Here comes the Fairy...

the Tooth Fairy that is. After 3 months of wiggling and fingers constantly in her mouth, Grace has finally lost a tooth. It has taken so long that her grown up teeth have grown in behind the 2 loose baby teeth! It was a long dramatic process tonight but Daddy was finally able to get the prize. As we said prayers tonight, I was taken back to the time when these precious baby teeth made their grand arrival...

She was very upset by the blood before the tooth came out

Grandmother held her while Daddy pulled

Grace had a horrible time teething when she was a baby. She would run, on average, a 104-105 degree temp and that is NO exaggeration. It was terrible. She got her first tooth, either the one she lost tonight or the one next door that is equally loose, on March 28th, 2003. I must admit that looking at the tiny tooth outside of her mouth made me so sad. How can it possibly be time for my baby to begin losing her baby teeth??? We have entered a new phase and tomorrow morning will be exciting as she unveils what the tooth fairy leaves behind!

Daddy and Grace with the tooth

Granddaddy offered $2 if she got the tooth out!

Bumps in the road...

We had a good weekend. It was great to have Tim home after he was gone the majority of the week. We were productive on Saturday and it was around lunch time that Tim let me know we were expecting a house guest that evening. WHAT??? About a month ago we invited one of Tim's coworkers to stay with us while he was in ATL for meetings. He was hesitant as it was to be our 2nd weekend in the house, etc...I assured him we would be fine. A week or 2 later Tim let me know that he would not be staying with us as the whole group coming to town had gotten hotel rooms. Ok, no big deal. Well, Mark was still planning on staying Saturday night with us. So, I was granted a free pass to go to Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up a few necessities for our guest bathroom. I was pretty excited about getting a few items that I had planned to wait on and I also enjoyed roaming around by myself for a few minutes....

My peaceful time alone was quickly interrupted when I received a message from Tim that we had MAJOR problems at home. What could possibly be that bad? A leak...a big leak at that. Drew and Zach took their first bath in their bathroom. All was great but once Tim let the water drain...things were not so great. Our ceiling in the foyer was buckling and you could see water behind another wall. Trim was getting soggy and it was TERRIBLE Thankfully, Tim noticed before water pooled on the hardwood floors so no damage there. So it looks like our house will be back under construction this week as the plumber fixes his goof and then sheetrock gets replaced and then painted. The kicker is we will be living here this time. I am proud of my reaction. I refused to allow myself to get overly worked up. It is all stuff under warranty and although it is disappointing, it can all be fixed. So another week of fun things to take care of...anyone want to trade? :-)

Moving Woes...

Well the last 7 days have definitely been memorable! Moving with 3 kids is a trip and it makes the process a lot slower. We are moved in and functioning...in fact most of the boxes are unpacked. I even have a few rooms looking like I "decorated" a bit. However, I know the truth. There is still a lot to do and I am not sure when it will get done. The kids do not understand why I would rather stay inside and unpack and put things away. I mean they have their stuff where they need it, who cares about the rest of the house?

We are having a minor issue with Grace at the new house. She is completely freaked out if we leave her in a room alone. I mean I don't specifically mean to leave her in a room she just flips if I go to another room without letting her know first. She literally bumps into me if I turn around as she is so scared I am going to disappear. She is very anxious and I get that. We are in a larger space and we now have a basement. She would FLIP OUT is she knew I had been to the basement while she was sleeping! At any rate, she is sleeping well so for that I am very grateful. I would however covet your prayers or suggestions on how to handle this new anxiety. I am sympathetic to a point and have found myself getting tense with her today. I am ready to get over this bump. So, any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

The boys are great. They have lots of wood floor space to race cars and trains. They love going outside to ride their big wheels on the driveway, dig in the mulch or play on the swing set. I am thankful that they are still too young to grasp all that has changed recently. These are the days I dreamt about while living in the APT. It is a ton of fun and I am very grateful that we are here and all we have now is time to get all the other stuff done!

Pictures still to come...I have not gotten around to taking a final finished photo!

Closing Day!!!

It is official...we are now homeowners again. We are in debt for what seems like forever all to say we have a house. I must admit it is overwhelming at the closing table when they show you the page that has what you will pay if you take 30 years to pay off, etc. All that being said, I am absolutely THRILLED and our family seems giddy about our move tomorrow out of the APT and into the house. Today marks 2 weeks shy of 11 months under contract. It has been a long time but one that I am proud to say we were patient with. We were almost done today when it was determined that our interest rate was incorrect. My stomach flipped a few times but 3 1/2 hours after we began, we came out with the correct interest rate and keys to the new house.

Like I said, we are all excited. Tim, Grace and Drew are so excited that they chose to go back this evening to sleep. I am sure they are going to sleep just great on the floor with no blinds on the windows! As for me and Zach...we are sleeping in beds tonight! :-) My excitement can hold until tomorrow morning and Zach has no idea that we the house is ours now! No pictures yet but I will be taking plenty in the coming days and will post a picture of the new abode. Thanks for the phone calls and emails. I was able to take 0 calls since I sat at the closing table so long but I heard all the messages. Stop by and see us soon!

Happy Sunday!

the 3 cuties...Zach refused to look at me!

This morning was a typical Sunday for us except the fact that Tim was out of town. There are times when I feel so inept at this thing called motherhood and there are other days when I am almost convinced that I might have it figured out. Those days pass quickly as I have not figured it all out! This morning was good...even great. Grace came in around 7:20 and asked to watch a show. I turned on the tv and went back to sleep. A little before 8, Drew came in. We hung out and had milk and juice and began to get ready for church. Zach kept sleeping and we continued on with getting ready. Finally around 9:25, I went in to check on the sleeping prince. He was in his bed rolling around in his blankies just talking. He was very happy to see me. Normally, Zach wakes up in a not so great mood so it was a nice change for him to be pleasant. Grace took a bath and washed her hair and before 10 am, we were all ready to go and looking good too.

I decided since we were ready early, we would go get breakfast at a drive through. The kids like doing this and I have to say, I am sick of this apt and trying to finagle meals in the TINY kitchen! So we headed to McD's and got food. We arrived to church 15 minutes early and still clean. I dropped the kids off and went to church all by myself. We attend Christian Church Buckhead. It is fantastic and today was no exception. It was a great service and the morning had set me up for a clear mind to actually focus on all that was said. Without going into a ton of details about the rest of our day, I will finish by saying it was great too. Yes, today being a mother brought great joy as well as a feeling of "hey, at least for today, I have this figured out!" Here's to a great week!

Grace and Drew had no problem posing

Mr. Zach finally cooperating!

Lifelong Friends...

There are few people in our lives that we can say have been our friends so long that it is hard to remember before they were our friends. My friend Laurie has been my friend since 8th grade. Yup, since we were like 12 or 13 years old. We were very close for a long time and after high school drifted apart as we went to different colleges, etc. We got back in touch during our engagements (got married 3 months apart) and kept up every few months during our first few years of marriage.

It was when Tim and I moved to Smyrna that things picked up again with our friendship. I did a mapquest from our new house to her house and it was literally 1 mile door to door! It was very exciting as she was pregnant with her first child and Grace was a baby. Really long story short...her husband(also a friend from high school...they are h.s. sweethearts)was doing his residency at Emory and my husband was getting his MBA part time after work. Our lives collided as we both endured long days and lonely nights while our husbands were doing their thing. She had 2 babies in 17 months and well....I had 3 in 3 1/2 years. Needless to say, we kept each other partially sane during those insane times. Well, Laurie's husband finished his surgical residency last June about 1 month before Tim finished his MBA. Kind of cool how God's timing works. Well, they moved to Rome, GA last July to take a job and I have missed them tremendously. Friendship like ours is very hard to replicate.

The really cool part of this story is our kids love to play and hang out. Tim is on his annual boy's weekend trip this weekend and so the kids and I hopped in the car and headed to Rome. Laurie and I went to the pool with 5 children! In order their ages are: 5,4,3,3,2. ARE WE CRAZY???? NO, we aren't crazy...in fact we had a blast and I think the kids had even more fun. At one point we were discussing how we probably are crazy to do what we do but we were sitting in chairs outside the pool while all 5 kids were in the pool! Now it was only 2 feet of water but the kids were totally entertaining each other! I love that our kids seem to jive. They all scream when we tell them that we are getting together and we have even had a few spend the night parties with ALL 5 kids! (Now that was crazy, I admit!) I am so thankful to God for all the amazing people He has put in my life but I am especially thankful that He gave me Laurie so many years ago. I pray that as our kids grow we can pass on that true authentic friendship that we have shared for so long. Pictures from the day to follow...I left the camera in the car tonight!

on the see-saw at Laurie's

posing at the pool...sorta

the 5 kids in the pool

Moving Days Ahead

I know we are not the only people in the world to move. However, this process has been a tad lengthy for our family! We signed a contract to build a house on July 24, 2007. We put our house that we were living in on the market on February 29th. I was WAY stressed about keeping our house perfect with 3 children running around and low and behold we were under contract on Sunday, March 2nd. Yippee...except our house was not done being built. Long story short, we have been in a 3 bedroom apartment since April 1st...all 5 of us. Well, Tim traveled for 5 straight weeks and I am not sure if work was busy or if that was a good excuse to escape. At any rate, we are set to close next Tuesday on our house and we are all 5 very excited. The kids ask every morning if today is the day that we are moving and everyday, I tell them not yet. I am not looking forward to the process again but I am so thrilled to be moving into our house. Last night, I took these pictures of the kids sitting on the steps by the front door. They were singing about their new house. They are wet because they had just run through the sprinklers that were running!