have survived week 1 of apartment living!

Alot has happened in the last 10 days. Movers came to our prairie village house on saturday may 21. i wasn't sad, just a little nervous that we were not prepared and organized enough for them but things went very well! i was so happy with the movers. they did a great job. htey were at the house by 8:45 and finished loading the truck by 11:15. that also included taking our beds, couches, and dressers to the apartment! that $800 was worth every penny!!

on sunday, scott and i finsihed cleaning our house for the last time. i remember unloading the dishwasher and it was so weird putting the dishes in boxes vs up in the cabinet. i vacumed the basement. i needed to do that for closure, i think. i was the one that wanted to do it. we cleaned the frig, scott cleaned the floors as he always did. the house looked great....looked so big with all our stuff out of it! the boys were playing with neighbor kids...that is all they really cared about. we took some pictures of us on the front steps of the house...and pictures of will, ryan's best friend. too bad i don't know where our cable is so i can download pics from the camera to the computer. it may take a few months, but i will get them posted :) we walked thru the house one last time. i felt the kids needed to so they could say goodbye. i didn't say anything sad. we just walked thru the house and said "bye owen's room. bye ryan's room. bye mommy and daddy's room." we ran downstairs one last time too. i took a deep breath and i honestly was happy to say goodbye to the basement. i did love the basement...someplace for the boys to go run and extra room to play but i am not gonna miss all the water issues! hopefully they are resolved. we had the foundation guy come out one last itme before we moved. everything was disclosed about the water. i pray the new owners don't have to deal with all that we did. i left keys and a note for the new homeowners. and then.....scott locked the door and closed it for the last time. we were officially out of our house! i wanted to cry but know i couldn't. wanted to be strong for the boys. did not want this to be a sad thing for them.

we went up to jana's house...the older lady that walks the schnauzer. she has come to love our boys, and we have come to lover her. she reminds scott of his old neighbor jenny....just someone who is a good person, honestly loves our little boys and loves to stop by and talk to them. she always got tearful the last few weeks we were in the house. i kept telling her that we would still be around. after 8 years, we didn't even know each other's last name....so we exchanged numbers and last names :) told her we would be around to play with the neighbor kids...and would always come back to see her to trick or treat and to just check in. i think she will realy hold us to it....so we better keep up our promise :)

and so we are at the apartment. we have survive week one. i can honestly say it "sucks!" the kids cannot run or wrestle b/c we are afraid they are too loud for the lady below us. they have no yard to go run in...we always have to be downstairs when they want to go run in the grass. we have no driveway to ride bikes in. yet there are postives. i like that the boys share a room. everything is very close together and easy to get to. i love laundry int he hallway. on the flip side, we don't have alot to clean. we love the fact that there is a big parking lot for the kids to ride bikes in and we love the pool. convienently, the pool is right outside our parking lot. we are also close enough that we can walk up to see the neighbor kids which is good. i just hope the next 8 weeks go just as fast!

we did get to go tour ryan's new school today. it's the last day for this year's kindergarteners so we saw all the classrooms and all the kids. the school looks great. everyone was so friendly. i think ry will really like it. we also drove by our new house. i made sure the kids knew where it was and we drove in the cul da sac. told ryan once the other people move out, we can move in. then it was off to walmart supercenter. we went to the one that is right down the street from us. thought i might as well start getting accustom to things out south. all in all, it made me excited to move. i hope the excitement stays in the forefront and i can look past the downside of the 8 weeks of apartment living!

Did i tell you....

that we bought a house????? it is finally over....or maybe it is just beginning. put an offer in last wednesday. we got the counter late wed night. decided to sleep on it. i worked a 12 hour shift on thursday. is it bad to say, that as we were at work, we saw another house that we liked. so while we were slowly waiting to send our counter offer back, scott ran on his lunch break to look at hosue #2. i met them at 7:30pm to look at it. great location....great floorplan....the open floor plan that i love. but needed tons of updates. we also found out someone else was putting in an offer that evening. we didn't want house #1 to get away from us. it was a great price and had many more updates and was move in ready. so we went with house #1. had to laugh b/c our realtor asked me three times "sara, are you ok with this? are you sure this is ok?" she knows this has been a hard process for me! but i think i am ok. the house we got is in Hampton Place....way the hell out south....159th and nall. but it's a great neighborhood with tons of kids. we can walk to the elementary school. the high school is just down the street too. we are in a cul de sac and kids will love playing in it. yes, i think it will be a good move for us. now we just have to survive apartment living for 10 weeks...b/c the seller's don't want to give up posession til the end of july. that will give us time to spend with the boys. we will not have to clean much, do yard work, etc. it will be 10 weeks of all about "family time." the apartments are right around the corner from our current house so we can still walk up to play with neighbor kids. you can count on us walking back up to our "old house" 2-3 times a week for play time. can also count on us heading back to sedalia more so the kids can have a driveway to ride bikes in, etc.

i went thru a depressive 3 weeks. true depression. would not eat, had anxiety like crazy, would burst into tears for no reason. yes, i even took valium that we had on hand. it was from 2 years ago when scott had to go to the ER but, heck yes, i took it. let's hope those days are over. it was a terrible feeling to have. i look forward to making many great memories in our new house......if we can just make it the next 3 months. until then.....it's packing time!

i can't wait til we can get the keys to our new house, let the boys run thru an empty house, eat pizza on the kitchen floor, and enjoy the moment. and then unpack all their toys that have been in storage over hte past months. they will be soooo excited!

just the words i needed to hear

so, my life continues to be turned upside down. i truly feel that i am depressed. if this is not depression, i don't know what is! is it bad that someone gave me some anxiety medication....not that i should be taking someone elses meds....but they obviously knew today was a rough day. i am trying to figure out the lesson that God is wanting me to learn. everything happens for a reason...i just hate going thru rough times and not being able to see that reason. it makes life sooo hard.

that being said, i cried today b/c i could not find apartments that will take you on a month to month rental. yes, got all worked up over that. i cried at emily's for unknown reasons...who the hell knows what triggered that crying spell. and then i cried this evening...but it was happy tears. can i just say, i have the sweetest five year old. ryan had a tooth pulled today b/c of a cavity. scott and i were making sure he put it under his pillow so the tooth fairy would bring him money. this was our conversation....

R: "will the tooth fairy still bring me money even though my tooth had a cavity?"
M:"yes, she will. she may not leave as much money but you still lost a tooth, so she will bring you something."
R:"well if she brings me any dollars, i will give them to you so we can buy a house."

tears rolled down my face.....just what i needed to hear.....the sweet innocence of a child. if only things were that easy, ryan, if only things were that easy!

My life is about to be turned upside down!

So i have not blogged in forever. Gosh, i don't even have Christmas 2010 pics posted. so let's get up to speed..... In january, i decided to finally take the plunge and agree to putting house on the market. Yes, we are desperately needing more space but i just love our little starter home! with two growing boys, more toys...and bigger toys, we need the room. scott has wanted to go "out south" for over 2 years. i finally felt that it was ok to move. so mid feb thru first week of march was craziness, trying to get our house ready to be put on the market. alot of late nights! can't thank my dad enough for helping get things done. what would i do without my handy man! house was decluttered. storage unit rented. as we were also preparing to leave for az, we finished the house. we flew out for az march 16....same day the sign went in the yard. fast forward to sunday april 3....18 days later.....house is SOLD! had two offers on teh table. we took the best one, without counter offering b/c they were so close to the asking price. and who is going to offer asking price in this market! i have been shaking ever since. scared to death! now i don't want to leave the home that i know and love. the home that we brought the boys home to. although, they will tell you they want to move to a bigger house. here's the problem...we are homeless as of may 13th. a very fast close! we are going to look at houses tonight. there is one we really like, although don't want to spend quite that amount, and there is a possible offer on the table. i always believe everything happens for a reason....we will see if that house was destined for us! and then i get worked up thinking of money! why did my parents raise me so well? why did htey raise me so money conscience? i thank them for it all the time....but it's hard to let go of a big lump sum of money. as one coworker tells me, "sara, i often wonder if there is a little old lady living inside of you, who grew up in the drepression." i will make comments at work and she will say "see, there's that little old lady." all will be well....it has to be, right? i am counting my blessings. there are so many people that would love to sell their house in 2 1/2 weeks...and get almost full asking price....or have multiple offers to choose from. the timing coul not be more perfect. the week of may 14 is ryan's last week of preschool so that works out well. i will just have to drive from "out south" for one week. then we will be able to be at home an unpack....if we find a house :) prayers please! prayers are good. i am so thankful yet say prayers for the unknown. it can be so scary. i don't do well with change. but i know our new house will become our home. as long as we have each other, we will be ok. we will settle in to a new school, a new area, and scott and i will make sure we make it fun for the boys. let's just hope there are lots of neighbor kids!!!

Arizona 2011

We made it to Arizona!!! It had been a long 2 weeks leading up to the trip. We have put our house on the market and it was a race against time to get it ready before we left....but we made it! Boys were woken up at 3:30am so we could catch our 6am flight but they did great. Owen slept on the flight down, ryan watched a movie. We ate breakfast, mommy got her tea latte :) and then off to Surprise to watch the royals practice.....

Only to find out that they had the day off. What else do you do???? Well, go to the rental house and start swimming!

Thursday morning was Pinnacle Peak....exactly what I was waiting for. Couldn't wait to go hiking! Boys did great....they made it a little over 1/2 mile up and then back down. Oh, and then had to stop at Coffee Bean and Tea leaf to get my tea latte again :)

The theme of the week for the little boys was SWIMMING! They did not want to go to any baseball games. so while the big boys watched ball, mommy and the boys were swimming. it was nice and relaxing.

We did make it to Phoenix Children's Museum one morning, which the kids really enjoyed.

The rest of the time, we were just enjoying our 5 bedroom rental house. Owen called it his "yellow house." When we told him saturday night that we had to pack our bags b/c we were flying back to owen's house in the morning, he told us "no stay at my yellow house." he loved that house! a few other great comments came from ryan. my #1 comments from ryan was "mommy, we did not come to arizona for lattes." well, ryan, sorry but mommy did come to arizona to have some great tea lattes from Coffee bean and Tea leaf :)

back to the airport to fly home. it was a great vacation!

daddy and ryan on the plane

beef, callie, and emily sat right behind us.

The next weekend we were back to Sedalia for Callie's baptism. Owen was a cuttie in his sweater!

Is it Christmas yet?

Oh, this last week before Christmas seems as if it is going so slowly. No preschool. Kids ask to open presents every morning! Had to pull out the halloween costumes to keep the kids busy. This was the result.....a pirate and spiderman!

And we decided to make our first ever Gingerbread house. i was informed by Ryan that we need to buy two houses next year b/c "Owen just keeps messing it up."

Ryan's Christmas Program

Preschool....can't believe my baby is in preschool. I have to say, it was hard to decide if i wanted to put ryan in a real preschool @ our church or just have him go to his daycare two-three times a week. there were pros and cons...the biggest being how was i going to work my schedule so that i could take him to school every m/w/f @ our church. I am SOOOOO happy ryan is at school at Bethany Lutheran. Mrs. Brzon is amazing and Ryan has learned so much. Was so excited to go to his Christmas program. Ryan was one of the three wisemen.

They all took a bow at the end.....

And then sang us some songs :) Below is a video of the kids sing "Away in a manger" if the video actually downloaded.

Oh, and on dec 12, we baptized baby maddie, although, she isn't a baby anymore! Maddie is a one year old!