Wednesday, April 14, 2010

For Sale

Some of you may not know, but we have orders to England. We decided to put our house on the market a little early for a couple reasons, but mainly to try to catch those prospective buyers taking advantage of the $8000 tax break (and we'd have to be under contract by the end of April to qualify). Unfortunately Eric was deployed, so that part of the timing wasn't good, but God made everything work out perfectly!!! The first day it was on the market we got a full-priced offer!!! As part of our counter, we requested to rent the house until late July when we leave. He accepted! The only minor glitch is that he can only rent to us for 60 days (at that point it's considered an investment property and I guess FHA loans don't cover that). So now (sniffle sniffle) we'll just have to find a place on the beach to rent for a month :) We have such a BIG God!! We close in exactly one month, and we have such mixed emotions. We're grateful that in this market we don't have to worry anymore about our house selling, we don't have to maintain the house in "showing" order (keeping the house that clean with two kids is nearly impossible), and we don't have to be concerned about strangers walking through our house. The hard part about selling will be that we just LOVE this house! We've (literally) put in a lot of sweat and tears to get it where it is today. And of course the fact that we've had two children here! Change can be so scary sometimes, but God has made this process easy so far. We're really looking forward to the opportunities that await us....

The house looks so weird with the "for sale" sign in front of it!!!



Happy Easter (Round 2)

Since Eric was deployed for Easter, we decided to celebrate it the following Sunday. We had Tracy, Katherine and Libby over for dinner (a turkey breast in the crock pot that was mmm mmm good), an egg hunt and some egg dying. The girls had a great time hunting down those eggs (especially since Eric put chocolate kisses in a couple of them). The egg dying was quite comical. They had more fun dunking and redunking (and redunking) the eggs than they did achieving a specific color. In fact Katherine created a beautiful...brown...egg! It actually was pretty though :) Overall it was a really nice day! Happy Easter...again!







Phone Photos

Here are some shots I've taken from my phone but have forgotten to upload...






Leah had fun at the sandbox at the park. She jumped in from the edge and then the little boy did it. Next thing they were taking turns and cracking each other up!
Awwww...
Aine in one of Libby's flower headbands...(it even matches her jammies...)
Naked computing...

Leah was so tired one night (after skipping a nap) that she fell asleep while I was putting Aine to bed.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Random Shots

Here are some miscellaneous pictures as I try to get caught up on my posting.

It's been so nice outside lately, that we put Aine in "Leah's" swing for the first time. She could take it or leave it...


Becky snapped this picture of Aine at the park the other day. I'm surprised I had a hat that fit her head :)
I think we all enjoy a little shot of baby heinie now and again...
I asked Leah to get her shoes on so we could go out on the swing. Apparently swinging apparel consists of a snow hat, a purse and a stuffed turtle...but no shoes! Who knew?
Aine chewing on a toy that was Eric's when he was a wee one...
Yikes! Good morning to you too sunshine!

Happy Easter (Round 1)

Hi all! These pictures are a little late, but we've been pretty busy lately...hopefully you'll cut me some slack :) Here are some pictures of when Leah and Katherine hunted for Easter eggs and dyed eggs the day before Easter at Tracy's house. Enjoy.

Preparing to go outside and hunt for eggs...they don't look excited at all...

The girls with their stash!
Decorating eggs...

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Operation Homecoming

Yay! Thank God Eric's finally home from his 2 1/2 month deployment! He was supposed to arrive yesterday at 6 PM...then it was 5:30...then it was 5:15...then it was 3:20. It turned out to be 4:15. But I suppose that's the military for you :) The girls and I waited anxiously in the crowded hangar for the airplane to arrive. While we waited a Talon landed and I told her that wasn't daddy, so she said, "It was almost Daddy!" So cute!

Eric was "lucky" enough to be the troop commander on the way home...which is really just a glorified title for: babysitter. He was entrusted to make sure none of the 200 people on board did something stupid (like have too much to drink at one of the layovers and miss getting on the plane...or something like that). He wasn't exactly thrilled, but fortunately, there weren't any real issues.

Eric had to inprocess today, so his recuperative leave starts tomorrow. He's going to need it just to get over the jet lag and get back to our time zone. Eric's only "problem" now is that he has a 3 foot shadow. Leah hasn't left his side or stopped smiling/laughing since he got home. It's so sweet to watch her look at him.

I tried to get artsy with the picture by having Leah in the foreground and the taxiing plane in the background. It didn't turn out like I'd envisioned.




Leah goofing off while killing time...

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Bartender...

...I think I'll have another.