We have moved!!!

Yesssss!!!!
The move is over! It was quite stressful to say the least! I am so relieved it's all over and done with, and we're all settling in nicely.
I can honestly say I have been more stressed out this last month than I've ever been it my entire life. Seriously. I've experienced a lot of high stress situations; planning a HUGE wedding while working full-time, birthing 2 children (one pregnancy was high-risk), dealing with some crazy people while in real estate, having my man go overseas and fight a war; the list goes on. But never have I felt stress like this. I have probably given myself an ulcer from all of it! Eric worked almost everyday the last month, and I packed the house. We began the move on Sunday. Thank goodness we have the most amazing family, and they all are always so willing to help us. Eric and his brother Kyle, along with my dad and father-in-law moved things all day Sunday while my mom, mother-in-law and myself unpacked. Then we did it all over again Monday with the help of my brothers and Eric's dad. I really don't know how we'd have done it without them. Oh yeah, I do; I'd still be unpacking everything today! But, everything is done!!! What a great feeling. My brothers came over today to start painting the house for us. They got the kids rooms done, and a few other rooms. I am really happy with the way that is turning out. Now, we are waiting for our kitchen table to be delivered, and we have to order a dining room table and sectional for the bonus room. But all in all, we are settling in. I have been really worried about how Cole would adjust, but he has surprised me so much! He loves the new house; anytime we need to go back to the old house for anything, he pitches a fit and says, "NO!" Eric and I are so thankful he has taken it so well. He is probably more excited than we are!
So, we are scheduled to close on both houses tomorrow. We were supposed to close today, but there was a minor hiccup on the purchasers side for our old house. Luckily, it's nothing major and we are good to go for tomorrow. I can't wait until it's official. And, I'm ever so grateful we were able to move into our new house early. It made life so much easier.
And, I am taking it all really well myself. I'm not nearly as sad as I thought I'd be. I went back there yesterday to do a final cleaning, and I wasn't really sad at all. I think I'm just so excited about our new house.
Of course, we'll see how I do at the closing when it's official. :)
I'll post some pictures as soon as I can!

Let the packing begin!

Ok, it's official. We are definitely moving!
All inspections have been made on our current house (whoa, that sounds weird) and everything looks good. So now, I have the amazing job of packing up this entire house! With 2 small children; one who runs around like a mad man and the other who still likes to nurse about every 2-3 hours! Should be VERY interesting!!! Eric is working everyday up until a few days before closing, of course. Not that I'm complaining; it is his job that is allowing us to get this new, beautiful house! But it sure would be nice to have him around to help. Lucky for me, my mother-in-law is great and has offered to help me this week. Thank you, Nana!! I will certainly be taking her up on that. Plus, Cole and Raleigh love her company.
I don't even know where to begin! It's all so overwhelming. I thought maybe I could pack up my china first and just go from there. Wherever THERE is!!! My philosophy for this move? If we haven't touched it in years, then we've more than likely forgotten it was there, so to the trash it goes! Ugh, I am not looking forward to this part!
But, I try to keep my eye on the prize. A brand new, beautiful house with the Michelin name all over it. It's my little boy's cute blue room with his sailboats everywhere (yes, he has requested a blue room!). It's my baby girl's soft pink room with her pink and brown color scheme and white flowers. A FORMAL DINING ROOM THAT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED! A big, eat-in kitchen. A gorgeous family room. A master bedroom with a bathroom fit for a king! (Seriously, I will be able to teach my kids how to swim in the bathtub; it's huge.) A very large bonus room waiting on us to create memories in. It also has a 2nd bonus room that will serve as the playroom! That means I get my living room back!! YES!! No more stepping over trucks and trains! Can you tell I'm just a little excited?!
I still have my moments about leaving our current house. Talk about memories; this house holds them all. Eric and I closed on this house one month before our wedding. He moved in first, and I moved in after the wedding. It was so exciting! Our first house! And we were so young; I was 21 and he was 23. We welcomed both of our beautiful children into this world living here. This house is all Cole and Raleigh know. It's all we know as a married couple. We have laughed, cried, shared our most intimate moments as a family here. All of Cole's milestones took place right here. I seriously remember them all. And Raleigh's too. It's been an amazing 5 years. And now, it's someone else's home. Ok, now I'm in tears.
I will probably cry packing up this house, and more than likely cry at the closing table. (Just warning you now, Eric!) But as they say, all good things must come to and end. However, when one chapter ends, another begins. Yes, we have had some amazing moments in this house, but we will certainly continue those good times onto the next house. My son will start his first day of school there; Raleigh will take her first steps there. Eric and I will grow together as a married couple. It is destined to be wonderful.
Just have to get through this part of letting go.

Good news and family time

This last week has been insane. Eric's entire long break was spent looking for houses and trying to decide what we were going to do; literally. So we decided one afternoon we needed a break. We went up to Sandhills and let Cole run around the grassy area. It was a beautiful afternoon and it was so nice to just sit outside and be together. For a short time, it didn't matter where we were moving. All that mattered was that we were happy and together. Those are the best moments.

Raleigh was not a fan of the grass. I'm not sure why; maybe it was because she had just waken from a nap, and maybe she was a little hungry. Wait, who am I kidding; Raleigh is always hungry!!! It was so funny; she kept fussing and whining. And then you have Cole, who was running around like a wild man. He decided to take a spin around the concrete area, and that didn't turn out so well. 3 scrapes later and a few tears, though, he was back to running. That evening we went to meet with our friend Shannon and met her and Mark's new baby boy, Ethan. Let me tell you, he is so cute! And what a bruiser; he is the same size as Raleigh. He is 2 months, she is 6. I'll never think she's big again! They were cute together, checking each other out. There's an arranged marriage in the works! Eric got his first taste of boys with his girl...he's already nervous!

Eric had to go back to work tonight. :( This week has seriously been one of (if not the most) stressful weeks of our lives. We just wanted to make the right decision for our family. To make a long story short, we made an offer on a new house on Tuesday. The negotiations were disappointing and frustrating. We decided Wed. evening we were done and moving on to a different house. This new house was bigger, but it was going to take 6 months to build and that meant us in an apartment. But also, with a bigger house comes a much bigger mortgage, power bills, not a lot of money left over each month; you get the picture. So, after a lot of praying and discussion, we have decided our best option is to go with the original house we made an offer on Tuesday. We are so excited and were able to work out a very good deal with the builder. We could not be any more thrilled about our decision and our new house. God has really blessed us. The house is beautiful and very budget friendly which makes us love it even more! With all the extra money we'll be saving, we will be able to do the upgrades we wanted; hardwood floors, granite countertops, finishing the 2nd bonus room (yes, it has 2 bonus rooms!)...I can't wait. It's actually a bigger house than we originally thought we'd be able to get. It is also on a cul-de-sac, which is very kid friendly. All in all, we are just beside ourselves. We will still be able to close on our new house the same day we close our current one on the 30th of this month. I will definitely post pictures of the new house as well as the transformations we are going to make.

I am so relieved everything is done and I don't have to think or stress about where we are going. For the first time in a week, I'll be able to go to sleep easily!

*big sigh of relief* :)

Happy Anniversary- 5 years!!!

Eric and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on Friday. WOO HOO! We had a great day. We just hung out during the day with our kids, and then Eric's parents came over to watch Cole and Raleigh while we went to dinner. Eric made reservations for us at the Melting Pot; one of our favorites! If you've never been there before, you really must go. It's a very intimate setting, and what is more romantic than fondue?! We were taken back to our table, and there was a beautiful pink rose waiting on me! Eric paid the restaurant to have them set that up for me. The part that made it so funny, though, was that they didn't tell him how much they charged to do that! When we got our bill, they charged him $14.95 for a single rose! I was dying laughing. What a sweet gesture, but he didn't think to ask about the cost. Of course, he tried to make it smooth by saying I was worth it and he'd have done it no matter what, but I knew he was like, "You've got to be kidding me!" I mean, that's ridiculous to charge that, but obviously, people do it! The food was wonderful, and it was so nice to be able to spend some adult time with my sweet husband. I love him. :) Especially when he gets me a really great anniversary gift like he did this year. He is so cute; he cannot stand to hold on to a gift he has gotten me. You should be around our house at Christmas time; he is constantly trying to get me to open up my gifts way before Christmas morning because he gets so excited! So the entire day, he kept saying, "Do you want your gift, do you want it?" I was like, "Didn't you say you wanted to give it to me at dinner?" It was funny. So as you can imagine, we didn't even get seated good until he slips me a tiny little box across the table and says, "I can't take it anymore, open it!" It was a beautiful diamond anniversary band! I was so excited, and impressed because he picked it out all on his own! I'm a lucky girl! Check out my ring and my hot husband below!




So, just as we were finishing up our dinner and thinking the night couldn't get much better, it did! My phone rang; it was my mom. Our house was shown right before we left for dinner, and we drove by our house a couple of times; the people were in there for awhile, so we thought, "Good they must like it!" So, we left it at that. But my mom called, and I thought to myself, "Please let this be something about the house!" We have been stressing out so much trying to get it sold. So my mom tried to play it cool for awhile and I finally was like, "OK, have you heard anything about the showing?" And she said, "Oh yeah, they made an offer!" I started screaming in the middle of the restaurant. Eric and I were so excited! We picked up our things and ran out to our car. To make a long story short, we accepted their offer. The only thing was they want to close on Sept. 30th!!!! Yeah, we have 1 month to find a house, pack and move. With two kids. And Eric's outage starts next week, meaning he is working like 26 days in a row. Awesome timing; but hey, the house is sold!
We have been looking at houses for days now, stressing again because we couldn't find anything that we thought was us. It was looking like we were going to have to build, which meant we'd be renting an apartment for 6 months. Once again, with 2 kids. Yeah, feel our pain?! So last night before we went to bed, we did the only thing we knew to do; we prayed. We asked God for direction and wisdom as to where he wanted our family to go. I went to bed aching with stress, and we woke up this morning with peace. We knew everything was going to be ok, and we had total faith He would lead us there today. And you know what? HE did! We decided on a new house that is complete, and we made an offer this afternoon. Hopefully, we can make this work and we'll be in our new house at the end of the month. We are so excited and feel completely blessed to have options like these for our family, especially during this time. Thank you, God.
And last, but no way least, I had a big day on Sunday. In front of all our family and church, I was baptized. It really was one of the greatest moments of my life. Especially because my son got to see the whole thing. He's so young, so he doesn't really understand, but I still was so excited. I was baptized when I was a child, but had no idea what I was doing or even what it meant to be baptized, so I felt like I needed to do this for myself. To show the world and my Savior that I love Jesus. I tried to explain as best as I could to Cole what I was doing. I especially didn't want him to get upset when he saw our Pastor dunk me under the water, so I wanted him to be prepared! I thought for sure he would yell, "Hey, Mommy!" when he saw me in the baptismal pool, but he didn't. Eric did say he recognized me and said, "Look, Daddy, it's Mommy; she's getting bafftized!" Bafftized; how darn cute is that?! And before we even left our house that morning, Cole looked at me and said, "Mommy, I'm so proud of you!" It doesn't get any better than that.
So needless to say, it's been a crazy few days, but we are getting through. I know the stress is only going to heighten, but it'll be over soon and it will all be worth it when we get our new, beautiful house. We are so excited!!