family fun

Its been quite a ride these past few weeks.

We listed our house for sale. Within one week, we were under contract.

I didn’t tell you. I KNOW! I’m sorry. It was just so surreal, I was so afraid to say something too soon. But we’ve passed all the inspections and we have a moving van booked, so I guess its official enough!

Step One: Sell House. CHECK!

And on to Step Two: Find New House. CHECK!!!

We had the craziest, most stressful ride finding a house.  We’ve been watching the market where we were moving for months and months and there were several houses we were excited to see.
And, of course, they all sold like the day before we got there.
So we went up at looked at a bunch of houses – most of them were not much to get really excited about – but one really caught our eye. It was a gorgeous house – so much charm and over 200 years old. We were a bit nervous about such an old house that needed a bit of work, but it was just so lovely. We saw it again, started pricing out the repairs, getting excited. We really could see our family living there. We called to make an offer….

and it sold right out from under our noses. Its a long story… but it was frankly heartbreaking. The kids, especially Elizabeth, were really sad.

Then that very day that we were licking our wounds from losing that house… we found about another house. A better house.
We were able to drive around the neighborhood where we quickly fell in love. We couldn’t go inside, but we realized that we were very VERY interested in this house.
The more we found out about this house, the more interested we got.

I couldn’t get away, but the day it went on the market, my husband was the first one in to see it. He called me and said “We’re making an offer. NOW.”

We rode a roller coaster for the next 36 hours. We got the dreaded “multiple offer” call. We thought we had it – then we thought we didn’t. Then… we did. We really did. We signed the papers and headed up to do the inspection over the weekend. And… this is happening.

We found our dream house. We found the one. I walked in the door for the first time and started crying. I was speechless. (And if you know me, you know how RARE that is!) I couldn’t believe this was going to be our home.

We cannot wait to live here, to raise our kids here, to build our lives here.

I can’t wait to share it with you when we move in!!!

Colin comes running into the room, sliding to a stop.

Points his gun around as he slowly turns in a circle.

Says: “AREA SECURE.”

And runs out.

He watches out for me.

This past weekend we went up to Connecticut to see these two crazy kids get married.

HOW gorgeous is the girl my cousin snagged? She looked amazing and it was such a pleasure to see her join our family!

We had a fabulous time at the party – dancing the night away!

Well… most of us danced the night away…

Its almost Easter time! (Already? WHAT?!?)

So this weekend we celebrated a little early, since we’re heading to a wedding next weekend, and made some amazing eggs with PAAS!  We missed decorating with PAAS last year, as we were out of town, so the kids had an extra special time. All you to is add one tablet and three tablespoons of Heinz White Vinegar to your PAAS Color Cup and one the tablet is dissolved, you add 1/2 cup water. GENTLY add the hard boiled egg to the water (your kids may get tired of hearing you say “GENTLY!” “I said, GENTLY!!” *CRACK*)

Sidebar: Did you know that if you add two tablespoons of Heinz White Vinegar per quart of water when your boiling your eggs (before adding the eggs) it prevents eggs from cracking? And it makes them easier to peel! WHY am I just finding this out NOW? Do you know how many inedible broken dyed eggs we’ve thrown away over the years? I use vinegar for everything around the house and I never knew this!

Anyway, this year PAAS has 7 new decorating kits to help you make amazing eggs. We had so much fun making eggs this year – as my husband, “This brings back such memories!”

Our favorite was Deggorating Doodles, which uses food grade markers that you can draw with right on the shell with! Colin made the Easter Bunny on his:

(Sorry, he had to take off his shirt due to a minor spilling incident)

Ellie made “Spring”

This year, PAAS Easter Egg Dying Kits and Heinz Vinegar are bringing you the Easter Egg Decorator app (online for computers and in the app store) where you can decorate and share a virtual Easter egg with family and friends! And every time you do, Heinz and PAAS will donate $1 – up to $25,000 – to Make-A-Wish!!  Please please please take a moment to decorate an egg – it is free and only takes a minute – and you can help PAAS and Heinz give to kids in need! Here is the GORGEOUS one that Gracie and I made…

How cute is our egg???

Go make one of your own and help kids in need!!

disclosure: I received PAAS products and Heinz vinegar as part of a gift basket to facilitate this post. As always, all opinions are my own!

Yesterday I had a date!

With my second favorite guy in the universe…

We had Frappuccinos to celebrate the warm weather. We built Star Wars fighters out of Legos and had a war against the Empire. We rode bikes and played on the tire swing. We washed the car (which got a little messy). We read his new Cars book and snuggled.

It was perfect.

There’s nothing like taking time doing little things with someone who is really important.

We will have our house on the market in 10 days. TEN DAYS.  Somehow this has come so much quicker than we anticipated. When did the middle of February get here? SLOW DOWN!

(breathes into a paper bag)

I’ve made lists upon lists upon spreadsheets to get ready. I’m sure you are shocked about this. What is it about crossing things off lists that is so incredible satisfying?

I’m not the only one right? RIGHT?

Meanwhile, if you need me, I’ll be the whirlwind over here. If you have some spare time and really want to paint and throw my kids 2,873,253,197 stuffed animals into boxes, be my guest!