2017 in Review

Wow! It has been a year since my last post. I am not at all surprised I didn't carve out time to keep up with this blog. 2017 was a crazy busy year for us. Every time I felt we were settling into a new routine and catching our breathes things changed again.

I think that's what the theme for 2017 was for our family- Change. We sold our home of 7 years in March. We had a 20 day time limit from acceptance of offer to signing and leaving. We did not find a home to purchase in those 20 days and so moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. We lived there for three months. The first month was fun. Almost all of our possessions were in storage so we were living very minimally. The kids thought this was awesome. The not only shared a room, but a bed as well. Being in such a small space we couldn't get away from one another and were always on top of each other. Like I said, the first month was fun. After that I was desperately house hunting at all hours of the day.

Our first home

The balcony was the kids' yard in which to

play at the apartment.

Due to the smallness of the apartment, we really got to know our new town's parks. We spent most of our afternoons at one of the surrounding parks and attending many of the Park and Rec events. Babycake's 5th birthday was at one these new parks. Her theme was superheroes. She was so lucky to have many family and friends attend. Buddyboy's 2nd birthday was held at Monkey Joe's. Due to the cost of such an event, and the fact we couldn't host in our apartment, we only had family attend. Both kids enjoyed both parties.

Checking out an emergency helicopter during our town's Safety Day!

Kids got to help paint Babycake's new room!

Now our 20 day house sale was crazy, but that seemed to be the way the market was last year. Every house that was listed seemed to sell within 24 hours of popping on the market. I was truly grateful I was home all day with the kids and only worked evenings at this time. I was able to continuously watch listings and meet our realtor at a house almost with in 2 hours of the house having been listed. I honestly lost count of the number of houses we saw. We made offers on 4. We were outbid on all four. Amazingly on the last house we made an offer the people who outbid us and were accepted backed out and we were next in line.

Yay! We finally had a home! I have to admit the kids were troopers through the whole selling/buying/ moving process. Babycake was excited to move and never had any fits about it. Buddyboy was too small to fully understand the life changes happening around him. We could not have asked for better kids. Love them!

The time line of finalizing the sale and our rent ending was pretty perfect. We had a week from buying the house to having to be out of the apartment. We got new floors installed (of course home improvement never goes as planned but I won't go into that.) We didn't think moving a second time in one year was easy enough, so we decided to go on a two week vacation for Hubby's 30th birthday the week after our move. Who cared that our house was a disaster of boxes and disarray? While the trip was nice, especially b/c we left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa, I was happy to come back and get our life into some kind of order. Then of course the dishwasher pooped out with in the first month of home ownership. Our AC froze over the second month, and on the third month Babycake started Kindergarten. What?!? How is my baby old enough to be in school?!

Frozen over AC creeping into the house

Waiting for the bus and Buddyboy thinks he's going with

Babycake is LOVING school. She could not wait to start school like many of her friends did last year. She gets to ride the bus, and there are three other kids in our new neighborhood who are in her class,  then a couple more kids are also in Kindergarten. We are very happy with our new neighborhood.

Babycake has made a lot of friends and her teacher is Amazing. I don't know how she heard about it, but within the first month of school Babycake was asking if she could be a Girl Scout. With all the changes and new things in our lives I really did not want to have her join any extra curricular activities. However, I went to the information meeting, and low and behold, I came home the Co-leader for Babycake's new Daisy troop. Needless to say she also loves Girl Scouts. She and her friends regularly ask when the next troop meeting is because they "CANNOT wait!" for the next one.

First GS Fun Badge!

During Fall Break the kids and I went on a road trip to visit friends in Ohio. They are homeschooled so it was wonderful we could go during the week and all of our schedules worked. Our friends moved there a couple years ago and I am truly grateful our friendship has been able to continue despite the distance and the crazy that is family life.

About half way through fall semester I got a promotion at my job at the YMCA. This of course comes with more hours than I was previously doing. Buddyboy does not like the amount of time we are at work. He is at a stage where he is big enough he can handle being in the big kid area and play well there, however he is not fully potty trained so he is not technically allowed out of the toddler area.

So. We are also potty training. Buddyboy has shown interest in using the potty for a long time, and any time he requested to sit on the potty we helped him. At this point he is fine at home. He rarely has accidents. However, he does not wear underwear or diapers at home (except for naps and bedtime of course). He does have to wear pull-ups when at work, so he has a harder time telling he has to pee and honestly doesn't care if he does b/c he knows it doesn't make a mess. So, this whole process may take more time getting down pat when we are not home. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Potty training attire

Finally, we went south to visit family over the new year weekend. We came back to find our furnace not working and the house at a chilly 40*. We had come home Sat afternoon. A technician came within an hour of our calling, but would not be able to get the needed part until Tuesday due to it being a holiday weekend with the new year starting Monday and his supply garage being closed. We are so grateful to our friends that took us in for two nights. On the third night of no heat we camped out in the basement with space heaters. The kids had a great time and slept really well.

That's our year in a nut shell. I'm hoping 2018 is a little less busy and gives us time to breath.