We saw a breakthrough with Carson’s swimming tonight at the pool! A few weeks ago he resisted even being splashed in the face, and tonight he put on his goggles and dove for the bottom! Freaked his mother out completely.... We spent the night going down the slide, scooping things off the bottom and looking at our toes under the water. Guess that new water park they’re building is looking a little more fun all the time!

Monday afternoon we received word that we had an offer on our house! We spent the rest of the week in counter-offer land (actually more like counter-counter-counter offer land by the time it was all over), and arrived at an agreed price by the end of the day Friday! Hurray!!!! The inspection is set for Monday, so unless there are any surprises (don’t know why there would be, but I guess that’s how surprises go…) we’re SOLD! And moving fast… close date is set for May 12, which means we’re looking at 4-6 weeks of homelessness before we can get out to the farm. "Oh, Poppy... Nonna... think your well could handle a few weeks with a family of four....?"

On the way to Amity this morning to drop-off the kids:

Carson: “Mom, I want what Nolan has.”
Nolan: “No.”
Carson: “Mom, he’s not sharing.”
Me: “Nolan do you want to look at Carson’s book.”
Nolan: “Yeah.” (Because it’s Carson’s.)
Me: “Here’s the book, give Carson the drawing board.”
...Crash....
Carson: “MOM! He threw it on the floor!!!”
Nolan: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

So yes, that was me this morning pulled over on the side of Hwy 99 trying to retrieve a drawing board that had been pitched by a two-year-old, just to keep his brother from playing with it.

I'm a day late on the Easter pictures since I opted to finish The Help last night instead of blogging. Sorry... that's why I don't even try to read books often these days!

We got up early yesterday in an attempt to actually make the 8am service at church. Turned out it was more like our own personal 8:20 service, but close enough. The boys wore adorable little matching blue shirts and ties, which they didn't put on until we got there ('cause they wanted to eat their breakfast in the car) and wiggled out of about 2 seconds after getting to mom & dad's - so no pictures. Sorry #2 for this blog post.

After church I asked Carson what they had talked about in Sunday School and got this narrative:
"Mom, Jesus died."
"Yes, Sweetie, he did. But then what happened?"
"Then, they put him in a cave. But then he came back and he came out of the cave. And he said, 'NeeNer-NeeNer-NeeNer' and he fought the bad guys."
"He fought the bad guys?"
"Yep, he hit them."
I'll forever have an image of Jesus coming out of the tomb, putting his hands on his hips and saying, "NeeNer-NeeNer-NeeNer". I like that version.

After church it was up to mom & dad's for Easter dinner with the Henson's - lots of catching up, food, cat naps and more food.

Happy Easter everyone! Hope yours was great!!
Click here for some of our pictures from the Easter season.

 

So obviously the days between blog posts are stretching out as we work to keep up with the ins and outs of our current life. Here are some updates:

*We’ve now had seven separate showings of the house and a re-showing, plus the realtor tour that came through Wednesday. Every one of them has been a complete hassle, but we’re grateful to have so many showings when some people have been on the market for months with none. Our mortgage person said he’s starting to write more pre-approval letters for people planning on making offers soon, so we’re hopeful that we might hear something in the next few weeks.

*Carson is suddenly going on fourteen, with statements like, “I know mom, you told me before.” becoming more frequent, but also impromptu hugs with “I love you mom!” He informed me the other day he thought he was going to “…have to grow up a little more tomorrow.” Really….? Why? I seriously love everything about him right now.

*Nolan, on the other hand, is a beast. But he really enjoys it. I found him standing on the counter in the kitchen the other day – he’d pulled a kitchen chair over to the barstool, so he could climb from the chair, to the barstool to the countertop and was heading over to get a cereal bowl (I think??) out of the cupboard. Luckily he was so excited about his accomplishment that he hollered out, “Momma, I did it!” when he got to the counter – a phrase that can strike me with an amazing amount of fear when he’s out of sight. The child never walks anywhere (seriously – never), and insists on eating what he wants, when he wants it and where it wants it. Everything is negotiable in his mind, but even after he loses the battle he bursts into laughter like he gets nothing but pure joy from the debate. After about 3 minutes in the exam room with his pediatrician Wednesday we were told, “With this type of child, I always recommend people child-proof their windows. It happens more than you think.” Great. Thanks.

 *Scott & and are just trying to keep all the balls in the air! Scott has taken the brunt of the paperwork for the house, I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I’m exhausted by it:) We’ve been out to the farm a bunch sorting out what is staying, what is going and working our way through the contract – exciting to think we’re getting close to having everything lined up!

So that’s life... plugging along... with little time for extra’s ... But all good.

This morning I was informed that Elvis was “bored” in my office Tuesday (well, excuse me for not entertaining the stuffed monkey) and needed to bring a toy to play with today. Good grief.

Carson has recently developed a deep, close, personal relationship with a monkey. His name is Elvis. (Named after the monkey that lives at a local burger place here in McMinnville, not the more obvious namesake.) Carson’s attachment came from a simple game we were playing one night just after Christmas where Carson wanted us to wrap toys up in blankets, pillow cases, whatever and give him so he could pretend it was Christmas again. One of the toys I grabbed was a stuffed monkey that had been hanging around the house for years (no idea where it came from – anyone want to take credit??) and Carson has never put him down since.

Although we’ve convinced him Elvis doesn’t need to go inside places, the much-loved monkey rides along in the van nearly everywhere we go. On school days he comes inside, says hello to all of my coworkers and then Carson wraps him up in a blanket and puts him to bed on the chair in my office. Frequently I have to promise to go buy him a banana at lunch and, even more frequently, he asks one of my co-workers if they will stop by and check on Elvis throughout the day. It’s a running game to guess who the designated Elvis-checker will be each day. (Deb is winning at the moment!)

At home Elvis needs a song and a kiss at bedtime, right along with the boys. He joins us for dinner and has been known to jump in the bathtub when mom’s not looking, but has been chastised by Carson for trying to go with him into the bathroom. (“You don’t watch people go potty, Elvis!”)

We’ve enjoyed watching the “relationship” develop, which really involves Carson learning how to nurture and take care of some”one” else. Elvis has been a fabulous addition to our family – I for one will be sad on the day Carson doesn’t want him to come along.

The craziness of selling our house finally got to us this weekend and we decided to just vacate the premises and let agents and potential buyers take over – at least that was the optimistic hope! We made Saturday a Portland day! We rode the OHSU tram (which we hadn’t done before), went to IKEA for a meatball lunch (meatballs have no milk!) and then headed to the zoo (along with everyone else in PDX) to close out the day.

At the end of it all we grabbed the dog from our friend’s house (HUGE THANKS to the Haisch’s for taking him whenever someone comes to look at the house) and headed down to Salt Creek for a couple nights at Poppy & Nonna’s house (‘cause, hey, they’re at the beach and the house is just sitting here... begging to be trashed in their absence). Although it’s been a hectic weekend of running all around, it’s been considerably less stressful than being at home and trying to clean up and get out whenever we get a call from our agent. And we have actually had four showings in first three days with #5 scheduled for tomorrow, which is great considering the economy... And considering that the faster it sells the sooner we’ll be able to return to our life.

He gets his sense of style from his mother:)