01nov2013 - the next big adventure
well, my twelve weeks of maternity leave have flown by and i go back to work on monday. i'm getting a bit emotional about letting my little man out of my sight but he's doing great. he did a couple hours today and yesterday and he did great!
just in case we didn't have enough change going on in our lives, we are relocating to overland park, kansas! getting closer to family has been under discussion since mackenzie was born and i got super motivated while pregnant with jackson. we're compromising by moving to a place dead center of the country, a place we know we like since that's where we were living when we met, a place with 4 seasons but milder winters than heading back north and milder summers than hanging here in texas, a place easier and more desirable to get to for much of the family and a place where i have the option of work from home or in my company's office.
we put our house on the market two weeks ago and had an offer before the end of the first day! we were headed out to find a house in kansas and the pressure was on to find a place to live. after taking both kids around and seeing 27 houses in 3 days and 6 of those twice and 1 of those a third time, we found our future home. it's a great house - not a fixer upper but a house that needs some love and has lots of opportunities for us to make it our own. we're closing on our austin house 20nov and closing on our overland park house on 22nov...a whirlwind without a doubt!
my happy boy, helping me with the gardening and hanging out full of smiles!
an early sunday morning with the kiddos...how lucky i am!!!
mackenzie was home for columbus day and busy playing with jackson and taking care of her friends all afternoon after we met friends for a play date in the morning...she didn't know i had the camera so i was able to capture some of her mimicry!
mackenzie still loves to hold jackson and, for the most part, he is just fine with that!
jackson after his 2 month appointment and his first round of shots. he had tender thighs and a bit of a fever for about a day but was a trooper!
luck us...uncle brian stayed with us for 2 nights while he was working in san antonio.
all packed up and ready to head out on our family "vacation" to kansas.
early morning snuggles in the motel before hitting the road for day 2.
our little troopers!
mackenzie and jackson loved the meyers...mackenzie followed the big kids around and tried to be one of them the whole week...they were fantastic with her...lindsey is 11 and we're going to get in for babysitting duties nice and early. jack is 7 and such a character. he's not been around kids younger than him much and he was kind of into it. marc, rhonda and the kids were SOOO generous to let us stay with them the whole week and were SOOO supportive in sharing community information and acting as our sounding boards.
they have a fantastic backyard and a basement full of 11 years worth of toys...mackenzie enjoyed her time there very much. she heard me tell our neighbor that she has a crush on jack and has been repeating, 'i have a crush on jack' since.
here we are on thursday late afternoon, all three of us in the front seat of the car in front of the neighbor's house next to the house we ultimately chose, feeding jackson, trying to decide on our offer...hope we didn't creep the neighbors out!
mackenzie was super into our lunch out at a restaurant with gigi, our realtor...she's still talking about french fries in a silver cup. these were long gruieling days and overall, the kids were amazing...here mackenzie is catching a nap even though she didn't want to miss any houses.
jackson catching some sleep in his rock and play and enjoying a sink bath.
mackenzie was excited to share a bed with me in the hotel on the way to and from kansas - here she is without borders on a bed made of blankets at marc and rhonda's...think we'll be keeping the rail on her bed for a good long time!
here's out house - or at least it should be by the end of the month!
mackenzie has started playing realtor, walking around our house with a clip board talking about light and moving things around in rooms and who should sleep where!
mackenzie is 'thinking about' if this should be her room...first she thought the master suite should be hers...but there are two pink rooms to 'think about'. she gets to pick a color for her walls tomorrow at home depot.
the kids were even better on the way home! mackenzie was into the idea of the hotel and sharing a bed again and even says she is ready for another trip back to kansas...which is good because we have another one way trip coming up soooo soon. Jackson is probably less than thrilled about more car time - it's not his favorite place to be.
happy to be home!
failed attempt at the pumpkin patch...they were sold out and all we found was a pile of rotted pumpkins...we waited too long! we weren't the only family there to look and I copied some other families taking photos on props left behind. Mackenzie dressed as lady bug girl for school yesterday and was excited to be the only kid dressed up since her teachers dressed as cat and a mouse...she told me 'only the grown ups wore costumes - miss Amanda, miss chrissie and me. the kids didn't do it'.
take care...we'll keep you updated on our move!
