Sick Boy

Cullen is sick.  He was diagnosed with croup.

Cullen started to get sick on Wednesday.  He had a slight fever in the afternoon/evening and his voice slowly started to go.  That night he woke up a couple of times burning up and coughing harshly.  We spent all day at home Thursday.  I tried to get him to rest, but that is like trying to tie down a cat.  Nearly impossible.  His fever broke Thursday afternoon, but it came back later that night.

Cullen's voice never came back.  It slowly went from a harsh whisper to a barely audible whisper.  He had a nasty cough which got pretty bad yesterday evening.  Andrew and I decided the best thing would be to bring him into the doctor first thing Friday morning.  Hence, he was diagnosed with croup and will not be going to preschool today.

On a personal note, my house had been so much quieter with one child not having a voice.  I have gotten so used to the background noise of children constantly talking or whining or complaining or fighting.  Not having one makes a huge difference.

I am hoping this won't spread like wild fire through the house.  It's caused by a virus, so one never knows.  I will be spending time disinfecting the house today.  What a boring bon bon eating life I lead (insert sarcasm here).

The house hunt is over!

 

I've been a little hesitant to post about the ongoing selling of our current house and looking for a new one.  Call it superstition or just plain old paranoia.  I wanted to make sure all of our ducks were in a row.

Our current house is now under contract and the option period has passed.  Yea!  We received an offer within the first week of our house being on the market.  Luckily, everything worked out through negotiations and all.

So we started our new house hunt.

We looked probably at 10 houses before we put in our first offer.  The house we put in our first offer on didn't end up working out.  The guy selling it wasn't motivated to move and wanted top dollar for a house he let fall into a bit of disrepair.  Andrew and I weren't about to fall for that, so we walked away.  After much debating on where we wanted to live and what schools we were comfortable with, we put in an offer on a second house.  After a little negotiating, we have a signed contract on our new house!  The family in this house was definitely motivated to sell.  They upgraded a lot of the house, so we won't have to do very much at all.

We will official move the family right before Halloween.  I'm very excited and nervous.  Moving is always a big stressor.  Just thinking about packing up the house gives me the willies most days.

Prayers that everything goes well through the end of next month would be greatly appreciated.  Our new house will only be a few miles away from our current one.  We will have a lot more room as well.

This will be our new house.

Life's Pause Button

I really need a pause button for life.  It seems so many things are happening so quickly.  Granted, good things are happening.  They just happen to be numbers 1-5 on life's most stress events list.

Our house went on the market a week and a half ago.  Last Thursday, we received an offer.  Saturday, we negotiated a counter offer which was finally accepted.  Score!  Andrew and I were ridiculously happy.  I actually did a happy dance in my garage when I received the phone call from our realtor.

On the flip side, we are now in crunch time to find a new house.  Saturday afternoon, our wonderful neighbors agreed to watch the boys for a couple of hours so Andrew and I could look at houses.  We toured houses Saturday and Monday.  After being on the phone with our bank's mortgage department, I about had a melt down.  Not for the fact that we can't get a loan, but because it is like pulling fingernails to get anything done sometimes.  I think everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong in a matter of hours.  Luckily, I'm a bit tenacious and ruthless when it comes to my money.  I spoke with all the right people, even some higher up people, and I had everything worked out by the end of business day.  You would think already having a mortgage with this bank it would be an easier process second time around, um no.  All the new federal regulations because of the mortgage crisis because some idiot wanted to make a quick buck has made everything a long drawn out pain in my ass.

Andrew and I are finally at the picking a house, getting house comparisons, and trying to figure out what our first offer is going to be.  Fun stuff, let me tell you (insert a healthy dose of sarcasm here.)

We still have to keep the house spotless because we are still having showings as well.  I am really tired of having to keep everything so clean all the time.  I want to leave the formula out on the counter.  I want to stop having to move the highchair every time a showing is scheduled.  And I really want to slap the realtors that schedule a showing and then never show up.  Seriously people, that's just rude.

Stressful life situation, find a suitable house your family can grow into, is now in full swing.

I am still pregnant, not that I probably had to point that out.  I am still having nausea issues and am praying it goes away quickly.  The stress of doing all of this while pregnant is getting to me.  I'm a wreck.  I cry.  I scream.  I threw some child's toy across the room after stepping on it for the third time.  I'm constantly tired.  I feel as though a Mack truck has run me over again and again most days.  It's getting to me and not in a good way.

I'm in need of a life pause button so I can just go to sleep for a week.  Waking up rested and not having to check off twenty things I have to do that day would be awesome.

Convo with a 2 year old

I had finished taking Cullen to the potty for the 5th time in two hours.  (Yeah, I'm not joking.  He somehow got me to refill his milk cup 3 times and drank and entire bottle of water without me noticing until the fifth potty time).  Here is how my conversation went as we are fixing his clothing.

Cullen:  I love you, Mommy.

Me: Ahh... I love you too.

Cullen:  No!  No love me!  I love you Mommy!

Me:  I love you too (trying to suppress a laugh).

Cullen:  No!!  I'm a boy!  I love you!

Me (laughing our right now):  I love you too.

Cullen:  NO!  No love me!  Not funny!

Me just laughing because I this point I can't of anything to say without busting out in hysterics even more than I am while squatting on the bathroom floor.

Cullen:  No laugh!  Not funny!  No laugh!  Ugh!

Can't you feel the love radiating from my house?!  It's almost palpable at this point.

House for Sale... again

Our house is back on the market as of last Friday.  It started to feel a little cramped after we had Sawyer.  With the addition of #4 baby on the way, we have just out grown our house.  Back on the market it goes.

If you know of anyone who is looking for a house in the Round Rock area, tell them about us please.  We're hoping this will be a quick process, but one never knows.  We had 6 showings this weekend.  Andrew and I are taking that as a positive sign.

Here is a link to our house on the market.  Check it out!  And if you're not interested in buying and just want to see where Andrew and I have lived for the last 7 1/2 years, go ahead and check it out too.

Old Pictures

When I took the kids pictures on Wednesday for their first day of school, I realized I hadn't downloaded the pictures off of my camera in over a month.  (don't judge me, a lot happened in that month)

The first is Jackson saluting the American Flag during the National Anthem while watching the opening ceremonies of a baseball game.  I believe this was the All Star game back in July.  Andrew was out of town, and Jackson saw all the soldiers saluting the flag so he did it too.  It was too cute not to get a picture.

Sawyer apparently decided he was tired and was resting.  He kept laying his head down on the ottoman for a minute.  He'd pick his head up, look around to see if anything changed, then laid his head back down.  It's really funny to watch.

First Day of Preschool and Pre-K

Jackson and Cullen had their first day of preschool and Pre-K today.  I'm quite positive I was the happiest person out of the four of us that morning when I dropped them off.

After shoving Jackson in the right direction for his classroom, I walked Cullen back to his new classroom, the older 2 year old class.  Cullen walked right in about 4 feet, turned around, looked up at me, and got this look on his face.  You know the look when your child is really happy and then all of the sudden reality dawns upon them.  You see their face transform into the 'you're leaving me here and I'm not sure how I feel about that' look.  It was very plainly written all over Cullen's face.  I did what I do best.  I said, "Look at all the toys!" shoved him over, signed him in, threw his snack in the bin, said hello to his teacher, and left.  All of that took about 30 seconds.  Go me!  I think Cullen was distracted by the other little boy in the room who was busy crying out for his mom.

I walked over to the Pre-K classroom and signed in Jackson.  I don't think he even saw me.  His snack was in the snack bin and his backpack was put away.  I think he was busy talking to another kid or coloring.  I didn't even bother with a goodbye.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sawyer and I have had a nice quiet morning alone.  How I missed my sanity breaks!  Yea for preschool and Pre-K!

 

#4 is on the way

Minus the craziness that is my normal every day life, there is a very good reason I have not been writing a lot lately.  I'm 12 weeks pregnant with #4.

 

After many long discussions between Andrew and I, we decided to add one more to our already growing Ingalls Clan.  Not only have I been busy with our three boys, I was battling the perils of my first trimester.  No energy and very bad morning sickness has been dragging me down. 

 

Add on top of the sickness and no energy, losing my dog Mea and the stress of Sawyer's eye surgery, I've not had a very easy first trimester.  It's been extremely difficult on me this go around.  I'm hoping things take a turn for the better soon, but I have a feeling it will be a few more weeks before I get back to feeling within the norm.

 

Ingalls #4, or Peanut as Andrew likes to call it, is due March 18, 2014.