginning of the trip enough to make it so he wasn't tired enough to fall asleep in the car again.  both kids were awake when we arrived in wisconsin and not very interested in going back to sleep at 2am.  matt and i were beyond tired and were trying to be patient about getting them situated on their air mattresses.  madelyn said that she didn't remember where her room was in that house.  maybe she didn't.  she also didn't refer to it as "home" a single time on the trip, it was always the "wisconsin house" or the "house where we are staying".

the kids did so well considering all the chaos and lack of schedule (i.e. one hour time difference, no toys, boxes everywhere, air mattresses, no food in the house, etc.).  i think that i was really expecting the worst and they gave, mostly, their best.  maddux either sat/slept in his carrier or napped belly down on the floor (we had a pack-n-play, but only used it for night time sleeping).  i don't think he got nearly enough sleep on this trip, but stayed happy.  in retrospect, i really wish that i had brought my moby wrap so that i could have 'held' him more.  it was hard to find a safe place to set him most of the time.

such a happy boy.

can you find the sleeping maddux?

tuesday morning matt ran up to mcdonalds to pick up coffee and breakfast (we did not eat very well on this trip) while i got maddux fed and everyone dressed.  once he was back and we ate, i went up to mcdonalds for internet access.  i ended up working for an hour and felt bad leaving him for so long because i knew that he couldn't get much done with the kids there.  at least i had plans to keep them out of the house for a while.

we wanted to see as many of the neighbors as possible during our visit.  unfortunately, most of them had sick children and we didn't get to see them, but we were really thankful to see the ones we did and were very lucky that amy was willing to host us all for a lunch time playdate on tuesday.  matt packed while we played, but joined us for lunch.

madelyn playing with ava.  ava was one of the people madelyn most wanted to see.  ava's family is also moving soon - to california.

we were able to take the kids back to the house so that mason and maddux could nap while matt and i packed some more.  we had also really wanted to see our friends aeron and kate, and their daughters avery and tess.  we weren't able to see them before the first move and were really glad that they were willing to have us over for dinner on tuesday night.  even when avery woke up from her nap with a high fever.  i only wish that we could have visited longer, but we really had to eat and run because we needed to get some more work done at the house and still needed to stop by to pay the boy who had taken such good care of our house while we have been living in ohio (clearing snow, etc.).

tess, madelyn, and avery

mason joined them and it got a little wilder...

we got home kind of late (after 9pm); we hurried the kids to bed and got back to packing and loading.  i went to get my camera so that i could take pictures of our goodwill donation for the following morning only to discover that i must have dropped it outside of aeron and kate's house!  i called but they couldn't find it.  i couldn't let it go and went to look myself (because i couldn't describe clearly enough where we had parked).  sure enough, it was under the car that was parked in the space where we had been.  i was so thankful to find it, and that it still worked, but i lost an hour of packing time and it was after midnight.  good thing that we still had wednesday.  love.

living in ohio

i thought that i would record my observations of and experiences from living in ohio:

- it seems to snow very frequently, but just flurries or an inch or less.  when we have been out driving around neighborhoods it doesn't even look like they bother with clearing the driveways or sidewalks - it melts off too soon.  they did get dumped on (more than 10 inches) before we moved here so we will see.

- organic milk is almost $3 a gallon cheaper!  and it was a $1 off this month.  i had an instinct to buy them out but reminded myself that it was a normal price and i could get more next time.

- there are birds.  in the winter.

- it appears to be conservative/traditional overall based on the houses (exteriors and interiors), the way people dress, friendliness of business/store employees, the churches we have visited so far, and scheduling various appointments.

- they do seem to drive pretty aggressively here.  i feel like i am back in atlanta.

- while downtown akron isn't huge, it is more urban/industrial than waukesha.  but it is pretty localized and a short drive from city center brings you to rural-type areas.  you can pretty much get from opposite ends of town (suburb to suburb) in 20-30 minutes.

- there are some really beautiful parks.  we can't wait to visit a local national park in the spring and hike on some of the trails.  we thought that it was beautiful to drive through.  (we are actually looking at neighborhoods in that part of town this weekend because there are lots of biking and walking trails that run through the residential areas.)

i think that we are really going to like it here and am looking forward to settling on what part of town we want to live in so that we can start getting connected again.  i will keep you posted on our discoveries. love.

moving day - wednesday

"crunchy mango" snack
in the apartment after
the long drive.

mason was fine as long as he could be in physical contact with me in the hotel bed. so when i got up with maddux at 2:30am mason woke up and starting calling for me within 10 minutes. thankfully, madelyn sleeps like matt and didn't hear any of it. i was so afraid of oversleeping (and had mason practically on top of me) that i don't think i slept for more than an hour at a time for a total all night of around two hours. on the plus side, i was awake early enough to take a long shower before hitting the road and mason (or anyone else) didn't wake up during it.

matt and i loaded the van while derek stood outside the room while the kids were still sleeping. once we were ready, and the van was warm enough, we loaded in the kids. i think that we actually got on the road around 5:30 or 6am. the drive wasn't too bad. we had lucked out with the weather because we didn't have more than flurries the whole drive and traffic was fairly light the whole way too. we only stopped twice, which i thought was pretty impressive. (i think that it was on the first stop that i learned what didn't make it on the truck when they started running out of room! i knew it was serious because matt said that his coffeemaker almost didn't make it either.) madelyn and mason dosed a little while watching movies and maddux slept. and maggie rode in the back of the truck. she was totally fine and did great on the trip. thankfully, she loves the cold and would spend hours just laying in the snow.

mason checking out a
hiding spot in the kitchen. 

we had to be in ohio by 4pm to get the keys to the apartment before the office closed. i think that we rolled in at 3:30pm. with the time change it took us around 9 hours. all three kids started crying while matt was in the apartment office and i went in to see how much longer they were going to be because i could just drive around to help them calm down. we just all really wanted to get out of the car and eat (we didn't have lunch because the stop was too sketchy so we just had a light snack). mason was even signing "all done" over and over at one point.

once we were in the apartment, everyone was happy. madelyn ,mason, and maggie were just running around happy as can be and maddux was nursing contently while matt got the tour from the 'sales' guy - mike. we got the van unloaded and matt and derek set to unloading the mattresses off the truck. (mattresses and the nursery furniture were the only large items to come on this phase of the move.) we ordered pizza and had a picnic lunch on the floor. mason wasn't too sure about eating on the floor but madelyn was very excited.

madelyn with her "babies" - new and old

as the apartment filled up with our boxes and the kids were melting down, we decided that we would go up to chick-fil-a for dinner and then toys-r-us for 'house-warming' gifts. i love cfa and we haven't lived anywhere with one since college. i am really too excited about it. madelyn has asked to go back everyday since we have been here so i think she liked it too. toys-r-us was crazy but both kids had a good time selecting their special "new house" toy. i had promised madelyn that she could have a new toy when we moved and she told me that she wanted a "red ariel doll". she settled on a baby ariel that came with a crown, blanket, bottle, and story. mason selected a firehouse with siren, truck, dog, and man. in all $25 spent and it provided at least an hour of quiet playing when we got back to the apartment - worth every cent! besides madelyn being over the moon about her doll and telling all of us, even uncle derek, thank you for it and that she loved us and it.



maggie's post by the
front door.



since we don't have guest space here, derek slept in the nursery on mason's mattress and mason slept in our bed while maddux slept in the pack-n-play in our room. madelyn slept in what will be her and mason's room.

all in all, a pretty successful moving day! the apartment isn't huge, but there are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, new paint and carpet, and it is very convenient to stores. matt thinks that maggie is the happiest of all about this arrangement; she gets walked multiple times a day, gets to be in the main living space, and will get scraps from the kids. our goal is to keep as much of our furnishings and items in storage as possible until we move into an actual house, hopefully, before next christmas! love.

moving week - tuesday

i had already addressed our christmas cards but was waiting for the change of address cards i had ordered to arrive, hopefully, in monday's mail so that i could send everything out before we moved. monday night i stuffed, sealed, and stamped our cards and prepped everything for a drop at the post office on tuesday after i dropped matt off at work.

well, that didn't happen as planned and matt drove himself to work. he was going to be home by 1pm so it shouldn't mess with my day too much. i can't remember why the morning didn't go smoothly enough for me to take him to work, but it didn't.

madelyn was very excited to
bring her nap mat home
from school on monday.

tuesday i packed all of the "minimum requirements" for our day to day life - one skillet, one pot, one saucepan, laundry detergent and fabric softener, etc. - and left anything above that to matt. packing had been difficult because there was so much i needed access to for the kids and we were planning to leave the house staged until it sold. well, now that we had a signed offer we decided that we could take a few more things but would still leave it staged in case the deal falls through. so i packed, and packed on tuesday while derek was the best uncle ever and watched movies or played with madelyn and mason.

once matt got home i took off to take the last of our christmas mail/shipping to the post office, drop cards off with the neighbors, and return a few meal dishes to friends. it took me longer to complete my errands than i would have liked but it was nice to have the quiet driving time to collect my thoughts about what i still had left to do. when i got back home matt and i went through our game plan. with one car we had to decide the sequence of events that would get all of us fed (takeout vs. dine in), matt and derek at the house, and the kids and i into a hotel. the reason that this was tricky was that i needed matt (and derek) to help me carry everything into the hotel and we needed to get everything done in as little time as possible so that matt and derek would have a shot at getting a few hours of sleep.

due to the needs of the kids, i thought that it would be best that the kids and i stayed at a hotel on tuesday night. we were planning to start driving at 5am on wednesday and with the kids and i at a hotel that meant less beds to deal with staging in the morning and the kids would be out of the way for matt while loading the truck. to my surprise, matt agreed.

before leaving for the hotel, i did a quick lap through the house with matt to explain where i had left off and what still needed to be done. well, at least the best i could do when we were both racing around because the clock was ticking...

and maddux slept
through it all.

in the end we ate a quick dinner at culvers (had to cash in our kids meal points), checked into the hotel and dropped off the overnight bag and pack-n-play, went to home depot for more boxes, dropped matt and derek off at the house, and then back to the hotel with the kids. unfortunately, parking at the hotel was ridiculous and i had to park pretty far away. madelyn and mason (and maddux, too, i think) were crying by the time we made it into the hotel. madelyn had already been crying after we dropped off daddy about wanting to "go home" and "stay in wisconsin" but now was crying about the cold. the good news was that this hotel had fresh cookies at the front desk and the kids thought that this was fantastic.

 another plus for me was that there was a charlie brown christmas special on (meaning cartoons in primetime) to kill time before we could go to sleep. i managed to bathe all three kids and get them ready for bed without too much trouble. madelyn slept in one bed, maddux slept in the pack-n-play, and mason slept with me - or on me. love.

moving week - monday

i can't get pictures to upload and have been messing with it all day. normally i would just wait and post later, but if i don't get started trying to catch up i am going to forget most of it! so here are a series of posts about our move. i will try to go back and add pictures whenever the upload starts working again.

of course madelyn would be "snack friend" on her last day of school. and, of course, i would have to do something that matched the theme (evergreens) instead of just some store bought snack. i wanted madelyn's last day to be special so i made christmas tree shaped crescent roll dough (baked) spread with cream cheese, and sprinkled with broccoli and cauliflower pieces, and decorated with carrot slices as ornaments. madelyn was very excited to take them to school and that is what counts. we also took small christmas gifts for her three teachers (they had a teaching student) and the director of the school.

once i dropped madelyn off, the boys and i were off to the mall to return our internet equipment and cancel service. it was so cold! we did a lap around the mall until i could feel my toes again before running back out to the car. a wipe that i had used to clean mason's face after a snack (during our lap around the mall) fell out of the stroller while loading the car and it was frozen solid when i went to pick it up! i actually thought that it was an envelop or something firmer at first. crazy cold.

while madelyn was at school i took care of the boys and sorted through some work papers that needed to be packed. matt and i discussed and decided about the response to our counter offer before i headed over to sign the paperwork at the hospital for him to send back to our agent. then i was off to pick madelyn up from school. thankfully, we were to the school early enough that i could nurse maddux in the back of the van before going in to get her; little did i know we weren't going to be home for a long time.

next stop was picking up uncle derek at the airport. he was coming to help matt with the truck since i was not, technically/medically, able to do too much heavy lifting and had to take care of the kids. thankfully, his flight was late and, after my detour (clogged with two accidents) to the airport when the regular exit was closed, he didn't have to wait at all for us to pick him up.

from the airport i went back to the hospital to pick up matt (his car was already in ohio). that is when i learned that he wasn't dropping us at home, but we were all going to drop him off to pick up the truck - 20 minutes away! so back east to drop matt off for the truck. thankfully, our neighbor across the street had offered to bring over dinner that night because i would never have been able to get anything prepared in time. we even had to call her because we were running so much later than planned.

we got everyone settled back at home, ate a quick dinner (yummy chicken, mac and cheese, and grapes), and matt and derek went off to empty out our storage unit onto the moving truck.

did i mention that the highs were in the lower teens (without wind chill) and the lows were less than 5 degrees (again without wind chill). i felt so sorry for derek having to help in these conditions. thank goodness for layers!

monday night matt and i were up until almost one packing our room. i think that was when i first started to panic because there was still a lot to do and i wasn't going to stay at the house on tuesday night (more on that in the next post). at least derek would be there to help with the kids so that i could focus between maddux' feedings. love.

the wisconsin house

sorry to leave you guys all hanging about a second showing for the same people. here is the short version.

after they saw the house on thursday afternoon we were told that they would send an offer over "late morning" saturday. we got an offer last saturday mid-afternoon. it was almost exactly 95% of our asking price (only off by $5), closing january 27, and no money at closing. we were not thrilled with the price, but we were in the ballpark. we countered back with the price another house similar to ours sold for a few months ago (ours has a walk-out basement making it worth more but we were willing to go down to near our bottom goal). they came back on monday with exactly 96% of our asking price. after much back and forth, matt and i decided that leaving town with a signed offer was worth more than what we might be losing - even though we were already losing a lot at full list price. and they didn't have any contingencies on the offer either. something clean and quick to close was really ideal for us moving forward with a house in ohio as soon as possible.

we decided this at 1:15pm on monday. since i had returned all our internet equipment that morning, i had to run over to the hospital to sign the offer papers for matt before his 2:00pm meeting.

they have already done the home inspection and it looks like we just need to answer some minor questions and patch the holes in the ceiling from the playroom swing.

matt has already taken us to see the two neighborhoods he likes for building in, but we are going to look at existing homes too. we are just going to wait for the actually closing before we start getting into that process - i think...

overall, we are thrilled to have the house 'sold' and we are making plans for our final move out of wisconsin at the end of january. love.

greetings from ohio

we are getting settled in here in our apartment. the main task right now is figuring out what we need to buy versus waiting until we totally move out of our house at the end of january (we accepted an offer and are closing on january 27). i am going to post more details about our move and everything else, but just haven't had the time to gather my thoughts and get on the computer yet - more on all this later. i just wanted to post that we are here, we have internet, and we are almost settled in. love.

showing, round 2

last night we had some buyers come through for a second showing. they requested an hour and a half showing, blueprints, hoa bylaws and fees, school information, and other specific details about the house and neighborhood so we feel like they are fairly serious. (in fact, we found out today that they are going to put together an offer on saturday morning so we will see...) in order to prepare for the showing matt came home early and i took the kids up to mcdonalds to the playplace for a little over an hour of fun.

just before it was time for the showing i loaded the kids up and went back to the house to get matt who had been staging the house. it was starting to snow and we had almost two hours to kill so we went to check out "kids in motion" while matt was with me (which i would definitely go to again if we were still going to live here).

"kids in motion" is a large indoor space with themed rooms surrounding a central open space. i think that our kids would have been happy to only play in the construction themed room. they both loved scooping up the dry lentils into the dump trucks, driving them up the ramp, dumping them in the bin, watching them go up the conveyor belt into the hopper, and then turning the crank at the bottom to watch them dump into a truck or on the floor again. we were able to pull them away to check out the rest of their options after 30 minutes or so.

i ended up feeding maddux almost the entire time we were there, but i was able to watch the kids and daddy play. i think they all had the most fun together in the huge play structure in the middle of the room. the best part was that it had plenty of room for matt to play too. mason really liked that part and was running all over chasing and hiding with daddy. after that they visited the other rooms and ended up in a game room where mason discovered chess (or at least the pieces). it seemed like the rooks were his favorite.

another popular activity was chasing/popping bubbles. there would be this sound signalling that the bubbles were starting soon and all the kids would come running over to pop them. madelyn is off to the left side in a purple shirt about halfway through the video and mason is the shrieking red streak. he was having so much fun!

it was a really great time and i wish that we could go again. maybe when we come back to close on our house some day... love.

we're on the move...

...to akron, ohio! and very soon. we are planning on moving december 15. it has been totally crazy trying to pack, finish up to-dos on the house, carpet the basement, get the house listed, have a baby, find somewhere to live, and keep it all a secret before matt told his staff - which he was finally able to do today.

matt told his boss a while (he was super supportive) and we went ahead and told our neighbors before the 'for sale' sign went up in the front yard. we got our first offer after two showings and less than a week on the market. but they had a very unreasonable term that was apparently a deal breaker for them and they walked. we have another option that we are currently pursuing. we are really hoping to have the house sold before we leave the state.

the plan is to move into an apartment while we figure out the area and school districts. once we have a feel for the area, we will begin the house hunt (or build). so the packing has been a little more interesting because we have to pack for the apartment and for keeping in storage for 1-2 years until we get into a new house. we have already packed up most of the kids' toys and moved things over to a storage unit here so that we can get the house ready for showings more quickly (and not have the house filled with moving boxes).

i am sure that i will have many more posts on the details of our transition over the next couple of weeks leading up to the big move but at least i have confirmed what many of you have already guessed. i have a few other posts that have been waiting for matt to get everything squared away at work before i could post them so here they come... love.