Birthday Fun

My boy is ONE year old! April 26, 2009 he entered our world, changed our lives, and brought more smiles in the last year than I can imagine! I cannot believe how many fun changes happen in one year. It absolutely blows my mind.

Look at the difference! He's a little man already!

We had a mini party with the grandparents. Once we move in to our new house (Friday we close and Saturday we move in!!), we'll have a bigger party with a very big cake. He is such a boy and he dug right into his "1" cake. He didn't actually eat much but in five minutes the cake was destroyed.

Chaotic Calm

We're out of our house.

With the help of some wonderful family and friends, all of our things were loaded onto to two trailers in three hours on Saturday. They now reside in undisclosed locations waiting to be delivered to our next house a week from this next Saturday.

In the meantime, the three of us have taken over my parents house. There are random leftover boxes in the storeroom. Wyatt is sleeping in the walk - in closet in our basement bedroom. And the rest of that basement bedroom is chaos. Until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I'm organizing.

Today my mom had a total knee replacement. My three-year-old nephew was concerned Grandma was getting her knee cut off. She sort of did I guess. The surgery went like the textbooks say my dad said. And my dad, my sweet dad, had all of his favorite co-workers lined up to take the very best care of my mom. Love that guy.

She'll be in the hospital till Thursday. I'm thankful she has two pain pumps. She needed them tonight, and she has the highest pain tolerance of anyone I know.

We'll try to have the house in order when she comes home. Until then....

My Big Boy

This week Wyatt completely emptied the tupperware cupboard. For the past couple of months he has pulled out the basket with the water bottles and some other small plastic. Or he would pull a lid out of the lid basket. Yesterday the whole lid basket came out and then everything else did too. :-) This is "his" cupboard so I don't mind...but today that cupboard got packed.

He also got his haircut today. Mommy was very nervous about this. Wyatt has never been known to sit still for long. But he did a wonderful job.

There were some tears...some big crocodile tears (as you can see in the picture), but we made it with a few cheerios and a toy or two. Don't worry, his hair is still out of control...it's just a bit shorter.

The Two-part Move

In my last post I mentioned that my parent's basement was starting to look like it might be home for awhile, but I didn't say that it actually will be home...for a couple weeks at least. They have graciously opened it up to us because we have about 10 days between the time we have to hand over the keys to our honeymoon house and the time we close on our new house. If they let us, we might stay long enough to clean and redo floors in the house - the great majority of the house has light blue carpet, which really isn't that bad but has created complete decorator's block in my head. It. must. go.

The really amazing thing about God's timing is that my mom is planning to have a total knee replacement a few days before we move in. That means I get to be right there to help her during the hardest 10 days of her recovery. The 10 days before the busyness of moving starts up again. Isn't God perfect in all He does?!?!

It's a gorgeous day outside, but the office look like it's been hit by a tornado. I have to get to work.

We're Alive

Yep, I disappeared. And I'm about to disappear again.

God sold our house in 23 days to a couple who needed to be out of their house by April 21. So we have to be out of our house by April 21. As of today, taking out all of the Easter celebrations (1 left), days in the office (3 1/2), and the rest of life, I think I have about 7 days left to pack. My hubby is awesome though, and I'm feeling much better about things after a weekend of hardcore packing.

For about 3 days we were homeless. My parents basement was starting to look like home for awhile. Then Friday God showed us our house. It's been on the market since August, and the only reason I can figure for that is that God has been saving it for us and bringing the price down to what we can afford. We're selling our stove with the house and taking all the rest of the appliances. The sellers at our new house are taking all of their appliances....except the stove, which just happens to be the exact same stove as ours plus a year or two. Isn't God amazing?

We're going to live across the street from a big park and half a block down from the playground. The backyard has an awesome patio and cottage garden. I'm seeing lots of playdates in our future!!

On another note, before everything went into chaos, I had a few days to sew. This is one of the projects, and following the move, I have plans for coordinating sets. Just maybe someone might by them on a new Etsy shop??

And of course, a sweet pic of Daddy and Wyatt. I have a whole series of these and can't wait to print them and frame them for our new house.

Okay. I'm gone.

Carried Away

I started stalking creative blogs, and I go on tangents, finding all sorts of simply delicious fabric and super fun projects. It all started with searching for fabric for a handbag. I haven't started the handbag, but I have started an incredibly girly laptop sleeve with fabrics I had mostly on hand. Pics of that to come.

Most recently, I've been popping in to check out Simplify. She has a couple of lines of fabric and a quilting book that's coming out soon. She totally makes me want to quilt. One for the next Little Regehr (way down the road), I think.

Simplify took me to Fresh Figs - such fun fabrics!

I'm also liking Heather Bailey Fabrics. She has some good free patterns on there too. Ahhh...makes me want to head downtown to Cottonwood Quilts and drool over fabric. This afternoon I actually got 30 minutes at the tail end of Wyatt's nap to cut the pieces of lining for my laptop sleeve/tote. I'm almost ready to start sewing.

And while I'm pointing out super creative people, my sil Lindsay is a busy mom of three who is fighting the Fargo flood and sewing up bibs and burpies, onesies, girly clips, and even things for the boys. Check out her Blue Yodey shop on Etsy.

Anybody have fun new projects out there?

Anticipation

March seems to be a month of anticipation for us.

4 years ago we were counting down the days till our wedding. Four to go. Our rehearsal dinner was on St. Paddy's Day, so even though neither of us have a drop of the Irish in us, we looked the part. Sort of.

One year ago, we were counting down the days till Wyatt's arrival. Just about six weeks left. His room was ready, and every Saturday in April we went out on dates...just in case it was our last with no kiddos.

This year we are anticipating what God has in mind for our next home. Well, right now we're anticipating Him selling our house. The last week has been full of painting, staging, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Right now we're one and a half hours into our first open house. We've had three people stop by plus our neighbors from across the street. We would love this to be our only open house, but I know that things don't generally happen that fast. I'm praying that the Lord will help us keep perspective. We've never bought and sold at the same time, and I'll be honest, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. But I know that God is sovereign, He knows the plan, and He has it all taken care of. Now, if only I would live like that. So many times this week I've thought, "Lord! Please sell our house fast. No wait. Please keep my heart submissive. Really. But can You also sell our house fast?" Because really, I just want to skip over this whole process.

I am thankful, though, that we can anticipate joyfully. Because God is good. He is perfect. He is sovereign and right. So...we'll go on expecting and planning and hoping. And we'll update when we have good news!