Overwhelmed

“Let’s start at the very beginning. Its a very good place to start…”

Brady. He is seriously hysterical. I heard over and over at Parent Teacher Conferences how funny he is and how sweet of a kid he is. Is is constantly making me laugh and go totally insane. In this case, he caught this beanie at a basketball game. He thought it would be “so funny” to send a picture of him wearing it to Jed, who is a Marine. Such a dork.

Then. Since we are moving 1718  miles away we had a HUGE moving sale…in January. It was freezing. But we got rid of tons of stuff. Couches, TV’s, Beds, Dressers, little things that for some reason I have been keeping for years. I decided they weren’t important enough to move across the country…so away they went. I have to say, it feels great. Not only is everything so much nicer, it is SO much easier to keep the house clean when the kids have one toy box left unpacked. Ahh.. So nice. I need all the help I can get de-stressing about now.

During the sale, Brady thought he would be a hobo and sit on the porch with a sign that says…"Please Help. Poor. Need Money” He also put signs on the door saying that the house was for sale as well. So helpful.

   

Brady was also in a play. The Missoula’s Children Theater, Quest for King Authors Court. It is so amazing. Kenna had been in it in the past, and Brady was SO excited to finally be old enough to audition and he got a part! He was the “Mini Red Squire” which was fun. Whenever they were with the “giant” he would be on stage instead of the regular Red Squire to make the Giant appear to be Giant. Quite creative and it was a cute play.

We also got new carpet throughout the house. It was one of those things that we were planning on doing one day, but… Then it came time to put the house on the market. We knew it was going to be a turn off to see that lovely 90’s blue carpet we had going on. It was so nice. So I called my awesome Uncle Deno and he had some guys come up the next week to get it done. Looks amazing. We are kicking ourselves for not doing it 2 years ago so we could enjoy it. Sigh. We moved all the furniture from upstairs into the front room/kitchen and the kids slept on the mattresses on the floor. Of course they thought that was pretty cool.

The Carpet in the Family Room. Looks so so good. Love it.

Miss Marissa and our poor dog, Silvie. She is such a sweetheart for putting up with all the mauling that she gets to deal with each day. The kids LOVE her!

We officially have a sign. We are officially on the market. It is nuts. Makes it real…and really stressful! Seriously. I so do NOT like selling. And in our case where we HAVE to sell, it puts everything else on hold. Our whole lives are in limbo…cant make any definite plans for anything because it is all contingent on selling our house here….. My friend Jodie told me, “Just think about the pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow you have to LIMBO under”. I totally wrote it and hung it on my fridge. Made me laugh.

 

Brady went Ice Skating with his big buddy, Kylie. They get together with a 6th grade class and are assigned a big buddy from that class and do different activities with them. Anything from carving pumpkins to making Gingerbread House to going ice skating. I love that they do it. It is fun for the kids, even the 6th graders.

Ken Doll was in basketball again this year. She is over it. Didn’t have as much fun as she did last year. I think it just gets extra competitive as you get older so it isn’t quite as fun. They did great though. They ended up getting 2nd place. Go Stars!

We took the kids bowling on Feb 13, Marcus and I were leaving to check out WV on Monday so wanted to do something extra fun with the kids. I love bowling. I so so suck at bowling, but it is fun. Marissa is a rockstar bowler. She bounces off those bumpers and gets tons of strikes and spares. She gets so excited about it too. Coltin and his GF Holly came with us too. They are so cute.

Until this day, the furthest East I had been was Cheyenne WY. How crazy is that?

We jumped on a crop duster flight in Rock Springs and flew into Denver then into Pittsburgh. Snow. Snow. Snow. It was a little insane. We heard over and over how this is the worst winter they have had in 20 years.

We did some driving to check out the area. I still can’t believe that it is all really happening. Ignore how lovely I look…it was a long day.

West Virginia is beautiful. Seriously. I cant wait to see these roads with leaves or in October…oh stop. Going to be amazing.

 

After some looking we decided that the best thing for us would be to build. Not only do we get what we want…we get the 4 extra months we need to sell our home in WY. We are going to be building in Morningside View… this is the view from our lot. Again.. I am so excited.

Did I mention that there is a TARGET in Morgantown?? And TWO movie theaters with actual stadium seating. Ahh. And it is cheaper to go to the show there than here. Even a bigger bonus. There is actual shopping, and restaurants. We are building in an area with a great school. I hyperventilated a bit when I realized that Kenna would be going into Jr High in the 6th grade next year…in Rock Springs, that doesn’t happen until 7th. Didn’t phase her though, she is even more excited now.

I got home Sunday… Bittersweet. I left Marcus in M-town to start work on Monday, but I really missed the kiddos. It is the official start of our new adventure…our new ‘change’.

We went to Wal-Mart to get some milk and the other things that you need after vaca and I found some footie pajamas for Brady. He had been bugging me for some for a while and I finally found some. He was so excited. He makes me laugh. He is such a sweet brother. He totally takes care of his sisters.

Coltin and Holly brought over their puppies, Koby and Chloe. They are American Eskimos and the cutest little fluff balls ever. I love them. So so cute. The kids loved them too.

  

My friend Tina is so sweet. She know how much I loathe being away from Marcus and a single mom, so she made sure I stayed busy over the weekend. We did this cool acid stain on her concrete basement floor and took the kids bowling. It was fun. Miss Riss loves her Cailey. They are cute.

 

Since we are moving, I thought I had better schedule Brady’s check up at Primary Children's with his cardiologist. At his last appointment when he was about 2 they told me they wanted to see him when he was 7. When I called to schedule, it was actually in 2007. Oops. He did great though. Nothing going on with him…everything is growing as it should be and he needs to get checked again when he is 10.

I got a wild hair and scheduled hair appointments for everyone.  Marissa cut off about 7 inches and now has a cute chin  bob. Kenna cut off quite a bit as well and it is all flippy and reminds me of Alice in Twilight. I love it. I actually cut bangs, which I had been debating on forever. I do like em, taking some getting used to though.

 

So…onto the overwhelming stuff. All the previous 23 pages are just regular life…well, for the most part.

This is my sweet niece..(kinda, she is Marcus’ only cousin on his moms side, David’s daughter. Our kids call him Uncle Dave, so I get Nevaeh as my niece, right??) She turned 4 in November. When we were in WV, we were talking with Aunt Cheryl and she told us that Nevaeh’s eye was bulging. She had an appointment to get checked out. They didn’t know what had happened, and she really wasn’t complaining. She would hold it every once in a while, but that was about it.

During her tests, they discovered a lemon sized tumor that was pushing her eye forward. It is cancer. It is a cancer so rare, that there is not record of another child ever having it. She started chemo on Tuesday. Breaks my heart. From playing at the park to chemo in less than 3 weeks.My heart breaks for them.

 

Another big part of my nightly prayers is this guy. For those of you Utahans, LCP Carlos Aragon and LCP Nigel Olson that were killed this past week in Afghanistan are part of Jed’s unit. Again, my heart breaks for the families of Carlos and Nigel. I can’t even imagine. Scares me. I know Jed is at WAR and he is in the midst of all sorts of stuff I can’t even fathom, but this takes it to another level. He is no longer just in the ‘midst’ of things, he is in the middle of it. I pray for his safe return, and for that of the rest of the soldiers and Marines.

After those big doozies, I am feeling pretty blessed. But only making everything that much harder is dealing with it alone. I love this man more than anything. He seriously makes me whole. I am a better person because of him and especially when he is around.

So far the plan is to stay here until school gets out. Our house should be build at the end of June and as long as WY house as sold, we will be ready to go. Even if the WY house sold tomorrow, by the time we would close would be the end of March at the earliest…probably in April more likely, and it doesn’t seem fair to move the kids with only 6-7 weeks of school left. So here we will stay. Marcus will work 3 weeks in WV and come home for a week until school is out. He’ll be home on Wednesday. Our 12th anniversary is Sunday. Can’t wait.

So. Now you have it. Ill keep you posted.