snow, and other stuff...

it's about time for a post on this blog.

the big news this week is that it snowed here! i was hoping it would snow while we lived here, and it did! i was most excited because love has been wishing for snow. she spent tuesday afternoon and evening peering out the windows to see if the snow had started to fall. it didn't start snowing until after she was asleep. i was so tempted to wake her up, but i resisted (that would have been a stupid move on my part). when she woke up on wednesday morning, the first thing she did was jump out of bed and look out the window. she was absolutely thrilled to see snow on the ground and was ready to head outside immediately.

we got about three inches i think. the bad part was that there was freezing rain before the snow, so the roads were slippery. of course, in a place that is not used to snow, this "storm" was a huge deal. it was all over the news and the city shut down about 8 hours before the storm even began. the big thing when there is snow is that people mob the stores to buy milk and bread. it was even reported in the news that stores had ordered extra deliveries of milk in preparation for the storm. unfortunately, it was too late to get extra orders of bread delivered, so i'm guessing some people had to tough it out being stuck in their houses for two days with no extra bread. i find this whole phenomenon hilarious and mind boggling. what in the world are people doing with all this extra milk? before the "storm" hit, we were low on milk, but there was no way i was going to the store to fight the mobs just to get a gallon of milk. i would rather live without for a couple of days. to me, the whole thing just shows how reliant our society is on grocery stores (a fact i already find sad anyway) and what consumers we are. also, how we are not used to being without things that we "need". anyway...enough of that soapbox. it's just funny.

even though love was ready to go outside immediately upon waking up, she waited patiently for breakfast to be made while lovingly gazing out the window at the snow. jeremy got to head into work a little later than usual, so we had a bit of a slower morning.

after he left, i began the process of bundling the kids up to go outside. whew! since we live in south carolina, we didn't have any snow boots for the kids to wear. we did have two pairs of rubber rain boots (one in love's current size, and one a size larger), so we used those. i layered up the socks and even put a pair of my wool socks on each kid. jobot was able to wear his slippers inside the boots, so his feet stayed nice and toasty. we did have winter coats, hats, and mittens for each kid. no snowpants, though, so both kids wore a pair of jobot's wind pants as well as two other pairs of pants underneath. the wind pants were a little short on love, but they worked.

once the kids and i were dressed in our hodgepodge of winter gear, we headed outside for some fun in the snow. as soon as we got outside, both kids immediately started eating the snow. and ate, and ate, and ate. it was so funny! love and i made some "train tracks" in the snow in the front yard and puffed along the "rails" for a while, taking turns calling out "faster" and "slower" and adjusting our speed accordingly. love was most fascinated by the (tiny) icicles hanging off of our roof and i found myself using a pool noodle to get some down so we could collect them in a bucket.

by that point, jobot had stopped eating the snow and was back to trying to do his usual outdoor activity - using a little shovel to scoop up dirt and put it in his wagon. he was quite perturbed that there was snow in the way and became quite crabby. i tried to convince him to scoop up the snow and put it in the wagon, but i was unsuccessful. he cried a lot and did not have much fun.

after about 45 minutes we came inside (picture me walking toward the house with two crying kids - jobot repeatedly falling down in the snow - as a couple walked by with their dog and found it all quite amusing) and the kids had hot chocolate and snacks. our neighbor brought over some warm muffins and sat and visited for a while, and another neighbor took me up on my offer to watch their six-month-old baby while he took his older child sledding. we had a house full of kids and neighbors for a bit there and it was fun - it felt homey and neighborly and warm and cozy.

surprisingly, there is still a bit of snow on the ground today, but i think this is probably the last we will see of snow for a while. it's supposed to be in the mid-60s tomorrow, so the snow will definitely be gone by then.

in other news...these kids are both at fun stages right now.

jobot is at one of my favorite stages. he is twenty months and his vocabulary grows every day. he is so proud to try out new words. the other day i asked him a question and was shocked when he responded with, "no thank you mommy". when asked a question, he has also started responding with "hmmm...huh....mmmm..." jobot wants to eat all. the. time. the first word out of his mouth every morning is "EAT!" this morning we had pancakes for breakfast and he ate FIVE of them. he had a doctor's appointment on monday and once again he was off the charts for height and weight. the pediatrician said that he is proportional and that if he keeps this rate on the charts, he will probably be about 6 ft 4 in, which is how tall jeremy is. love and i are going to be surrounded by tall men.

he is a loud and busy boy. he makes anything into a hammer and goes around "fixing" things in the house. he is very interested in music, so i have been making an effort to play more classical music in our house during the day. it's nice for everyone. i have even seen him look at a page in a book that has pictures of instruments and start swaying like he is listening to music. i am curious to see if anything will become of this music interest. he got a tambourine/drum for christmas and it's one of his favorite toys. he has started singing and jeremy and i were shocked one day in december when we were listening to christmas music and he actually started singing along to "ave maria"!

he currently spends his days throwing toys and stuffed animals in his crib so they can go "nigh-night". he constantly asks for bandaids, even when he doesn't really need one. due to his daring nature, he does bleed several times a week, so i guess that all makes sense. he wears his bandaids with pride. he also wants to take baths all the time - he walks around the house saying "ba-ub" (bathtub) and looking at us with hopeful eyes. the other day jeremy started a bubble bath and jobot was so excited that he dove right in, clothes and all!

love is also at such a fun stage these days. in many ways, it's a challenging and dramatic stage, but she is becoming such a lovely young girl. when i drop her off for preschool, we almost always talk about being kind to other kids, and she says, "i am a kind girl, mommy". and she is, too. we have had several playdates lately where i have seen her being kind to others, without any prompting from me. it makes me so proud of her. although she and jobot fight (even the classic both kids pulling on the same toy screaming because they both want it), she has many moments of being a kind and caring big sister. there is a boy in her class who has some special needs and behavioral issues, and i am so proud that love is the one the teachers have seated next to him at the table. i have been so pleased to see her interact with him and be so loving and encouraging. makes my heart want to burst with love and pride for her!

we had some free movie tickets and i recently took her to the movies for the first time to see "frozen". she was so excited and sat on my lap the whole time. it's so fun that she is getting old enough to do those kinds of things.

just after christmas we (finally) moved love from a crib to a bed (our guest bed). this involved switching the kids rooms and rearranging a bit. it has made our house more functional and has worked really well. love was so ready to make the transition that it has gone smoothly for all of us.

she currently asks multiple times a day, "mommy, tell me a story about when somebody got hurt." we share stories of our childhood injuries (most involve falling off of bikes!) and she is fascinated by these stories and wants to hear them again and again. if the story we tell isn't interesting enough, she lets us know that she would like to hear a different one. ha! so, a lot of our life seems to revolve around injuries these days...either jobot is getting hurt, or we are telling stories about people getting hurt.

she is also really into playing with her train set these days. for some funny reason, her favorite character is "diesel 10". she often says "no mommy, i'm not karis. i'm diesel 10." she pretends that she is him and "chuffs" around the house using her "wheels" to get around. she recently used some of her christmas money to buy a wooden diesel 10 to add to our train collection.

love is very particular and orderly and recently made a block border for our living room rug (see photo below). she often heads to her room saying that she is going to "organize sometheen". jobot, on the other hand, is quite the opposite, which causes some tension in our home as he undoes whatever organization love has set into place.

also...that slide has taken up residence in the middle of our living room. it was a christmas gift and the kids love it and play with it every single day. for the first week or two after we got it, we had to put a blanket on the slide and give it a good night kiss at the end of the day or jobot would throw a tantrum because he had to stop playing with it.

these days are full and busy, but in many ways, it feels like we are currently in a good stage as a family. these kids bring us lots of joy and humor and we have so much fun watching them grow.

lately

thanks to our front door, rainbows appear on the wall most afternoons.

this is very exciting to the kiddos.

a recent water balloon fight in the backyard.

jeremy's birthday!

 saturday morning breakfast at the farmer's market.

another lowe's build and grow workshop. we made firetrucks this time.

our kids are the only ones i actually see wearing the goggles ("gobbles" according to love). it's hilarious - they love them.

two tired out kids after a busy morning. (this is a very rare sight!)

we are all about the glitter over here these days!

our house is pretty much covered in glitter.

"house people"

love turned three-and-a-half. we celebrated, because...why not?

painting! he usually ends up painting his face and hair and then needs a bath.

painting some paper bowls to make jellyfish.

and...1, 2, 3!

we are having some fall weather over here - that is, if you can call temps in the 70s and low 80s fall. ha! i guess it's more like summer in the midwest, but after a hot and steamy summer here, it feels like fall to us. i made our first pot of soup on sunday. we've been taking lots of walks (three yesterday!) and enjoying being outside more now that it's more bearable.

also, jobot has learned to climb on the kitchen chairs, couch, coffee table, and anything else that could possibly be climbed on. as a result, this whole parenting thing has just reached a whole new level of exhaustion!

smoothie mornings

we often have smoothies as part of breakfast in the morning. or we have them for an afternoon snack. it seems to be the only way to get green veggies in jobot these days.

(these photos aren't the best quality...our kitchen does not have much natural light, and it was still mostly dark outside anyway. most of the photos are blurry, but that captures how life feels at this stage! a lot of these days, especially ones that involve making something in the kitchen with a one and three year old, seem like a blur!)


the kids each get a little pile of kale (or sometimes spinach) and frozen berries to throw in the blender. sometimes we add a banana or other fruit.

next we pour in the kefir or yogurt and add some milk if we need a little more liquid. sometimes we throw in a few ice cubes, if we feel like it. maybe some honey or stevia.

 then the kids take turns running the blender.

there is usually some fighting.

and someone often ends up crying.

and then we are done!

and preschool begins!

it's a big day over here - love's first day of preschool. we went for orientation on wednesday, and then today was the real thing. she is attending a small, very diverse little church preschool on monday, wednesday, and friday mornings from nine to twelve. each week they have chapel, sign language, music, and yoga, and fridays are show and tell days. they spend 45 minutes each day outside on their lovely playground. we are so thankful that she can attend and we think it will be a great place for her.

putting her in preschool was a bit of a difficult decision. we are strongly considering homeschooling for our children's education but at this point we don't know for sure that we will. we decided that for this year, it is best for her and for our family for her to be in preschool. i will also be doing some homeschooling stuff with her and i am already enjoying that. and really, all of life is school for her anyway!

when i dropped her off this morning she happily hopped off to her class. a few seconds before she admitted that she was a little scared, but as soon as she saw the director's familiar face greet her at the door she announced, "this is my new backpack," and off she went. she came home with tales of the playground, her snack, new friends whose names she didn't remember, and music where she sang lots of songs. and then she got really cranky and it wasn't very fun. it's probably going to take several days before she is adjusted to the new routine, and transitions are difficult for her anyway. it also probably doesn't help that she woke up at 5 this morning.

jobot and i spent the morning baking pizza crust for tonight's dinner, playing with legos, making nut granola, and throwing a ball down the hallway over and over again. he is a good little helper with cooking and he just loves it. every time we finish a cooking project he throws a tantrum. (the tantrums have begun in earnest these days...and he's only 15 months old!). when he got bored i gave him a dishpan with a little bit of soapy water in it. he had a spoon and a little bowl and that kept him busy for at least thirty minutes.

our weekend looks to be pretty relaxing. jeremy won't be on call (hurray!) and we have plans to grill with our neighbors tomorrow afternoon. tonight is homemade pizza night at our house, our friday night tradition. and just in the past month we made it dessert/ice cream night as well, so that makes it even better. love especially looks forward to this night!

what will your weekend hold?

* also - HELP! maybe someone who reads this blog can give me some cloth diaper advice. we are having cloth diaper troubles over here. it seems that every time jobot wears a cloth diaper he gets a rash. we stripped the diapers and we are still having the same problems. i've been changing him every two hours to try to prevent the rash, but he still gets one. any advice?

staycation and back in the routine

jeremy had a week off of work two weeks ago, in between his summer program ending and year-long residency program beginning. we had a little staycation. then, this past week he had orientation for his residency and it was a lighter week schedule-wise, so that was nice. now today he has been on call, so we are back in that schedule again (not so fun).

the kids and i joined him for dinner at the hospital tonight. one trauma came in while we were eating dinner, and another came in as we were leaving, so jeremy was keeping busy. the helipad is right in front of the hospital, near the road, so it is a perfect place for the kids to see the helicopters. there were two tonight and before we drove home we sat in the parking lot and watched one of the helicopters take off. there were two kids in the backseat of my car who were very excited to watch.

our staycation was okay. some days were good and a few were not. it rained a lot, then we had a couple of beautiful days that were unseasonably cool, and then the heat and humidity came back with a vengeance. we went into the week with a substantial list of free or very cheap activities we could do as a family. we ended up not doing much at all, which was fine. (and now we still have ideas for days when we are looking for something to do).

we took the kids bowling (through the kids bowl free program). the two of us didn't even bowl, and we only had to pay for love's bowling shoes. the kids thought it was a lot of fun, and we had fun with them!

we went to the zoo. always a fun, free (because we have a membership) activity. we go just about once a week. we fed the lorikeets (something i don't dare try to do with the kids when i take them by myself!).

and one of them bit jobot.

jobot got his first black eye (thanks to a collision with our coffee table).

 
love and i were in charge of feeding our neighbor's cats (she was on vacation). it was the second time we have done it and the five cats seem to like us more each time. they should, as they spend a lot of time sitting on our front porch and lounging in our yard.

we checked out a local health food store and it was a winner. we also found a source of raw milk. awesome.

the best day we had was last weekend when the weather was refreshingly cool and we spent monday playing and working in the yard. love collected backyard treasures in a dishpan. she found two frogs (toads?) in our backyard and held them captive for a little while. she holds them so they lay on their backs and she gently rubs their tummies. they actually lay there looking very content.

jeremy mowed the lawn with a baby on his back. i love this photo, it reminds me of my dad. he did the same thing back in the day!

i got a haircut which was a frustrating experience and i actually almost cried when the guy said he was done cutting my hair. it was terrible. i mean, really terrible. thirty minutes later i left the salon with an okay haircut.

jeremy gave me a day off, which was a wonderful gift. i spent the morning at a coffee shop sipping coffee and catching up on my scrapbooking on the computer. it was so relaxing. in the afternoon i went to a thrift store with hopes of spending a bit of my birthday money on some new to me clothes. i ended up with a shirt and a pair of shorts, so it was successful.

this week we are really going to be back in the routine. jeremy will be working full days again and love will be starting preschool. she will be going just three mornings a week for three hours and i think it will be so good for her and for me. we will also be doing some informal homeschooling at home, and of course, all of life is school for her anyway!

i am feeling ready for the new routine and am eager to figure out what our days will look like with this new schedule. i am looking forward to getting back into sourdough baking for our family (i have a new friend who is willing to give me some of her starter so i don't have to start from scratch!), and yesterday i got started making kefir (something i have been meaning to do for two years...silly me, it is so easy!). i am eager for fall weather, but i don't think we are going to be getting that any time soon. it's been in the 90s and humid with no relief in sight. i find myself missing the cooler fall mornings of the Midwest.

lately...

...drinking an iced coffee almost every mid-morning, around 10 (it's just coffee, ice, a splash of milk, and a few drops of stevia. delicious and refreshing).

...feeling a bit homesick for our old house.

...trying to stop saying "back home" when referring to grand rapids.

...eating and enjoying lots and lots of veggies.

...also really enjoying celery with peanut butter. and strawberries with peanut butter. and actually, pretty much anything with peanut butter.

...looking forward to a long weekend (thursday afternoon through monday morning!) with jeremy home.

...annoyed by the fly that keeps buzzing around me.

...thankful for a new incentive/discipline system for love that is working well (one week in).

...glad that love is having a great time at VBS this week. she really enjoys it, and i enjoy just hanging out with jobot during these mornings. this morning we made a crust for cheesecake. (i make this recipe, in case you want to try it. i don't make the chocolate sauce...we eat it with berries, or plain. it is delicious.)

...thankful that jeremy and i have been laughing together a lot lately. mostly because he is funny, but i think i can be pretty funny too.

...being entertained by jobot's growing vocabulary. he comes out with new words multiple times a day, most recently "costco", "bubble", "ouch" (thanks to his sister for teaching him that one) and "popsicle".

...looking at the new-to-us rug in our living room. i have wanted a rug in there ever since we moved in, but our budget for home decorating is basically zero at this point. and then we stopped at goodwill the other day and jeremy found a rug for $12. we decided we could handle that. and the colors match perfectly. (maybe people think it's gross to buy a rug at goodwill? well...it doesn't smell, we vacuumed it, and it seems clean, so that's good enough for us.)

...reading the heart of parenting: raising an emotionally intelligent child. i don't agree with everything, but there is a lot of information i am appreciating and hope to incorporate into my parenting.

...dreaming about future career possibilities.

...really, really needing a hair cut but hesitant to get it cut by someone new. (one of the hardest things about moving...you lose all your people... hairdresser, mechanic, babysitter, etc...)

...enjoying the quiet of afternoon rest time at our house.

what are you up to lately?

sizing him up

the other day love was playing with her baby doll (an unusual occurrence as she almost always can be found playing with trains, cars, duplos, blocks, or her dumptruck or school bus).

the baby doll has several outfits and i helped her change the doll's clothes several times. eventually, i headed into the kitchen to get a few things done. i heard her mention something about jobot trying on the doll's diaper. next thing i knew, he came into the kitchen happily wearing the diaper around his ankle. she had attempted to put the diaper on over his clothes, but quickly came to the conclusion that it would never fit, so she had put it around his ankle instead. she was just glad that he was wearing it on some part of his body.

 

when your little brother is wearing size 3T clothes at 14 months of age and you still wear some 3T clothes yourself, i guess there are just compromises that have to be made when dressing him up.

obviously, our ten pound ten ounce newborn has remained large for his age. people frequently ask us how old he is and when we tell them, every single person says, "wow! he is big!". it's true, he is. we weighed the kids the other day. love weighed 33 pounds, jobot weighed 31.5. he will soon be larger than she is.

the most funny thing recently was when someone asked us if the kids are twins and we had to tell them that they are actually two years apart!

jobot is one!

on may 21, jobot turned one!

his birthday happened to fall two days before we moved, so unfortunately, our house and life were in states of chaos at the time. i was disappointed that the day wasn't more set aside just for celebrating him...instead we were running love to the homes of wonderful friends who offered to watch her for part of the day, packing boxes, and dealing with logistics.

grandma arrived for a visit in the afternoon, so that made the day more special. she brought some presents, which was nice, because all he got from us was a water bottle and two new sippy cups, and we didn't even wrap them. we did buy him a bunch of balloons, which is about the most exciting gift a one-year-old could have anyway.

we did have a little party for him the sunday before his birthday. we had four friends over, ate cheesecake, marveled over our boy, and watched him smash his smash cake. it was a good celebration, and i was glad we could celebrate with friends before we moved.

hard to believe he is one.

one year ago...it seems like just yesterday. the day he was born was a highlight of my life. and he was beautiful and perfect - all 10 pounds, 10 ounces of him! and then we found ourselves in the {challenging} transition of becoming a family of four. this little guy was so cute and sweet, and also cried. a lot. and it was so hot last summer. and he wanted to be held and/or nursing at all times. but boy did we fall in love with him quickly. really, how could we not?

 and now, a year later. the most handsome little birthday boy in the whole world (and maybe the biggest? seriously...he is the size of a two-year-old. he weighs in at 30 pounds and is off the charts for height and weight. to put it in perspective, i think love weighs around 36 pounds! he eats so much i can hardly keep up. i joke that soon i will have to make one meal for the family, and a whole separate meal for him, but it's probably not actually a joke! watch out, grocery budget!)

i made him his own little smash cake. the rest of us had homemade cheesecake and blueberries. yum. my dear friend becky was over the night before the little party and we made the crust layer of the cheesecake together. one of several sweet memories of our last week at our old house.

our little cake smasher.

and two goofy party animals.

balloons! what more could a one-year-old want?

this boy brings so much joy to our lives. he is funny and does things just to make us laugh. he keeps me SO busy during the day and always seems to be getting into something...he tries to play in the toilets, climbs in the dishwasher as soon as i open it, grabs things out of the dishwasher and throws toys in, goes from one room to another rearranging things. he is also a climber...climbing into baskets, onto furniture, it goes on all day. whew - i can hardly keep up!

he loves being outside and happily walks around chattering and picking up leaves and sticks. he eats dirt and always has a ring of dirt around his mouth when we are outside. the other day we were eating lunch outside in the backyard and when a fly landed on his hand, he brought it up to his mouth like he was going to eat it! ew! such a boy. he gets so dirty, i don't even know where all the dirt comes from.

he says a select few words, but is very clear about what he wants. he calls jeremy "daddu", which is just about the cutest thing we've ever heard. he loves his big sister and watches her closely, then tries to do what she does. he spends his time at home happily chattering to himself while walking around the house with various toys (that is, when he's not trying to get into something). he doesn't usually pay attention to where he is walking and falls or runs into things numerous times a day. lots of tears and bumps and bruises.

he is all done with bottles, as of the weekend before his birthday. he had some kind of stomach bug and every time he drank milk it would seem to get worse, so we held off the milk for a couple of days and then just gave it to him in sippy cups instead of bottles from then on. easy transition!

he takes one nap in the afternoon, usually for an hour or two and he sleeps all night from 7 pm to 6:30 am or so (at least one of our kids sleeps through the night!).

he loves the whole family, but i am happy that he loves his mama best. we all love him so much. he is such a little joy-bringer, and a delightful part of our family.

on the move...

We have internet at the new house, so I can finally post all about our move. I kinda disappeared from blog world in the midst of moving, so I have several posts planned to catch up on the past six weeks or so of our life.

Today found me caring for our little ones in the midst of a stomach bug. It came out of nowhere...I didn't even feel sick until I started eating breakfast and then it hit me. Unfortunately, this was also a really busy day for Jeremy and tonight is his first "on call" night at the hospital. Being on call actually means being at the hospital from 4 pm through the next morning, so it's really just being at work...I don't really know why they call it "on call". Anyway, I had a fever this afternoon, the chills on and off, and just felt pretty miserable. The kids did okay and I somehow got them fed and to bed. I am feeling a bit better, so that's good.

Let's see...writing about the move. Two-and-a-half weeks ago the moving truck was packed and waiting in our driveway and we were sleeping on our mattress on the floor in our empty bedroom.

Loading the truck on a rainy afternoon.

Yes, we will definitely be bringing these two with us!

Our dining room in a state of disaster.

Our last dinner in our house. Dear friends brought over dinner and we had a picnic on the dining room floor in our (mostly) empty house.

Love checking out the "Diesel Truck" (her name for it).

My mom came for those last couple of days to help us with the kids, the packing, and the cleaning, and she was so helpful with it all...even making us delicious meals out of the random odds and ends left in our fridge with only one pan, some olive oil, and salt and pepper (everything else was packed!). We also had an impressive crew of seminary men help load the moving truck, as well as numerous other friends who helped with the kids, cleaning the house, food, etc...

After a week of packing, cleaning, and saying goodbyes, we finally loaded the last few things into the moving truck and the van and then locked the door for the last time and drove away. I expected more sentimental feelings with leaving our house, but the reality was that by the time we left, I was so ready to be done packing and cleaning that I couldn't wait to get out of the house. (By the way, our house never did sell, so we are renting it, in case you are wondering.)

We drove for about three hours and spent the night with my Great Aunt in Indiana. A good time, good food, and good conversation were had by all. Friday morning we hit the road for a long day of driving. Jeremy drove the truck all day (there was no way I was going to drive that thing!). I spent about 8 hours total by myself in the car with the kids. It was quite possibly my most challenging day of parenting yet, and it will be a hard one to beat. We all survived and finally arrived at our hotel in Knoxville, TN for the night, where we found that the one bedroom suite we were expecting was actually just a normal hotel room. (Our entire family sleeping in one room = terrible night of sleep for everyone). Jeremy had not yet arrived at the hotel at that point, and I had just taken our kids out for dinner and then hauled all our stuff and our whiny kids up to our room by myself and I was in no mood for arriving to our room to find that it wasn't the suite we were expecting. In my state of exhaustion, I may or may not have kind of lost it on the phone with Jeremy at that point. Thankfully, he arrived at the hotel shortly after and we were moved to a different room that was a suite and was handicap accessible, which meant it had a huge bathroom. Love slept in the living room, Jeremy and I slept in the bedroom, and Jobot slept in the gigantic bathroom. {At this point, I should add that Jobot had developed hives at some point during the day...possibly from the stress of moving, or from the fact that I fed him strawberry baby crackers pretty much all day because that was the only way to get him to stop crying while we were traveling. Seriously...if he wasn't sleeping or eating in the car, that kid was crying. He is not a good traveler. I had new-to-us toys for him to play with and new books to look at, but he would not have any of it.}

We all collapsed into bed shortly after 10 and everyone slept all night long.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, cleaned out the van (which was a disaster from the day before), filled up on gas, and headed out for a shorter day of driving. The kids handled the drive about the same as the day before...lots of crying, whining, and misery. Lots of me trying to ignore them because safety on the road was more important than their latest demand, and lots of me passing back snacks, books, and toys to the backseat when I could. And, again, lots of a crying Jobot with hives. Taking a long road trip alone with two kids ages 3 and 1? Not such a great idea. And with kids who are all stressed out because you have just loaded up their entire home onto a moving truck? It makes is even worse. We didn't have any other options though, so we did it and survived.

We drove through the Smoky Mountains on Saturday and arrived at our new (rental) house around 5. A hired crew of three really nice guys helped us move in, we met some of our neighbors, and one of our neighbors even ordered dinner for us and ate with us after the moving truck was unpacked. It was a nice welcome.

Jeremy had the first week off, so we spent that week unpacking, setting up the house, and cleaning (the house was filthy). It was exhausting, challenging, disorienting, and honestly, just pretty terrible.

Things are a bit happier these days. The boxes are unpacked, the house is mostly clean, and we sort-of know our way around. This moving thing, though...not easy.

Jeremy is really enjoying his program and is excited about what he is doing, so that is great. He is working at the Children's Hospital, which is what he was really hoping for.

We are looking for a church, and for friends. The days are long and boring for me because I don't have anyone to hang out with. Not boring in the sense that I don't have anything to do, because these two little people take quite the energy these days...they are both at such busy stages. Just, bored because I don't have any other Moms or friends to interact with. I think I am going to go to a Mom's group on Friday, and a relative of someone Jeremy works with called today to "meet" me over the phone, so hopefully soon we will have some friends.

A few photos from our days here...

Fun with the hose in the backyard.

I will take photos of our house and do a little tour post at some point, and also tell the story of how this came to be our house (pretty amazing). Anyway, that's all for now.