Saying Goodbye

God has blessed us so much. We so enjoy this new home we're living in with all the extra space. The kids are so happy here too! To further our blessings, we are closing on our old house next week. As part of the deal, the buyers are having the house completely repainted. We didn't want the kids to be confused by the change, so we spent one evening a few weeks ago saying goodbye. They were pretty confused at first b/c they assumed that we would continue to be able to come over to our old house and play. So it wasn't a fun thing explaining this would be the last time. Thankfully, they were able to make the most of it and we had a really special time as a family in this great house that we lived in for four wonderful years. Anna showing off her room....


This house has three bedrooms, so Collin never had his own room. So I sat him on the floor where his (actually all three of our babies') co-sleeper bed was.


This is our bonus room. We kept a lot of the kids toys in here and they played either in here or the living room. I LOVED the color I painted this room and was sad to leave it behind. I couldn't resist getting all three kiddos in their bonus room for a picture. :)


I really wanted to get another picture of Benjamin in the bonus room.....

Like I did over two years ago. He's grown so much!! (May 2008)

And here's the bug-a-boo in his room. It was green when we lived there, but we painted it white to make it more neutral for buyers. Too bad as that was a waste of paint/time, the buyers painted it a crazy wild orange color. The rest of the house is very wild colors too. We hope this new family will enjoy making it their home as much as we did though.

I was being super sentimental and had the kids sit on the counter in our bathroom where I bathed them as newborns.....

They had fun playing in their old bathtub too.

I thought this was a funny picture of Benjamin dancing in his room.

Anna was cute and all of a sudden declared she was going "night, night" in her room...

All the kids playing in Benjamin's room. We used to do this when we lived here for a change of scenery.

Going out back to play one last time!

We were overjoyed when we got out back and saw how beautiful all the plants were. I used to watch these lilies grow and wait for them to bloom each summer and would get excited when they finally did. They don't stay pretty for long, so I thought it was a nice blessing to have them be so pretty while were saying goodbye! :)

I try to be artistic and get pretty pictures of Anna sniffing flowers, but she always wrinkles her nose into her stinker face. Just goes to show the spunk she has to go along with her pretty/sweet side!

Benjamin next to my favorite tree. I used to take their picture next to it when they were dressed up like at Halloween and Easter.

I had Dave recreate fun he used to have back when we just had Benjamin. (He used to run around holding little Benjamin and they would run through the sprinkler.) This time he was blessed with a boy in each arm!

We had a very fun game of tag! (I thought this picture turned out neat, how the kids are in focus and the background is blurry.)

Run, Benjamin run!!!! This was such a special yard for me and my first born. We have had countless fun times out here over his four years!!

I really shouldn't post this picture, but I couldn't resist. It tickled me so much seeing both Dave and Collin's funny expressions!!! hehehe

Anna all of a sudden sat down on our step and said, "I'm taking a wittle break, Mommy." This concrete step is one thing I definitely won't miss. It always made me so nervous with the kids.

Isn't she so lady like and don't you just love her bruised/banged up legs? She's definitely my adventurous one of the bunch, which results in many owies.

Dave took over camera duty so that I could get in on the tag game. It was so hot and humid that evening, but we still had so much fun!

I was bad and let them each have a flower bunch that normally I would never have let them pick off of one of the bushes out back. Here's that stinker face sniff again...

Benjamin was pleased!

Everybody used to love how Benjamin and Anna would greet them by looking through this curtain at our front door whenever the bell rang. Here they are about to leave their first home for the last time. :(

Saying goodbye was really hard. You can see here that it was starting to affect Benjamin. I went back in to lock up and turn off the lights and say goodbye and he decided to come with me. He ended up crying and was really sad that we wouldn't be coming back. It broke my heart a bit. :( I'm so thankful that we were able to have such a special goodbye as a family to our first house. We so loved it there and shared so many special memories!!!

PBS and Pink

Here are just some pictures from us playing one morning. The outfit Collin is wearing is one that Benjamin wore a lot. For the first time, I had a lot of de ja vu with Collin thinking back to baby Benjamin days. When Benjamin was wearing this we were enjoying our time in Charleston, so it made me think back to beach days and the like. But Collin's unique personality kept me in the now and I enjoy my baby Collin days so much!

I love that he holds onto his feet all the time since I call him Monkey....

I've discovered a new way that I like to do Anna's hair with little pony tails on the sides of her face to get all her hairs out of her eyes. It looks really adorable (in my opinion) and is very functional. I was trying to get a picture of her smiling to show off how cute she looks and couldn't help but laugh when I saw this as one of the results....

I believe the word you are thinking right now is Diva??? (unfortunately it was cropped out, but she's holding her arm in the air like this with her little hot pink purse in it)

My bug-a-boo...

I love the joy/love that you can see in how Benjamin is looking at Collin!

Benjamin scooted in close like this for a pose with Collin all on his own. Its so fun seeing them interact!

Benjamin has this neat sand that is a lot of fun to play with (but is quite a big job cleaning up afterwards). It's worth it though from time to time b/c Benjamin LOVES it! It was even more special this time b/c he and his Daddy were having some special alone time together this evening...

On Saturday we loaded the family up and headed to Indy. They were having a free PBS event and we just couldn't pass it up. Our kids really love PBS cartoons and they had a lot of fun meeting some of their favorite characters. Benjamin's favorite right now is Curious George. We waited for a good while for him to have a turn with George. They did a great job being patient and Benjamin walked right up to George and gave him a big hug when it was finally his turn!

Daddy was nice enough to wait in the line for Clifford while we met George. Benjamin was excited for some time with the "big red dog" as well!

Anna was not so excited. Terrified is a better word! She was so happy and excited to see each character, but when we got up close she immediately started crying. :(

While I was nursing Collin, Dave took the kids around to see some other fun things, including an ambulance...

and a fire truck...

Collin was so good for the trip. He was happy both times in the car and was either awake and happy while we were there or sleeping...

We also saw Buddy from Dinosaur Train and Super Why (but we didn't wait in line to meet them). On our way back to the car, we went past Elmo so the kids could see him too...

Collin turned 8 months on Saturday. It has been eight glorious months with this sweet Monkey!

He's so happy!!! (even though he also got his first tooth that day!)

He LOVES making raspberry noises!

Isn't he just so cute?!?!

He's proving to be quite the quirky eater. He very much does not like any orange vegetables (squash, sweet potatoes, carrots). He LOVES the green ones (peas and green beans) and will tolerate corn. He likes all the fruits, but didn't like yogurt the one time we tried it. He will shake his head no and make a disgusted face or just turn away and give you a little cry if you give him something he doesn't like. He continues to enjoy whatever non-baby food we give him and watches us as we eat and seems very interested!

As you can see, he continues to get even taller!

While the kids napped (Anna has been sleeping in Collin's room) and that evening, I finished painting and putting Anna's room together.....

The letters above her bed and on the picture frame say, "always kiss me goodnight". :)

It's very pink and I'm not so much a pink person, but Anna (as you can see) really loves it!

I have a few final touches to do, but am so pleased that it's finished and that she likes it so much. This weekend we are going to move Collin's crib into the nursery (sniff, sniff) and decorate his room, which will be fun to put together.

A few stories:

-When Benjamin was having his special sand time with Dave (Collin was sleeping), Anna and I went on our first shopping trip, just the two of us. We had such a great time!!! I really appreciate any time I get to have with just one child at a time. She was so sweet and had a lot of fun. We went to a kid's clothes store b/c I needed some sleepers and shorts for Collin. Then we went into another store and were excitedly surprised that they had fairy wings. Anna has been asking off and on for about 5 months for wings. I haven't ever seen any in a store and was considering ordering her some. They had the wings and a crown/wand set and I had a $10 off coupon, so we got all three for a big $2!!!! I am telling you, $2 has never bought so much joy! She was so unbelievably happy (which certainly made me happy!). They were nice enough to cut off the tags and she wore everything out of the store. As soon as she had it all on, she put her arms in the air and started "flying" around! It was beyond precious! She wore it the rest of the shopping trip, in the car, and until bed time. When it was finally time to take the wings off, she cried! I so enjoyed this special time with my sweet daughter and look forward to many more times like this together!! (I'll try and get a picture of my little fairy sometime soon)

-On this shopping trip we also were trying to find her some shoes. She is going to be a flower girl in her uncle's wedding in a few months. We went in two of the stores looking and as we were walking from store to store, she kept declaring, "Where's my wedding shoes?" in a matter of fact manner. I thought it was too funny that she kept calling them wedding shoes!

-Speaking of the wedding, we got the invitation in the mail on our way to the grocery store. As soon as the kids saw the pictures of Mike and Kathy they of course had to hold it. They fought over (and then shared) the invitation the whole ride there. Then when we got there, the confusion they had was so cute! As we pulled into the parking lot, these questions (from both of them) came one by one: "Is that Mike's Car?" "Where's Mike?" "Where's Kathy?" "Are they coming?" "Are they here?" "Why aren't they coming?" "Where are they?" Mike and Kathy, you are loved by a sweet four year old and two year old! :)

-One more: Benjamin has been commenting on a commercial he sees on one of the stations that we watch cartoons on. It's for Pillow Pets, a stuffed animal that unfolds into a pillow. The other day he saw it again and started asking if we could get one. Being the sneaky mom that I am, I didn't answer his pleas directly and instead was asking him why he liked them, which was his favorite, etc. While pondering which one he would like to have, he declared sweetly"I don't really have a favorite, Momma. I would take any of them."