Party On

Anias turns two today! We already had his birthday parties, as I get to work this Saturday and Josh works on Sunday. We threw him a car themed party, as our boy LOVES cars. He would get so excited seeing the decorations. Everywhere he went there was a beloved car.  I always use their birthday wreaths year-round. I put them on their bedroom door as a little memento. We had to have "tires" to eat (chocolate donuts) and Anias stole SEVEN of them during his second party.  I made his photo display out of a hula hoop I painted black with white dashes on them like a road. Then I strung some pretty ribbon between and photoshopped cars with the month number on each one and finally I added some car stickers. The first day it was nice enough to play outside, but for his friend party we had to bring it inside due to rain. The car wash was for sure the biggest hit. Eli, of course, had to spray his own self as 4 year olds do.   Playing with his cousin Lincoln. He g

In the event you don't know, the end of that lyric is "Robocar Poli" which has been playing often in this house lately. Anias and Eli both love it, and with the spiders, ticks, rain, and overall grouchiness of a sleep deprived almost 2 year old I'm just going to roll with it. Josh and I have been busy trying to fix up the house, but unlike those before and after seemingly instant photos it's taking over a month to just finish what we've already started, but we're getting closer! We're taking a long weekend together without the kids this week up in Chicago and I'm excited! It will be nice to explore a new place and see one of my favorite all-time bands: Beach House. Anias: 23 Months I say new words like ...Poli (requesting the show Robocar Poli), mowing, kick it, mint, bike, night night, eat it, cereal, battery, sheep, chick, here you go Mama My favorite food is ...macaroni, but I also like hamburgers and won't hardly have a m

I was looking for ideas for a title that incorporated 21 AND 22 since a) I'm super creative #writersblock and b) I missed last month, and came across this... If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22 That pretty much sums us the past 2 months for us. We had put in an offer on a house and didn't get it, even offering 17k over asking. After that we decided building was probably the only way to move forward, but then the bank's assessment on the plans indicated that we would lose value building. The land alone is worth 100k, but after building a 525k house they estimated it would be worth 540k, not only losing the worth of the land but leaving us with 80k to scrounge up before breaking ground. We have been praying for what seems like years that God make it clear to us what we should do, that He provides a path for us, and then I just randomly was able to convince Josh to put in a low-ball offer on what is now our house. We were surpr

Next month it will have been 36 months since we signed a contract on our land. As you probably know, we didn't close for 20 months then spent the last 16 months trying to accomplish our dream. We tried so hard to get appropriate plans- to get a timely turn around- to get bank approval. Every move we make seems to take 12x's longer than other people. Since we moved to Hendersonville 2 years ago they put up around 30 houses around our land. Why were they able to do that and we're still sitting here with raw land? Why has the bank still not completed their assessment in twice the timeframe stated? Whatever the reasons are for alllll the delays, I don't think it's going to happen. We would need to break ground early to mid July to get Eli at our desired school and it's like walking through mud. We put an offer in on a house. We'll probably continue to put offers in. I think it's safe to say we've given up. To be fair, I'm not sure that we were even p

We're possibly potentially moving forward in building our house! It's been a loooong time. We get a lot of questions about how things are moving along and honestly it's been waiting with some more waiting for almost 3 years now. We spent 20 months waiting for the purchase to go through. I'm happy about that in a lot of ways- I think we got a killer deal and it gave us time to pay for it in full. The guy we bought it from did a ton of work dealing with the city and we saved a lot living in Hendersonville. It's also been so hard. It's hard on Josh to drive 45 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes each day. It's hard on the kids to have no yard. It's hard on me to cook with half of my stuff in storage. I'm so ready to move forward! So what's been happening in the past 14 months? We bought a set of plans that ended up not working on our land. We bought another set that was custom drawn to the land and it ended up being 100k over our budget to buil

Anias: 18 months  Hiding behind the curtain Yet another unsatisfactory meal mom, sigh I say new words like… dog, amen, big, all done, another I have  17 teeth My favorite food is keifer. It's hard for mom to get me to each much of anything else My favorite toy is Eli's car carrier, my elephant that sings and plays Peek a Boo S ome other things I did include… laughing every time I burp, humming the " Jesus " song, shushing people in Target, making siren noises when I play with trucks, and stuffing my mouth full of food to make mom fish it out. She gets grossed out and I laugh. I am a little ham and love love love to make people laugh.  Eli I made up a cute song called E is for 911. I call handcuffs cufters and I'm obsessed with tiptoeing. I tell mom that I "criss cross my apple feet" and I rename Peanut Butter all sorts of things like Firetruck and Nickadoodle. I told mom I'm a dog-ter (a vet; a doctor for